We have talked before about the importance of marketing including making sure you have a marketing strategy and a budget. But in the current economic climate businesses are looking to make savings wherever they can and you might be questioning the value of marketing.

​This month we thought we’d take a look at how you can measure whether your marketing is giving you a good ROI (Return On Investment) by comparing how much you are spending on marketing with the revenue created.

How to measure marketing ROI
There is a simple formula you can use to measure marketing ROI but first you need to gather certain metrics:

• Number of leads: How many people converted to a lead?
• Lead-to-customer rate: From those leads what percentage converted into customers? Eg if 10 leads out of 100 converted into customers that gives you a lead to customer rate of 10%
• What is the average price of your product?
• How much did your marketing campaign cost? Include costs of the ads including staff costs of those who worked on the campaign.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
CLV is another useful measure of ROI – a simple formula for calculating your CLV is:
CLV = (Average value of a transaction) x (Average number of transactions) x (Customer lifespan)

CLV is a great marketing analytic because it tells you how much a customer is likely to spend with you and gives you insights that will help you plan your marketing strategies.

But ROI isn’t just about financial measurements, you can also get a good indication of ROI from other sources:

• Increased brand awareness – A big marketing push is common among startups to increase brand awareness and carve a space in the market.
• New social media followers – While increased numbers alone doesn’t necessarily mean positive ROI, if the new followers are your target audience and are engaging with your content then they are more likely to become customers.
• Email newsletter signups – Email marketing is a valuable way of reaching both new and existing customers. Use email marketing to send personalised offers, deals and new products and services. Tracking sales attributed to email subscribers can help you decide whether to invest more or less time in your email marketing.

How you can Improve your ROI

• Set Clear SMART Goals: Be specific about what you want to achieve and set a deadline (and stick to it)
• Track your metrics: Google Analytics is great for keeping you up to date with important metrics such as sales, website traffic etc.
• Analyse the right metrics: There’s no point focussing on metrics that don’t help you achieve your goal. Wanting to increase revenue? Focus on conversion rates and CLV. Looking to increase brand awareness? Direct traffic and social media mentions will give you good insights.

Is your business marketing in need of a boost? Creative Remedy can help improve your ROI with a bespoke prescription for your business. Get in touch to find out more.

When you think of the word ‘brand’ what comes to mind? Do you imagine big brands’ such as McDonalds, Coca Cola or large supermarkets such as Tesco and Asda?

They’re all great examples of successful businesses that have managed to build recognisable and highly successful brands.

But every business, large and small, needs to focus on building their brand. It’s no small task, brands don’t become successful overnight and it takes hard work, determination and patience to build a strong and successful brand for your business.

What Makes a Brand Successful?
Aside from the above, there are steps every business must take to build a successful brand:

Market Research
Your brand will only succeed if you find out who your target audience is - you need to build trust and a lasting relationship with your customers so it’s imperative you learn who they are and what they want.

What is your Mission?
What are you trying to achieve? Why did you start your business? In order to create a successful brand you need to pin down what you're trying to achieve- all your branding including logo design will then reflect this ethos to reinforce your message to your audience.

What is your USP?
You need to stand out from your competitors so make sure you shout about what makes you different. What are your company values? Ethics? Do you offer locally sourced goods for example? Champion what makes your business unique.

Great Visual Assets
​Once you’ve established the above you can get creative and build your brand assets - your logo, colour palette, fonts etc.

Why Hire a Designer?
A professional designer has a swathe of skills and knowledge to help you build your brand. They know how to help you craft your story and can help you find your audience. Not only that, they can take your story and USP and together create the perfect logo and other visual assets to determine your unique brand style.

You might think you know exactly how you want your logo to look but a designer can help you push the boundaries and create something truly spectacular. Their knowledge of colour and how it will work on the web and in print will be invaluable- get ready for hexadecimal triplets and Pantone chats over a cup of coffee!

Even after you’ve established your brand image, you need to reinforce that image at every customer touch point. Website, social media, email marketing, in print and your physical premises - all need to give out the same message using the same brand imagery. Your designer will ensure your logo is the correct format for every requirement - print ready and web optimised.

Ultimately, a great designer will save you time and money in the long run. They can be on hand at every step in building your brand and can help ensure you stay true to your brand values, message and story.

Are you struggling to establish your brand? We can help bring your brand to life, contact us for more information: Contact Creative Remedy

You can’t have failed to have noticed the buzz surrounding the recent launch of ChatGPT. Initial excitement may have waned a little but with version 4 recently made available to paying subscribers, it is certainly making its mark. Its release took the world by storm as us mere humans watched in awe as the AI spat out written content based on carefully constructed prompts.

First thoughts for those who rely on creative jobs in order to earn a living may well have been ones of dread and fear, afterall, if AI can write content or produce images in a fraction of the time it takes a human, is there any need for the human to have this job at all?

It’s a complex question and the answer will no doubt change as time goes on and AI becomes even more intelligent. But, for now at least, although AI is absolutely a tool that can aid the creative processes of many jobs it is a tool that still requires the human touch.

Using AI For Content Creation
Struggling for ideas for content creation? It can be hard to be able to keep up with the constant need to post content and AI is a great tool to help when you’ve got writer's block. Just one prompt can yield multiple ideas for content, saving you valuable time and allowing you to get on with the writing/creating part.

With design and art, AI can create ideas you might not have thought of. Instead of seeing AI as a way of producing the finished piece, it could become more a part of the ideas process, speeding up the initial ‘thinking’ part before you execute the final design.
AI is a great tool that is advancing at great speed. But we need to be sure what we are posting or creating is safe and legal.

Plagiarism
One obvious yet often ignored problem with using AI for content creation is the risk of plagiarism. If you ask a chat bot to write you a blog it will scrape content from multiple sources and will not provide citation. If you choose to write content in this way you run the risk of plagiarising published work.

Misinformation
Because AI doesn't provide evidence or citations you have no way of knowing if what it has written is actually true. We are all painfully aware of the dangers of misinformation so to avoid posting false information it is very important to check anything written using AI.

Content creation is a huge part of a brand’s identity. In order to build a loyal customer base, brands rely on having a unique voice and message that conveys their brand ethos. If this voice isn’t consistent or the messages don’t match the brand values then customers will lose trust.

In order for AI to produce unique content it needs to be told how to do it. No matter how good AI is it still needs to be trained to be able to write in the unique voice of an individual business. For small businesses in particular, that unique voice and message is what will set you apart from your competitors.
When creating content and designs for your business you need to ensure you are delivering:

• Personal touch
• Unique voice/message
• Stand out from competitors/big brands
  
  

This will help protect your brand and ensure your customers continue to put their trust in you and your business.

AI for Design
There has been a lot of backlash from artists and creators surrounding the training of the technology, as it scrapes images from the internet and mashes them together to answer the prompts. Artists rightly protest their work being used without consent or credit.

As well as potentially infringing copyrighted work there is also no way to copyright any work produced by AI- so even if it produces something you want to use as a logo for example, there would be nothing to stop anyone else using the same image for their logo.

Adobe’s hotly anticipated release of Firefly may answer some of those concerns as they have trained their technology on Adobe stock images, openly licensed content and public domain content where copyright has expired. In a bid to help creators produce great designs regardless of their skill levels, Adobe’s Firefly could be a tool that allows users to improve their working practices. It has to be noted that it is not currently possible to opt-out of data set training for content submitted to Stock, although Adobe do say they are looking at ways to make this a possibility in the future.

Personally, I’m a little worried that AI will make it harder to tell what is fact and what is misinformation eg. when doing web searches or reading ‘news’ on social media platforms.

AI is constantly evolving and is definitely here to stay, but for now, is it best used as a tool to help optimise our workflow to avoid running the risk of producing soulless and generic creative work.   And, if content is wholly written by AI do you think it should be credited as such so that readers can verify its accuracy?

Written by Louise Lockhart at Creative Remedy

To stand out from competitors a successful business needs to have a unique brand. But it’s important to remember that your brand is more than just a name and a logo, you need your brand to tell your unique story. You want your customer and target audience to connect with you and your business so it’s essential your brand communicates your key message.

Your Story
You need to communicate your brand to your customers and a great way to do this is by giving them the low-down on your business values, qualities, products and services. You are aiming to capture the essence of your business and create a connection between you and your customers.

Use a Consistent Tone

• In order to stand out from your competitors and become recognisable to your audience you need to make sure you use a consistent voice through all your marketing channels including social media, blogs and any print marketing. Make sure you don’t lose sight of your brand message and always stay true to your values- your customers are more likely to remain loyal to your business if your business remains loyal to your brand values.
  

Your ‘Why’
When you tell your story make sure you tell your audience what it was that inspired you to start your business and what you were trying to achieve. Again, this will help to build trust with your audience and make them see that your business is about more than just sales and profit- building your brand!
 
Make sure you tell your employees about your ‘story’, this will ensure you are all sending the same message to your clients and reinforce your brand identity. Telling your story and connecting with your customers will help build strong relationships and brand loyalty.
 
Your Visual Brand and Logo
Your visual brand needs to be on all your branding material both online and any printed materials such as stationary, business cards and any marketing materials. You should use colours that reflect your brand and the design of all your branding needs to clearly show your tone and voice. This is where you should consider using a graphic designer to help you create a logo that encompasses your identity.
 
Even if your business is fully established, it's important to review how your branding reflects your identity- is it giving the right message? Does it give a clear message about what you and your business are trying to achieve?
 
It’s a good idea to make sure your brand is conveying your key messaging and communicating with your target audience. Business’s change and adapt to the economic climate so there is a good chance your message has changed if your business has been running for a number of years.
 
Take a look at Marketing Donuts invaluable ‘Building a Brand - checklist’.
Do you need help shaping your story? Contact us for a FREE Health Check!

If you find a good graphic designer who is qualified with lots of experience, they can be an invaluable asset to your business. Often knowledgeable about business, technology, trends, online tools and business processes.

They are usually multi-skilled individuals with expertise that cover many disciplines in design, marketing, advertising, digital design, web, print, SEO and photography.

1. Save time
Why struggle with ideas, creativity and technology if it isn’t your forte. Hiring a good graphic designer will save you lots of time. Lots of your time that you could spend on other areas of the business, the parts that you are good at. We all don’t like to admit defeat especially when we are close to a solution, but there comes a time… when there is limited time left to work on your business.

2. Save money
Saving time is saving money. If a graphic designer can do these jobs quicker, it’s a no brainer!

3. Consistency
This word is essentially OCD for designers! They know your brand inside out because they probably created it. Consistent design and messages means adhering to a strict set of, often unspoken rules in a small business. Visual communication that is the same everywhere you see it, across all platforms. THE most important first rule in branding.

4. Boost your brand
Good design is often underestimated in value. Good design has longevity it can be effective, clever, striking, make an impact, evoke an emotion and even tell a story. Great design stands you out from a crowd, from your competitors, makes you memorable and converts to sales.

5. Problem solving
Graphic designer’s objective and out-of-the-box thinking will benefit any business. A good graphic designer will ask lots of questions and help you understand what you need for your business. Graphic designers are hugely creative people. If you have a problem, they are sure to solve it in truly unique ways.