Interview with Jordan Lane of Email Moxie
Jordan Lane is an Email Marketing Expert. He is the founder of the blog http://www.emailmoxie.com/ and is also a contributor to the blog http://www.emailresponsibly.com/.
Who needs a whole website when you can just have one word?
Yep – just a single word – No design, No images, No, well… point… to be honest – but these one word viral sites really speak to us. They amuse on such a basic level that they often immediately go viral and seem to draw traffic stats which laugh at all our SEO optimised masterpieces by suceeding without any obvious effort at all to do so. Read more
New iPhone app for freelancers – Laptop Friendly Cafes
iPhone apps are cropping up for everything – one of my favourite new ones being the new app which allows you to find a tube stop wherever you are using googlemaps (which can be seen on engadget here).
But another one, aimed at freelancers which helps you find cafes where it is easy to setup and work online using your laptop has just been released.
The iPhone app called ‘Laptop friendly cafes’ does exactly that – and has data for several major cities including London and utilises the iPhone Geolocation and Google Maps & Directions features. It is easy to use and is quite handy if you need to find somewhere nearby to get some work done.
The new app can be downloaded here: http://tinyurl.com/yjwqj3u
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Interview: SpyreStudios
I cam across SpyreStudios the other day and was impressed with their WordPress customisation and web design portfolio so caught up with Jon Phillips to find out more about the company and his experiences:
Will share to social replace forward to a friend in email marketing?
I read a post on Email Responsibly which details figures from a series of email tests to see which links people used when presented with a range of options to share their email with others.
The question posed is an interesting concept, I must admit that I hadn’t until now considered the idea that share to social might ever fully replace forward to a friend in email marketing.
Social networking offers users a place where they can share links and comments with a much wider audience with a single click – and I can see how that would be appealing to both the sender and he recipient. The uptake on social networks is also still growing so it looks likely that this trend is only likely to increase in the near future.
Want to engage your customers using social media? Can Facebook really return a high ROI for B2C campaigns?
These are questions I have been asking myself more and more recently.
Is the use of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other social media really something that can directly increase profits and return a high ROI? Are such activities useful for brand awareness and for increasing your online presence in a way which will only ever indirectly increase businesses and will always be a secondary activity? Or is it just something everyone is doing, so we feel we should be doing as well – even if the market is so full now, with a mix of those doing things well and badly, that people are beginning to ignore attempts to engage them in their social networks… will they end up being ignored more and more and go the way of the banner advert?
A bit of shameless self promotion – How to get business for your graphic design services
I hate to use the phrase, but in these ‘credit crunch’ times self promotion for freelancers has by necessity become quite competitive. The best way to gain business, in my opinion, is via referrals, and I have always worked using this basis. If I do great work and stay in touch with my clients, they will suggest me to people they know and give good references. And ideally I would gain all my business by this method. The best clients are those who are engaged with your ideas, trust your work and have spoken to someone who they know who has given a glowing review.
However, everyone’s budgets are tight and spending in some areas of marketing and advertising has decreased or at least moved to another channel. I have seen some companies taking as much work away from agencies and moving it in-house in order to try to produce the same amount of work for less overhead. I have seen clients halve budgets for departments I have generally worked with for their company. I have also seen companies who used to do a lot of direct mail and resisted methods such as email marketing starting to swap over. They have done the maths and see that for them it can be much cheaper and that the material created can often be tweaked and reused for a much lower cost per send. That isn’t to say that people have stopped using print. It is just an example of how some marketing departments are changing the way they spend their budgets to stretch their pennies further. And shifts like these affect the freelance world, in fact they affect every graphic designer’s job. More and more companies are looking for designers with design and also AS or CSS skills than ever before, I would go so far as to say that although great print designers are still in high demand, there are less slots for them to fill compared to online designers or those with a mix of skill sets.
Thinking outside the box – business card designs which don't play by the rules & look great
Business cards are something which are often thrown in with any stationary and branding design order: A white rectangle, some text, a logo and maybe, if your feeling adventurous, a picture on the back. And often, this is the best route to take. White business cards can be written on, and simple text and a lack of pictures keeps costs right down in these credit crunch times. Also for some industries breaking outside the norm will show you up not as a free thinking genius – but as someone who just doesn’t know the industry conventions and looks unprofessional rather than unique. It all really depends on what you do and who you plan to give your business cards too. A simple case of the right design for the right client. There are however, times when breaking the rules is in the clients interests. Where money is no object and the business card is more than just a calling card of information, but more of an advert for the services provided, something truly creative and unique can be designed.
A useful resource for freelancers to find wi-fi & laptop friendly cafes to work in
I spotted a website via a post on the Creative agency freelancing blog this morning which pointed out a potentially useful resource for freelancer designers, in fact for anyone working freelance at all, who have a laptop and need to find a good place to work outside their normal office for a few hours.
I normally work from home (I have basically turned my home into a studio which suits me fine!) but sometimes I have meetings in central London or elsewhere throughout the day or just want a change of scenery. I have wi-fi, but even my garden gets boring after a while. The answer? Pop into a cafe somewhere where I can use a laptop and work away when I am waiting to go to a meeting or just want a change of scene.
Typography soap? The perfect novelty gift for any type lover :)
Just spotted this – absolute gem
Typography soap!
