Our Virtual Home:

TriaDesignFirm.com

In this issue:

Understanding our new way of charging for AA's.

All 3 Tria Partners are in Lansing office now

A collection of great tips we've been saving for you

Resources to Download

Pricing Marketing Projects: Request Our Helpful Guide

How to Hire a Creative Supplier

How to Get Great Work from a Creative Supplier
3303 W. Saginaw, Suite C3
Lansing, MI 48917

888-485-7268 Toll Free

517-886-9708 Telephone

It’s June, and summer has finally made it's appearance! For those of you in the Midwest, you know what I’m talking about.

We skipped over our May newsletter entirely this year, because we’ve just all moved in to the same office and things have gotten really busy. In fact, we’re so busy that we’re beginning to believe what some of the latest economic indicators are showing, that the economy is heading for recovery. We just want to say Thank YOU to all of our clients. Business is good because of you.

We’ve changed a few things we think you’re going to like. First off, Ann Siegle will be in our Lansing office as of June 13th (nothing like moving on Friday the 13th huh?). Please stop by (in a few weeks) and see our expanded space. Besides Ann’s office, we’re getting a "creative corner" and hope to have a couch and chairs to do some relaxed meeting and brainstorming with you. Ann built her own desk (hence the giant delay in moving in), so that’s sure to be a sight to see. It’s an Amish desk—there’s a mistake in it; the Amish put mistakes in their quilts because "no one is perfect before God." Though Ann confesses she didn’t add the mistake on purpose, it just naturally happened. If you can find it, take 5% off your next design project. If you find any others she didn’t notice, add 5% to your next design project <grin>.

Second, we’ve revised our structure for billing AAs—which are known as Authors (you) Alterations. These are copy and design changes made after the design phase, when copy has been formatted and fit. We got tired of saying "Yes, but…these changes will be in addition to your one hour of minor AAs." So we’re switching to "Yes, and… ."

We will include, up front, a generous number of hours of AAs (structured according to the project, but more than three hours for most projects) for you to use. If you use ’em, you know how much they are up front, and if you don’t use ’em, you don’t see them on your bill. Simply put, this will allow us to say "Yes, and we’re going to use up some of your AAs we allocated at the beginning of the project." We think you’ll like "Yes, and…" a lot better than "Yes, but…" And by the way, this was a client’s suggestion to us, so we thank him for his insightful consideration of how we can work better with clients.

We still encourage you to group your changes (or let us hold onto them for a few days as you continue to send more) so we can make all changes at once. Changes impact one another, and changing one word here and there, can affect copy flow, and hence, future changes. In addition, we bill in quarter hour increments, so if a change takes us five minutes, you still get billed for fifteen. Might as well fill up the full fifteen minutes, right?

Now, onto the nitty gritty—the tips. We’ve been saving up all of these great tips since April, and we’re just bursting at the seams with good info.

* * *

Marketing Sherpa Article:. How to Collect More Email Names for Your List by Asking Brick-and-Mortar Customers for Them
Includes invaluable tips on how to persuade people who say, "I get too much mail already", and how to get around the whole handwriting problem (handwritten email addresses are so hard to decipher they can be almost worthless.)

Marketing Sherpa Article: How to Create a Series of Automated Follow-Up Emails to Convert Average Sales Leads into Hot Leads

Includes a useful step-by-step calendar of which messages go out when, plus absolutely fascinating data on how offline marketing budget cuts can directly affect the cost of sales lead acquisition costs for email marketing. Yes - offline does affect online!

Marketing Sherpa Article: CASE STUDY: White Paper vs. Free Trial Offer -- Which Works Best for Emailed Lead Generation Campaigns?

Now, since you're sending all these great e-mails out to a robust list, how about a good tip on writing tips? Here's how to Write a Great Tip from Ilise Benun at The Art of Self Promotion.com.

Customers for Keeps - getting and keeping customers happy from Workz.com

* * *

If you like this newsletter and think a colleague or friend would like it, just use the "send to a friend" button at the bottom.

Don’t forget, every month we give you great downloadable resources, like "Why Hire a Creative Supplier," "How to get Great Work out of your Creative Supplier," and our famous "Planning Marketing Projects Guide" which plans print and web projects from the date you need them done to the date we need to meet with you to get the project rolling. The first two are from an independent Boston advisory company that we subscribe to. The third we’ve developed over a decade or more of working on projects with clients.

Thinking of design & marketing night & day,
Your friends at Tria Design,

Linda, Ann and Tina

If you want more information on these articles or anything else related to design or marketing, please e-mail us at info@triadesignfirm.com