Wesley Chapman » Design

Do you have a Beethoven or a Hasselhoff?

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:37:47 +0000

I am an avid music lover. So much so that my iTunes is filled with over 529 days ( or over 13,000 songs ) of playable music ranging from classical to rap. Music to me is one of the truest ways to express yourself or a message you wish to convey. Those with musical talents truly have an art of expression and that art is a powerful and effective way of transportation of information. With this said, what if I told you that your brand needs to ‘sing’?

Brand is another word that is often thrown out there in a general state not really understood. Your company’s brand is the overall imagery of your mission statement and is not limited to your logo or color schemes. Your brand is truly any messaging tool your company uses to express its self. Your brand can be the way you handle client related issues or it can be the way you handle your social space. Your brand however does have roots and those roots need to be planted, watered and fed correctly.

So what does brand have to do with music or art? Everything. Like music, your brand needs to engage the audience. It has to communicate with a wide group and it must display your overall commitment to your industry and client base. When you have truly identified your brand it will be a thing of beauty, it will be a modern piece of art. Planting your brand starts with planning, planning and more planning. Watering your brand means you look after it and you ensure that those you hire, outsource to and interact with all have your brands best interests at heart.

Now feeding your brand, is the fun part. This is the part in which you are able to become incredibly creative. Where you are able to work with your audience to share with them your visions, ethics and dreams. Feeding your brand correctly, will take your business to new heights and you will soar above your competitors for years to come. You may have set backs and feed your brand some raw meat, but it is always curable.

In today’s market place your brand must be ready to flex, but not break. Your brand must be fine tuned, but not over the top. Your brand must follow the curves, but lead the pack. Do you think your brand is up to the challenge? Re-branding an existing company or branding a newly formed idea is one of my favorite tasks and one of the most challenging. It takes time, energy and a commitment to understanding. It takes being an artist and understanding your canvas. Not all brands are created equally, but all brands have the chance to become something great!

Your brand can be as amazing as Beethoven’s Fur Elise or as painful as a David Hasselhoff’s* solo album, it is truly up to you and those you surround yourself with.

*I have nothing against the “Hoff” as long as he isn’t singing.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Content, Customers, Design, LIME, Marketing, Print, Social Media, Social Space

There is just too much static…so just ignore it.

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 27 May 2010 07:11:35 +0000

In the world of marketing and advertising there always seems to be something new, something better and something you just HAVE to use. After 17 years of watching, living and experiencing this, I have come to a solid conclusion—no.

No I don’t have to use the newest, latest or most revolutionary thing out there to be successful. In fact it is just the opposite. The most successful marketing and advertising campaigns use the oldest techniques.

I have developed a term for all the overnight newbies, MSTI or Marketing Static To Ignore. Running a business is hard enough without worrying about all the static that surrounds it. Focus on your core and listen to your gut. You are in business for a reason and that reason isn’t to get lost in the black and white fuzz, it is to succeed and provide for your family.

Listening to your gut will 9 times out of 10 put you right where YOU need to be.

Example; three years ago FaceBook and business became the buzz. For many it was a new way to reach people. Article after article was written about how you MUST be on FaceBook if you owned a business. Well many business owners had no idea what to do on FaceBook and I can guarantee that ‘guts’ were telling them not to even get on—yet.

Some listened and some didn’t. Those that first went online with FaceBook spent energy ( and a lot of it ) learning how to use it, learning what to do and how to make it effective. This energy took them away from their core and cost hundreds or thousands. Not even the ‘professionals’ knew what to really do with FaceBook. So now three years later FaceBook has changed, nearly 500 million people use it and starting last year ( end of last year ) we learned just how to use FaceBook with Business.

FaceBook proved it could stand the test of time. It proved that it ‘could’ work. So now it is no longer static. It is a proven method of communication and now it will not take you away from your core, it will enhance it. What about those that adopted it early, do they have a leg up? No they don’t. Why? They just learned how to use it and now you just have to follow, perfect and succeed. This is only one example; an honest one that will get a lot of flack.

So my point? My point is that things will come and go and as a business owner you need to stay focused and let things mature. Right now there are so many ‘start up’ social projects, FourSquare, DeHood, Yelp, Ning and the list goes on and on. Notice these, but don’t focus on them. Remember all the technology in the world will never replace a warm hand shake and a smiling face. When it does, this professional will retire and plant some trees.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Blogging, Content, Customers, Design, Digital Media, Geolocation, iPad, iPhone, LIME, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Space, Website

You don’t, you can’t, you just shouldn’t

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:02:00 +0000

Why such a negative title? I have a strong point to make and sometimes adding a bit of negativity to your message helps send the message home.

I get asked often how to create the perfect advertising campaign. At a lunch, in a meeting or at a business conference I will be asked, “How do I create a successful advertising campaign?” My reply is short, simple and to the point, “You don’t.”

That is right you do not create a successful or perfect advertising campaign—you let your audience do that for you. Advertising your product or service can not be successful thought out in a board room or by using fancy charts, you have to get face to face with your consumers. You can not leave the perfect message if you don’t know the right number to call.

How then do you let your audience create your advertising message? Start with hiring a marketer, listening, get creative and do not be scared to ask. What if you have just started your company and haven’t built your network of listeners? Then advertising is the last thing you want to do. You need to build a small ‘following’. Create a loyal group of clientele that will assist you in the growth of your company. Don’t be pushed into advertising, get set up with a marketing plan, social media and good old fashion word of mouth. Then you can build into the full blown advertising mode.

It is key to understand that advertising is not as simple as throwing out an ad and hoping it lands. It is a planned event and you have a much greater chance of success if you slow down, listen and obey. Once you understand what your current clientele see in you, you will be able to share that with a wider audience and if needed correct any misconceptions that may be out there. Every company needs a fan boy/girl and the best way to get them is by listening.

Now this does not mean that you will incorporate/use everything that you learn or that your audience will do all the heavy lifting for you. It is simply the way for you to truly understand how to focus your advertising message to the masses. Doritos has done several ‘audience based’ or social based user generated content campaigns, but they have not used all the generated content or information. They have learned from it, created perfected messages and then have been consistently successful in the implementation.

You will be successful in creating the perfect advertising campaign if you:

Seek professional assistance
Listen to your audience
Become creative
Are fearless and social
Plan, build, execute and track

We live in a world of talkers, simply open your door and let them in. Be educated by them, listen to them and then direct your message to the masses.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Buzz Words, Content, Customers, Design, LIME, Marketing, Print, Social Media, Social Space

Dodo Island

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:50:12 +0000

Coming to an iPad near you! Can’t give to much away about this one just yet, but stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: Design, LIME, Updates

The Wealth Heart Project

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:47:59 +0000

Steve Downs, creator of Wealth Heart, had spent years developing “Financially Fit for LIFE”- a seven step program that promises to get users completely debt free and “financially fit” in 5 years or less. After investing so much time and energy into creating this system, Steve realized he needed an updated brand to match the strength of his message, and by coming to LIME, this is exactly what he received. We created a powerful logo and clean, professional website that promises to provide Wealth Heart a long healthy life, allowing them to continue helping their clients become “financially fit.”

Learn more about Wealth Heart

Technorati Tags: Design, Website

Myth’s About Marketing Part II

Wesley Chapman — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:13:08 +0000

To get caught up make sure you have read: Myths of Marketing Part 1

Myth Number 3: I have a website and I got that SEO package so look out world. I won’t have to talk to a customer or do anything, my website will do it all for me.

Answer: Not so fast there nitro, you have a lot of work ahead of you. The world wide web, now there is something as misunderstood as a 16 year old female. In fact we will stick with that analogy and I will explain how the world wide web is nothing more then a teenager in the world of marketing and advertising that has yet to truly show us all she has to give.

Before we get more into that lets talk about SEO. Search Engine Optimization is perhaps the biggest fraud to hit the marketing world in the last 20 years. This is where I begin to really make enemies. The SEO market for my colleagues in the industry makes a load of money and any time you mess with ‘loads of money’ you tend to make an enemy or two. But it needs to be understood what SEO is and how it can truly benefit you. While I can not give all the info here in, I will simplify it for you as quickly as possible. Optimizing your website for search engines simply means you make it easy for search engine’s bots to read your content and you make sure your content is updated regularly. That is it. Nothing more and nothing less. Now inside there you can set up analytics and tracking for different advertising campaigns and user interaction. Sorry to say, but there isn’t a magic bean you place in your website code and have a direct green stock to the giant world of profits.

Many SEO firms simply charge you $2000 to $10,000 a month to update your content while others spend time booking ad space for you on google and yahoo to get you traffic. There are a few out there that actually use the internet and the power of the analytics and create valuable data for your company to move forward with. Again a FEW SEO firms know how to do this. With all this said there is a fatal flaw with SEO or websites in general. You can have the best site design, the best code, the best SEO practices, but if you don’t have the people coming to your site, you have nothing. So how do you get the traffic?

While I can’t give away all the secrets on my blog ( call us at LIME 801-423-5463 ) I will try to clear up a few things. First of all to get people to your website you need to understand the web. Understanding that the web world has just begun to ‘grow up’ and can’t be trusted to be the same tomorrow as it is today, just like that teenage female. This means you need to be prepared for change and understand what you know today may mean nothing tomorrow. Second you need to be very aware that design DOES matter on your website. Ease of use and accessibility are keys to online success. Third you need to understand your web users. Ask yourself this: ‘Who will be using your online site and why will they be using it?’ Not: ‘What do I want my customers to do on my website?’ This is a vital key to success on the web. The web is not something you tell what to do, it something you let tell you what it needs. ‘It’ is your users and your website visitors.

The web world can be very helpful and very profitable if done correctly. The online world gives you more data then you could dream of if you are prepared to collect that data and use it. Having an online presence can be the difference between long term success or the loss of a retirement fund, it is all about understanding the truth about the web and the web world excepting you.

The last key on this myth to defunct is that once you have a website you don’t need human customer service on that website. Oh how wrong you are. By having a website you are opening your business up to even more communication with your clientele. This communication will give you the ability to create long term relationships and profitable alliances. By having an open line of communication with your clients via your website you will guarantee new revenues and will see referrals like you have never seen in any other advertising platform.

The final Myth I will tackle is: Marketing costs so much to do, I just don’t have the budget to do it. We advertise and my nephew does our designs and it is all we can afford to do.

Answer: Marketing doesn’t cost you money it makes you money. It is poor advertising that costs you money.

When you understand what Marketing is you will see how marketing isn’t what costs you the money it is not planning your advertising that will cost you money. Rather then going on and on about this let me use an example of a past client to illustrate this.

A few years ago I had a client come to me with a great idea to start a weekly city newspaper. They wanted to have the paper focused on a certain demographic and geographical area. They had the revenue stream identified ( ads in the paper ) and they had the production of the paper all set up. Everything sounds perfect right? They even had one of those new fancy websites, how could they need anything else?

When the client came to me they had produced 3 issues of the newspaper and each paper was costing them money as they could not sell enough ads and the advertisers they did sell was reporting back zero success. I took a look at the paper and first thing I asked is, “Well when targeting college students you need to understand they don’t have disposable income and ads for $2000 couches won’t do so well.” I quickly was corrected and boy did I feel stupid, “The newspaper is for downtown BellTown and is targeted to high income families not college students.” Oh yeah first impressions do matter.

See I was handed the paper and asked, “What do you think?” I have since learned to ask a few questions before going off on things. I spun this example to show the client that if I thought it was to college students what did they think the end users thought it was for? Had they talked to any of the readers? Had they asked for feedback? Had they looked at the design and compared it to other papers? All answers were a resounding, ‘no’.

We had a lot to do and a lot to listen to and change. The first step we took was getting data from the readers. Who was reading it? What did they like, what didn’t they like? The next step we took was reading through the handful of emails readers had sent in from the site. Now we had data, now we knew what the readers were looking for and now we ready to change the paper and get some results.

We then took this data to the advertisers that advertised in the paper, explained to them what ad messages they should send. We contacted a few local writers and freshened up the content. With in 3 weeks the newspaper could not fit all the advertisers in the paper and expanded it by 4 spreads to accommodate the ads and new content.

The paper quickly became a ‘problem’ for the local big boy newspapers and advertisers where seeing results. Readers felt a loyalty to a paper that was for ‘them’ and the owner, well he was happy. This cost a grand total of about $10,454.00 ( I have quickbooks! ) and within the 2 week after we finished with the client they had made a profit including my firms fees, production and sales commissions. The whole process took 1 week to implement and 6 weeks to completely complete.

So did it cost this newspaper money hire a marketing firm? No, it made them money. It cost them not to hire one.

I have countless stories and examples of this and I also have stories of when things just didn’t work. To be a great marketer, as stated above, you have to have failed. I can assure you this marketer has failed and looks forwarded to making my past failures your future successes.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Design, LIME, Marketing, SEO, Website

Myth’s About Marketing Part I

Wesley Chapman — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:40:41 +0000

I don’t know how many times I get asked, “What is Marketing? What do you do?”. In the fact that I get asked this on a daily basis I have come up with a one line answer, “I make businesses and those that own them money.” A bold statement I know and a comment that is always followed by a one word’r “How?”

It is at this point when the conversation changes from quick liners to a full blown discussion. In such I usually start by displacing marketing rumors or marketing theories that frankly don’t work. Let me fill you in on a few of the marketing myths and strategies that are widely mis-understood.

Before I get 100 emails and comments saying how wrong I am, just remember that what I am about to say isn’t just my ‘opinion’ it is proven, tested and fundamental. The only negative about it is that other’s in my industry do not like me ‘spilling the beans’. Oh well here we go!

Myth number one: Marketing is sales and advertising.

Answer: Marketing is not sales and it is not advertising.

Yes you read that correctly, marketing is not advertising nor is it the sale of goods. Marketing is the process by which companies determine what products or services may be of interest to customers. Marketing is in other words is LISTENING. Marketing is at it’s truest form customer service and in such light when marketing is done correctly it will make you money, as CUSTOMERS will give you money. I know it is a revolutionary concept.

So thus what is a ‘marketer’? A marketer is one that acts in the best interest of the consumer and communicates directly to the consumers needs. Good marketers help companies guess what might work, great marketers show companies what WILL work. In order to be a great marketer you have to have 3 foundations of expertise:

1.common sense,

2. an open dialog with the ‘now’ and the consumers of today and

3. they have to have failed. Failure is a marketer’s greatest weapon for the simple reason that they won’t get stuck in an endless circle of spending your money guessing what will work. Half the battle of knowing what will work is knowing what won’t work.

Myth number two: Social networking on twitter and Facebook and my website are how I will get all my new clients.

Answer: If only it was that simple. No Facebook will not make you rich and building a twitter will not make the floods of money come in.

This is by far where more of the heated conversations start. There seems to always be someone who will tell me about a book they read or a newsletter they subscribe to that tells them stories about a house mom who had an idea in her kitchen, sat down at the family computer, blogged about it, got a fan page on Facebook and a twitter page and then the next morning woke up with 5,000,000 fans and millions of dollars just followed! To this I always say, how has it worked out for you? Answer, “Well I am not doing it right I only have 50 fans so far.”

No you are doing just what they want you to do and what is was originally built for. You have your mom, your cousins and a few close friends that all know just what you are up to. I know it is harsh, but as a professional my duty is to tell it like it is and educate on how it needs to be.

When you understand how to use social media you will understand it’s success and you will further more understand that whether you have 50 fans/followers or 5 million you can be successful. I have seen companies with 200 fans/followers do more then those with 25,000.

There is nothing new about social media and in the attempt from so many to claim it is the new way to do business, it has clouded the minds of hundreds of business owners. Lets look at the core word of ‘Social Media’, SOCIAL. By changing it to “Word of mouth media” the cloud is lifted and all the sudden everyone gets it. Social media is nothing more then the new age way of word of mouth advertising. The myth in social media is that it will make you thousands of dollars just by having it up. Social media is by far one of the best ways to analyze and utilize your customers wishes, demands and needs. Social media is by far one of the worst ways to make your company direct money.

Now with this said if you know how to leverage the data generated by the proper use of social media you have created a mathematical and logical way to launch your next advertising campaign. This is something I like to call, “Action marketing”. In action marketing you create systems that demand for your customer base and desired customer base, to act and react to your social media usage. One thing you must know, you will fail at social media and that is something you have to be ready for.

It is not an over night success and it is not something that happens just by ‘building it’. It takes time, energy, foresight and the understanding that not everything you do will work.

Continue reading: Myths of Marketing Part II

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Design, LIME, Marketing, SEO, Website