Emma Email Marketing Coupon

Rush Design Group is a branded reseller of emma email marketing. If you are familiar with emma you already know that they are the industries premier email marketing system. We chose to offer emma to our clients because it has the best system available. As a reseller we provide the design for our clients emails. As a special offer to our blog visitors we are offering 5 free account setups. This will include the custom design of your email header and set up of your account. There is no contract. We are only offing this to the first 5 that respond. Please click the graphic above for a contact form.

Free Stuff for Nashville Businesses

Over the next 4 months Rush Design Group will be giving free printing and design to 1 lucky winner each month. Everyone else that signs up will receive that months item at 50% off. (limit one per customer only while supplies last)

After signing up you will receive an email notifying you of that months offer. Every email will have a button to click to register your name in the drawing. Please pass the email along to anyone you know that would like to save 50% off that months item.

Free Business Cards

May’s Free Giveaway will be 1000, full color, glossy, double sided, business cards. With set up included. Regular price for cards would be $60 per 1000 and $50 for setup and design. If in May you would like to get 50% of this $110 item please sign up for the email and in the email there will be a code for your discount.

Logo Design – Is Fresher Better?

The job of a logo is to give the public an image which to associate everything they know about a company. The logo does not have to exactly explain what the business does but it does need to have a look or feel that is consistent with the companies intended brand position.

Often busiesses work hard to imprint the image of there brand on the consumers mind. Once they have achieved that they just have to continue to offer the same great product or service that they are known for. However the urge to change is sometimes overwhelming. The need to look fresh and new is irresistible. Sometimes people start to think that since the company is so well known that maybe they are getting over looked.

In the case of Sprite, Blimpie, and Tropicana I believe they have got caught up in the need to make a change. The product has not changed or even the market but change for sake of change. And in these cases I would agrue that this change was not a change for the better.

So when is it the right time to make a change?

If a logo represents everything that your company is in the mind of the consumer than the only reason to change a logo is if you want to change what clients think about the company. For example if your company has delivered an affordable generic product for 20 years and you have decided to change to a high end specialty offering than you would not want to keep the same logo. Or if you started off selling horse shoes and now offer the whole horse with the trailer and horse food. Then a name like Troy’s Fine Horse Shoes may not be appropriate and a logo change as well as name change is in order.

Now there is something to be said in the area of tweaking a logo. For example the John Deere logo has been tweaked slowly over time. Likely the logo changed as the technology changed. They wanted to preserve what the public thought about the company but show them that they are making slight changes.

So in closing if you are a design firm and sprite comes to you wanting a new logo it may be hard to turn away the business but maybe it would be better to help them tweak the design instead of wipe an iconic image from the mind of all humanity. If you are a business owner consider what image your clients are associating you with and if it is consistent with your current position.

P.S. a note to Coka-Cola don’t even think about it !

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Don’t talk about your Brand and nobody will know

I have recently been spending more time networking on the internet. I read other peoples blogs and follow interesting people on twitter. I don’t know any of these people but I feel they have interesting or helpful information that I would like to know. The only thing I know is what they tell me. I don’t know them personally. We don’t hang out. I don’t know where they live. If they have a picture of them in a suite on their profile or site. I assume they where suites. If they twitter about going to the gym I think they must be healthy.

This reminds me of branding. With a brand businesses can be whoever they want to be. If they want to be the best at what they do they just have to say I am the best at what I do. If you want people think that you are hip and modern all you have to do is have marketing and design materials that are hip and modern. If you want to be the expert on something just have lots of information about one topic on your website and in your print materials. Perception is reality in many cases. Now you may have to prove that all this is true on day ,but you may not get that opportunity to prove yourself to be the expert if you don’t act like the expert.

The same is true in the opposite scenario. Unfortunately this is all to common in today’s small businesses. If you don’t have any information about what you do on your website or print material people assume you are not the expert. If your logo is poorly designed and inconsistent people assume that you are not hip and modern or even professional. If you never tell people that you are the best at what you do. Why would they ever thank that you are the best at what you do?

Sometimes business just assume that people will figure it out on their own. That is however unlikely. Perhaps only if they happen to stumble in your door. But if a person is looking for someone that is the expert in your field you are not going to make the list. You will not likely get found. Instead you have to go out and find the work as oppose to the work finding you. And once you do find the work you have to convince them that you are a professional and that you know what you are doing with out anything to back it up other than I nice smile.

So act like the business you want to be. You set the bar. You tell the world who you are. They have no reason to doubt you. Be proactive. Take charge. If you don’t have your stuff together than we should meet. I am the best logo designer in Nashville. I am tall and very handsome. I smell good and have a delightful personality

Farming VS Hunting… The way we get BUSINESS

Ok I am not really a hunter or a farmer, but there are some great similarities in the way the we look for business. Both Farming and Hunting put food on the table but which is better.

First Hunting

Hunting is going out and looking for some business to drag home. The small stuff is a little easier to find and certainly easier to carry back. However the big business will feed you for much longer. Although the big business is usually harder to find and harder to drag home. But when you are successful there is nothing better than going out with a purpose, finding that big job, closing the deal, and enjoying the rewards of your hard work. The problem is the to many businesses rely on this approach exclusively. We wait until the last job is finished then go out looking for the next job. Maybe you will find it maybe you don’t.  It can be an unreliable source of business.

Farming

Farming is a much more reliable form of getting business. This approach requires that you take the time and spend the money upfront and wait for the business to come in. Farming is not instantly rewarding. It requires putting up a good website that people can find easily, calling on potential clients on a regular basis, sending out a newsletter or marketing materials. To make farming successful you need to plant the seeds about your business all over the place and in time those seeds well mature and bring you more business. Some seeds take longer to machure and produce business but that actually works out to your benefit. If you are always sowing the seed about your business you will , over time, have a steady flow of business coming in.

So why do most business choose not to farm for business.

Farming requires an upfront expense. Hunting can be done by one person armed with a few business cards. Hunting brings instant results , when your successful, and farming takes longer before the results come in. The best plan is to do a little of both. If you will take the time to market your business on a regulare basis ,with good print and web design, when you go out looking for business the chances that you will succeed will be much higher. If the seed is already planted the hunter may just have to go by and pick it up.

Decide now that you will find at least one marketing plan to do on a regular basis. Commit to doing it for atleast 6 months. You will be glad you did. Please contact Rush Design Group if you need help your print or web marketing materials.

Marketing Preperation for 2009

Ending the year can be very encouraging for some. For others it is proof of a goal not reached. Whatever situation you find yourself in be encouraged that with new goals and some planning you can make 2009 a very successful year.

Yesterday I printed off my monthly sales for 2007 and 2008 and compared the two. It was interesting to see the trends that had developed. For example March, November, and December have been slow months for the past 2 years. However the months following are generally better than others. What I can learn from this is that when times are slow we crank up the marketing machine and get busy looking for work. We react to the problem The goal for 2009 is to plan in advance for those slow times by increasing marketing and networking efforts in advance to correct the coming slow down in business. Another trend that I have noticed is that a decrease in business generally follows our busiest months. This could be attributed to the lack of time spent on marketing when business is booming.

You may or may not be able to relate but chances are that the majority of us are in this boat together. Most people get their act together and start looking for work when they have had a slow down. Why not instead plan for those slow times and be proactive. The problem is that we never have the time to spend on marketing until we have nothing else to do. The reason we have nothing else to do is because we didn’t spend time marketing. It is a viscous cycle.

So the plan is this. Send out a monthly e-newsletter. The newsletter will provide consistent marketing throughout the year. In months before a historic slow down spend time calling potential clients and sending out direct mail. Also look for speaking opportunities at local chambers and other networking opportunities. Call past clients and look for new opportunities with them.

Rush Design Group can provide a email marketing solution as well as consult with you on the use of direct mail to target specific business opportunities. We can’t speak or network for you but we can insure your design materials look great. So good luck in the new year and make a plan now to have your most successful year to date. We look forward to working with you.

YOU can have Success without a Logo.

It is true. You can have a successful business without a logo. I run into businesses on occasion that basically have no branding and no logo. They have there name in some standard font on a sign but they really don’t have a logo or a brand. They have been in business for longer than I have been alive and are making good money doing whatever they do. So here I come ,mister logo designer, trying to sale them a logo or a brand or anything resembling a marketing effort. Their response usually goes like this. Well buddy our owner Jim started this business 50+ years ago and we rely on word of mouth and good customer service. “Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, 44 percent survive at least four years, and 31 percent survive at least seven years, according to a recent study.” from sba.gov. If this is true than this business is unique to start with. To be in business for so long means they are doing a lot of things right. Generally after closer evaluation a few things are found to be true.

1. The business Owner is the back bone of the business and brings in the majority of revenue through personal contacts and long standing relationships.

Problem: If the owner dies. The relationships may also. Or if the person the owner has the relationship with moves to another company. The business will likely suffer. Because there is no brand in place the value dies with the relationship. If the value is in the brand then the new owner will likely continue the service that the brand represents. One other potential problem with this scenario is that if the business should decide to sale while things are good the owner will likely need to stay on to see the business through the transition. With so much of the value in the person and not in the brand the business will be valued less to potential buyers. Example if you were buying Coke. Would you want to own the drink or the name? If you could Only pick one you would probably pick the name because it is recognized world wide.

2.The company was able to carve out a niche early on and have not seen significant competition.

Problem: When competition comes, and it will, You don’t want to start a brand or marketing campaign to tell your clients about the value you bring. You want to have that in place before. Be assured that the competition will have all there ducks in a row. They will tell your customers all the things you should have been telling them coupled with a great price. It may not take much to persuade them to leave.

3.The Company has large clients that generate consistent business.

Problem: If one of those clients leaves you will have wished a strong brand had been in place so that when your new sales guy goes out people will have heard of and recognize the value in your brand. You will not need to take the time convincing them that you know what your doing you will just have to make the sale based on offering what they need at the right price.

So if you are a business that has enjoyed success, take the necessary steps to ensure your companies value and develop a professional image with a logo that customers can associate your quality with.

4 Steps to Building a Marketing Database

This summer I started to commit more time to building a database of contacts. In the past I had not been very good about working on the list on a regular and consistent basis, but now I do. Actually I pay someone part time to do it from home because it would never get the attention otherwise.

Here are ways to build and use a database for growing your business in a slow economy.

1st. Make sure that the names you get are from people that you have met or have given you permission to contact them. That is the reason for building the list, because you plan to contact them.  If you get a business card or an email from someone add them to your database. Or call and ask if you can contact them later or I ask “Would it be ok if I sent you my contact information”. Or “Can I email you some info about our company.” Those are ways to build the list.

2nd. Get good information. I use Google documents this lets me set up a spreadsheet that I can update and edit from any location. It also lets multiple people update the same list. This keeps the information up to date and correct. I can leave notes about the conversation I had and when I last contacted the business. I keep track of Industry, Company, Contacts Name, Title, Phone, ext, Date Contacted, Date to call back, Email, Website, and Comments about the call.

3rd. I use that info to import into Rush Mail this lets me send a email newsletter to that list on a monthly basis. I could also use that list to form a direct mail campaign.

4th. Always update the list. Call your contacts on a regular basis. I make a point of calling my potential clients when ever I have down time. I call them every 3-4 months. I ask if they recieved the email or post card that I sent and if they have any project coming up in the future. I am not very aggressive with the call. I keep it casual and quick. If they don’t need me I don’t want to be annoying. But I do want to remind them that I want their business.

Online Networking… Embraced Graphic Design

So I hate all the new business networking sites that I get invited to join. Seriously can’t we all just join one? Apparently not. I get invited to different ones all the time and considered them a waist of time. Until recently I went to a seminar that mentioned that these online networking groups could be good for  website traffic and maybe even my rank on Google. So I have decided that over the next week I will join as many networking groups as possible and list them in my next blog with links to each profile. I also will present the results via a youtube video because apparently that could also help my traffic. This is an experiment I hope it goes well.

My current stats:

Google Rank

graphic design nashville – p 13

logo design nashville – p 5

print design nashville – p 9

branding design nashville – p 2

brand design nashville – p 9

Rush Design Group traffic last month 166

Rush Design Blog Last month 84

Check back soon.

Slow Economy Marketing

Businesses are looking to cut costs. Where should they cut cost? Likely they will cut any cost that will not force them to shut the doors. Many times the first to go is marketing, but why would you cut marketing when businesses are looking. You may be the answer to someones cost cut. You may be the one that can do the same job at a better price. You may be the one that can make the process more effective or less costly. How likely are they to find out how much you could have helped if your not trying to get noticed.

Marketing, whether it be on the web or in print is all the more important when times are tight. Companies that would have never considered leaving there current vendor are now willing to consider it. That raises another good point. If things are going pretty good for you now. Make sure that your customers know what value you bring. Make sure you are staying in constant contact with them because they may be willing to cut you to save some money.

There are many affordable ways to get your message to clients and potential clients. The most cost effective are your website, email marketing, and online advertising. If you want to get noticed while other business are looking give us a call. Rush Design Group 615-428-0967