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 Katie Cannon

Creating a website can be a fun and inspiring project, but can also become a headache if the right steps are not taken. Having an online presence is more important than ever. With more individuals beginning the buying cycle online, an easily findable, informative ans functional website can make a world of difference.

At Zer0 to 5ive, we find developing an effective website is a tightrope walk between creativity and delivering up to the standards mandated by your client. Remember you have been hired by your client and the ultimate creative vision is their’s. This does not mean you cannot be creative or engaging. Communicate the client’s key messages in a professional, yet original and innovative way will help set your site apart from the millions of other .coms in the space.

Here are a few tips I have learned from experience that can help you take your website development to a new level:

• Connect with your client. Get into their mind – what are they looking for? What image and message do they want their website to convey about their company? Connecting with the client from the start is crucial – getting on the same creative page as your client will save you countless headaches down the road and make each stage of design, development and implementation a breeze. Ask them for sample art, photos and other sites to draw inspiration from

• Luckily, there are millions of new Web 2.0 features available for free to no cost. Investigate what features and widgets would help you best achieve your client’s goals. Think about what you can provide to your client that will keep visitors engages. What can you present that will make your client standout in the marketplace? How can you help give your client the WOW factor? Consider social media, embedded videos, click to chat, rss feeds blogs… the list goes on and on.

• Your home or landing page is the first page a consumer sees and without engagement, site visitors will quickly abandoned the site. This is why creativity is so important. Being able to engage or interest the visitor immediately will go a long way. Think outside the box and have fun with the design. Yet, keep in mind that the website should still come across professional, clean and innovative.

• Communicate with your client. Make sure you understand what they want and how they want it done. Website development is a long process – not having a set communication method will only make the process longer. A timeline is crucial during the site launch preparation. Have weekly update meetings to ensure you and your clients are on the same page and creating a friendly repartee with clients can help plant the seeds for future working opportunities.

• Keep it search-friendly. Now-a-day’s an overwhelming number of consumers search through today’s major search engines. If you are building your site in an outdated language implementing other elements that impede search engine rankings, your site will be impossible to find, this means you are missing out on some major dollars! Come download our FREE SEO white paper to learn more about how you can garner visibility on search engine result pages.

• Provide ongoing customer service – it’s all about the experience, and working well together. Your job is not done after launch. A good web-development team will continue to be on hand to assist with any potential bugs, upgrades or staff difficulties.

• Double check all of your work! No website should ever be launched without making sure all your i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed! Use all the resources available to you to proofread site content. Provide internal links to appropriate pages and be sure that every page can be found every time.

If you understand the importance of communicating and connecting with your client, then you should have no problem designing and launching a website together successfully!

Katie Cannon is a Marketing Strategist ant 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

The start of every year brims with opportunities for great marketing and results. Here are some key take-aways from 2009 as we move into 2010.

Key Marketing Take-Aways From 2009

1. Your message and brand fundamentals are as critical as ever

2. The addition of a multitude of new channels via social media only means that it is more important than ever to understand who your audience is and where they get their information

3. The press release is not dead – in fact it is more versatile and useful than ever before

4. SEO is critical, but it must be aligned with traditional marketing strategies

5. Customers and prospects still love – and react to – great creative in all its forms

6. Customers will tell you what you want to know if you ask the right questions

7. In an age of electronic communications, a phone call or hand-written note goes a long way. Along those lines, bulky direct mail gets opened

8. Despite the decline of print media, nothing makes a client more excited than seeing their name in print

9. A great customer reference is invaluable

10. Measurement in all its forms continues to be a challenge – but it can be done and with the growth of web analytic, instant metrics are becoming an industry standard.

And, as always, an integrated strategic communications plan that takes into account all facets of marketing and public relations always delivers the best results! Begin 2010 with a resolution to make your marketing count.

Post by Zer0 to 5ive CEO Michelle Pujadas

Is it possible to put together a pitch template that will work for any pitch? I believe that 99% of the time, the answer is yes. Below is a sample pitch format that I’ve found has worked time and again. Have a look:

Reporters want an organized and compelling pitch that is easy to read, includes numbers and offers thought into the bigger trends and issues around a company or product. Here are the 1, 2, 3s that I believe will work for crafting a great pitch:

1. Here’s the story: This section gives the reporter company/product background and explains why he or she should cover. I try to keep this to 2-4 sentences at most. It’s easy to ramble on about the company and product. For example, the SmartSponge System can easily be described in five sentences, but this format helps me offer a condensed background, top-line product description, and tie it to an industry trend that the reporter will know.

2. Here are the numbers: I’ve found that reporters find numbers, facts and statistics helpful when building credibility for the importance of the story you are pitching. For example, hospital infections adding $30.5 billion to the nation’s hospital costs helps quantify the pain point in the market. The bottom line – reporters love numbers!

3. Here are the discussion points: I like to show the reporter how the pitch applies to his or her particular outlet. For example, in the sample pitch I target a business TV show that interviews CEOs of exciting businesses. Sometimes I will substitute this section with an “interview opportunities” section when relevant and offer industry experts and clients in addition to the company executive.

Some might argue that the sample pitch is too long, but for a new reporter that does not know much about a company or product, I think it’s important to keep the pitch a bit longer to help them see the big picture. Use these three easy steps and you will be ‘moon walking’ with your reporters.

Posted by Michael Levey, Zer0 to 5ive senior account strategist

Have you ever cringed when you were given a research question for a business plan or product launch and you don’t know where to start? Upon first glance, it seems impossible to find something like the total people who were locked out of their homes, or the market size for clinical trials.

As silly and rare as some of these questions may sound, I’ve found that sometimes even a small piece of research can help drive the development and execution of critical business decisions. I’ve developed a market research cheat sheet of free resources to help you gather information about market sizes, trends, competitors, pain points, pricing, key influencers and more.

Here’s a list off free sites and resources to check out:

• Leverage Library Assets – Many public libraries offer free versions of paid databases such as Hoover’s and Dun & Bradstreet (and some will even grant you remote access). I’ve found reference librarians to be helpful and passionate; many are now using online request forms. Before you panic, fill out a few of these forms at your local library and don’t rule out your alma mater library – universities have cutting-edge databases.

• Visit Industry and Government Sites – Industry organizations, non-profits, state and government organizations will often post a resources page with statistics, reports and surveys. When promoting an international trade event in Pennsylvania, I used the NewPA site to reference relevant statistics. I even found full survey reports on sites such as Pew Internet when studying adult usage of social networks.

• Use Blogs and Messageboards – Blogs and message boards can go a long way. For example, I had a client who needed a list of the top 1,000 churches for targeting his technology to Houses of Worship. Before buying an available list, I was able to obtain an Excel list of the top 1,200 churches ranked by size and contact information from a passionate church blogger! I’ve found LinkedIn’s answer page to be very helpful by posting research questions to people in targeted industries and verticals.

• Read through 10K Reports – Did you know that public companies include a section on competition and industry update/trends in their 10K reports? Even for companies I’ve researched that are private, I’ve found public companies in a similar industry to use as a benchmark. Free 10K reports are usually available through AnnualReports.com or a company’s website. Yahoo Finance also provides valuable financial information and has an easy-to-use interface.

• Subscribe to Industry Newsletters – I’ve found industry newsletters to be valuable as far as staying up-to-date with new trends and research. For example, I use Chief Marketer to stay in the loop with cutting edge marketing tactics. My firm also launched a marketing newsletter called Take 5 that is getting great feedback from marketing pros. Pick a few newsletters in your industry and stay committed to them.

• Create Targeted Searches – We can all search through Google, but the majority of us come to a dead end when looking for something rare such as the number of people locked out of their home or an emerging technology’s market size. I’ve found that using targeted searches can increase my searches 10-fold and. For example, when conducting a targeted search, be clever and include keywords such as “market size”, “billion”, “million” and/or “competitive landscape”. This has helped me find credible reports, PDF documents, surveys and articles online.

Those are some of the most useful research tactics I’ve discovered lately – how about you? Feel free to post other valuable resources in the comments to share with our readers.

(Post by Zer0 to 5ive’s Michael Levey; image “Inside the Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy, MA.” via Creative Commons courtesy of Paul Keleher.)