The Review: Candy Rice Design

1 0 THE REVIEWcandyrice design

A monthly newsletter of marketing ideas, photos, and fun.

getting seen by new customer groups and learning how to tap them regardless of budgetfresh inspiration from unexpected places, like the port of Duluth in Minnesotaan innovative approach to the typical photography portfolio website, and it’s our very own!a little about the man behind Candy Rice Design and other thoughts from Candymarketing tip for finding your own inspiration and an olde-time ad just for fun

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breaking ingetting seen by new client groups

Tapping into a New Market You’ve identified a new market for your business. Now what? How do you find information about the people in that market? How do you break in and get noticed? And most importantly, how do you do this without breaking the bank?

First, demographic information is fairly available via a few quick Google or Twitter searches. The only cost is some of your time. Some other resources that you can utilize include the U.S. Census Bureau and Social Explorer. Some of this info is free, other pieces can be expensive.

As for breaking in, the most important thing is the quality of your list. Be sure you know your demographic and psychographic information for the new market, then get a list filled with people who are already interested in what you have to sell. Why is a list so important? The short answer is that a simple 4x6 postcard is still one of the best marketing ideas for getting your name out. Good list sources include specialty magazines your target client reads and list companies like InfoUsa.

How do you get noticed? Here’s my recommendation for the best way to get noticed:1. Start with a small, highly selective list (under 500

names) and mail 2-3 pieces to them over the course of 2 months.

2. On each piece, be sure to offer something amazing and clearly state the benefits of buying your product/service (NOT features!), and include a strong call to action. Asking them to opt in to your newsletter or email list is a great idea as well.

3. Follow up and let them know that you offer significant referral bonuses in exchange for their positive word-of-mouth.

This doesn’t have to cost a lot. Let’s say you:• buy a list of 500 names (from 35¢ each--we’ll use

50¢ as our example price--or about $250), • print 1500 postcards (about $200 at

overnightprints.com),• and mail them (about 28¢ each, or $420). That’s

less than $1,000 for 3 mailings!

The average conversion rate for direct mail using a targeted list with a meaningful offer is about 3%. That means that you could reasonably expect up to 15 new customers from your combined mailings. Multiply 15 by your average sale, and you’ll see just how few new customers will get you beyond the break-even point to profit. Then you can repeat the cycle while you add the 15 new customers to your database and nurture them into loyal, repeat customers!

Are you serious about acquiring new clients? There are many other ways to do so. Want more ideas or help with getting new clients? We can help! Call us today!

breaking ingetting seen by new client groups

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We had a great time creating this new website for our photography division, Colorado-based Candy Rice Photography.

We needed a simple portfolio site to showcase our people, pets, products, and fine art photography. We also needed the ability to easily accommodate special quick-hit offers related to this part of our company. So many photography sites utilize flash and we wanted to do something that looked very different from all the others while utilizing only HTML, CSS, and Javascript, but still showing off the imagery in a colorful and playful way.

Two caveats to this design: 1. it won’t likely garner high SEO rankings. However, since most of our photography business comes from word of mouth, direct mail that points to the site, and via our “regular” business, we aren’t too worried about that. 2. it’s meant to be viewed at a high monitor resolution.

The design features a single page that sets a whimsical stage for interacting with the navigation. When an element is rolled over, it moves; and when clicked, it launches a pop-up-blocker-friendly page that contains either additional information or a slideshow of images. In addition, we can easily change the background scene for fall and winter as well as major holidays and events.

This project utilized many of the services we offer to our clients and we’re excited about the outcome and happy to add this site to our portfolio. Thanks for letting us toot our horn about it!

Solutions Provided: • Design Services• Marketing Services• Photography Services• HTML/CSS Coding

Services

FeaturedprojectClient: self-promotionCandy Rice Photography, Colorado (www.candyricephotography.com)

Want to make some quick cash? Recommend us and make an easy 50 bucks!

Become a Facebook fan and follow us on Twitter!(facebook.com/candyricedesign) (twitter.com/candyrice)

As always, we’d love to know what you’re thinking about. Have some questions? Feel free to email them to us at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to answer them! Photo by Sohi Photography.

SeptemberThis month I celebrated 14 years of marriage to my amazing husband Tim, who kidnapped me the day before our anniversary and whisked me away to Glenwood Springs for 36 hours. Many of you already know him, but for those of you who don’t, let me tell you a bit about him and how we met.

Tim presently works for the American Heart Association (AHA) as a Heart Walk Director, raising funds for the all-important research into the #1 killer of women everywhere. But he hasn’t always been a corporate guy. Most of his professional career has been spent in higher ed as a men’s basketball coach and professor. In fact, we met while working in higher ed.

I was coaching volleyball and basketball at my alma mater, Pillsbury College, and Tim moved to the frigid north from his Gulf-shores-of-Alabama homeland to work in the men’s basketball program at

the same college. We met a few months later and became fast friends, then fell in love, and after a 3-month engagement were married in 1995.

Since then our journey has taken us to numerous colleges around the United States, pursuing Tim’s coaching passion. In the 8 states we’ve called home since then, I’ve managed to either run a small business (software trainer, sports photographer) or find ways to follow my professional passions. Since Tim transitioned out of the world of higher ed, he has worked hard to discover new ways to find “meaningful” work and I am excited that he has found a new niche in online teaching. He does that part-time, and also consults with the University of Denver’s women’s basketball team while working for the AHA.

Most of my inspiration for the month came from some images I took during our Pause on Purpose Tour in 2006, an 8-month roadtrip around the country. All of these photographs were part of my search for fall in my home state of Minnesota that year. Now it’s fall in Colorado (my favorite time of the year), and I love how the colors seem to intensify for one last splurge before winter arrives! These images made me smile, and I hope they do the same for you.

I absolutely love fall, and look forward every year to having a crisp autumn day as a good excuse for a hot apple cider (extra caramel, extra whip—why not?) and some pumpkin bread from the local coffee shop.

I hope that you’ll take some time this fall to see (and taste) the beauty that exists in the world around us at this time of the year. I know we’re busy, and before we know it the holiday season will be upon us, but there’s definitely inspiration just waiting to be found. Here’s to a great fall!

life going on

thoughts“And the trouble

is, if you don’t

risk anything, you

risk even more.”

~Erica Jong

cover : Forrest Lake Sculpture Garden, Minnesotaa : Birch trunks, Minnesota

all images by candy rice1 : Duluth port, Minnesota2 : Sumac on the Glacial Ridge Byway, Minnesota3 : Seed pods, Minnesota4 : Fall grasses by the lake, Minnesota5 : A Minnesota tradition in Akeley, Minnesota6 : Duluth lighthouse, Minnesota7 : Lakeside reflections, Minnesota

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How Long Should You Wait?At the age of 60, Barb Wolfrom competed in the Ms. Senior America pageant. This event followed a lifetime of avoiding rejection and failure. A lifelong Oakland Raiders fan, Wolfrom dreamed of being a cheerleader for her favorite team. When she was 30, she showed up for tryouts for the Raiderettes, but when she noticed the younger women who were her competition she went back to her car and cried. Then she drove home. Her story was filled with such disappointments. As she told Gordon, “I wanted to do things, but I never followed through.”

This tale of a lifetime of frustration took a turn for the better when Wolfrom committed to entering the pageant. After practicing her speech and talent competition, picking out the perfect outfit and gathering her courage, Wolfrom was dismayed to discover she was the first contestant in each part of the competition. Nevertheless, following through paid off. Taking a deep breath before delivering her speech, Wolfrom felt an inner shift. “The part of me that kept me back was put aside,” she says.

Wolfrom didn’t win the Ms. Senior America pageant. She didn’t even place, but believes participating changed her life permanently and for the better. Happily, you don’t have to wait until you’re 60 to have a similar revelation. You do, however, need to confront what’s holding you back

and, like Wolfrom, set it aside once and for all. Here are some simple ways to do just that.

* Know what inspires you--and partake frequently. The power of inspiration is often treated as something frivolous or scarce. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Inspiration is, however, a highly personal thing and it’s up to each of us to discover that phenomenon that lifts us up, empowers us, and ignites creative thought—and keep it well fed.

* Understand inspiration’s evil twin. If you’ve read Steven Pressfield’s brilliant The War of Art, you know how to recognize and deal with resistance. If you haven’t read the book, what are you waiting for?

* Connect and participate. Nobody has pointed out the rewards of doing so more eloquently than C.S. Lewis: “Good things as well as bad are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire; if you want to get wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into the thing that has them.”

* Live in a laboratory. Information is important, but most valuable when followed by implementation. The most successful entrepreneurs are big experimenters. They try things. Then they evaluate. They adjust and retry. Evaluate again. Replace the need for certainty with a spirit of adventure and not only will you accomplish much more, you’ll evict your fear of failure. Nice prize.

marketing tip

303.947.5527www.candyrice.com : [email protected]

11823 ridge pkwy #821 | broomfield, co 80021

We love puzzles, cartoons, and funny photos. Watch this section each month for something new to do or laugh at.

Excerpts from an article by Barbara Winter in her newsletter, Joyfully Jobless News.

Look for ways to participate, then act on your dreams.

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