by

Nicole Maziarz

Being a graphic designer, there are many essential tools that I can’t live without. Outside of a computer, design software (Adobe Creative Suite), books (always filled with valuable literature and great sources of inspiration), pencils sketchpads, printer, and scanner, here are a list of “must have” tools for today’s graphic designer:

Lorem Ipsum
http://www.lipsum.com/
This dummy text is great to use in a design when the final copy hasn’t yet been approved by the client. It can give your internal team and client’s alike a good idea of what the finished product will look like even when the content is still in development. This can help speed up the client approval process.

Smashing Magazine
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
This site is filled with great articles, design tools and tips,  from today’s most innovative designers. Whether you are looking for a specific CSS3 question or just some inspiration, this site can be super handy. Be sure to favorite this site to stay up-to-date on today’s best design practices.

Psdtuts
http://psd.tutsplus.com/
If you want to practice and improve your Photoshop skills, this site/blog has incredible tutorials that take you step-by-step in creating great graphics. The site is filled with detailed tutorials, free guides and more. Designers should be constantly improving their Photoshop skills and this site can be a fantastic tutor.

Art Directors Tool Kit
http://www.code-line.com/software/artdirectorstoolkit5/
Just recently, my creative director introduced me to this amazing design tool. It was so helpful and saved me a great deal of time when searching Pantone swatches for color palettes I was creating for a new logo design.  It includes swatch libraries, layout tools and many other solutions for all the hurdles designers are expected to leap each day.

These tools can help you grow as a designer, share this with your team  and creative coworkers today and stay tuned for more tips on making the most of your creative projects.

Nicole is a Graphic Designer at Zer0 to 5ive

by Michael Levey

At Zer0 to 5ive our “out of the box” strategic thinking has really made an impact in our media coverage.  Most recently, it was pitching reporters with briefing times.  We’ve grown accustomed to getting great news from clients less than 24 hours before the news will go live (i.e. a Fujtsu announcement that reached our radar in February right at the start of a 26 inch snowstorm!).   And finding out at the last moment presents a challenge for sending the “last minute” press release to the typical reporter on deadline with two stories and sifting through 47 incoming pitches.

Instead of relying on the press release to reach the reporter, the Zer0 to 5ive team re-forwarded its original emails with the press release to reporters with specific dates and times for a quick 15 minute briefing – no long emails, no deadlines and no demands that the reporter must write a story.  The end result: 11 interviews scheduled within a 24 hour period including PC Mag and even a television personality who has agreed to feature our client in a segment later this month. Our client deserves a special shout out: the CEO’s willingness to share his schedule made this process a smooth one. That’s another great thing about our work – building mutually beneficial relationships with our clients and the media.

We spoke with PC Mag’s Managing Editor Eric Griffith who offered insight into the value of pitching briefing times. “Any time pitches for a briefing can include a variety of times to pick from for a quick phone briefing, that’s always preferred, especially if it comes well ahead of an embargo date/time,” said Griffith.  “It’s no guarantee, but it’s nice to know our time is seen as valuable (and busy).”  We’ve found that most (if not all) reporters who accept briefings write something, whether it is an article or blog post.  Sometimes taking that initial pressure off a reporter to write immediately does the trick. It gives your client a chance to show off a great personality while fostering a longer term relationship with the reporter – and lets all parties in Northern climates enjoy those 26 inches of snow!

Michael Levey is a Senior Strategist at Zer0 to 5ive

Image courtesy of Zer0 to 5ive

By Kathleen Fusco

Surveys are an excellent way to gather information about customers and prospects in an intelligent and organized manner. Great surveys have clear objectives, deliver accurate and helpful insight and are a valid representation of the larger target audience.

Below are three aspects of ensuring a successful survey:

1. Outline your survey objectives.

It is important that you are precise about what information you are trying gain from your survey. Sometimes when an organization does a survey, other departments start to chime in with questions they want answers to. Stay focused and specific. Talk to the folks in your organization who will be using the data and align your objectives to meet their needs.

Here are some examples of bad survey objectives:
o What are customers thinking about
o Why don’t prospects respond to our marketing efforts
o Maybe we should explore different vertical markets

Good survey objectives:
o Identify the top three concerns our customers have with their service
o Determine the need for extended customer service hours
o Validate our new product features

Once you have your objectives, you can determine if a survey is the best way to get this information. Try to answer your questions through secondary research first. This will help you develop more informed questions and may even provide answers to some of your questions.

2. Survey people whose opinions count.

Make sure that the audience you are polling is your primary target audience. Too often, surveys ask for job title and screen out respondents who are actually your targets. For example, a technology company looking to survey decision makers might only look for CIOs to answer their survey. This is often not the best strategy because they may be excluding decision makers at prospective organizations who don’t hold the title “CIO”, but are still key influencers or buyers.

To make sure you are surveying the appropriate people, ask what their role is in making decisions. So in the example of a tech company looking for decision makers, you might ask questions like:

Please indicate your role in making technology-purchasing decisions for your organization:
I do not play a role (Screen out)
I support decision making (Potentially screen out)
I am responsible for technology purchasing decisions
I make recommendations for technology purchases

3. Ask objective questions in an appropriate order.

In order to ensure your survey is effective, begin with screening questions to route irrelevant people out of the survey. After these, drop in open-ended questions. It is best to have these early on when the surveyor is most alert. This helps avoid “annoying” respondents with asking open-ended questions later on in the survey. Obviously, sometimes this cannot be avoided, but the beginning is a great time to ask a question like: “What, if anything, do you like about xyz?” Getting these opinions early is vital as later questions may influence their original thoughts.

At this point, asking more general questions is a good strategy. These questions can then branch into specific questions depending on how they responded to the general questions. This requires “skip” patterns, which can be applied easily in a online software platforms like Zoomerang.

Follow these specific questions with more demographical questions to profile the respondents, allowing you to cross-tabulate and compare responses. It is a smart strategy to ask these questions at the end of the survey because they are more tedious and at times intrusive.

Lastly, it is always good to ask for final comments and the permission to follow up on a specific item or topic from the survey.

Points to Remember

Sloppy questions will lead to sloppy data. Make sure that your audience isn’t able to determine your view on a specific topic and avoid leading questions like: “What do you like about xyz?” It is better to say “what, if anything, do you like?”

Avoid asking confusing questions like “How would you rank our support and product?”

When asking questions that require a scale, respondents overwhelmingly prefer labeled scales. These also have greater reliability. Five- and 7-point scales have been proven to have the greatest reliability and validity.

Surveys are extremely effective tools for marketing and communications programs. The data revealed in a survey can help support public relations, thought leadership and innovation within an organization. Doing it right the first time will save you time, money and effort.

Kathleen Fusco is a Senior Strategist at 0to5

Marketing has its March Madness that is almost as crazy and exciting as basketball’s. March is the month that the numbers start to matter: Are we meeting sales projections for the first quarter? Is our PR working? Are our leads real? Are our communities engaged? Has our product launch worked?

At Zer0 to 5ive we work hard to establish metrics for the work we do – it’s in our best interest and our clients. We often use the end of March as the time to evaluate the strategies and tactics that we have implemented. It’s easy to adjust strategy, take advantage of the things that are working and try new ideas. Measurement and flexibility go hand in hand. Ultimately, marketing and communications is about conditioning the environment for sales and customer loyalty. Those are metrics that you can take to the bank!

Here are a few of the things you can measure and some ideas of how you can measure them:

• PR – perception, message pick up, volume/awareness, quality of coverage, leads (occasionally)
• Direct mail – leads
• Email – opens, click-throughs, quality of list, leads
• Advertising – leads, visits to web site or calls
• Social media – re-tweets, volume, engagement, interest, buzz
• SEO – rankings

Michelle Pujadas is the Founder and C0-CEO of Zer0 to 5ive

I was recently asked to answer that question as part of an article that ran in the NY Report — and as you might guess, the answer is “it depends.”

Web sites run the gamut from strictly brochure-ware with little interaction to fully interactive, highly complex data gathering entities. At the heart of every web site development, however, are the questions: what are my objectives and who is my audience.

Check out the article written by my friend and former boss and mentor, Paul McKeon. Also, don’t forget to download our SEO white paper, so that you can get maximum “bang” for your online “buck”!

NY Report: The Cost of a Small Business Website

Post by Zer0 to 5ive CEO Michelle Pujadas

Image courtesy of OraSure Technologies

Before you clear the last thing off your desk, attend the holiday party and hop on the plane to Barbados, remember to add that one last item to your December check list: employee holiday donations. Despite the tough economy, millions of people are planning to donate during the holiday season and many of them could be employees sitting right under your firm’s roof. It only takes a few quick steps to recognize these altruistic individuals within your company.

I recently worked with a client that had several employees actively involved in a local community event. We quickly discovered that spreading the “good word’ about holiday donations is a fantastic way to strengthen corporate morale, improve your firm’s reputation within the local community and help some truly deserving individuals during the holiday season. And it is fun for your employees! Here are five tips for spreading the good word about your employees’ holiday donations:

1. Ask around the office – Find out if your employees are planning
to participate in any holiday drives. If nothing is planned, suggest a local organization for your company to participate in. There are a myriad of deserving holiday charities to choose from. A quick Google search can help provide some options. The local United Way chapter and other volunteer organizations usually post the details of their holiday drives to their websites.

2. Draft a media alert and pitch to the local press – Draft a media alert with an event summary and send to local reporters. Writing an alert is a great exercise for creating content to later share with your company and stakeholders. Here is a sample media alert from a recent client’s employee involvement that summarizes the details in a “who, what, when, where, why” format. Offer up a time for interview and photo opportunities with your employees and local volunteer organization reps.

3. Take photos and videos – Go to the event and take photos or conduct video interviews to capture all the details. All this can be done now with a basic digital camera! It’s a good idea to label photos with names of employees when sending to the media. Be sure to add your photos to your company’s website or social media pages later on.

4. Write a summary email – The summary email is important for building corporate morale within your organization. Pull a summary from the media alert (attaching photos of employees who participated) and send in an email to members of your organization. Take a shot at sending a few summary bullets and photos to reporters for their newspaper’s community section or briefs.

5. Post a recap to your company site – Create a wrap-up summary and post to your corporate website. Include any relevant media coverage in your news section. Recap the event in your next company newsletter and be sure to share your holiday story by posting to your company blog, twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

These are some of the fun and easy ways to show the holiday spirit of your employees and solidify your company’s connection within the community. Follow the tips above and ensure your employee volunteers are recognized this holiday season!

Post by Mike Levey, Zer0 to 5ive Senior Strategist

Along with pumpkins and early thoughts of turkeys and treats, it’s time to think about 2010 planning. Too often, strategic planning is pushed off –becoming a rush job at the end of the year when budgets are due. The result is lackluster first quarter sales and another year off to a slow start.

Planning takes time – time to evaluate what went right and wrong during the year, time to conduct customer or prospect research, and time to develop the strategies that will make a difference in the coming year.

A good marketing plan takes into account business goals, the environment, budget and resources. Our plans follow a tried-and-true outline:

• Objectives
• SWOT
• Audience
• Positioning and messaging
• Strategy
• Tactics
• Timeline
• Budget

With all of the options for communicating, plans also need to be built holistically with awareness, lead generation, customer engagement and brand impact all considered through a single lens.

There’s a saying in marketing: nothing is worse than a bad plan well executed!! Take the time you need. Click through our Planning Kick Start presentation (below) and take advantage of our Kick Start session.

When used correctly, email marketing can be a powerful part of an integrated communications campaign and an effective tool for reaching your customers and prospects with offers or information. However, current CAN-SPAM laws and poor planning can trip up your campaign if you’re not careful.

At 0 to 5, we’ve created and deployed hundreds of email marketing campaigns on behalf of our clients. And while the success of a campaign depends on many different factors, we use the following checklist to ensure that these emails elicit action – not annoyance – from the customer.

1. Get Permission – First and foremost, always ensure you have your target’s permission to send them an email – otherwise it is spam. If you are using an in-house list, keep your unsubscribe list up to date. If you are using a rented list, make sure you are working with a reputable company that has strict anti-spam policies. Most list rental companies require a “permission” email be sent in advance of your campaign, to enable people to opt out. If the company is willing to give you the list without restrictions on its use – be wary!
2. Time it Right – Plan the delivery of your email to maximize its effectiveness. Send your emails mid-week and mid-day to get the most emails read by your targeted audience. Space out your emails so that you are not emailing your audience more than once a week.
3. Design Smartly – A visually pleasing HTML email is more likely to be read than a plain text email – but you should always include both options, as some people block HTML emails from their inbox. When designing an HTML email, always maintain a balance of copy to HTML images, and be careful to limit the amount of images in the email. Also, keep the width of the email to 600 pixels or less to ensure that the entire email gets seen on your recipient’s screen.
4. Make it Mobile-Friendly – Chances are a significant number of your emails will be read on a mobile device. You can make your message more mobile-friendly by putting key copy in plain or HTML text, and stripping out any top menus, large logos or banners at the top of the design. Be sure to keep your emails short and include all important information and links near the top of your email.
5. Grab Attention with the Subject Line – This is the most important part of your email, and will have the biggest impact on the results of your campaign. As such, make the subject line short and to the point, while communicating something of value to the target audience. Some experts recommend keeping the subject line to 50 characters or less. Also, be sure to avoid common “spam” words and symbols.
6. Include a Clear Call to Action – The content of your email should include a clear call to action matching the objective of your campaign: “Click here to learn more,” “Register now,” “Sign up for our newsletter.” Make it easy for the recipient to take action with links that take them directly to the form or page where they can access the specific information in which they are interested.
7. Keep it Short and Sweet – Keep your copy short and benefits-oriented. Many consumers view their emails from the preview pane, or if opened, may spend only seconds with each email, so keep this in mind when writing your copy and make those seconds count.
8. Avoid Spam Words – Use of certain words and symbols are likely to land your email in the spam filter. Avoid using symbols such as exclamation points and dollar symbols, or the words “free,” “sale” or “discount” in the subject line or the body of your email if possible.
9. Easy Unsubscribe – Always include an unsubscribe link in every email. This is required by the CAN-SPAM Act. Make sure to honor any requests to unsubscribe immediately and be sure to remove unsubscribers’ names/emails on all the databases you use.
10. Test, Test, Test – Always do a seed test of your email to see how it looks as deployed – on a computer as well as a mobile device. Test the links to make sure they are all working, proof one last time, and make any other adjustments necessary before the full deployment.

With every email marketing campaign you deploy, you will learn more about how to fine-tune your emails to maximize their effectiveness with your target audience. Keep these tips in mind and it should give you a good start to a successful campaign.

Posted by Zer0 to 5ive managing principal Jennifer Moritz

Emailing the media is easy. You draft your pitch, email the reporter and wait to hear back. On a good day, the reporter writes back that he or she wants to interview your client. On a bad day, you don’t hear back. On an average day, you probably still don’t hear back. So I ask, how can you rely solely on email when the top journalists are getting 100+ pitches a day and juggling deadlines, meetings and special requests from their managing editors?

I’ve found that using the phone is a complementary tool for pitching the media. The phone is not always appropriate when the reporter is on deadline, says “no” through email or you have not researched his or her recent stories and publication, but what follows are 7 ways to use the phone to your advantage:

1. Time sensitive release: Just as football is a game of inches, PR is a game of minutes. Sometimes there’s just no time to wait to hear back from a reporter if the big event is the next morning or your client just launched the hottest medical device. Follow up by phone if you don’t hear back through email on important and timely announcements.
2. Holiday weeks: Don’t underestimate the holidays. Some journalists will certainly plan vacations around the holidays, but the bottom line is that news marches forward and most journalists who are staffed around the holidays have quiet schedules and could be waiting to take your call.
3. The “generic” email: Often magazines and newspapers will list an “info@” email for following up with key contacts. Calling these outlets directly and asking to speak with your intended contact insures that the right person hears your pitch.
4. Reporter only responds to your first email: When a reporter initially emails back with interest but later becomes idle on follow-up emails, give them a quick call, assuming that you’ve given the reporter a reasonable amount of time to respond. Most journalists are actually ok with follow-up calls if you do your research.
5. Voicemail: Don’t underestimate the power of voicemail. It’s non-invasive, and as I mentioned above, your contact could simply be swarmed with too many emails to ever open your pitch. Earlier this year, I pitched an event to the Los Angeles Times and couldn’t reach the right person by email or phone. I left a couple of quick and to-the-point voicemails and the next morning I found out that the morning assignment editor received my voicemail and sent to a reporter who attended my client’s event and wrote an influential article.
6. Finding the appropriate contact: Usually a media database or publication’s website list the appropriate editors and beats. However, if you cannot quickly identify the appropriate contact at a publication, take a stab at calling the publication’s editorial desk for the most appropriate contact. Sometimes by calling you might even reach an editor who asks you to pitch them and with the proper research and good PR pitching they might encourage you to follow up with a specific reporter that will want to write a story.
7. 100% belief in your pitch: I left this last because I feel that this overrides all situations in media relations. If you truly believe that the reporter is an extraordinary fit, you’ve done your research on the journalist and you just don’t hear back from emailing, try calling. At worst, if the journalist is not interested you can use this as an opportunity to find out how you can make your next pitch better or bring closure by crossing the contact off your list.

At the end of the day, our clients judge us by the amount of quality media coverage we can bring to the table. And the phone becomes another way to get out your story. I can tell you first-hand that adding the phone into the PR toolkit has led to additional media coverage that ultimately has increased client leadership and generated additional customers and revenue.

Post by Mike Levey, Zer0 to 5ive senior strategist
Image courtesy of Aussiegall via Creative Commons BY 2.0 license

We just completed another ChalkTalk for a new client yesterday where we went through our competitive positioning process.  Once again, having your client really think about their differentiators, market challenges and market opportunities crystallizes a competitive difference that has legs.  In this case, we identified a simple approach the client was using that was almost a give-away, not only as a differentiator, but as a new revenue stream and a “trojan horse” for sales.  You could feel the electricity in the air as the sales and marketing teams absorbed the impact of what we were doing and the potential it held.

Whether you call it positioning, competitive positioning, re-positioning, de-positioning, you-name-it positioning — at the end of the day it’s all about owning and differentiating your offering — and making everyone else’s offerings look less desirable.  If you haven’t done this for your company in a while, do it.  Who knows what you’ll find!

(Posted by Michelle Pujadas; image via Creative Commons courtesy of Jesus Solana)