what's on our minds

How to Set Marketing Budgets. And Why You Should.

What are two of the most important pieces of business wisdom you’ll ever hear?

  • Large or small, every business needs a marketing strategy; and a marketing plan to make it happen.
  • Once marketing budgets are set – take expert advice on how to use it wisely.

Marketing BudgetsAverage Marketing Budgets for Canadian Businesses

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Tell Your Story With Motion Graphic Design

While ‘motion graphics’ has become a bit of a specialty form of design, the term really originated as a coverall for any computer generated animation – graphics that move. It’s not full-on computer animation like Avatar, but it’s also not the old-fashioned frame-by-frame footage and animation.

With great tools like Adobe After Affects, motion graphic design has become more of a style and is a very attainable way for B2B and other small businesses to tell their stories in video. And we know that people will stay on your website 10X longer if there’s a video. Continue reading

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Top 5 Creative Marketing Ideas

Do you think you can’t compete for attention in a crowded market place? Or that it would cost too much to do it? Many give up before they start, thinking it’s just not possible, so why bother? Fear not! There are several creative marketing ideas that may get you more attention and cost less while being more fun.

Here are my top 5 favourite creative marketing ideas.

These have all been successful for our clients, but there is a common key to their success beyond the creative marketing ideas themselves… more later. Continue reading

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CMA Ontario Promotional Video

Video Concept and Production Continue reading

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Your Digital Marketing Strategy; Are you there yet?

With all the trend reports talking about the age of digital marketing strategy, many companies are asking, “should we be doing more?” or even if they’re in the digital game.digital marketing strategy

The first thing to remember is “digital marketing strategy” should be part of your overall marketing strategy. You’re probably already doing it to some extent, whether you know it or not. Continue reading

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Should Your Company Messaging Sell You or the Category

An important part of your marketing is the overall company messaging, which should change slightly based on audience segmentation. I first learned about this through Michel Neray from Essential Message in a section on sales techniques. The idea is to determine whether your audience is sold on what you do, also if they are sold on you so you don’t waste time selling them on something they already believe in through your company messaging. Continue reading

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Tradeshow Design – the booth is Just the Beginning

Venturing into the world of tradeshows can be an expensive experiment if you’re not prepared to optimize it. Many are blown away by the cost of just participating and focus on the space they need to fill – tradeshow design. However, adding a few tactics before, during and following the show will make your investment return a lot higher.

Overhead view of tradeshow designLeading up to the Show

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When to Use Creative Design Services

Creative Design ServicesThere are many different kinds of marketing-category firms out there, making it tough to decide which kind is right for your needs. Choosing wrong could mean you’re paying too much for services you don’t need, or being under-serviced by a solo freelancer type. Continue reading

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Discovering Your ‘Brand’

How to build stability and growth for your company’s services.

Brand is the emotional connection between a company and its clients. More than just a logo, brand is reflected in everything you do, across every mode of communication.
Consider one of Canada’s most successful brands, Tim Horton’s, a brand that immediately conjures up emotional connections about what it means to be Canadian. TD is one of the few banks to get on the “best managed brand” list after it “made over” its brand into “Banking can be this comfortable” with the signature green chair. Both are brands that can be evolved and rolled out into many forms of marketing. Continue reading

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If Content is King Graphic Design is Queen in Toronto

If content is king, Graphic Design in Toronto Is QueenOne of the biggest marketing challenges today is coming up with high quality content. A result is many people underestimate the importance of graphic design, especially in a city like Toronto. I visited a prospect who has been doing all of their ads in-house (I don’t mean they had a designer on staff). She knew there was a problem, thought they had too many words. I disagreed on the word count. They were just poorly designed. I knew I could take the same content and make it look immeasurably better. This was striking compared to the professionally designed ads the competition was running.
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