A project that’s been long in the making, the Faces of Revolution exhibit is a series of 25 portraits painted by Suellen McCrary. Featuring subjects with both current and historic ties to Revolution Mill, this exhibit is now part of the permanent historical collection at the mill. 

Started almost 3 years ago, this project was initiated to both document the history of the mill and to democratize portraiture. The subjects include employees and family from the mill’s heyday as the world’s largest maker of flannel to current day tenants of the new multi-use development. The portrait subjects also received free prints of their likenesses, making it possible to obtain an otherwise costly keepsake. The price of an original oil portrait can range from $3,000 to six figures. 

Historic subjects included descendants of the mill co-founders, mill villagers, and dye house employees. In addition to the subjects with historical ties to the mill, the exhibit also features a number of people who keep the Mill running today. Tenants, janitorial staff, and the lead architect of the renovation are among the subjects who were chosen to be included. 

As the portraits neared completion, we became involved with helping design the plaques, signage, print material, and website. After taking measurements and having an initial exploratory meeting, we completed a first mockup of how the exhibit might look:

After some back and forth on the color of the wall and the size of then plaques, a final look for the exhibit was determined. Minimal colors were chosen for all elements of the physical installation and the website, allowing the portraits to take center stage. 

To provide context for each person’s role in the Mill a quote from the participant is featured below each portrait. We designed these plaques at 16x3” for readability. 

These subjects sat for their portraits in Suellen’s Revolution Mill studio, sharing their stories as they were painted. In addition to the experts from their stories that are featured on the plaques, you can read longer comments from everyone on the website at www.facesofrevolution.com.  

Gate City Signs fabricated the exhibit signage from black PVC. The dimensional lettering was chosen over a simple vinyl to provide a more permanent and elevated look. 

You can view the installation in the Hall of Fame at Revolution Mill – located at 1050 Revolution Mill Drive. Learn more about the subjects + exhibit here. 

After two tumultuous years of the pandemic impacting everything from digital marketing to supply chains, it’s an important year to strategize how to reach your marketing goals for 2022. Having a sound marketing strategy will allow you to build in flexibility, plan for the unexpected, and tackle what might be yet another turbulent year. 

Planning is key for handling both the known and the unknown – and as you begin to tackle your 2022 planning, we suggest you leave yourself a discretionary marketing budget and build in additional time to tweak customer-facing collateral. Leaving yourself more timeline flexibility than usual will allow your team to do their best work even in the face of employee shortages, changing COVID event guidelines, and more. 

To kick off the planning process for 2022, we suggest you start gathering key information about your marketing performance in the last year. Gather key stats on social reach, conversion rates, best-selling products, sales metrics email opens, contact list growth, and web traffic.   

Once you’ve gathered your key statistics and have a holistic overview of the past year, it’s time to start defining where you want to go in 2022. Looking back at last year’s goals is a great starting point. If you set goals for 2021, did you reach them? If so, how much did you exceed them? Were your goals set too low or high? Or did they feel just right?   

Armed with the knowledge of what worked in 2021 -- and what didn’t -- it’s time to dive into planning for the future. These 5 questions will help you guide your planning for campaigns, budget, and timeline. 

1. How do my high-level marketing objectives fit in with the rest of the organization? 

When it comes to your goals for 2021, what were you trying to achieve beyond specific click rates or open rates? Were your goals tied to sales, reach, brand awareness, or something else altogether? Let the bottom line, sales teams, and business objectives help guide the goals you set. Ultimately, this will lead to more strategic marketing – and cooperation between different arms of the business is what leads to a high-quality customer experience. 

If your marketing department has been operating in a silo, it’s time to invite other team members to the table to start learning from each other. 

2. What return am I seeing on my current marketing efforts? 

Going back to the information you gathered, it’s time to examine what channels and campaigns have given you the best return on investment in the last year. Should you shift the budget to another channel? Are these mediums or campaigns things you should consider retiring? 

Ask yourself what you want to maintain in the next year and what needs to be reworked or eliminated. Are there certain social media channels you feel like you have to maintain… but that aren’t getting any traction? Your time and budget are limited, and if something truly isn’t working, don’t be afraid to walk away or pare down your efforts. For example, if your Instagram posts aren’t showing any results, we encourage you to consider cutting back from 3-4 posts/week to once a week. 

In addition to examining the channels themselves, this is also a great opportunity to examine the content you’re posting on them. Having clarity around the messaging and campaigns you want to use again, or refresh, will keep your team on the same page and ensure that there’s no confusion when everyone hits the ground running post-holidays. 

3. When will I check in on my marketing plan?        

As important as setting goals, checking in on your goals to track progress is a key component of a successful strategy. We suggest setting short, quarterly check-ins to assess your 2022 goals and their progress.  

Use these check-ins as an opportunity to help you stay on track, as a chance to retool if something isn’t working, or as a time to modify goals if the organization’s objectives have shifted. We suggest scheduling out all four (or more) of these check-ins by January so your team can schedule around them and ensure they’re in the office on those days. Make these check-ins non-negotiable and don’t push them down the calendar if you run into a busy week.

4. What sales and specials will I offer throughout the year?

Pivoting from budget and big picture messaging, it’s also important to use your 2022 planning session as an opportunity to properly plan your marketing timeline. Think through what sales and campaigns you want to offer throughout the year – and then plan backward to determine when the development needs to start for each. 

Planning properly means having time to make extra revisions, strategize on copy, and hire outside parties as needed – all while still completing a project on time. Building in wiggle room and having a big picture timeline will lead to less stress for your team and a higher-quality product. 

5. What contractors or outside vendors do I plan to work with? 

Tip: Make sure your existing contractors have shared their updated yearly rates and that you’ve updated your database to reflect these changes.

What’s your yearly budget for paying contractors or outside vendors? Are there new projects you’ll be needing help with this year? In 2021, did you get in a pinch because of inadequate planning and blow this line item of your budget completely? Look at the role of outside vendors in your marketing strategy and examine how you want things to go in 2022.

We suggest having a database of go-to contractors you can reach out too. The database should include details on their services, average turnaround time, rates, their strengths and any issues you’ve run into in the past with each person. 

If your database is looking a little thin, now is the time to start looking for new partners and interviewing potential candidates. Don’t wait until a project is due to start initiating a new relationship with someone.

Those are our top 5 tips to help kickstart your 2022 marketing! For more helpful resources, we would suggest these posts:  

• The 6-step content calendar

• Holiday Campaign Planning

• 6 steps for building a strong referral program

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HUE & TONE CREATIVE: YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING PARTNER

Need a partner to help you set milestones for 2022 and beyond? We’ll help you develop a plan with a clear structure, sound business goals, and beautiful graphics. Ready to get started? Let’s set up a free 20 minute consultation to get to know each other. Make an appointment here.

It’s that time of year again: holiday campaign season! Most customers don’t realize it, but the heavy lifting for small business holiday campaigns is typically completed sometime in August through October. Larger businesses might even be planning their holiday marketing out as early as spring or summer. But, if you’re just starting to think about holiday marketing for this year, there’s nothing to fear – you still have plenty of time to get caught up to have a successful winter season. 

There are a lot of ways to capitalize on the holidays, but this post is specifically geared toward small businesses. Whether you have a brick & mortar store or are primarily operating through e-commerce, you can find a way to adapt these tips to your business model! 

Email Campaigns: 

• Start marketing early! Now is the time to start marketing to your customers – while many people wait until the last minute to shop, others get started far ahead of schedule. With shipping delays and product shortages in several industries, we suggest you encourage customers to start shopping even earlier than usual. Motivate shoppers to get started ahead of schedule by offering exclusive pre-season discounts! 

• Include a gift guide: To help streamline online shopping and reduce decision making, give customers a quick and simple way to find gifts for their loved ones. Consider categorizing these guides by personality, relationship, or demographic. This will allow people to quickly locate (and purchase) an appropriate gift without endless scrolling. 

• Don’t forget to include the gift giver: You know the customer you’re emailing loves your brand. However, you don’t know if your products are a good fit for the customers family and friends. Capitalize on your existing relationship by targeting the customer themselves! Even when they’re shopping for other people, people will be drawn to the idea of rewarding themselves. Promote special coupons and play around with a “treat yourself” message. 

Website: 

• Consider a flash sale: Use limited time offers to spike sales and offload slow moving products. Putting the pressure on to buy is a great way to motivate people to make a purchase. You can host a flash sale for a few hours – or an entire week. In general, the shorter the sale the higher the chance that people will jump on making a purchase. 

• Make shipping deadlines clear:  Don’t risk having to deal with a disgruntled customer because their order arrived late – feature any key shipping deadlines on your website to set expectations for when orders need to be placed. Update your messaging to let people know if they need to select ground, two-day, or one-day shipping to get their items on time. 

Offline: 

• Create a special unboxing or gift-wrapping option: Enhance a great product by creating a special unboxing experience – you’ll take some of the work off the customer by pre-wrapping their gift and you’ll enhance their brand experience. Utilize high quality materials and remember that no detail is too small. Color coordinate everything and brand wherever possible with stickers, packaging, and handwritten or branded notes. An added bonus? A beautifully packaged gift might just land you a tag on social media! 

General tips: 

• Holiday Bundles: Whether online or in person, consider offering holiday gift bundles to your customers. This is a great way to move more products without offering incredibly deep discounts. Bundle like products together for a small discount and package them well. This kind of collection is great for hard-to-buy-for individuals or last minute gifts — it also gives the customer the impression that they’re getting a great deal.

• Holiday return policy: With many people shopping early for the holidays, a 30-day return period is often inefficient. We suggest considering offering free returns throughout the month of January -- but no matter what your policy is, make sure it’s clear to the customer and gift recipient. Offering a gift receipt with a purchase is a great way to clearly communicate your policy. 

• Don’t just think about holiday campaigns for Christmas: Educate yourself on other culturally important holidays and tailor your message to fit a wider range of customers. For reference, here are some key dates to consider: 

  • Diwali – 11/4

  • Thanksgiving Day – 11/25

  • Black Friday – 11/26

  • Small Business Saturday – 11/27

  • Hanukkah – 11/28-12/6

  • Cyber Monday – 11/29

  • Giving Tuesday – 11/30

  • First day of Winter – 12/21

  • Christmas Day – 12/25

  • Kwanzaa – 12/26 – 1/1

  • New Year’s Eve – 12/31

Our last tip? No matter what medium you are utilizing, keep a positive customer experience front and center. Do what you can to alleviate the stress of your customers – this might mean providing free wrapping or flexible delivery options. Or maybe it comes in the form of producing content that takes the guesswork out of the shopping experience (think gift guides or recipe suggestions). 

Now, go get started on prepping your holiday cards, planning customer loyalty events, rolling out gift lists, and putting the final touches on your annual giving campaigns!

When you’re searching for a new email marketing system, the options can seem endless. Some platforms have been around forever (Constant Contact, MailChimp, and Aweber), while others are newer to the market (FloDesk and Convert Kit). Some platforms offer more robust customer relationship management (CRM) features, while others are more of a standalone service. 

Finding the right fit for you is often dependent on the size of your organization, your sending frequency, the size of your list, and your marketing goals. When it comes to small businesses, the three platforms we see utilized most widely are FloDesk, MailChimp, and Convert Kit. 

Today, we’ll be comparing and contrasting two of our favorites -- MailChimp and FloDesk -- to give you further insight into which platform might work best for your organization. 

Aesthetics/Design

(Winner: FloDesk)

FloDesk reigns when it comes to aesthetics – their minimal and millennial-friendly templates feature a clean and fresh design. Many of their prototype emails are image heavy with minimally designed supporting elements, making it easy to set up a visually appealing email. 

While MailChimp makes it possible to achieve a similar aesthetic, it can take a bit more elbow grease to get there. Their templates are fairly dated and gimmicky by comparison, meaning you’ll be investing more time to get your desired look. There’s more of a learning curve and some custom coding can be needed to achieve a branded aesthetic. 

Overall, we would name FloDesk the winner when it comes to aesthetics – their templates are more on trend, and the minimal look of their overall product is a slam dunk for busy business owners who don’t want to spend a lot of time wavering over what font to use.

Integrations 

(Winner: MailChimp)

When it comes to integrations, FloDesk relies on Zapier for the majority of their integrations. Zapier is a tool that lets you connect the apps you use every day to automate your work and be more productive. Through Zapier, you can connect Flodesk to more than 1500 apps and easy integrations in minutes. Be advised that the cost for Zapier can grow quickly – while they offer a free level of service, monthly plans can cost between $20-$600/month.

MailChimp includes over 200+ app integrations with every plan. You can integrate with major website builders (Squarespace, Wordpress, Shopify), payment software (Stripe) and a variety of scheduling and creativity tools. 

When it comes to comparing integrations, MailChimp is our winner here because integrations are built in and don’t require additional setup or cost. 

Functionality 

(Winner: MailChimp)

MailChimp’s features have grown over the past few years to include both more robust email features, as well as a wider array of CRM functions. MailChimp offers more detailed segmenting and tagging features, making it easier to target prospects based on their behavior. 

FloDesk offers email templates, an email builder, basic automation, forms, analytics, and workflows. However, there are some key features MailChimp offers that FloDesk doesn’t: 

• AB Testing

• Auto-responders

• Behavioral targeting

• CAN SPAM compliance 

• Customer survey

• Digital ads

• Drip campaign

• Dynamic content

• Image library 

• Landing pages

• Shoppable landing pages

• Transactional email 

MailChimp is the clear winner when it comes to overall functionality and capability. 

Ease of Use

(Winner: Draw) 

When it comes to ease of use, FloDesk takes the cake for its quick set up and easy to use interface. However, as we detailed above, MailChimp boasts substantially more robust features. So while it takes a little more time to get acquainted with the interface, it’s more a result of the complexity of the product than a lacking user interface.  

We would rule this category a draw, because when it comes to user interface, both products are well designed and easy to navigate. 

Collaboration

(Winner: MailChimp)

As an agency who helps clients establish and design their marketing emails, MailChimp offers collaboration flexibility that FloDesk doesn’t. MailChimp allows you to add multiple users to your account so you can track who is making changes and give different permission levels to different team members. FloDesk limits you to one login, which can create both security and workflow issues. 

Pricing

(Winner: FloDesk)

FloDesk Pricing

When it comes to which product is cheaper, there isn’t a clear-cut answer. Deciding which pricing structure is most advantageous for your business depends on the goals of your email marketing and how much you plan to grow your list. 

FloDesk starts you out with a 30-day free trial and from there you’re charged a flat rate price of $38/month. If you’re looking to grow your list exponentially or are a growing business, this transparent pricing is really appealing.  

MailChimp’s pricing structure is fairly complicated and is based on the number of contacts and email sends you need each month. Things quickly get complicated, and if you’re regularly adding to your email list you may notice your monthly bill going up on each invoice. However, one big advantage of MailChimp’s pricing is that they offer a forever free plan for up to 2,000 contacts. If you’re a really small business who isn’t planning for aggressive growth, this free option may clock in much cheaper than FloDesk’s monthly pricing. 

MailChimp Pricing Sample

The Bottom Line

(Overall winner: MailChimp)

While FloDesk offers clean aesthetics and easy pricing, it’s clear you’ll sacrifice a lot in terms of features and functionality. For most businesses, we find that MailChimp is the way to go.

If you’re a new businesses who has a large list and only wants to send a few basic emails, FloDesk could be a good fit for a streamlined process and low monthly pricing. But if you’re looking to grow your email marketing efforts, or run an e-commerce business we would encourage you to stick to MailChimp.

While the monthly costs can ring in a little higher, the advanced functionality and more powerful features can help you build business and score sales in the long-run. 

Most importantly, if you’re still torn, we suggest doing a deep dive on features before making a final choice – setting up your email marketing automations is no small task and you don’t want to be put in the position of needing to switch platforms. 

Have a question about a specific feature or platform? Drop us a comment below and we’ll help you figure out the best fit for your business!  

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HUE & TONE CREATIVE: EMAIL MARKETING IN GREENSBORO, NC

Whether you need help building out your annual email strategy, finding just the right words, or establishing a branded template, Hue & Tone is here to help. To establish or improve your email strategy, get in touch with our team at (336)365-8550.

Want to see what inspiration we found a little closer to home? Check out these moodboards from around Greensboro! 

Late last year we did a series of moodboards featuring vignettes and color inspiration from around Greensboro. It wasn’t hard to find inspiration in our surroundings then, but this time we looked a little further from home for our latest color series… and we think you’ll quickly see why. This set of swatches was inspired by photos we took on a week long-trip to Los Angeles in late June. 

While in LA, we visited art museums, parks, lakes, and lots of great restaurants. These color schemes are just a glimpse of the diverse scenery we experienced, and we know we’ll be reflecting back on this trip for inspiration for months to come.

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Getty Greys

A work of art in itself, the cool greys and whites of The Getty contrast a saturated and cloudless sky.

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PCT Palette

This glimpse of the Pacific Crest Trail is rich with subdued greens and yellow. This palette fuses the hues of the desert sky with those from scrubby foliage.

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Mismatched and Multicolored

A study in contradiction, we take inspiration from marrying the colors of this Barbie dream house with the more subdued tones that surround it.

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Santa Monica Sunset

As the sun set over Santa Monica, the sky was cast with vivid yellows and light oranges.

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Plant life panorama

The greenery of The Getty’s cactus garden intermixes with the warm greys of downtown LA and the soothing tone of the travertine tile.

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Curated Color

Spotted at LACMA, this work by Do Ho Suh is a 1:1 scale apartment sculpture is made of polyester fabric and stainless steel tubes. Soft colors create a ghostly and ethereal work of art.

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Hollyhock Hues

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House is adorned by stylized hollyhocks on roof finials, furniture, art glass windows, and the ornamental bands of cast-concrete on the structure’s exterior. The real life flower lends a pop of bright pink to this otherwise tranquil scene from Barnsdall Art Park.

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HUE & TONE CREATIVE: Let’s find what inspires you

Whether you’re based in Greensboro or beyond, we’ll help breathe new inspiration into your brand. Let us help you refresh your visual branding, website, and print collateral today. Schedule a meeting to get your next project started.

In addition to the three primary management options, Facebook offers Brand Collabs Manager. This is a tool to help brands and creators find, learn more about, and connect with each other. You can even set an audience match to see the percentage of each creator's audience that matches yours.

When you manage a business page on Facebook, the posting and management options can seem endless. With updates being rolled out on a regular basis, it’s easy to feel like things are constantly changing. 

If you’ve ever been confused about which tool to use, you’re not the only one. In September 2020, Business Suite was rolled out without much warning, confusing users and causing Facebook to bring back Page Manager (after already disabling it completely).

Then, Facebook distributed a message via Business Suite noting that posts and videos are moving to Creator Studio, including a warning that “soon, those tools will no longer be available here.” This ended up not being true, but scheduled and draft posts were temporarily gone. 

All this to say, if you’re confused, it’s not just because you’re a social media newbie. Facebook has greatly contributed to the confusion by releasing multiple new tools with little explanation and then changing their strategy mid-product rollout. 

Now that product rollouts and new features have stabilized for the past few months, we’re going to do our best to provide an overview of Facebook’s three main page management tools. 

Business Manager 

We’ll start with the least powerful tool in your Facebook toolbox. Business Manager has been around the longest of these three tools and is the most high-level tool. Instead of focusing on creating content or communicating with customers, Business Manager is used to manage your page’s assets and settings. 

You can manage pages, ad accounts, product catalogs (basic actions only), apps, and properties from here. You can also manage Pixel, events, and users, registration, and payment options. 

If you’re a long-time user of the Business Manager, it can feel time consuming to switch products – but we recommend starting to familiarize yourself with Manager as soon as possible. Facebook Analytics goes away completely after today, and our feeling is that Business Manager will quietly be phased out in favor of the two other tools we’re about to review. Not all features are offered on both tools just yet, so it may take some time to full migrate your workflow to Business Suite… but the sooner you start the better! 

Business Suite

Business Suite was rolled out in late 2020 to replace the Page Manager app. Its goal is to streamline all communication with your followers – this includes interaction on posts and private messages. 

As per Facebook, Business Suite enables users to:

• Save time: Post to Facebook and Instagram at the same time and manage posts in one place to stay connected to both communities. 

• Stay up-to-date: Get all of your Facebook and Instagram messages, notifications and alerts in one place so you can stay up to date and respond to all of your customers more easily. 

• Business results:  See what’s working with Facebook and Instagram insights and learn what your customers are looking for.
  
  

A few of the key new features for Facebook Business Suite include the following: 

• View your business at a glance: From your home screen, you can see an overview of your Facebook Page and Instagram account. You’ll see updates, recent posts and ads, and insights. You can also create a post or promote your business from here.

• View Activity: You'll see new notifications for your Facebook Page and Instagram account.

• Use Inbox: You can read new messages and comments from your Facebook Page, Messenger and Instagram accounts. You can also create Automated Responses to help save time when responding to questions people commonly ask.

• Create Posts and Stories: You can publish or schedule new posts and stories for your Facebook Page and Instagram account.

• Access Commerce Manager: If your business account has a Commerce Account, you'll be able to access it from Business Suite desktop. You can also create a new Commerce Account for your business if you don’t have one.

• Create Ads: You can create new ads and place them on Facebook and Instagram, boost your posts, and promote your Page.

• View Insights: You can see details about your business’s performance, such as trends, activity on the content you share and more information about your audience.

• Access More Tools: On Business Suite desktop, you'll find other Facebook tools and settings you might use to manage your business presence in the More Tools section. This includes other tools, such as Ads Manager, Business Settings and Page Settings. You can also go to your Facebook Page from here.

Facebook has also stated that they plan to make Business Suite "the main interface for businesses of all sizes who use Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp." That being said, we anticipate Business Suite becoming the most powerful of these three tools. Familiarizing yourself with the current functionality will make it easier to adjust as new features are introduced. 

Business Suite is a great tool to use no matter what size or type of business you operate – and using it in conjunction with Creator Suite will give you the most powerful collection of options. 

Business Creator Studio 

While originally introduced as a tool for building and managing your video business, Creator Studio also has quite a few features that overlap with Business Suite. In addition to the core video features, you can see insights about your business pages, read and respond to messages, and create/schedule/post new content to Instagram/Facebook. 

The main difference between the two platforms is that Creator Studio offers additional post setup options and creative tools. These features include:  

• Post testing to see what videos best perform for your audience. 

• Detailed insights on video performance, view times, loyalty, and retention.

• Instant Articles: A mobile publishing format that enables news publishers to distribute articles to Facebook's app that load and display 4 times faster than the standard mobile web.

• Monetization tools: Content creators and publishers can use a variety of different monetization tools to earn money on Facebook. Depending on your audience and the kinds of content you produce, you need to meet eligibility criteria to use monetization tools, and some tools might have additional requirements. Review which Pages are eligible and apply for access. You'll receive an email after your application has been reviewed.

• Sound collection: An exclusive collection of original tracks and sound effects that you can use on Facebook and Instagram.

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Hue & Tone Creative: Social Media ManageMENT 

Have a question about a recent update? Logging on and unable to locate the tool you’re looking for? We can help! From social media training and content creation to social media management, Hue & Tone can help you effectively use your social media to reach new and niche audiences. We’re here to help you use your social media strategically, effectively… and, of course, creatively!  

Check out the Facebook Ads Guide for the design specifications and technical requirements across each format and placement. You’ll find information on dimensions, file sizes, character limits and more.

On May 20, Facebook released additional detail about how their ad review process works. This new explainer article provided additional context about how errors or missteps may play into your ads being rejected. 

Facebook’s ad policy has long been a cause for confusion – you may spend some serious time digging into their ad guidelines before you submit an ad… only for it to be rejected. The confusion only grows when you see other ads that are obvious scams but have made it through the approval process. 

One of the biggest things Facebook’s new ad guidelines overview focuses on is that the ad review process is largely automated. That information alone better helps advertisers understand why there may be some discrepancies between the ads that are accepted and those that are rejected. 

What qualifies as an ad?  

Before we dive into the specifics of the ad guidelines, let’s make sure we’re all using the same definition of ads. Ads are considered to be any paid content that appears on Facebook apps or services. This includes ad content on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Audience Network. Ads include original content that has been boosted as well as ads created from scratch in the Ads Manager. 

What rules should ads follow? 

Getting an ad approved is a multistep process and requires following more than one set of guidelines. 

The first step in the process is making sure your advertising content meets the community standards. It’s important to make sure you meet these basic requirements before jumping into the details of Facebook’s advertising rules. Facebook’s community standards are essentially a list of guiding principles that state content posted on Facebook should be authentic, non-threatening, protect people’s privacy, and be free of harassment. More on that here. 

Once you ensure that your ads meet community guidelines, it’s time to move on to the advertising specific policies. Facebook’s Advertising Policies provide guidance on what types of ad content are allowed. There are a lot of these guidelines, so it’s important to review the table of contents to see where you might run into an issue. Some of the most common points of confusion? Personal Attributes, Sexually Suggestive Content, Facebook's Brands.

As part of the new explanation of rules, Facebook reminds us that your ads may be subject to further sets of rules beyond the basic advertising guidelines. See the graphic below to review the hierarchy of policies -- you need to check to ensure that each ad complies with branded content policies, commerce policies, event policies, and more (if applicable).

Review process

Facebook’s ad review system automatically reviews all ads before they go live – and as we suspected, the May 20 guidelines reaffirm that the system is largely automated. However, sometimes manual review of ads is used – typically for rereviews instead of initial reviews. While ad review is typically completed within 24 hours, it may take longer, and ads can be reviewed again, including after they’re live. 

Based on the results of the review, an ad is either rejected or allowed to run. If an ad is rejected, an advertiser can create a new ad — either with new ad creative or by revising the rejected ad — or request another review if they believe their ad was incorrectly rejected. 

In addition to the standard review, Facebook may choose to investigate overall advertiser behavior such as the number of previous rejections, the severity of those violations, and any attempts to get around the review process. Too many violations and you may lose the ability to run ads on Facebook permanently. 

While this new guidance from Facebook certainly doesn’t answer all of our questions about the process, it does help give some valuable insight into how the process works.

For the full ad review release from Facebook, head here.

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your Social Media Partners 

Struggling to get your social media ads published? Instead of spending all your time reviewing pages and pages of advertising guidelines, let us take the work of writing, creating, and scheduling ads off of your hands.

Video is the perfect format for sharing more in-depth content with your audience because it allows for story telling in a way that a single photo never will. And, you no longer need a big budget to be successful at video marketing — because so many of Instagram’s formats emphasize authenticity and spontaneity, marketing through video is easily accessible to businesses of all sizes. 

Over the years, Instagram has expanded their upload options to a mind-boggling 5 formats: Stories, in-feed video posts, Reels, Live and IGTV. If you’re confused about the differences between these different types of videos, you’re not alone!  

Each of these 5 video types has an intended purpose and limitations on its upload format. But before we look at each video format, let’s review a few stats on why utilizing video is a marketing must: 

• Video ads were the #1 way consumers discovered a brand they later purchased from. (Animoto)

• 85% of marketers say that video is an effective way to get attention online.  (Animoto)

• 94% of video marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. (Wyzowl)

• 93% of brands got a new customer because of a video on social media. (Animoto)

Now, it’s time to get knowledgeable about each type of Instagram video – and make sure to scroll to the end of this post for a quick reference guide of the different upload specs! 

Instagram Stories

These Snapchat inspired stories are what you see on the top of your home feed. These short 15-second clips disappear after 24 hours and are a great place for spontaneous content or short updates. Stories are the perfect place for off the cuff content – and because their aesthetics are separate from the rest of your feed you can be as creative as you want with them.  

One of the upsides of Stories is that you can include interactive elements such as voting, tags, stickers, and links. This is a great place to take a poll, tag a product, or get your customers to vote on something. For larger brands – those with 10k or more followers -- stories are one of the few places you can post direct links to help drive organic leads and conversions. 

Once stories have expired you can save them to the Highlights section and organize them into categories with custom cover photos (you’ll find this positioned above the grid on each profile).

Feed Instagram Videos

The original video format, feed videos have been around since 2013. They show up when you’re scrolling the main feed or explore section. They can be uploaded using Instagram’s built-in camera or by adding a file from your photo library. Feed videos tend to be the spot for your most planned out and professional content. All posts have to be 3-60 seconds in length, so this isn’t the place to go behind the scenes or to share much detail.  

Similar to an image post, these feed video posts can include a filter, location, caption, as well as user, location, and product tags. Once posted, people can engage with likes, comments, and sharing public videos in Stories and direct messages.

Reels

Reels are the newest video format on Instagram. These Tik Tok inspired clips have to be shot in portrait mode (9:16) and max out at 15-30 seconds. While these may sound a lot like Stories, Reels offer a variety of additional editing options including timed text, AR filters, green screen mode, timer and speed controls, and access to an audio library.

Reels can be shared to Explore and Stories. When you upload a reel, you can also choose to post it in your Feed. All the reels you create will also appear in a dedicated section of your profile, similar to IGTV posts. 

Live Instagram Videos

Instagram Live lets you broadcast a live video stream (from your built-in camera only) to your followers and is a great way to interact in real-time.

Live streams can last up to four hours and can be hosted by one or two accounts. When an account starts broadcasting live it appears at the front of the Stories bar with a Live icon. Once finished, Instagram Live videos can be saved to IGTV or shared for 30 days before being deleted.

This is the perfect place for deepening custom relationships with spontaneous video. Don’t worry about polish – live videos are all about authenticity. You’ll be able to see how many people are watching in real time and people can engage by adding comments or emoji reactions. 

We suggest going live for things like workshops, interviews, or Q&As. Live video also supports live shopping (businesses can tag relevant products) and allows for in-app donations (perfect for non-profits). 

94% of video marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. (Wyzowl)

IGTV

IGTV is Instagram’s format for in-feed videos longer than one minute. This video format is truly intended for long format content, similar to what you would post on YouTube. IGTV posts can go up to 60-minutes and must be pre-recorded (and uploaded via camera roll/photo stream).  

When you go to post an IGTV video you can create previews to post on your feed and sort your videos into series. All IGTV video appears in a dedicated section of your profile. 

Your IGTV channel is intended for complete, polished content that is well-planned and professional. These longer videos mean a longer engagement time and more potential for participation. You should consider all types of creative and educational content for this part of your feed. 

Looking for a quick reference guide that breaks down the specs of each of these formats?  

Now that we’ve broken down the different types of content, let’s review the nitty gritty for creating these different video formats. You’ll notice there are no specs for Instagram Live, and that’s because those videos can’t be created ahead of time and can only be recorded using your camera. 

Instagram Stories specs

• Length: Up to 15 seconds per Story (longer videos can be clipped into multiple Stories)

• Maximum video file size: 30MB

• Recommended file type: .MP4 or .MOV format

• Ratios: 9:16 and 16:9 to 4:5

• Minimum width: 500 pixels

• Minimum aspect ratio: 400 x 500

• Maximum aspect ratio: 191 x 100 or 90 x 160

• H.264 compression recommended

• Keep about 250 pixels at the top and bottom of the video free from key content. In this area, it could be obstructed by the profile photo or call to action.

Instagram feed video specs

• Length: 3 to 60 seconds

• Recommended file type: .MP4 or .MOV format

• Maximum file size 30MB

• Maximum frame rate 30fps

• Minimum width: 500 pixels.

• H.264 compression recommended

Instagram Reels

• Should be shot in Portrait mode (9:16 aspect ratio)

• Will view on feed in 4:5 aspect ratio 

• Minimum res: 600 x 1067 pixels

• Maximum res: 1080 x 1920 pixels

• 4K not supported

IGTV specs

• Minimum length: 60 seconds

• Maximum length: 15 minutes when uploading via mobile and 60 minutes when uploading from the web

• File type: MP4 file format (required)

• Vertical video aspect ratio: 9:16

• Horizontal video aspect ratio: 16:9

• Minimum resolution:720 pixels

• Minimum frame rate: 30 frames per second

• Maximum file size (for videos 10 minutes or less): 650MB

• Maximum file size (for videos up to 60 minutes): 3.6GB

• Recommended cover photo size: 420px by 654px (1:1.55 ratio)

What else do you want to know about Instagram video? Drop us a comment about what we should review in our next post! 

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your social media partner 

Let us help you create a social media feed that shows off your brand and lets you reach new prospects! Whether you’re looking to increase your views or simply need a break from handling your account, Hue & Tone Creative has you covered for all things social.

A few weeks ago, we tackled some general content ideas for kitchen and bath designers. In that post, we mentioned our belief that it’s impossible to run out of content ideas! We’re here to continue to prove that theory right by sharing a handful of outside the box social media ideas for residential realtors. 

As a realtor, it’s important to post about more than just new listings. Social media is a great place to show off what you know about the home buying and selling process – and it helps to give potential prospects an idea of what it would be like if they work with you. By offering up content of value, you raise the chances of engaging a potential client. 

Once you start posting high-quality content, it’s also crucial to engage with a wide and diverse audience. Don’t just chat with other realtors, connect with potential prospects, community figures, and other businesses.

1. Break down different neighborhood personalities: A series of posts with details about different neighborhoods is sure to engage people that are new to the area. Break down the personality and reputation of each neighborhood, but also include hard data like average home price, amount of available stock, school system data, and average commute times. For an added bonus, highlight a few key landmarks in each neighborhood – this could be restaurants, local art, parks, or trails. This is the perfect way to establish yourself as a local guide! 

2. Break down terminology: APR, ARM, appraisals, equity, escrow, FMV, MLS, trust sales, and seller disclosures… the list of confusing terms goes on and on. Help new buyers (or even seasoned pros) expand their knowledge of the market by breaking down common or confusing terms. This shows off how knowledgeable you are and shows you want potential buyers to be empowered… whether they work with you or not! 

3. Show us your style: Have a style of home you love? See a beautiful wallpaper or garden that you idolize? Take us on a visual journey by sharing photos that show off your personal taste. This could be décor you see out at a showing or inspiration that you’ve been coveting on Pinterest. This helps create a visually appealing feed and is a fun way to break up more factual posts. 

4. Community Events: Demonstrate that you’re plugged into the community by sharing local events or updates from community organizations. Bonus points for attending the events you promote and sharing behind-the scenes updates!

5. DIY Tips: New homeowners often need all the help they can get – especially when it comes to DIY projects and getting acquainted with regular home maintenance. Show them that your relationship with buyers doesn’t end when your check clears by providing useful resources for new and current homeowners. 

6. Inspection Preparation: The home inspection can be one of the most stressful steps in buying a new home. Help potential buyers get a better idea of what to expect by breaking down the process, explaining potential resolutions for any repairs, and sharing how to find a good inspector. This is a great time to highlight the home inspectors you often work with…because who doesn’t love some good cross promotion?

7. Buying Anniversary: Posting when a client first closes on a house makes them feel special – but take it a step further by also remembering their buying anniversary. This is a wonderful way to pop up on people’s timelines a year (or more) after you’ve worked with them. Chances are they’ll share your post, giving you the opportunity to get in front of their connections as well. This is a positive way to keep your feed house-centric even when sales are slow, or you’re stuck on what to post. 

8. Community Service: Sharing about causes and local organizations that you support is a great way to show people that you’re invested in the community. This works best (and feels most genuine) if you focus on an indirect sell – instead of making the post about you and your philanthropy, keep the attention on the cause or organization. Be sure to include a link for people to learn more, donate, or get involved. 

9. Dream Listing: People love looking at crazy-expensive listings, even if they’ll never be close to able to afford them. Share some of your most expensive or luxury listings – just be sure to link them to your website. The idea here is to get people browsing the photos so that they end up looking at homes they can actually afford! 

10. What sets you apart: In a competitive market, it’s important to have a highly qualified and dedicated realtor. Show off the accomplishments of your team by sharing some statistics on how you’ve helped sellers and buyers. This could be average selling times, negotiating for perks, or helping people close quickly. Avoid bragging and let the numbers (or testimonials) speak for themselves! 

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Hue & Tone Creative: Looking to reach a new audience?

Let us help you create a social media that shows off your brand and lets you reach new contacts. Whether you’re looking to increase your views or simply need a break from handling your account, Hue & Tone Creative has you covered for all things social.

If you work in the field of economic development, you already know what information is important to prospective companies, site selectors, and CEOs. But when you’re focused on selling your city, county, site, or state it can be easy to get entrenched in what you’re doing and make missteps on how you market your area. 

You may read a lot about best practices for your field – but what are the common blunders and worst practices in your industry? We’ve pulled together five mistakes we often see in economic development marketing. 

Mistake #1: Not defining your target industry 

Clearly marketing to a specific target industry shows that you know your area and have a solid understanding of what companies will best succeed there.  

Prospects want to know what kind of supply chain and workforce are available, and focusing on a specific industry allows you to better convey how your community will be able to serve their company. Back up your marketing towards a target industry with highlights from your labor market analysis, data, and maps that show the supply chain available to a prospective company. 

Mistake #2: Losing site of what makes you unique 

What’s truly unique about your area? Many regions promote themselves as pro-business or tout the benefits of their workforce… this message isn’t inherently bad, but it’s worth figuring out how to distinguish yourself from other areas that are promoting the same things. If you’re saying your area is pro-business, back it with specifics about the types of incentives being offered, state tax information, and information on local labor laws. 

But don’t stop there, really think outside the box about what sets you apart and then explain why potential investors should care. Quality of life, business climate, and workforce benefits are just the first step in attracting investors and talent – and they’re the same things that many other municipalities are touting. 

Mistake #3: Putting too much emphasis on your logo and tagline

Hue & Tone’s primary service is graphic design, so we feel confident saying no one thinks design is more important than us. That being said, we think it’s important to recognize that graphic design is only one piece of your marketing puzzle.  

While a strong, polished, and professional logo design is important, you can’t depend on it to do all the marketing for you. Strong messaging is a must when you’re asking people to invest the future of their company in your region. Let design complement well developed copy, a sound strategy, and well researched data, but don’t invest a disproportionate amount of your time and marketing budget into a logo and tagline. It would be misguided to expect a jazzy logo design to net you a big project. 

Mistake #4: Leaving the state out

Don’t make the mistake of assuming people know where you’re located – or even what state you’re in. Be sure to provide context for where you are and put your state name on everything. This extends to providing maps that show your city, site, or county in context of your state and the country. This is especially important if you’re dealing with international companies that may not know your country’s geography as well as you do.

Mistake #5: Not sourcing from existing companies

You’ve already got one of the most valuable resources at your fingertips – existing business. The best way to learn what will work for your marketing is to simply talk to the people have already decided to invest in your area. Grow your knowledge of what attracts companies to your city or state by speaking to the people that are already there and by building relationships with local corporate leaders. 

Developing these close relationships and improving your rapport with local companies will also open the door for future expansion projects. Ask local companies what services or products they would love to have closer – you may even find that some creative problem solving satisfies the needs of both existing and future investors.

These are just five of our top tips – what are yours? Do you disagree with any of the practices we’ve listed out here? 

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Hue & Tone Creative: YOur partner in economic development marketing

Realize you’ve been making all of these blunders? Never fear — we’re here to help you get your region’s marketing back on track. Whether you’re trying to attract investors or tourists, we can give you the polished look you need to hold people’s attention.

It might take a little creative brainstorming, but we’re here to tell you that there’s always something else to blog about. Here at Hue & Tone, we work with a number of residential building and design pros – including kitchen designers, cabinet reps, general contractors, realtors, and lighting companies – and hear concern from these folks in particular that they have nothing to talk about on their blog. 

Content creation is a common concern – and worries range from being stumped in the initial brainstorming session to long-term stress about running out of things to post about. No matter what industry you’re in, we promise that there’s plenty to post about! 

But don’t just take our word for it, let us demonstrate and help you brainstorm some new ideas. We’re going to start by focusing on generating ideas for our kitchen and bath creatives – but if you’re stumped, we’re here to help! Drop us a comment at the bottom of this post if you want to see us do a brainstorming session for your industry. 

Building + Design Practices

1. Designing a family (and kid) friendly kitchen: What tips can you provide to make the kitchen a more inclusive space for the whole family? 

2. Stain, paint, or replace? What time, budget, and design factors should someone consider when they’re making a decision about a cabinet upgrade? 

3. How to set a remodeling budget: What should clients consider when outlining everything they want in their new dream kitchen? What expenses might they not be thinking about? How much wiggle room should they leave to account for fluctuating expenses and ensure they don’t blow the budget? Pose and answer all these questions for prospective clients to start building trust before you even begin working together.

4. Choosing the right appliances: Introduce people to your favorite appliance brands and let us know what products you would recommend for a variety of budgets. 

5. Biggest renovation mistakes to avoid: What missteps do you see most often? Which design decisions have you been brought back in to correct? 

6. Checklist for your bathroom renovation: Create a free downloadable that homeowners can use to get everything organized for a bathroom renovation. 

7. Finding the right designer: We all have an idea of who our ideal clients is – use this knowledge to write a post explaining who you love to work with. In turn, this will help homeowners determine if you’re the design pro they’re looking for!   

8. Granite vs Quartz: Walk us through the pro and cons of each popular countertop material. Are there less common materials (like butcher block) that a homeowner should consider?

Trends

9. Building Sustainably: What’s the latest in renewable building technology? What should clients consider when aiming for a more sustainable and eco-friendly design? 

10. What do you see as the latest trend in smart technology? What’s the next big thing? Our client, Dream Kitchen Builders, does a great job making these predictions – check out their blog here.

11. How to create a timeless look: Instead of talking about what’s trendy, talk about what will never go out of style. This could be a design feature, paint colors, or fixtures. 

12. Where to splurge vs where to save: Would you suggest spending big money on fixtures or appliances? Cabinets or countertops? Lay out your top tips and suggestions in a post! 

Inspiration 

13. What trends do you see emerging in flooring? Don’t just tell us – show us examples of the latest tile, vinyl, and wood trends. Incorporating visual blogs cuts down on the writing you have to do and can convert to great social media content. 

14. Advise on selecting just the right shade: Picking paint colors is no easy decision, so give clients some guidance on what shades work best. Bonus points for breaking swatch options down by color, mood, or room.

15. Lighting trends: Curate lists of great lighting fixtures for bathrooms, kitchens, hallways, outdoors, and more. 

16. Out of the box design details: Have a wallpaper, light fixture, or unique detail that you’ve been dying to incorporate in a design? Compile these into a blog post and see if you can snag a prospective client that shares your unique design sensibilities. 

17. Small space inspiration: Show and tell us how homeowners can increase the functionality and appearance of a small space. 

Evergreen ideas 

18. Recent jobs: Don’t forget to show off your own work on your blog! Share pictures, quotes, and the story behind your latest renovation or design jobs. This will help prospects get a better idea of your style and how you like to work. 

19. Business updates: Forming a new partnership? Working with a big name client? Attending a kitchen & bath tradeshow? Share updates about your business on the blog to give people an inside look at what’s going on behind the scenes. These posts help build a relationship and your credibility. 

20.  Fun (but related) bonus content: Don’t just stop at designing the kitchen and bathroom – expand your blog topics to include relevant information like hosting tips, recipes, and home organization.  

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Hue & Tone Creative

If you’re stumped during the brainstorming process, we’re here to help. From your very first blog post to learning the latest social platform, we’ll help you with your marketing so you can get back to doing what you do best: running your business. Contact us today to learn more.

Lauren Stubbs, Owner of Stubbs Mobile PT

For our first client spotlight of the year, we’re excited to share a fresh branding project for a brand-new business. We partnered up with Stubbs Mobile Physical Therapy in late 2020 to develop a custom logo and corresponding visual brand elements. Owner, Lauren Stubbs, recently started this mobile concierge physical therapy practice as a response to COVID-19 pandemic. Many outpatient physical therapy practices pivoted to include telehealth and some started offering PT at home, but Lauren jumped at the opportunity to make a fully mobile and telehealth practitioner available to the Triad for years to come.

Stubbs Mobile PT brings physical therapy to your home or private workspace to save you time and unnecessary hassle – all while keeping you safer than a traditional office setting. Being outside of insurance, Stubbs Mobile PT also offers preventative physical therapy services including an Annual Wellness Visit, Health Coaching, or Evaluation and Treatment before you have an injury (i.e. if something "just doesn't feel quite right"). Their goal is to provide top-quality service with longer appointment times and one-on-one individualized care so that you are feeling, moving, and living your best as soon as possible. 

We connected with Lauren while teaching Launch Greensboro’s Marketing 101 class. After discussing the importance of marketing and branding, she wanted to start things off strong with a bold and eye-catching brand. Knowing that a standout look would be crucial to marketing her business, we wanted a logo that would translate flawlessly to polo shirts, sprinter vans, and client swag. 

In the initial branding stages, it was clear Lauren was looking for a pictorial mark to accent her logo type and wanted to emphasize a feeling of movement and energy. Friendly, attentive, trustworthy and proactive are just a few of the words that were used to describe the desired look and feel of Stubbs Mobile PT’s future branding. 

One of our favorite stages of the branding process, a mood board helps ensure we’re on the same page as our client. By assigning visuals to the words we’ve been using, we can begin to home in on a feel for the future brand. 

After presenting three mood board options, we refined Lauren’s favorite to have an even more high-energy and vibrant feel. Lauren had mentioned aquas and blues during our initial branding kick-off, and we ended up tailoring her favorite option to include two shades of blue. The final product? A look that hinged on vibrant colors and energetic scenes. Healthy eating, movement, and the outdoors are central to Lauren’s business and we wanted to reflect that from the very early stages of the process.  

After narrowing down Lauren’s favorite mood board concept, it was time to move on to the logo design phase. Ultimately, we went through 4 rounds of initial concepts, and four rounds of color options to narrow down the exact look and feel. 

Many of the initial concepts incorporated kettle bell imagery, hearts, play or motion. After some brainstorming, we landed on the wording concept of “pressing play.” Used with various action phrases, this tagline could be targeted to a wide range of clients. You’ll see the main logo incorporates the phrase “Press play on being pain free.” 

The final logo uses pops of bright oranges, aqua, and yellow – all anchored by a deep blue. These colors pop on any timeline, and the graphic mark adds an element of action. The graphic mark is a take on a press play symbol – which ties into the tagline and lends itself well to use on social media. When working in tandem, all these elements create an action-packed look that’s sure to be eye catching and memorable. 

We’re thrilled with how this rebrand went, and we’re not the only ones. Hear firsthand from business owner, Lauren Stubbs, about the process: 

“I really enjoyed the entire process of working with Hannah at Hue & Tone Creative. Being a first-time entrepreneur, I knew little about the branding process. Hannah guided me through it with confidence and understanding... even when decision-making was tough because she had created multiple amazing logo options. If I could have two logos I would, because that's how great both of the final options were. Despite the Hue & Tone office and my home office being less than 1 mile apart, we went through the entire process virtually (due to COVID-19). The virtual experience didn't detract from the branding process, but I loved knowing we were both members of the same community. Knowing our proximity, ties to Launch Greensboro, and both being women business owners, gave me a sense of connection even though we never met in-person. Supporting small and local businesses, whether walking distance in downtown Greensboro or in the greater Triad area is a central tenet of Stubbs Mobile PT. Being able to work with someone locally yielded excellent results and I'm extremely excited about launching my new look. In fact, in the few weeks since we've unveiled our new logo we've already received positive comments on social media!”

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Want to learn more about Lauren’s business? Head over to her website to learn more! Or, follow her on Instagram here for regular PT, fitness, and movement tips!

MailChimp is a tried-and-true email marketing tool – the reasonable pricing and easy to use interface make it a good fit for small to mid-sized businesses that are looking to expand their digital marketing efforts. What most people don’t know is that MailChimp offers a lot more than basic email marketing capabilities. 

We’ve personally been using MailChimp for well over 10 years – and in that time the platform has added numerous tools and integrations to help their customers manage digital marketing campaigns from start to finish in one place. For example, integrated landing pages and social ads allow you to launch full scale campaigns that go beyond just emails. MailChimp also offers a built in CRM, multiple CRM integration options, and detailed analytics so you can closely analyze and tailor your efforts. 

To get the most out of your MailChimp account, we’re highlighting a few key features and actions that will help your campaigns see better results:  

Top tip for new MailChimp Users: Have a marketing plan

If you’re new to MailChimp, it’s important to approach your first campaign with a plan. Email campaigns are an effective low-cost way for small businesses to stay in touch with customers – but without a well thought out strategy in place, you may turn into an inbox nuisance and end up alienating previous customers. 

Not sure what to talk about in your emails? Or, how to design them? We’ve got another post that dives in-depth on how to write and design your email marketing communications. 

At the most basic level, you’ll want to start by defining your audience. Even if you’re a new business, you need to have a clear idea of who your target customers are. MailChimp lets you segment audiences with multiple tags so you can better tailor emails – so, don’t just stop at one big list – instead, tag customers based on demographic information, past spending habits, and their stage of the customer journey. We also suggest tagging and targeting based on how a subscriber joined your list. Knowing how someone signed up gives you valuable insight into how best to target them. 

Once you’ve acquainted yourself with your audience, it’s time to decide what types of content you will be emailing and how often. We suggest planning regular emails at least 3 weeks in advance so that your subscribers know when they’ll hear from you – and so your content follows a cohesive narrative. 

In addition to planning out your emails, we suggest keeping a content calendar that schedules out all campaigns, blog posts, ads, and social media posts so that your email fits into your larger strategy. 

For existing MailChimp Users:  

1. A/B test for effectiveness 

MailChimp allows you to test up to 3 variations of your campaign that test subject lines, content, from names, and send times, as well as how many people will receive your test emails. Testing these various elements gives you real world data that allows you to send the most effective campaign possible. 

Need step-by-step instructions on how to conduct an A/B test? MailChimp has a resource for that.

Once you’ve built the test campaigns (but before you hit send) it’s time to choose the metric that defines success. This could be clicks, opens, or direct revenue. MailChimp will gather your results and automatically send out the winning campaign to remaining contacts.  

2. Get to know your audience better

Once you’ve sent a handful of campaigns, it’s time to get to know your audience even better. Learning more and adapting your campaigns accordingly is key to any successful campaign. If you’ve been using MailChimp for a while or have just been sending to one list, it’s time to do a deeper dive and start tailoring ­your content. 

On average, segmented campaigns have 23% higher open rates and 49% higher click-through rates than unsegmented campaigns (source: Canto). Learning more about your audience’s demographics and behavior will allow you to better use MailChimp’s powerful segmentation to micro target emails. 

Don’t worry if you haven’t gathered a lot of information about your contacts – MailChimp is here to help you with that. Their predictive demographic tool does the heavy lifting for you, predicting gender and age information for contacts in your audience, regardless of whether they've engaged with your campaign content in the past.

You can also connect your enterprise CRM to import specific information about your existing contacts. 

3­­. Make the most out of automation 

Automations allow you to send more emails (and better targeted emails) by allowing you to set and forget pre-built emails. Automated emails can be targeted based on a certain behavior or be part of a series targeted to a certain group. A few examples of MailChimp’s built in automation features:  

• Customer Journeys: Build personalized purchase paths based on a customer’s unique behavior. 

• Behavior Based Automations: Trigger relevant messages based on how contacts interact with your app. 

• Transactional Emails: Send transactional emails with MailChimp’s API or SMTP. 

• Postcards: Stand out by mailing customers postcards at regular intervals. 

• Date-based automations: Reach out to people on big days, like birthdays or anniversaries. 

• RSS-to-email: Keep your people in the know by sharing your latest posts.  

Automations can be used at any stage of the customer journey. You can welcome new subscribers with a series of get-to-know you content (and maybe an exclusive discount), you can remind customers about abandoned carts, provide exclusive discounts, keep them up to date on orders, or provide product recommendations. 

Have a group of inactive contacts? Consider sending a series of re-engagement emails to try to incite an action before completely removing these folks from your database. 

Build out your first automation with your newly labeled and segmented customers in mind. Automation is a great way to nurture existing contacts and grow their interaction and loyalty to your brand.

One final takeaway: Don’t forget to measure your results  

Once you’ve created a strong email marketing plan, don’t forget to measure your results and make adjustments. Passively looking at your MailChimp open rates doesn’t count as measuring your campaign success. Set benchmarks for success (open rates, click throughs, direct sales, etc) and measure your campaigns against them. Then make adjustments to the frequency, content, and related ads as needed. 

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Hue & Tone Creative: your mailchimp partner

Signed up for a MailChimp account… but not sure what comes next? We’ll help you determine important reporting metrics, plan a content calendar, and even design your emails. Keep your focus on your business by outsourcing your email marketing to us, and get all the benefits of email marketing without the headaches.

In the competitive world of digital marketing and web-based sales, customer reviews are a powerful tool. They’re easy to solicit, low or no cost to acquire, and they do the selling for you! What’s more is that reviews offer a genuine perspective that no direct to consumer marketing can provide. 

Seeing a friend review a product online is a powerful form of personal recommendation. These reviews help consumers find new products and help businesses find qualified leads. 

A few benefits to consider: 

• They can serve multiple purposes -- positive reviews get visitors to your website, help you attract potential new leads, and can be used to market to your existing customers. 

• Reviews can be embedded on your website or used on print materials to up the exposure of your brand.

• They’re especially helpful for new businesses who are looking to establish credibility in the marketplace.  

Many customers are willing to provide a review, but you have to make the process easy and be sure to ask your customers at the right time. You’ll want to watch out for signs that your customer is happy with their experience so far. A few tip offs that might write a good review? They’ve referred someone else to you, they’ve repurchased a product, they’ve tagged you on social media, or they’ve spent a lot of time browsing on your website.

To make sure you get it right, here’s four ideas to help you gather more online reviews: 

1.     Leverage social media. Social capital is a powerful tool – if your friends or acquaintances are using a product you’re more likely to give it a try. In addition to the built in referral network social media provides, most platforms provide a great channel for soliciting and sharing reviews. Don’t just ask for new reviews, be sure to share the positive ones you’ve already received! In addition to providing free promotion, they’ll also help give your customers ideas on what to post in their own reviews.

People who have purchased or repurchased products are the perfect target for reviews. Tailor an email or social media campaign directly to these customers so you can don’t miss out on the chance to collect high-quality reviews.  

 2.     Ask more than once. Asking for a review once isn’t always enough – you don’t want to bug people, but you do want to give them ample opportunity to share their thoughts. Different people will want to share their reviews on different platforms and at different times, so be equipped to ask for reviews in a number of ways. Train your team to solicit reviews, add a link into your email campaigns, and incorporate review options into your website pop-ups and landing pages.

3.     Make a direct appeal. If you work as an account manager, are a B2B sales rep, or have a one-on-one relationship, ask your customers directly for a review. Keep it conversational, but inquire how they’re enjoying their experience with your product or service so far. If the response is positive, see if they wouldn’t mind sharing their feedback online. If they have a negative response, see what you can do to fix the problem before inquiring about them giving public feedback. 

 4.     Create Incentives. Offer a future discount, add a bonus product to their order or enter them in a drawing in exchange for their feedback. Be careful you don’t compromise the integrity of the review – you shouldn’t force people to leave a positive review, rather an honest review. 

A few additional tips:

• Accept reviews on multiple platforms like Yelp, Facebook, Google Business, Zillow and more. Everyone has a favorite method of reviewing, so don’t loose out on a good review by limiting people’s platform options. But keep in mind that people tend to trust Facebook reviews more because they’re connected to individual profiles that people can verify the legitimacy of. 

Further Reading: Want to learn more about how to handle a bad review? We’ve got a separate post that goes in-depth on the topic. Check it out here.

• Be sure to respond to all reviews – especially the negative ones! Respond thoughtfully (without getting defensive). In addition to improving the relationship with that individual customer, you’ll also be demonstrating good customer service that shows potential buyers you care and are willing to listen. 

• Make it easy! Cut out additional steps wherever possible and it will up the chances that your customers will take the time to leave a review. Include a direct link so they can head straight to the product page, make login seamless, and provide them with sample writing prompts. 

Have a tip that we should have included? Drop us a comment below – we’d love to learn more about what’s worked for you in the past (and what hasn’t). 

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Hue & Tone Creative: Social Media + Graphic Design

Need someone to take the headaches out of your automated emailing and social media planning? We’re here to help. Whether you’re looking to increase your views or simply need a break from handling your account, Hue & Tone Creative has you covered for all things social. 

Back in June 2020, Apple announced it would be making some substantial changes to how iPhone’s collect your data. The changes include enabling people to share an approximate location (instead of a precise one), adding summaries to the App Store that explain what data each app collects, and requiring third party apps to ask users before sharing their data. 

Facebook swiftly responded to these changes with displeasure, specifically taking issue with the consent driven data sharing. By requiring iPhone owners to grant apps explicit permission, Facebook fears the possibility that most users will block them from collecting detailed information. Facebook uses that data to build out detailed profiles that they market to advertisers (including both small and large businesses). 

The type of data sharing that is specifically being referred to is IDFAs (Identifier for Advertisers). IDFA’s are unique identifiers for mobile devices and are used to target and measure the effectiveness of advertising on a user level across mobile devices. Currently, about 70% of IOS users share their IDFA with app publishers, after this change it’s estimated that this number will drop to 10% to 15% (source). Currently, users can opt of data sharing, but it’s a buried feature that you have to search out.

If people are blocking Facebook from collecting their data, the value of advertising on their platform may significantly decrease. And with it, Facebook’s revenue may take a severe hit. In 2019, about 98.5 percent of Facebook's global revenue was generated from advertising, whereas only around two percent was generated by payments and other fees revenue (source). Much of that revenue is generated by small to medium sized businesses who count on social media advertising as an important part of their marketing strategy. 

It’s important to note these changes aren’t specifically targeted at Facebook – they’re simply one of the biggest companies that may suffer and the company that’s made the most noise about them. The fact of the matter is that every third-party app will have to ask your permission before tracking you. 

What does the timeline for these changes look like? 

Apple originally outlined these changes in June of 2020 in anticipation of a Fall 2020 rollout. The changes were delayed and in December 2020 the pushback from Facebook intensified. 

The changes will begin to take effect as users install or update to the new iOS. When you install those updates a prompt will appear alerting you to opt-in or opt-out of the sharing of this information. 

How did Facebook respond? 

These latest changes are only the most recent development in a tense relationship. Apple and Facebook have been fighting for years, with their CEO’s often aiming comments at each other (more on that here). In December, Facebook launched an all-out offense campaign to try and combat the proposed Apple changes. 

They announced their displeasure on the website/app, took out print ads, and created a subsite for business owners to “voice their displeasure.” Instead of focusing on the potential loss to their own ad revenue, the focus of their latest campaign is that they’re sticking up for small business owners. 

The messaging on their website reads: 

Here’s what’s at stake with the iOS 14 update. 

Apple’s policy could limit your ability to use your own data to show personalized ads to people who are likely to be interested in your business. Now that 44% of small businesses are turning to personalized ads to adapt to the outbreak of COVID-191, this update will be especially hurtful to small businesses in already challenging times. 

Apple’s iOS updates make it harder to reach current and future customers.

Measurement of campaign performance will be disrupted, making it harder to determine the effectiveness of ads.

How will this affect my business advertising?  

If you rely heavily on Facebook advertising to meet your regular sales goals, there’s a good chance that these updates will impact you. After all, the personal information that Facebook collects is what allows you to target customers with creepily specific ads. Apple allowing people to opt out also ups the chance that people will see ads that are less relevant to them. 

Most major platforms are still working through exactly how they will address these major changes – but Facebook confirmed they will not collect IDFA’s on their own devices and will begin updating their SDK to support the SKAdNetwork option. More on that here.

In the immediate future, your advertising may be impacted in two major areas:

• Retargeting: Retargeting to users will no longer be possible for people that have opted out. Platforms like Google and Facebook can still identify users through information like their email or phone number, but other platforms will see a drastic reduction in targetable audiences. 

• Measurement: Ad measurement is built around customers IDFA identifiers – and while Apple has announced a replacement API that will allow for conversion data at the campaign level, there will still be a reduction in the reliability of the data. 

What should you do?

As a consumer, we like that Apple is protecting our data and paving the way for further consumer protections to be enacted. As a digital advertiser and social media company, we understand why business owners are frustrated. But don’t let frustration paralyze you! 

 Now is the perfect time to revisit and revamp your social media advertising strategy. Invest some time into thinking through how these changes might negatively impact your customer acquisition numbers and shift your strategy accordingly.  

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your Social Media Partner 

Not sure what shifting your strategy looks like? Reach out – we can help you create a plan to handle these changes and to futureproof your strategy for future changes. From content creation to analyzing your reach, we’re your partner in everything social media related. 

In 2021, we anticipate companies messaging will be all about authenticity and simplicity. As brands become more and more social media savvy, the competition is becoming even fiercer. In addition to looking for eye-catching graphics, consumers are more conscious than ever of trying to support ethical brands that align with their values. 

What makes a brand stand out has become about more than just a company’s products and marketing – it’s also about the cause a brand represents and the lifestyle they support. 

After a long year of trying to fight for attention and having to pivot business models, we anticipate that many brands are in for another intense year. Many scrappy businesses were able to distinguish themselves in 2020, and we think pulling to the forefront in 2021 will hinge on strong and distinctive marketing. 

1. Authentic Representation + Socially Conscious Design

Graphics featuring “Stop the spread” and “Black Lives Matter” messaging took center stage in 2020, and we foresee this trend continuing well into 2021 (and, hopefully, beyond). Whether it’s putting an activist message front and center or paying closer attention to representation, brands are being held more accountable for their role in our culture. In addition to socially conscious messaging, marketers are paying closer attention to the representation in their work and featuring a wider array of races, sizes, and ages in their advertising. 

As brands rally around a cause, we suggest making sure the cause makes sense for your brand – and feels authentic. The only thing worse than tone-deaf messaging is the overwrought and inauthentic messaging that comes from a brand trying to co-opt a cause to turn a profit. 

Zappos Goods for Good campaign.

Image source + some food for thought on corporate responsibility.

2. Gold, Terrazzo, and Texture 

The trending textures we anticipate in 2021 are similar to what we saw in 2020. When it comes to home décor, gold and an all-white aesthetic have been reigning for years – in 2021 we anticipate gold will continue to trend… but with hints of soft pinks, dark navy, and other pops of color. We also think terrazzo will continue to appeal in millennial-targeted product photography. 

Purchase this background here

Source

3. Muted Color Palettes

Bright colors and intense duotones have been reigning since early 2017. That’s why we anticipate a shift toward more muted color palettes this year. 

Muted colors are soothing – they can also evoke feelings of nostalgia, safety, comfort, and nature. We saw many health brands using a more muted scheme in 2020, but we think the trend will reach a wider array of industries this year. 

4. Data & Text Heavy Video

Working remotely has ushered in a new phase of more text heavy video design. In addition to clearly communicating a message, these videos work well for people using smaller teams, working remote, or those on a limited budget. 

We see this shift toward text heavy video also working well with current data trends. Gone are the days of complicated infographics – these days big, bold, simple statistics reign. They’re easily shareable and grab people’s attention on the ever-more-crowded internet. 

5. Black and white branding

Black and white branding allows product photography to really stand out. This isn’t a new trend, but it’s certainly something we’re seeing an uptick in. Clean, minimal branding is a great way to stand out from the noise and colorful landscape of social media. As products try to distinguish themselves from the crowd, we think we’ll see more and more colorless branding in 2021. 

6. Dark Mode

This trend relates back to designing for accessibility and ease of use – something we covered in more detail in 2020. 

Dark mode has been gaining reach in online product advertising this year – and we think this shift is going to impact brand design trends in 2021. Apps and operating systems are all offering dark mode options and these dark mode user interfaces help highlight design elements. It’s worth considering how the dark mode experience impacts your users and then tweaking your designs accordingly. 

For example, white fonts on a dark background tend to appear bolder –  does that impact the way people interact with your app? Do your design elements work well at all screen brightness’s?

7. Authentic Photography

Genuine messaging isn’t the only authentic content audiences are looking for – they’ve also got an eye for spotting posed or ersatz stock photography. 

We’ve been a long-time proponent of investing in a branded stock photography shoot. Take a few hours to collect shots that will represent your business for the year to come – you’ll invest a bit more than you will for a stock photo subscription, but the result will be authentic photos that you can use across all of your digital and print advertising.

A few examples of more authentic stock photography from Twenty20.

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Hue & Tone: Your partner in design for 2021

Realizing your brand needs to get with the times? Let’s use more impactful marketing to make 2021 your highest grossing year yet. Reach out to set up an initial consultation now.

This is our last blog post of 2020! After recharging out of the office we’ll be back on January 13, 2021 with fresh blog content. Have a topic request for 2021? We’d love to address any subject you need help with on our blog! Contact us here to share a topic suggestion or leave a comment on this blog post!

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For our last blog of the year, we’ve got an impactful and moving holiday campaign from Crisis Assistance Ministries to share with you.

The mission of Crisis Assistance Ministry (CAM) is to provide assistance and advocacy for people in financial crisis, helping them move toward self-sufficiency. They serve as a one-stop shop for Mecklenburg families facing poverty.  Whether providing a coat to a woman who is homeless, a utility payment for a single father who is trying to keep his home warm, or rental assistance for a veteran who has fallen on hard times, they preserves the dignity of customers while preventing homelessness and eviction. 

This was our second year working with CAM on their annual holiday campaign, and we were thrilled to get the opportunity to support this important cause. The work we did for this holiday giving campaign included designing a campaign logo, letter, card, and envelopes. 

This year’s campaign focused on a theme of “giving the gift of HOME.” Home stands for Help, Opportunity, Motivation, and Empathy. Early designs of the logo spelled out this acronym, but in the end, we opted for a simple logo design and the cozy imagery of a home decorated for the holidays. 

The campaign logo depicts the silhouette of a home, a heart, a key, and a light to draw a key connection between CAM’s services and the campaign. 

The card design features a caretaker and child looking out into the snowy night from the warmth of their home. Simple, yet classic, this scene evokes a wide range of emotions in the viewer – hopefully inspiring them to provide the gift of HOME to a deserving family. 

This campaign launched in November and is still going on today! If you’d like to learn mor or make a donation, head over to crisisassistance.org/holiday.

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Hue & Tone Creative: Design for non-profits 

Is your non-profit looking to launch a campaign of its own? Hue & Tone offers flexible and creative design solutions for nonprofits of all sizes. Let’s build a purposeful partnership today – reach out to learn more about cost-effective options for 501(c)3 nonprofits. 

Image Copyright: Joey Seawell Photography.

In September, our long-term client Revolution Mill asked us to design a refreshed one pager that they could use to market the campus as a whole. Anyone who has visited this revitalized textile mill knows exactly how expansive it is. In total campus boasts 250,000 square feet of Class A Office Space, 150 apartments, three dining options, two event spaces and numerous amenities. 

With so much to potentially highlight, how do you explain everything that’s going on to prospective tenants, potential residents, or campus visitors? That’s where we come in! After working with the Revolution Mill team we were able to summarize the most pertinent details into a digestible one pager that gives an overview of the entire campus. 

With a focus on amenities and commercial spaces, we incorporated some scenic shots from campus as well as condensed wording to describe both current features and future construction. 

The end result is an easy to read piece that coordinates with Revolution’s streamlined and neutral branding. Their branding is tied together with minimal fonts and incorporates the same warm greys, tans, and pops of red that you’ll see around the physical campus. 

To learn more about the campus – and to see their branding in action – check out the one pager below or visit their website (revolutionmillgreensboro.com).

View fullsize

View fullsize

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your marketing partner

Inquiries and interest are partly driven by great design — whether you need help designing print materials, assembling a landing page, or running a great social campaign we’re here to help. Set up an initial consult and lets discuss your next project.

On the surface, Facebook ads seem like a great value. With startup costs as little as $5/day, most business owners jump on the opportunity to start advertising for such a minimal expenditure.  

Looking for a low cost alternative to social advertising? Maybe email marketing is the right fit for you. Learn more about it here.

The truth is that advertising on Facebook can work for almost any type of business – but the catch is that it takes a well-planned campaign, a clear objective, and an appropriate budget to make it worth the investment. Before starting your first campaign, you’ll want to:

1. Learn how to properly use the Facebook Ads Manager (or hire someone who knows how to use it)

2. Determine a clear budget 

3. Narrow down an objective for your campaign

4. Set a timeline for your campaign, including check-in points where you can retool your creative if needed

5. Design and write your ad creative (don’t forget to consider A/B testing for your creative)

6. Carefully target your ads before launching them 

How much do they cost? 

While it’s true that you can start advertising for just a few dollars, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is money well spent – or that social advertising will be more cost effective than traditional advertising in the long run. 

The real questions you should be asking here are:

• How much do I have to spend? 

• What are my goals? 

• What cost per click (CPC) do I need to make this worthwhile? 

The fact of the matter is that $5 is going to buy you nothing… in fact, if done poorly a low budget campaign may even hurt your brand. At a bare minimum, we suggest setting aside $500 -$1k for each product or service campaign you plan to do (and this doesn’t include creative development costs). The appropriate budget will be influenced by your objectives, how large of a target audience you want to reach, and the length of your campaign­­. 

Setting a goal

While direct sales goal is one clear cut way to make sure you’ll be able to measure your investment, it’s not the only metric that’s worthwhile. In addition to social media sales (for products), you can also measure:  

• New page “Likes”

• Post-level engagement

• Email opt-ins

• Website click-throughs

• On-site sales or lead generations

Picking the proper objective is going to depend on your specific business. If you’re a new business, brand awareness may be an important piece of your marketing strategy. But if you’re a tried and true brand who is looking to boost sales, you should hone in on conversions or direct sales.  

6 mistakes to avoid

1. Use little to no text on your ad creative. Facebook’s 20% text rule has been the rule of thumb for as long as any social media marketer can remember. In general, the less text means the higher the reach. 

2. Using the wrong ad format. Using the wrong ad format is typically a newbie mistake. The ad manager has numerous options and if you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s a good chance you may not be using the most effective format. Let your objective guide your ad format – and be sure to do plenty of research on the different options before even kicking off your first campaign!  

3. Boosting a post and calling it advertising. While boosting a post may get a few extra eyes on it, this is not the same thing as creating a Facebook campaign. You won’t have any of the targeting or format options available through the ads manager if you simply boost a post.

4. Not regularly monitoring and retooling. Facebook advertising isn’t a set it and forget it medium. You should plan to regularly check-in on your campaigns to measure their success. If something’s not working or performing the way you expected, don’t be afraid to rework it and try again. Live monitoring is one of the benefits of social advertising because it ensures you won’t continue to spend money on something that isn’t working… so don’t let this important feature go to waste! 

5. Only running one ad. Facebook Campaigns are based around sets of ads which are made of individual ads. Limit ad sets to no more than 5 ads so you can compare and contrast what’s working well. 

6. Targeting a wide range. Targeting a broad audience is a big mistake – by casting a wide net, you lower the chances that people are going to respond positively to your ad or engage with it at all. Facebook’s unparalleled targeting is what makes it such a successful platform – and not utilizing these features practically ensures you won’t see a return on your investment.  

The bottom line: are they worth it? 

Want to learn more about Facebook’s targeting options? Facebook has a number of valuable resources available for your use!! 

It’s important to not view Facebook as a silver bullet that will fix all your advertising woes for a minimal cost and labor investment. If done well, your Facebook campaigns will require a lot of careful planning, research, and investment. 

Social advertising should be just one part of a carefully planned and comprehensive digital marketing strategy – and they require as much care and attention as everything else that bears your brand name. 

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Hue & Tone Creative: Your digital marketing partner

Feeling overwhelmed by all the options? Don’t worry – that’s what we’re here for. We’ll help you determine how best to spend your digital marketing budget. Once we’ve decided on the right fit, we can help you take the plan from idea to reality. We’ll help you write, design, and launch everything you need to boost sales.

If you have a great product, your customers will help do the marketing for you – but often you have to provide them with an incentive program to help compensate for their time. A referral program is a deliberate, systematic way of getting people to make referrals to your business. Having a clearly outlined program will help consistency and tact take center stage – and ensure no current customers are turned off by your ask for their help. 

Referrals can come from just about anywhere – existing customers, friends and family, or even a social media testimonial. Having an established system to help you harness the power of these referrals is key to building word of mouth and customer loyalty. 

Decide how much a customer is worth 

Not sure what kind of metric you should be looking for from a referral program? Start by aiming for a 10% conversion rate.

Before you start developing the specifics of your referral program, it’s important to identify what you hope to get out of it. First, figure out what a typical customer is worth. Your referral program should help you build a continual pipeline of new customers – each of which you’ll be obtaining at a lower cost than a traditional customer acquisition.  

Having a concrete figure for customer acquisition costs allows you to determine how much money to sink into building a referral program – as well as how much to spend marketing it. 

Establish your incentive structure

Now that you’ve identified the cost of acquiring a typical customer, it’s time to do a little math on incentives. Don’t limit yourself to just cash incentives – studies actually show that non-cash incentives are 24% more effective at boosting effectiveness (source).

In addition to a typical cash incentive system, consider offering coupons, service upgrades, free swag, gift cards, donations to charities, or access to exclusive products. 

Pinpoint what you’ll be offering to both the referrer and referral – this should be a mutually beneficial ask to ensure everyone walks away with an even more positive view of your brand.  

Develop quality collateral 

Putting time into developing quality referral materials and messaging around your new program is a must. Your messaging should: 

• Feel Personal 

• Cleary explain the benefit to the customer and their friend

• Have easy to understand directions

• Offer a clear explanation of the steps

The easier you make it to refer people the better. Give your customer multiple options for how to share – Facebook, Twitter, email, or a direct link. Offer a pre-filled message to them so they don’t have to do anything but click a button.  

It’s also important to ensure that your referral program is being consistently marketed among your different platforms. Use consistent language across your CTAs, blogs, emails, newsletters, and product updates. 

Track what’s working

Once you’ve got your messaging and incentive structure in place, it’s time to integrate analytics and tracking to monitor its effectiveness. If you’re shopping around for referral program software, this is definitely something you’ll want to dive into before purchasing. At a minimum, you’ll want to track: 

• Who referred who

• When they were referred 

• Whether they were converted or not

• How many links get shared 

• How many links get clicked 

• A/B testing effectiveness

• Where customers tend to drop off in the referral program 

Make sure your whole team is up to date 

Now that you’ve put time into developing a quality referral program, it’s time to make sure everyone is on the same page. Sit down with sales, marketing, and support staff and make sure the whole team is aligned around the goals and vision for your referral program. 

Can they clearly explain incentives? Have they been well trained on any new software? Do they have leeway to offer additional benefits to top referrers? Get everyone up to speed so they can answer questions in real time. 

Don’t forget to say “thank you!” 

Once your program has launched, be sure to take the time to thank your referrers for helping you out! Even though you’re providing them with an incentive already, it never hurts to personally thank them for their support. 

Avoid stagnation 

Once your regular customer incentive program is up and running, consider future ways to keep things fresh or to expand your program. Here’s a few special promotions to consider or incorporate in the months and years to come: 

• Customer Tiers: Now that you have a strong plan in place for one-time referrals, it’s time to start thinking about how to harness the power of regular or high-value customers. Creating tiers is a way to offer continual incentives as customers continue to offer you valuable leads. Each tier can have its own unique benefits so that customers stay motivated. 

• Seasonal Campaigns: Holiday discounts and annual sales can provide a special way to draw in new consumers. 

• Contests: Host a giveaway where customers are entered only after providing a certain number of referrals. To ensure you maintain a high quality of leads, we suggest leads have to signup instead of just provide an email. This means your success will based on conversions rather than just random referrals. 

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Hue & Tone Creative: Digital Marketing for the Triad and beyond

Want to take the guesswork out of developing your referral program? We’ll help you develop a program with a clear structure, sound business goals, and beautiful graphics. Ready to get started? Let’s set up a free 20 minute consultation to get to know each other. Make an appointment here.