Glimpse Media
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Home page: http://www.glimpsemedia.co.uk
Posts by Glimpse Media
How important is branding?
0A lot of new businesses often ask “How important is a brand?” and the answer varies. It varies not because of the different industries businesses may work in, but how seriously the owners/managers take their business and how successful they want it to be. So the answer to “How important is branding my company?” can be another question: “How successful do you want your business to be?”. The answer to the latter is also the answer to your first question.
Sell at what ever price you want.
Having a good brand for your company allows you to successfully sell your product/service at what ever price you want.
The brand of a company isn’t just the logo and the colours that a company uses, but it is also your company’s aim, it’s target market, the friendly way it answers the phone, the way how customer satisfaction is the number one priority. A brand is the vital part of a company which allows you to sell your products and services at the prices you want to sell them.
A stronger brand guarantees a better chance of survival
Today, 30% of the world’s brands were created before the 1900s. This proves that the stronger your brand is, the more likely it is to stay around for hundreds of years. If you’re looking at this and thinking, it is not important for my business to last hundreds of years, a strong brand is still needed for you to be noticed by your potential clients and how the feel about your product / service.
Make your client feel the need you
70% of all purchases are based on emotion and the way the customer feels about a product or service. Your brand is what portrays what the customer should be feeling. If you have a poor brand, your customers aren’t going to feel very much from you. As opposed to your competitor who’s brand is all about being affordable and having the best customer service.
Spending more on marketing during a bad economy
A lot of business people think that during bad economic times, their business should cut back on marketing. Yet companies which spent more for marketing during the last American recession found an average average return on capital employed of 4.3% whereas companies who cut on marketing spending in fact found an average return of -0.8%.
Advertising in the right places is an important part of a company’s brand
61% of people think advertising is out of control and 65% of people feel overwhelmed by marketing messages. Advertising, whilst is a necessary part of business, it should not be the only way to portray the views of your company. Your brand needs to be incorporated in stationary, business cards, on your website, social media, exhibitions where your clients can find you.
How important is a brand?
Very, if you take your company seriously! A lot of people don’t brand their company because they don’t understand how to do it or what the importance is. If this blog post hasn’t helped you in understanding why branding is important or if you are not sure whether or not you need a brand, then get in touch, we will happily let you know whether or not a brand is something you need.
ICO’s cookie decision to impact website visits by -90%
3The EU has decided in a Directive that all unnecessary cookies that are to be stored on a user’s computer needs the user’s consent to ensure maximum privacy. Whilst at first, this may seem like a great benefit to the users, it can have damaging effects on the websites using these cookies. In the United Kingdom, it is the duty of the ICO to implement and enforce the legislation.
I think every web designer agrees with what they say, the user should be displayed a notice for unnecessary cookies; but here is the problem. Every country in the EU makes their own mind up about what cookies are necessary and which are. What the ICO class as unnecessary, a lot of website developers and marketers deem the cookies to be highly necessary. For example, Google Analytics.
Whilst analytic cookies are not necessary for the site to function, they are necessary for many businesses to function properly. These once accurate statistics were used religiously by companies, including us, to work out how successful different campaigns are running.
Sites such as e-commerce sites will not need user consent if the placing of a cookie on the user’s system is to carry out a task the user has explicitly asked for, such as adding an item to their shopping cart.
Gaining Consent and the Implications
Although the deadline for having a conforming website to the new ICO rules laid out is not until the end of May, the ICO’s website has already implemented these changes to show others how it’s done. 
A very intrusive banner is displayed at the top of the website on every page until the user checks the box and presses Continue. The ICO released a statement saying that their visiting numbers dropped by an incredible 90%.
Argos used a similar pop up banner for a short amount of time but quickly removed it. This was probably because of the number of sales affected.
Google Analytic Cookies are necessary (in our opinion)
Although the ICO do not agree, we deem Google Analytic cookies to be extremely important in the maintaining of a website for businesses. The statistics which are vital for many businesses will be flawed and unreliable if the ICO allow this to go through. But the fact of the matter is, if you don’t comply with this new regulation, you could face a £500,000 fine. Were expect that although this will be very poorly enforced, they will fine a handful of people fined just to make a statement.
But I need Google Analytics!
So does everyone else, however we have no choice but to display a banner like the one above unless of course Google develop a cookie-less version of their analytics. It is unclear as to whether even cookie-less versions of analytic software will be allowed as the EU’s direct is aimed at privacy in general and not just cookies in places. We will keep you up to date once we find this out. The only other option if you do not want the banner to be displayed is to not have Google Analytcis. Whilst this make be painful, so would a £500,000 fine.
Other cookies your site may use.
[ Step 1]
Attacat‘s Cookie Audit Tool is a plugin for Google Chrome which allows you to start recording which cookies it can find whilst you’re navigating through the whole of your site. At the end, you can stop the recording and view the report it produces which shows you all th
e cookies which are being used. If these cookies are necessary then don’t worry, just go to step 2. If there are
some there which are not necessary, then you’re going to need to place an intrusive banner I’m afraid.
[ Step 2 ]
You need to have a cookie information page which is easily accessible on every page. Our cookie
information page is on our Privacy Policy. The ICO’s cookie information segment is also on their privacy policy page. This is the place where you list all of the cookies which your site uses, what they do and how long are they on the user’s computer for.
Is that really it?
I hope not. Myself along with hundreds of thousands of other people are hoping that someone will stand up and say just how ridiculous this is.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
The importance of analyzing success
0What is Success?
What do you define as success for your campaign? The number of generated leads over a length of time, the number of converted leads? How many people visit your newly SEO’d website? How many people contact you via your website? The number of leads generated from social media? What ever it is, it is vital that you measure and analyse these statistics to see how successful you are and how to do better.
Analyzing Success of a Campaign
All too many graphic design and web agencies simply develop a website or SEO website or optimise a company’s social media and then leave the company clueless about how to use techniques about how to analyse the success of a campaign.
If your graphic design or web agency doesn’t offer you the ability to track success then you’re going to be missing out on some vital figure which you’ll be needing for your campaign.
Getting Results
Getting results is what every business wants, but getting the results you predicted can be vital. Analyzing how successful a campaign such as a newly SEO ‘d site or a new social media campaign means you always know the next step to take. Instead of assuming what your site is doing, by analyzing the numbers, you can work out how successful your campaign is.
Doing the sums
A good and reputable web design agency would not expect you to do the math. For example
, at Glimpse Media, we can provide you with a nicely laid out report of graphics and easy to read figures which you can present freely to whom ever you wish.
Using these graphs and the figures provided, by Glimpse Media in this instance, you’ll be able to quickly and easily determine how successful a campaign is and the next step you need to take. You’ll be able to determine whether you need more people to contact you after visiting your site, or whether you want to generate more leads from social media, the figure are all there!
What next?
If you would like these insights into your campaign, then you need to speak with your graphic designer or web design agency. At Glimpse Media, reports like this are available for all online campaigns for you and your colleagues to view. Simply state in the project proposal that you’d like to be able to view a report into the analysis of the success of the site and your agency should be straight on to it!
At least, it’s that easy at Glimpse Media. Many other agencies may make it a bit more complicated but you’ll have to speak with them.
Success is important
Your success is important. But how do you know you’re successful without measuring your success? That’s why we offer this service to you, so not only can you get a campaign done professionally, but a campaign which you can see results and then be able to see which areas of your business need to be changed and to be able to view real-time results. It’s more important than ever that business is done right in today’s current climate, so lets make sure we do it correctly, together.
The importance of graphic designers teaming up
0We’ve got some great friends at Glimpse Media – we’ve teamed up with some of the industries best and most respected people to bring our clients the best quality work at a price which is affordable!
Telling your customer you can not only design a business card for them, but get 250 decent quality cards printed off and delivered to their door, is a great stress relief for them and is extremely useful.
Getting things printed in China and then shipped over doesn’t help anyone.
“Just get someone Chinese to print it…”
No. There are local printers in every town, I can guarantee. Ivybridge, where Glimpse Media is based, is a small town however there are 2 printers I know of. It is important to support our local businesses and if they know you’re going to be using them a lot, I’m sure they can give you special prices!
“Who would want to team up with me? I’m new!”
Well, other newbies in your area would love to team up with you. That way you can support each other whilst you grow. Don’t be too embarrassed to ask big companies if they can give you cheaper prices if you go to them when your customers need their services. If you don’t ask, you won’t get.
“But where can I find people to team up with?”
I went to a huge secondary school where I got to know a lot of people. Some are my best friends, some are friends, some are kinda friends where I would say hello to them in the street and maybe have a chat, you know how it goes. These people went off to different areas, some are now lawyers, marketers, writers, and one’s a boat maker.
These friends or “friends” are a great place to start. Use Facebook to your advantage to look at where everyone studied and see if they can help you.
Then your second port of call should be your local directory! Look in there to get into contact with people in your local area who may be able to help you if you help them.
“What kinds of people do I need to team up with?”
Okay, so I think the easiest way to do this is list it. Remember, you need to team up with people that make your life but more importantly, your client’s life easier! So here we go:
- Copywriters – If your client wants a leaflet, get it professionally written and attract more custom
- Photographers – Someone need a magazine or booklet? Get someone to professionally take photos. (Just because you have a camera, doesn’t mean you’re a photographer).
- Printer – Get it designed, printed and posted for only a little bit more money but with a lot less stress – smiles all round
- Marketers – For an extra charge, get a ‘marketing consultant’ in one of your consultation meetings
- Advertiser – Again, for an extra charge to the client, you can offer them a advertising consultant
- Corner Bistro - Take your customer out for a nice meal for your meeting, they’ll like that. Maybe if you bring your customer there a lot, the bistro may give you a discount? It’s cheeky isn’t it, but you don’t know until you ask.
So how can I help them?
Obviously you cannot just expect to take, take, take. You need to give if you want it to be successful. Putting it like that, it’s like a marriage, just not as complicated.
You can pay your ‘team-mate’ in many ways by working with them:
- Maybe giving them the experience of working is enough (probably not but worth a try).
- If it’s just a friend, then maybe paying them is a great way
- Obviously if they’re another local business such as a printer, you need to pay them for their resources. (You see how it works, they give you discounted prices so you keep coming back. They get money, you get cheap printed! Voila).
Hope this helps.
Team work is important in any business venture. Especially with those where you help other people’s ventures too.
How Can Graphic Design Influence Spending at Christmas?
0Graphic Design Influence on the Christmas Shop.
Influencing people to spend with the economic crisis is not easy.
Spending money is sparse all over the world. Items are getting more expensive and more and more people are losing their jobs. And although this does not affect people’s Christmas spirits in wanting to give presents, it does mean they’re on a tighter budget and thus spend much less.
Advertising is not about making people spend, it is about making people want to spend. Influencing people’s actions is something which has been given a lot of thought about, especially in today’s current climate. This is why Glimpse Media are going to one of the world’s biggest Christmas shopping hubs, Paris, France. This is to undertake first hand research in discovering what graphic design techniques are being used in the real world, when times have never been tougher, to make people spend.
Our full report will be here very soon so keep checking back here, our research portal or our social media for updates.
What Does ‘Unlimited Revisions’ Mean?
0Glimpse Media pride in offering unlimited revisions to every single person who asks us to design something for them. However many people interpret this in different ways? Why would a professional graphic designer need to offer unlimited revisions to their customers if they were good? And although this is a good point, we believe that the benefits of offering unlimited revisions to our customers more than outweigh that belief. I have been really wanting to write this post for a while – to explain to you:
Why Does Glimpse Media Offer Unlimited Revisions?
All too often we see graphic designers who are not creative and just do what their customers ask. The designer does change some things if the customer asks but only once or twice. And if the customer is not happy with the design once all of their revisions are used, then it’s either bad luck or they have to pay to get what they want.
Glimpse Media have taken what is bad out of the normal design process and replaced it with what is good. Here is what we offer which conventional graphic designers don’t:
We Work With You Throughout The Process
Glimpse Media do not just give you a brief for you to fill in and leave you to it. We ask each question personally and assist you in answering each question which we use to create the perfect graphic for your company or service. Throughout the development stage, we give you our honest opinion on what we think would work and what would not work.
You Get Unlimited Revisions
And this is what the whole post is about – our unlimited
Image: Jomphong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
revisions. We do not believe offering unlimited revisions makes us look bad at all, we’re proud that we offer such a service to our customers. We, and so do our customers, believe that offering free unlimited revisions makes Glimpse Media a safe option because 100% of our customers have gotten exactly what they wanted. We work tirelessly with all of our customers to ensure that they’re always happy.
What Does Unlimited Revisions Mean?
Lets summarize what unlimited revisions mean to Glimpse Media. Unlimited revisions means that you can work with us knowing that you’re going to get exactly what you want and be 100% happy with the results. But also, the results that you do get don’t just look amazing but they work in practice and can provide you with real results!
Unlimited Revisions is a safe and practical way of ensuring that customers are 100% happy with their graphic design work.
3 Reasons Why You Should Not Design Your Own Graphics
0
I have all to many people asking me what would happen if a company did not hire a professional graphic designer.So I thought I would finally write a post about why you should never design your own graphics. Designing your own graphics can save a lot of money in the short term but what about the long term? Many people use cheap templates off the internet or simply just stick to text as their logo. In the current climate, many businesses look for ways to cut spending but this can have a grave impact, especially when they are no longer investing into one of the fundamentals to any business – the graphic design. But what exactly are the reasons why you should not design your own graphics and hire a graphic designer?
1. Communicating the wrong image
Graphic designers are experts in marketing and know how to communicate to your target market. Designing your own graphics can mean that you have to spend a lot more on the advertising of your company. Get a professional to do it fro the beginning and you can be assured that your image is efficient and effective at communicating with your customers. Would you service an airplane? No – as you would leave it to the professionals to ensure that everything is done perfect.
2. Say Goodbye To Many Potential Clients
If you get your communication wrong then you will not be portraying the correct message to the wrong people! Customers are much more likely to go to a company with professionally designed graphics than a company who offers the same products but with graphic designs that are not as professional. Your competitors businesses cards who have been well designed are going to stay in your customer’s wallets for longer.
3. Blending in and never making an impression
Companies use their brand to make an impression in the marketplace. The Co-operative Group use their brand to portray Fair Trading, environment friendly images. Basically you get the impression that you’re be doing good things to the world if you shop at Co-op. People remember brands, if you do not have a professional brand then there is nothing to remember you by apart from that shop downtown that sells televisions. Surely you would rather be remembered for something more than just your location.
To Conclude
Yes, I admit – designing your own logo today will save you money in the short term. But I can guarantee that if you yourself are not a professional graphic designer 9 times out of 10, you will not make as much money as you would have done if you had used a designer.
If you want to start your own company but cannot yet afford the graphic design, then wait until you have saved up. If you currently own a company but have not yet used a professional graphic designer then please contact me for a free consultation so I can help you realise what you need to be done.
Research: What makes an exhibition successful?
4Graphic designers don’t often work with the organisers of an exhibition so it can be difficult to work out what needs to be done in order to make it a success. Glimpse Media has worked with the International Franchise and Branding Exhibition (IFBE) for the last two years to work out the necessary requirements.
To read the research, please click here or navigate to www.glimpsemedia.co.uk/research-exhibition.html
If you have any questions then please feel free to ask.
At the Front of Pioneering Research
0Glimpse Media are at the front of pioneering research in graphic design to ensure that all the techniques and methods we use are useful and will put your business at the front!
By researching what different techniques do on the mind of the consumer, we can all be assured that the work that goes into your project is not only impressive but pioneering.
Keep your eyes peeled for the latest reports to be posted here on the blog and on our research report page soon to be published.
If you have any questions or would like to contribute towards the Glimpse Media Research Project, then please contact us.
How well have we done?
0Briefing your graphic designer is important if you want them to do what is necessary and what you want. Good graphic designers stick to their briefs and work with their briefs to create their work. This is why we publish the brief of every project we do on our website for you to inspect for you to see how well we stick to the brief.
Are you the first to do this?
As far as we are aware, we are the first graphic designer to publish the design brief of our clients for you to see how well we do.
Why publish the design brief?
Before working with a graphic designer, you want to make sure that they will provide you with the results that you would want. By publishing the wants and needs of our clients along with their completed project, you can see for yourself how reliable we are. We believe by showing you the brief, you will feel safer.
Where can I find the briefs?
Design Brief
The briefs for each project can be found with the project itself in the portfolio. For example, to view the brief for the logo design of 95X, go to the logo section of the portfolio, find the 95X logo and click ‘The Design Brief’ to navigate to the brief.
What if I don’t want my design brief published?
All of the design briefs that are published on the internet are edited before being published so that they are more easily read. The design brief published includes a report of the project by the project manager. If you do not want the design brief published on our website, then that is fine as we do not have to include it!
Another innovative idea from Glimpse Media.