Education Through Editorial: Contribution Articles, A Winning Composition
How to Generate Positive Exposure with Contribution Articles Trade magazines are
6 Common-Sense Tips for Maintaining Your Website’s Health
Keep the Cobwebs Away, Keep the Customers Coming
Have you ever been to a website that is broken or so out-of-date that you’re unsure if the company is even still around? What impression did it have on you? A website is like having your front door open to the world 24/7, so keeping it accurate, functioning, and secure is extremely important. Don’t leave money on the table by making a bad first impression. Just like a tangible office building, a website is not something your company can afford to build and forget. There is not necessarily a “one size fits all” plan for website maintenance. However, there are some basic housekeeping items that every website should have from time to time.
Grow Your Business with Digital Display Advertising
Digital display advertising enables your business to reach potential customers as they browse websites, watch videos online and use mobile apps.
Using various targeting methods, your business’s ads can be set to appear in front of audiences that are more likely to respond to them and become customers. With their ability to reach receptive audiences and build brand awareness, digital display advertising campaigns can greatly assist in the continued growth of your business.
Every Website Should Have SSL
2017 was a huge year for website encryption. At the beginning of the year, roughly 46% of all websites on the Internet were encrypted with a Secure Socket Layer (SSL). That percentage has leapt to over 60% since September and continues to increase every day (source: Firefox Telemetry). This increase is not by accident but by design. Numerous highly influential companies, including Google and Mozilla (FireFox), have made website encryption a priority. Specifically, they’re pushing for more sites to use SSL, a security protocol that provides privacy and data integrity to communications sent over a network (in this case, the Internet).
14th Annual SIAA Awards: “And the Award Goes to… the Customer!”
Almost every industry has some sort of recognized award program, whether it’s sponsored by an industry association or a related industry publication. Receiving recognition for hard, thoughtful work can serve as a reward for employees, creating a sense of pride and ownership among staff. Awards also help companies in attracting quality employees, a task that is becoming more important all the time.
For Lime Valley, awards provide many of those same opportunities. On an internal level, awards season is a way to recognize the talents and creativity of designers, programmers, developers and copywriters. But on a more global level, receiving awards provides an opportunity to reflect on a successful project and celebrate with the customer.
Without the customer, there is no project and no award.
These awards are shared with the customer in a way that they can use them as promotional tools, celebrate with their staff and realize the value of their efforts in the marketing communications process. The awards highlighted in this issue of Storyboard are Service Industry Advertising Awards (SIAA). The Service Industry Advertising Awards began in 2003 as a way to recognize the advertising excellence of the service industry. It’s a national competition that honors service industry providers, as opposed to popular consumer awards, for their contribution to marketing and advertising. This year, over 1,900 entries were received. A national panel of judges evaluated and rated entries in 8 groups and 26 categories for execution, creativity, quality, consumer appeal and overall break through advertising content. The judges awarded 145 Gold Awards, 102 Silver Awards, as well as 74 Bronze Awards.Lime Valley has won more SIAA Awards than any other agency in Minnesota.
With six Service Industry Advertising Awards for communication excellence this year, Lime Valley has garnered a total of 63 SIAA awards, more than any other agency in Minnesota, over the last thirteen years.
Lime Valley has received a total of 18 Gold, 13 Silver, 9 Bronze and 23 Merit awards in the annual SIAA awards competition. The 2016 awards represent a range of project categories from educational services to publications and websites. The willingness and commitment to quality marketing communications on behalf of these customers makes these awards possible.
A Growing Company! Lime Valley Acquires Web Development Firm VoyageurWeb
Lime Valley Has Grown!
As of January 3, 2017, the Lime Valley home office welcomed three new staff members as the acquisition of VoyaguerWeb, Mankato, MN became official. Details of the acquisition took several months to iron out, but in the end both parties came away from the deal very pleased and excited about the future. VoyageurWeb and Lime Valley have had a long history of cooperation and working together, teaming up on projects and on special efforts for area non-profits. In addition, both companies share a strong commitment to education. Through work on various college program boards to continuing internship programs and ultimately hiring students, this belief in education stands out. The familiarity and mutual admiration between the two companies allowed the acquisition process to move forward smoothly.
3 Tips to Help your Company Through Difficult Financial Times
Don’t Panic! Now is the Time to Advertise & Promote
When the economy flounders and business drops it is easy to go into panic mode and cut spending. Oftentimes the marketing budget is the first to be slashed because it is not seen as integral to the survival of the company. As Henry Ford observed, this makes very little sense. There are three things you can do that will help you through difficult financial times: stay in front of your customer, sharpen your strategy and utilize an advertising agency with the expertise to help you reach your customers without wasting precious resources.
It’s Show Time!: Lime Valley Develops Effective & Economical Tradeshow Solution for New Generation Supplements
A tradeshow booth or display needs to do two main things. First, it needs get the attention of show attendees. Second, it must communicate clearly what exactly a company does. But for New Generation Supplements, it needed to do something else; it needed to be economical and easy to set up.
Keeping it REAListic: Creating an Effective & Achievable Marketing Plan
For many companies whose fiscal year mirrors the calendar year, the fourth quarter is a mix of hurry up and finish this or, sell all of these and most of those before the end of the year. It is also the time of year for developing a marketing plan, setting the advertising budget and establishing priorities for the upcoming year. Well, maybe not. All too often marketing communications plans get left until the last minute or are executed on the fly. And for many, it’s not because they don’t need marketing communications materials or don’t want them, it’s because for many, developing a marketing budget is still one of those great unknowns. But it doesn’t have to be.
Branding Tips: How to Use Typography to Your Advantage
Every second of every day, language is used as a form of branding, expression and communication in personal and professional relationships - at home or in the office. It is well known, however, that the mere fundamentals of language and vocabulary alone cannot convey all of the intended meaning of a conversation. Other tools, such as body language, cadence and volume are used hand-in-hand with verbal communication to indicate feelings, significance and objective. These tools can be translated into written communication as well. Text on a page can be transformed into rich, visual language with accurate and knowledgeable use of typography.