FAQ

A group of individuals whom collectively, are intended recipients of an advertiser’s message.

The verbal or written portion of an advertising message that summarizes the main idea in a few memorable words (a tag line).

The planning process that yields decisions in how a business unit can best compete in the markets it elects to serve. The strategic plan is based upon the totality of the marketing process.

A type of public relations in the form of a news item or story which conveys information about a product, service, or idea in the media.

Using several different types of communication to support marketing goals which include Advertising, Personal Selling, Publicity, and Sales Promotions.

The consumer perception of a product or service as compared to its competition.

A summary of the characteristics of a market, including information of typical purchasers and competitors, and often general information on the economy and retailing patterns of an area.

A management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.

Promoting the image, or general perception, of a product or service, rather than promoting its functional attributes. Commonly used for differentiating brands of parity products.

Stands for Product, Price, Place (i.e., distribution), and Promotion. Also known as Marketing Mix.

Marketing communications delivered directly to a prospective purchaser via the U.S. Postal Service or a private delivery company.

Promotions that permit or request consumers to directly respond to the advertiser, by mail, telephone, e-mail, or some other means of communication. Some practitioners use this as a synonym for Direct Marketing.

The right of copyright gives protection to the originator of material to prevent use without express permission or acknowledgement of the originator.

A system by which ad costs are divided between two or more parties. Usually, such programs are offered by manufacturers to their wholesalers or retailers, as a means of encouraging those parties to advertise the product.

An advertisement that has the appearance of a news article or editorial, in a print publication.

A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller.

Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

How you want the consumer to perceive your product or your brand. Companies try to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity.

Print logos warrant a higher resolution and need to be saved in certain standard print format. Web logos require a much smaller resolution (they only need to be displayed on screen). They are not a good choice for printing (they will appear blurred or jagged on paper).

Vector files can be resized, scaled, and enable the user to change color or fonts of an image. Vector files are used by professional designers and print shops. GIFs or bitmap formats are recommended for Web sites.

Bitmap files are popular and the best to use on the Web. They can be used with most word-processing applications. They are small in size, but hard to manipulate because they are inefficient in resolution. The most popular bitmap files are GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and BMP.

Pantone or ‘spot’ colors are used by professional print shops. It is a color system that helps designers, print shops, and customers talk universally about color.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. You want to make a lasting, positive impression on present and potential customers. This involves the niche of your business, mission statements, professionalism of employees, all the way to the design of your logo.

More consumers are using the internet to shop than ever before and those who still purchase offline will often use the web to begin their search. This means that any business without a website is increasingly losing business. A smaller, less popular business with a website will be more likely to attract clients than a larger, well known business that does not have a site.

As with all good marketing initiatives, good execution is the result of exceptional planning. Making your way through the design process, the following guidelines will help you stay on course, on budget and on message:

Pull together a brainstorming session with all key people, including your designer, writer, photographer, project coordinator, and the top dog who will ultimately green light the project. It’s important to have decision makers involved right from the get go-it can avoid very costly rewrites and redesigns down the road.

What’s the brochure’s role in your marketing efforts? Determine the objectives of the brochure-will it be a leave behind for salespeople? A self mailer? Part of a larger fulfillment package? Part of a trade show presence? A point of sale display? How does it mesh with other marketing efforts?
Determine the audience & message. Is it for all customers of the company, or just a segment? What type of people will be reading it? Creatives? Techies? Executives? Know your audience. Determine the message and the points you want to make, and ask yourself “does this fit with the overall goals and objectives of the corporation?”

Take a look at the competition. You want to make sure your design project represents you well-and that it is every bit as good, or preferably better, than the competition. Bring competitors’ brochures to the first meeting to help determine the “look and feel” you are going after.

Search engine optimization is the process of raising the odds for a webpage to achieve top search engine positions.

No. This is an outdated method of SEO that is no longer applicable. Most search engines will pick up your site without any kind of submission if you obtain some quality links. Automated submission tools can actually get a page penalized, as it can be considered as “spamming”, and against SE terms of service.

Depending on the nature and quality of the site listings can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months.

Links are a very powerful asset to a website. While requesting links can be very time-intensive, it is time well spent. Links are not only valuable for the direct traffic that they can provide, but also for the increase they bring in the eyes of search engines. Get LOTS of links. You can never have too many.

Focus on descriptive phrases.
Understand your industry online and assess your competition.
Increase the amount and value of your content.
Get lots of links.

In most cases websites receive cursory optimization during website creation. There are several reasons why a site may not receive intensive optimization during development. Optimization techniques are constantly evolving and must be monitored consistently. Many development firms consider optimization and marketing to be a separate function.

You should probably watch your pocketbook around anyone who guarantees high search engine rankings. Search engines are constantly changing and there are no guarantees that tomorrow’s algorithm will be the same as the one the search engines are using today.

Code placed within HTML code to describe and categorize a webpage. Meta tags contain the keywords and description relevant to the individual page.

Meta-tags are falling out of favor from the search engines. The importance of meta-tags has been transferred to other areas of a website including titles, headings, content, and incoming links. Meta-tags are still of value in some ways including improving the functionality of a site’s internal search.

The process of attempting to draw more traffic to a website via the search engines. Search engines are the primary method that users find new websites, making the development of good search engine position a necessity. SEO is an ongoing process that is constantly evolving, and thus needs continuous attention. A normal SEO campaign will take two to three months to develop and start seeing results, and should be monitored to some degree indefinitely.

A quick way to boost the traffic levels of your website. For any search phrase a bid can be placed as a “per-click-through” cost. Terms cost anywhere from .05 to $50.00 per click. The PPC ads are displayed near the top of the search engines and are labeled “Sponsored Listings”.

Breadcrumbs let the user know where they are and where they’ve been. Breadcumbs are normally near the top of the page and formatted as such: You are here: Home –> Sub-directory –>Subpage and all of the pages are links. Breadcrumbs are a great tool in aiding the usability of navigation on a site.

Spiders, Crawlers, and Bots are what the search engines send out to your site to determine which pages will be listed in the search engine index.

This is the text that is displayed within a link, and plays a very significant role in current search engine algorithms. Using a descriptive sentence such as “Buy widgets” will be more valuable than a link that simply says “click here”.

The number of pages that link to your site is referred to as “backlinks”. Backlinks are a very important variable in obtaining high search engine rankings. Both quantity and quality determine the “link popularity” of a webpage.

These are the unpaid listings that are determined by the search engines. Paid listings are labeled as “Sponsored listings”, and are normally separated near the top of search engine results. For more on paid listings, please see “Pay-per-click”.

This refers to the number of pages that link to a site. Each link is counted as a vote for the site it links to. The Link popularity of the “voting” site determines the impact it will have on the site it links to. I.E. Relevant, quality links will have a much better impact than guestbook links or “Free-for-all” links.