Communication Breakdown

When your communication strategies aren't working, you probably identify with one (or more) of the following:

Larry David vs. The Package

If you're still not considering the user's experience when designing your materials, you're making a big mistake.

Marketing Fail #76

Please stop "combining" your years of experience with your business partners' to make your company sound more experienced than it is. If you're claiming to have "over 85 years of combined experience" in any specialty whatsoever, you're not fooling anyone.

It's just bad math, and it makes you look like you're trying too hard.

"Sustainability is the competitive strategy in boom time..."

"Sustainability is the competitive strategy in boom time, turnaround strategy in down time and survival strategy in collapse."

—Hunter Lovins

Keeping It Real Green: PDF Now Available

Yep, I finally got a PDF version of Keeping It Real Green up and online:



> Click to Download <

It's begging to be expanded into a full-on e-book, so if there are additional issues or subjects you'd like to see covered, do let me know.

To read about the design thinking that went into the guide, or to order a hard copy version, go here and fill out the form at the bottom of the page.

Is It Worth Paying Extra for Professional Expertise?

Listen, I'm a big fan of DIY. I'm also a fan of bootstrapping, and self-education. But it's so important to know your limitations - to know when you just don't know enough - and to pay someone who does. When you hire a pro, you get someone with both expertise and experience, which translates into better work overall. More importantly, perhaps, it results in fewer screw-ups on your project and actually less money invested over the long term, even if the pro costs more (good clean-ups get mighty pricey, especially because folks are often in a hurry to get the clean-up done quick).

Case in point

This is just a simple paint job on a simple delivery van:



One just needs the basic info, a decent painter, and that's that: what could possibly go wrong? Of course, someone with little design experience might not realize that painting an object with moveable parts might result in unaccounted-for scenarios. They may fail to ask the burning question: That looks great on the side of your van, but what happens when you open the door?



So yeah, just think about that the next time you're trying to do something you've never done before. Moral of the post (a.k.a. DIY design tip): account for multiple user scenarios or cough up for an expert who knows what to look for!


[Images from Jalopnik, originally posted to FailBlog]

Keeping It Real Green: How to Market Your Efforts In an Age of Greenwashing

Now that green has become a marketable attribute for better or worse, everybody and their brother is pushing how green they are. And, given the general standards of our fine American culture, that means greenwashing is now just as ubiquitous. I've been watching a rather sad back-and-forth, in which more and more businesses claim they or their products are "green" and consumers roll their eyes and wag their fingers, for a while now. So when I was asked to speak on a panel about greening your business for San Francisco's Small Business Week, I figured it might be helpful to provide some guidance for attendees.

The result is "Keeping It Real Green: How to Market Your Efforts In an Age of Greenwashing," a short little piece of work written to help organizations connect with their customers without lying, misleading, or otherwise confusing the hell out of people. This is a pretty big kettle of fish to fry, of course, and it was difficult to get everything into such a compact format. But believe me, I tried! There's not a lot of fluff in here; this sucker is a legitimately informative resource for any business, however deeply involved in environmental issues it may be.

Get a free guide
Request a free copy using the contact page, or just download the PDF

The pamphlet is printed to order (no wasted overruns here) on French Paper's Speckletone, a 30% PCW recycled sheet made in the U.S. with 100% renewable hydroelectricity.

If you'd like a free copy of the pamphlet, you can request one using the contact page, or give me a call at (415) 643-0121.

I will be expanding this into a PDF, but it may take some time as I'm up to my eyeballs in content for the upcoming relaunch of re-nourish.com (another exciting project I'll talk about soon). The nice thing about the hardcopy version, though, is that you can keep it in your desk drawer for reference. Let me know what you think!

---

Edited 7/22/09: For those of you who might be concerned about my decision to create a printed piece, rather than only produce a PDF version of the guide, please see the comments. A lot of thought went into this, and I've explained that thought process to a commenter who took issue with my terrible choice.

Edited 8/3/09: The PDF has arrived! Download Keeping It Real Green while supplies last!

Come See Me Talk About Greening Your Organization 5/19

I'll be joining a free panel discussion this coming Tuesday about greening your organization for San Francisco's Small Business Week, and we'll be focusing on local resources like the San Francisco Green Business Program. While this is geared toward the practicalities of small businesses, the panel (and accompanying day-long workshop, should you choose to stay) will be seriously helpful to any organization, commercial or nonprofit, looking for practical resources for reducing its environmental impact.

• Date: Tuesday, May 19
  Time: 11:00 am (full day runs 8:45-2:30)
  Location: SBA Entrepreneur Center, 455 Market St. 6th Fl., SF
  Cost: Free
  Register: http://leanandgreen.eventbrite.com/
• 8:45: How I Greened My Business
  10:00: What's In It For My Business
  11:00: Local Government Support and the SF Green Business Program
  11:45: State Support
  12:30: Networking lunch

So if you've been curious about the SF Green Business Program, and you'd like to hear about how it works, how it helps, and how to make the most of it to build your business, please swing by and say hello.

Note: Although registration is recommended, I'm pretty sure you can just show up without registering.

More Adventures in Direct Mail: SF Bike Coalition

Earlier in the week, I dissected the failings of a snail mail campaign that was sent to me by a local arts nonprofit. On that same day, I received another mailing, this time from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who couldn't have taken a more different approach. There was nothing particularly fancy about the envelope's presentation or contents, but it was clear that the group had invested a good deal of energy making this single mailing as effective as possible. Here's how I knew that:

• Bigger envelope means more bang for the buck.
  Although it was a standard 9" x 12" manila envelope, I knew there had to be something juicy inside to warrant such a large mailer. That thing was getting opened out of pure curiosity.
• One message, many materials.
  Turns out the mailing was intended to get my business on board with San Francisco's "Bike to Work Day." Small plugs for the SF Bike Coalition were cleverly scattered throughout the materials (including a copy of the group's newsletter), but they were all directly tied to the issue at hand: Bike to Work Day (the newsletter, for example, contained a Q&A about the event, among other BTWD features). Picking one message and reinforcing it throughout the mailing kept me from getting distracted, detached or confused.
• Appealing to your audience:
  "It is a known fact that employees who arrive at their workplace by bike are alert and productive and are generally healthier employees. Their employers reduce health insurance premiums and avoid costly employee benefit expenses like parking..."
  Overcome objections in advance.
  One of the best aspects of this mailing was the use of social marketing techniques (more on that later). From the opening of the introductory letter to the content of the newsletter, it was clear the Coalition had thought long and hard about what might prevent recipients from acting on their call for participation, and heading these objections off at the pass. The messaging was framed to address common employer concerns, including costs and employee productivity, which made it really easy to be won over.
• Provide the right incentives.
  Finally, the Coalition included a ton of materials to help its audience act on its request for participation in BTWD. Don't know the best way to implement the program among your employees? Follow the enclosed checklist. Unsure of which routes to take, or how hilly the streets are? Check out the enclosed San Francisco Bike Map. Need a way to get the word out to your employees? Post the enclosed BTWD poster. Looking for a fun team project? Take the enclosed Team Bike Challenge. Concerned about safety or getting stranded without a car? No worries, just check out the enclosed pamphlet explaining the San Francisco Emergency Ride Home program. And of course, if you want more info about the event or the Coalition itself, read the enclosed newsletter. Thinking ahead has allowed the Coalition to provide the answer to every potential question in advance, making it incredibly easy to participate.
  

These last two techniques are, as I mentioned, a significant component of social marketing (not to be confused with social media marketing, which relies on web 2.0 tools like Twitter or YouTube to spread a message). Social marketing is an incredibly effective way to encourage positive behavior change in individuals within a group context. It's a little broad to get too detailed here but the SF Bike Coalition, knowingly or not, has adopted several of its most successful principles:

1. They knew their behavior goal (employer participation in Bike to Work Day).
2. They knew their audience (employers with specific concerns about how BTWD would effect their employees health and productivity).
3. They addressed potential barriers for action (not enough information, too dangerous, too costly).
   
4. They included incentives to reinforce the behavior they were looking for (maps, team challenges, emergency rides home, posters).

Now, if they follow up with a phone call asking me if I participated, then they'll really be on point (after all, you need to measure if your campaign worked to know whether it's worth the investment). I only had two real issues with this mailing, and I have to admit they're not minor:

1. They failed to vet their mailing list (although I'm a San Francisco business, I'm not an employer), leading to a lot of wasted paper.
2. They included a lot of paperwork, much of which may get tossed.

That said, it's a relief to get a direct mail piece so thoughtfully directed to its audience. By taking all of the above into account during the design and writing stages, the group has vastly increased the likelihood of a positive response rate. The next time you send something to your constituents, I hope you'll consider these points, too.

How Not to Do Direct Mail

I just received a direct mail solicitation from a wonderful nonprofit that supports local photographers through exhibitions, education and youth mentoring. I wish so much they had taken a different approach with this mailing, because I can't imagine this one will yield the kind of response they're hoping for.

The package arrived in a standard white no. 10 business envelope. It contained a one-page letter, a semi-gloss, full-color, tri-fold brochure that unfolds into a 12" x 18" poster, and a self-addressed, unstamped reply envelope. What's so wrong with this?

• Concealing the goods.
  Why drop coin on a beautifully printed poster-sized piece, and then hide it in a nondescript envelope that makes it look like junk mail? Either gussy up the mailing container, or make the poster a self-mailer that begs to be unfolded immediately.
• Address anonymous.
  "Dear Friend" is no way to address someone when you're asking for their money. In this day and age of variable printing, there's simply no excuse. And if your marketing director doesn't know what variable printing is, you've got an even bigger problem.
  
• Not quite compelling:
  "Your membership is your ticket to a remarkable range of programs and benefits."
  So much copy, so little targeting.
  The front of this single 8.5" x 11" letter included a litany of member "benefits" directed at all kinds of different people—including artists, art lovers, collectors, and who knows who else. Simply laundry listing your organization's features and hoping readers are willing to pick and choose what matters to them is a great way to make sure nobody pays attention to anything. Pick an audience, and write exclusively to them.
  
• Features do not equal benefits.
  And here's another thing: listing what you offer doesn't explain how your audience will benefit. Don't tell me about your exclusive, members-only parties, tell me how I'll make important career connections and discover new trends before they hit the mainstream.
  
• Letterhead overload.
  I understand the desire to acknowledge a nonprofit's staff, board of directors, advisory committee, and curatorial council members, really I do. But if you're printing this on your letterhead, it means you're repeating this information with every single communication you send out. Why? It might hurt to hear, but you need to ask yourself if the reason has more to do with the staff's needs than your audience's.
  

But all this wasn't enough to turn me off and convince me not to give. No, the straw that broke the camel's back was the flip side of the letter. An entire page dedicated to a collaborative art project that I (little old me) was invited to participate in! How exciting, I thought. And all I have to do to be eligible is purchase a membership and send in my own mail art submission? I looked for the cost of membership on the accompanying brochure/poster. $50 ain't bad, considering I'd also get access to the rest of those features listed so exhaustively on the front. And that's when I noticed the deadline for submissions: May 1, 2009. Receipt date of this package? May 1, 2009.

That's right, folks. I was invited to participate in a project—a project that was supposed to sell me on donating to this organization—on the day of the submission deadline, effectively making me ineligible. That's not an oversight. It's not a mistake. It's a slap in the face to your audience.

This is not a time for this kind of ineptitude, folks. Tighten up! Don't waste your marketing dollars on what has the potential to be a highly effective campaign by not thinking it through. If you need expertise, then ask. But nonprofits can't afford to be making these kinds of mistakes right now.

Social Media Innovator or Same Old Corporate Snake Oil?

There's an interesting conversation going on at the Ethicurian, who posted about Monsanto's latest foray into public coercion, a.k.a. blogging. The Ethicurian's initial post was nothing more than a short blurb noting that "the biotech giant has not only launched an ad campaign aimed at food's 'thought leaders,' it's digging into its deep pockets to fund a new Facebook presence, Twitter stream, and a blog." The interesting part? Monsanto's Social Media Director chimed in in the comments. To wit:

"The reality of it is that a small group of employees, (Yes, PR people, imagine that, communications people communicating!), who thought we should be part of the online dialog. The anti-Monsanto crowd seems to feel threatened by this. We felt it was important to start offering counterpoints to some of the more factually challenged assertions about us being spread online." (full comment)

Needless to say, the Ethicurian's readers had plenty to say back. What's so intriguing to me about this exchange is not that Monsanto is using social media in their public relations efforts (every smart corporation is these days). And it's not the content of the dialogue (are we surprised that ethical eaters hate Monsanto and Monsanto is indignant that they're hated?). No, what I find so interesting about all this is that Monsanto's PR department figures it can reframe the company by appearing human.

Chris Paton, Social Media Director for the company, is careful to dissociate himself from his company, which is odd given the purpose of his role. He frames himself as an earnest, can't-be-bought free-thinker:

"Myself and the other team members in my area who are starting to participate in the blogosphere, twitter, facebook, etc.. are doing so in addition to their regular workload. It does indeed take some man(and woman) hours to do so. Even more as we're starting to attract attention for even showing up to the discussion and the cyber-pile-on starts up. I don't dispute that Monsanto has spent a good chunk of change on the ad campaign, but I'm not responsible for that, not involved with that, and wish I had a fraction of a fraction of that budget for what I personally think is a more useful effort, engaging our critics in a dialog to see if we can't make some progress...

...I'm not an expert on every thing Monsanto may or may not have done. If I make a comment one way or another about lobbyists, funding, cow health issues, etc.. it can be torn apart by people...

...I commend you for being committed to speaking out for what you belive. I'm just disappointed that people cant belive that i'm saying what i actually believe. My paycheck doesnt buy my beliefs or my soul. If i belived that Monsanto was guilty of the things i read online on a daily basis, you couldnt pay me enough to be a part of it..."

Monsanto has been struggling with their image of a monolithic, international, bully of a corporate conglomerate for years, and their reputation among so-called ethical eaters is only getting worse as our country's food issues gain coverage in the mainstream. So it's interesting to see their public relations department using social media ("a level playing field," Chris calls it) to reframe the company's brand image. Hell, maybe they are just another group of concerned individuals working for what they believe in.

It's what they believe in that scares me so much.

(As an aside, is it too much to ask of corporate America to at least attempt a little literacy when it comes to posting online?)

Harvard Medical School Misses the Point When it Comes to Fundraising

Some organizations are finding themselves mired in controversy as a result of decisions made in response to the dysfunctional economy. Take Harvard Medical School: it turns out that the school has more professors on the Big Pharma dole than anyone—including students—ever knew. About 18% of Harvard Medical professors have reported that "they or a family member had a financial interest in a business related to their teaching, research or clinical care" (and there's no way to know how many unreported relationships exist). This represents a potentially huge conflict of interest, and students are up in arms.

A struggle for research funding

Lack of endowment funding is the primary reason cited for why these professors feel it's appropriate to suck from the pharmaceutical teat without disclosing such relationships to the students they claim to be teaching:

"School officials see corporate support for their faculty as all the more crucial, as the university endowment has lost 22 percent of its value since last July and the recession has caused philanthropic contributors to retrench."

In other words, the school doesn't have enough funding to support faculty research. So faculty turn to the pharmaceutical companies. But is it appropriate for an institution tasked with teaching our nations' new doctors to allow a commercial industry to secretly underwrite those who teach?

More to the point: is this kind of financial relationship necessary?

An alternative solution

As the Times piece indicates, the potential conflict of interest, the lack of disclosure rules, and the student and public backlash are all causing real harm to Harvard Medical's reputation. It may even damage the school's ability to raise what little endowment funds are still available.

But what if the school leveraged the need to preserve classroom integrity to shore up funding sources outside of Big Pharma? What if they framed their fundraising efforts with a core message that read something like this:

We need your support to keep Big Pharma out of our classrooms, so our next generation of doctors can be trained objectively and fairly.

This would need to be supported, of course, by action. School officials would need to demonstrate that they're taking what internal steps they can to prevent such a tragedy—steps like instituting rules requiring the disclosure of financial relationships to both officials and students (or better yet, limiting or prohibiting financial relationships between faculty and industry).

With proper messaging, this controversy might just be turned around to actually solve the underlying problem causing the whole thing. Sadly, school officials will probably miss this fundraising opportunity and instead plaster a bandage over the controversy. Hopefully, it won't be a Band-Aid™ brand one.

A brand spanking new site!

She's done, Captain! (Well, almost.)

It's certainly been a long time coming. I'd been rethinking the design of roughstockstudios.com ever since launching the first version of it back in 2006 (a full two years after starting Roughstock), mostly because of that voice in the back of every designers' head that insists this could be so much better. While it's not always necessary to redesign a perfectly functional site, I felt I had some pretty good reasons to back up my decision:

1. The portfolio was getting dusty.
2. It wasn't representative enough of the work I do.
   

Having helped other organizations update their messaging, identifying the very best way to position each of them to the various audiences they needed to reach, it finally became my turn.

A few design notes for the nerds

I agonized over everything on the new site, from copy to code (and yes, contrary to what I'd ever recommend for my clients, I hand-coded the site myself). Going it alone may not have been ideal, but I wanted to deepen my grasp of CSS, user interface, and narrative design in general. The devil, as they say, really is in the details:

• SFIR vs. image replacement vs. simple font stacks
  I knew from the get-go that I wanted to include non-web standard fonts in the site. Web designers are typically limited to the same few system fonts available to the majority of computer users, so you get a lot of Helvetica and Georgia. Initially, I intended to integrate SFIR into the code, so I could replace any text with whatever font I so chose. But there are still accessibility issues (well, functionality issues, really) with SFIR that pushed me towards something more trustworthy.
  
  I knew straight image replacement was out, because I didn't want to sacrifice potential rendering or search engine optimization for aesthetic purposes. So I went with simple font stacking. If you've got Gill Sans activated on your computer, you'll see that for the headlines and submenus. Otherwise, you get plain old Helvetica. It's controllable, and I pretty much know what everyone will see. I believe in keeping things simple—there's no sense in redesigning the site only to discover that every other user will see a completely different rendering of it.
  
  
• Pathways and user interface
  After legibility, the overall user experience was most important to me. I struggled with the structure of this site a lot; because I'm not just a designer, or just a writer, or just a strategist, I really couldn't rely on the usual constructs for those sorts of sites. Have you seen what most writers' sites look like? (Hint: think the web circa 1990.) Instead, I opted to create a site that (hopefully) pulls you through it; as you move into the site from the home page, you get to know me and my studio better without sacrificing user control.
  

I still need your feedback

After all this, I'm sure I'll be working out what few bugs remain (some blog styling and redirecting issues), making small tweaks here and there, cleaning up the code, and generally working to improve the overall usability of the site. I know, for example, that I will probably be adjusting the "Work" section to improve navigation. So, what do you think of the site overall? Better? Worse? Worth the wait? A few specific areas I'd like input on:

• Do you have preferences for how you like to view work from creative firms?
• Are you encountering any bugs or usability issues?
• Should I not use the word "pee" on a business website?

Again, thanks to everyone for their patience, and especially for all the incredible help I got from the real coding world. People like Aidan at Seed Design and Sean at Design ICU have been so generous with their time and troubleshooting skills. Couldn't have done it without you guys!

Update 3/13: The search engine should now be fully functional, as should all the links in the sidebar.

The Good Consumer

[via Bonfire of the Brands]

Truism No. 134*

My own website redesign is, without a doubt, the most heinous undertaking I have undertook to date. And at the very same time, I've needed to experience every tortured moment of it.

Yes, Virginia, there is a website coming. The Captain doesn't believe me, and it's okay if you don't, either. The delay isn't due to indecisiveness, however, or lack of direction. Oddly, it's due to too much of same.

I so know what I want for this new site that I'm hesitant to just settle on good enough. There are a plethora of advocates in the web 2.0 sphere who insist that you should launch first, and tweak later. But that approach just feels wrong, and if there's one lesson my pea brain has picked up on, it's that in business, if it feels wrong it probably is. Why should I go with this gut feel, though? Haven't I built up too much suspense by not just launching design concept #5 or maybe even design concept #12? Haven't I talked it to death?

Well, my answer is no. One reason I'm redesigning this site is to get past good enough. I chose good enough with this current iteration, so why on earth should I do it again? Plus, I'm sick of good enough. I don't accept it for my clients, so there's no reason to accept it for my own projects.

More important than a speedy launch or eye-catching design, though, is my own slow process of repositioning Roughstock. When I got smashed by a car at the end of '07, I decided it was time to stop screwing around and really lay it on the line. I wanted to morph Roughstock from just another freelancer's attempt at a regular job into a conduit for all the seemingly unrelated skills I've picked up over the years. Those skills are good for something, and I'd been using them for that something. I just needed to figure out the best way to explain that.

See, for most of my life I've been terrible at explaining myself. I've been great at explaining things having nothing to do with myself—I get a lot of "you just seem to get us" from my clients —but when it comes to little ol' moi, it's a lot easier to just do what I do and let others connect the dots. I chalk this up to my bartending years: bartenders are damn good listeners, and we tend to listen while keeping our own crap to ourselves. But let's face it: I ain't bartending anymore (much as I pine for it some nights). So when I got smooshed by a red-light runner, I knew I needed to take more control of Roughstock.

The site redesign has been a huge part of that. I've spent a long time cogitating about what it is I really do for my clients. For the record, it's not just graphic design, or copywriting. There's a lot of discovering, and exploring, and nailing down goals, and planning for the future, and all kinds of other good stuff that goes along with the final deliverables. I've also spent a lot of time admitting that I don't want everyone to be my client. Sure, I knew this from the get-go (it's why I run my own business in the first place), but sometimes it takes a high-speed car crash to make you really know it.

So I spent the first half of 2008 recovering from the accident, while simultaneously rethinking my whole schtick (among other things, of course). And every time I thought I had it figured out, I designed a new web site that you never saw. But it hasn't been until the last few months that I've really admitted to myself that it's not about rethinking a damn thing. It's about getting back to the whole reason I started Roughstock: to help folks say what they mean in meaningful ways. Uplifting, isn't it?

And so I persist. I know I'm getting close to a finished site. You don't, but that's alright. If you sign up for either the rss feed or the Roundup newsletter (sign-up form is to the left), you'll know soon enough.




*Randomly selected number intended to communicate the vastness that is any given body of knowledge.

Making Sustainability Reports Work for You

As American businesses begin to feel the heat of their impact on climate change, corporate sustainability reporting has become one of the tools they use to fan the flames. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of companies producing CSR (corporate social responsibility) reports grew by more than 750%, according to Corporate Register. In real terms, just over 2,000 American companies issued reports this year alone—but who reads these things? Turns out, a new study indicates there may be some real value to issuing a sustainability report for your own organization.

Reporting Can Impact the Bottom Line—For the Better

One of the most basic findings of the study, conducted by the Global Reporting Initiative among 2,300 respondents, found that 85% of CSR report readers have a more positive opinion of the company after reading. About a third of respondents also use these reports for decision-making purposes. It would seem, then, that organizations who rely on thought leadership and increased credibility to shore up their customer base would really benefit from such reporting. I'm thinking of nonprofits, consultants and other service-based businesses in particular. But companies seeking capital funding would also stand to gain by producing reports that demonstrate their commitment to long-term sustainable strategies.

Those readers who are spurred to action after reading a company's sustainability report tend to respond with their dollars. Almost 75% of respondents say that reading a company's CSR report makes them want to either purchase the company's products or become a B2B client. That can be a potentially significant ROI, but it's dependent on a few key things:

• The report is accurate and thoughtfully produced.
• Your organization invests in distributing the report as widely as possible.
• You maximize the opportunity by directly engaging readers.

Producing a sustainability report that works for your organization

Like most projects, a sustainability report can be as straightforward or complex as you're willing to make it. But whether your report is a simple two page report or an elaborate multi-page treatise, the process needs to address the specific concerns of your readers.

Define your target audience. Reports geared toward investors will require far more statistics and detail-level information than those aimed at consumers, for example.

Gather accurate information. Knowing what standards to use, and how to accurately measure company initiatives and impact, is essential. Consider asking your audience what issues matter to them before even writing anything down, and think about how those issues dovetail with your organization's environmental and social impact on its larger communities. This will help you create a framework for content. If you skimp on this process, you risk alienating readers and undermining the whole report.

Organize information into meaningful messages. Try to balance your organization's philosophy and policy approach with real-world stories that illustrate those more abstract concepts. While the length of your report will determine just how much information you can include, you should take your cue from the framework you created in the previous step. If you have a particularly green supply chain, for example, you might outline your general purchasing policies, and also profile a specific vendor.

Engage your readers. This is where you capitalize on your report. Respondents to the GRI survey indicated that they frequently want to continue the conversation with the organization in question after reading their report. This could mean including response cards with the report itself, creating an online microsite where readers can join the conversation, or following up with a targeted campaign aimed at expanding the reporting initiative. All of these approaches give readers a specific reason to take the hand you've extended.

Towards a Truly Sustainable Strategy

If the GRI survey gives sustainability reporters cause for celebration, it also reveals a key concern: whatever reporting choices an organization makes, it must converge with an overall business strategy. Successful corporate sustainability rests on an organization's willingness to embrace entirely holistic processes; slapping together a glossy CSR brochure that trumpets your company's recycling efforts ain't gonna cut it. My recommendation is always to start with the why and the what (your organization's long-term values, approach and audience), and use reporting to communicate the how.

By treating the sustainability report as a conversation opener rather than a monologue, you have a better shot of influencing your reader and reinforcing the report's underlying message of commitment. And when your communications become a real-world tool used to engage your audience, it strengthens those relationships at a time when strong relationships can make or break a business.


Shameless Plug™: If you think your organization would benefit from some form of sustainability reporting, give me a call. We can talk about your ideas, and come up with a cost-effective solution that works for you and your audience.

Bad Habits Can Kill Your Marketing Efforts

When it comes to marketing, your problem isn't a lack of effort—even if you haven't pulled the trigger on that new website (cough), or gotten around to this year's holiday mailing. The truth is, you're marketing every day, every time you engage your customer base:

Every customer phone call and email you respond to
Every customer phone call and email you initiate
Every marketing campaign you execute
Every blog post you publish
Every forum or social networking message you post
Every time you describe what you do for a living to someone you meet
Every time you deliver a product or service to a customer
Every time you leave your business card somewhere
Every question you answer
Every payment you collect

Clearly, the problem isn't that you aren't doing enough. The real issue is that you're not putting enough thought into how you're doing these everyday things.

The Danger of Relying on Habits

When you execute the tasks above out of habit, it's easy to forget that they're actually two-sided transactions. You're delivering a message during each task, and the person on the other end is receiving that message. This is true even if you're not saying anything. Filling an order? The package the order is shipped in sends a message. The very process you've set up that your customer has to pass through sends a message—how many times they have to click through your site, how long it takes them to find your phone number, and so on. Even if you're not thinking about the message you're sending, the customer is still receiving it.

Replacing Bad Habits with Better Messages

So why do we keep perpetuating current habits? You already know: it's simply easier than identifying and transitioning into better habits. And by better habit, I mean something very specific: I mean a message that bridges the gap between speaker and listener, delivered in a way that makes it easier for the listener to understand. This is a process I'm going through myself as I redesign my now mythical website, and I really feel for organizations who are struggling with it.

Developing a thoughtful message, and then delivering it, takes deliberation. But it doesn't necessarily take pain. In fact, when you rely on a specific step-by-step process, it can be almost enjoyable (or, "a wonderful learning experience," as one of my clients once put it). The process looks something like this:

• Identify the message(s) you're currently sending
• Identify the message(s) your market wants to hear
• Take a good hard look in the mirror
• Connect the dots between what your organization provides and what your market wants
• Control each transaction so the agreed-on message gets through
• Measure the reaction to your efforts
• Adjust the messaging as much as necessary until you get it right
  

The Most Dangerous Habit of All

Obviously, developing better messaging habits takes a lot of work and a lot of insight. It can be so challenging, in fact, that most organizations end up perpetuating the worst habit of all—they skip over the discovery stages of the process and jump straight into creating new messages. If you yourself take one message away from this article, I hope it's this: don't skip the discovery.

The discovery, in which you take that good hard look at what you're doing (and what your market really wants you to do), is almost the whole point. It's the process that you've been skipping this whole time. It's what makes the habits hard to break. And if you continue to skip it, opting instead to just churn out some new marketing message based on current assumptions, you're just replacing one bad habit with another. That's a waste of time and money, and a way to miss real opportunities. So take a moment to think it all through. Research. Observe. Explore. Do it on your own, get help if you must, but do it. Because old habits die hard—but not if you kill them carefully.

Movie Posters with Product Placement

I'm not sure when "brand integration" replaced "product placement" to describe the shameless shilling of stuff in entertainment vehicles, but it has. And these posters from Antrepo Design Industry are an elegantly understated way of describing recent box office hits (click the image to view more):




[via Quipsologies]

Copywriting in Action: Inspiration from the Financial Crisis

Has the financial crisis officially jumped the shark when references to it start creeping into everyday advertising? Or is it just smart marketing to incorporate a ripped-from-the-headlines approach to one's copy? The real answer is, I suspect, that companies feel they can no longer pretend business is just business as usual. But to acknowledge the current economic turmoil or not is not even the big question of the day. The big question is: how do we acknowledge it? This week, I've had two very different approaches arrive in my inbox.

The Sincere and Concerned Approach

King Arthur Flour knows its brand. The company has been around since 1790, and has always stayed true to its core product. As the oldest flour company selling such a basic food staple, King Arthur has closely aligned itself with the notions of family values, nourishment, and responsibility. These ideals are reflected consistently throughout the company's marketing copy, whether online or off (for example, on the side of every bag of flour is printed the company's money-back guarantee—written as a letter directly from the company's president).

The latest newsletter (shown above—click the image to read the whole thing) is no exception. King Arthur has stuck with its brand identity and framed the financial crisis according to how it actually impacts its customers.

"OK, let's face it: the world is in financial turmoil...To many, it means figuring out new ways to put food on the table. And that's where we can help. King Arthur has been putting bread on American tables since 1790. Through the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, and countless financial downturns, King Arthur has been a steady, solid presence.

King Arthur isn't glitzy and glamorous, not the brand du jour. We're just there. Always. To help you sustain your family with good, homemade meals..."

The copy is conversational, intimate almost. It addresses the reader as a confidant. King Arthur can get away with this because of the brand it's already built that reinforces this approach. More than that, it can get away with it because all the claims are true.

The truly remarkable piece of this e-newsletter is not, however, the style or tone of the writing. The real kicker is that the e-newsletter isn't selling a single thing. In fact, it's doing the opposite—it contains a free recipe for coffee cake, and links to free services provided by the company (free baking classes, a free baking hotline, and the company's blog). This reinforces the email's message: King Arthur is a trusted friend here to help you in a time of need. Yes, we're just talking about flour. But the company has managed to remain human despite such long-running success. Perhaps that's why it's had such long-running success.

The Exploit It For All It's Worth Approach

And in the other corner, we've got an email I received the day before King Arthur sent me their offer of help. It's worth noting to start that this email was an unsolicited spam ad for an e-course on marketing. I'll never understand marketers who insist on using spam to try and sell their junk. The email amounts to a press release from two "intellectual property experts" who share a blog and are now trying to cash in on the current financial crisis.

"The same economic meltdown that is wiping out stock portfolios like a Category 5 hurricane is going to open opportunities for savvy bloggers, both entrepreneurial and corporate, to generate revenue that may have been elusive during better times. Two innovation entrepreneurs have developed a way for bloggers to learn how to thrive even when the market dives.

'These eCourses will help bloggers identify the numerous opportunities around them and embark upon a path of making money from those opportunities,' says Monroe. '...We put these eCourses together to help bloggers develop those skills and game plans so they can sail in smooth waters when many others are still in that Category 5 hurricane.'"

Let's start with the tone of the copy, which uses a hurricane metaphor (and not just any hurricane, either, but a category five hurricane) to raise alarm bells. That kind of fear-mongering is just flat-out exploitative, particularly given the significance of what's at stake for the reader. The rhyming phrases are a nice touch copy-wise ("learn how to thrive even when the market dives"), but entirely inappropriate for the subject matter. Adding levity to a crisis is one thing, but this is just belittling.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by this kind of copy, given the subject matter. The pitch, after all, is written to appeal to the reader's profit motive, pure and simple. But isn't unchecked profit motive what got us into this mess in the first place? Don't get me wrong: selling a course to teach bloggers how to capitalize on the economic crisis isn't unethical in and of itself. These folks are consultants (like me, in a sense), and selling ideas is a perfectly legitimate way to make a living. But how you sell matters as much as what you sell.

These are two dramatically different approaches to acknowledging the financial crisis. Both are legitimate in their own right. The question becomes: what kind of message do you want to send to your audience? Or better still: what kind of message does your audience really want to hear?

Marketing Q&A: How Do I Move My Brand Beyond ME?

I get marketing questions through my e-newsletter, the Roundup, and occasionally my response gets to involved to fit in the short space of that email. This one's a good one, so I'm posting it here instead.


I have great products, but my brand is very caught up in me - my background, my sense of aesthetics, and my story. At some point someone else will have to do some selling. So, how do I build my brand as a separate entity from me?

Every (smart) business owner struggles with this as we begin to grow. Service businesses in particular may struggle with this because the service provider is often seen as the product being sold. And many owners play into this by defining themselves by their business. Even if they do recognize it, they often remain paralyzed with the fear of shifting the company towards a depersonalized, profit-driven approach, rather than the values-driven approach they started with.

The key to branding, though, is not to jettison the owner’s value system, but to align it with the needs and wants of the marketplace. As you're realizing, it's not enough to know who you are and what you want for your company—you also need to meet the marketplace on its own terms. This is especially true in economic times like these, when the marketplace can be exceptionally finicky.

Companies who define themselves by their owners, then, have a hard time; it's very difficult to align you as a person with the marketplace, which is about me as a consumer. Most small businesses that brand themselves as their owner find success only inasmuch as they happen to meet people who share the owner's values, personality, and aesthetics. This is an exceedingly inefficient approach that doesn’t scale up very well as the business grows. Typically, owners using this approach max out such a limited market and the business plateaus.

So, in practical terms, what does an owner do to create a brand that can stand on its own, apart from the owner? Having gone through this process with a nonprofit client earlier this year, I can tell you the most effective way to do this is to allow your personal values to inform the brand, rather than define it.

The process starts with a whole mess of research:

• Current brand audit: Take stock of your company, your products or services, the benefits and value you bring to your consumers, etc.
• Current customer audit: Identify and organize your current customer base by as many variables as possible. This includes identifying how your current customers perceive your company.
• Market research and competitive research: You can’t operate in a bubble, so you need to know what everyone around you is doing.

Now, this initial research is the part that most business owners skip. Don’t. The information you gather holds the key to your self-sufficient brand. Gathering it is, of course, a lot of work. Parsing it into a cohesive brand that accurately and effectively reflects all of the truths you’ve discovered is not just a challenge, it’s an art form (there’s a reason smart businesses outsource this to people like yours truly). But as I said earlier: it’s not enough to know what you want out of your business. You have to align those values, along with everything else about your company, with the realities of the marketplace. When done well, the results are an incredibly strong brand that resonates with consumers regardless of whether or not you’re delivering the message personally.

Is crowdsourcing dangerous to the design profession?

No!Spec is a well-known movement among graphic designers who dislike the notion of speculative work. And yet thousands of designers at both the professional and amateur level participate in speculative contents every day, and their numbers are growing. 37Signals has an interesting take from crowdSPRING co-founder Ross Kimbarovsky in which he argues, in part:

"The establishment has long held that these ‘amateurs’ – students and stay-at-home moms, freelancers and fed-up corporate refugees – are nothing more than a novelty and are not capable of competing with the ‘professionals.’ The establishment is wrong. The Internet has blurred the boundaries between professionals and non-professionals. The underdogs are challenging tradition in industry after industry. They are risk takers. They are true entrepreneurs. The underdogs compete on their ideas and their work, not education, training, and fancy offices. They make things they like and they hope that other people will like them too.The underdogs are a threat to AIGA and the NO!SPEC campaign. There are millions of them. They demand that a level playing field be created to allow them to compete. They demand the democratization of the design industry."

Incendiary stuff. He then goes on to say, "We’ve created a level playing field where experience doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is your work." Now that feels like an oxymoron. Most professional designers (including this one) would argue that experience informs your work. But more than that, it disregards the rest of what makes good design: context, relationships, research, and in-depth understanding of the client and their goals.

And this is evidenced by Kimbarovsky's disclosure that "Our overall average across all projects is about $350." For an independent creative getting paid, say $50 an hour (a very low number, given the overhead required to sustain an independent business), this means a 7-hour project. Seven hours for adminsitrative tasks, market and client research, concepting and sketching, production, and revisions. Really? It would take a highly skilled and experienced designer to produce a good-looking and effective logo, website, brochure, etc in that amount of time.

There's a lot more to say about this subject, and I'll explore some of it later in an upcoming installment of Copyrights and Wrongs (first, though, I'll be looking at the contract negotation process).

Copywriting Case Study: How to Insult Your Audience

In a clever move to win back the support of consumers, the Corn Refiners Association decided the best way to do so would be to condescend to and insult the very people it's trying to win back.



It seems the industry trade group takes issue with those of us who give a crap about the crap they try to force down our throats. Let's just break down the horrible line of thinking that led to these ads, shall we?

Step One: Identify the Problem

Like any good advocacy group would, the Corn Refiners Association recognized that their single most profitable product—high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—is earning itself a bad name among doctors, parents, and a whole lot of other folks. First came the whispers of "why is it in everything?" including what should be unsweet food items like turkey stuffing, salad dressing and hot dogs. Then came the study that linked high fructose corn syrup to diabetes in children, which is quickly becoming an epidemic (probably because it's in, well, everything).

This is the first thing they did right, from a marketing perspective (I won't get into the first rule of ethical marketing: don't push dangerous products).

Step Two: Join the Conversation

In many cases, companies decide to just stand pat when the rumors start whirling (this approach was particularly favored in the days before the internet gave consumers so much control over brand reputation). But as the rumors about HFCS became the subject of scientific study, the CRA apparently felt it had to step in. They must have figured, "Hey, let's set the record straight!"

What they failed to admit to themselves was that the record was not exactly in their favor.

Step Three: Frame Your Message

Both of the ads the group launched hinge on the concept that facts trump "what they say" any day of the week. Not a bad approach, if you actually have facts to back up your argument. But the ads fail to deliver on this promise, opting instead to bolster several fallacies with facts that are rather inconsequential.

Claim: HFCS is made from corn.
Truth: Yup. (Of course, I don't really want corn in my toothpaste.)

Claim: HFCS has the same calories as sugar.
Truth: Basically, yup.

Claim: HFCS is fine in moderation.
Truth: Possibly true but misleading. Americans' consumption of HFCS has increased 250% over the last 15 years (source), because it's in damn near everything; CRA member companies shipped 23,503,847,000 pounds of HFCS in 2005 alone (source). So when they tell us to consume it in moderation, it's a little bit like waiving a vial of crack in front of a junkie and then telling him to go home. HFCS has also been linked, as mentioned, to diabetes because it messes with the way the body produces natural regulators.

Claim: HFCS doesn't have any artificial ingredients.
Truth: Not exactly true, and definitely misleading. There are synthetic ingredients used in the processing of HFCS (corn starch hydrolysate and glucose isomerase enzyme preparation, to be exact), but the molecular structure of these substances are altered during manufacturing. Furthermore, the FDA itself (notoriously loose when it comes to limiting Big Business claims) does not allow companies to call products containing HFCS "natural" (source).

So if you're going to frame your message around facts, you better have good ones to support it.

Step Four: Imply Your Audience is Stupid to be so Easily Swayed By Empty Words, then ask them to believe yours

This is where the copywriting really falls apart. Setting aside the giant conceptual mistake of fact vs. fiction, it is generally a bad idea to portray your audience as being either a dumb sheep or a passive-aggressive, judgmental bitchface. Do the writers even realize that the white mother in the ad above represents the very people they are trying to persuade? She's expressing what the public is thinking—why on earth make her look like such a snot while doing it? Making your audience feel bad about themselves—or worse, self-defensive—is a terrible way to get them to do what you want.

The Lesson: Consider the person receiving your message and be nice to them

Mending a broken relationship with your customer base is no easy task. I can't say I envy the marketing minds behind these ads, given the uphill battle they've been tasked to fight. I'm not even sure I know what approach would work for them at this point. I do know, though, that winning over a naysayer requires a delicate touch. Making your audience look like a douchebag, then asking them to support you? Not so delicate.

You Gotta be Careful When Making Green Marketing Claims

When TerraChoice's Six Sins of Greenwashing report was released last fall, it brought with it whispers of green fatigue, and raised the specter of Big Business Bullsh--. Could it be that corporate co-opting of sustainability had led to a market full of misleading claims and outright lies? Go figure. But as the public's sustainability discussion moves along, governments are getting involved in an attempt to curb the marketplace. So if you're one of the many companies offering up green claims, it's in your best interest to start paying attention to what you can and can't (or should and shouldn't) say.



The Six Sins of Greenwashing report analyzed over a thousand green claims made by businesses, and found that only one was legitimately honest. The rest committed one or more of the following sins:

1. The sin of hidden trade-offs
   Focusing on one environmental benefit while ignoring other essential issues.
   
2. The sin of no proof
   Lack of third-party auditing to back up any claims.
   
3. The sin of vagueness
   Using words and claims with broad or multiple meanings, resulting in an essentially meaningless claim.
   
4. The sin of irrelevance
   Making a green claim that is already inherent to the product or service being marketed, as though there's something special about this one.
   
5. The sin of fibbing
   Outright lying.
   
6. The sin of the lesser of two evils
   Making claims within a product category that is inherently environmentally damaging (i.e. no matter what green claims are made, the product is by definition bad for the environment).
   

The PDF report (also available here) offers recommendations for both marketers and consumers. The ultimate goal is to prevent consumers from becoming so jaded by misleading claims that they give up on green or sustainable businesses altogether.

In addition to TerraChoice's recommendations, both the U.S. and Canada have issued their own guidelines. Our neighbors to the north go beyond the legal requirements for Canadian labeling compliance, offering fairly in-depth recommendations for businesses who make particular environmental claims. The PDF report is a useful tool no matter what country your business operates in.

Our own government also offers guidelines for environmental claims in advertising. Regulated by the FTC, the bulk of these guidelines are legally binding, although I haven't done the legwork to determine just how frequently and under what circumstances these laws are enforced (keeping up with the marketplace's now ubiquitous green claims would certainly pose a challenge for any organization). An even more detailed guide is available on their site, but be aware that the FTC is in the process of updating these in response to the rise of the green marketplace.

Addressing Your Own Green Claims

Though boning up on the federal regulations is a must for any business flirting with green claims, it's not just the government's ire you need to worry about. Speaking the truth is essential to ensure credibility among your own customers. So, once you understand what you can and can't say, you ought to take a look at what you already are saying. At the very least, you need to ask yourself:

• Are my claims specific?
• Are my claims clear and understandable?
• Are my claims verifiable by a reputable third party?
• Do my claims accurately represent the purchasing issues a customer might face when buying my product?
• Do my claims provide enough context for the customer to make an informed decision?

And remember, if you're not sure you can back up what you claim, don't bother saying it. For more information about gauging just how green a business is, see The Case-by-Case for Sustainability.

The Great Debate Over Menu Type

Restaurant-goers are more likely to assume a dish is complex and skillfully prepared if the menu is set in a "fancy" typeface, according to a recent study described in the New York Times. Sadly, the study's researchers used Mistral as an example of fancy type.

Poor font choices aside, experts (thankfully) seem to understand the benefits of legible menus, as well as how best to produce them:

"Allen [CEO of Quantified Marketing Group] recommends using sans-serif fonts and few capital letters. He instructs managers to draw diners' eyes to the most profitable items on a three-panel menu by positioning those golden dishes in three key places: the center of the middle page and the top-right and top-left corners, which he calls the sweet spots. In addition to avoiding bad translations, Allen says chefs should use simple language when possible."

Of course, typeface is a fundamental piece of a restaurant's visual identity. As the study shows, it communicates specific characteristics about a restaurant's personality and food. But you don't need to rely on elaborate fonts for the sake of using elaborate fonts. Professional designers understand how to specify and use typefaces with character (pardon the pun) to influence customer perception and behavior, without sacrificing legibility.

If anything, the study makes a good case for leaving typography in the hands of the professionals - otherwise, you end up thinking Mistral is the answer to slow sales.

Popular Green Blog Takes a Hard Line on Dissent

WorldChanging is arguably one of the more popular blogs tackling the trinity of green, sustainability, and social issues on the internet. As a nonprofit organization working to build "a bright green future," it's done well to establish itself as a magazine of integrity and thoughtfulness. So it's interesting to note yesterday's post by executive editor Alex Steffen, in which he not only vows to ban all comments denying climate change, but plays the Nazi card, comparing climate skeptics to Holocaust deniers:

"We will delete comments which deny the absolutely overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, just as we would delete comments which questioned the reality of the Holocaust or the equal mental capacities and worth of human beings of different ethnic groups. Such 'debates' are merely the morally indefensible trying to cover itself in the cloth of intellectual tolerance."

As most of the posters to date acknowledge, the WorldChanging staff is perfectly within its rights to moderate and even delete comments on its site. Yet the way in which Steffen has chosen to word the announcement is so anathema to the stated objectives of the site that it begs the question: what the hell are you thinking? If the producers of WorldChanging are truly interested in "how best to collaborate, how to build coalitions and movements, how to grow communities, how to make our businesses live up to their highest potential and how to make the promise of democracy into a reality," then isn't it a little disingenuous to prohibit open discussion about a scientific theory?

Maybe, and then again, maybe not. According to yesterday's post, WorldChanging's decision to delete such comments is based on the premise that climate change is a scientific fact and, as such, to deny it is "morally indefensible." This is, of course, absurd. It's no different than Christians calling non-Christians sinners and damning them to hell - it makes for a dramatic stance, but casting aspersions isn't really solving a damn thing. Nor is it trying to solve anything. And just to drive the point home, it's not even true.

Let's just say that climate change is a scientific truth and the debate is, in fact, over (you don't hear me arguing). Steffen's position (or is it WorldChanging's? It's not entirely clear, but I suspect we'll get a clarification soon enough) is that denying this physical phenomenon is morally equivalent to denying human equality. But this is an apples-to-oranges comparison; physical science and philosophical constructs are observed and measured on different scales. We could, I suppose, get into an argument about whether or not human equality really is a philosophical construct, but that would lead us to the whole "God-given right" thing, and I would argue that God is himself a philosophical construct. So let's just skip that (or not, you tell me).

Steffen would be much better off simply accusing climate change deniers of being raving lunatics who don't share the same reality as the majority of the population, and prohibit such comments on those grounds. But he didn't take a scientific stand, he took a moral stand. He hopped up on that soapbox and blasted away. Sure, WorldChanging has every right to moderate comments on its own blog. But at some point, an editorial staff needs to decide whether or not such decisions undermine its own credibility. Especially when that credibility hinges on bringing people together using innovative thinking and design models.

The sustainable design model by its very nature must consider all stakeholders when problem solving. And climate skeptics are certainly stakeholders in this environment, whether Steffen and his staff wish them to be or not. That means that if we're going to solve environmental problems - climate change problems - then we need to consider the skeptics as well. By denouncing them as moral sinners and driving them from the fold, we fail to truly address the very issues in which they are so deeply involved.

So if WorldChanging wishes to plug its ears and ignore the skeptics, then as they themselves state, "you're certainly welcome to your opinion." But doing so completely undermines their otherwise important attempts at bridging gaps, deepening understanding, and solving universal problems. And dammit, it gives the rest of us believers a really bad rep.

New Work: Evnine and Associates Logo and Identity Collateral

I'm really excited to introduce the redesign of Evnine and Associates' new logo and identity collateral. The new streamlined look plays with the financial concept of "extra market returns," symbolized in the industry by the alpha symbol (the "a" in "eva," which is the company's nickname among its client base).



The big challenge here was creating a look distinguished enough to impress a rather staid financial industry while still communicating the personality and charm of this incredibly focused team of statistical wizards.



Both the letterhead and envelope are printed on 100% recycled paper, while the business card is printed on a heavier stock, 30% PCW recycled paper.

Graphic Design and the Dining Experience

While recently lamenting (for the umpteenth time, of course) the undying myth that graphic designers simply make pretty pictures, I happened to come across a brief little article on logo designer Louise Fili, who designs primarily for the hospitality and F&B industries.

The article touches on the power of graphic design when it comes to the dining experience, noting in particular that menu materials and presentation can directly impact the diner's opinion and actions. I figured I'd take the opportunity to expand on this a little, and point out a few ways restaurant owners can use graphic design to influence their guests' experience.



The Eyes Are Always the First to Digest
While every restaurant must turn out good food, the very first thing guests actually experience is the way a restaurant looks. This includes cleanliness, the floor plan, fabrics and textures, and so on. But it also includes the single unifying visual element of any restaurant: the logo. Think about the specific moments in which a guest - or potential guest - will see your restaurant's logo:

• When visiting your website after hearing about your restaurant for the first time
• When passing your restaurant during off hours
• When noticing your business card on a friend's desk
• When seeing your ad in a local paper

This list doesn't even touch on the many moments once a guest passes through your doors. It should be clear to you, then, why your logo should adequately and accurately represent your menu, your ambience, your service, and your values. Your logo, after all, is often the first visual clue a potential customer will see when faced with the choice of making a reservation.

The Menu Is a Tool, Not an Order Form
The point of any menu is to inform the diner of their options, of course. But smart restauranteurs use the menu to guide diners to particular choices. This requires careful consideration of size, item placement, colors, and materials.

Provide the guest with a visual path
Text formatting, colors and layout all serve to pull the eye along a specific path. You don't have to draw a large neon box around your high-margin specials, but consider where you place particular menu items to encourage ordering.

Be honest and clear
Avoid florid menu descriptions that don't actually tell the diner what they need to know. Specific ingredient details are fine, but ask yourself - does my customer come away knowing exactly what they'll get?

Reinforce the food
Menu presentation should reflect your food. If your food is simple and clean, for example, avoid elaborate menu folders or busy prints and textures.

Use Graphics to Build the Experience
Your guests want more than just good food - they want a complete experience that stays with them and brings them over and over again. Remember that list of moments when a potential customer might come across your logo? Consider, too, the moments that your guests will encounter other visual elements, and use them to build the experience:

• Menu (of course)
• Door and window signage
  
• Drink lists
  
• Table tents
• Other signage (restrooms, directional signage, etc)
• Check delivery
• Email correspondence
• Business cards
• Print ads
• Coupons and gift certificates

Every time you put a message out to the public - within your doors or without - that communication should reinforce your restaurant's identity. Everything a guest or potential guest sees should serve to enhance that experience, so they remember your distinct look, feel and flavors.

Pro Bono Possibilities

Can you imagine giving away 50% of your products for free? Even though Roughstock donates both cash and services to qualified organizations at the rate of about 10% of our billed revenue, apparently we pale in comparison to design kings Pentagram. According to The Taproot Foundation's recent newsletter, Pentagram "reports that 50% of their clients are nonprofits who they serve pro bono." That's half their client base!

Of course, they have the heavy-duty resources to dedicate to such projects. You can also look at it as an investment in public relations and branding. Nevertheless, that's a huge commitment that speaks volumes about the company.

Sustainability Is Like Teenage Sex

From Joel Makower's opening comments at Compostmodern, as reported by GDUSA:

"Sustainability is like teenage sex. Everybody says they're doing it but no one really is. And those who are doing it aren't doing it very well."

The Designer of LodgeNet's New Logo Speaks

"I joked with my client that it isn't what we create as much as what I talk you out of that has real value."

-Jerry Kuyper

[Full interview at Brand New/UnderConsideration]

How Do You Stack Up? The Freelance Switch Freelance Statistics Report Is Here

If you participated in the Freelance Switch 2007 Freelance Survey, then you've already got your copy. If you didn't, then you might want to go purchase one. Why? Because it's got some eye-popping stats from 3,700 creative freelancers throughout the world that could teach you a thing or two about how you run your business.



A few interesting results and their implications:

• Result: "The amount of billable hours a freelancer is accumulating accounts for a large percentage of their overall happiness. This is in stark comparison to hourly rates and net income which have no significant impact on a freelancer’s overall happiness."
  
  My take: When you only charge $30-$40/hour on average (the most common rate range across multiple industries), you have to work more billable hours. It's no wonder, then, that the apparent business is what makes these freelancers happier, as opposed to their low hourly rate or their overall income, which will inevitably be lower thanks to their rate. If they were to raise their rates, thereby increasing their income, perhaps they would then respond that their rates or income influence their happiness. I can't help thinking that this boils down to a crisis of confidence.
  
  
• Result: "This survey suggests that the following activities have no noticeable impact on your income:
  

  Your age or your gender
  Your experience
  Where you live
  The marketing techniques you use (emphasis added)
  The additional goods and services your offer.

  This leads me to the only remaining possible conclusion – it’s all about the skills...I don’t think it would be bad advice to suggest that if your income isn’t what you think it should be or need it to be, it might be time to upgrade your skills and worry less about marketing and diversifying."
  
  My take: I'm not sure I'd agree with the above conclusion based on the actual question asked: "Where do you find work?" Such a question does not measure the efficacy of one's work-finding techniques (which include referrals, portfolio website, internet job sites, social networking sites, blogs, cold calling, and advertising). It simply measures which techniques freelancers are using. If you don't do any cold calling, for example, you won't get any work from it. This is a major flaw in the analysis, as it sends the message that referrals are the only method freelancers should rely on to find new clients. While I know several freelancers who have been successful over the years relying primarily on referrals, I'm not sure how much job security it actually offers.

Overall, the survey is a fascinating collection of data about a business lifestyle that we generally don't get much data on. It's great to see these numbers, particularly with such a large sample size. And while I'd certainly encourage all freelancers to pick up a copy, I'd also strongly suggest thinking critically about what the numbers really mean to you.

What Can You Do With a Cow and a Budget?

Just because your budget isn't huge doesn't mean your print materials have to look like every other in-house, low-budget, stock-photo blah-zine out there. Pentagram's beautiful redesign of Dairy Today demonstrates how easy it is to bring a little class to the world of trade magazines.



How'd they swing it? Simple: instead of relying on the magazine's normal use of cluttered stock photography, they dropped a little cash on a one-day photo shoot. And in that single day, they shot 200 covers. And if you need a before-and-after, just check out what the mag looked like before Pentagram got their hooves all over it:

Why Hire the Cow When You Can Get the Milk For Free?

As the internet makes ideas accessible to everyone and their grandmother, everyone and their grandmother has begun to believe they can do everything. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, we've paid experts (people with extensive training and experience) a lot of money to do specific things for us for a very long time. Now that the ideas they deal in are laid bare for us to absorb on our own it can be very tempting to think that we can fully grasp and then execute those ideas; why hire the cow when you can get all that great marketing milk for free?

Trouble is, we're often wrong.

There is a difference, after all, between understanding that a website greatly increases one's chances of making a sale and understanding how to design and build (two separate things, people!) a website that sucks people in rather than drives them away.

John McCain's early dabbling with MySpace is a good example of this: someone on McCain's campaign knew enough to recognize the importance of MySpace among young potential voters, and decided to create a page for the presidential candidate. Only problem was, they weren't experts in MySpace functionality, nor in copyright laws and web design etiquette. So they nicked someone's css design and failed to give credit to the designer. And because McCain's crew lacked the necessary coding expertise, they outright stole the designer's bandwidth, unwittingly or not.

But the designer was an expert. So he swapped a little of his own code on his own servers, which resulted in a very public switch of McCain's political stance:

"Dear Supporters,

Today I have announced that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage...particularly marriage between passionate females."

Fact is, experts are experts because they know something we don't. And when we forget this, attempting to do what they do ourselves without due diligence, it often comes back to bite us in the butt (see yesterday's link to Dani's dissection of off-the-shelf templates).

One of the reasons we've gotten so turned off by experts—be they editors, designers, doctors or anyone else—is because so many of them (us?) rest on their laurels and don't live up to their promises. Seth Godin alluded to this in his recent post on the importance of editors:

"Great products, amazing services and stories worth talking about get edited along the way. Most of the time, the editing makes them pallid, mediocre and boring. Sometimes, a great editor will push the remarkable stuff. That's his job."

And therein lies the moral: know who the hell you're hiring. Know what they're good at, and how they got that way. And make damn sure what they're good at is actually what you want. Because a tall glass of free milk isn't worth it if it turns out to be sour.

Thinking About Buying a Website Template? Think Again.

Zen goddess Dani Nordin has a great post about the pitfalls of off-the-shelf templates over on her blog, including this gem that most folks overlook:

"It takes time away from activities that you're already good at, and takes you away from growing your business. When you went into business for yourself, was it because you wanted to learn HTML, SEO or logo design? Unless your business is graphic or web design, the answer is most likely no. Forcing yourself into a situation where you are doing all of the marketing, logo design, etc. for your business not only takes your valuable time away from your business, it forces you to do a lot more work with a lot less results than if you had found the right designer to partner with on your materials."

DIY seems to have a stranglehold on popular culture right now. But when you get down to the real nitty-gritty, business success relies on knowing when to get your hands dirty and when to invest in professional expertise. We're all on a budget, but if you're not willing to invest in your own business, how can you possibly expect your customers to?

Marketing Resolutions for the New Year

Trying to find the perfect marketing resolution for 2008? Try any of the ideas below to strengthen and grow your business through the coming year. Some of these ideas are simple to implement, while others may require investing a bit of effort and even money. But investment is all about ROI; everything on this list offers at least one significant benefit for organizations of any size.

Words of warning! Not all of these techniques may be right for your business, and almost all of them will be far more effective if you hire the right professional to help. And while that may sound like just a little bit of a pitch, it's also very true.


Brand Builders:

1. Create or update your logo
   Benefit: Creates an immediate visual connection with prospects and customers. Sums you up at a glance.
   
2. Create or update your identity collateral
   Benefit: Sends the message that you're a legitimate, professional business. Unifies your brand image.
3. Define your core values
   Benefit: Focuses your business, aids in decision making and strategic planning, and provides customers a point of connection.
4. Write a blog
   Benefit: Develops a consistent voice for your company.
5. Issue a press release
   Benefit: Enhances reputation, increases company exposure to the public.
6. Update your packaging
   Benefit: Creates a cohesive look and association with your company. Can also increase sales.
7. Create a marketing budget and feed that kitty
   Benefit: Enables you to actually afford to market your business, saves headaches when it comes time to implement your marketing plans.
   

Relationship Builders

8. Start an email newsletter
   Benefit: Keeps your business front-of-mind, educates prospects and customers about your company and offerings, opens the lines of communication between your business and your audience.
   
9. Network off-line
   Benefit: Creates real-world connections with prospects.
10. Network online (in forums, user groups, and on blogs)
    Benefit: Increases public awareness. Builds online connections and resources.
    
11. Conduct a survey with a prize drawing
    Benefit: Opens the lines of communication with your audience, solicits useful information for strategic planning, builds goodwill.
12. Offer something useful (product sample, e-book, white paper, etc.) for free
    Benefit: Builds goodwill, creates demand, engages prospects.
13. Write your policies down—all of them (if you don't have specific policies, create them)
    Benefit: Minimizes mistakes, creates a clear framework for customers to work within.
    

Sales Builders

14. Build/update your website
    Benefit: Too many to list! Strengthens reputation, builds legitimacy, informs prospects, offers customer support, increases sales (particularly with shopping cart functionality).
15. Conduct a highly targeted direct mail campaign
    Benefit: Reaches only those who are prequalified to buy from you.
16. Exhibit at a trade show
    Benefit: Puts you in direct contact with those who want your product or service; personalizes the business.
    
17. Solicit referrals from current customers
    Benefit: Leverages your current customers, automatically establishes trust with prospects.
18. Explore a new demographic
    Benefit: Expands your market reach.
19. Run a print ad in a consumer or trade publication
    Benefit: Reach a large audience in one shot.
20. Design an easy-to-use product catalog or service brochure
    Benefit: Informs prospects and encourages direct sales.

Do you have ideas of your own that can be added to this list? Post them in the comments below and I'll add them as they come.