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Showing posts with label #backdrop banners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #backdrop banners. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Why Establishing Your Brand as an Authority is a Top Goal

Why Establishing Your Brand as an Authority is a Top Goal

With every piece of marketing collateral you create, you're essentially trying to accomplish two key goals. Yes, you're always trying to inform members of your audience about the products or services that you offer - or the ones that you're about to launch. But at the same time, you need to do something much more powerful. Something that, if executed correctly, can help guarantee that yours is a brand with the ability to stand the test of time.

You need to establish your brand as an authority - not just in the context of what you have to offer, but within the larger sense of the industry that you're operating in. If this isn't already one of your top goals, it should be for a number of essential reasons.

The Power of Brand Authority



To better understand the importance of brand authority, consider the following two statistics. According to one study, 45% of your brand's image (meaning what people think and feel when they encounter it) can ultimately be attributed to both what you say and how you say it. More importantly, the same study revealed that 54% of people don't trust brands at all.

The most critical thing to understand about this is that brand authority is not something that you can give yourself. The majority of people who don't trust brands don't do so because the brands told them not to - it's because those brands failed to live up to their promises one too many times. It's because they didn't have anything to offer beyond a sales pitch. It's because those brands weren't able to connect with their audience in an emotional, raw, and ultimately genuine way.

Because those brands failed to understand that brand authority really has to do with your larger reputation - it's that kernel of trust that you don't give yourself, but that others give to you.

It's also not something that you're going to be able to build in a day. It's less the product of one major move and more about a series of smaller ones. It's something that grows slowly, every time you choose to partner with a charity on community outreach or make your presence known at some type of local event. It's something that grows inside your audience every time they see a piece of collateral that isn't just a product spec sheet, but that offers true insight and information in a way that helps them even if they don't make a sale.

When built properly over time, it's also something that makes it easier than ever to not only keep the customers you already have satisfied but to bring new ones into the fold as well. This will invariably translate into a sense of "when the time comes and I do choose to make a purchase with this particular brand, I can rest easy knowing that it is money well spent."

In the End



Ultimately, establishing your brand as an authority should be a top goal because it allows you to become more than just the products you sell or the services you provide. When your customers have a question, they come to you for the answer. When they want to learn more about a related topic, their first thought is to go to you for the education they seek. When you do launch a new product or service, they're interested in what you have to offer because there is a level of trust that exists between you that they don't have in other relationships.

This is why brand authority is so important - because it lets you become more than "just another company" and provides you with a level of authenticity that can take a standard audience and turn them into a loyal army of passionate advocates before you know it.


https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html 

Thursday, February 28, 2019

7 Signs That You are A Bad Boss and 4 Ways to Grow

              7 Signs That You are A Bad Boss and 4 Ways to Grow





If you haven’t had a frustrating boss in your life, then you are part of a slim minority.

Most of us have experienced a manager that’s driven us to frustration or brought us to tears. Here are some “Bonehead Boss” stories from CBS News to make you grimace:

1 - After months of hard work, I closed a deal for $7,000,000. My customer bought the equipment because of our strong personal relationship and my company's technical capabilities. Six months later they doubled the order. My bosses, thinking that they had closed the deal, limited my commission to a fraction of what it should have been. I found a new job and quit. A week later my customer moved the order to my new company.

2 - I had worked at a camp for five summers during college when my best friend unexpectedly died from heart failure. When I returned from the funeral, my grandfather was on his deathbed. Obviously upset, I approached my boss and explained the situation. She said "Well, you'll have to get over it and get on with your life. I can't let you go again." My grandfather died the next week. When I told my boss about his upcoming funeral she said, "You should have planned better, you have no bereavement time left."

Ouch.

What if the Bad Boss is You?

Whether its disrespect, micro-managing, or verbal abuse, bad experiences with a boss can make people dread going to work each day.

But what if the bad boss is you?

According to the 2017 “Bad Boss Index” from Bamboo HR, here are seven mistakes managers frequently make. They:


* Take credit for stuff they didn’t do
* Don’t appear to trust or empower their employees
* Don’t seem to care if their people are overworked
* Don’t advocate for employee compensation
* Don’t back up employees when there’s a dispute between staff and company   clients
* Don’t set clear expectations or provide proper direction on assignments/roles
* Focus more on employee weaknesses than strengths
 

How many of these characteristics apply to your leadership?

If you can relate, consider talking with your employees and asking how you can improve. Try to understand the impact of your faults and use this as motivation to change. People will trust you more when you are honest about your weakness.

Four Steps For Growth as a Leader


As you listen and implement change, here are four steps toward positive change:

1. Ask honest questions and listen without becoming defensive.
Even if only a part of the criticism is true, your ability to sift through exaggeration (without rejecting feedback entirely) will grow you in leadership and character.

2. Deal with feedback directly.

Don’t discount a complaint or place the blame on others. Seek accountability and ownership for how others perceive you.

3. Take immediate action.

Give affirmation to the feelings and requests of others and look for two or three quick changes you can make to remedy frustration.

Try to sow in the opposite spirit: if you micromanage, be more intentional about delegating. If you criticize too often, seek to encourage more.

4. Establish weekly leadership goals and share them with someone you trust.

Have someone (a neutral friend or respected co-worker) hold you accountable for necessary changes, and schedule check-ins for at least one month as you move ahead.

Remember, a person who feels appreciate will often do more than you expect. Take ownership over your leadership and your team will flourish as you grow!

For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html  

Thursday, February 14, 2019

How to Use a Clear Call to Action to Convert Customers

               How to Use a Clear Call to Action to Convert Customers

"The maxim 'Nothing avails but perfection' may be spelt shorter: 'Paralysis.'"

(Winston Churchill)

Have you ever wondered how lion tamers keep wild cats nearly three times their size at bay?

While methods have evolved over the years, traditionally lions were subdued by three tools: a whip, a stool, and a handful of tasty snacks. While the whip or snacks make sense, perhaps you wonder why a stool was used (instead of a sword or a flame, for example)?

How can a small piece of furniture intimidate the king of all cats?

The truth is, the lion is not afraid of the chair, he’s confused by the multiple points on its legs. Cats are single-minded creatures, and the bobbing points of the chair legs confuse the lion into a less focused state. When the lion loses its train of thought, it is distracted from the instinct to pounce on a weaker opponent.

Muddled Communication Can Paralyze Your Prospects


Ever try to rush your kids through breakfast and get stuck at the cereal cupboard?

As they browse a shelf of eight boxes, they slump and groan: “There’s nothing to eat!” What started as a hurry-up turns into a traffic jam. You vow that next time, you’ll only offer toast and Cheerios.

When we don’t give customers a simple, singular call to action, they may also fall into decision fatigue.

Does your website or your print materials overwhelm customers with possibilities?

Psychologist Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School, co-authored a study that showed significantly more conversions happened when shoppers had fewer options. In her example, shoppers had to choose from a display with six different flavors of jam versus a display with 24 different flavors of jam. How did they compare? The conversion rate for the six-flavor table was 30%, while the 24-flavor table was only 3%.

Analysis can lead to paralysis!

What about your method for calling prospects to action? Does your advertisement ask them to commit to a 30-day trial AND use a customer discount code DURING a selected 14-day window? Does your podcast ask people to share with a friend, AND subscribe, AND download previous episodes (all in one breath)?

Perhaps you need to take a step back and use these three evaluation tools:

1. Know Your Main Goal



When you ask people to do several tasks at once (like visiting your website and joining your e-mail list), you’ve probably overshadowed your main goal with several smaller goals.

Focus on one main goal for customer conversion, and use customer loyalty programs down the road to call customers to greater steps of engagement or loyalty.

2. Test Action Statements in Advance


If your communication is a mist in the office, it’s probably a fog on the streets. To determine which CTAs are crystal clear, run some A/B tests with sample customers and find out which ones are generating momentum.

3. Pack Some Punch


Start call to action statements with a strong command verb, like buy, shop, order, subscribe, or win.

Use concise phrases that build enthusiasm. Which of these CTA statements excites you more?

“Consider many of our 200 exciting destination possibilities,” or

 “Plan your dream vacation today!”

Keep things sweet, simple, and customer-focused. Once they take the bait you can always present them with more!

For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html  

Monday, February 11, 2019

How to Use Customization to Gain Customers

                    How to Use Customization to Gain Customers

Coca-Cola is a brand built on scenes of enjoying life together.

Coke has worked tirelessly to promote not only its product, but the message behind it: that sharing, or gathering family and friends together, brings happiness. “Enjoying a coke” is the message in every ad, every culture, and every medium Coke communicates through.

The company's 2014 "Share a Coke" campaign was one of its memorable marketing initiatives in history. That summer, Coca-Cola removed its iconic logo on 20-ounce bottles and replaced them with 250 of the country’s most popular names. Consumers were encouraged to find bottles with names that held personal meaning and to share them with others or post photos online with the hashtag #ShareaCoke. Within the first year, more than 500,000 photos were posted. Consumers ordered over six million virtual Coke bottles, and Coca-Cola gained roughly 25 million Facebook followers.

A Distinctly Personal Experience


What did Coke tap into that prompted this momentous reaction?

In part, it was the desire for a personal experience. For teens and millennials, personalization is not just a fad, but a way of life. Today’s consumers place a high value on self-expression, individual storytelling, and staying connected. Coke powerfully aligned playfulness, fun handheld products, and customization in a campaign for the ages.

In today’s global economy, consumers are more aware of product options and of what other people are buying. Subsequently, they’ve become more demanding about the products they purchase. Deloitte Global found that 36 percent of consumers expressed interest in purchasing personalized products or services and one in five were willing to pay 20 percent more for these options. Customization gives companies an edge in cosmetics, clothing, food prep, and toys, to name a few.

Personalized offerings add costs to the manufacturer but frequently result in higher profits because of:


* A price premium associated with the benefits


* More loyal, satisfied customers


* Greater word of mouth because of the increased satisfaction and the   “surprise  factor” associated with an unexpected range of options


* Enhanced customer experience via creativity and individual expression


* Precise taste matching and less need to compromise


How About You?


Do your customers value experience and self-expression? How could you offer this more in your products or services?

It may be as simple as engraving someone’s name in a glasses case or upgrading products with matching accessories. French cosmetics brand Guerlain started offering customizable lipsticks by allowing clients to choose their own combination of case and lipstick color. Customization allows brands to grow consumer engagement and solidify brand loyalty, which is especially powerful in younger markets.

Forbes offers several talking points for firms considering customization:

* What are the incremental costs associated with the customization options and how will they impact profitability?


* How many options are necessary and what’s the incremental benefit as the number increases? What price premium will consumers be willing to pay?


* Which customization options will be the most incremental to maximize sales?

A research tool called a TURF (Test of Unduplicated Reach & Frequency) Analysis can help you assess.

* What level of logistical, operational, and labor complexity will this involve? How often should customization options be updated?


Charlie Gu, CEO and co-founder of marketing agency Kollective Influence, says one budget-friendly customization strategy is the “module” approach. Instead of creating a product from scratch, businesses can offer several component options that can be mass-produced and easily assembled:

“Give customers choices, and then let them choose—customization within a framework,” he advises. “It doesn’t actually require any customization of the actual product. The consumers are essentially just picking their own color, but to them, it feels totally customized.”

For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html  

Friday, February 8, 2019

Print: Use Faces to Command Viewer Attention

                    Print: Use Faces to Command Viewer Attention
 Did you know that humans are the only primates with eyes that contain a white sclera around the dark iris and the pupil?

Consequently, unlike our animal counterparts, we have the ability and tendency to follow each other’s eye gaze, to pinpoint precisely what someone is focusing on, and even to read into the emotion behind a viewer’s eye. This also gives us an innate ability to sense when we're being looked at or to hastily avert our gaze in awkward moments.

Eye contact plays a crucial role in human communication, and faces have an incredible ability to command a viewer’s attention.

Imagine yourself walking down a busy street in a large city where you don’t know anyone. Suddenly, among a sea of faces, you spy a family member. Among hundreds of people, you can immediately recognize one individual and you have a strong emotional response.

Why is this experience so powerful?

Scientist Nancy Kanwisher identified a special part of the brain called the fusiform face area (FFA). The FFA allows faces to bypass the brain’s usual interpretive channels and helps us identify faces more quickly than objects. Because the FFA is so close to the brain’s emotional center (called the amygdala), the time lapse between recognition and response is nearly non-existent.

Faces Add Impact in Marketing

How does this play into marketing and print? First, it’s important to recognize the impact of faces so we can prioritize them in design.

Research by Catherine Mondloch (1999) shows that newborn babies less than an hour old prefer looking at something that has facial features. Humans prefer humans, and people buy from people! It would be careless to overlook these statistics while continually deferring to inanimate objects. When you’re looking to add that personal touch to your marketing mix, remember faces can help you to:

Connect With People

Large, faceless corporations feel cold and manipulative.

Putting faces on your brand allows people to connect with your audience in a way they can relate to. As you position faces in your ads, remember eyes looking right at people will have the greatest emotional impact, because the eyes are the most significant part of the face.

Create Curiosity

If a face on your poster is gazing toward another spot or product in the margin, people will also tend to track toward that area.

Emotions can be carried from a subject to a viewer as you set a tone within your design. The emotion in the faces you display can draw people to linger at your design or to be drawn deeper into the message.

Cultivate Trust

People react to a photo on a page faster than any other design element, and seeing the people behind a business can establish credibility very quickly.

You can use faces to cultivate trust by using staff profiles on your website, facial photos in welcome displays or high traffic areas, or by utilizing brochures that include testimonials and photos from real customers. If viewers can relate to the people enjoying your product they will automatically build positive associations.

When used properly, the use of people and faces can help you connect with people, create curiosity, and cultivate trust.  Bypass resistance and build connections through the magnetic power of people!

For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html  

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Grow Your Business Through Successful Staffing

                Grow Your Business Through Successful Staffing
Todd Fishman and Hunter Brooks were childhood friends who attended the University of Washington before heading to corporate Manhattan for several years. The friends reconnected in New York, bonding over their love of great salad.

Yes, young men eating salad.

Salads are so trendy that in Manhattan the lines for gourmet salad bars stretch around the block. While waiting in one of these lines, the friends had their “Aha” moment. They looked at each other and said, “This would be killer in Seattle!”

A Quickly Budding Dream

Enter Evergreens healthy food chain, co-founded with their associate Ryan Suddendorf in 2013.

Over five years, Evergreens has seen 200% revenue growth each year, with six stores in Seattle and a projected 11 more by 2019. Evergreens caters and offers salads, wraps, and grain bowls while keeping food fun with names like “Dice-Dice Baby,” the “Cobbsby Show,” and an Asian mix called “Pear-ly Legal.”

While entertaining, Evergreens is rooted in a focused business strategy to ensure the start-up succeeds. Successful staffing has been fundamental as Evergreens has scaled for growth and shaped a positive culture to attract the very best team.

Infrastructure that Keeps Pace with Growth


People are the backbone of every company, and Suddendorf said staffing was lean in the early days.

Chaos abounded, with lines out the door and the three founders acting as the company’s only corporate employees.

“It was like changing the car tires on a moving car,” said Suddendorf. “There was no time to step back and establish a process and then try to teach it to everybody in the stores.”

“We were working in the business rather than on the business,” Fishman said. “We were very much in the weeds.”

In retrospect, the friends say they would have raised more money upfront and contracted consulting from restaurant specialists or professional staffing agencies. Simultaneously growing a business and a competent staff is like parenting: along with joy and new discoveries, each phase presents greater challenges.

To grow effectively, healthy businesses need to adopt staffing strategies that meet current needs but also anticipate the future. Since Evergreen’s early days, Brooks says great people have been key to scaling growth without sacrificing quality. The founders gave intense focus to its corporate team in 2015, bringing on a COO and aggressively hiring HR, business development, IT and accounting specialists shortly afterward.

“There's part art, part science to staffing the corporate team when your store count is growing,” said Brookes. “Sometimes you're going to be a little heavier on the corporate overhead, and sometimes you're going to be a little leaner.”

Attracting Engaged, Competent Employees


People are your company’s biggest asset, and engaged employees can give your business a huge advantage.

Finding and maintaining great staff requires a people-focused approach. As you develop short and long-term staffing goals, hiring should align with your business objectives.

Whether you want to expand certain sectors, launch new products, or grow online visibility, your hiring strategy should be totally in sync with these objectives. While you proactively work toward long-term objectives, temporary or contract staff may provide the essential support you need for specialized projects, seasonal rushes, or particular areas of expertise.

Evergreens strives to grow a brand that generates inbound applications versus actively recruiting staff. This means prioritizing a supportive, energizing work environment that includes above minimum wage pay, free employee meals for each shift, and $40 monthly bonuses for employees who lead healthy, active lifestyles.

Suddendorf says the company also makes a point of promoting employees to maximize unity and momentum:

 “About half our corporate team started in our stores.

For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Grow Productivity Through Purposeful Leadership

          Grow Productivity Through Purposeful Leadership

Replace Chaos with Focus



Lost productivity costs companies millions each year.

While it is hard to quantify exactly how much is lost, certainly distraction alone prevents daily peak performance. Besides hunger, sleepiness, bodily functions, and simple brain fatigue, productivity research shows that 48% of employees waste time surfing the web (including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube), 33% lose work time socializing with co-workers, and 49% are managing personal calls, texts, and e-mails.


It's true: time is money. But time is more easily lost than dollars, so how can you push yourself or your team to be more focused? Maybe you want to spend your time wisely, but find yourself running in circles or falling short each day. How can you shift from being “busy” to being more effective?


By re-focusing on one thing: purpose.


Your purpose is more than what you do while you’re checking e-mail. It’s more than what you do while compiling reports or sitting in meetings. These activities may be part of your job, but they don’t define your role or your unique identity. Every person is driven by something. Often, we are driven by deadline pressure, interruptions from co-workers, or by an unexpected project delay. But what would it look like to focus on a more purposeful vision?


Grow Productivity Through Purposeful Leadership



Purposeful leadership requires we take a step back, focusing on our unique identity and skill set so these aren’t drowned out by the frantic activity of the day.


Do you long to overcome chaos? Here are three steps to organizing your outlook in a way that maximizes your time, priorities, and productivity:


1. Develop goals around your purpose.



If you were to define your top work priority, what would it be? To give vision? To provide team leadership? To design or create?


Before you can effectively use your time, you need to clarify the most important role you play. Start with your unique purpose and draft at least three goals that would help you fulfill your primary purpose. If your job is to work with people but you spend most of your time answering e-mails, maybe a change is needed. Set goals that are specific, measurable, and that put feet to your purpose.


2. Sharpen focus around your goals.



How well do these goals match your weekly tasks? Many people have goals, but do these goals translate into functional realities?


To strategize your time, make a master list of tasks that need accomplishing, then group together tasks in specific categories and rank these categories by importance. Low-level categories could be delegated, dropped, or restructured. As you brainstorm, involve your spouse, mentor, or co-workers. Sometimes it’s hard to see life through an honest, critical lens without encouragement from others.


3. Build your schedule around these priorities.



Intentional scheduling is like budgeting: it means telling your time where you want it to go (instead of asking your time where it went!).


Now that you’ve ranked your categories, assign the top activities to your most productive, interrupted blocks of time. Use your less productive times (late day, “filler” slots between meetings) to address lower priority categories.


Scheduling is where the rubber meets the road – where you close doors and ask for zero interruptions, where you stop doing one task and go on to another (even when it hurts), and where you refuse to let other people determine what is important every day. Your schedule is ground zero for living up to your purpose, so take it seriously and you’ll experience greater satisfaction in the way you spend time each week.
For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html

Monday, November 19, 2018

Keys for Change: Small Businesses Making a Big Impact

            Keys for Change: Small Businesses Making a Big Impact
The winter of 2013 was a hard one for Georgette Carter.

As a single mom raising two young boys while she cared for a father with dementia, money was very tight. Then, she totaled her car and found her resources – and her hope – were nearly gone. That is, until a 1996 blue Ford Contour arrived from the Connor Brother Collisions “Recycled Rides” program.

Conner Brothers of Richmond, VA, overhauls donated cars and awards them to people who have been nominated by community members. Carter said her heart was rehabilitated almost more than the car she received:

“It turned my life around. I can get to my job on time, and I don’t have to maneuver to get my child out of daycare. I’ll never take that for granted again.”

Getting Others Involved


Small businesses like Conner Brothers are creating innovative giving models that not only impact people but strengthen the business and the character of the companies themselves.

Kevin Conner said his company donated its first car and was looking to extend the “Recycled Rides” program to three other locations, but they had some pushback in the process. Some objected to giving away freebies when they were working so hard to earn a living themselves. But Conner says this mentality changed when employees got physically involved because compassion comes from being part of an experience instead of merely giving a donation:

“I got them involved in actually giving the cars away, handing over the keys,” Conner says. “Now the guys at the shop call me and ask, ‘When is our next car?’ It would be easy to give money or a service here or there, but it’s the teamwork behind the program that creates an amazing atmosphere for a successful company.”

The car giveaways have become such a cornerstone for Conner Brothers that the program helps define the type of employees the company wants.

“Giving back is a huge part of our company,” Conner says. “I challenge the guys every day to give back in some way, to give customers more than they expect. People remember that.” 

Giving That “Changes” Lives


Another giving strategy comes from literal pocket change, as givers round up or down for charity.

For example, the ridesharing company Lyft recently launched an initiative allowing customers to round up their fare to the nearest dollar for military appreciation and human rights campaigns. More than 40,000 passengers donated over $100,000 in the first two months!

Grocery stores, mass merchandisers, and retailers have also invited customers to donate change to worthy causes. As technology and digital platforms make such giving easier, small businesses have challenged staff members to round down their net pay to the nearest dollar (or tenth dollar) and give the difference to charity. While painless or even unnoticed, these small donations add up to a collective impact with heartfelt results.

Whether your employees give financially, volunteer together, or embrace a community partnership project, innovative giving helps your business to:


Stand out from competitors or set itself apart in the community


Make matching donations alongside employee giving to multiply impact


Use positive feedback from supported causes to provide content for print and digital marketing


Increase team unity as employees give toward a common cause


While generosity begins in the heart, often innovative giving strategies begin with small business.

For more of our informative blogs go to: https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html