#Print4Blogher Session 5 ~ Design

This past week we talked about Design in our #print4blogher session with Debba from Girlfriendology.com and The Ups Store! We talked about designing handout materials for Blogher and things to consider when creating them. With easily over 3000 people being present, it’s important to be able to show your “brand” on something you can leave with others.

Review Goals/Connections – First you have to start with who do you want/plan to meet with?
Considering who you have established you want to meet at Blogher, how could you cater your marketing materials to them? What do you want to hand out? Do you want to create 1 business card for brands and 1 for bloggers? Do you want to create a media kit catered to everyone you want to work with or do you want to do individual ones for the people you would like to work with?

What makes you a win-win partner?

We know that we are there to promote our blog/brand/business, but what’s in it for the people you want to work with ? Remember that everyone there has goals for BlogHer too – what might they be? How can you help them reach their goals – that would also help you reach yours? It’s about a mutually beneficial arrangement and it’s about the beginning of a great
partnership for both of you!

When starting to create your marketing materials, start at branding. Your materials whatever they may be need to be a representation of what your brand is. Whatever you create, you need a tagline. It’s is a great way to explain who you are and it allows you to position your brand. It’s best if it’s short and to the point – but shows some personality. Your tagline is what is going to tell others exactly what your brand is, and why they should check out your blog. Can’t come up with a simple phrase to describe you? Look at other similar sites and business cards (no, don’t ‘steal’ their taglines but they may lend some inspiration).

Materials – what will best promote you and your goals?

Business Cards – Basically, you just gotta have business cards! Design them to include your contact information, business/blog name (logo), tag line and social media names/URLs such as Twitter, FB, Klout, Google + but Make sure it’s not too crowded with
info and if you have a longer url that goes to a specific page on your site such as your PR/Media page, use Bit.ly or a URL shortening service to avoid L-O-N-G, they’re-never-
going-to-visit-them-because-its-too-much-to-type URLs.

Consider doing an About.me URL that links everything you are involved in at one site.

One thing I am doing is creating a QR code that is going to link to my About.me page. This way they can scan my code and they can click on each of my links right there to follow my Twitter, FB, feed, Klout etc. I’m all about combing ease with technology! If you need to make a QR code, it’s extremely easy just do a google search for create QR code. You can see my About.me page here: http://about.me/supersara

Another thing that people do put on their business cards is printing your address on them. One of the concerns is obviously safety, if you do put an address on there consider doing a PO Box. The UPS Store actually offers P.O. boxes that are actually listed as a street address. If you do put your address on them, consider making a separate business card for brands and one for networking with bloggers. Bloggers had expressed negative thoughts when other bloggers put addresses on their cards because it may show that you are looking for *free stuff*.


Get creative with your business cards (within the look/feel of your brand) – you want to stand out and be remembered, right?! Debba talks about another business she had, the tagline was “Creative Ideas to Grow your Business.” She had a small paper punch from a craft store that was a leaf and had punched a leaf/hole in each printed business card. This is interesting because I actually had tried to find a "money" symbol stamp and do this before with my business cards!

A few other things to consider to help your business cards stand out:

* Print in a portrait (vertical) format instead of a horizontal format.
* Consider front and back printing. Some people like to just put their logo on the front and their info on the back. Some like to leave the back empty so people may write info on them.
* Put your photo on the card if you’d like people to identify you easily and it helps those you connect with remember who you are when they look at your business card later. If you don’t want to include a photo of yourself, what about a creative photo that represents your blog?
* Attach something to your business card that is creative and identifies your brand in a creative way. I am attaching money related candies to my business cards.
* Do you have a sponsor? Figure out how you can creative incorporate them on your business card. Last year I saw a blogger that had put a question on her business card and instructed people to tweet the answer to her including the brand’s twitter name to enter a giveaway. It was a great way to bring brand awareness to her sponsor and it was fun for people to enter.


Media Kit – For those potential partners who need more information on you, there’s the faithful MediaKit (or ‘Press Kit’). It can hold a wealth of info on you and your blog. You have to decide what is right for your audience (this goes back to considering who you want to work with) and what information you should provide to determine if a partnership with you would be beneficial.

What you should include:

* Your name, blog name, blog address, tag line and your elevator pitch. This is the short paragraph that sums up what your “brand is.
* Contact info, how can people contact you (email, phone etc). Consider putting your address in your media kit instead of business cards.
* Social Media Links: Twitter, Facebook, Google + etc.
* Whom you’ve worked with (client logos are always a colorful and possibly impressive way of expressing this)
* Page Rank, Klout score, Technorati and/or Alexa ranking and traffic including your reader demographic, unique visitors and page views, number of feed subscribers, search engine rankings such as, Google etc. You don’t have to include ALL of these stats – that might be too much. Just cover the main ones that show your audience – and that you feel comfortable sharing.



More items to include in your Media Kit:
Press Releases – If you have any ‘official’ announcements (like you celebrated your blog’s fifth birthday or you partners with a non-profit to raise funds), it’s great to do press releases and send them to the media. If you have some/any, feel free to include them in your media kit. They look very ‘official’ and impressive.

Goals/Rate sheet: What are your goals for the next year, tell them how they can work with you – Include advertising rates, sizes and guidelines. Include if you do giveaways or promotions, or you’re interested in writing for their blog/website, offer your services. (You may or may not want
to provide the costs for doing so – depending on how you want to position yourself)

Samples, etc. – Print out what your blog looks like or share your most popular post(s). Have some great LinkedIn recommendations, comments from companies you’ve worked with previously or some tweets with kind comments others have shared? Include these. Include everything that you think will be helpful for them to identify you as a credible, professional, wonderful potential blogger-partner. Sell yourself in your Media kit!

Folder – Like with your business card, you want to be professional and promote your brand. Right? Well, a stack of papers in a paperclip isn’t the professional image that you’d display with a nice folder. (I recommend this over small binders – no one wants to carry that much weight/info home with them.) The UPS Store can help you with these. They can help you create a full-color folder for your media kit.

Design – Typically it is best to stick with a clean, easily-readable font and to limit your design to only two fonts. Go for whatever is easy to read and clean – just stick with that font on all of your materials. It is also probably a good idea if you have a certain font you like to use on your blog, be consistent with your marketing materials by having the same font.

Graphics – Consider placing a photo of you (if you’d like), a screen-shot of your homepage – graphics give it color and interest. Show a chart of how your blog traffic has grown. Feature quotes or tweets that compliment your blog or how you work with companies. Make it appealing and representative of your brand.

What I have done for my media kit is my front page is everything about me including my info and stats. I also include my goals for the next year on my blog along with stating the ideal brands I would like to work with, the second page is everyone I have worked with including their brand images and a 1 sentence line about the campaign you participated in. Starting with the larger brands/campaigns on top down to the smaller campaigns.

Note: while this is called a ‘Media Kit,’ it’s not just for the media. It is a comprehensive overview of your information which is helpful for media, agencies and companies to know all about you and your blog.

Again, get creative! You you could do a flyer size that is two sided and folded twice – or cut twice for a third of a sheet. You could make it into a mini media kit by keeping all the copy on one half of a sheet and making it into a little book. Have your media kit collated and bound. Have fun with it! That will make it even more memorable for the lucky recipients.

Next week we are talking all about printing! The ambassadors will be going into the UPS Store next week to have items printed so this week I went to TheUpsStore.com and checked out everything they have to offer as far as printing goes.
They offer:

* High quality color and black and white digital printing and copying
* Marketing materials
* Brochures, business cards, flyers and more
* Large Format printing and banners, this is something to consider if you have a sponsor.


I also found out you can easily upload your documents to your UPS store right from your computer. You can find out more about what the UPS Store can do for you at http://www.theupsstore.com/print/index.html

This opportunity is being compensated by #CollectiveBias as part of the #Print4Blogher campaign. All opinions shared on the calls and weekly write ups are my own.


*Also, check out other awesome @TheUPSStore #Print4BlogHer Campaign
Ambassadors:

Amy Lowe – Dealusional – http://www.dealusional.com

Shelby Barone – Glitterful Felt Stories – http://www.feltstories.com

Melissa Lockcuff – MamaBzz – http://www.mamabzz.com

Wendy Limauge – Sweeties Sweeps - http://sweetiessweeps.com