If your email inbox is anything like mine it’s constantly filling up with marketing emails from various sources. Some of these are newsletters I’ve manually signed up for (fine), some are from companies I’ve bought something from in the past (fair enough) and some are completely unsolicited (no, no no!)

Why would you annoy potential customers?

When I received unsolicited emails I reach for the ‘junk’ button. This is not something you want people to be doing when they receive your emails. What many people don’t know is that every time a user clicks the junk button in response to an email a black mark is counted against the sender’s email provider. Services such as Campaign Monitor and MailChimp are very serious about spam – there are actually laws about it in both Australia and the USA where the companies are based. Enough of these black marks can result in you being unceremoniously blocked from using their systems. Rules on email are more vague in the UK and consequently providers based in this country are less strict on where you get you mailing list from. But ask yourself this, on receiving an email from a company you’ve never done business with, probably never even heard of, how often do you feel like investigating further. I have enough stuff to do without responding to junk mail. By spamming my inbox a company makes a poor first impression on me.

So how should you contact people initially?

If sending bulk email to a purchased list is bad idea, what’s the alternative? It’s very simple: Look at the list you have, pick one name, and send that person an email. Then pick another name and repeat. The subtle difference with this approach is that when you send an email to an individual, you are starting a conversation with them, rather than broadcasting at them. Emailing an individual and letting them know that you would value a few moments of their time to explain your services is a very different thing to adding them to your mailing list. Is this method going to take longer than writing a single email and clicking ’send’? Of course it is. Will it be more effective? I would say so. And once you have started that dialogue, there’s nothing to stop you adding that person to your mailing list, just make sure you ask them first.

Making a good first impression

When sending that initial email keep in mind that you are asking someone to pause their day and pay attention to you. Remember that you are not doing the recipient a favour by emailing them so keep it brief and think carefully about the tone.

I received two very different ‘first contact’ emails this week. One from a print company included the line: ‘I would be grateful if you could come back to me by way of return e-mail or by phone’ – Yeah I bet you would. Because that way you can just send this email to a hundred people and then forget about it. The next email I received was from an Accountant who started by telling me that he’d got our details through a recommendation from a friend on Facebook. He told me a little about himself and then simply said ‘If you ever need any help then please do not hesitate to get in touch.’ The request was the same, but then tone was very different. I actually will get in touch with the second sender, whether I decide to use his services or not. He got the tone of his email spot on, and that’s what you need to do to be effective.

What’s next?

In my next post I’ll talk about what to do once you’ve legitimately built up mailing list of people who actually want to hear from you.

Have you ever been given a design brief and found the first thing you did was type words into a stock site to see what came up? To my shame, I have. That’s what these sites do to you, they whisper in your ear and tell you there is a stock image for everything. You can have your cake and eat it, all for $5.

A while ago it hit me. I was fed up with being a graphic designer. I hated that my job had become so predictable as it was unpredictability that had attracted me to design in the first place. As a kid growing up I loved art, but when I was deciding what career path to follow I came to the conclusion that artists only became famous and made money after they’d died. I mean no disrespect to artists, but in the words of Brian Clough, “Don’t send me flowers when I’m dead. If you like me, send them while I’m alive.” So I chose the world of commercial graphic design.

It occurred to me that I’d been neglecting the very skills that had brought me to where I was. I can hold a pencil, I can draw, I can paint. I like to create something new, something unique, something artistic. Why was I wasting hours of my life sifting through endless pages of search results? I could be spending my time coming up with a truly creative solution. And with that thought, with the decision to pick up the arts that I loved, I rediscovered my passion for design and my inspiration to do something new.

If you browse our website, I’m sure you’ll be able to spot a few stock images in some of our work. Unfortunately in some cases, stock images are a necessary evil. I’d much rather come up with an illustration or commission a photographer, and where I can, I do. Sometimes though, it’s just not practical, it’s unavoidable. When a client asks me to “just find a stock image to go there,” I now tell them that every time I have to search for a stock image, a part of my soul dies! On a tangent, if there are any photographers out there reading this, my advice to you (free of charge)… Get together a large group of people made up of multiple ethnic groups, all ages and both sexes. That image will make you a small fortune! My advice to my fellow designers though, see royalty free stock image websites for what they truly are… a last resort.

Thanks to Patrick Welsh for hosting a great event.

I’d really value your feedback, let me know what you think!

I’m involved in helping run a christian youth event in Derby called Fuel, and the leaders asked me to design a fresh set of promotion material for it. The idea is that each cross represents a young person and they are being gathered from the margins to read FUEL, its a coming together. No flickering flames in sight!

One of my (Andy) projects was featured recently on the Central Station Blog – ‘Top 5: Typographic Treasures’. They chose my depiction of Ghandi using some of his famous quotes to make up his portrait. I’m hoping to continue the concept into a series, so watch this space. In the meantime, check out the Central Station blog…

Marketing

A warning: Twitter should never be used purely as a sales channel or somewhere to go on about how great you are.

Nobody will listen if all you’re saying is “Buy our products”. That’s not to say that Twitter can’t benefit your business though, you just have to understand the medium to make the best of it. The thing about Twitter is that it’s a level playing field. If you don’t connect with other people, no-one is going to connect with you. The obvious exception here is if you are a celebrity. Assuming you’re not, you need to start making connections. You can do this by ‘Following’ people who have something in common with you or what you do. If they say something interesting; reply to them, or point other people to their Tweets.

This kind of mutual appreciation is where Twitter (and to be honest, business in general) really starts to work. I’m much more likely to consider using a company if a friend recommends them than what amounts to a cold call. But as you build connections, you’ll start to find people much more receptive to your suggestion to check out your “latest update to the website” etc.

Staying in touch with world events, live!

Staying up to date with current events can be tricky. Of course you can watch the TV news and read the papers, but what you’re getting is an organisation’s opinion on what is (and therefore what is not) worth hearing about. Enter the hastag. A hashtag (any keyword preceded by #) is the way for anyone to contribute to a live, unedited stream of information about any topic. Anyone searching for the hashtag in question will get live updates from around the globe as they are being written.

Here’s an example; a search for #ukelection or #leadersdebate will currently put you in the centre of the debate surrounding the impending general election in the UK. Another current example; a search for #ashtag gives announcements of flight cancellations and delays, lift-sharing schemes and other news connected with the Icelandic Volcanos. If I were the sort of person to use a term like ‘grassroots movement’ I would use it now. Thankfully I’m not.

Sharing things you like

Imagine you’ve just heard Tesco is selling everything at half price for the next 24 hours (which it isn’t) you could very easily tell all your followers and share the discount love. And if you were going to post that kind of thing often, you could even think up your own hashtag. #amazingdeals for example. You could become know as the ‘Dealmaster’. Just imagine!

It’s just good fun

And finally, using Twitter can simply be good fun. Only today I got caught up in a rather amusing game, the object of which was to replace the word ‘Heart’ with ‘Arse’ in song titles. Anyone could join in simply by adding #songsthatreplaceheartwitharse to their Tweet. Juvenile? Yes. Entertaining? Judge for yourself. Here are my favourites…

• When The Arseache Is Over – Tina Turner
• Why Does My Arse Feel So Bad? – Moby
• Write Your Name Across My Arse – Terence Trent D’Arby
• You broke my arse in 17 places – Tracy Ullman
• Theres a hole in my arse that can only be filled by you – Extreme
• Quit playing games with my arse -  Backstreet boys
• Arse Shaped Box – Nirvana
• There must be an angel (playing with my arse) – Eurythmics

And a few of my own suggestions…

• My Violent Arse – Nine Inch Nails
• Arse Attack Man – The Beastie Boys
• My Arse is the Worst Kind of Weapon – Fallout Boy

You can signup now at twitter.com
And oh yes, you should follow me on Twitter!

Let me know if you can think of any other good uses for Twitter.

Our electric cards were piling up so I decided to put them to good use by creating this rather fetching piece of ‘wall-work’. I’ve just made up the term wall-work by the way. I’m quite pleased with it.