Whether you’re starting a new business, turning over a new leaf, or just looking to streamline your current venture, you’re facing about a million (rough estimate) challenges at all times. But the good news is that for almost every problem you face there’s an app that’s here to make your life easier. And, to make things even easier, we’ve gone ahead and cut out the research process by compiling this list of essential business apps.

If you’re looking to streamline your marketing, finance, or internal communication efforts we’ve got an app for you!

Financial Tools

Keeping up with your finances can be one of the least fun parts about owning your business -- and, if you’re not careful, it can be one of the most time consuming.

MileIQ: Need to track your miles for tax purposes? The MilelQ app logs all of your drives and allows you to easily swipe left or right to categorize drives as work or personal.

Float: This cash flow forecasting app allows you to better predict the financial future of your company.

Quickbooks: Chances are, you’ve heard of Quickbooks. It’s accounting software specifically built for small business -- it’s essential for tracking your income, sending invoices, and managing your expenses.

Square: One of the easiest ways to accept chip + magstripe cards, Square is an app that pairs with a (free) card reader. It’s one of the easiest ways to accept POS payment!

PayPal: Send, accept, and request money with this online payment system. It connects with your bank account, and your information is secure and protected.
 

Marketing Tools

Now that we have your finances in place, we need to get you some new customers. These marketing tools will help you communicate effectively through every medium.

Hootsuite: Struggling to manage all of your social sites efficiently? Hootsuite allows you to manage all of your accounts one one screen. You can also schedule out your social media posts for multiple platforms at once, and track the results.

MailChimp: MailChimp is a cheap and easy email marketing platform that allows you to communicate with your customers. You can integrate the sign-up on your website to effortlessly collect email addresses, create branded templates, and send easily-trackable campaigns. If you want to learn more, check out our series on the benefits and basics of using MailChimp (here and here).

Canva: While we’re always in favor of bringing in a pro, we understand that sometimes you just need a quick fix. Canva is an easy app that allows you to create graphics for your business. There’s free templates for social media graphics, flyers, and more.

Hubspot: Hubspot’s a powerful inbound marketing software that helps you create powerful marketing materials, gather information, and convert leads into sales. It includes all the tools you need to market your business -- but may feel a little overwhelming for beginners.

Buzzsumo: Find out what your consumers really want! Buzzsumo helps you research your target audience so that you can ensure you’re spending time on the right content for your business.

Organization Tools

Organizing a team is no small task -- but luckily some of the best tools out there are meant to help you effectively manage your crew. Don’t count these tools out even if your business team only consists of just you! Project management apps can help you keep client work or new business initiatives intuitively organized.

17hats: Perfect for all the solopreneurs out there, 17hats cuts out the need for multiple apps. It simplifies everything and lets you keep track of your clients, projects, to do lists, calendar, workflow, templates and everything else all in one place.

Asana: If you’ve got a big team, Asana is the app for you. You can easily manage and assign tasks to different projects and teams. It cuts down on the need for unnecessary meetings and allows you to manage all of your to-do’s in one place.

Basecamp: A great alternative to Asana, Basecamp allows you to manage projects with a team. While Asana is our personal preference, the best thing to do is test out both apps for free and see what you prefer.

Evernote: A giant digital notebook, Evernote allows you to stay organized. You can store everything from big ideas to random musings in different digital notebooks. Add in images, audio, scanned documents, and files to keep everything organized. You can even forward emails to the different notebooks to keep everything in one place.

Wunderlist: Have a long to-do list? Wunderlist is a task management tool with a simple interface. It syncs to all of your devices so that you can easily check things off throughout the day.

Pocket: Ever spend hours looking for a link and wished you’d saved it? Pocket can help. Save everything and anything you come across on the web so that you can view it later.

IFTTT: An acronym for “If This Then That” this is a free web app that lets user automate web-based tasks. A little confused about what that means? That’s because it does almost anything!

Productivity Tools

It’s hard to stay on task when you’re feeling overwhelmed. These tools will help you keep your day-to-day routine on track!

30/30: A super simple task manager, this app guides you to work for 30 minutes/break for 30 minutes. It’s as simple as that!

FocusZen: Carefully engineered audio teaches your mind to block out all distractions and allow for maximum focus. The app also has timers for 10, 25, or 60 minutes of peace.

Spark: Emails can be a pain, especially unnecessary ones. This app collects and categorizes all of your emails so that they’re easy to process.

Slack: Slack is a cloud based messaging tool that promises to make you less busy by streamlining team communication.

RescueTime: RescueTime runs in the background to help you understand where your time goes from day-to-day. You can block distracting websites, set alerts for when you spend a certain amount of time on a task, and log highlights about what you accomplished.

Toggl: A ridiculously simple time tracker, Toggl lets you track your time per task so that you can recognize and improve it.

Misc

Google Apps: One of our personal obsessions, Google Apps are a powerful tool. You can create documents that are easily shareable, store files, comment on shared documents, and sooooooo much more. You can edit a document live with your team -- and it all syncs to your Drive. And -- purchasing an additional 100GB of extra space to store all your files starts at only $1.99 a month!

Skype: Have a remote client? Meet virtually with Skype and have a face-to-face conversation via your laptop or mobile device.

LastPass: Keep all of your passwords in one place with this password management app.

SignNow: A safe and effective way to get e-signatures in seconds from any device (for a very reasonable cost).

BidSketch: Use this tool to easily mix and match fees, projects, and conditions to create professional client proposals.

SurveyMonkey: Conduct free surveys and analyze the results with SurveyMonkey. With over 15 question types, you can easily gather information.

Don't be afraid to test out these different apps and see what works best for you -- finding just one tool that you love can make a big difference in your day-to-day efficiency! 

Tell us: which of these tools are you most eager to try? 

We know, we know -- we’ve highlighted Rise & Shine before… but when your clients just keep doing great work, it never gets old showing it off.

Throughout 2016, Rise & Shine has been hosting a series of events to celebrate and raise awareness for their organization. An afterschool program with a mission of promoting racial justice and equality, we loved being able to collaborate on collateral that's helping drive their mission forward.

All of our work for Rise & Shine features bright colors, eye-catching layouts, and vibrant photography of the program participants. We work to keep the focus on the facts and figures that demonstrate the program's efficacy, as well as highlight the organization's values. 

Take a look at the colorful collateral below!

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Below, starting clockwise at top left: One-page infographic (front + back), homepage web slider, event program,  Facebook graphics, and bookmark.

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Below, left: Booth signage
Below, right: Event poster for the "In Living Color" Dance Party

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Below: Local Movie Theater Ad

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Working with non-profits is a passion of ours, and we're always eager to dive into a new partnership. If your organization's marketing needs a boost, don't hesitate to reach out to us!

Feeling more then a little confused when you're trying to communicate with your designer? We get that. As designers, we do our best to explain things to our clients -- but it's easy to make assumptions or run through things a little too quickly. 

We put together this handy to guide to help cut down on client + designer relationship miscommunication. There's seemingly no end to the amount of technical terms out there -- but these 39 terms will give you a solid footing to get the conversation rolling. So... get studying!  

Alignment: Can refer either to the position of elements within the margins, or the idea of placing items so that they line up in an organized way.

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Ascender: Any part of a letter that extends beyond the rest of the word. Examples: “b” + “h”.

Descender: Any part of a letter that drops beyond the x height/baseline of a character set.

Asymmetrical: A design in which the graphic elements or text on each side of the central line have unequal visual weight. One visually large element could possibly be balanced out by a grouping of smaller elements on the other side. Asymmetrical balance is typically more interesting.

Bleed: In printing, the bleed is what goes beyond the margin of the edge of the sheet of paper before trimming. A full bleed design means there is no white border/margin, and the color/images will go all the way to the edge of the paper.

Branding: The collection of language, ideas, principles, and visual elements that represent a company or business to clients and consumers.

Body copy: The main text in an advertisement, brochure, or website. Body copy is longer than headlines and is meant to be easily readable.

Body font: The text formatting for the main content of a magazine, website, or other printed material. Body fonts will contrast with the headlines, and is typically easily readable.

CMYK: A color mode used for print purposes. CMYK stands for ‘Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key (black)’.

Display Type: Fonts with distinctive personality that often sacrifice some readability for the purpose of being unique and eye catching. Typically used for headlines.

DPI: A measurement of resolution for a printed image. Stands for dots per inch.

Element: Individual parts of a logo or design. An element can be a flourish, a border, or something like a headline or image.

Favicon: A small icon that’s associated with a specific web page or URL. A favicon is displayed in the browser's address bar or near the site name in a bookmark.

Hero image: A common term to describe an oversized banner image -- usually near the top of the web page.

Kerning: The process of adjusting the horizontal distance between letters.

Leading: The process of adjusting the vertical distance between lines of type.

Letterpress: A printing process that results in an impression/indented design being left in the paper.

Logo mark: A graphic symbol or emblem that represents a business, organization, or individual.

Logo type: Also known as a wordmark, a logotype is the name of the company designed in a visual way.

Lorem ipsum: Latin text that’s used to demonstrate the graphic elements in a document or visual.

Margins: Only shown in computer layout programs, margins are the space around the printable area of a document.

Mobile responsive: A web or email design that automatically adjusts it’s sizing, layout, and proportions when viewed on a mobile device.

Negative space: Simply an area on the page that doesn’t contain any design elements.

Opacity: An object's degree of opacity. The lower the opacity the more transparent an element is. 0% = completely invisible, 100% = opaque/fully visible.

Palette: A set of cohesive colors you use for a design, brand, or campaign.  

Pantone Colors: The Pantone Matching system (or PMS) is a set of over 700 standardized colors used in a variety of industries.

Pica: A unit of type size and line length equal to 12 points (about 1/6 inch or 4.2 mm).

Pixel: A minute area of illumination on a display screen, one of many from which an image is composed.

Printer-ready (or camera-ready): Files/artwork is ready to be printed.

Proof: Can refer to either a “concept proof” or “printed proof.” A concept proof is a rough drawn, incomplete, or early stage preview of a project that demonstrates the concept to a client. A printed proof is designed to demonstrate the exact final product -- and is great for catching any last minute mistakes!

Raster files: A raster image consists of a dot matrix structure. Most of the images you see on your computer are a raster image. They can easily be scaled down without a loss of quality, but not scaled up without looking pixelated. Common formats like JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs are all raster images.

RGB: A color mode used primarily for web. Colors are mixed from red, green, and blue (RGB).

Sans Serif: Typefaces that don’t have serifs at the ends of the stroke (aka the little feet). In print sans serif fonts are typically used for headlines (not body text). Sans serif fonts are popular for display or web fonts.  

Serif: Short strokes that extend from the top or bottom of the long part of a letter.

Slab Serif: A thick, block like serif font. Can be either blocky or rounded.

Typeface: A set of letters, numbers, etc. all in the same style.

Vector file: Created using illustration software (like Adobe Illustrator). Creates clean, camera-ready art that can be scaled up infinitely and still maintain a clean look.

Visual Brand Identity: The collection of all the individual logos marks, graphics, photos, print collateral and web graphics that make up the visual appearance of your brand.

Wireframe: A rough outline used for planning a website’s structure and functionality. Outlines all functional elements of a website or web page.

Feeling more prepared for your next meeting? The next time you give your designer feedback, break out a few of these terms and watch the look on their face as they realize what a pro you are!

If you're looking for even more advice on how to work with a designer we've got these 8 tips to help you create a smoother working relationship. 

One of the most common questions we hear is “How do I make my website come up first on Google?”

That’s a great question -- one with a complicated answer. The short answer is SEO, but the long answer requires diving into what SEO is. It’s important to understand that there are a number of ways to improve your SEO, some of which require a developer or paying for ranking -- but the ideas we’ve compiled here are meant to be easy to execute, no matter what your skill level.

First things first, what does SEO even stand for? SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It can refer to anything that helps increase the authority and relevancy of your site.

Let’s let Cristers Media explain more about how that process works:

“The way Google and other search engines display websites is this: Google has automated computer systems working around the clock that randomly visit websites all over the Internet, take snapshots of each page, and file them away in a massive database.

As part of taking a snapshot of each web page, Google's system reads every word and other content on a web page in order to determine the specific subject of the page. Google uses this collected data to determine which web pages to show, and in what order, for a particular keyword search.

In other words, Google's computer algorithms dynamically determine which web page on the Internet is the most relevant for a specific keyword or key phrase and displays it first. It then displays the second most relevant page, and so on. The resulting list of web pages is known as a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).”

So now that you know what SEO is, how do you improve it? And what should you avoid doing?

DO:

1. Do keep your content fresh with high quality content. The more frequently you update the content on your site, the happier your customers (and Google) will be with you. Providing customers + clients with original content on a regular basis ups the frequency with which a search engine will crawl and recatalog the pages on your site. The more frequently your pages are cataloged, the more opportunities you have to rise in the search rankings. To provide a frame of reference, a site that is updated daily, or at least 2-3 times a week, is considered a frequently updated site.  
    
2. Do include keywords where it counts. Keywords are words or phrases in your content that people will search for in order to find your site -- it’s how the search engine matches up a query with your specific website. You’ll want to do research on which words to use, because you have to think like your customers in order to narrow down the proper search terms. Keep in mind that people will often perform a search using general or plain language terms instead of technical jargon.
    
3. Do get social. Social media serves as a way to push your content out -- this puts it in front of more eyes, increasing the chance of getting an external link to your site. An external link is simply any other website (hopefully one with high authority) that points to your site. External links demonstrate and increase the credibility of your site.
   
   Secondarily, if your content is widely shared on social media it can contribute to a website's authority just like external links can (more on that in a minute). It’s another way that Google validates your content, leading to a small bump in domain authority.
    
4. Do utilize Google Webmaster Tools. Google Webmasters is a free toolset by Google, for, well...webmasters. They help you do things like track your website’s search presence, see subscriber stats, and measure your overall website performance. Specifically, Search Console will help you make sure Google can access your content, hide content you don’t want show in the results, and monitor any malware issues.
    
5. Do include outbound links. Practically the opposite of an external link, outbound links refer from your site to someone else's. When you link out to other domains, it helps the search engine to understand your “niche” and it helps increase the perceived quality of your site.

DONT:

1. Don’t have a slow load speed. A faster page speed (the time it takes for each individual page to load) is show to lead to a higher rank and conversion rate. Google’s also indicated that site speed (the speed of a sampling of all the pages together) is an influencing factor on page rank. Plus, no one likes waiting around for a website to load, so your customers will be happy too.
    
2. Don’t use paid links. Google is firmly against manipulation of their site results -- specifically people sneakily buying their way to the top. Things like display ads are fine, because they’re a regular tool of marketing, but just regular linked text can come across the wrong way to Google. If you want a search engine to ignore something that really is a paid link, you should use a “nofollow” tag -- but, we promised this wasn’t an article for developers, so if you need to learn more about that check this out.
    
3. Don’t keyword stuff. When you’re blatantly cramming tons of keywords in the content of your article, or in the meta tags of your site it’s called keyword stuffing. It’s obvious you’re trying to up your rankings (in a way that isn’t valuable to the reader) and it can lead to your site being penalized -- or even banned.
    
4. Don’t duplicate content. Content that appears on the Internet more than once is called duplicate content. When there are multiple pieces of identical content on the Internet, it’s hard for search engines to decide which is more relevant. It’s important to note that there is no penalty for duplicate content, but rather rewards for original content (source).
    
5. Don’t have broken links. In addition to harming the user experience of your website, broken links can stop a webcrawler from seeing the rest of your site. Web crawlers function by moving from the root of your site (main page) down to the different pages, subpages, and blog entries. When they hit a broken link they can’t crawl any further -- and might end up missing other pages on your site.

As you can see from all these do’s and dont’s, SEO can be pretty complicated. But the impact of doing things right can mean transforming your site from a deserted corner of the innerwebs to one of the most popular Internet hangouts around.

Looking to read more on SEO? We’ve got even more in-depth reading for you here and here.

Happy first day of July!

We’re making a few changes to our blogging schedule, so for our last Friday Links we’ve rounded up a mega-list of some of the best resources we’ve shared over the last few months. From now on, we’ll be posting a long-format entry every Wednesday. With topics ranging from design and marketing to tips and tricks, each post will be an in-depth look at a different topic each week.

So, without further adieu, here’s our final Friday Links:

Design Links

One | 10 Commandments of graphic design  

Two | Introductory guide to choosing fonts

Three | How to utilize an inspiration board to design a consistent brand

Four | 15 Type Designers to keep an eye on

Five | An interview with Michael Bierut, Designer at Pentagram

Social Media Links

One | How to be social online (for the naturally unsocial)

Two | 10 Years of Twitter: Tweets that broke the Internet

Three |Essential LinkedIn Stats: When, how, and what to post

Four | 5 Habits of Successful Social Media Experts

Five | 9 Tips to create a cohesive, branded Instagram feed

Branding/ Marketing Links

One | The basics of marketing your blog or website

Two | Working with email marketing automation

Three | 12 Simple strategies the big brands use to leave a lasting impression

Four | Stand out on Pinterest as a small business

Five | More branding basics for small businesses

Miscellaneous Links

One | Website color schemes: The palettes of 50 visually impactful websites to inspire you

Two | The 6 best tools for creative work, according to science

Three | Free hand-lettering practice worksheets

Four | Why you should use Squarespace

Five | The best of Greensboro

We hope you’ve enjoyed this last Friday link post… but now it’s time to get excited for the future! We’ll be back on Wednesday with a list of SEO dos + don’ts that you don’t need a web developer to execute.

Going to miss our Friday Links series? No need to worry, we’ll be sharing more valuable resources than ever on our social media. Follow us here:

If you read our post last week, you know all about what email marketing is and why you should be using it to promote yourself. This week, we’re talking how to setup a great campaign. Following best practices ups the odds that your emails will be opened and that people will engage with them. From visuals to the subject line, no detail is too small.

Subject Lines

The subject line is the first thing people see after you send your campaign -- and with only seconds to capture someone’s attention, a single word can make or break your open rate.

The basic idea is that you want your subject line to be concise, accurate and informative. It should set an accurate expectation for the content of the email - without getting too cutesy.  For example, subject lines like “Website news - Issue 3” and “[COMPANYNAME] May 2005 News Bulletin!” are shown to do better than things like “Last Minute Gift - We Have The Answer” and “You Asked For More…” (source). Readers want to know what they’re about  to read, and they aren’t likely to read what they perceive as junk mail.

Need more? Here’s a couple of can’t-fail subject line tips:

• Localization + Personalization. Personalizing your subject line with a reader's first and/or last name, or even the city name, often results in higher open rates.
• Use different subject lines. Keep it fresh! Even if you only send out a regular feature (like a monthly industry update) be sure to change up your wording every time you send out an email. Highlight the lead story or a feature piece of content to keep things timely... and readers interested.
• Don’t cry wolf. Only mark truly important emails as urgent -- no one likes to be faked out. Subject lines with the words ‘urgent,’ ‘breaking,’ ‘important,’ and alert show higher open rates -- but only when used appropriately and sparingly (source).
• Keep the subject line short. Like we mentioned before, keep it short. Most readers scan through their emails so keeping the line 50 characters or fewer is best.

Choosing Templates

Creating a template that attracts your readers is one of the most effective ways to get your readers engaged. You’ll want to create a template, or set of templates, that you can use across all of your email campaigns. Creating a consistent look that matches the feel of your brand and blends with the rest of your internet presence is key.

Design inspiration here and here.

Almost every platform allows you to start with a pre-made template or design your own from scratch. Depending on your design IQ, we recommend starting with a pre-made template and customizing from there.

Be sure to insert your logo, tweak all the elements to match your brand colors, and pick fonts that fit the feel of your brand. Then, save this template so you can use it time and time again. Not only is this less work for you, but it creates consistency for your customers!

We recommend:

• Sticking to one or two colors to create a clean design and keep readers focused on the content of the email.
• Using different colors to differentiate the headers and footers of your email.
• Using borders to provide visual cues to readers where one article starts and another begins.
• Keeping alignment constant. If you’re utilizing large amounts of text, be sure to left align so that it’s easy for people to read.  
• Lots of white space makes for a modern look -- don’t stuff content so close together that you overwhelm readers.

Layout

No one wants to receive a wall of text in their email. Email marketing should be fun and eye-catching... but also informative. Balancing text and images is the best way to create a visually interesting email and encourage people to read through everything. 

• Organize your content by importance. Important + timely content should always be front-and-center at the top of your email to catch the eye of people who are skimming.
• Use different font sizes and weights to create interest and organization. You want to utilize headlines, body text, quotes and buttons to create interest and give visual cues to the reader.
• If your message is long (and can’t be simplified any more) send those who care to your site to learn more.
• Shake up the size/layout of your images. Test out different sizes and orientations within your email to create interest.

Other Tips

Design isn’t everything -- now that you have a visually appealing email, let’s get down to a few nitty gritty details to consider when you’re done designing your campaign.

• Make sure to test. Now that your email is looking great and ready to go you need to test it out. Send a test in your email marketing system, or consider using a tool like Inbox Preview. Inbox Preview allows you to see what your email will look like to different people on different platforms, and it’s one of the best way to ensure the look of your email stays consistent.
• Don’t harass people. The frequency you will want to email people varies by business -- but consider 2-3 emails a month to be a good jumping off point. After 6 months of consistently emailing people 2-3 times a month, you can analyze people’s reactions and make adjustments accordingly.
• Never SPAM people. If there’s one cardinal rule of email marketing, it’s to never email people who haven’t given you explicit permission. Most likely they’ll immediately unsubscribe, and even if they don’t, chances are they won’t be likely to engage.
• Don’t overlook the importance of social media. Integrate social media into your campaign, and be sure to push the sign-up option on both your website and social channels.
• Don’t waste time sending the wrong email. Once you’re feeling really advanced, you can test things out using A/B testing. It’s perfect when you’re not sure which image or headline to use.

Feel like you’re far from being a pro? No need to worry -- after sending a few campaigns, it’ll be as easy as riding a bike. But, if you don’t find that to be the case, we’re always here to help!

Soooo.... Ready, set, create!

The first week of summer is underway, and temperature in Greensboro is hot hot hot! Keeping up with your marketing and social media can slip a little during the summer months -- but depending on your business, summer could be one of the best times to promote yourself!

Here’s a few links to help you promote yourself this summer:

One | Has your Instagram presence slipped a little? Redefine your look and reinvigorate your profile with these 9 tips.

Two | A recent Microsoft study showed that you only have 8 seconds to engage with a millennial -- here’s a few approaches to help you convert your 8 seconds in to a customer.

Three | Mobile use is involved in almost 45% of all shopping transaction -- and with 400 million active users, Instagram is a great place to focus your advertising efforts. To most effectively boost your summer sales, use this guide to create a results-focused Insta ad.

Four | If you only focus on 3 things about your website make sure it’s these.

Five | It’s time to stop hitting “remind me later” when your iPhone prompts an update...because there are about to be even more new emojis! These 72 new emojis won’t be available until the Fall, so you still have a little time to get your software up to date. (And be sure to be on the lookout for the IOS 10 update!)

Stay consistent, market your business, and test out an Instagram ad -- before you know it you’ll have escaped the summer slump! And, if you’re stuck in the office all day, take a look at our beachy color schemes to remind you that vacation is right around the corner…

Let’s talk email marketing.

Tip: Make sure to pick an email marketing platform that is mobile compatible. An estimated 50-60% of emails are now open on a mobile device.

First off, what is it? When we reference email marketing we’re referring to bulk email sending (typically sent using email marketing software). These emails usually include ads, request business, or solicit sales/donations. In addition to increasing sales, they also help to build trust and brand awareness.

Email marketing is both efficient and cost effective, so no matter what size your company is, it’s a great way to stay in touch with clients and follow-up on potential client leads.

There are a ton of email marketing platforms to choose from -- so, in all honestly, selecting a platform is often about personal preference. If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a few of the major players:

• IContact is an email campaign service that helps small businesses to larger senders. Their personal coaching, and award winning technical support sets it apart from other tools.
• Constant Contact (the most used platform in terms of customers) makes editing simple as 1, 2, 3. With the ability to drag and drop content into customized templates, you can create customize each template best for your consumers.
• Campaign Monitor Campaign Monitor is geared towards larger companies. It integrates with a ton of apps, and allows you to easily manage multiple accounts.

Other popular platforms include AWeber, SendinBlue, Benchmark, GetResponse and Vertical Response. But our personal favorite? MailChimp! MailChimp is a great choice for small business. It’s low cost and seamlessly integrates with popular web platforms like Squarespace and Wordpress. More than 12 million people and businesses are using MailChimp, and they send out over a billion emails a day!

There’s a few key features MailChimp has (though a lot of the other platforms do as well) that you should consider when shopping around:

1. Automation. Sending an onboarding series of emails? Need to introduce new subscribers to your business or organization? This feature is great for creating and sending out automated messages, without the headache! A certain behavior, like signing up, will trigger an email or series of emails to be sent -- without you having to do anything.

2. A/B Testing. This feature tests two different emails against each other to see which content performs best. Which subject line lead to higher open rates? Which image worked best? Both of these questions (and more) can be answered by this feature.

3. E-Commerce features. You can easily connect your online store to MailChimp, where you can set up product recommendations, track online orders, and analyze purchase data. These are powerful features especially for small retail shops or individual makers.

4. Advanced Analytics. This is the easiest way to track your performance! Monitor sales, subscribers, and revenue. Most importantly, you can integrate Google Analytics to learn even more about your campaigns.

5. Segmentation. Nothing can turn people off faster than receiving content they don’t care about. By using segmentation, you can break your email lists into different groups. For example, “potential customers” and “existing customers.”

Feel ready to pick a platform? Good! Because next week we’ll be back with more information on how to design your first (or a much better) campaign. We’ll go over things like how to design an eye-catching template, what kind of content to include, and how to write a solid subject line.

Not sure what platform will work best for you? Let us help you decide. Shoot an email to hannah@hueandtonecreative.com with your top options and we'll help you decide what's best!

If you’re looking to network, you have a great tool right at your fingertips. LinkedIn is a powerful social media tool for anyone looking to give their professional persona a boost. With access to thousands of connections around the world, you can form new relationships, increase your sales leads, and gain invaluable professional insight.

A little skeptical about the power of LinkedIn? These five links will have you sprucing up your profile in no time.  

One | If you don’t have a LinkedIn page for your business, it might be time to rethink. LinkedIn is great for B2B marketing, and might just be the most effective platform for lead generation -- but those are only two of many reasons why having a business profile is important.

Two | If you already have a page for your business, here are a few tips to help you get started promoting it.

Three | Looking for the numbers on who and how people use LinkedIn? This breaks down everything from who LinkedIn’s 347 million users are to some fast facts on how people in other countries use the social platform.

Four | Before you get networking, you need a sleek and informative profile to turn heads. Things like a professional photo, custom URL, and exciting bio are just a few things that will have a big impact.

Five | Most importantly? When and what to post.

A little update never hurt nobody -- take a moment this weekend to make your brand a LinkedIn business page or spruce up your profile. Next week, we’ll be honing in on how to create an effective email marketing campaign -- you won’t want to miss it!

If you're like us, being creative just breeds more creativity. We've been working on a lot of ultra creative projects lately -- everything from branding to creating fun eye-catching gifs -- and all of that innovating had us ready to make a fun new freebie. 

Test your coloring creativity with these fun pattern print outs! 

Download here.

Download here.

Love the end result? Tag us on social (@hueandtone) so we can see what you came up with! 

I don’t know about you guys, but we love infographics -- they’re a great way to snag someone’s interest on social media and quickly communicate information. We’ve compiled 5 of our favorite infographics for you to effortlessly glean some new statistics from!  

One  |  At the beginning of the year, there was no end to the predictions being made about where 2016 would take design. See if they’re coming true with this infographic that predicts 8 design trends for 2016.

Two  |  When we say social media is a big deal, we mean like really big... literally. With 320 million users Twitter’s user base is almost as big as the population of the United States. Don’t believe us? Here’s more on social media’s active monthly users for this year.

Three  |  Did you know that the average user spends 20 minutes per visit on Facebook? Leverage these statistics to plan even better social content.

Four  |  The perfect filter can take a picture from good to great! Have you ever found your thumb hovering over two filters, wondering what other people would pick? Well, Canva’s mapped out the most popular filters from around the world. Can you guess what North Carolina’s most popular filter is?

Five  |  If you don’t read any of the other links today, be sure to read this one. If you want to be a successful social media manager all of the tips are a must!

We’ll be back on Tuesday with a coloring page. If you’re looking for some weekend enrichment, we suggest listening to The Ezra Klein Show or checking out one of our favorite places in Greensboro.

That’s all for today, have a great one!

We love what we do -- but vacation is what refreshes us. Visiting a new city, traveling to the beach, or even taking an afternoon out of the office to wander Greensboro can result in major creativity. So, that’s what inspired us this week -- shorelines, sunshine, downtowns, and shopping.

Even if you’re not able to take time off just yet, you can use these colors to infuse the vacation mindset into your work. Do the beach your way with these fun color schemes -- use them to inspire an outfit, inform a design...or maybe they’ll even push you to plan a few days out of the office!

Want to use these colors in your own work? Here are the hex colors:

Top left: #9ACA3C | #6569B0 | #3296D3 | #ED9DBA
Top right: #9A5294 | #93D5D3 | #F58A67 | #F5E472
Bottom left: #035385 | #FACBCA | #27B999 | #F27171
Bottom right: #E72937 | #C2E2F7 | #D9E253 | #5D2A5E

What colors do you find most inspiring? Is it bright colors like these? Or deep mountain colors? Tell us in the comments!

This week we couldn’t decide on just one topic, so we have a little bit of everything -- from taking pictures to social media facts and standing out -- we’ve got something for everyone this week.

One | Taking pictures with your smartphone can be a pain (trust us, we know!), but these 17 tips and tricks will help you take better iPhone pictures. It’s amazing the results you can get with just a few simple tricks!

Two | Did you know that your biggest advocate on Twitter is most likely someone with a low number of followers? This is just one of the 10 most surprising social media facts. 

Three | “Look around you right now, I guarantee you can see at least one brand mark somewhere.” Ever wonder how big brands leave a lasting impression? Creating a brand that is consistent and thoughtfully executed will leave a lifetime mark. Here are 12 simple strategies all memorable brands use.

Four | Over the course of the day, almost 5 million pins are shared on Pinterest! So... now you’re probably wondering “How can I stand out and make sure people are seeing my pins?” Implement these 4 simple tweaks to help stand out.

Five | If you checked out our post earlier this week, you know we talked about GSO inspiration. And, we couldn’t resist adding one more local business to our list! Vivid Interiors (located Downtown) has been sharing some of their favorite Hygge and West wallpapers on their blog. Not only would they look great in your home or office, but these snapshots also make cute iPhone wallpapers!

If you’re in Greensboro this weekend, check out the 100 for 100 art sale or National Trails Day. See you on the blog Tuesday!

We love Greensboro -- we often find ourselves stopping mid-step to snap a picture downtown or telling our friends about an upcoming event... and it’s all because Greensboro is a genuinely interesting place. With all of the history, parks, libraries, and murals in Greensboro it’s hard not to find something that will spark your creativity. We’ve picked out four places in the ’Boro that should be your first stop if you’re in need of a creative jolt. From murals and greenery to downtown shops, we’ve got it covered!

Elsewhere: A living museum set in a former thrift store, Elsewhere was just highlighted for having one of the world’s most unusual artist residencies. According to their website, “When you go Elsewhere, you enter the middle of an ongoing experiment of people, places, and things. We are constantly building, playing, trying, changing, inventing, and exploring new environments. Our artists, scholars, and creatives in-residence are excavating the past to design new futures. When you come to Elsewhere, you become part of this evolution.” This is a great place to go if you’re having a creative block. The giant array of artwork, artists, and creative energy is sure to spark a new idea.

Spring Garden Mural: These bright colors and unique patterns give Spring Garden a pop of color! But what really inspires us is the idea behind the mural -- members of the Greensboro Mural Project chatted with pedestrians in front of the wall to learn what issues mattered most to them. The Greensboro Mural Project is an arts organization that engages the people of GSO in the creative process of making a mural in their community. Their mission is to “make Greensboro a more colorful city.” Their work is scattered across Greensboro -- check out one of their pieces on Lindsay St., Friendly Ave, at the Interactive Resource Center, or Backpack Beginnings. Perfect if you need a little color in your life!

The Center City Park: A lot of times taking a break from your home or office can cause inspiration to strike! This park in downtown Greensboro is one the best places to go for fresh air. It’s lively, calming, and thanks to Action Greensboro something is almost always going on. With all of the events, food trucks, music, arts, and people around downtown is a great place to refresh.

The Forge:  A ‘makerspace’ (think coworking for craftsmen + craftswomen) located in Downtown Greensboro, The Forge just recently relocated to a new building more than twice the size of its old space. They strive to provide the community with inexpensive access to a workshop area and a collaborative space, with separate areas for advanced software development, digital design, textiles, woodworking, and more. Perfect for tinkers and innovators alike, this space provides access to advanced equipment and high-end technology that would be hard for an individual to afford. Tours are available, so stop in and get inspired by the innovation!

Inspiration can come from anywhere… especially in Greensboro! Where did we miss? What is your favorite place to find foodie, design or innovation inspiration in Greensboro? Let us know in the comments!

Branding is so much more than visual -- it's what people associate with you when they hear your businesses name. You want your brand to give an accurate sense of who you are and what you offer. Today, we've got a few links on how to push your brand to the next level, an inspiring interview on transforming your idea into a brand, and how to boost your reach using Snapchat. 

One | Been building your brand for years, but now sure what to do next? Assess where your brand is at, then check out these 50 ways to give it a boost.

Two | In this digital age, we can’t emphasize the importance of social media enough! Follow these three steps to help embrace social media as an integral part of your business operations.

Three | Have you seen the cool geofilters Snapchat recently released? Did you know that you can make them for your business? With a low cost buy-in and millions of users, it’s a great way to advertise. This step-by-step guide goes in-depth and shows you how to make a filter.

Four | A creative profile + cover photo can make a big impression on a business page. Check out this showcase of big brands cover photos to get ideas for your own page!

Five | “Do one thing extremely well. Refine the process. Do it again.” That's Michael Luscher's advice on forming a big brand. Learn more about how he turned his one big idea into one big brand.

Always keep in mind that your vision + your voice + your visuals = your brand! Enjoy this long weekend :)

We’ve mentioned our love of Pinterest before -- we even rounded up 10 of our favorite inspiration boards. This week, we’re back with a link round-up of a few must follow Pinners. We promise we’ll break this obsession soon… well, sooner or later.

One | The Creative Market: our favorite digital design marketplace, The Creative Market’s 'Infographics' board is a creative hodgepodge of all things information design.

Two | Rebecca Finn: Rebecca’s obvious passion for graphic design and art makes her Pinterest one of our favorites. For a wide variety of creative typography and out of the box lettering ideas, check out her ‘Typography’ board.

Three | Design Quixotic: a finalist at the Shorty Awards for best Best Pinner, how could we not love her boars? 'Logos, Marks, and Icons' is our personal favorite, but with 77 boards to follow there’s bound to be a little something for everyone.

Four | Constant Contact: This well-known email marketing company knows their stuff -- their 'Marketing, Stats, and Facts' board is a potpourri of what appears to be pretty much every infographic ever made on digital marketing.

Five | Joy Cho:  a lifestyle blogger with an eye for design, Joy Cho’s boards span a variety of interests from food and fashion to patterns and type. Her 'Pattern' board embodies our taste perfectly!

There’s so many inspiring pinners out there, we know we can’t cover them all. Who did we miss? Who’s your favorite pinner?

Hi all, Camille (the new intern) here!

This week I’ve decided to try my hand at making a mood board. While looking for design inspiration, I'd been seen tons of inspiration mood board. Not only did they look fun to make, I felt like they were a perfect first project for Adobe Illustrator! I’ll preface by saying, I've never made a mood board before. I decided to walk you through the step-by-step process of creating my first one!  I should also mention that I am a beginner with Adobe Illustrator, so this is all a learning process for me. So...*finger’s crossed.*

My first real step was to find pictures, but before that -- a theme! Pinterest is always my go to for inspiration of any kind, especially pictures. I chose to do a summer theme (because who doesn’t have summer on the brain right now?) and I love looking at bright, colorful colors... so, that’s the theme for the day!

STEP ONE: PINTEREST BOARD. First, I made a summer mood board on Pinterest, and began to search “summer” items. I pinned about 19 images to this board (I got a little excited!)

I planned to only use about 10 of the 19 images, but it’s always great to have extras. I was looking for images that not only had a common theme, but that had similar colors so that they would mesh well together for the final mood board.

STEP TWO: CHOOSING IMAGES. I chose about 10 images that I thought was the most “summer inspired” images   

STEP THREE: MOOD BOARD TEMPLATE. I found a few mood board templates to use here here and here. If you’re ever in need of a template these are great to use! I used one of these template to get started on my board.

STEP FOUR: PLACE IMAGES. ‘File’ → ‘Place’ → Locate images.

STEP FIVE: IMPORT TEMPLATE. Repeat the same steps above to import your template! (This one was perfect for me because it even came with instructions!)

Step Seven

STEP SIX: LAYOUT PHOTOS. Next, I spent some time playing around with the position of the images.

STEP SEVEN: CLIPPING MASK. Once I had the images all lined up with my template I clipped them to fit the space. Just draw a box over the image → select the image and box → ‘Object’ → ‘Clipping Mask’ → ‘Make’. This will crop the image to fit in the box you just made.

STEP EIGHT: REPEAT. I continued to do this with all of the images, and felt like I was starting to get the hang of it! At this point, it was looking better than I had thought it might… and so far it was even easier than I expected.

Borders!

STEP NINE: BORDERS. I could see the finish line at this point! Now that all the pictures were imported I wanted to put white borders around each picture. Not going to lie, I had to Google how to do this. It turned out to be pretty simple -- just not very intuitive to a first time user. For my first attempt, I added a border around each of my images, but this ended up making the lines uneven. Some of them were overlapping, or uneven.

So, I pulled all the borders off and drew regular lines in the pattern of mood board. This made a much more even end result!

STEP TEN: VOILA! Finished product. My first ever mood board, complete.

Sources: One  |  Two  |  Three  |  Four  |  Five  |  Six  |  Seven

The best part of this process was definitely pinning the pictures and watching the whole thing come together. Who knew a bunch of random pictures I pinned on Pinterest could form into something so cohesive? Something that could actually inspire a project?  A lot of googling was involved, but I know I’ll remember what I’ve learned and be able to build off of it for next time.

Thanks for following along, until next time,

This week we’re focusing on new personal stories, new updates, new designs, and new strategies. It’s always good to start fresh and rethink, redesign and renew our minds especially with the new season coming up in a little over a month.

One  |  If you’re a part of the design world (or even if you’re not) you’ve probably heard of Canva. Have you ever wondered how it all started? Melanie Perkins, (CEO + Co-Founder of Canva) discusses her entrepreneurial journey and the inspiration behind Canva.

Two  |  Feel like your logo designs just aren’t cutting it? Here are 8 ways to push your designs further and take your process to the next level.

Three  | How often do you run data on your social media accounts? Your analytics are key to understanding what is working and what’s not. Here are 10 experiments you can run yourself to find out more about your analytics.

Four | Nadia Hassan, a pattern designer located right here in GSO, says: “Designing is what makes me feel like I’m growing and learning. It’s not something that happens overnight. It does involve a lot of sacrifice.” More on her ‘Made In Greensboro’ story here.

Five | Instagram came out with a new look this week (and caused the Internet to freak out). The new update puts more focus on photos and videos without changing how you navigate the app. Hear from the Insta team themselves as to why + how they updated the app. What are your thoughts?

Change can be good or bad, but you’ll never know until you try! We’re hoping you’ve learned something new and are open to trying something new for your business. Until next week, have a great weekend!

Social media can be an overwhelming thing to do well -- between Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and niche sites (like Untappd or Houzz), it can be a lot to juggle. Managing multiple sites can turn into a full time job, so it’s important to pick and choose the sites that will work best for you.

Always remember that the main goal of social media is to connect with potential customers -- and to do this you have to be strategic in the sites that you choose to use. While social media is an important part of almost any digital marketing plan, spreading yourself too thin by trying to manage every site available won’t get you anywhere. We recommend selecting two or three sites that will give you the best return on the time you invest.

Each platform has a unique identity based on the people who view it and how they are engaged. It’s important to know where different demographics spend their time online, what kind of content will catch their eye, and what platform will best showcase your products or services.

When thinking about your target demographic, you should ask yourself two things:

1- Who are your current clients?
2- And who do you want your clients to be?

Social media isn’t a quick fix to getting you the types of customers that you want -- but, done consistently and done well, social will develop into one of the most valuable tools in your marketing arsenal.

So, without further adieu let’s jump into some quick facts about each platform.

FACEBOOK: Let’s start with the most obvious site -- Facebook. With 1.44 billion monthly active users, Facebook is arguably the most well-known and widely used social site there is. Because of its wide reach and varied user base, Facebook is a must for business. 63% of people 50-64 and 56% of people 65+ use Facebook -- this makes it the best platform if you’re aiming to reach older people. The leading demographic of Facebook users are also college educated. And 74% and 72% of adults who make $50,000-$74,999 and $75k+ (respectively) use Facebook -- making it a good place to market luxury brands.

Post ideas: Announcing limited edition products or daily specials, sharing customer reviews, or the details about an upcoming events.

TWITTER: If you’re looking for the challenge of whittling your message down to 140 characters or less, then Twitter is for you. Twitter is best described as an ongoing conversation… kind of like texting back and forth with someone. Connecting with clients has never been easier. By retweeting, utilizing trending hashtags, and following others, you can quickly gain a lot of reach. Like most social sites, Twitter skews towards the younger crowd, with 37% of 18-29 using Twitter. Because of it’s fast paced nature, Twitter is great for quick feedback and breaking news. One of the best ways to gain some fast reach on Twitter is to hop onto a trending hashtag!

Post ideas: Your take on trending topics, polls, quick tips and tricks.

INSTAGRAM: Where are you? What are you doing now? Who are you with? Instagram is one of the best places to answer these questions for your potential customers. Perfect for behind-the-scenes updates, Instagram can help your customers get to know the “real” you. With the capability to upload snippets of video, an arsenal of filters, and handy editing tools, you can take a picture from blah to drool-worthy. If you take great photos and invest time in finding the right hashtags, you can make Instagram work for you. Instagram is one of the trendiest platforms right now, and is perfect if you’re looking to capture 18–29 year olds. With over 53% of 18-28 year olds using Instagram, it has overtaken Facebook and Twitter as the most popular site with younger audiences. It also has a predominately female user base.

Our top tip? Take the time to stage photos properly. For more on that go here and here.

Post ideas: Feature customer reviews, behind-the-scenes shots of your office, or show off a collection of your products.

PINTEREST:  A mecca for designers, interior decorators, and brides-to-be, Pinterest is the place for all things girly. On a site built for browsing, you have to be able to catch a potential customer's eye -- this means carefully curating the look of each board, and keeping your boards organized by category (such as food, travel, design, etc) so that people can follow just the board they're interested in. Pinterest has a predominantly female audience with 42% of online women pinning on the regular. These women also tend to have more disposable income -- make it a good place to sell expensive products or optional services.

Post ideas: Organize boards focused around your products, or inspiration that relates to the services you sell.

SNAPCHAT: With 79% of its users under the age of 25, Snapchat is definitely a younger man’s game. Use Snapchat to share real-life action -- it allows your clients to see exactly what you’re doing, and if you are selling products it’s perfect for taking your audience behind-the-scenes. We don’t know alot about the average Snapchat user -- but we do know that 71% of everyone who uses the platform is under 25, and around 70% are female. With the exception of business like boutiques, Snapchat probably isn’t the best platform for a small business to utilize.

Post ideas: Employee takeovers, behind the scenes, and day-to-day life.

PERISCOPE: Periscope is a video streaming app that allows real time interaction with your followers. By “going live” with Periscope you stream and connect with your followers at any time, from any location. The best part about Periscope is that it integrates with Twitter -- allowing you to utilize your existing audience and reach a larger audience.

Post ideas: live Q & A, tutorial on how to use a new product, or live event updates.  

LINKEDIN: LinkedIn is like a virtual resume -- it’s all about making connections with other professionals. You can upload your resume, link to your portfolio website, share your professional insight, apply to jobs, and connect with employers all in one place. LinkedIn is great for people who need to market business-to-business or business owners who are looking to use their personal profile to make direct connections with potential customers. Specifically, LinkedIn Pulse is a great place to stay in the know about industry information, and show off your own expertise. A news feed within LinkedIn, Pulse is designed for members to share self-published content. You can also follow major brands or industry leaders!

Post ideas: Business insights, new job postings, and industry updates.

Each network has it’s own benefits and drawbacks, and there are tons of sites we weren’t even able to cover! The key to success is picking 2-3 sites that work well with your services/products, sticking with them, and posting regularly. Seeing a return on social media can take months of diligence -- but in a digital world, it’s an inevitable investment.

Thinking social media still might be a little much for you to handle? Need full time help? Give us a call at 336-365-8559 and we can set you up with all the help you need to get your social media up and running smoothly!

Happy Friday, and welcome to our first Friday Links of May! This week we’re focusing on a little bit of everything -- from Mother’s Day to design tips.

One  |  What does your brand’s color say about your business? Color can affect mood, perception, and buy-in. Review this break down of color psychology before settling on a final signature color for your logo!

Two  |  Did you know this week is National Small Business Week? If you’ve ever wondered what is takes to be a small business owner here’s an infographic that breaks it all down.

Three  |  “Thou shall always stick to thy deadlines” = our favorite of these 10 commandments of graphic design.

Four  |  Looking to take your designs to the next level? Here are 50 visual tips + examples that will help you fine tune your designs to convey exactly the message you want (perfect for social media managers).

Five  |  Crafting a message or graphic for Mother’s Day?  Here are 6 creative Mother’s Day Ads for inspiration!

Stay tuned for next week’s blog all about social media platforms. Have a great weekend!