A new fresh brand and website for Paveco

Paveco offer high quality concrete products to clients and pride themselves on customer focused professionalism. When engaging JFM Marketing + Design, Paveco explained that it was time for a refresh. They were looking to develop a new modern brand that looked fresh, streamlined, memorable and made a statement in the market. The new brand had to still have connections to the original brand, so as not to confuse existing customers and to respect their 14-year history.

Considering these requirements, our creative designer modernized the font selection and introduced a new primary colour; rose gold. This colour represents classic elegance, sophistication and high quality finishes. The new logo and branding presents a professional, polished and contemporary face to the market. The font of the logo was still in uppercase to link it to the previous logo, and the tagline “Concrete, it’s what we do” was added to clarify the offering to new clients. Their original orange was considered and the new rose gold colour was the new rich, evolved colour.

A suite of new materials was created to support the launch of the new brand identity. This included new vehicle signage, building signage, stationery and a new website.  These items all rolled out as one for a seamless process and hit the market at the same time. The website was designed to reflect their brand, quality products, values and their client-centric approach to doing business. A simple envelope is shown on every page which expands when clicked, making it easy for potential clients to get in touch. If you think it might be time for your business to be rebranded, contact us at JFM Marketing + Design.

What is marketing research?

Marketing research is the process of gathering information and insights about your market, so as to make informed decisions. It is always valuable to do a brainstorm before commencing market research, so you can decide what information is of value and that will inform future business decision making. You can research many things including your target market, current client behavior, current client needs, potential client needs and research into other products your competitors may be offering.

There are many difference methods you can use to collect this information. You can do secondary or desktop research, which involves summarising and synthesising existing research. This can be found on the internet or in dedicated analytical programs such as Google Analytics. The most important thing to remember is to pull out the information you need and collate it into a logical format, such as a summarising document, table or PowerPoint presentation.

 The other type of research you can do is primary research, which is when you go and collect the information yourself. You can do this by speaking to your clients directly, sending out feedback forms or creating surveys and customer focus groups. This can take more work but if done correctly can be of more value, as it’s specific to your needs. It is useful to plan out your questions and then to get another person to review them, to make sure they are clear. If you need any help gathering marketing insights for your business, contact JFM Marketing + Design.

One of the biggest trends right now…

Trend of the month: Colour Transitions
Colour transitions are one of the biggest trends right now.  Beginning in 2016 and growing quickly after, big names like Instagram decided to change their logos and images from a flat colour to a multi-colored transitions. From logos to buttons or picture overlays, this trend is everywhere.

Alliance Group

JFM Marketing + Design partnered with Alliance Group to create a suite of materials for the Canterbury Show in 2016 and designed the flier to promote, “How to cook the perfect steak”.

For the Canterbury Show a wide range of materials were required. This included materials to promote the event and materials for use at the event in the Alliance Group marquee. JFM Marketing + Design created badges, invitations for clients, fliers, stickers, materials for kids and interior marquee signage consisting of 10 wall panels, menus and table decorations. Another tool we created was a large branded mesh banner which clearly identified the high profile embankment site both from across the ring and the trade allies behind the embankment.

This large volume of work had a short turn around time requirement, so it was all hands on deck! Our talented and hard working team pulled together and produced very high quality materials that were delivered by the required deadline. The event was a success for Alliance Group and the materials supported that success.

The “How to cook the perfect steak” promotion was designed to promote steak sales by providing cooking instructions from Alliance Group’s Consulting Chef, Graham “Hawsky” Hawkes. This double sided flier was well received with its ten simple instructions.

McIntosh Painting website

Our latest website build and design, completed for McIntosh Painting, has recently launched. McIntosh Painting is a relatively new member of the McIntosh Group, along with McIntosh Builders, McIntosh Commercial Construction and McIntosh Precast Limited. McIntosh Painting Ltd directors, Alastair, John and Leticia McIntosh saw an opportunity to add painting to their construction industry services, as it allowed them to complete the wider service offering available.

We received the brief that the client wanted to build website presence and promotion to establish themselves in the Canterbury market. There were several great photographs of the team and recent work they had completed which we could showcase through large hero images, parallax images and a home page slider. These types of image styles provide more energy, interaction and a positive user experience.

JFM Marketing + Design created a responsive scrolling single page website for enhanced user experience showcasing the businesses various painting services. We designed the website with “responsive design functionality”, to make sure it presented well on tablets, phones and desktop computers.

At JFM Marketing + Design, we pride ourselves on delivering great materials to support the goals of any sized business. If you are looking for a website that will help you to promote your products and services, please call us to arrange a consultation.

The story behind an iconic brand colour…

Colour of the month: Tiffany’s Blue (1837 Blue)
How important is colour for a brand expressing their image?
With 80% of our human experience filtered through our eyes, visual cues are vital to successfully getting a message across. More than text or shape, the colour a brand chooses is its calling card. Colour is a signifier, one that commands our attention, and enables companies to establish a brand identity that can become larger than life. It’s crucial when making colour decisions for your brand or product to consider how your shade will broadcast the image of the company. As each colour has its own message and meaning, the more you learn about this critical design element, the more you will be able to leverage its powerful effects.

When was Tiffany Blue standardised by Pantone?
Pantone Colour Institute first began working with Tiffany in 2001 when they approached them to standardise their iconic shade in order to ensure that no matter where you were in the world, no matter the medium the colour was reproduced in, it would be instantly recognisable. The custom colour they created for Tiffany is called “1837 Blue”. It was given this name as the year 1837 marks the founding of Tiffany.

The importance of registering your trade mark

As a business owner, you work hard to build up your business and invest a lot of time and money to ensure it grows. It is important that you protect your place in the market by registering a trade mark. A trade mark can include words, logos, and even colours, shapes, smells, and sounds.

If you are just starting up a business, it is very important to ensure you think of a name that is simple and memorable. It is difficult to register names that are descriptive and non-distinctive, such as “Car Repair Services” or “Home Cleaning Services”.

As people do business with you, they will start to associate your services with the branding and factors described above. If you build a great reputation, you will start getting new clients from word of mouth recommendations from clients who may describe you by your name or logo, depending on what they remember.

Registering a trade mark prevents other competitors coming into the market and mimicking your branding. This prevents confusion and potential clients from accidentally going to another competitor when they think they are going to you. It also gives business owners the right to challenge competitors who infringe on a trade mark.

Quite simply, a trade mark protects all your hard work and investment into building your business. Even if you’ve been in business for some time, haven’t yet registered your trade mark and have a competitor come into the market that mimics your branding, you can still apply to register your trade mark.

ZoneIP can help you to get the legal protection a trade mark provides. ZoneIP can also provide you with advice if you believe that your trade mark has been infringed. If you need some advice or want to register a trade mark, give them a call, email one of their consultants or visit the website http://zoneip.co.nz/.

Facebook training sessions off to a flying start!

At JFM Marketing + Design, we are always looking for ways to deliver more value to clients. We have regularly had feedback that our clients would like to get training from us from time to time, so we created the “Maximising Your Facebook Business Page” workshop. A lot of hours and hard work went into building a workbook, which was over 40 pages long, and a set of educational slides.

We are aware that Facebook Business Pages are a way that community groups reach their audience but that there is often no budget for training allocated. Jo wanted to offer two free places to community groups and spoke to the local newspapers to encourage applications for the places.

JFM were pleasantly surprised by the response we received from community groups. We are proud to support our community become more confident and informed; therefore we increased the number of winning places. We’ve had an excellent response from our local business community with three sessions taking place over the next 9 days.

Two of the three sessions are sold out but there are two places remaining on the other workshop, scheduled for the 16th of May. For more information about the workshop content, visit this link on our website: https://www.jfm.co.nz/facebook-workshops/. We also have some one-on-one sessions booked in; contact us if you would like to arrange a private training session.

 

Five ways to maximise Facebook for your business

Social media has become part of daily life, especially Facebook. Even if you aren’t on social media, that doesn’t mean that people aren’t talking about or looking for your business online! Having a Facebook business page is a great idea for any business and here are some tips to maximise your account.

  1. Planning and preparation is key to building engagement

Social media is all about engagement and building rapport with your customers. Creating guidelines and a plan will help you to keep producing quality content for your Facebook account. Guidelines can outline your standards relating to spelling, grammar, content you will use, subjects you will/will not talk about, your tone and how you’ll respond to complaints. Writing social media guidelines can help keep you and other contributors on track to represent your brand consistently. An annual social media calendar should include important events and dates for your company, community and country, as well as post ideas for those occasions. The best social media accounts have a lot of planning involved, it is actually quite challenging to be spontaneous and planning removes the pressure.

  1. Show off your latest work and products in different ways

Facebook has the benefit of allowing video, images and content, allowing you to promote your products how ever you like which prevents the content getting stale. For example you can write a blog post, create a competition, showcase a testimonial, show a video, write an FAQ about a product, talk about something topical within your community or upload a brochure and hopefully get your customers interacting with your posts. Always remember that Facebook is about having an ongoing conversation with your clients rather than the hard sell; keep talking to them and stay in their mind. Have fun with the different options available to you.

  1. Use targeted area advertising to get more customers

If you are happy to pay for Facebook advertising, there are some great benefits including targeted marketing. Facebook takes note of user locations, what pages they like and where they check into. This record of locations and interests is useful when advertising, as you can create an advert and specify criteria for people who should see the advert. This is especially powerful if you have a local business. For example, if you have a bobcat business that only provides services in Mid Canterbury; it doesn’t make much sense to pay to advertise to someone in London. You can also target people manually based on age, interests and behaviours. This means you only spend money advertising to relevant potential clients.

  1. Create generic replies for frequently asked questions

Facebook is making it easier for business pages with regular updates and improvements. One such improvement is the ability to set up automatic acknowledgement responses to messages, helping business owners to quickly respond even if they are busy at the time. People using social media expect a quick response and this helps you to meet their expectations. To set this up, go to your business page, click on settings, select messaging, under response assistant click “Yes” next to “send instant replies to anyone who messages your Page”. To change your instant reply message, click Change, update the message and click save. To turn the message off, simply change the “Yes” back to “No”.

  1. Always separate your personal and professional life

Always remember that social media used for business purposes should be kept professional and polite at all times. You should make sure any personal Facebook accounts are kept private, so you can relax about any photos or posts on your personal page. Facebook has made it easier to access your privacy shortcuts. Look in the top right hand corner of the screen, click on the padlock button, expand the options and make sure “Friends” is ticked for the option “Who can see my stuff” rather than “Public”. There are other security options you can take, accessible in the expanding menus.

Remember, social media is about building engagement and strong relationships, which results in sales over time. Give these Facebook business page options a go and tell us how you went. If you need any help putting any of your social media goals into practice or would like to learn more about social media, give us a call at JFM Marketing and Design.

Looking for an app that only shows content you are interested in?  Try out Flipboard!

Flipboard is an app that helps you to access content specific to your reading tastes.  If you get bored with the news stories that are served up on social media sites or you have very specific interests, Flipboard is for you.

Think of Flipboard as a content curation service that pulls together all the popular stories, images, news and conversations around things that interest you personally.  Once you install it, you can sign up using email or social media and then you select your interests by using the search functionality. 

The app will ask you to be more specific if needed and you can search for additional subjects.  Flipboard has been around for a while but has recently implemented an update, in a world saturated with irrelevant information we recommend trying out this app! 

You can also link your social media feeds into the account by clicking the four boxes in the top corner of the app, then scrolling down to “social networks”, and then signing into your account.  As with all apps, be sure to check out  the privacy settings first before allowing access.

You can read Wired’s article about the recent update here.