Gimme Something Worth Looking At

Flyers are a great way of getting information out but you need to be mindful of short attention spans!

And these days especially, capturing attention is all about compelling visuals! 

If your flyer is all words/ no pictures, the chances of most people stopping to read your words are smaller than you'd like. 

Break your words up into bite-sized pieces! Add color if you can or shades of gray if you can't! Break up your text with graphics or images or add a watermark background.

Otherwise...

Ugh! 

Soooo.... booooring. 

Don't do this to the people you're trying to communicate with!

Give them something to look at, something to direct their eyes and focus their minds on the most important pieces of information.

Or contact Stark Modest Designs 
and I could do it for you!

StarkModest@gmail.com

Jump on the Blog Bus or Get Left Behind

Search engines have been wising up lately and that makes your website harder to find! One of the best ways to get found, says Google, is to constantly update your content. The bestest, most easiest way to do that: Blogging.

Blogging is not just for disgruntled adolescents anymore (which is precisely how I started, by the by) and it's certainly not just for the prolific of opinion. You don't need to write an essay once a day and you don't need to spend hours prowling the internet for relevant content. You don't even need to "engage in conversation". 

What you need is to update your content on a regular basis. 

Figure out what you could say once or twice a week that's relevant to your business and what potential customers might search for to find your business. Do you have a soup of the day? A special promotion? A contest and that contest's winner? Do you have loyal customers that might appreciate being publicly appreciated? Do you have a student who has overcome some obstacle that deserves mention? What's new in your neighborhood?

Write a little blurb, use some searchable keywords, add a picture if you got one and that... is that.

Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!

Check out blogger, wordpress, or livejournal to start a free-standing blog or see if your website is blog-compatible. Weebly and Intuit have blogs built right in to the design software! 

Ask your website administrator or email StarkModest@gmail.com for advice! 

What I Learned from 90s Movies

As a product of the 90s and in the decade of my life where nostalgia seems inevitable, I've spent some time this week reminiscing about the old movies that seemed so very important to my adolescent self.

Because shapes and colors have always drawn my attention, I decided to forgo the cartoonization of my favorite 90s movies stars and focus just on their clothing and posture instead. 

I'm sure anyone in my age group will be able to identify the movie and probably the actors based on the clothing alone but just for funsies, I simulated the movie title font and substituted my own personal message.

   

  

Tell Me a Story

My reflection in a Graceland door

I've read quite a few articles lately about the power of storytelling in advertising and it makes a lot of sense. People connect with stories, they identify with characters, and they seek out the emotions they found in stories in their own lives.

Take, for example, how one time... I went to Memphis because the main character in a movie I love went to Memphis. Boy howdy was I disappointed when I didn't have the same life-changing epiphany he did when I got there. I did, however, get to see Graceland and that made up for it. 

Point being, a good story with powerful emotions can be an excellent marketing tool. All of the advice I've been reading lately has suggested using the story of your company to connect with customers. People aren't as interested in giving their money to nameless, faceless companies (who obviously use stock images in their advertisements) as they are in helping a real person accomplish their goals or live their dream. It's the emotion they're looking for. In an attempt to connect to the feeling of living their own dream, they might be willing to help you with yours.

So use that About page on your website, or the back page of your menu or brochure or program booklet, to tell the story of your company. Where did it start? Who are the main characters? What hurdles have you or are you still trying to overcome? Give a little bit of your heart to your customers and they may just be willing to give a little of theirs back.

Resources for crafting the story of your business:

A Quirky Experiment Proves the Value of Story Driven Content

How to Tell Your Company's Story

Your Story is Your Marketing Strategy

Or hire Stark Modest Designs to do it for you!