Volume 3

The Little Book of Marketing Do’s and Don’ts.

MondoVox® Creative Group

MondoVox® Creative Group proudly

presents the third edition of The

Little Book of Marketing Do’s and Don’ts.

This year’s collection of sage advice and

marketing nuggets offers a blend of

print and digital topics. Whether you’re

trying to build brand loyalty through

database marketing or enhance your personal brand through

social media, this edition offers valuable do’s and don’ts you

won’t want to miss.

MondoVox® Creative Group can provide a highly coordinated

team ready to take on any project or campaign including:

•Research

•Multichannel strategy

•Copywriting

•Creative execution

We successfully serve a wide range of companies that have one

goal in common — dominating their market category.

Contact Julia Moran Martz at (312) 850-1589, or send an email

inquiry to julia@mondovox.com.

Topic Page

Illustration Do’s and Don’ts ................................................................................ 4

Mobile Barcode Do’s and Don’ts ...................................................................... 6

Database Marketing Do’s and Don’ts ............................................................. 8

Sustainable Print Do’s and Don’ts ..................................................................10

LinkedIn® Networking Do’s and Don’ts .......................................................12

Corporate Blog Do’s and Don’ts .....................................................................14

Illustration Do’s and Don’ts.Original and distinct communication materials with the right illustrations can help boost your product or service in a crowded marketplace. These tips will help you get the most return on your investment.

Do

Don’t•Dismiss illustration because you think it’s too expensive — it’s not.

• Treat typography as an afterthought in the overall design — awful type can ruin great artwork.

•Alter any illustration without getting the creator’s permission.

• Think that illustration is a low-tech medium of a bygone era.

• Try to illustrate materials yourself if you’re not a professional artist.

• Edit the life out of the illustration. Nitpicking the position of a character’s thumb or the shape of a chair corner (yes, people do it) doesn’t improve the artwork and only frustrates the artist.

•Obtain exclusive rights for any illustration representing your brand.

• Experiment with different types of illustrations to find out which types work best for you.

•Use hand-drawn illustration to add a classic charm to your materials.

•Use digital illustration to combine media, programs and techniques for very unique artwork.

• Educate yourself about copyright ownership vs. licensing agreements. US Federal law applies copyright ownership to the artist while you are free to negotiate licensed usage agreements for the copyrighted illustration.

•Create a licensing agreement form to speed direct transactions with illustrators.

• Trust your artist to be the artist. If the illustration conveys your message, let the artist decide the details of the artwork.

4

5

• Think that mobile barcodes are only for younger audiences — mobile internet access is increasing among all age groups.

• Fail to learn about the mobile phone habits of your specific customer base and likely prospects.

• Forget to test the mobile barcode with a variety of smartphones and scanning apps.

•Go too crazy with the creativity — while you can get creative with your barcode’s design by incorporating color and artistic treatments, it does increase your risk for poor processing. So test, test and test again.

Mobile Barcode Do’s and Don’ts.Connecting the print and digital worlds with mobile barcodes is a dream come true for multichannel marketers. Here’s some practical advice to help make your use of mobile barcodes a success.

Do

Don’t

• Keep data density low — a matrix of more than 33 x 33 data pixels raises the risk of incorrect scanning or processing.

•Make the mobile barcode big enough on posters and larger pieces so that it can be easily scanned from a distance.

• Keep sufficient margins around barcode images to enable proper capturing and processing.

•Make it easy to download the Reader — not all smartphones come equipped with readers.

•Create mobile-friendly landing pages — not optimizing for mobile is the kiss of death.

•Offer the user something of value — you don’t want disappointment at the most critical point.

•Give the user something meaningful to do that makes sense from a mobile phone — Google Mobile Maps, coupons, tickets and reservations, streaming video or audio, etc.

6

• Place mobile barcodes on items located where there is no digital signal — subways, etc. (run tests if you are unsure).

•Neglect to the make the mobile barcode easily visible and easy to capture.

• Forget to track where your traffic is coming from as well as how much is produced — it’s the easiest way to justify future usage.

•Use mobile barcodes online — no need to get fancy when a simple link works better.

7

Database Marketing Do’s and Don’ts.Database marketing is growing in importance as companies move beyond just making the first sale to retaining and growing their customer base. Use these tips and best practices to strengthen your database marketing program.

Don’t•Depend more on creative and media selection than hard analytical

skills to develop successful marketing programs.

• Build your database in-house — odds are outside sources can do it faster and cheaper.

•Neglect database essentials — basic list hygiene including address accuracy and data standardization count, too.

• Build software that is readily available on the market — beware the IT wonk who always wants to do things internally.

Do•Get buy-in from the executive level — preferably the CEO.

•Consolidate your data — get it out of departmental silos for a full view of the customer.

•Determine your ultimate goals and then apply the appropriate database marketing strategies and techniques.

• Seek outside providers that offer expertise that may not reside in-house — strategic assistance, quantitative information, analytical tools and campaign management capabilities.

•Use a single database platform that brings together data and resources.

• Enhance your data with demographic and psychographic information — this is especially important for prospect lists.

• Link the database to the web — ensure that customer service reps have important information like contact names, past purchases and product or service preferences.

• Incorporate social media activities into your data structure, especially if you’re in a B2C market.

8

• Fail to test any campaign against a control — use key measurements such as response rates, ROI and lifetime value.

• Focus campaigns on price rather than service — you’re trying to build loyalty with database programs, not seek price shoppers.

•Neglect to keep key data for inactive customers — you need to make it available for future analytical purposes for at least four years, not the typical 24 months.

9

Sustainable Print Do’s and Don’ts.Long gone are the days when companies could slap an environmental logo on their materials and call themselves environmentally responsible. Here’s how to ensure that your ecological footprint passes muster.

Do• Scrub your mailing lists — bad addresses and duplicate names are

an environmental hazard.

•Choose vendors wisely — look for vendors that effectively measure, manage and report their environmental impact.

•Design print materials with sustainability in mind — multi-purposing pieces, reducing ink coverage and minimizing paper waste are just a few ideas.

• Set sustainability goals for your print programs — decide what would be most important to your organization, its customers and stakeholders and go from there.

•Make sustainable production choices — create a 100% digital premedia environment, specify recyclable PUR glues, use low-VOC inks and use aqueous coatings.

•Get personal — the more you employ database marketing, the fewer pieces you’ll print while also enjoying better marketing ROI.

• Specify environmentally responsible papers — choose recycled stocks or virgin papers from FSC®- or SFI®- certified forests.

10

Don’t• Rush to electronic alternatives for environmental reasons — digital

communications have a substantial and often overlooked carbon footprint of their own.

• Foil stamp as it limits recyclability — use eco-friendlier special effects like die-cutting and embossing instead.

• Forget that paper issues go beyond recycled content or forest certifications — use uncoated for easier deinking, specify lower brightness to reduce bleach consumption, select chlorine-free papers to eliminate toxins and consider mills that incorporate wind power.

•Overlook co-distribution strategies — they consolidate mailings and reduce the amount of truck trips to postal distribution centers.

•Carry big inventories based on questionable forecasts — get demand driven with a custom-branded digital storefront that incorporates digital print.

• Isolate individual steps when “greening” your print materials — one step affects the next, and it’s the whole supply chain that matters.

•Neglect to tell your story — let customers know how well you’re doing with print practices that support sustainability.

11

LinkedIn® Networking Do’s and Don’ts.LinkedIn is a powerful place for business professionals to exchange ideas, information and opportunities. Here’s how to express your professional brand and fully leverage LinkedIn to your advantage.

Do• Participate consistently — you need to show up every day in

social media if you expect any returns.

• Pick your groups carefully — you can’t be everywhere.

• Recognize that numbers count — small groups are okay only if they’re the right people who want to interact.

•Complete your profile 100% — nothing makes you look like a clueless dabbler than an incomplete profile, and it hurts your LinkedIn search rankings as well.

• Include a catchy headline under your name — just putting your title is too blah. Use something more interesting like “Creator of record-breaking sales campaigns,” or whatever.

•Write descriptive listings of your website or blog — no need to settle for LinkedIn’s bland “my company” or “my website” descriptions when there’s an option to write your own.

• Take advantage of LinkedIn tools that will automatically feed your latest blog post to your profile, let you share a slide presentation or provide a number of other options.

12

Don’t•Miss your Kodak moment — include a good headshot of yourself

because it shows you're comfortable with who you are and makes your profile more friendly.

•Use the same type of photo you might use on Facebook — lose the shot in front of the lake. This is business.

• Forget SEO when writing your profile summary — being found depends on LinkedIn's search engine linking your name to particular search keywords.

• Talk too much about YOU — participate in discussions and engage people, not make their eyes roll with constant reminders to check out YOUR website, read YOUR blog or listen to YOUR podcast.

•Neglect getting recommendations — solicit recommendations that support your professional brand. You need at least three for a 100% complete profile.

• Fail to proofread your copy for typos and grammatical errors — get another person who knows the rules to read it, too.

•Overlook the LinkedIn and Twitter interface — you can update your LinkedIn profile with all or select tweets.

13

Corporate Blog Do’s and Don’ts.Companies that create their own blogs often report positively about both the blogging experience and the results. Here’s how to make yours deliver the advantages you seek as a thought leader.

Do

•Create a marketing and PR vehicle — provide real analysis and opinions related to your business category.

•Discourage criticism — this is an opportunity for feedback and improvement, and you can learn how to constructively handle criticism in the public blogging arena.

•Use anonymous authors — every post needs to have a real human face and name attached to it.

Don’t

•Appear authoritative — customers are much more likely to purchase your products or services if they perceive you as a category thought leader.

• Focus on a theme and create editorial guidelines — no one wants to read a stream of consciousness, so make sure you’re providing content relevant to your customers’ businesses.

• Form a blog team — choose people who are knowledgeable, comfortable talking about their area of expertise, have sufficient writing skills and a good online persona.

•Utilize share tools — let your readers promote your content on other sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Digg, etc.

• Track activity — blog software like WordPress provides great stats; RSS feed search engines such as technorati.com and blogpulse.com monitor for mentions of your blog posts; web analytics can track activity of your blog website page.

•Give your bloggers freedom to express their personality — blogging is about connecting with other people, and your bloggers have to be able to use their own personalities and writing styles.

• Encourage visitors to subscribe — make your RSS feed highly visible and also make it easy to subscribe via email.

14

• Forget to promote your blog — building an audience requires sharing your URL through your email signatures, business cards, promotional materials, website and social media.

•Hesitate to provide a synopsis of ideas from the community if you don’t have a firm opinion on an important topic.

• Post too infrequently — a monthly blog post won’t cut it, so you need to make the blog a priority, create an editorial calendar and assign writers who can post weekly if not daily.

•Use only one type of content — incorporate other formats like video, podcasts, photos and slide presentations to keep the content interesting.

• Be flat by posting only one type of subject matter — post a variety like Big Deal Fridays for online coupons, Monday News items to kick off the week or something fun for Wednesday, hump day.

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©2011 All contents are copyrighted. All rights reserved.

Larry Bauer strategic marketerLarry is a highly skilled, experienced writer who brings an extensive marketing background to his work. A winner of more than 20 marketing awards, Larry is equally accomplished at writing winning copy for companies with a million dollars in annual sales or billions.

Peter Martz co-creative directorPeter offers professional expertise in creative strategy, design, production and client relations in consumer packaged goods, ingredients and nutraceuticals, giftware, industrial, home improvement, software, office supplies and the graphic arts.

Julia Moran Martz co-creative directorJulia has extensive experience in integrated communications and design solutions for consumer products, life sciences, ingredients and nutraceuticals, technology and insurance, as well as management and business development experience in technology and dotcom sectors.

Tom McCain design and production specialist, illustratorTom has experience in print production and web design that is both broad and deep. A cartoonist since childhood, Tom honed his talents in the comic-rich climate that characterized the past four decades. He applies his unique creative skills to a variety of illustration assignments.

Creative Team:

MondoVox® Creative Group429N.HarveyAve.•OakPark,IL60302•(312)850-1589•www.mondovox.com