20 Terms Often Heard from Website and Print Design Providers, Explained
At ACS, we always try to communicate with our clients in plain English, not insider jargon. But some words, phrases and acronyms are unavoidable when we’re explaining what we’re going to do for, or need from, them. So here’s our cheat sheet to help you get through your next designer conversation without batting an eye.
Website Design
Wireframe: A diagram of how a website’s pages will be organized. The wireframe should be approved by you before actual site building begins.
Responsive: A website that automatically adjusts to the screen size and shape it’s being viewed on.
Below the fold: The part of the website page not visible on screen unless the user scrolls down to it.
UI: User interface. The website design the user will see.
UX: User experience. How the website behaves, navigates and/or responds to user activity.
Print Design
Bleed: When the design calls for printed elements (i.e. photos) to go to the very edge of the page, we extend those elements 1/4″ beyond the trim line to allow for any slight slippages during trimming.
Gutter: The folded center of a brochure, catalog or magazine, where it’s hard to see type or images. The more pages in the printed piece, the wider the gutter becomes.
Type safety: For the same reason that we do bleed, all typography should be kept at least 1/4″ inside the trim line.
Images
CMYK, RGB: Systems used to reproduce an image in combinations of colored dots. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) is preferred for print. RGB (red, green, blue) is used for websites. If a client provides an image in the wrong format, it may have to be converted.
Resolution, DPI: The number of dots per inch (DPI). For websites, 72 DPI will give you good quality. But for print, at least 300 DPI is required. If we used your website images for your brochure, the result would be as blurry as a newspaper photo from the 1940s.
Raster file: A photo or graphic design composed of dots or pixels. To display correctly, the raster file must be the exact dimensions required by the design. File types: .jpg, .gif, .png, .tif.
Vector file: An image NOT built out of dots. Vector files don’t have to be a specific size and can be enlarged without becoming grainy or distorted, so they’re ideal for multi-use graphics like logos. File types: .ai, .eps, .pdf, .svg.
COB, silo, silhouette: They all mean to cut out the background from an element in an image, such as the person in a photo or the shape in a logo. Usually done so that the element can then be layered onto a different background.
Text
Font: A specific typography design. When you buy a font, it will include upper and lower case letters, numbers, punctuation marks and symbols.
Kerning, tracking: Two words for the same thing: the space between the letters of a word.
Leading: The vertical space between lines of type.
Points, picas: Units of size measurement for lettering and spacing.
5 Content Marketing Success Stories
Leverage Sales with One of the Hottest Marketing Trends
There’s a reason why content marketing has been called the strategy of the century: its phenomenal success. The key is to choose what type of content is right for your business and marketing goals. Let’s look at 5 popular types and how they brought success to organizations of all sizes.
1. Blue Apron: FaceBook community.
Blue Apron’s subscription delivery of 5 star recipes and ingredients enables home cooks to be gourmet chefs. The start-up spread the word about their innovative service on their FaceBook page, which now has 1.2 million fans who share tips, comments and photos of their results.
Success: In 2015 Blue Apron grew by 500 percent, delivering 5 million meal kits per month.
2. ADP: white papers.
This business processes outsource provider created a collection of white papers on human resources topics, and a website search engine that allowed users to select articles related to their industry.
Success: $1 million worth of new leads in the first three months.
3. Callaway Golf: YouTube how-to’s.
Instructional videos on game techniques have been a big hit for the golf equipment manufacturer. Even though they contain no product sales messaging, the videos convince viewers of the company’s expertise and customer service.
Success: One video alone received 30,000 views in one year.
4. Crowe Horwath: B2B infographics.
The accounting and consulting firm targeted financial institutions with $1 billion or more in assets using a variety of infographics, case studies and executive briefs. The informative materials received a large volume of views, shares and contact requests from corporate decision makers.
Success: One infographic generated close to 800 new contacts, two of whom brought in $250,000 in new business.
5. Red Bull: live streaming events.
Well known for its innovative content marketing tactics, the energy drink scores its biggest win by live streaming extreme sports events from all over the world. This content isn’t directly related to their product at all, but rather to the things their customers are interested in; thus proving that any content that delivers real value to the customer can pay off big.
Success: Audiences actively seek out Red Bull’s content, which generates triple the sales of its nearest competitor and attracts third party advertising.
Additional content marketing options you could consider range from blogs and newsletters to webinars and product demonstrations. What’s not an option is to get left behind as this marketing trend goes on to an even bigger and brighter future.
Small Business Start-Up to Scale-Up in 5 Steps
Building a Business to the Next Level
Your small business may have started in one room, with a few friends for employees. But no matter how successful you’ve been so far, this business model won’t allow you to grow into the enterprise level company of your dreams. It’s time for a clear look at what has to change.
1. Focus on resale value.
Like a real estate investment, your business should be desirable to future buyers. Even if you have no intention of ever selling, you may someday want to obtain financing for a growth project, form an enterprise partnership or issue public stock. Outsiders will be evaluating your company, and you’ll want them to like what they see.
2. Analyze your processes.
Are your billings/receivables a tad slow? Employees consistently putting in overtime to meet deadlines? Equipment at maximum capacity? Areas where you’re just managing to squeak by now will completely break down under heavier demands in the future. Give them room to grow with more staff, better software, outsourcing, etc.
3. Pick customers’ brains.
You’ll never know how well you’re really serving their needs unless you ask. And their needs may not be the same now as when you started the business. Use their input to guide your company’s next moves and grow in the right direction.
4. Hire for expertise, not friendship.
Your buddies gave it their all to help your business get off the ground. But to grow to the next level, you’ll need true specialists in key positions, from sales to accounting to production management. Find ways to redistribute responsibilities so that new hires can contribute effectively to the long-term growth of the company.
5. Get everyone on board.
It’s one thing to identify what needs changing, another to put changes into practice. You may decide to introduce a new CRM system, a platform that automates routine tasks, or a process that prevents duplication of effort. In almost every case, you will then encounter resistance to the learning curve, elimination of jobs or risk of failure. You can minimize this by making sure everyone involved understands the benefits of the change to the business as a whole and each of them as participants in the company’s future success.
Top 5 Marketing Trends in Web Design
5 Functionalities Your Site Needs to Stay Competitive
As the internet continues to evolve, user expectations of quality and efficiency are rising right along with it. Here’s how your website should perform now and in the year ahead.
1. Responsive Design
This is the single best way to ensure that your site won’t be unusable anytime soon. A responsive site automatically adjusts to the size and shape of screen it’s being viewed on, from a 25″ desktop computer to a 5″ smartphone. Whatever new web-enabled gadgets come on the market, a responsive website is ready for them.
2. Speed and Efficiency
Slow loading web pages are not tolerated anymore. If you haven’t captured visitors’ interest in less than three seconds, they’ll be gone. Likewise, it’s not enough to have good content: that content must be presented in a smart design that allows for fast and easy comprehension.
3. SEO through Content Marketing
The keyword stuffing tactics of yesteryear are dead as a doornail, thanks to ever-improving search engine algorithms that screen out the garbage. To get high search engine rankings now, your website content must be truly valuable to the user. And keywords must not exceed 2% of the total word count.
4. Video Content
Video has everything today’s users want: it’s faster than reading and more dynamic than blocks of text. Even for business-to-business websites, a video is pretty much a must if they don’t want to be left in the dust, as these statistics show.
5. Interactive Content
Nothing engages users like an experience they can participate in rather than just take in. Forums, quizzes, opinion polls, contests and 360-degree (walk-through) videos are some of the most popular forms of interactive content that you can add to your website. There’s another benefit as well: when users share their needs and preferences, you can use that (free!) information to make all your marketing efforts more effective.
ACS Creative New Site Launch: InsuraLease
ACS Creative launches Insura-lease.com, the only “Lease Here Pay Here” dealer insurance program.
Insuralease puts you in total control because it’s YOUR policy. You offer lessees the opportunity to buy in, and they reimburse you for the premium. Use our proprietary website to monitor policy status, add/delete vehicles, get a quote and close the sale with just a couple of clicks, 24/7. It’s a whole new level of convenience and security … for both you and your lessees.
Insuralease is a computerized system that makes the process of issuing insurance to the lessee simple and streamlined. We have been running a similar insurance program for large fleet management companies since 1995. These companies lease cars to businesses that need hundreds of vehicles at a time for their sales forces. We took the fundamentals of this program to develop an insurance program specific to Lease Here Pay Here dealers that has never been done before.
ACS Honored with U.S. Marines Iraq Combat Flag
A Surprising and Humbling Gift from One of Our Favorite Clients
We’ve known U.S. Marine Lieutenants Polycarpe Depe, Emily Eckman and Bethanie Simms since they first decided to set up a charitable organization to support wounded U.S. service members and their families. It’s been our pleasure to create the website for The Org Foundation, and help out in any way we can.
We have been privileged to use our talents to benefit those who have served, fought and sacrificed to safeguard our priceless American freedoms. Every one of them deserve our thoughts and prayers. We certainly didn’t expect them to take time to think of us while on active duty!
Yet, that’s exactly what they did. And here’s what we received: a commemorative flag that was flown aboard a VMGR-352 Squadron aircraft in Iraq and signed by all the members of the flight crew! We will proudly display this flag in our office.
This Memorial Day, we ask all our friends, family, clients and partners to remember the service men and women we have lost … and make a donation to The Org Foundation or the service charity of your choice. Because we owe them a debt that can never be repaid. Thank you Depe, Emily and Bethanie for all you have sacrificed.
Your Handy Dandy Designer Translator
20 Terms Often Heard from Website and Print Design Providers, Explained
At ACS, we always try to communicate with our clients in plain English, not insider jargon. But some words, phrases and acronyms are unavoidable when we’re explaining what we’re going to do for, or need from, them. So here’s our cheat sheet to help you get through your next designer conversation without batting an eye.
Website Design
Wireframe: A diagram of how a website’s pages will be organized. The wireframe should be approved by you before actual site building begins.
Responsive: A website that automatically adjusts to the screen size and shape it’s being viewed on.
Below the fold: The part of the website page not visible on screen unless the user scrolls down to it.
UI: User interface. The website design the user will see.
UX: User experience. How the website behaves, navigates and/or responds to user activity.
Print Design
Bleed: When the design calls for printed elements (i.e. photos) to go to the very edge of the page, we extend those elements 1/4″ beyond the trim line to allow for any slight slippages during trimming.
Gutter: The folded center of a brochure, catalog or magazine, where it’s hard to see type or images. The more pages in the printed piece, the wider the gutter becomes.
Type safety: For the same reason that we do bleed, all typography should be kept at least 1/4″ inside the trim line.
Images
CMYK, RGB: Systems used to reproduce an image in combinations of colored dots. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) is preferred for print. RGB (red, green, blue) is used for websites. If a client provides an image in the wrong format, it may have to be converted.
Resolution, DPI: The number of dots per inch (DPI). For websites, 72 DPI will give you good quality. But for print, at least 300 DPI is required. If we used your website images for your brochure, the result would be as blurry as a newspaper photo from the 1940s.
Raster file: A photo or graphic design composed of dots or pixels. To display correctly, the raster file must be the exact dimensions required by the design. File types: .jpg, .gif, .png, .tif.
Vector file: An image NOT built out of dots. Vector files don’t have to be a specific size and can be enlarged without becoming grainy or distorted, so they’re ideal for multi-use graphics like logos. File types: .ai, .eps, .pdf, .svg.
COB, silo, silhouette: They all mean to cut out the background from an element in an image, such as the person in a photo or the shape in a logo. Usually done so that the element can then be layered onto a different background.
Text
Font: A specific typography design. When you buy a font, it will include upper and lower case letters, numbers, punctuation marks and symbols.
Kerning, tracking: Two words for the same thing: the space between the letters of a word.
Leading: The vertical space between lines of type.
Points, picas: Units of size measurement for lettering and spacing.
ACS Creative Launches Official Site of K-Rex Racing
ACS Creative launches the Official Site of Kaylen Frederick, the youngest open wheel Pro Racing Driver in the USA.
www.K-RexRacing.com
Born on 4 June 2002, Kaylen Frederick is the youngest open wheel Pro Racing Driver in the USA.
Kaylen’s racing in open wheel formula F1600 cars launched at PBIR & Sebring in February of 2016 at age 13. Kaylen Rex Frederick, known to friends as K-Rex, is the youngest open wheel Pro Racing Driver in the USA.
At the age of seven, Kaylen started his motorsport career, racing at Summit Point Karts. From there, six successful years in Karting followed, bringing us to season 2016, which sees Kaylen step up to single seaters and join Team Pelfrey for the F1600 Championship.
Managing the Cost of Google’s Premium PPC Keywords
4 Tips for Most-Clicked Industries to Optimize Search Engine Marketing
Did you know that Google makes 97% of its money from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising? Through Google AdWords, a business can have its website appear on a search results page whenever the searcher enters the keywords the business has specified.
But the cost per click (CPC) of those keywords ranges from $0.05 to $50.00+, depending on their popularity. As you’ll see from the following list of top 10 most expensive keywords, certain types of businesses will unavoidably pay more for their Google search engine marketing (SEM).
The 10 Most Expensive Keywords
But even if your business falls into one of these categories, you can reduce your SEM costs. Here are a few tricks of the trade.
1. Improve your AdWords Quality Score.
AdWords ranks your PPC advertising on the basis of its quality, relevance and performance. A higher score means a better position for your ads as well as lower CPC. So it pays to invest in keyword research, organize your keywords into highly focused groups, and write ads that will increase click-through rates.
2. Use long tail (3 to 5 word) keywords.
Making your desired search terms as specific as possible may reduce your total number of clicks, but will give you a higher percentage of clicks that lead to conversion. For example, you might specify “real estate attorney” instead of just “attorney” in order to avoid clicks from people seeking representation in a criminal case.
You also save money because the CPC of a keyword is determined by bid. A long tail keyword is likely to get fewer bids on it, so it costs less.
3. Specify negative keywords.
Negative keywords are the ones you DON’T want your ad appearing for. They might seem (to Google) to be related to your business or target audience, but any clicks you’d get through them are almost guaranteed to be a waste of money. For example, if you sell home equity loans, you might specify “auto loans” as a negative keyword.
4. Test your landing page.
When people click through in response to your PPC ad, is your landing page doing its job? Average AdWords conversion rate is around 2%, but you can do much better with a really effective landing page. The key is to test various offers to see what works best.
5 Techniques to Determine if your Competition is Out-Marketing You
Keep Ahead by Keeping an Eye on Their Marketing Strategy
Monitoring the competition’s media presence is standard practice for big companies with mega-budgets for marketing analysis. But smaller businesses can also get in on the game with these 5 easy, cost-effective techniques.
1. Check out their website.
Watch for updates like product launches, added site capabilities and customer responses — anything that might indicate they’re getting a jump on you in terms of products and/or services. You might also notice things that aren’t working so well, and take advantage by offering your superior version to customers.
2. Follow their social media.
As a follower of their company pages on FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., you’ll be automatically informed of any marketing activity that takes place there (and how well it’s succeeding).
3. Monitor their activity internet-wide.
Through the free Google Alerts service, you can be notified of any online activity by your competitor that you specify, such as news, blogs and video posts. You can also choose whether to receive the alerts as they happen or batched daily or weekly.
4. Shop their products and services.
First-hand experience of how they deliver their brand shines a bright light on what they’re doing better than you, and vice versa. While you’re “shopping,” examine everything from product assortments and prices, to package design, to customer experience.
5. Receive their e-mail and direct mail promotions.
It’s easy to get your name on their mailing lists. Then everything they’re doing in these marketing channels will be delivered to your in-box for free. Through their website you can usually request the company brochures and other sales literature; or you can pick them up at the company’s trade show booth. (If you think you’ll be recognized, get an anonymous friend to do it.)
Consistency breeds success.
The key to these monitoring practices is to do them on a regular basis. You’ve probably noticed that they cost little or nothing in dollars, but you do need to invest a bit of time. The good news is that knowing your competitor’s marketing strategy gives you the edge in staying one step ahead.
Marketing Your Business: Don’t Leave Out LinkedIn
It’s Not Just for Job Seekers Anymore
“LinkedIn is for finding a job. What does it have to do with marketing my business?” You may well be asking this question if the last time you visited LinkedIn was to update your resume. LinkedIn has changed as much as Facebook, and now offers huge opportunities for businesses to generate brand awareness, leads and sales … at much lower cost than traditional marketing media. It all starts with a well-planned company page, which can:
Acquire customers.
A network of your current customers, employees, vendors and partners provides the same incredible, ever-expanding reach as FaceBook; but better, because all these connections are business-related. And you can expect more and faster conversions from prospects who learn of you through LinkedIn referrals and recommendations than other media.
Although not strictly necessary, you can drive even more interested traffic to your page with LinkedIn’s paid advertising. These highly targeted ads are seen by the decision makers who need exactly what you sell.
Develop partnerships.
Forging alliances with businesses whose products and services complement yours benefits both organizations, whether by referring customers to each other or by creating joint venture products. And there’s no better place to find such partners than LinkedIn, which makes it easy to check up on reputation, performance and customer base.
Build public relations.
Your company page needn’t (and shouldn’t) be limited to “about us” type information. You can incorporate a wide variety of content to attract attention, expand brand recognition, position yourself as an industry authority, manage public opinion … and ultimately increase sales.
To achieve this particular goal requires a bigger investment of time, because you must update your page consistently with new content. To maximize your return on this investment, consider LinkedIn’s sponsored updates program, which puts your posts in front of a specified target audience and is paid for on a cost-per-click basis.
Go where your customers are.
Marketing has always been about reaching customers where they live. In the 21st century they live online; so, to effectively market your business, you need to live there, too. And LinkedIn is one of the hottest addresses you can have.