The Goods

I’ve Been Hacked! Now what? The first thing that most blogs and articles say in response to a search about getting hacked is ‘DON’T PANIC’ – this is truthful but very unhelpful advice. Finding that your website has been hacked is stressful. There are no ‘if’s or ‘but’s about it. Hacking doesn’t discriminate! It can…

Streamlining your Messaging Defining your brand is a journey. It’s a process and I don’t believe that branding ever reaches a finish line. A brand is a living, evolving entity. As such, managing your brand properly takes an ongoing, strategic effort. In today’s market, it’s all about streamlining and delivering your messaging with impactful visuals,…

It’s an amazing story, really. A business that started out as a cozy start up in 2011 quickly grew into a Canadian success story by the fall of 2012. In approximately one and a half years’ time, through the implementation of an expert branding campaign and strategic marketing, Health Nut Raw Foods grew from a…

Branding & Marketing – The Missing Link These days, business owners are very lucky. Social tools have given us so many more ways to reinforce our brands. That means that marketing should be much easier than it used to be, right? Well… that depends. The most successful businesses have figured out a not-so-magical yet very…

Have you wondered about the rules of trademarking? The trademark symbol (™) is generally used for unregistered trademarks. The registered trademark symbol(®) is reserved for registered trademarks. Here’s the deal. Using the ™ symbol means that you’re making an assertion that the image or word that you’re putting the symbol beside is trademarked and belongs…

Since the dawn of SEO there have been those black hat scammers who have made it their business to take advantage of people who are uninformed about search engine optimization. For an interesting in-depth interview about SEO, check out our blog post: NOT JUST A SHOT IN THE DARK: TALKING SHOP WITH OUR VERY OWN…

Wait. What? Why, you may ask, would you create more work by using two different sources? It’s so straightforward to purchase a domain directly through the host! What gives? First, it’s important to understand the relationship between the domain and the host. What’s the Difference Between a Domain and Host? The domain – your website’s name…

Ask an Expert Series Part 3: Ask an SEO Specialist Unless you live under a rock, you’ve certainly heard a lot of buzzing around about this particular buzz word. I guess it’s actually buzz-acronym, in the case of “SEO.” I’ve been looking forward to posting this interview with our very own, Ballyhoo Design in-house SEO…

One strange misconception I often run up against is the idea that my work as a designer comes from this ethereal world of creativity and magic… as though problem solving, business acumen, and skill have nothing to do with it. Similarly, Web Developers – at least the ones I work with – need to tap into larger goals and strategy. I recently sat down with the very clever and thoughtful Jasper Palfree to chat about how he works and what clients could better understand about what he does.

I started off by asking Jasper about his process & planning:

Some may think that developers start by sitting down and coding. But I spend just as much time thinking, planning, and visualizing as I do typing away on the keyboard. The less one understands about the requirements the messier the code will get, so the first step is getting a high-level understanding of the project. I need to ask questions like: "What browsers am I supporting?", "Is it responsive?", and if so, "what exact devices are we using for testing?". I need to figure out if I can use libraries to help me out, or if they will just add extra bloat to the site.

So how do you get started with a new project?

I use my own boilerplate setup for most things (if I'm starting from scratch). Then I add any third-party libraries, and build a rough draft. I try to get functionality sorted out before making anything pretty, because if I run into problems and need to change something fundamental, I'd have been wasting time painting an unfinished house, so to speak.

Jasper, tell me, who do you like to work with?

I love working with designers that understand web design. Let me clarify. Some designers have more experience with print design than web design. They can produce beautiful work, but the whole design tends to have a bias towards a single screen size. This makes things incredibly hard for developers because, effectively, they are unfinished designs. Designers who have a basic understanding of CSS (the scripting language used to style websites) tend to be able to communicate their design choices very effectively to developers. It's always a pleasure to work with them.

That makes sense. Apples and oranges. Some people just see fruit, but web design really is quite different from print.

Anyone else that you like to work with?

I also love working with clients that get developers in on the planning process. Projects where the designers sit down with the developers before anything happens in Creative Suite, tend to go much better than projects where the developer is hired only after the final designs are complete. 

When diving in to a project, what's more important: research or gut instinct?

Neither. It's testing.

Ah, yes of course. Tell me more about how that works for you.

You have to test. Never underestimate the user's ability to ruin your beautiful code. The only way to be sure the product works is to have a plan to test it, and test it until you're blue in the face. There are so many variations on web browsers, screen sizes, feature support, etc. There is such a thing as "Web Standards", but no web browser follows it perfectly... so research is good, but at the end of the day, you need to test for quirks.

In your field, how important is marketing? Is it important to connect with an audience? How do you find your audience, keep in touch with them, and grow your base throughout the year?

Personally, I like to build things and show them off. If a picture says a thousand words, what does an interactive website say? I've built many open source projects that get attention through development circles. My most successful is called PhysicsJS; a physics library for javascript that has become much more popular than I anticipated. The more I build as side-projects, the more they get shared, and the more people contact me (yes... contact me) for contract work. I think some people gain popularity by sharing other people's content, but personally I don't think there's any substitute for making something awesome and sharing it within a well-networked community like the web-dev community.

I love that. It’s so great that you’ve been successful with a project that you obviously enjoy so much. I think that’s key: that idea that we explore and pursue our passions through our work. You never know when a passion project can be a game-changer! Hey, do you have a dream project?

I’d like to be the team lead on a large interactive educational endeavour.

I currently build interactive educational simulations as part of a project called MinuteLabs.io. But currently I'm the only developer, for the most part. There are others out there that are making _amazing_ stuff. But they too, are working solo. I'd love to rally those like-minded developers and content creators around a large-scale project and build something that would knock The Internet's sockets off.

That’s a very exciting idea! I’m going to switch gears a bit here because sometimes it’s the less… shall we say...  ‘inspiring’ projects that keep the lights on. And even when you are into what a client is doing, sometimes you’re asked to take the job in a direction you may not be so keen about. It’s the nature of Client Services. How do you handle creative differences if they arise? What do you do to turn the project around?

I try to listen. I try to figure out why the client has that opinion, because maybe they are thinking about it with completely different considerations in mind and arriving at a logical conclusion. Once I understand that, either I change my opinion, or I try to convince them that it is in their best interest to take my advice. I will debate to a certain point, but at the end of the day the client calls the shots. They have hired me for my expertise and if they don't want to trust my years of experience, then that's their choice.

I totally agree with you, and I know you to be a really good listener. I also know just how valuable a skill that is as a service provider. I admire that about you and your methodology. Have you had any mind-changing or about-face moments?

When I was learning web development, I tended to build everything myself. Any functionality I needed, I would make my own library for. I knew exactly how everything worked and I could fix any problem. But then I completely changed my mind and thought the solution was to use a third-party library whenever possible. Why reinvent the wheel? People have dedicated lots of time to sorting out mundane problems. I shouldn't concern myself with those problems.

I can relate to that. You’ve since changed your mind?

Yes, now I think a combination is needed. Sometimes libraries will add unnecessary complexity to fix a really simple problem you have (or don't have!). Sometimes, a library will not be maintained and if there's a bug with the library and the creator hasn't touched the code in a year, you're going to be wasting time trying to fix the library. Nowadays I think about it in terms of risk assessment. Does the risk of using this third-party library outweigh the time it would take me to write it myself? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.

So true. Okay: what's the best piece of field advice you were given?

"Justify your design decisions."

This may sound like advice specific to a designer, but it also applies to coding as well. When coding something, you make certain architectural (design) decisions about how the code is laid out. Sometimes I can get carried away with making the code "do everything", or become overly fancy. But if I ask myself "why?", it keeps me in check. "Does this component need to handle these extra options, or is that adding unnecessary complications and making the code harder to maintain?

Life lessons, right?!

I really enjoyed speaking with Jasper and learned a lot about how he approaches the other side of a web design. To follow Jasper's tweets on web development, science, and more, find him on Twitter at @wellcaffeinated. You can visit his website at wellcaffeinated.net.

Check back again for more conversations with interesting experts like Jasper.

Reesa Del Duca is a Graphic Designer with Ballyhoo Graphic Design in Toronto. 

I recently sat down with Copywriter extraordinaire, Rachel Foster. “Extraordinaire,” you may ask? With 14.6K Twitter followers, I think she’s earned a few such sassy adjectives! Rachel knows her business and people want to hear what she has to say. She’s become a trusted expert on B2B content marketing and lead generation and it was a pleasure to catch up with her.

Her work at Fresh Perspective has established Rachel as a top copywriter for B2B marketing. She’s in constant demand for her writing and also as an expert speaker. Though her business home base is in Toronto, Rachel has gained international recognition. Her latest speaking gig was teaching sell sheet and case study writing for the 2014 MarketingProfs Marketing Writing Bootcamp.

In our conversation, Rachel explained to me that many of her clients have a hard time finding a copywriter who understands the complex nature of their B2B products and services. Rachel leverages her knowledge of technology and software to help her clients to attract high-quality leads, increase their conversions and clearly communicate complex messages.

Here’s a little bit from our conversation:

Rachel, I’d like to understand more about your business. Can you tell me about your process?

Over the years, I’ve developed a process that allows me to get the copy right the first time. This allows my clients to avoid the hassle of lengthy revisions, so they can publish content quickly and achieve their marketing goals sooner.

So what’s the first step?

I begin by sending my client a creative brief. The creative brief contains questions about their goals, competitors and target audience. We also have a call to discuss the project and creative brief in greater detail.

From there, I’ll review the creative brief and any other background information. For most projects, I’ll send my client an outline to ensure that we’re on the same page before I begin writing. Outlines dramatically reduce the amount of revisions I’ll need to make to the final copy.

Once you’ve got the outline, how do you turn that into solid copy?

Once the outline is approved, I’ll complete a draft of the copy. This usually includes:

Highlighting the key features and benefits of my client’s product or service

Gaining an understanding of my client’s target audience and using language that resonates with them

Reviewing how my client’s competitors are positioning similar products or services

Incorporating my client’s key messages and keywords throughout the copy

Ensuring the copy matches my client’s voice

If my client need revisions, they have 30 days to request changes at no additional charge.

Who do you like to work with?

I help B2B technology marketers create content that drives action. I work with clients to improve their conversion rates, clearly communicate complex messages and attract high-quality leads.

I also assist clients with their content marketing strategies by writing content that helps them to connect with customers and become recognized as leaders in their industries.

Process is so personal. When diving into a project, what's more important for you: research or gut instinct?

Research.

For the copy to be successful, I need to know as much as possible about my client’s target audience. Who are they? What are their biggest needs, wants and challenges? How does my client’s product or service help them solve these challenges? If the copy doesn’t resonate with my client’s target audience, no one will read it.

How do you align your work with larger marketing goals? You must have to collaborate with other professionals like designers, SEO experts, video directors...?

I’m often brought in to work with marketing teams that include designers, social media managers and SEO experts. Sometimes my client has a standard design that they use for their marketing materials. I can make the copy work in the existing design or suggest ways the copy and design can work together to increase my client’s conversions.

What do you particularly like to work on?

I enjoy writing white papers, ebooks, case studies and website copy.

Okay, here's a tricky situation I face every once in awhile: how do you handle clients who already have a strategy in mind, if you don’t agree that it’s the right approach? How do you handle creative differences? What do you do to turn the project around?

If a client wants to do something that doesn’t follow marketing best practices, I will suggest alternatives and explain why I think these options will benefit them. I want my clients to get the best results from their copy.

And that was an insightful cup of tea!

I really enjoyed speaking with Rachel and learned a lot about her business. If Rachel’s ideas resonate with you, why not join thousands of others by following her on Twitter? @CopyWriterTO. And you can visit her website, copywritertoronto.com/

Check back again for more conversations with interesting experts like Rachel. I’m looking forward to my next chat already!

Reesa Del Duca is a Graphic Designer with Ballyhoo Graphic Design in Toronto. 

Today marks the official unveiling of the new Ballyhoo website, you guys!! I’m so excited to share with you what we’ve been up to behind the scenes! I’m like a proud web-mama! Before I send you over to check it out for yourself though, there’s one more thing we should cover on rebranding.

By this point in a branding process you’ve probably been digging deep with a professional, determining what your goals are, the right positioning, and the brand voice. You’ve worked with a designer and taken a good, hard look in the mirror to fine-tune your look and feel. You’re ready for your big day: it’s time to pull up your socks and finally go public!

But, wait. HOW do I actually LAUNCH?

If only launching a website was like selling a house. You fluff the pillows, bake some cookies for that homey smell, and the potential buyers rush over. But... you know… that won’t work here! Sorry gang. You should definitely still bake cookies though. You deserve 'em!

You’ve got to make a splash!

Tell everyone you know about your launch! Tell all those people you only vaguely know on your social networks about your launch! If you’ve done the research and the legwork, you’ve got the right tools at your disposal to promote your newly developed brand through marketing campaigns.

I’ve been giving you an example of how you can do it right here. This post–this whole Rebranding Series–is like marketing inception, you guys. I’m showing you how I’m launching my new brand and website. And now it’s launched! Yippee!!

I’m so proud of my new website. I can’t wait to hear what you think about it!

http://ballyhoodesign.co/

What's Next? In future posts, we’ll talk about how the Search Engine Optimization we do for our clients helps get them more web traffic… and not just any traffic, but serious potential customers. I’m also going to cover what you need to know before hiring someone to design your website, including explanations on the hot topic of the moment: mobile responsive design and why you really, really need it.

Thanks for hanging with me this week!

This is Part 4 of a 5-part series on Rebranding. If you want to catch up on the basics before you continue reading, here’s Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Brand character. It’s the sort of thing that will make or break a customer engagement. So important. So constant. And so much more than just the style of your logo. How do you determine your brand's very personality?

Have you ever been to a hip, independent coffee shop or boutique music store and suffered through lacklustre–or even blatantly rude–service from the painfully “cool” staff? I know my fellow urbanites will relate! I bet you’ve wondered how places like this stay in business. I’d also bet you’ve found yourself going back anyway because the coffee’s good, or they have a selection you can’t find elsewhere. There’s something to that, right?

Contrast this with an upscale restaurant. Think about the kind of place where the staff provide the most attentive service, the food is of premium quality and presentation, and everything centres around providing you with a memorable and pleasurable dining experience. Customers who value this sort of luxury and attention to detail go to these establishments expecting to pay for it. Those who don’t prioritize these things will go somewhere else.

Now, I’m absolutely, definitely not saying there’s ever an excuse for poor customer service. I did my time in the service industry, and I think everyone would be a better person if they did too! But what if you knew your customers so well that you could just be yourself, whatever that may be? If you were really confident about your niche, in what you offer, people would know exactly what they were getting from you. The folks who were into that would come to you. No need to follow stiff (read: BORING!) conventions of marketing! Branding professionals usually have great insight on this stuff, and a good designer can really help solidify your brand voice through visuals.

Part of Being Memorable Is Knowing Who You Don’t Serve

It was a huge turning point in my business when I determined who my clients were not. My niche was so much clearer and marketing finally just CLICKED. I read a great article about this recently, so I’ll leave you with a little reading material: 3 Vital Marketing Lessons From the World’s Most Offensive Doughnut Shop.

This is Part 3 of a 5-part series on Rebranding. If you want to catch up on the previous installments before you continue reading, here’s Part 1 and Part 2.

Yesterday’s post revealed how very, very into lists and research I am (very). Today’s topic is a toughie though… and honestly, this is something I had every intention of keeping private, shoving deep under the couch cushions in the history of Ballyhoo. Truth was, I didn’t like the name “Ballyhoo Society” anymore and had decided to change it. It was a mouthful. It was vaguely misleading. I had grown to just plain hate the sound of it!

What do you do if the name of your growing, 5-year old business drives you bananas? Do you keep it anyway for continuity? After all: the business is registered… so is your domain, word of mouth is so important, SEO’s chugging away, and the name’s all over your documents. Don’t even get me started on email… the contacts, the change-of-address requests, updating my contact information everywhere… Eeep!

Yeah, well, I did it anyway. Inconvenience be damned.

  See, this wasn’t the first time I’d considered changing the name. When I first made the mental and legal transition from freelancing to a Super Official In Business For Herself person, I was already thinking about all of this. I listened to some advice to hold on to the “Society” in my business name, which was the part that I wanted to set adrift. Now, I see why that advice was given to me: the name is fun and whimsical, and that speaks to the voice of the brand, ties back into the emblem, etc. But it turned out to be bad advice, because I just couldn’t get behind it. Never forget: Nobody knows your business better than you do! The best business advice you ever take might just be from your own gut instinct.

I thought that the name Ballyhoo on its own could convey everything I wanted it to. My gut just told me it could.

Before I settled on changing the name though, there was some important marketing detective work to do. Not nearly as sexy as brainstorming, but way important. Beyond What Sounds Good: What’s In a Business Name?

Once you have name ideas, it’s time to widen the search: 

Conduct research via official channels

Research possible domain name(s)

Get creative with Google queries

Consult a marketing professional with your findings

Register that business, buy those domains, uncork that champagne!

Get the branding engine going

When you’re satisfied with your findings, dig into available (and unavailable) domain names and cover your bases with some Google searches. You never know what might be lurking out there to cause you grief later! Let your imagination run wild with possible mis-spellings, mis-interpretations, and even analyze what the words look like if you squint (seriously!!). And last, but certainly not least: before you finalize that name, consult a marketing professional! Trust me: I’ve seen many a potentially awful, even downright offensive business name get past a lot of internal scrutiny.

This is Part 2 of a 5-part series on Rebranding. If you want to catch up on Part 1 before you continue reading, head on over here.

Yesterday’s post left off after I faced the cold, hard facts: I needed to rebrand in a big way. I started in on the research…

I began like I usually begin things: with a big-ass list.

I filled pages and pages with brain-dumps on stuff like:

Who’s my current market?

Who do I WANT my market to be? (psst: this is super important in a rebrand!)

Based on my current brand, how am I likely to perceived now?

How do I WANT Ballyhoo to be perceived?

I go through this stuff with clients all. the. time… but I found it surprisingly challenging to do it for my own business! My brain kept skipping to the end – the final brand – instead of allowing myself to go through the process. Bad brain! The process is so vital to reach an honest conclusion. This is why it’s super helpful for most people to get a professional involved. (Me, I just reminded myself that I am a professional and told myself to get it together. Ahem.)

I put in a little time picking the brains of trusted colleagues, friends, even clients. This was no time to be shy about anybody’s perceptions of Ballyhoo’s look and feel. I wanted honest feedback across the board. I asked folks about the logo. This didn’t seem likely to be very helpful… I got a lot of “I like it!” Not terribly enlightening.

When I dug a little deeper, I realized the feedback only spoke to what people knew (or thought they knew) about my brand. That was important information. Because I knew where I wanted to grow the business, I was careful to keep the thoughts and goals from my trusty big-ass list in mind and measure all this feedback against them.

All the same – and this is a vital part of the process too – I fumbled through a lot of stuff that didn’t work. I never intended to show these failed concepts publicly, but here we are. Work in progress and roughs revealed:

Yeah, weird, right? I completely expected to take the visuals in a different direction! After a lot of iterations, I was able to pull out what people meant when they said they "liked" the original mark, and use it to my advantage in an updated brand more in line with the future of the business. I'd gone a little far astray from the character I needed in the brand – character that had been there from the start. I re-drew, refreshed, updated and cleaned up. And it felt right again.

Now. I had major problems with the name “Ballyhoo Society Graphic Design”, and when I began unpacking this, things started getting interesting.

Welcome to Rebranding Week! 

Okay, so right off the top I’m going to let you in on a secret: It was long past high time for me to rebrand and I knew it. My business had evolved, my focus had shifted, and so had my market. After 5 years (now 6 years! wow!), things looked very different than they had when Ballyhoo started. And good thing, too! Every passing year has seen the growth of Ballyhoo from a one-woman operation doing logos and business cards for (mainly) artists and small cultural organizations, to a pool of top-to-tail, full-service marketing talent for much larger B2B and B2C clients across Canada. Beyond just design services, Ballyhoo began offering Web Dev, Social Media Marketing and Strategy, full Marketing campaigns, and SEO – not to mention the printing, photography, and copywriting I frequently oversee for our projects.

I knew it was time to do something about my business’ public image. I was embarrassed to send folks to my website, apologizing that it was out of date. I even cringed at my business name… that was especially scary. Talk about an identity crisis! I felt stuck. Oh, and did I mention how daunting it is to brand yourself if your job is to brand other businesses? Super daunting.

How Ballyhoo Society Design became Ballyhoo Graphic Design.

First things first, I did some research. What I found out… well, I’ll be honest: I was surprised.

Can Writing a Blog Help Your Business? Well hey there, welcome to the Ballyhoo blog!