Business owners typically know their industry better than anyone else. They know what sells, they are familiar with their clientele, and they live and breathe their business every day. So wouldn’t it make sense for a business owner to put this knowledge to good use and design their company’s logo? A better plan would be for the business owner to be directly involved in the design of their logo. Here’s why:

Know what sells
Although Jake who sells hockey sticks knows a lot about the brands he carries and what his customers want, he probably has not studied marketing tactics. He may not understand which colors give off positive connotations to his customers. If he sells online and has a large market base in Japan, he may not know how the colors of his logo can affect these customers differently. When choosing a company name or adding a slogan, Jake needs to know which words are more likely to help him sell. Will he be able to create a logo which gives the right feeling to his audience, and be effective and memorable? (Not to mention, can he draw?) One can be so close to their own product that they may not be able to give the right message to their customers. But if Jake works closely with his designer to describe the feeling of winning the big game, of holding that lucky hockey stick as you shoot a goal, and all the other things he wants his customers to think about, a good designer should be able to incorporate these elements along with marketing techniques to create a logo that shouts out the right message.

Know the techie stuff
Only a logo that is designed properly will print properly. The designer needs to understand image resolution and color process. Nothing looks less professional than a fuzzy logo on a business card! Fuzzy or grainy artwork is the result of low resolution files being used for print work. For a logo to look great when printed, it should be created with a vector based artwork program. This allows the logo to be enlarged and reduced to any size and still be consistent and print clearly. A logo should be tested in shades of grey and black and white before being finalized, so you know how it will look when Xeroxed, or when a tight budget leads to one-color printing. CMYK versions of the logo will be needed for printing, and RGB versions will be needed for online and screen usage. (For more information, see also “Raster vs. Vector Artwork: The right file type for your image”.) Having one logo saved as all these different file types is when a professional comes in handy.

Know the owner
Your logo should be yours and yours alone. If you hope to save money by using clipart to design your logo, you risk infringing upon someone else’s copyright. Most clipart can not be used for commercial purposes without a fee. Some royalty fees only pay for specific uses of the artwork (for instance, istockphoto.com specifically states in their terms that the artwork on their web site may NOT be used for logo design.) A business owner should have the comfort of knowing they are doing everything by the book. And when a designer makes your logo, be sure you own the final copyright.

If you own a business and have a great logo design idea, discuss your logo idea with a professional. You may know how to change the oil in your car, but that does not mean you have the tools to do so. And those professional mechanics will give your whole car a once over when changing the oil. When you talk to a professional about your logo, they can look at it from the point of view of a marketing professional, as someone who understands color theory, and can turn your idea or their own into a professional art piece that you can use without problems for years to come. 

Dear valued article reader,

To thank you for your loyal readership, I’ve enclosed several astonishing secrets about how to use our handy dandy direct mail marketing system. I hope you’ll take advantage of this exciting offer. Act now and read this article sometime before the next millennium, and you’ll receive these direct mail marketing tips absolutely free!

If you’re like most Americans, you probably sort your mail near the wastebasket so you can expel the junk mail from your presence as quickly as possible. Personally, I like to tear each envelope in half before tossing it in the can. Still, the vast majority of Americans choose direct mail as the method by which they most prefer to be marketed to. Perhaps this is because they can quickly toss away any uninteresting mail. It’s a little more difficult to reach across the phone lines and tear the annoying telemarketer in half…though many of us have probably thought about it.

Unfortunately, most small business owners aren’t familiar with how to make direct mail work for them. In general, there are three basic fundamentals of direct mail marketing: the offer, the advertising copy and the mailing list. The mailing list is the most important. After all, if you’re a lawn service, it’s a waste of money to send your mail piece to an apartment building full of people who don’t have a lawn.

The advertising copy is the most often overlooked part of the direct mail package. Most business owners think that they can just write down a few things about their business and that will motivate people to patronize them. It’s important to realize that people don’t care about your business. They have problems. What they want are solutions for those problems. Outline their problem, and then tell them how you can help them with it. Sticking with the lawn service example, you might say:

“You spend all week working hard at the office. You’d probably like to relax on the weekend, but you’re stuck maintaining your lawn when you could be spending more time with your family. We can help. Let us keep your lawn beautiful while you get some much deserved rest and relaxation.”

The offer is what truly motivates the customer to take action shortly after they receive your mailing. The key is to “make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse”. The best way to do this is to offer something free. For instance, you might offer a month of free lawn maintenance to customers who sign up for a year. It’s best to put a time limit on your offer. Only give them the free month if they act within 2 weeks of receiving your mailing. If you don’t, people are likely to set aside your information to act on later, and then lose it in the pile of stuff they’ve set aside to look at later.

It’s always a good idea to attach some unique identifier to your offer. If the customer has to mention offer code A23X in order to get his free month of lawn maintenance, you’ll know exactly which direct mail pieces are working and which aren’t. This is an important element of direct mail marketing. You will have to keep testing your offers, your advertising copy, the number of repeated mailings required and your mailing list to see what works. Once you’ve got your finger on what works well, you can confidently spend your marketing dollars, knowing the return will outweigh the investment.

These tips just scratch the surface of successful direct mail marketing. I’ll get more in depth in future articles. Until then, start using these pointers and direct mail marketing to your advantage.