How to Optimize Your Web Copy to Drive Conversions

“Print is dead.” “Don’t quit your day job.” “Yeah, because the money’s in writing.” As a writer, you hear it all your life: You’re doomed. High school counselors, your uncle’s friend in the red sweater-vest at the Christmas party a few years back, even your doctor — everybody around you feels the need to let you know that anyone who writes for a living will end up penniless, curled up in a gutter.

The thing is, they’re not wrong (even if they are exaggerating). Writing is not so much a field as a precarious skill that you enter the job market with at your own peril. At the same time, people need to communicate, and that’s when you hire a writer. Blogs, websites, landing pages, retargeting ads, and other tactics in your digital marketing strategy — we copywriters probably handled the language for all that. But if we didn’t, and you’re wondering how to optimize web copy to drive conversions, here are some tips the writers at Jacob Tyler have written for you.

Stay on Point

The term “writer” got batted around a lot in the paragraphs above, so let’s define terms: Slinging digital marketing copy is often way different than crafting an essay or plotting a novel. Print tends to afford writers more space than digital layouts, which are usually functional or parceled out between web pages. Remember, readers on your site might be clicking between 15 tabs at the same time, and they’re likely to only scan 20% of your page’s content, anyway. 

So keep your sentences pithy. Guide your audience to the most relevant info with headers and bold type and bullet points, since people may only be on your site to get an answer (“Should I hire this company for my kitchen remodel? When does this place even open?”). And be consistent. You don’t want to strike a lofty third-person tone on the landing page only to switch to the earnest first-person in the “About Us” section. Maintain the same voice throughout your web copy so users don’t feel like they’ve somehow jumped between those 15 tabs unbeknownst to them.

But What’s the Point?

Let’s return to one of the phrases above: “People may only be on your site to get an answer.” That idea is more pertinent than it may appear. Novels, essays, scripts all give authors the breadth to move characters through countries and centuries, picking up on themes later on that they foreshadowed at the outset — and letting the reader (or viewer) sink into an argument or a narrative. Not so with digital copywriting, which needs to be punchy because it drives toward a CTA. Copywriters, with each page you compose, ask yourself: “What is this accomplishing?”

Are you nudging users to book a resort, enroll in theology school, become a member of a credit union? Craft your content so that it’s smart and fresh, yes, but don’t leave your reader floundering in a sea of pretty descriptions. Effective UX copywriting compels prospective clients to journey further down the funnel, so you should A) have a CTA, and B) make your CTA compelling — and then run A/B testing to make sure it really is driving people to book a resort or enroll in theology school or become a member of a credit union. (Which it is, if you’re wondering. Those are our accounts, and our director of business development would love to tell you all about them.)

Mean What You Say

Even though web copy may be the newest medium in the history of writing, the old verities of how to compose a good sentence still apply to the art of digital marketing: Go heavy on verbs and nouns, light on adjectives and adverbs. Know your grammar, and if you break it, be able to defend it. Read what you’ve written out loud and let your ear guide the phrasing. Be specific — but don’t get prosy with detail. And assume the reader is smarter than you are.

Since web copy does generally hinge on a CTA, copywriters can sometimes trick themselves into taking the attitude that they’re tricking consumers down the funnel. But people know when they’re being talked down to; they sense it if you don’t believe in what you’re saying or selling. So find a way to enter into the copy emotionally. If your client is a nature preserve, conjure up memories of fog raveling fir trees. If your client is a bank, think back to that feeling of security that a customer service rep at your mortgage company gave you when you called about maybe, hopefully waiving late fees. Adopt whatever mindset you need to write with passion, because if you don’t care about the subject at hand, why should your audience? 

Know Your Audience

On that note: Never forget who your target audience is. Imagine you’re a business that makes high-end baby products. Your target audience might be Andy, a thirty-ish accountant who’s about to have his first child. Inhabit Andy’s perspective. This guy is overjoyed, scared, nervous, and impatient all at once for this baby to arrive. He can’t wait — so he’s buying as many baby products as he can to feel like he’s prepared, but baby strollers confuse him (Do they fold up? Can you fit them in a car? Do you really need the accessories they come with?), and he’s willing to pay more for the right one because he doesn’t want to let his wife down.

Talk to Andy. Soothe his worries. Strip out your buzzwords and address him as “you,” as if writer and reader are just having a beer and talking about how baby strollers work. Try out a headline like “Baby Strollers Made Simple.” Then get into some body copy that addresses Andy’s concerns dead-on: “We know what you’re thinking — which baby stroller should I pick? We’ve got some answers.” 

Hear that sigh of relief? That’s the sweet sound of a conversion.

Mix It Up

The best web copy is minimal web copy. We’ve said it before: Be succinct. But also be willing to yield space to developers and designers who optimize conversions with their own skill-sets. A page of copy stamped onto whitespace will look HTML-y to users — like they landed on a blog from the dial-up days, or like you put zero seduction into guiding them through your digital marketing strategy. Nest the copy in a color palette that makes your sentences pop. Break it into modules alongside photos that illustrate what you’re describing. Nail that brand headline for a CBB client, but be cool with a programmer animating it so that it emerges out of a cloud of smoke. Think past the copywriting to visualize how your words — thrilling as they are — complement the talents of the other artists working alongside you. And remember to proofread your site with the rigor of a technician. No matter how svelte that CBD brand line is, it’ll look dazed and confused if even one word is misspelled.

Web copy, a memoir, a brochure for a museum — you can make any piece of copy excellent if you trust in it as an art form that moves people. What does that have to do with conversions? Well, it’s not by accident that Google penalizes websites that stuff the text with keywords. Think about that: Even search engines recognize that writing that talks to an audience like humans is more valuable than jargon that assumes consumers are psychographic profiles. Use keywords and meta descriptions, absolutely, but remember this above all else: Write with soul and sincerity, and people will listen to you.

Five Tips on How to Launch Your eCommerce Brand

One of the most impactful lessons we learned from 2020 was that so many of our everyday activities can now be done online, from shopping to going to college to sitting in on meetings, more easily than a lot of us even realized (and in pajama bottoms, no less).

Take online shopping (or ecommerce — the electronic buying and selling of goods): In 2019, online shoppers spent $598 billion with US merchants. The following year, with all of us stuck at home, that number zoomed up to $861 billion. Analysts estimate that the number of digital buyers worldwide will reach 2.1 billion by 2021, up from 1.66 billion in 2016.

As you can probably imagine, corporate behemoths dominate this space. (According to some estimates, Amazon accounts for 44% of all ecommerce sales.) To survive in today’s market, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs need to siphon off some of the proceeds their larger competitors are raking in, shaping their digital marketing strategy to offer online shopping and mobile payment options to customers. So if you’re not already in this game, here are five tips on how to launch your own ecommerce brand.

Figure Out Who You’re Selling To

“Who is my target audience online?” That’s the first question you need to ask in creating an ecommerce presence. Theoretically, your product options are endless. You could be trafficking in candles, rain barrels, hazmat suits, second-hand Aston Martins, bulk lumber — and you might have a supply of these items already stored away in your family warehouse. But your business nonetheless starts with figuring out who wants all that stuff. So identify your user personas and hone in on what they’re looking for within your service or product category.

Once you’ve sketched out the demographics of your audience and the demand for what you’re selling, decide on a revenue model that you can control. Do you have local or global reach? Are you selling a service or a product? Are you piggybacking off other platforms’ services and products? Answering these questions should nudge you into running a hard-nosed calculus of how much all this will cost. Project your revenue against your expenses so that you can clarify your profit margins and anticipate your breakeven point with some accuracy. Because the last thing you want when starting a business is to be served with a tab of pricey surprises.

Write a Business Plan

You’ve figured out who you’re selling to. You may have even sourced a supplier. Now you need to engage in competitive analysis. A word to the wise: You do want some competition. A market space with no competition can indicate there’s no market. At the same time, be wary of jamming your way into a crowded sector, or buying a slew of products in an attempt to topple the Amazons of the world. Especially if you’re starting out, you probably don’t want to position yourself as everything to everybody.

Instead, focus on a niche that you’re passionate about and that performs well on social media. Let’s say you want to sell plants online. Research other plant nurseries. Look at their prices. Audit their websites. Take note of their shipping timelines. Get a sense of how their marketing strategy works. All of those insights will help you address one of the capstone questions every business must answer: What do you offer that separates you from your competitors?

Exert pressure on your answer until you make it as granular as possible. Then write up a business plan that consolidates your ideas and clarifies how you’ll reach new customers. And while you’re at it, make allies among your competition. Working with other business owners in your space to cross-promote products, or becoming an affiliate of a larger company, can help bring in much-needed dollars as you grow.

Choose a Name

Next, choose a name for your business, one that’s preferably pithy, leaps melodiously off the tongue, and that no one has already claimed as a domain name. A year ago, there were (oh, give or take) 366.8 million domain names registered online, so be sure your business name transfers to a domain name that no one else has called dibs on. If you’re “Plants-a-Million,” you do not want to settle for a URL of Plantz-a-Million, because a disconnect of even a single character may send your prospective customers spiraling into tizzies of frustration.

With that said, if Plants-a-Million.com is taken, you can always use plenty of other extensions — .net, .biz, .me, .co — because people rarely type in full web addresses anymore. They click on an ad or a link, or they dive through a warren of Google’s rabbit-holes, and somehow emerge having ordered half a million bromeliads off your ecommerce site.

Brand Your Brand

After you claim a domain name, hire a brand agency to build a website for you, create a logo and a consistent design, and develop a digital marketing strategy that will drive traffic to your site. Don’t settle for anything less than blogs integrated with keyphrases, metadata built into the backend of the CMS, omnichannel research that identifies where your customers shop and marketing funnels that lure them away from the competition and into your online store. (And give us a shout if you want it done right.)

Prepare for Launch

By this juncture, you’re prepared for perhaps the most vital step of all: Opening up your online store. Especially for entrepreneurs launching their first ecommerce brand, we recommend selling through bona fide ecommerce platforms like Woocommerce, Magento, or Shopify — one-stop-shop interfaces that come with software such as a storefront, a payment processor, a shipping partner, a back office, and a marketing HQ. Those platforms are just three of hundreds of options out there, so research the distinguishing features of a number of them to make sure the platform you’re signing up for is compatible with your business needs.

Throwing open the doors to your online storefront can be exciting — and it’s most likely going to continue to become the preferred bazaar of the future. Budget at least 18–24 months to launch an ecommerce brand and get it into the black, because the adage about spending money to make money applies here. If you come up with a plan and execute it with patience, though, you’re well on your way to branding your baby and converting browsers into buyers.

Let the ecommerce commence.

Multi-Channel Advertising and the Consumer Funnel

Enter the Funnel

The world population currently stands at 7.8 billion people — and nearly 630,000 publicly traded companies are vying for their attention every day. So how can your business create messages that cut through the din and turn potential leads into loyal customers? You lure them into the consumer funnel.

Ask a group of advertisers, and they’ll each sketch a different version of the funnel, since it isn’t a sanctioned diagram so much as a representation of the sales cycle that can change according to the marketing strategy applied to any given account. But the classic B2C funnel resembles an inverted pyramid that proceeds top-to-bottom in this order: “Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action.” To really understand the funnel, let’s take a test-run of it ourselves, tumbling from its broadest echelon down to its narrowest point, and touching on the best tactics associated with each stage as we go.

Awareness

When people embark on what’s known as the “customer journey,” they’re often just searching for information about a business or a product. For that reason, the topmost level of the funnel is usually referred to as the “awareness stage.” Consider this the cast-the-net-wide step, in which marketers will advise you to dedicate time to consumer research so you know who your audience is, where to find them, how to appeal to them, and which top-of-the-funnel tactics — such as blogs, webinars, infographics, SEO content, or social media posts, to name a few — you want to push out for the sake of lead generation (that is, stoking interest in people, or gauging how interested they are in continuing on this customer journey with you).

Let’s say your target audience is people who want to sink some money into their house. When they’re at the top of the funnel, they’re probably just Googling, “How much does a home reno cost?” rather than scoping out pictures of herringbone backsplash tile on Pinterest. The ad that a savvy digital marketer should serve them at this juncture needs to communicate that, hi, we’re a construction company, and we can give you an honest quote whenever you need it. ‘How convenient,’ your future clients think, as they click further down the funnel … 

Interest

So now you’ve waved your arms around enough that people are taking notice of you. Leads have been generated. Attention has been captured. Next you’ll need to teach the consumers who you lured in your direction about your company or the services you offer. The “interest” phase is where all the leads that you’ve attracted suss out into only the most “qualified leads,” which you should view as prospective customers. That net you cast in the last step has turned into a lasso, and you’re switching from social posts and webinars to blogs and email campaigns tailored to your qualified leads’ interests.

Desire

Even further down the slide we go into the “desire” phase. Before now, you and your qualified leads have been orbiting each other. But the time for coyness has passed and the terms are clear: You want them, they’re considering buying from you, but they’re still reading reviews and comparing products. Nudge them onward with case studies and customer testimonials, and if you’re an online retailer, build in functionality that lets them drop what they want in a virtual shopping cart — anything that’ll push the customer out of their will-I-won’t-I hesitations and into making a purchase.

Action

If all goes well, we will arrive at the terminus of this customer journey once someone makes a purchase, be it a crib from West Elm or the agreement to hire you to do a home renovation. The immediate goal is a sale, true, but the larger objective of a digital marketing strategy is to fatten up that inverted pyramid so that it better resembles a cylinder or an hourglass: Again, the top echelon is the widest, and it tapers to the “action” (sometimes called the “conversion”) phase. Ideally, however, it enlarges once more after that, swelling into a base of retained customers who buy from you again and again, and who advocate for your brand with glowing reviews left on your site. The tactics at this stage? Try referral programs or re-engagement email campaigns to personalize the relationship and encourage repeat purchases.

The (Omni)Channels

The funnel can be flipped upside-down, turned into a figure-eight, swapped around depending on whether it depicts a B2B or B2C play, and so on. Yet despite all the rungs you can layer into it, the premise remains pretty intuitive: Snag your audience’s attention, whet their curiosity, and convert them into a loyal purveyor of your shop. What distinguishes an old-school marketing strategy from a digital marketing strategy, however, is that today the funnel is piped through with a web of channels — so many that the current lingo for our field is “omnichannel” or “multi-channel” advertising.

Those channels might be TV, radio, computers, cell phones, or some combination of all of the above. People are paying attention to different channels at different times throughout the day, so catching their attention becomes more complex if they’re on multiple devices at once. Which means digital marketers need to place their ads on an array of channels to grab consumers’ attention in a way that still encourages the use of multiple devices.

Here’s an example: Imagine that you’re a “Real Housewives of New York City” fanatic. (Or, at least, someone you live with has it on literally all the time.) TV producers realize that when you’re watching that show, you’re probably also scrolling on your phone or your tablet, so they float out overlays of hashtags (#rhony, anyone?) during an episode to get you to post about it. Then, at the end of a season, when Andy Cohen hosts a “reunion” among the housewives, he reads out a lot of those posts. Sure, he’s stoking tempers and digging into old wounds (and making bingeable TV in the process). But he’s also reinforcing the feedback loop between social and TV channels — asking reality stars how they react to criticism from their audience about their outrageous behavior, even though their audience tuned in just to see that outrageous behavior in the first place. 

And that is merely one dimension of Bravo’s media plan: Encourage viewers to comment on the show, poke more antics out of the housewives with those comments, and keep driving the meta-cycle that blurs the line between audience and actor.

Building Customer Value

All the channels connect. Run a hashtag campaign on Bravo, and someone might post about it on Twitter. Advertise on YouTube, and someone might search for your product on Google. Once you transpose the channels — which are like on-ramps weaving through the funnel — the picture of an inverted pyramid piped with a cluster of extensions can appear dizzyingly 3D. Tempting as it is to assume that this framework will always entice your customers, this is not necessarily a if-you-build-it-they-will-come situation. Customers click around faster than any marketing team can concoct a media plan, which means your analytics need to track them and your strategy needs to adapt to their interests, not the other way around. 

So link up all your channels, but before you hose your audience with content, pinpoint the essential service that you’re giving them: An online selection of tropical plants? A newsletter of haiku and short stories? A minute-by-minute update of stocks that they should invest in? Never forget, their loyalty depends on the value you provide them, which means you need to identify your user personas and hone in on the overlap between what you’re selling and what they’re looking for. Whenever possible, make the consumer journey enjoyable rather than results-obsessed, and you may find that customers are more likely to re-enter the funnel at their next opportunity.

Advertising Trends for 2021

We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief: 2020 is over. About the best thing that can be said for 2020 is that she found her paramour, Satan. That spot, from Match.com, resonated with people because it did seem like a nightmare year and the Dark Lord was taking selfies in front of dumpster-fires while the rest of us huddled in our apartments. The upheavals of 2020 changed digital advertising — and not just in the sense that creative agencies worldwide were all working on the same cliche-of-the-century campaign: “in these uncertain times.”

No, 2020 pushed marketers to find new audiences in virtual channels. Companies reckoned with their intensifying proximity to politics. Consumer habits lurched within an economy that kept start-stopping in response to COVID safety measures. And through the smoldering haze of Lucifer and Lady Apocalypse’s love persisted innovations in digital marketing years in the making, contributing to the forecast that Jacob Tyler is calling here and now for the trends in advertising that lie ahead in 2021.

Thinking Virtual

Advertisers find audiences in their preferred channels, and our preferred channels are now more virtual than ever, since 2020 was the year that reality became virtual reality. Consumers will continue to quarantine through 2021, so they’ll want to go to virtual trade shows and virtual annual events, join online communities and download live streaming services. Yes, we’re all pushing through Zoom fatigue and hoping unmasked human interaction resumes on the sunny side of this century. But already it seems as if the days of the webinar — where the authorities on a subject present to their viewers — are numbered. 

In its stead, we’ll see remote events and digital gatherings where hundreds or even thousands of people (or their beaming avatars) meet, network, and Q&A with the experts. The communications ecosystem has been reshaped, and we are interacting from around a globe that seems to have shrunk and also gotten much larger all at once.

Taking a Stand

As you may have noticed, the political climate of the US is (to put it mildly) charged. Similar dynamics are roiling other countries, as well, and since many brands are global, businesses have discovered that their response to polemics worldwide impacts their bottom line. Oatly, HSBC, L’Oreal, Soul Cycle, Jo Malone — these are all brands that, in 2020, consumers #cancelled. That doesn’t mean they’re out of business, but it does mean their business is effectively off-limits to many once-prospective clients because of a bevy of different factors. (According to one study, for instance, 29% of consumers are willing to switch brands if those brands don’t show enough diversity.)

Debate the merits of the cancel all you wish, but the underlying reasons for it trace back to issues once thought more or less outside the bailiwick of advertising: political association, accusations of racism, ties to unsavory businesses. Perhaps never before has PR been such a tightrope act, so it’s no wonder some brands are steering away from controversy altogether. Other brands, however, are embracing the polarization with their own “blanding backlash.” Staking a position amid all the lightning-rod issues, they’re paddling against what sometimes feels like a societal drift toward homogeneity and sameness.

What will prove to be the best crisis comms playbook for the near future? Only 2021 will tell.

Optimizing for People

Even before COVID, isolation was a hallmark feature of 21st century life — partly a result of the sensation a lot of us have that we’re beetling through mazes of automated inauthenticity. As a consequence, what many consumers crave when they interact with a brand is to feel like a human is somewhere on the other side of the digital marketing strategy.

Beyond just embracing the trend toward creating content that sounds relatable, brands will also seek out conversations with followers in 2021, responding to comments on their social channels and adopting a many-to-many model of communication (rather than assuming We the Business are addressing you the consumer). Remember: Isolation. People want to feel courted and listened to. And to that end, we’ll see brands infuse their content with a spirit of cultural inclusivity. The hitch? Because of how siloed consumer segments are today, brands may have to pick which culture(s) they speak to. But that’s a challenge they’ll likely learn to be even savvier about as this year unfolds.

Personalizing the Data Economy

With all that said about people just being people, today’s iteration of the Bernbach-Ogilvy schism in advertising has become a battle waged between those who think you should talk to your audience like humans, and those who think you should talk to your audience like humans … through data insights and algorithm-based feeds. 

Here’s the case for the machine learning camp: Sure, personalized content is neighborly and all, but responding to every single comment on a brand’s social media is exhausting, and well nigh impossible. Isn’t it better to at least reach people with email campaigns rather than (metaphorical) notes handwritten on stationery? 

Think of an ad for a grill served to your phone right after you’ve texted your partner, “Let’s get a grill this summer.” That may feel invasive to some, but it’ll come across as time-saving to others. And the smarter the AI, the more interactive the content, engaging customers with polls and contests and giveaways. Don’t think of data marketing as a self-checkout kiosk — rather, it’s a series of tools that tailor campaigns to customers based on their preferences. 

Or so the argument goes.

Going Green

“Sustainability” transcends simple trendiness because its entire premise is future-oriented, and we’re living through the effects of climate change every day. We did mention firebrand issues, didn’t we? Well, environmentalism is one of the fieriest, with swaths of California and Australia erupting into flames, back-to-back US administrations hopping in and out of the Paris Agreement, and businesses shifting their operations and messaging to address the threats of global warming. With studies showing that 81% of consumers believe companies should do their part in helping the environment, eco-friendly brands will seem even friendlier this year, especially as we navigate the perils of a world where we’ve all but trapped ourselves inside our own carbon emissions.

Forecasting trends in digital advertising is an uncertain science, at best, but it’s also not the same as placing bets or guessing at predictions. Rather, it’s an effort to analyze markets, listen to what customers are saying, and shape tools for businesses that need to anticipate how consumer behavior will pattern itself in coming years. No one can peer into the future — much less know when Satan will find his soulmate — but with some attention to the forces reinventing our culture, you can act on (rather than react to) the changes within your industry.

How Branding Can Build Better Customer Value

How Branding Can Build Better Customer Value

Businesses, for your own survival, remember this: Customers today have more choices than ever before. Drop into any grocery store and you’ll have to decide between, at minimum, 12 different brands — not bags, but brands — of rice. So to distinguish yourself from all the other metaphorical bags of rice on the shelf, your branding needs to demonstrate a record of reliability. In a word, you have to show that your business builds customer value.

CV=(B-C)

See that equation up there? That’s a rough-and-ready definition of customer value: The benefit of a product minus the cost. You’ve just bought a bag of scrumptious basmati rice for $4. Are you satisfied with it? You are? Then bask in the glow of high customer value. That purchase is one tesserae of the mosaic known as “brand equity,” or the social value of a brand. Calculating brand equity can get tricky, because it’s not based entirely on market capitalization, but also on intangibles like dependability. Once people trust you, they may be willing to pay more for your product if they enjoy the perks of your branding. Some marketers argue that branding benefits customers in at least three ways: making their lives easier, moving or inspiring them, or reinforcing their beliefs and bottom lines. Let’s go over each one.

 

Ease and Convenience

No matter how glitzy your brand design gets, many successful companies still follow the same customer service principles as Mom and Pop: They solve problems. Need a credit card? Call Visa. Want a bassinet delivered? Log onto Amazon. Gotta write a content article about how branding builds customer value? Open your Macbook Air. 

Visa and Amazon and Apple have thrived in part because they provide “convenient customer service,” which is mostly a euphemism for easing people’s apprehensions or fears. Take a more visceral example: A tree branch falls on your roof and a home repair business removes it and patches up the damage before a hailstorm sets in. All that anxiety welling up inside you about replacing rotted wood and soaked furniture goes away, courtesy of this company. Afterwards, you’ll probably call them again — or even buy hammers and wood chippers from them, if they’re selling. Why, you ask? Because you trust their brand.

 

Inspiration and Identity

Brands don’t just fix problems for us. They also welcome us into the club. Remember the last time you went into the Mac store? You felt like you were entering a spaceship. Your floor was the Cloud. Everything looked like a vision from twenty years in the future. The glowing white layout enticed you — and your pocketbook. At a Mac store, you’re paying for a 27″ monitor with a desktop shot of Catalina Island, yes, but you’re also meshing your identity with the aura of simplicity and sophistication that you’re nimbused in. What’s the customer value of being enticed? Brand agencies will debate this point endlessly, but one could argue that, in Apple’s case, it currently amounts to $241 billion, making Apple a giant among other global tech giants today, with a near-perfect brand value rating of AAA.

 

Beliefs and Bottom Lines

Consumers have rewarded Apple with billions of their hard- (or otherwise-) earned dollars, in part because Apple enriches them right back. Your Macbook Air will cost you at least $1,000, but the ease with which it lets you work from anywhere or plug into LinkedIn communities will lead you to opportunities that recoup that initial fee in no time. Brands also typically find that they make more when they spend on side-projects that make their business look good. Take this page from Apple’s site: “How Apple Volunteers are Helping Transform Lives.” The more world-weary among us might point out that do-gooder companies give off a whiff of paradox, but this article does a convincing job highlighting how Apple employees help out at food banks or teach coding to high school students. The more Apple gives back, the better people feel about buying from them, especially when their outreach programs reinforce values that those consumers already hold.

A well-thought-out brand isn’t just a shinier logo on a bag of rice. Rather, it’s the culmination of all the research you’ve done on your customers — the surveys they filled out, the comments they left on Yelp!, the Google Analytics you pored over. Listen to what they’re saying. Track their spending patterns and adjust your pricing (if advisable). Segment off the clients you want to attract, then position your brand so that it speaks to them. A company without branding in today’s market has pretty much told their customers that they aren’t interested in providing value for them, which can get costly. After all, your very survival may depend on it.

How Branding Affects Consumer Behavior

Some people believe we’re living in the golden age of branding. But what does that mean? Before “branding” became an industry term, it referred to the process of scorching livestock with a heated poker to identify which animals belonged to which owners. Hence the metaphor: Branding helps companies make their mark in a field already cluttered with competition. Yes, branding is copy and design, but at its core is an emotional appeal — and the more authentic that appeal, the more effective the marketing. So how do companies lay claim to consumers’ attention through their branding? Read on to find out.

Project an Image

Often the decision to make a purchase stems from psychological motivations, rather than a straight X’s-and-O’s calculus. You can get Derrick Rose basketball shoes from Adidas for $120, but if you’re a LeBron James fan, you’ll probably shell out $200 to Nike to don his line of footwear. Why? Because, on some level, you feel like you’re stepping into the King’s shoes whenever you lace up your LeBrons. Brands allow consumers to identify with or suit up as their heroes, and consumers reward those brands richly for that feeling of empowerment.

Establish Familiarity

Research indicates that six out of ten consumers prefer buying products from brands that are familiar to them. Which makes sense: We network through our connections, we buy property in areas we feel safe in, and we buy things from companies who have shown their value to us already. Consider coming across a package of bread on an empty shelf in the store. You’re probably not going to pick it up — who knows why it’s been tossed aside? Now imagine that loaf has the Sara Lee logo on it. You might still inspect it, but at least you know that a multinational company guarantees its quality. For all our carping about corporations, that logo will likely reassure a lot of people that the bread is edible and safe (and only 45 calories). In other words, branding is a seal of approval that we consumers learn to trust.

Instill Loyalty

Even if you trust Sara Lee, you might trust a bevy of other global bread-brands as well. All their brand designs may be distinct, but they need something else to vie for your attention — and that “something” could have nothing to do with the product they’re selling. Instead, they could project a good-guy image because they pay a minimum wage of $70,000. Or, like KFC, they could launch the  “I Love You, Colonel Sanders! Dating Simulator,” a campaign intended to inject sex appeal into a brand ambassador who consumers today may have difficulty engaging with, skeptical as we are of any figure that still nods to antebellum plantation motifs. 

Too much of a disconnect between what’s sold and what’s said can be fodder for cynicism — and with reason. When Starbucks teams up with the Wounded Warrior Project, you’ve got to wonder: What does this have to do with coffee? Corporate flirtations with social commentary may strike consumers as ploys to grab their attention and empty their pockets, and, as in the case of Starbucks’ anti-racism initiative, face backlash. Yet Ben & Jerry’s earned praise for a similar campaign. How people react to brand positions can sometimes be guesswork, but the more authentic those positions seem to us, the more likely we’ll stay loyal to them.

Brand The Brand

In a way, branding is a feedback loop that influences company decisions nearly as much as it drives consumer behavior. Since what’s said is as important as what’s sold, what’s said about a business can sway its profits. According to the Better Business Bureau, 88% of consumers read up to 10 reviews before they trust a business. So prospective customers are likely to skip on companies with negative reviews and call their competitors whose Yelp! pages gleam with compliments. Similarly, when a CEO makes an inappropriate comment during an internal call, the brand loyalty is compromised and the CEO will probably resign. Whereas titans of industry were once throned at the head of the board, now they, too, are subject to how consumers relate to the brand position they helped forge.

As a brand agency, we get it — all this talk about branding makes it seem like companies should adopt values and bullhorn beliefs just to drum up awareness about themselves. Yet we believe branding is not a gussied-up facsimile of the real thing. Quite the opposite: Branding is the most fundamental insight about your business, the drilled-down core that marks you as you. We could blast on, because we love talking about brands, but let’s cut to the chase: Wanna talk about yours?

How to Build Landing Pages that Convert

Not all landing pages are created equal. “Static page,” “destination page,” “lead capture page,” “single property page” — these are all names for the coveted landing page, which is a web page generally set up to promote an offer. The goal of said landing page is to lure visitors into the tractor-beam of your marketing strategy: First you get them in the sales funnel, then you guide them through the suite of services your business provides. Simple enough.

Except here’s the rub: Prospective clients can crash-land on a landing page and not “convert” — that is, act on the deal being advertised. The average conversion rate on a landing page is 2.35%. The top quarter of companies enjoy conversion rates north of 5%, while a rate higher than 11% is bragging rights. So how do you build landing pages that convert in the 5–11%+ range? That question has befuddled many a marketer and agency, but here are a few tips we’ve learned along the way.

Be Transparent

“Get them in the nose!” That’s an old newspaperman’s line about blasting the reader with the most important information in the first few sentences, and the same advice applies to landing pages. Figure out your core message and slap it in the header so your audience knows what the landing page wants them to do. Enter a raffle to win a truck, buy an all-inclusive trip to Kauai, take a virtual tour of a senior living community — whatever the conversion is, hone in on it and make it clear why your visitors are here in the first place. 

Show, Don’t Tell

Whatever you’re selling, show it. If you’re a vineyard, don’t just bullet out the perks of being a member. Include pictures of bottles of cab sauv and pebbled courtyards where you can get pleasantly snockered on those bottles. Feature testimonials from happy customers — but make sure they’re real (people catch on). Add in case studies, which fulfill much the same purpose. And, of course, you must connect with users on an emotional level. “Buy an all-inclusive trip to Kauai” is clear, but an effective landing page design will embed videos of waterfalls pouring through rainforest canopies or work in descriptions of whales singing beneath the waves.

Up Your CTA Game

Another reason you should remove clutter from landing pages is to make sure your CTA is easy to find. Place the CTA above the fold so your audience doesn’t have to unfurl the Dead Sea Scrolls just to get to it. Copywriters, this is not your moment to be clever. Visitors with vision impairments may be clicking around your site with a Screen Reader, which translates on-screen copy into speech. So to make CTAs accessible, keep them informative. 

What’s an accessible way to ask a visitor to subscribe to your newsletter? Something like “Subscribe to my newsletter.” If that sounds humdrum, that’s the point: Avoid addy-style puns that confuse the purpose of the page. And include no more than one or two CTAs. Remember, simplicity means sales.

Boost Your Cred

Landing pages often have forms that ask for a visitor’s name, email, and even credit card information. The more security you can provide, the more likely strangers will cough up the most important data in their lives. Especially if you’re a known quantity, trot out that logo — the Starbucks mermaid, for instance, will stamp considerable trustworthiness onto any landing page (a Starbucks landing page, of course). A data security badge also conveys that you’re legit. And go over your spelling with holy fervor. Nothing kills your cred quite like janky grammar.

Monitor and Optimize

The best landing pages buoy up to the top of Google searches because they’re optimized. To boost your page ranking, incorporate keywords into the headlines and body copy and the metadata in the back-end. Run A/B testing to gauge what’s working and what’s not. Let’s say Option A is performing at a conversion rate of 1%. Embed a new video (or shorten it if it’s over three minutes), swap out the headlines, mix and match the brand colors, and — boom! — you’ve got Option B, which now sports a conversion rate of 10%. Whatever the numbers are, keep tweaking the layout and settings till those numbers trend up, up, up.

Finally, consider adding in additional links or related content that redirect your audience to your larger website or blog. Connecting all your channels lets users extend their journey and find more information about what you do and how to contact you in case they want you to create a landing page for them that’s a cut above the rest.

4 tips on Effective Remote Working

Business Hasn’t Shut Down—It’s Just Moved Online

We are living through an event unlike anything we have experienced before. The coronavirus has temporarily upended “normal” life as we know it and thrown a wrench in a lot of business plans—conferences and travel are being cancelled, people are working from home, and toilet paper is now worth more than gold. Much has changed in a short period of time. But here’s the reality—business isn’t shutting down. It’s just moving online.

At Jacob Tyler, we’re primed and ready to help you fill in the gaps created by COVID-19 with an online strategy that will help your business continue to drive leads and revenue during the virus response.

Eventually, this too will pass. In the meantime, we are dedicated to helping our clients seize opportunity in less than opportune circumstances. Give us a call anytime, we’re ready to help (unless you need toilet paper. Can’t help there.)

Working remotely? Here’s how to do it.

At Jacob Tyler, we’ve perfected remote working, as we have been doing it for a few years now. Every business is different, but here are a few things that have worked for us. 

4 Tips on Remote Working

It looks like most businesses will be working remote for the next few weeks. At Jacob Tyler, we’ve perfected remote working, as we have been doing it, in part, for a few years now. Since we implemented a hybrid workforce—gathering the best talent from across the country to complement our in-house team—we’ve learned a few things about how to successfully conduct business online. Every business is different, but here are a few things that have worked for us:

Implement Communication Technology

As a creative agency, constant communication is essential to our business. By using instant messaging apps like Slack and videoconferencing platforms like Whereby, we are able to communicate and collaborate even faster than we can in person! In fact, we commonly slack each other when we’re sitting more than 10 feet away in the office. It’s not lazy—it’s efficient.

Kick Things Off with a Huddle

Every morning, we jump on a 15-minute video huddle to give each other a quick rundown of the hot-button issues of the day. We call this meeting our “Daily Dose of Kickass.” You can call yours whatever you like, but it’s a great way to stay connected with your team when in different locations.

Meet with Clients

More often than not, we hold our client meetings via videoconferencing. We have clients spread across the globe, and it’s not always feasible or cost-effective to meet in person. With videoconferencing platforms like Whereby, Zoom and Google Hangouts, you can share documents, execute presentations, and talk to people the same way you would in person.

Keep the Water Cooler Talk Going

Part of the joy of being in the office together is talking about things that don’t involve work. A little personal interaction is good for morale. At JT, we have an internal Slack channel where we share everything from funny memes to pictures of our dogs and kids. It keeps us connected with each other and allows for a little fun in the middle of a busy day.

Want to talk specifics? Give us a call anytime. Need help executing an online strategy for your business? We’re working—remotely.

The Jacob Tyler Rebranding Guide

When & How to Rebrand

How To Take Your Company’s Branding To The Next Level

By The Jacob Tyler Agency

Every successful company needs to have a strong brand. Your brand isn’t just a logo, your brand name, or simply a piece of marketing strategy. It’s all of these things and so much more. It’s your brand’s identity. It’s the story you tell current and potential clients or customers that tells them why they should spend their money with you. It’s a central piece of the puzzle of your success or failure.

What do you do, then, when your brand isn’t strong enough or is out-of-date and out-of-touch? If this is the case, then it is probably time for you to rebrand. Rebranding, however, can be a terrifying proposition for companies to undertake. Change is rarely easy, especially ones as potentially costly and risky as rebranding.

At Jacob Tyler, we’re experts at successfully helping our clients in their rebranding efforts with years of experience and success stories on our side, and we want to share our wealth of knowledge with you! To do that, we’ve put together this helpful (and a bit lengthy) rebranding guide to walk you through the essential components to successfully rebranding.

In this guide, we will cover the essential aspects of successful rebranding strategy and execution, including:

Brand vs. Branding vs. Brand Strategy

What sets your brand apart and tells your story?

Before we dive into the ins and outs of the rebranding process, it’s important to understand what the differences are between a few things. Let’s take a look at the often confused concepts of brand, branding, and brand strategy, what differentiates each of them, and what role they play in the rebranding process.

Brand

A brand is much more than the definitions you’ll find in the top search results of Google. It’s not just a mark or a logo or a name. Branding is everything a business, organization, or entity does.

Your website experience is your brand. How your receptionist answers your phone is your brand. The condition of your bathroom is your brand. A brand is the thread that runs through every piece of your business. This is why a brand is so important.

defiition of a brand

If you want someone to know what you stand for, it should be displayed in everything you do, spoken or unspoken, written or unwritten, explicit or implicit. We love it when we see a 100% effort to get brand right, and we’re over the moon when clients get it.

Branding

This one is a little more cut and dry. Branding is all the ownable, identifiable marks that make an organization stand out in the product landscape.

Good branding has the ability to bring a brand name to mind even when the name isn’t present. It’s a look, a tone, and a feel, and even a sound—everything that is uniquely your brand. For example, that sound when your Macbook starts up? Branding. The way the Apple lights up on the lid? Branding.

definition of branding by jacob tyler

You’ve probably got this one down. Let’s move on.

Brand Strategy

Brand strategy uses the above points and creates a framework that lays out the who, what, when, where, how, and why of your organization’s communication of its identity.

Just as it is with a communication strategy or social strategy, brand strategy is the roadmap that allows you, your employees, and your partners to build equity in the way you want it to be built. It’s an absolutely critical piece of building something meaningful and for the long haul.

jacob tyler rebranding strategy

Creative Processes

Discover. Plan. Build. Launch.

Every brand has a unique story to tell. Your story drives every marketing and creative move for a strong brand and digital strategy. Your story should build your brand from the ground up. For that to happen, there needs to be strong creative processes in place to translate your brand’s story into tangible branding.

For a more customized approach, Jacob Tyler will hand select a team of experts and trusted partners for additional support throughout the process including digital search engine marketing and back-end technical support for a complete and focused campaign strategy.

Our Process

jacob tyler rebranding process

Identify Challenges

We start by exploring the primary challenges for your business or industry. This is key for us to understand where we need to go with the remainder of our process. Only by understanding what challenges your brand faces can we see where our destination lies.

With challenges identified, we can then develop cutting-edge solutions through a strategic process where we will discover, plan, build, and launch a custom-tailored brand experience to grow your business.

Discover

This is the most important stage of our rebranding process here at Jacob Tyler. The most important part of our relationship with a new client is getting to know them. We often tell clients we will never know their business as much as they do, but the closer we get, the better our creative will be. Furthermore, we will be able to deliver creative more efficiently and effectively.

Our research isn’t just academic either. We take the time to get to know our clients and their business in person. We don’t just want to know facts or tidbits about what they do. We want to know how their business feels, and we aren’t afraid to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty to do so. Sometimes literally!


“We spend a lot of time with our clients initially to get to know them. For example, when we did the rebrand for NuVasive, a 2.5 billion dollar medical device company, our team actually did cadaver training in their San Diego corporate headquarters.

We did this to help understand how their innovative spine technology was implanted and how doctors were trained to do so. It was helpful in how we thought about the brand moving forward.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer

Plan

Every client strategy is custom and the plan is developed: first, based on the specific target market and, second, by the budget. We choose what we feel the most effective strategy will be and then go from there down the line based on the client budget.

Build

With our strategy approved and budgets in line, we bring our cross-departmental team together to kick off the build process. At the ground level, we create a timeline that lays out expectations for progress and when our client can expect deliverables that need approval leading all the way up to launch. Our strategists, creatives, and account executives then get to work with our developers, social media team and digital media team to start the rebranding process as it relates to each form of media.

Launch

As we reach the end of the build stage, our clients have provided comprehensive feedback and we’ve agreed upon our strategy, creative assets, campaigns, as well as key performance indicators and benchmarks for reporting. The launch date we laid out in our timeline marks the official launch of the rebrand. But the work isn’t done when we press “go.” In fact, it’s really just beginning!

Upon launch, we test everything that can be tested to make sure it’s working properly. Whether that’s a website, an interactive trade show booth, digital display ads, social media campaigns or something else entirely, we triple check to make sure every single thing is built properly, working as we promised, and in a way that delivers results for our clients. This process can take anywhere from hours to a couple of weeks depending on the size and scope of the rebranding project.

Solution

After launch, the work is not over, however. We still need to be sure the project is truly a solution to the challenge we set out to solve. To do that, we find the best metrics to gauge the success of the project, not only right now at the client’s current scale but in the future as the client grows as well.

Once we have tested our creative and solutions, we modify until we hit the right conversion, Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) for the specific project. Experimenting and adjusting post-launch until you have the answer is essential. No rebranding project should be assessed with the same metrics you have used before just because they worked on previous projects. You need to find the right one for the individual brand and project. Just as every brand is unique, so is every project.

This adaptability needs to continue as your company grows, as well. Continuing to find new solutions as your company grows is key. Ideally, your rebranding project will foster continued company growth, and your solutions and metrics used to gauge success might need to adapt and grow along with it.

Marketing Strategies

Developing successful brands by creating detailed and impactful solutions that reflect the visual soul of your business.

A successful rebrand does not look the same for every company or project. Depending on your specific industry, client base, size, goals, or countless other factors, there are a wide variety of marketing strategies that might be important for you to be truly successful. That is why it is important to understand the entire spectrum of marketing strategies and how they play into your rebranding efforts.

rebranding marketing strategies

At Jacob Tyler, we categorize these strategies into a few distinct categories: Insight & Research, Visual Communications, User Experience, and Design & Development. Let’s take a look at these categories, how they play into your rebranding efforts and the specific strategies that make up each category.

Insight & Research

Successful rebranding requires thoughtful, disciplined, and creative strategies to move them forward. Our extensive analytical and strategic methodologies provide a strong foundation to build a unique brand experience that will drive results for your business.

Insight & Research Services:

  • Brand Architecture
  • Brand Standards Guide
  • Focus Groups
  • Positioning
  • Brand Audit
  • Brand Tone + Voice
  • Messaging
  • Style Guide Design
  • Brand + Product Naming
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Market Research
  • Technical Audit

Visual Communications

Visual communication is paramount to your brand’s success. Be it logos, signage, packaging or digital displays, We craft eye-catching designs across all mediums that engage, excite and ensure your brand’s message is communicated with a single glance.

planck before and after logo by jacob tyler planck before and after logo by jacob tyler[/caption]

Visual Communications Services:

  • Logos + Corporate
  • Identity
  • Environmental Graphics
  • Packaging Systems
  • Marketing Campaigns
  • Printed Collateral
  • Tradeshow Booths
  • Annual Reports
  • Outdoor Advertising
  • Advertising Campaigns
  • Direct Marketing
  • Media Planning
  • Content Writing + Editing
  • Photography Direction
  • Public Relations Services

User Experience

Technology is constantly evolving, and your brand must evolve with it to remain successful. We ensure that your brand anticipates what’s next and remains relevant. We monitor your digital presence and implement a flawless user experience that increases engagement with every click, tap or swipe.

User Experience Services:

  • Wireframes
  • User Interface
  • Site Architecture
  • User Flows
  • User Testing
  • Statistics Analytics
  • Prototyping
  • Customer Journey
  • Information Architecture
  • Content Strategy

Design & Development

With a mobile-first mentality for the front-end and a flawless CMS on the back-end, our award-winning websites put our customers first. We create intuitive, simple, and engaging experiences for all users, on any screen size—and from any device.

Design & Development Services:

  • Web Design
  • Online Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • SEO
  • Responsive Development
  • CMS
  • Online Advertising
  • eCommerce
  • Mobile Apps
  • Video Direction

Website Management

Stay true to your brand’s story.

The website is quite often a consumer’s (or business’s) first impression of your brand. This is where you have 3 seconds to pull the visitor in with an effective message or brand story. It is a make it or break it moment in many ways because if a user leaves, a very small percent ever return. Thus, it ends up in a loss of sales and brand equity.

tghe role of website management in rebranding


“It is extremely important that brands stay true to their story and continually evolve online to create and deliver messages that resonate to their audience.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer

Successful Trends

Harnessing trends that are sound and the right direction for our clients.

Harnessing trends can be monumental toward effectively rebranding your company. But how do you know which trends are worth jumping on and which ones are just a flash in the pan? Even once you’re sure a trend is a successful one, how do you use it to your advantage without the whole thing seeming forced?

In Touch With the Right Trends

These are questions that brands will likely struggle with for the rest of time, especially in our world where social media is ubiquitous and more and more importance is placed on how viral something is or what’s trending right in that moment.

However, not all trends are worth the effort, and this is something especially vital for brands undergoing the rebranding process. After all, few things can instantly make a brand seem more out of touch than unsuccessfully trying to jump onto a current trend.

There’s nothing less cool than obviously trying to look cool. Even worse, if you’re not careful this can even lead to serious PR headaches if you’re too eager to ride a trend without fully understanding the full context.

Flexible and Ready To Pivot

That said, successfully harnessing the right trends and technology for your brand and message can be a gamechanger for your rebrand. We are constantly keeping our eyes open and our ears to the ground to identify when it’s time to shift and try something new, and when it’s better to wait and see or hold off entirely. This flexibility combined with our team’s vast experience and expertise makes us the perfect partner.


“We look at trends and technology with an open mind, and we are always ready to pivot if it makes sense for the client and we believe it will create positive brand equity and increase sales.

With that said, we are not the people that line up for the new phone at the Apple store. We like to make sure the platforms and specific trends in any marketing capacity are sound and the right direction for our clients.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Experience makes all the difference.

Communication is Key.

The biggest common pitfall lies in communication with any agency. This is both external and internal. We use a collaborative project management software tool that helps us maintain great communication with our clients globally and keeps a record of conversations. We are painstakingly over communicative and that always creates better experiences.

Attention to Detail From Top to Bottom

The second biggest pitfall is that the big agencies have the Creative Director go to meetings (usually with 15+ years experience) to engage and close contracts. After the deal is signed, the project is handed off to juniors to work on the project. This is a great way to get the most profit, but also a recipe for disaster. We can tell you from experience– which is why we don’t do it.

Keeping Everyone on the Same Page

Here at Jacob Tyler, we have learned from our experiences and mistakes, and use that knowledge to avoid these common pitfalls that brands and agencies fall into during the rebranding process. Simply put, if you want to successfully rebrand, there needs to be great communication and attention to detail from the very top all the way down—between people within your company, at the agency you have hired, and the two sides working together. Everyone needs to be on the same page.

“We have people on our team with over 25 years experience (including me). It makes a difference.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer

Budget Forecasting

Doing whatever it takes to make sure the client has a great experience and make a return on their investment.

We will do whatever it takes to make sure the client has a great experience and make a return on their investment with us. We aren’t designing for designers or to get awards, but we are designing for the business. Our creative has to work.

Our client’s success is always the number one priority. This attitude drives us to find the right strategy for the client’s budget. We leave our egos at home and, instead, find the right solution. It doesn’t have to be flashy, it just has to be correct.


“From a marketing perspective, if I need to hire a guy to spin an arrow outside of the business, it sounds cheesy and ridiculous. But if it increases the daily revenue of that location 60%, is it worth it? I think so. I guess we won’t win any innovation awards for that specific tactical execution, but we don’t care.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer

Scalability

Always looking toward the future in order to build the right campaign—one that is solid, engaging, and will stand the test of time.

Everything we do from a marketing and creative execution standpoint always start with us thinking of scale. We spend a lot of time thinking about the future in order to build the right campaign. We don’t just want your rebranding efforts to be successful right now; we want them to be successful for years to come. As your company grows, we want our efforts to grow along with you.

scalability of rebranding

By the same token, we don’t want anything we do to feel dated after just a couple years, and neither should you. This is why we don’t chase concepts that are trendy just for the sake of doing so. We look at concepts that have stood the test of time and apply them to everything we do. We want to help you rebrand in a way that works today, next year, five years from now, and beyond.


“We don’t want our marketing to be “trendy”, we want it to be solid and engaging and, much like a song from AC/DC, stand the test of time.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer

Branding Guidelines

Consistent and Unique.

Successfully rebranding a company does not only require high-level creative product across multiple processes. It also requires a strategy and a set of cohesive principles. This is where branding guidelines come into play. The right branding guidelines are fundamental not only for rebranding, but for all future brand growth, scalability, marketing strategy, and brand success as well!

rebranding guidelines

The best brand guidelines go beyond a simple set of rules. They are more than color palettes or font choice. They are integral building blocks to a brand’s very identity. They create a full brand experience that customers, clients, and the public at large engage with before, during, and after their direct interaction with the company itself.

Case Studies

We win as a team or we don’t win at all.

Here at Jacob Tyler, we are incredibly proud of the work we do helping our clients successfully rebrand, and we aren’t afraid to show it off. After all, we can talk about our work all we want, but we think it’s better to just let it speak for itself.

rebranding case studies

San Diego YMCA | Invigorating an Online Community

See the full case study.

How Rebranding Can Improve ROI | A Case Study

“When we were chosen to redesign the San Diego YMCA online, we were thrilled for such an amazing and important opportunity. The San Diego County YMCA needed an efficient way to engage its growing and increasingly diverse audience – including online purchasing. We answered the call, building an intuitive cyber experience and eCommerce presence for the YMCA’s 17 San Diego County locations.”

Open for Business

Launching an online store is exciting. Launching 17 online stores simultaneously is downright thrilling. We pulled it off, and the results were eye-opening with online sales doubling almost immediately.

Design Without Boundaries

In the digital age, engaging with customers requires being where – and when – they are. Our device-agnostic design created a seamless online experience across all devices from mobile to desktop that made it simple for the YMCA to stay connected to its members 24/7.

CarnoSyn

See the full case study.

Bigger, Faster, Stronger

CarnoSyn®, a patented beta-alanine supplement that helps athletes reach peak performance, has been a crucial ingredient in sports nutrition formulas for years – but it had never been marketed as a product. The brand’s parent company NAI tapped Jacob Tyler to introduce CarnoSyn® to the world.

Digital Approach

Jacob Tyler serves as an integrated design and marketing partner, working closely with the CarnoSyn® team. Together, we produced multiple digital campaigns that included website landing pages, message development, video production, media buying strategies, and a robust social media campaign. Each campaign was focused on educating the fitness enthusiast and athlete audience on the benefits, uses and proper dosing of CarnoSyn®, and generating leads for retailers that sell the product as part of their sports nutrition formulas. The campaigns were wildly successful, making CarnoSyn® a known name in the fitness world.

Lead Generation

We created landing pages optimized to generate leads and position CarnoSyn® as a leader in the industry.

Advertising and Social Media

With Jacob Tyler’s social, mobile, and web advertising, the initial campaign generated over 39,000,000 ad impressions with an average Click-through rate above 0.60% and an average cost per click of $.19 in phase one. Two more campaigns are currently in motion.

The Gains

71%

Increased average website visits per day from 90 to 2,200 visits per day with 71% of traffic being first-time visits to CarnoSyn.com.

32%

Generated over 1,280,000 video views of educational content with an average View Through Rate of 32% (Average TrueView VTR are between 5% to 10%).

50%

Improved View through rate of TrueView to 50%+ which lowered Cost per View down to an average between $.03 -$.04.

The Importance of Choosing an Agency

We don’t just want to be your agency. We want to be part of your team.

Before going through the rebranding process, one of the most important steps you need to take is choosing an agency to partner with. This is vital to the process for a variety of reasons. Choosing the right agency to partner with is a relationship that not only steers the entire rebranding process, for better or worse, but can make all the difference between success or frustration.

This is not a place where you want to make a bad choice of trusting the wrong person. It would be similar to building a house without a floor plan.

The agency should be experienced. Not just in the specific business vertical, but in general. Everyone at Jacob Tyler, from full-time employees, to freelancers, and vendors, have 10+ years of experience as a requirement. This ensures not only the best strategic thinking for our clients but also a great experience.


“We pay more for the staff, our clients pay a little more for the work, but the outcomes are worth it.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer of Jacob Tyler

Don’t Just Take It From Us

Listen, we’re proud of our work at Jacob Tyler, and we aren’t afraid to say so. We understand, though, that compliments mean more when they come from someone else. Fortunately, we have a track record to back up what we have to say about our work!

Clutch, a leading platform for unbiased reviews of B2B service providers, lists Jacob Tyler not only as one of the top branding agencies in San Diego, but among the best branding agencies in the nation as well! We take this as a huge honor and are proud to be included on this list by Clutch, especially considering the process they use.


“We really respect the vetting process Clutch requires for authentic reviews and it saves a lot of time for our clients who don’t always have the time to get on the phone with our prospects.”

-Les Kollegian, CEO & Chief Creative Officer of Jacob Tyler

So don’t just take it from us. Here’s what people we have worked with have to say about their experience partnering with Jacob Tyler for their rebranding efforts.


“Before we engaged Jacob Tyler, our image had undergone so many revisions that the brand became diluted. Jacob Tyler helped us create a uniform brand identity that our company can rally behind. A few subtle changes by Jacob Tyler have boosted team morale and cooperation dramatically. We’re now proud to put the company name on the side of our office building.”

-Brendan Smith, CEO of Motive Interactive

“Jacob Tyler’s rebrand has contributed to a significant growth in business year over year.”

-Erik Mueller, President & CEO of Grasp Technologies, Inc.

“I was very impressed with their level of creativity and communication. I don’t have very much technical experience, so Jacob Tyler effectively discussed the project on my level, which I really appreciated. Additionally, they were extremely receptive to feedback and made changes with minimal pushback. The added layer of visibility we get from our website has generated an estimated $4 million in top-line revenue for our company.”

-G.A. Bartick, President & COO of R3 Consultants

 

We promise we didn’t just cherry-pick the reviews we wanted you to see. We invite you to go take a look at the rest of them over on our Clutch profile and see what our clients think of our work for yourself.

Professional Ghosting: The Disrespectful Art of Prospects & Clients Going Dark.

Recently I was sent an email from Robert Glazer, Founder & CEO, Acceleration Partners (included below) that is something I have been thinking about writing about for a while now. He beat me to it and frankly did a good job. This year alone… and yes, it’s only March, I have submitted three proposals that were requested by prospects with no response. As well, I have submitted four others to clients and prospects that I had to follow up several times before getting a response. In every case, I had a good conversation and was told how the project was a priority for the organization. It is really unprofessional and disrespectful… do they not realize it? It’s not like these were quick emails. These were comprehensive proposals that took multiple conversations with my team and hours to put together. Please just let me know your not interested if that’s the case and value my time. Also, please take the time to let me know why. I HAVE had many clients and prospects do this and it is extremely valuable feedback.

Robert also mentions an article by Adam Grant that I disagree with. Adam says “ignoring someone’s email is an act of incivility and how none of us are really too busy to respond”. I think there are cases where this does not apply. For example, I get approximately 150-200 “sales” emails each week asking to partner with Jacob Tyler Branding Agency . If I were to take time to acknowledge and respond to everyone of these, it would take at least an hour per day… which is frankly wasted time. I would rather be supporting my team and clients than responding to unsolicited requests.

Anyway, here’s the article from Robert below as reference.

As a professional services firm, prospective clients often ask members of our team to provide detailed proposals, estimates and supporting materials as part of their evaluation process. While there’s no guarantee we will get the work, fulfilling these requests takes time, energy and resources, something that most prospects value and appreciate. However, over the past few years, I’ve noticed a rise in professional “ghosting.”

Ghosting has become part of the dating nomenclature. Apparently, it’s the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by abruptly – and without explanation—withdrawing from all communication with them. People with avoidant personality types seem to think this approach is faultless. But in reality, it’s just rude and disrespectful.

The fact that ghosting seems to be on the rise within professional interactions is disappointing. As mentioned above, we have seen our fair share of prospective clients suddenly stop all communication after we submit proposal information to them. Ironically, but maybe not coincidently, it is often been the ones who asked us to do the most work on the shortest notice who don’t have the decency to follow-up or reply.

I have also read a number of articles about the growing practice of ghosting in recruiting, whereby candidates who take the time to come in for an in-person interview never hear from the company again. Not only is this tremendously unprofessional, it may be psychologically damaging as it leaves the candidate to wonder if they did something wrong or offensive rather than it being because the hiring team just decided to go in a different direction.

If you have been practicing ghosting in any part of your life, it’s time to stop. Here’s why:

Ghosting is disrespectful; disrespect creates ill will and distrust that is often irreparable. It also provides fodder for others to say negative things about you or your company via a public forum.

It’s a small world out there. You never know when your ghosting may come back to haunt you. We’ve even had people apply for a job at our company and forget that they ghosted us in some way years before. Similarly, candidates who have been ghosted are highly unlikely to say good things about you or your organization out in the marketplace or on review sites. And they will never be a customer.

Being avoidant and indifferent in your communication is a bad look. It conveys cowardice and disregard.

Adam Grant recently wrote a great article on why he believes ignoring someone’s email is an act of incivility and how none of us are really “too busy” to respond.

If you care about someone or have used their time, have the courtesy to get back to them, even if it’s uncomfortable because the response isn’t positive. I’ve always found that people can handle the truth when it’s given respectfully.

The point is, be excellent in everything you do, even in how you learn to turn people down or say no. Taking this a step further, I’d suggest you actually go out of your way to respond to anyone who reaches out to you.

Years ago, I made the decision to try and respond to anyone who writes a personal note to me, even though my response is often a polite “no” to most requests for my time. Simply taking the time to reply and show respect for their time reflects my personal brand and our company’s values. Often, the person is both thankful and surprised to hear from me, meaning that I have exceeded their expectations.

If you ask for or use someone’s time or energy, respond back to them. Don’t burn your bridges by ghosting.

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