April 5th, 2012
This month I’ll be taking a much-needed vacation with my mother to Italy—a dream trip that’s been years in planning. As a result, Mix Creative will be closed from April 19–May 2. Please send non-critical requests to me or use the form on our contact page.
With all of this talk of travel, it’s got me thinking about women and travel. For example, according to Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan, trips where female friends and family travel together—dubbed “Girlfriend Getaways”—are increasing in popularity. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: marketing to women, travel decisions, women
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April 5th, 2012
How to Write Effective Blog Content For Women
For several years now, we’ve touted the power of blogs to drive traffic to your site, position your company as an expert in the field, and inform current and prospective customers about products. Turns out, blogging can be equally beneficial when marketing to women online. Why?
Well, for starters, women are nearly twice as likely as men to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information (64%), advice and recommendations (43%) and opinion-sharing (55%), and 45 percent of survey respondents stated that they decided to purchase an item after reading about it on a blog (1). Consider how women shop online, and a deeper picture emerges: studies show that women research products and services extensively before making a purchase, mirroring how women shop in brick-and-mortar stores (2). And, women spend about 20% more time on retail sites overall than men; 25% of that time is spent comparison shopping (3).
So what should you blog about? Here are three tips for creating blog content that will resonate with women:
BLOG TIP #1: Write honestly about your products and provide exclusive insights. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: blog tips, blog writing for women, effective blogging, marketing to women
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April 5th, 2012
THREE TIPS TO USE PINTEREST TO HELP YOUR BUSINESS
Pinterest, a virtual visual bulletin board, is getting a lot of buzz these days—and for good reason. Attracting primarily women (68%) with average annual incomes of $100,000+, this social media site has shown itself to be a major source of referral traffic on the internet, outpacing YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. If you’re a business marketing to women, it’s time you take advantage of how Pinterest can increase traffic to your site and better target your products and services to your audiences. Here are three tips to get started:
1. Get on Pinterest. Using either a Facebook or a Twitter login, you can start a Pinterest account and give it your company name. Once you’ve got an account, you can create boards—categories of images that focus on a topic. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: board ideas, focus group, marketing, Pinterest
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April 3rd, 2012
In today’s social world, a quick and effective apology is a company’s best strategy for damage control after committing an error in customer service. Here’s a great example of such an apology I received from 48hourPrint.com. Not only did they manage to apologize and make things right with a 15% discount and free shipping, but they also subtly communicated that their company’s services are in demand. Genius!
Also of note: they clearly explained what happened without excuses and communicated how they are fixing the issue.
The cute little monster doesn’t hurt either. Well done, 48hourPrint!
Tags: corporate apology, email apology, mea culpa
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April 3rd, 2012
HOW I LOST MY LAPTOP IN CHICAGO, AND HOW WHAT I LEARNED TAUGHT ME ABOUT PEOPLE AND MARKETING
My story started with a visit to Chicago on business to attend the International Freelancers Conference. It was the second biggest investment I’d made in my business at the time—the first being my shiny new MacBook Pro. Initially I had planned to catch a ride with another attendee on her small puddle-jumper, but when the clouds threatened rain that morning, I booked a trip by train, keeping my options open for the way home.
The conference was great—I learned so much about running and marketing a design business. On the last day, I opened my laptop in the hotel lobby and proceeded to book my train trip home to Minneapolis. But the trains were all full.
Slightly inconvenienced, I hailed a cab and headed over to the bus station. Not my first choice, but it’d do. When I got there, the place was packed. The buses were all full. I was checked out of my hotel with no place to go. Stuck in the Chicago bus station.
“What gives? I didn’t think it would be difficult to catch a bus home to Minneapolis,” I moaned to no one in particular.
“It’s Columbus Day weekend,” said a woman who glanced up at me from her newspaper. “People headed home to see their families, I guess.” I wondered when Columbus Day became such a big stinking holiday. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: audiences, lost laptop, people and marketing
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March 5th, 2012
BUSINESS CARDS FOR FLORAL AND HOME DECOR STORE
Recently, we had the opportunity to design the identity, website and business cards for a new store: Forget Me Not In Stillwater. For the design, we drew upon a combination of trellis-style frames and old world illustrations with fresh, contemporary colors. Here’s the result:
Pin It
Posted in Design Tricks and Tips, Marketing to Women, News from Mix, Uncategorized | No Comments »
March 5th, 2012
GREAT OVERVIEW OF PINTEREST
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March 1st, 2012
AIRBRUSHING EXPOSED IN THIS CLEVER VIDEO
Photoshop is the tool of design professionals for all kinds of reasons, but this video illustrates—in humorous fashion—the amazing retouching abilities of the program.
Tags: airbrushing, Photoshop, Retouching
Posted in Design Tricks and Tips | No Comments »
February 14th, 2012
IN HONOR OF VALENTINE’S DAY, here are a few design and marketing-related sites I love (and hope you’ll love, too!).
- Veer.com. Sure, there are a lot of free font sites out there, but this one only has the best. Count on Veer fonts to have all kinds of great character alternates and lots of faces from which to select. Plus, with the addition of low-cost images, their well-curated image library is a must for designers on all budgets.
- Thebestdesigns.com. This is a gallery of exceptional website designs that will inspire and amaze. It’s a great starting point for any design project.
- Ted.com. Whenever I’m feeling stuck, I know I’ll find inspiration from any of the thousands of stories and videos from thought leaders of all walks of life on this site.
- Paper-source.com. Paper Source is always on trend when it comes to colors and invitation design. Their unique envelope shapes and sizes help me to think more creatively about print mailers.
- Netted by the Webbys. An e-newsletter that presents top websites and apps that are out there. They search the internet and bring the trends to me, so I don’t have to!
Tags: design inspiration, fonts, graphic design, marketing, Valentine's Day
Posted in Design Tricks and Tips | No Comments »
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