Author: Rick & Al Schad

Don’t draw the line at professional photography

Including quality photos in advertising materials is a fantastic tactic that has the potential to enhance and support good written messaging and other visual content it appears with.  This is an approach that has great potential to backfire when non professional quality photos are used or when photography is thrown in without purpose. Businesses drawing the line at professional photography due to expense will devalue the entire material, essentially throwing away the money invested in other aspects of quality advertising products.

A poor quality photo is not better than no photo at all. A photograph is a form of visual communication and using a poor quality photo translates to poor communication with the viewer.  Poor quality photography has the effect of overpowering all other efforts, and even the most professional and well crafted advertising tools will be significantly devalued merely by the use of photography of a less professional level. In marketing especially, research shows that audiences make judgements inside of just a few seconds, and when speaking about marketing tools that include photography, it is common for audiences to draw conclusions from the quality of photos alone, as they are one of the easiest visual elements to absorb quickly.

Quality Cameras vs Professional Photography

In a world with advancing photographic technology, the art and true benefits of a professional photographer are slowly disappearing due to the common public misconception that more pixels or a better quality camera translates to a professional level image. Filters and auto settings have greatly improved the quality of snapshots and photo albums, however, professional commercial photography centers around principles beyond base level quality requirements. Images must  be technically accurate with purposefully selected shutter speeds and depth of field to properly capture the subjects as envisioned.

The context an image will be shown in becomes extremely important when photos and lighting are used to draw the eye to other messaging or visual content outside of the photograph itself to enhance the visual flow of a piece. Photographers must work in concert with designers and other marketing professionals so that all elements, including photography, cohesively support the desired psychological response of the target audience.  The professional element of photography is not in the camera but in the art of observation, in taking a photo with purpose, and applying the understanding of specific aesthetics associated with each human response. Having a good eye for photography is not enough when isolated from the marketing principles that transform images from art pieces to powerful messaging tools.

Product Photography

Beautiful and well made products, when photographed with commercial art principles, do much of the advertising on their own.  While artistic or abstract photos can be fun and unique, commercial photography emphasizes quality representation of the subject.  Product photography is not intended to sway the audience to feel something abstract. Professionals combine their knowledge of art and form with psychology and research to emphasize a specific idea through known aesthetic options. Professionals then refine these choices by working with marketing campaigns to identify target audience and context to create an ideal image to match and support messaging and other content.

Each photo should have a specific purpose: adding a sense of place or atmosphere, depicting a product or service, even suggesting what kinds of customers are being targeted.  Photos that don’t add value to a marketing tool are taking away precious space from more helpful information, and have a negative consequence for the efficacy of the design.

Non Commercial Photography

With commercial art, the photographer attempts to suggest and guide the audience in their visual experience, however, even outside of marketing these same visual cues and associations can be used to create a highly impactful piece of art with predictable reactions by the audience.

A Study on Photographic Impact

Bootstrap photographs NYC actor to overcome typecasting
Despite a diverse show reel, NYC actor Joe Harris was facing type casting issues, when he approached Bootstrap for a unique solution. Bootstrap envisioned a photo series capturing him in the midst of a variety of character studies to display his abilities in a range of roles.

Bootstrap photographers spent time studying Joe as an actor, noting strengths in expression and habitual movements and patterns to best capture moments he embodied each character best. This was combined with known psychological and emotional human associations in order to create nine scenes that evoked entirely different responses from the audience.

To support the nine personas Joe hoped to feature, nine unique sets were designed and built with matching wardrobe, props, and lighting schema. Post processing played a large role in creating nine unique but cohesive distinct settings to match the characters played by Joe in each scene.

The final product was a custom website Bootstrap designed and developed that featured this digital gallery of Joe’s personas as well as relevant info for casting directors, resume, and contact form. Below is a selection of photographs from each of the 9 characters in this study.

Joe is no longer having issues with type casting.

Social media has become a fully integrated and accepted aspect of communication in society regardless of the individual’s choice to participate or not. The major social media platforms have created their individual niches for use, split command of demographics to target, and have developed specific communication and content styles that even non-users recognize. At this point, the public expects to see certain types of communication appear when looking at content from each platform. This expectation can be harnessed by businesses to provide the public with a more diverse array of content without appearing off brand which allows businesses to target dissimilar audiences with less effort and cost.

Social media gives businesses opportunities to create emotional bonds with potential clients through less formal details that would be inappropriate on business websites. These platforms allow businesses an appropriate setting to host less formal content, allowing a place for personality, humor, or art to be incorporated into marketing strategy. Websites can be formatted to be more functional and efficient for readers with short attention spans when social media is used to expand on details shown as distillates on websites and can alleviate verbose but important content.

Unfortunately these benefits can be easily lost when the wrong social media platform is used to target a chosen demographic, or when the manager of the account doesn’t understand the constantly changing behaviors that each platform rewards or punishes. Additionally, it is not enough to have an account – how imagery, messaging, and designs are presented is important, and the use of social media must integrate purposefully with a larger marketing campaign and established branding. Sharing information via social media works best when used as the platform intends, following posting guidelines, complex as they might be, to utilize the power of the audience that it already attracts.

Understanding Different Development Methods

It is impossible for businesses to know which option is best for their needs without understanding the development methods themselves. Options for functionality and aesthetics are heavily based upon which method is used and the possibilities for alterations or updates vary with each web development option.

Artisan Sites

Artisan Sites are websites that have been coded to place every pixel exactly as desired without any parameters of a framework. This is done by hand, not by code generators, and because it is custom coded it does not allow for the user to edit content. Bespoke designs can be implemented using this development style and it provides truly endless opportunity to include more visually complex or functionally unique content that often cannot be incorporated in sites developed under frameworks.

Strengths of using pixel perfect code:

• Endless options to work with art or create it
• Complex selectable text typography
• Customized image maps for irregular or unique button designs
• Fixed line lengths for optimal reading conditions
• Pixel perfect placement of every design or text element
• Functions on all devices as well as desktops and can be designed to appear as desired at specific viewing widths
• Custom breakpoints can be added to target specific devices
• Zero unintentional misused/unused space

Limitations of using pixel perfect code alone:

• Not automatically responsive
• More SEO required to combat search engine algorithms that reward responsive sites
• Professional required to make edits and updates to code (there are many arguments as to why this is not a downside but it can be considered a limitation)
• Edits can be complicated because pixel perfect designs mean a change to one element results in a change to many surrounding elements

Responsive Design

Responsive sites are also hand coded but rely on a set of rules that are referenced to work with the unlimited number of display sizes we see in modern devices. Artisan sites can be made to do this as well, however the framework used in responsive design does this automatically, saving on cost for this customization. Display flexibility is the strength that responsive development is known for but it is a trade for pixel perfect design. Responsive sites are fundamentally different in that they are created to display best on mobile devices and change fluidly depending on width, however it is the rules of the framework that dictate how elements can be displayed at larger sizes, not the developer.

Strengths of Responsive Design

• Search Engines reward sites developed to be responsive
• Designs automatically reformat to display content to best fit screen size
• Mobile First design allows for optimal viewing on devices and desktops
• Responsive design considers the majority of audiences – most web traffic is through devices which display content best that is developed Mobile First
• Breakpoints consider all device sizes and give control to layout design at each breakpoint
• Hard coding allows for nearly full design flexibility and control

Limitations of Responsive Design

• Professional required to make edits and updates to code (there are many arguments as to why this is not a downside but it can be considered a limitation)
• Lacks pixel perfect control for designs
• Good control over line length but not pixel perfect, making typography options limited to images which aren’t seen by search engines

WordPress and Other Site Builders

WordPress is entirely different from other forms of development in that websites are created and maintained online, inside of a WordPress interface that auto generates final code. This is very different than traditional development where the developer has control over everything by writing each and every instruction from scratch. WordPress utilizes open source code, meaning that no single person has written 100% of the code used for a website and the job of the developer focuses on the seamless interaction of several parts with specific functions, each created by different developers. In this situation, developers need to understand the interacting parts while having a traditional understanding of code so that alterations can be made to customize the website to the needs of the client and established branding.

WordPress uses themes and plug-ins to create most of the code that a website uses. These are pre-made sections of code that have been written to interact with WordPress specifically and can perform complex functions that are time consuming to code from scratch. This approach is useful because it allows businesses without large marketing budgets or capital to have websites with powerful functionalities. To create the same site without using plug-ins would increase development costs many times over, and the cost to maintain such functionality would also make updates beyond budget for most small businesses.

Web developers all over the world have created a seemingly endless number of plug-ins to perform a diverse number of functions and have made them available for little or no cost. Bootstrap does its best to avoid or minimize these costs for clients whenever possible. WordPress developers are much like DJs, using samplings of songs to work together to make an entirely new piece.

Due to this different approach to development, content can be altered through the WordPress interface, hypothetically without the need to involve a developer knowledgeable in computer code. However there are extreme limitations for alterations that can be completed without professional assistance and many lay alterations negatively affect the vision of the site as a whole by messing with content flow or content layout that has been intentionally organized and placed.

Strengths of WordPress

• Admin panel access allows for small edits to content without professional assistance
• Access to Open Source themes and plug-ins allow for free or inexpensive use of code to perform complex functionality that is otherwise costly to create from scratch
• Common complex functionalities include e-commerce, reservation systems, event listings, automated SEO options, etc.
• Flexibility for changing content and navigation (beware that changing content is not automatically a positive point – most content should remain stationary)

Limitations of WordPress

• Access to an admin panel to make additions and changes without a professional often leads to breaking the site
• Plug-ins and themes need continual updates to function
• WordPress sites encounter more frequent technical issues because of multiple sources of code causing unexpected cost to troubleshoot
• Set up with servers is more complicated and costly
• Pre-launch cost and set up is greater than traditionally coded sites
• Developers don’t see much of the code they are using, making it more difficult to predict cost and timelines to create, troubleshoot, and maintain
• WordPress websites.
• Incompatibilities are common between plug-ins and theme code leading to possible technical support needs and costs
• Less control over line length for optimal reading
• Limited design customization and therefore brand recognition

Selecting the strengths of each developing option and leaving behind the limitations

Each of these three web development mentalities has several subcategories and approaches making the language of web development as diverse as the languages of the world. The standard is that web developers specialize in one form of development, just as cultures tend to speak one primary language, and will use that approach and code for all sites they develop because it is what they are familiar with. This is an understandable reality, however the needs of the client often do not fit nicely into one of these development mentalities without compromising a substantial aspect of functionality or aesthetic.

Bootstrap has taken a goal based approach, positing that website development methods should not limit potential and that the needs for functionality and the desires for aesthetic should be what dictates the approach to development. Created as a response to our dissatisfaction with limitations in all development styles, Bootstrap married the strengths of each into a completely new process that includes all three development methods, using their unique strengths, but only in the context they thrive in.

A thought experiment: Comparing web development options to house construction

Purchasing good land to build on is much like obtaining a clever or memorable URL and choosing what kind of website is best for the needs of a business is surprisingly similar to options available to home buyers.

Web hosting takes the role of the IRS. Owning land means paying taxes and like a house without land, a website is nothing without a server to store website code and interact with users trying to access your URL.

Search Engines are the realtors. It is possible to find a home on your own, and it is possible for an individual to find a website they have specific keywords or a direct URL for. However, unless you have specific information, in both cases it is unlikely that those shopping with specific needs will be exposed to results that realtors or search engines are not aware of. This is why a realtor is helpful in shopping for a home, and why it is important to follow search engine guidelines on SEO practices so that websites can be accessed by general searches.

Artisan sites are much like building a home from scratch. When building your own home you have the ability to draw your own plans, choose what materials will be used and much more. This allows for non traditional needs and desires, especially in aesthetic choices for interesting architecture design. Each home will be uniquely suited to fit the specific needs and desires of the individual with the house bending to the needs of the customer, vs the customer bending to make a pre-made space work well enough.

Responsive sites are similar to purchasing a home. So many options exist that it is decently easy to find a home that fits most standard needs. The number of breakpoints used for responsive sites could be compared to the number of rooms in a home. Much like giving specifications to a realtor, specifications can be made for a website. When touring homes, many layouts and options are available for homes that fit all or many of these requests, however each house will be slightly different. Responsive design is similar in that the developer has control over the general layout, but does not have control over where each and every pixel is placed on every device it is seen on. Once the home is purchased it can be made to appear very personalized, even though it is not built upon a completely customized design. With the same mentality, developers finish the development process by making alterations with CSS that are responsible for the aesthetic choices that make a site appear professional.

WordPress sites are comparable to kit houses or manufactured homes. Like manufactured homes, there are limited layouts to choose from and customization is limited to design elements such as furniture or paint after purchase. This is much like working with an interior decorator to personalize the home and give it a recognizable cohesive style. Similar to choosing a home layout from a manufacturer, WordPress sites begin with choosing and purchasing a theme, and successful customization of a theme is dependent on the design sense and technical knowledge of the developer working with it. Plug-ins are similar to the cost saving measures that manufacturers use to make homes available at a substantially lower price point. While providing an option that might save on budget initially, cheaper materials break and unexpected or hidden expenses can add up. In the case of WordPress, plug-ins will be a substantial cost saving solution initially, but a lot of upkeep is necessary and it is common for elements of WordPress sites to break or become outdated. However, unlike a manufactured home, one broken element can take a whole site down, causing interruption to business while developers troubleshoot and fix the issue.

Wix, Square, and Other Website Builders

Website builders can be compared to a bad rental experience with a landlord that doesn’t have your best interest at heart. Much like living on land you don’t own, in a home made from cheap prefab materials, with no opportunity to improve the property, website builders display content you don’t own, offer limited functionality, and overly pack websites onto servers like sardines with your neighbors. Additionally, for anyone interested in investing in their future, a rental situation is not a permanent solution, and website builders, at best, can only be considered a temporary solution for professionals looking to be taken seriously.

There are no small changes

Anyone that has experienced a renovation project knows how seemingly small changes to a house can multiply and become enormous projects. Moving a wall means considering if plumbing or electric consequently needs to be re-routed, and if the wall is load bearing, special measures must be taken or the house can collapse.

Marketing materials are no different. With good marketing tools, every color, font, word, and pixel of content should be included and arranged with the purpose of directing a specific audience to a specific action. Moving or changing one element naturally disturbs surrounding elements, and alterations to keystone elements can cause the entire tool to fail.

You are not building a forever home – you are flipping houses for profit

It is extremely important for businesses to remember that marketing tools are not an extension of personal preferences but a tool for communication with potential customers. Much like house flipping where functional architecture and aesthetics must consider likely buyers, marketing tools need to consider the audience and their needs and desires. Websites are unlike many marketing materials that contain variations, each targeting specific demographics, because a business must send all audiences to a single website. When flipping a house the most common desires of the public should be reflected and this is no different online where one site must consider all audiences by proving universal information first.

Keeping Up With the Changing Online Landscape

The online landscape has advanced substantially since its birth and continues to advance at an exponential rate. This reality has increased the time burden and cost for businesses with an online presence because the reality of creating a professional functioning website today requires much more time and expertise than ever before. Currently, sites require regular maintenance to function and remain relevant enough to search algorithms to continue to show up in search results. Businesses that don’t keep up with changing technologies fall behind quickly and appear outdated in a seemingly short period of time.

Search engines specifically have undergone an even more radical transformation due to the size of the online community. Due to the unimaginable mass of websites in existence, complex algorithms were created and are constantly updated to create a reasonable system for organizing information and providing users with relevant search results. Many complex factors play into these algorithms, and sites that don’t choose to play by the rules set by search engines cannot be found unless a user types in a specific URL. Professionals that understand these rules and stay informed about the changes to code and technologies are more important than they were even a few years back because many “do it yourself” website makers are now punished by search engines for lacking these important search requirements necessary for us all to enjoy an organized web.

Neighboring Search Results Will Be Viewed As Competition

Online, the viewer will consider the results surrounding your business’ search listing to be your competition merely due to proximity, regardless of whether or not their services or products are in direct competition with your own. Additionally, the viewer needs to understand how your business is relevant to their search at just a glance. Viewers are not analyzing the results themselves because they feel that results have been analyzed sufficiently prior to their display by the algorithms that generate these results. Consequently, improper SEO practices can confuse viewers by inaccurately representing your business causing it to be bypassed by viewers that skim quickly and won’t take a second look to see if they are missing something specific that has been included in the page title or description.

Rank in this list and relevance are not the only important factors. It is important for businesses to utilize search engine algorithms to first control where in the search results a business listing falls, but then consider and alter SEO to influence what the digital space surrounding a listing contains. Businesses commonly research physical competition considerations, however not all SEO practices include or account for competition that arises from sharing digital space. This research is most important for businesses that rely on online presence for sales, however the more clear any search result is for the viewer, the more likely the viewer is to click on your business’ listing.

Common misconceptions about web options

There are many misconceptions regarding websites and what does and does not make a website effective. Below are a few frequently misunderstood concepts that are important to untangle before making decisions for your business.

• I can build my own website. Site builders such as Wix or Squarespace have become popular for small businesses without a website budget, however there are some significant downsides of these services that are hidden in the fine print. You tend to get what you pay for and with free site builders you may not even receive what is advertised.
• You don’t own your content. If you stop paying monthly fees (which are significantly higher than normal website hosting fees) you cannot retrieve your content or any customer data that has been collected with their tool. Additionally, there is no way to export this data when moving away from the service, making it a bad temporary alternative for businesses looking for a way to get started before moving on to more professional options.
  Servers are overloaded with too many websites to save money, resulting in slow page load times. This negatively impacts the user experience and counts against your page for search engine rankings.
• A limited number of design templates make every site look similar, causing visual confusion between you and your competition. DIY users are often surprised by how difficult it is to create a site that is presentable and many professionals refuse to work with site builders due to frustratingly limited layout possibilities.
• Most site builders are not free even though they advertise free options. Businesses are expected to pay to remove ads from their site and unless your business is willing to use an unprofessional subdomain, merely choosing a URL that doesn’t advertise them costs extra every month. They are misleading about 3rd party apps. Most apps are not technically apps at all and are instead iframe elements which will be seen very differently by search engines or may not work as advertised.
• Adding necessary code for any customization is extremely difficult or impossible, severely limiting the capabilities of a site made with a site builder.
• Updating information helps my page ranking and is a good marketing practice: Constantly changing content can actually hurt the functionality of your website, and because of the enormity of today’s internet, Google or other search engines can take up to several months to crawl your site after you have made changes. Until your site has been re-crawled, the search engine may list expired links, or display old information, causing your site to appear broken, inconsistent, or outdated during this delay. Your website should be comprised of updated, currently relevant information, but content shouldn’t be changed unless it is necessary (such as listing upcoming events, opportunities, or a change in business). If new website content is part of the business’ product or service (such as a blog or news source) then other steps designed to combat this new reality must be taken to avoid these issues.
• Historically, changing content frequently was associated with higher page rankings, however this is no longer the case and is now mostly associated with glitchy sites and will only increase costs for your business.
• Trendy effects and animations make my site look modern and professional: All of the bells and whistles that have become popular with WordPress and other site-builders actually have several downsides that hurt your business. Most of these effects create lag and will slow outdated or aging devices and many servers are not equipped to handle animations. Research shows that as many people are turned off by the presence of these effects as are not and in addition to the general population’s feelings these trends regularly turn away people with vision impairment or other cognitive considerations. Those with these considerations make up a substantial portion of the population and lacking consideration for the needs of these viewers will only lead them to believe that if you don’t consider or understand their needs for viewing and interacting with a website you haven’t considered them in your business in general. Additionally, trends pass, and including the latest in effect trends only ensures that your website will appear out of date in a shorter than normal timeframe.
• WordPress is the best solution: WordPress has become a trendy word that most know but very few understand, and while WordPress is a powerful tool when used in the correct context, there are several potentially negative factors that most businesses don’t know about when choosing this familiar sounding solution. WordPress creates database driven sites which are inherently more vulnerable for hacking and phishing, and by default, WordPress websites also load much slower than traditional hard-coded websites. Extra steps are required to protect not only the website itself but also valuable personal information from clients. Business owners often don’t realize that there will be extra costs associated with WordPress, plug-ins and themes, and necessary regular updates to keep the site running. WordPress represents itself as an easy to use solution that doesn’t require a developer, however even tech savvy businesses often are forced to hire professionals to pre-compile code, compress images, and stagger load requests in order to increase their site’s speed, and most lay or DIY designers don’t realize the negative consequences of not including professional input. DIY users are usually surprised by the skills necessary to make a site presentable and it is not possible to create a professional functioning website that adheres to marketing or SEO standards without training or substantial experience.
• My website needs a blog: Unless you are a blogger or a journalist, the purpose of blogs has largely been replaced by social media. Anymore, sites with Blogs appear outdated, and users tend to be turned off more than interested by this style of communication when used in the wrong context. Linking social media to websites is considered standard practice by professionals and is more useful to the users that already participate in established social media platforms. Additionally, these links have a positive impact on your site’s ranking due to link rep and most users have come to expect blog like information to appear in social media links.
• Unused space is wasted space: Research shows that the way the human eye moves across a page is reliant upon breathing room. Empty space is not wasted space and design principles are created surrounding necessary breaks in content to control and focus eyes purposefully across a page. There is a misconception that cramming as much content as possible onto a home page will improve SEO, however search engines have advanced to recognize this trick and overloading content onto a single page imposes on the viewer’s ability to ingest content with ease.
• The more information the better: The average user will only devote so much time to searching through a website, so content must purposefully drive users to specific behaviors. An old trend in websites was “the more content the better”, but the truth is that this dilutes the effective content and can leave users guessing as to where they want to go, which often leads to them simply leaving the site.
• My business is too small for a website: A website is a tool to communicate with the public and there is no business too small to have this need. All businesses can benefit from this tool, especially when the purpose and goals of the site have been carefully considered and an appropriate audience has been targeted. Websites, however, should be appropriate for the size of business you have and too much website can cause viewers to get unnecessarily lost in fluff content created to fill extra space. This is commonly problematic when businesses use site builders or templates that expect content to fill pre-made spaces that may not apply to the kinds of content your business should be providing.
• My website should reflect me: This is a very common misconception and one of the most harmful to a business’ marketing. Websites are not a place to express your personal aesthetic. Your website should be a reflection of what your business is and the aesthetic should be driven by the needs of the target audience and established branding created to be appealing to that audience. It is important to take yourself out of the equation and focus on communicating with the potential customer. Remember that the goal is not for you to like your site, but for your customer to understand what your business is, what it provides, how it relates to them, and then respond in a purposeful manner.

Sticks and stones can break my bones…
And words can start wars, create peace, and certainly influence people to spend money

Words matter

Capturing the attention of your target audience with visually attractive marketing materials is a significant accomplishment, however once an audience is captured, copy must be clear and as effortless as possible to digest quickly. Otherwise successful marketing campaigns can go to waste if your copy doesn’t interest or hold the attention of the target audience.

Your copy, or messaging, is your conversation with the public. Almost all marketing strategies and tools are intended to attract attention so that copy is read, or enforce copy and aid in a fuller understanding. It is arguable that quality content is more vital than any other aspect of marketing – a company with the highest quality marketing materials will ultimately fail if messaging fails.

Too often businesses put the cart before the horse, and they let their enthusiasm to move forward eclipse the need to cement the company identity, mission, audience to target, and what messaging will be presented to those targeted audiences. The potential for a marketing tool by nature cannot exceed the potential of your message, and marketing tools cannot drag your message forward any more than a cart can drag a horse.

Using your copy as a tool to prevent customer dissatisfaction
Everything that you explain well in you marketing materials is something you won’t have to explain well later. The concept that vague hyperbolic explanations and claims should be used in advertising to beat competition is proven to be counterproductive from a cost and satisfaction perspective because businesses are spending more time to better explain the same material to inquiring potential customers that often feel misled to begin with.

• City’s Best Cup of Coffee
• The Professional’s Choice
• Do it yourself Web Development
• One step away from success

Marketing materials should accurately represent an offer to the public not only because it is the upstanding choice, but because converted customers that feel misled cost in time and money down the road. Additionally, vague, large promises have become associated with untrustworthy behavior and turn off potential customers looking for an honest, upright interaction with a business. Nice sounding copy that is hollow sends the message that services or products are hollow as well. Businesses should focus on what is true about their company, products or services, and offers, and communicate honesty. Value that is represented accurately will in return be valued in most cases.

Being too close to your communication style

It is common for business owners and employees to be overly close to the style of communication used in the workplace, customer interaction, and marketing materials, making it difficult to identify when a disconnect is occuring with the customer or communication is not conveying the message they feel it is. Due to overfamiliarity, businesses often don’t realize that copy that reads well to them may not to others. It is natural for businesses to form their own version of language over time, using “in house” lingo, or industry shorthand that bypasses vital information needed for lay reader comprehension.

Being too close to your messaging can lead to including unnecessary details that lose the reader or explanations that don’t begin with base level information. The familiar language that seems sensible due to repetition may confuse those that are hearing it for the first time. A third party can be helpful in identifying proper information hierarchy, necessary content volume, and appropriate language that effectively conveys the message that was intended.

Many companies have worked to create a familiar voice representative of the personality and tone of the company or the people running it. Commercial copywriting does not strive to destroy this unique voice but to advocate for the known preferences of the target audience to create balance with these conventions. It is simply unrealistic to expect audiences to research language in marketing materials to understand what is being communicated and audiences are far more likely to respond to language they are familiar with or that is universal.

Website content geared toward Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Today, search engines use complex algorithms to determine which search results should be displayed for the viewer. There are several factors that are considered in this process, but what most people don’t know is how much website content impacts which search results are displayed first. To be competitive, website copy must contain keywords located in what is considered by the search engine to be “in context”. This is fundamentally different than the “in-code keyword list” that was previously used to help search engines identify the subject matter of a website. Search engines are now so advanced that it is important for the copywriter to understand SEO rules when creating content in addition to incorporating considerations for the audiences being targeted, all while maintaining the conventions for voice and tone a company has established for communication.

Web vs Print Copy and Text Display

Designers focus on ordering and breaking up content into digestible blocks with an ordered flow. This can prove problematic if the writer isn’t working in hand with the designer to come to a consensus about information hierarchy and any visual emphasis necessary to display the most important information to the reader. It has become requisite for these niche professions to work together to create messaging that has been optimized for display in different settings without the professional goals of the designer or the writer being out of balance or diminished.

The rules for displaying text in print collateral differ greatly than conventions used for web. With print materials, the reader is focused on a single tangible material, unlike the online experience where viewers often don’t have a destination and may explore numerous materials in the same amount of time. Factors such as color, font size, line and paragraph length, and formatting become even more important to consider for the quick content digestion necessary online. Additionally, without tangible material to hold onto or take home, creating memorable content is important in order to stand out in the sea of web-available information.

Graphic Design

Almost everything made today requires graphic design, from traffic signs to marketing.  If you are looking at it, a graphic designer likely had a hand in making sure that it is properly formatted to catch your attention and legibly display a message in a memorable manner. While all the items that utilize graphic design might feel unrelated, the same underlying set of rules known as design psychology apply, aiding in the function of the piece, whether it be to let drivers know about a change in traffic or to convince potential customers to purchase a product.

Design is important because it is what people see before they can read the written content.  It aids in the viewer’s ability to read the content itself, but more importantly, it creates an emotional connection, imprinting how a person perceives the business. In addition to reinforcing and providing context for information, good design can actually make understanding and digesting the written content easier.

The difference between art and commercial art

It is not sufficient to simply rely on artistic sense when creating pieces for commercial purposes.  Generally, art allows any viewer the freedom to feel anything, but in contrast, commercial art encourages a specific viewer to feel something purposefully.  Instead of using art principles alone, designers must utilize the knowledge formed by the study of design psychology and the spectrum of different effects on a myriad of demographics.  Additionally, commercial art must work in hand with a number of other marketing principles such as Hick’s Law to deal with short attention spans, or the Pareto Principle, which in marketing has mostly to do with target audience inclinations.  With these expanded considerations and a combination of information hierarchy and an understanding of the viewers’ eye movements, layout and graphic treatments can help people parse available information into consumable sections, guiding the eye to the most critical information first, digesting displayed content in a purposeful order

Each microculture perceives design differently. For example, black is a mourning color in Europe and America, while white is worn for funerals in many parts of Asia.  Every section of the population – age group, race, gender, socio-economic niche – will react uniquely to colors, fonts, line qualities, and word choice.  Before beginning any design process, who will see it, what needs to be read, and where it will be seen should be set in stone so that designers can apply the knowledge of these different responses to each and every design.

There is a purely technical side of design that is required to ensure not only basic functionality such as the legibility of text and correct appearance of colors, but also correct file preparation for display or specific printing processes.Understanding these details are part of what makes a designer more than an artist.  

Logo Design & Dynamic Logos

While there is more to branding than a logo, it’s importance should not be diminished.  The primary role of a logo is to represent the core qualities of the business in a way that speaks to the target audience, while remaining unique and memorable.  Advertising is so prevalent in our society that the average person sees over 5,000 ads per day, making it paramount that a logo can be understood in what research shows to be less than one second in order for it to be remembered.  The use of logos is increasing constantly with the variety of mediums for display diversifying as well. Today, different contexts require that designers create slight variants for logo display that allow for imagery to appear at its best when size, background, medium, and color options differ from situation to situation.

What can be expected from a logo?

Everything has a logo now, from corporations to sole proprietors.  This trend has actually increased the demands each logo must meet, which is only compounded by today’s shortened attention spans.  No answer is universal: simple logos are easy to read, but hard to make unique while complex logos can be beautiful and bespoke, but are often hard to understand at a glance.

A logo must be the perfect distillate of a business, with every color and shape considering the target audience.  It must be legible at every size and accommodate those with vision impairments or colorblindness. It must be flexible enough to grow with a company and remain relevant.  It must be many things, all while being aesthetically pleasing and completely unique.

Branding: More than just a logo

Colors, shapes, images, and fonts create an observable reaction in the brain, based upon cultural information that is cemented in childhood. Design psychology is the academic field that seeks to understand these responses. This field has a surprisingly long history, with certified psychologists specializing in the field as early as 1903.  Designers utilize this knowledge to create branding that will intrinsically relate the values and identity of a business to the viewer. Branding packs and style guides help businesses enforce these concepts by codifying the colors, fonts, textures, and other imagery to be used consistently in all advertising materials.  This guarantees that every design is not only cohesive, but because of the application of design psychology, materials created can effectively influence targeted audiences in predictable ways.

Branding

Branding is an industry term that includes the logomark, fonts, colors, textures, and guidelines for how these elements may be combined to create marketing assets.  A style guide is the set of rules that a company uses to ensure that every facet of a business’ marketing assets appear consistently with the public, defining what the branding is for a specific company.  Creating and following these rules helps the public recognize a business across different mediums and locations; this effect is called “brand recognition”. Building brand recognition makes every marketing tool potentiate the next.

Branding is often created before a business opens to the public, but it can also be retroactively applied to existing businesses that only have logos, or who are looking to update both the branding and logo without losing the recognition that has already been built.

What you may not know about small business options

Most small businesses are forced to hire a variety of designers, developers, and other freelancers to create assets as needed, never having a managing professional to coordinate aesthetics and goals from piece to piece or creating a cohesive marketing plan to serve a business’ goals.  Due to the number of specialties required to create professional marketing tools, even companies that have in house marketers struggle because most of what is necessary is beyond the training of the few individuals that small businesses can afford to hire.

The use of both freelancers and in-house marketers can lead to fractured, inconsistent designs that make it harder for the public to connect marketing tools to the business it belongs to.  Additionally, many advertising services such as newspapers and magazines include cheap or free graphic design with the purchase of ad space. This can be misleading to businesses on a budget that don’t know that this work is often done by rookie designers that don’t research your branding before creating these designs. Branding packs eliminate this issue, giving instructions that are sensible even to the layperson and guaranteeing that your business’ identity remains intact across all marketing materials, even when taking advantage of free services.

Being informed is likely the most beneficial action a business owner can take.

Bootstrap boils down a complex industry and focuses on sifting through the options, explaining how these tools and areas of expertise should interact and potentiate each other. We strive to educate small businesses about the priorities professionals consider so that business owners can make informed decisions with their money.

Avoid wasting money on tools that don’t have potential

Understanding the need and purpose of marketing services and the tools professionals create to communicate with the public is essential for business owners to market their business competitively. It is particularly important for small businesses to recognize the realistic potential, value, and limitations of the tools at their disposal in order to utilize marketing campaign strategy.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is defined as “the management process through which goods and services move from concept to customer”. This process starts with research on target customer demographics and competition which leads to an encompassing vision, the formulation of a plan to connect with potential customers effectively, and crafting an idea into a message that can be used on promotional tools that are created in a specific order.

This resulting message must comply with the existing business identity, mission, and general values and be communicated in terms that are reflective of the identity, needs, and considerations of the audience being targeted in advertising materials.

Marketing is not the creation or utilization of an advertisement or promotional tool, it is a fundamental component of business itself.

Bootstrap is a full service marketing firm that not only provides promotional tools, but collaborates with business owners to formulate a marketing and business plan, managing assets to work in concert along each phase of our proprietary process.

Responsible Advertising

There are a myriad of advertising techniques that can be used to influence the population. Bootstrap recognizes these as very effective, and condemns the all too frequent abuse of this knowledge in the marketing industry. We feel it is our moral responsibility as advertisers to proceed with caution when using these methods. Bootstrap requires clients to fairly and honestly represent their business without an abuse of power occurring. We provide this information as education on the marketing industry and insight into the tactics that competitors might be employing. Bootstrap believes the best tactic is to honestly communicate with an audience that has real need for a business, service, or product, and our job is to connect our clients with that audience. We hold the opinion that many of these strategies are unfair manipulations of the public and the psychology of the human brain.

Who should your customers be?

Honesty and loyalty are connected

Your customer should be defined as an individual or group that is or has potential to be interested in services or products that your business provides or can be convinced to become a customer without dishonesty or misrepresentation.

Assuming that all advertising assets are properly created and implemented, capturing the attention of an audience can still be an obstacle if the audience doesn’t understand the value of what a business provides. Also assuming that a business is providing a quality product with honesty and transparency, this is a problem with an easy solution.

Businesses must educate the public about the value of what they provide

Presenting an explanation of what a business provides is often not enough to convert customers. The public must understand why a business is necessary, why what they provide is valuable, and above all, why the potential customer needs it. For honest businesses with quality products or services, this is easily done through proper marketing assets that then communicate this missing information, easily converting customers with sound logic.

Are you reaching your audience?

Marketing materials that are seen by a specific audience are not the same as marketing materials that target an audience specifically. In order to successfully target an audience, an understanding of the needs, desires, behaviors, budgets, values and obstacles a demographic faces must be considered. Including the unique preferences of different demographics and creating tools that reflect those preferences in aesthetic, messaging, and function is the key to successful advertising and therefore customer conversion.

Common Mistakes:

Hoping to incorporate all demographics into one pool by advertising a singular non specific message is much less effective than creating targeted ad campaigns and such materials risk being ignored or overlooked.

Using aesthetics that reflect the preferences of the owner, not the audience they are trying to attract can actively repel customers away from businesses and become an obstacle of its own.

Simple Example – Color choice – Assumption: You like green but your audience is repelled for whatever reason. Instead of facing the obstacle of convincing the audience that your business is worthy of their money, you now ALSO need to be convincing about green being a great color, even though you are targeting an audience that is inclined to think not, but more importantly, you will have to convince this audience that you care about them, even though you have just ignored their preference. They will believe this dismissal extends to their interaction with your business. Imagine what can happen when this concept is applied to the larger aesthetic or worse, messaging.

Marketing tools are not an extension of the self but a form of communication. Remember who you are talking to.

Research

It is important to keep in mind that all advertising assets are a means to communicate with the public and in order to capture the attention of an audience, one must know how to communicate well using these tools. Researching the audience gives businesses a head start in this conversation, and advertisements will be more attractive to audiences that feel understood and considered.

Over the last 100 years, an increasing number of studies have been performed, looking at what motivates purchasing, how to best speak to different audiences, and even assessing how eyes track across advertisements. Using this information and demographic specific research allows many advantages to businesses when communicating with the public. It can be quite beneficial to understand the considerations of the customer before they come to you, but it is essential to incorporate research and demographic information in advertising. When combined with the known psychology of art and language, advertising tools can be created to cause predictable responses and actions. This is why each tool needs to have a specific purpose and goal for a targeted viewer in order to reach its full potential.

Competition

Competition is often perceived as the opposition or even the enemy, however an examination of our competition produces accurate and informative data that can be quite beneficial. Researching competition can save your company the costly time and effort that comes from learning lessons from experience and often can replace expensive focus group testing with matched results. Studying the successes and failures of businesses that are similar to your own is a valuable asset to any business, especially in a saturated marketplace.

Read or download the demographic data that Bootstrap has collected for Port Townsend and surrounding areas.

2010 Census Data

Often times when thinking of a disabled population, we think of a small group of outliers, however when it comes to marketing materials for public viewing, a surprising number of people are at least “situationally disabled”. We don’t think of people that wear glasses normally as disabled, but when looking at low contrast colors or small fonts, visually impaired people are effectively disabled in the context of ability to successfully read materials without special considerations. Readjusting the definition for this context, it becomes clear that a significant percentage of the population likely will struggle in one way or another to see, and therefore absorb marketing messages.

Clearly, this number of “situationally disabled” people increases greatly when the context is widened from those that are vision impaired to those with cognitive, hearing, or dexterity considerations, making a strong argument for advertisers to include the needs of these numerous individuals in the conception and design processes. Most of these adjustments or considerations for disabled or impaired individuals are helpful to the average viewer as well, and follow good design principles that should be standard practice in general. Advertisers cannot afford to put out materials excluding these individuals as they collectively make up a truly significant portion of the population.

The below information displays the extent of this point and breaks down a few considerations that should be taken into account for an array of audiences that are often not accounted for when marketing materials are created.

Vision

Percentage of people in the US that wear glasses, contacts, or use some kind of visual aid is 61%. Disregard for the needs of visually impaired individuals results in less efficient conversion rates as over half of the population will struggle to view materials or not be able to digest them at all.

With a surprising lack of regard in general for this sizeable population, those that go a step further to include visually impaired individuals in their target audience stand out from the crowd – a consideration that usually is met with gratitude from a viewer that often times feels left out.

Cognitive Impairment

ADHD is often thought of as a children’s issue, however about 5% of adults have ADHD. There are several special considerations when interacting with an individual with ADHD, and because marketing materials are tools for communicating to the public, one must extend those considerations into design and layout choices to avoid excluding this population. Large blocks of text, overly busy designs or layouts, or excessive navigation options are all sensory overloads to this audience – the usual result being that the individual ignores the material or incorrectly absorbs the information. Additionally, it is interesting to note that these same poor design and layout practices heavily impact traditional audiences negatively. Many describe looking at information displayed in this manner as an experience that makes one feel like they have ADHD when they do not.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although an exact population count of people with Autism currently does not exist, it is estimated that about 1.5 million people in the U.S. have an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Making sure at least some element of messaging is factual or stated plainly is important to a population that struggles to read between the lines. Logical information hierarchy and consistency is extra important for an audience with Autism as well as color choice, layout, and naming conventions for buttons and calls to action. Many flashy and trendy mouse over effects, animations, or sudden autoplay functions can be overwhelming and repel those with Autism and should be avoided to include this audience in marketing materials.

Dyslexia

Ten percent (10%) of the population are dyslexic; 4% severely so. There are a variety of design issues that can contribute negatively such as inconsistent layouts, copy that forces the reader to remember information from other sections, difficult to read fonts, excessive information in a single space, or information that has not been broken up into smaller bits via headings, bulleted lists etc.

Hearing

Across all age groups, in the United States, approximately 1,000,000 people (0.38% of the population, or 3.8 per 1,000) over 5 years of age are “functionally deaf;” more than half are over 65 years of age. Being compatible with this audience means including necessary tools such as closed captions and alternatives to phone communication as well as providing options to work with interpreters when needed.

Dexterity Issues

Tremors: The importance of considering dexterity issues when creating buttons on websites or precise actions in order for users to navigate is paramount when looking at just a few of the causes of dexterity disfunction and the surprising number of people that struggle with some form of tremor. These people, that in every other manner remain potential customers, have special considerations in layout and compatibility with special user tools that advertisers should take into account if they would like to target this sizeable audience. It is estimated that 400,000 people with MS, 1.7 million with Traumatic Brain Injury, and 50 million with neurological disorders or stroke will all struggle with dexterity issues. This does not include the myriad of other causes of limited dexterity such as side effects from certain medicines, withdrawal symptoms, or anxiety. These individuals do not come from one cross section of the population and lack of consideration for limited dexterity will detract from the potential of advertising to audiences across the board.

Currently, diversity marketing is employed by any business seeking to reach new customers in different racial, ethnic, cultural, or social groups. It is particularly important when interacting with the global marketplace, as audiences in different countries rarely respond to the same message in the same way.

African-Americans were the first group identified as requiring a different marketing approach. In contrast, Asian-Americans have been historically lumped into the “general market” category, as they were supposed to have been more acculturated and not that different from whites. Only recently have marketers been using diversity approaches to Asian-Americans, who as a population tend to be more educated, have higher incomes, make more technology purchases, and participate more in social media.

Hispanics currently represent the fastest-growing of these populations, and now outnumber African-Americans in the U.S. market. However, they do not represent a single consumer group. Spanish-speaking first-generation immigrants, for example, respond differently to advertising messages than their bilingual and English-speaking children. Additionally, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, and various other subgroups (including White Hispanics) differ from one another; so any diversity marketing towards Hispanics must actually be further diversified into smaller component markets.

The LGBT community may be a small segment—perhaps five to seven percent of the general market—but communication among members contributes to high returns in terms of referrals and loyalty purchases. Difference in family structure affect their buying patterns; also, those in this demographic tend to have more disposable income than do consumers with large families.

Effective diversity marketing means adapting the message to the market, instead of trying to adapt the market to the message. A poor attempt to reach diverse customers would be to develop an ad campaign first, and then try to tack on a multicultural aspect (for instance, by using the exact same advertising, only with pictures of African-American or Hispanic individuals). The effective diversity campaign starts with the multicultural context in mind. Market research is done on the target consumers—not just their buying habits, but their values, ideals, perceptions, and methods of communication. Today’s diverse consumer base is fairly advertising-savvy; they can spot the difference between an authentic message and a copy-pasted message with a new color palette.

• McDonald’s has done extensive market research on ethnic perspectives, and how such insights impact mainstream communication. Their “I’m Loving It” campaign is one well-known product of their investment.
• Proctor and Gamble has invested a great deal in the black community, and commercials for products such as Tide, Oil of Olay, and Pantene regularly feature black families (and fathers, particularly) that resonate with African-American consumers.
• Target similarly has released commercials that show black families according to their own values and ideals, as opposed to stereotypical or pop-cultural depictions.
• Saturn has reached out to the LGBT market, sponsoring LGBT events and developing advertising specific to that community (“Does your ride reflect your pride?”) that resonate with its values.
• Harley Davidson started marketing to women by creating classes to teach women to ride.
• AT&T finds marketing to diverse racial and ethnic groups important enough to have an executive position (vice president of diverse markets) devoted entirely to such campaigns.

Resource provided by http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/diversity-marketing.html

There are a myriad of advertising techniques that can be used to influence teens. Bootstrap recognizes these as very effective, and condemns the all too frequent abuse of this knowledge in the marketing industry. We feel it is our responsibility as adults and as advertisers to proceed with caution when using these methods and require all Bootstrap clients to fairly market to children and teens without an abuse of power occurring.

Social Inclusion

Advertising a product in a way that presents teenage consumers as part of the in crowd could be profitable for your business. For instance, if your company sells shoes or clothing, creating a commercial in which a socially outcast or nerdy teen suddenly becomes popular and appealing to her peer group when she puts on the shoes or clothing may be attractive to teens. Advertise an electronic device in a way that suggests that only the most intelligent and savvy teenagers have the product. Create a commercial that displays other teens showing interest in and vying for the attention of the teen who has purchased the electronic device.

Originality

Even though teenagers want to be socially accepted, they want to be seen as individuals. Market your product in a way that suggests a teen can be one of a kind by becoming one of your customers — for example, a jewelry company that creates initial charms so that teens can customize bracelets or necklaces. Advertising a phone or computer that teens can decorate in a variety of colors and designs also encourages individuality while promoting a trendy product that may increase the teenager’s popularity among his peers.

Adult Sensibilities

While teenagers like to have fun and be carefree, many teenagers want to be taken seriously as young adults. Executing promotional campaigns that suggest teens are committed to being responsible and making wise choices can result in more young consumers for your company. Advertising accessories such as watches or glasses in a way that suggests that the items are on trend but sophisticated may prove effective for teenagers. Showcasing a model wearing a watch or pair of glasses who is fashionable but modestly dressed with minimal makeup makes the product appear sensible. Depict the model in class or at a job interview to present the product in a mature, adult light. Including other teens, as well as adults, in the marketing ad who show their approval to the model appeals to a teenager’s need to be accepted.

Social Causes

Teenagers who are aware of world happenings that require the assistance of charities want to make a difference in their communities. Partnering with a local charity could help teens take your company seriously, particularly if you choose a charitable cause that is important to young people. For instance, if your clothing store partners with a charity that donates clothing to underprivileged children, encourage teen customers to bring in gently used clothing and offer a discount on your inventory for each bag of clothing brought in. Or enter teens into a drawing that makes them eligible for a college scholarship sponsored by a local charity each time they make a purchase.

Resources for more info: http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/advertising-techniques-teenagers-14084.html
Info above modified from this article for Presentation