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Today I had a “learnable moment” about email marketing, and thought I’d share because it speaks to D&A Design’s philosophy on this media (email).
I was hard at work when the email tone sounded, and after a few minutes I checked to see what the email tone was about.
It was an email sent by an organization I follow and have signed up to be part of their updates. I quickly opened it and was immediately ticked off that I had stopped work for that email.
The disappointment was due to: A.) it was a poorly written hard sales pitch from an organization I normally respect, and B.) it was an all-text email with no engaging or interesting visuals whatsoever.
Point being, this organization is using their email marketing without thinking about who they’re talking to, and at what time the emails are being sent out.
Let’s face it – most of us are productive small business owners, managers, or contributors who like what we do, and we don’t want to be tapped on our e-shoulder for a hard sales pitch at 1:15 pm on a Thursday. Sales should be born out of relationships, not from poorly written, poorly executed, and poorly timed emails.
If the emails continue I will have my email address removed, and that is sad to think about because the emails are normally informative offerings of useful information that lead me to conclude I might need or want to purchase something from this company.
D&A Design believes that email marketing is part of a business’ conversation with the people they serve, and we learned this by experience.
Earlier in 2009 we experimented with one of the big providers of email marketing with our “Refresh & Engage” promotion. In the planning stages of that email campaign we really tried to figure out a way to sell, but not sell. The solution we arrived at was to start every email with information that hopefully was engaging. We surrounded the content with interesting visuals and used the formulas for best practices in email marketing that we have been trained to utilize.
After the information and need was established we offered a soft sell approach: Here’s what we’re offering, get in touch if it sounds like something you need. We tried to keep the tone at a level where it wouldn’t be pushy or obnoxious. What’s more, every email we sent out had a different slant to it, with a different offer.
The results were far better than we expected – big ROI for what we put into it. Better than the ROI, though, was that we put to practice what our convictions told us was appropriate, and I am happy to say that since that campaign we have designed and launched about a dozen email campaigns for different clients.
This may border on the line of preachy, yet it is important to realize that the emails we send out are speaking about and on behalf of our brand – perhaps as much or more than our web site and stationery. Let’s be careful and thoughtful with email marketing, and respect the time of we’re sending to.
We just read a fascinating post this morning over at Cincinnati’s Business Courier about Procter & Gamble’s “radical change-up” in an article called “In radical change-up, P&G streamlines how it promotes brands.“
Here’s a pull-quote that we found especially interesting:
The brand leader captains a team of people from the various firms and, in conjunction with P&G, they develop a brand message that can be implemented across the various media.
The line was interesting because it is exactly the thinking D&A Design has deployed for our clients from our beginning several years ago. Rather than become a niche design firm specializing in one particular media such as web, interactive, packaging or traditional print, we opted to take an approach that many of our peers did not think would work. We believed (and still believe to this day) that design is design, no matter the media. We simply design for the media we’re asked to design for, and then work with the best vendors when it comes to production.
A good example of this is our work with Dinovite. D&A Design works in tandem with Dinovite on all of their product brand identities. Once a brand identity is complete we then work on the consumer packaging for that brand, and the packaging can be anything from simple labels for rigid containers, squeeze tubes for liquid product, form-seal film for bags (think: vending machine potato chips bags), or some other structure in need of consistent branding. We work with the best vendor – printers, web coders/developers, packaging structural mfgs. – that produces each of these very different packaging needs.
Our work continues when the packaging is complete because the same brand consistency needs to be carried over to marketing. D&A Design works with Dinovite’s web vendors to create supporting graphics for sales and promotions. We create branded graphics that are used for broadcast email campaigns, as well as the occasional sell sheet. We create the branded graphics that are used to literally sell the products on the e-commerce web site. In some cases we even create the branded materials needed for events such as trade show booth graphics and apparel. All of this work is done in tandem with the very best vendors, allowing designers to be really good at design, and vendors to be really good at production. The biggest benefit, however, is consistency and cost efficiency. Just as the article pointed out, in the past businesses like P&G – and even much smaller businesses – outsourced their web site to a firm that only did web work; their packaging to a packaging firm; print work to a print firm. D&A Design saw the inefficiency of working this way when we formed our business model, and the benefits our clients continue to enjoy (and talk about!) is our measure for how well this philosophy is working. In short: So far, so good.
Point is, P&G’s new, “radical” approach is the approach D&A Design has found success for our clients. We certainly didn’t invent this process, but out of all the different ways to handle design and banding work, we find that the businesses we serve simply want one design source that can handle their design and branding needs. D&A Design is certainly not a trend-setter, but it is nice to read that the world’s largest consumer goods maker has arrived at the same conclusions we have.
One of the projects that came from D&A Design’s recent “refresh & engage” promotion was a brochure project (above). We had great creative elements to start with, provided by the client, and we simply took an idea that was very rough and worked it into a piece that could serve as a leave-behind, mailer, or talking point to make the case for this very impressive resource. Click the pics above to learn more about the resource – very cool!
SPS EZpay™ is “the solution for putting school fees online for parent access and easy payments over the internet!.” This service allows parents to pay for their kids’ meals and other school-related fees online instead of sending cash or a check with the kid, and using a teacher’s valuable time collecting it. This service is a huge benefit for parents, as well as school administrators. EZpay integrates into the processes that schools are currently using instead of asking them to bend to EZpay.
When D&A Design talked with the folks at EZpay about who they were, and what kind of persona the brand should cast, words like simple, clean, the best, top-notch service, and efficient came up a lot. So when D&A Design began the conceptualization phase of creating this refreshed brand identity, we decided to cover a lot of ground.
We began by evolving their existing logo (not pictured) into something just a step or two beyond where they currently were in terms of their visual presence. We used school-themed typography, but as we evolved the logo more and more during conceptualization, we gravitated toward the logo above. Intuition told us to include it in our initial idea offering, and it was immediately picked at “The One.”
A few rounds of color exploration gave us the new brand identity, which in turn gave us great direction for creating this new brand’s envrionment. First up was to create a simple tri-fold brochure self-mailer/leave-behind for selling.
Once the new brand environment was created and applied to the simple brochure, D&A Design then handed off all digital assets to EZpay’s web site partners so they would have everything they needed to construct EZpay’s new web site. We kept all lines of communication open through the process with the web partners to make sure they were aware of what was happening so that the EZpay branding goals would no be held up by getting them up to speed once D&A Design’s work was complete. The end result will be a great brand that is consistent at all points of touch.
We met Na & Associates through a mutual contact, and soon began talking about the goals and aspirations this Blue Ash, Ohio CPA was aiming for. It became clear that one of the first and most appropriate things to do is give their existing brand identity a refresher.
Not reinvent itself, not start-from-scratch, but simply refresh it – make it look new, fresh, bold, and the face of the new efforts Na & Associates had planned to implement.
The main element of the existing brand identity was the seal. Within the seal of the previous logo held all of the wording, crammed in quite tightly, and repeated several times over in order to fill the space.
D&A Design began by taking “Na & Associates” out of the seal, and creating a visual hierarchy so that the new brand identity had balance and maintained strength.
After several intial options were presented, and a few rounds of changes after, we arrived at the new logo above, and are now applying it piece by piece to print and web. While we did not create Na & Associates’ website, we do have on the radar a few changes coming that will give this new logo a place of belonging to all of the points where clients and prospects see it.
Lately I have noticed a lot of “brand refreshing” going around. When I pick up a Sunday paper, I head straight to the ad inserts. Not for the coupons, but for the FSIs and fliers to see what businesses are doing with their brand.
A few have really popped out to me, so I thought I’d do a little show-and-tell of what I see as good examples of refreshing the brand.
For starters, though, a quick look at a few examples from the past 5-10 years of brands we see every day, thanks to a few recent articles at LogoDesignLove.com:
These fast food logos display how a radical, yet consistent refresher to the brand can be utilized. In each case (except, maybe Taco Bell) the brand colors were carried over to the refreshed branding, but the identity was refreshed to look contemporary.
Most of the examples below of refreshed branding have not been radically updated to the degree of the examples above, so I see these as good examples of making big branding improvements without trashing the equity built into the existing branding. After all, at the end of the day we’re looking out for the best ROI, and a major shift from what people are familiar isn’t always the best idea (though sometimes it is!).
First up: Dominos Pizza
I first noticed their refreshed branding during the big football game this past February. I saw an ad with the “You Got 30 Minutes” tag, and I perked up. Partly because I immediately knew the voice-over work was ESPN’s Mike & Mike, and I once again was in awe of the power and breadth of ESPN in every facet of professional sports.
But mostly it was how Domino’s took their core brand identity (the slanted logo) and built EVERYTHING around it in their visuals. Their visual architecture plays heavily on the slanted logo – in every visual experience with their refreshed branding, we encounter elements that interact with the 45° angle of the logo. This subtly reminds us at every point that what we are looking at is a Domino’s piece.
Their messaging changed, too. Domino’s started talking directly to their consumers, and going younger as they did it. I started seeing ads and product names written in txt, and messaging that was clearly aimed at a slightly esoteric audience (see: unicorns in the latest TV spot).
New messaging was in conjunction with some of the funniest TV spots I’ve seen in a long time. When I saw their ads in the Sunday paper, I smiled as I saw consistency everywhere. Domino’s already had a lot equity built into their brand – they could take the wording out of their logo and people would know what pizza it is. But Domino’s took it to another level without shedding what they had built up.
And I’ll confess: I’ve ordered from Domino’s probably more than any other pizza joint since the new stuff came out. The refreshed branding is at least working on me.
Next up, Jiffy Lube
Jiffy Lube probably doesn’t jump out of the mind’s eye as a brand that would necessarily need a brand refresher, but – wow! – what a difference a little polish and consistency makes.
The previous brand identity – applied to myriad FSIs, television, fliers, and in-store marketing – was dated and seemed to be to very “mechanic-y” (to make up a word). Their messaging was a circus of We Can Do That Too, when in fact they have just a few core services that they should have been becoming known as experts on. One couldn’t help but look at a Jiffy Lube ad and not see a circus of messaging.
But with this new refreshing of their brand, Jiffy Lube has done a fantastic job of streamlining their message – what they do – and giving consumers a brand message that says “We change oil; You can trust us to change the oil in your vehicle.”
There’s a whole lot of good things happening with this brand, and it struck me that even the businesses that might not be “sexy” can still benefit from well-designed, thought-out branding.
Finally, Donatos Pizza:
I did not intend on making this a pizza-heavy post, but I also couldn’t ignore the big changes Donatos made in the last 6 months!
This is a much bigger departure, a la the Taco Bell example above. Donatos kept their colors consistent, but everything else from their previous branding went out the door.
The trick here is that there are still a lot of brick-and-mortar locations with a mixed bag of branding, and that can be a tender place to be for any business when your consumers risk being confused. I’ve noted at least two friends who saw new Donatos branding at a store, and thought it was a new business altogether.
At any rate, Donatos is committed to this new branding, and I think it works for them. Their previous branding – to me – said, “Hi, we’re Pizza Hut: The Sequel.” The new branding, however, really gives Donatos their own place to stand on.
I believe the new branding aligns much better with their products, too. Their products are not too traditional, whereas their previous branding was very old-pizza-place-ish. By keeping their color palette intact, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel for in-store furnishings, which helps their bottom line.
To wrap up: The main point of this post is to show a few very recent examples of businesses who refreshed their brand without reinventing themselves completely. In the cases of Jiffy Lube and Domino’s, they took existing branding and cleaned it up – made it contemporary, polished, and streamlined in messaging to really set themselves apart. Donatos took a bigger leap, but kept certain things intact so as to not have to redo everything.
The word “branding” can sometimes be thought of as expensive or lofty, but I think these examples show that simply refreshing what’s already there can make a business stand out from their competition.
- dan
