In the business world, briefings are documents that are responsible for showing a problem and all the information related to it to solve it, taking into account the characteristics of the product, brand background and other elements. This document is sent to an agency to provide a possible solution, after analyzing the data collected. What is received back is what is known as creative briefing.

It is not necessary to work with an agency to generate a creative briefing. In fact, some companies use them in their day to day to solve communication problems, giving it to the team so that everyone is aware of what can be done. The objective of the creative briefing is to generate creative ideas that help solve the problem. What is its structure? It is about 16 elements.

1. Starting point

In this part you should indicate, briefly, the history of the business as well as its current situation, its objectives and the problem it presents.

2. Product

What product or service do you want to communicate? Or do you plan to promote your company as such?

3. Communication objective

It must be achievable, specific and relevant.

4. Deliverables

This section should contain a list of the designs, texts or materials that must be developed during the project and that are related to the product. Possibly this list is modified according to the proposed ideas.

5. Target

It refers to the audience you are targeting. You must investigate what it is and what it is you are looking for.

6. Strategy

How will you achieve your goal? You must realistically indicate the steps to follow to achieve it.

7. Proposal

It is a phrase about what your product offers and how it will attract your audience. It should not be the definitive slogan but it will be the creative starting point for it.

8. Arguments

They must be solid and credible and are, precisely, the arguments on which our proposal is based, making it unique or at least necessary for the public.

9. Voice tone

What is the style you want the communication to have? Traditional? Humorous? Innovative?

10. Competition

It's about identifying your competitors as well as specifying what they do and how you differ from them.

11. Background

Other campaigns may have done what you want to do earlier or they are already doing it. Considering them will help you not to repeat what others have already done as well as give you a guide of what you can do, taking into account their successes as well as their mistakes.

12. Mandatories

Are the elements that should appear almost mandatory, such as additional logos, legal text, contacts, among others. This is because these elements can condition the promotional design.

13. Media

They are the channels through which you will disseminate your idea, whether it is traditional or digital promotion.

14. Budget

It is the money with which you have to carry out the promotion you need.

15. Timing

It is the schedule for the realization of the project, especially if you will do it in phases. You must consider the deadlines of each one.

16. Next steps

After doing the briefing or that you have done, you should know what to do with it below. In general, a meeting is held with the whole team to generate a brainstorm that will allow solving the problem raised by the briefing.

Source: Samu Parra.

Instagram is a very popular network in recent times for users of all ages and sexes: adult women or younger men, all find attractive in this social network that has already become one of the common places of many of us as users.

There are campaigns on Instagram that we can take advantage of as community managers. Some of them are:

Awareness

Brand awareness consists of promoting the recognition of a brand among consumers. This type of campaign will help you increase the visibility of a company or its products. To do this, we try to highlight the benefits or what makes our brand unique through visual material and related messages. Instagram is a good place for emerging companies since many of their users are looking for new companies and options.

Campaigns with cause

Ethics and responsibility are values ​​that the younger audience appreciates in current times. That is why this type of campaign, where the values ​​of the company come out, are usually beneficial since not only are you looking to sell or promote a product but show the level of commitment we have as a company in terms of a cause of interest common.

Sale or promotion

It is the most frequent type of campaign and is considered a reward for followers of the brand in the social network. Through a discount or seasonal sales, we seek to attract the attention of potential customers to our products or services.

Contests

It is also one of the most popular campaigns on Instagram and its goal is to engage new customers or retain the ones that are already with our brand through contests in which they can earn a discount or even a completely free product.

Product's release

This type of process is good to take to Instagram to generate expectations among our followers in addition to showing them the advantages of our new product or service.

User generated content

UGC campaigns or user generated content encourages the interaction of the company with its followers. This type of campaign consists in the fact that the users themselves share images or videos where they show your products. This not only helps to create a bond with our customers but also to promote among others what we have to offer in addition to having content that we can use on our website, for example.

Source: Merca20.

The new edition of Graphispag will take place from March 26 to 29, 2019 in Hall 2 of the Gran Via exhibition center.

More than 200 exhibitors of graphic technology will participate in this fair dedicated to digitization, personalization and design. Leading companies such as HP, Roland DG, Epson, Heidelberg Spain, Konica Minolta or Agfa. Already 65% ​​of the space has been reserved by these and other exhibitors.

The machinery and printing equipment sectors will be highlighted in this new edition. However, it is expected that more companies of materials and media will actively participate, as well as those that are dedicated to the sectors of ink and consumables.

It will also include an exhibition section dedicated to products, materials and technological solutions for designers, as well as services for them. Last year, 17% of the visitors were designers and it is expected that in this 2019 increase this number as well as that of illustrators, students and creators.

Source: Ide-e.

Code web Barcelona, ​​from their experience, bring us what will be the trends of 2019 in terms of graphic design. Meet the styles that we have already seen in 2018 but that may have a big boom next year and be part of various advertising or marketing campaigns.

Color Channel

Have you seen those images in which yellow, blue and red are separated in layers? That's what this style is about. It owes its name to the color channels and seeks to produce a new image by separating them. But not only to separate them but also to be creative in terms of positions, if we talk about a photo or separate the chromatic spectrum.

Glitch

It is a visual effect that consists in making the image appear as if it had an error, a digital file error. The lines with pixels or broken are highly estimated and, well used, can give the image uniqueness and style.

Color explosion

It involves the use of bright and eye-catching colors within an illustration or photograph. Obviously, a good combination is important but what draws attention to this style is that basic effect almost eighty.

Ruined

It is the "destroyed" effect. In it, we have broken photographs or assemblies of elements that flake, giving them an appearance of images of the early twentieth.

Typographies

Although it is not an effect as such, typographies in recent years are increasingly elaborate and striking. It is larger, personal, almost like an illustration in itself, being it the main element of an image.

Illustration on photography

Although to some it seems that this is an aberration, the truth is that this style has given a new focus to photography as well as to illustrations. As the name implies, it is about superimposing illustrations on a photograph to complement it or make it unique in a fun and entertaining way.

Digital marketing is very important nowadays but many times the tools that can help us be more effective are not exactly free. That is why we give you this list of 8 applications that you can use at no cost.

Google Alerts

Monitor your brand or product on the network, by using a keyword. Through this tool, you will be able to verify where that keyword appears that you have used and in which web page. It does not monitor social networks.

Talkwalker

Unlike Google Alerts, this tool monitors social networks so you can use it in combination with the first to cover a wider range.

Social Mention

This application analyzes the contents on the Internet in order to know who mentions us, where and when, whether in blogs or social networks.

Ubersuggest - Neilpatel

It is an alternative tool to Google's Keyword Planner, so it will help you identify which words you should use in your content to improve your SEO.

SimilarWeb

Make benchmarking reports and other statistics for your website.

MOZ

It will help you analyze various SEO aspects of your website, especially the backlinks used.

LandBot

With it you can create your own bot to insert it into your web page in a simple way, especially for those who are not experts in programming.

SmartLook

With this tool you will be able to record in video everything that users do in your web page, which is something very valuable to measure the behavior of the users.

Source: Tecno Hotel News.

Gamification consists in integrating a certain modality of videogames to your web page or an application in order to make it more attractive and dynamic for your users. For example, you can integrate prizes or rewards when using your application, in this way people will find a reason to use them constantly, given their competitive nature.

This system ensures the loyalty of your users as well as their commitment for a long time, in addition to throwing good results for your company. This is because it achieves an emotional connection with your customers as well as giving your website a different touch, since you can implement different systems to each section to make them unique.

Advantages:

• Increase the commitment of your customers.
• Increase loyalty as well as favorable opinions towards your company.
• Give rewards to your users gives them the feeling of having met some goal.
• Differentiate each section of your web page by using different systems in each one.

Disadvantages:

• Some believe that using too basic systems create a fun experience when it is not. The competitive status must be maintained.
• You can not force people to play only because then the fun factor would be lost.
• The games should be fun, motivating and innovative so that they do not become only work, since work is not associated with fun.

Source: Survey any place.

Appear in the most important search engines, such as Google, if you have an online store, is almost an essential requirement to ensure your sales or at least position yourself among possible future customers. However, this is not something that can be achieved so easily. This is where SEO starts up, but what should I take into account to make searches more effective?

1. Site speed

Google works with algorithms and, believe it or not, if your web page does not load quickly it can leave you a little outside at the time of a search. You can use Google Page Speed ​​to determine how fast it is.

2. User experience

What users say about your web page is also considered, so you should try to give them a positive experience to be able to be positioned in the search engine. Limit the use of banners as well as facilitate navigation on your site and avoid covering content that redirects to other sections or pages.

3. Domain authority

It is built over time: it is about the quality of your website, its contents, the links associated with it. You can not hope to achieve this in the short term. You must be consistent so that authority grows over time.

4. Content quality

You must take care of the quality of what you publish on your website, not only on the subject but also on the form, the way it is written. Spelling is important and it is thanks to it that users determine whether the page in question is relevant or not.

5. Content length

What is considered quality content usually has 2,000 words or more. It is content that, in general, is not superfluous but interesting to read and consume.

6. Keywords

Keywords are a good tool to position your website. Include them, naturally, in the content as well as in the title of the same, in the description and even the URL.

7. Multimedia presence

Do not leave out the multimedia content. Nowadays, videos or podcasts are almost as important as a post as well as calling attention more easily, without leaving aside the coherence of what you offer.

8. Commitment

It is necessary that the content keep the user inside your page for several minutes, not just enter, review and leave, since Google measures this too. Try to offer content that keeps them focused on the subject, you can also use bullets to facilitate reading or divide it into sections.

9. Design

If the website does not load correctly on any device, even mobile phones, then it's time to rethink the design. In addition, it should be easy to load and visually appealing.

10. Reading level

A good vocabulary at the time of writing always helps. It considers that although a post should not be at the level of a PhD, it must be written with sufficient academic level to be considered by Google.

11. Sources

And not the typographical ones but those from where you get the information. Take advantage of the hyperlinks to do this, both to enhance the website from which you obtained the information and for Google to identify the use of the same in your post.

12. Scope of data

Try to make your content unique in terms of data and information. Give that added value to make it stand out and differentiate from others. In addition, this type of content is valued by readers since it shows that you have researched enough to write based on a specific topic and not only limit yourself to copipaslate what is in other websites.

Source: Entrepreneur.

Marketing is not an exclusive tool of large companies: small and medium companies can benefit from this element since it is, above all, to increase the visibility of our products and improve the image of our company before our consumers. We bring you some tips for you to use in your favor.

1. Determine your audience

According to the branch of our business, we must be very clear about the target audience we are targeting. Knowing this is extremely important in marketing.

2. Print advertising

Some companies continue to invest in this advertising. If you are going to do it, try to get it delivered to the right person. It is good to win the hearts of your locals before going for others.

3. Other forms of advertising

It is not necessary to use all types of advertising: the ideal is to choose the one that suits your business. For example, if it is videogames, using an audiovisual advertisement is a good option.

4. Hire a freelance

Having a marketing expert on your payroll, knowing you are just getting started, is not such a good idea. But having a freelance to help you in your advertising strategies, as well as someone who supports you in the image of your brand, is a slightly more viable option.

Source: Rostbrief.

We all know the great brands, whether because of the innovative advertising of recent times as well as because of the tradition that each carries with it. However, few know the competition that exists between them, at least as consumers.

Adidas and Nike are two of the best known brands worldwide in terms of clothing and footwear and sports. It was at the Olympics in China that both brands had a tough battle.

The Olympics is a sporting event that has millions of spectators around the world thanks to the nature of it: an international sports competition divided into specialties.

Becoming one of the brands used by an athlete during the event ensures an advertising that more than one will want to see as well as a certain status since not any brand gets that high. Or at the feet or head of sportsmen highly known in the world and with millions of followers.

Adidas and Nike disputed the presence in the Olympics. While it is possible that they have spent millions to appear strategically as clothing or footwear of certain athletes, the truth is that the publicity obtained would generate more than they invested, since the spectators of the event would immediately see that such or such items are the sale and they would buy it only to imitate or support their idols. In China, for example, both brands had an enormous acceptance and, therefore, a good profit.

Not only do both brands profit in this way: their marketing has helped enormously to stay in the market. The image, the slogan, are very important elements. While it seems strange to us, as consumers, to see a brand change its slogan, this is part of a marketing strategy that has helped them to embrace more followers and be much more accepted. A simple but effective phrase can achieve it.

Far from what we believe, both Adidas and Nike not only have a good source of investment but also with the marketing intelligence enough to stay among the first places. 

Source: El espectador.

Cellphones are much more widely used than computers around the world, either because they are practical and mobile, or because many people spend less time at home to check their PC. Be that as it may, taking mobile phones into account when promoting a product or service is important. There is even way to earn money through applications for them.

The mobile marketing consists in the promotion of what you offer through the cell phone of your clients. To do this, you must create an application for your company. You must follow these steps.

1. Define your goals

Define what your company's goal is when creating the application. What do you want to sell? How? When? To who?

If you know a specific branch of business, such as restaurants for example, it is advisable to focus on it and take advantage of it.

2. Create your page

A landing page is what you need if you want your customers to locate you. That will be the space where you give information about yourself as a company and what you offer them. You can also use it as a showcase to sell your products.

3. Create your value proposition

Why should they choose you and not anyone else? What is it that sets you apart from others? You must consider that the application you are selling solves the problem or lack of your potential client.

A good application can cost up to 45,000 euros while a more accessible only 1,000 barely. However, it's still a profitable way to make money, do not you think? 

Source: IEB School.

With technology today, many have thought that books would find their end as well as the music industry in terms of disc sales. However, it has become clear that human beings are still accustomed to certain things, although the internet has facilitated many other things. One of them is the business cards and we explain the reasons why you should continue to have one.

Memories

They are usually a small reminder of a meeting you have been in.

Information

The contact contained in it is always useful. While we can have it in the mail, a phone number becomes easier to locate on a card.

Logo and colors

It is the most striking of a card and, in a way, represents what you want to show.

More information

No need to overload it, a card can give more information about you besides your name and phone.

Uniqueness

A card with particular characteristics and colors tends to stay more in our wallets than a simple white card.

Emotional and physical connection

At the moment of wanting to establish a commercial relationship, people also seek to have a minimum of emotional connection with the other, and this is not achieved with a cold contact through the Internet. A card, which is a physical and tangible element, can help a little more. 

Source: Entrepreneur.

Storytelling consists of telling a brief but significant story of your company or product in order to give emotional elements with which your customers can feel identified or motivated to choose you over other companies. Some tips for an effective storytelling are:

1. Touch your most sensitive fiber

Consumers find more attractive those services or products that appeal to their emotions. It is not necessary to sensitize them more with very strong themes: it is enough with something emotional through the audiovisual to capture their attention.

2. Emotional connection

To achieve a contact with the sensitivity of your client, you can consider the values ​​of your brand, the elements that differentiate you from other brands, a story that awakens emotion and a language rich in stimuli. These and other elements could be a valuable help.

3. How do you say it?

Take into account the way in which you send the message: the images, the voice tonl, the pauses, expressions and content other elements. Also take into account its duration.

4. The experience

One of the fundamental objectives of storytelling is not only to capture the attention of our clients but to offer them an experience that impacts them, that makes them associate that emotion with what we offer them.

Source: Entrepreneur.

Value proposals are always a necessary and fundamental element in any company even when launching new products. What does it consist of? Simple: it is the promise that, as a company, we offer to our client.

Remember that many times consumers buy experiences, not products. That is why we must consider what we sell, to whom and for what.

However, it is not as cold as it seems. What sets us apart from others? Apple sells status and some service companies sell friendliness in what they offer. That is why we must consider the problem or state of our client and what our product or service offers as a solution or transformation.

The key elements of a value proposition are:

•     Clarity, since it must be easy to understand
•     You must indicate the results that the client will obtain
•     Why is it better and different
•     Must be read in less than 5 seconds

Always try to put yourself in the shoes of your client: would you buy what you offer instead of your competition? Is the price worth it? Is the proposal congruent?

Source: Aprendamos marketing.

Some entrepreneurs believe that creating a logo or image of your company should only be pretty and that's it. Big mistake. The image of our business must comply with certain guidelines where, although the aesthetic is important, it is much more effective and easy to convey the message we want to give.

Nowadays, the graphic design career has taken into account more elements than previously considered: knowing the printing process, for example, it is part of your career and, in some cases, marketing too.

For some schools, knowledge of marketing is important when creating their professionals since many of them end up being hired by entrepreneurs who need help with the image of their business, so knowing a bit about this world will allow them to respond to your need effectively.

Branding, for example, is what brings the most headaches to an entrepreneur, since he wants an image that helps him manage his company but then leaves aside the effectiveness and commitment to the aesthetic. This is where the designer acts: consider the objective of the company (to sell) and its values ​​or the message it wants to convey. This is how, then, his creativity tries to find an answer that not only satisfies this entrepreneur but also provokes in his potential clients that promise that every company has, the product that they need. The brand must be consistent with what the company offers or else customers will feel ripped off.

So, when you go to hire someone for your corporate image, consider that it should be effective much more than beautiful.

Source: Phics and graphics.

If we go shopping to our favorite supermarket, we will always see the almost infinite options of the same product we have to choose: we have them by size, color, age of the production companies, some we saw on television ... Which one to choose? Branding, in a certain way, has an important role in this type of situations. What should we take into account to make an effective branding strategy?

1. Know your customer

Being clear about our client's profile not only helps us as a company but also allows us to deduce the best way to approach it, as well as defining how to offer my product. Remember that customers buy experiences rather than objects.

2. Define the objectives

The objectives should always follow the SMART concept: be specific (specific), measurable, achievable (attainable), relevant (relevant) and be temporally delimited (time-related).

3. Analyze your competition

You must know who your competitors are in order to make a strategy that considers your strongest and most distinctive points against others.

4. Develop your value proposition

We must be aware of our strengths, whether the price, quality, alternative, feeling we offer (nostalgia, for example), status, among others.

5. Establish your storytelling

Storytelling is the technique in which a connection is established between the brand and a story or story. Storytelling makes it easier for the consumer to remember what it is and what the values ​​of a company are.

6. Name, color, logo, slogan and tone

One of the fundamental steps when creating a company or doing a branding campaign is to establish your corporate identity: you must have some uniformity in the brand although they are different elements.

7. Define the communication channels

For this, we must know our consumers and choose the best medium (television, social networks ...) through which to send our messages as a company.

8. Evaluate the results

After having launched the strategy, we must be attentive to the results we have obtained. This is no less important than the strategy itself, since it is the results that will allow us to see if everything has worked or if there are things that we should correct or change. 

Source: The social media family.

Promoting a brand is not the same as promoting a product. That is where we get what we know today as personal branding or product branding, and these differences are brought to us by Julita Davies.

The product branding is responsible for the promotion of the product: how is it born? What is the idea behind it? What is it for? What are its benefits? It is there where then a plan is created to promote this product. In case something can be improved, it is done in order to meet the expectations of our audience and overcome them.

Instead, the personal branding focuses on you as a brand, as a product in some way, and the best way to promote what you offer. Although you are a product, you are also a person and, as such, you have values ​​and defects. You are a professional, a person even with religious beliefs or cultural knowledge. Julita Davies says as a professional that she does not seek to create a new person but to promote and exalt what the person already has to offer: he is his own brand and does not need to be changed, since each one is a unique and valuable brand.

Geomarketing is a tool that allows us to visualize the situation of a business in terms of its location, taking into account its points of sale, branches, clientele, competition, among other elements. This allows us to have a perspective with which to make decisions to continue maintaining our business or improve our strategies.

A geomarketing plan consists of the collection of a customer's data through commercial transactions, so that a database is created with which the company can launch promotional campaigns according to this information.

You can also identify market strategy opportunities if the information obtained is correctly analyzed. As well as the number of customers against the competition, for example.

Some of the benefits of this tool are:

• Optimization of marketing investment
• Greater knowledge of the market
• Design of sales areas
• Determine the area of ​​influence
• Potential market analysis
• Among other benefits

Source: Marketing en redes sociales.

Since always, the image that we project ourselves as others has been a subject of vital importance, either from the personal point of view ("What results from me?") Or from the social perspective (like the image that the kings they had before their town, for example). Today has not changed although the prospects are numerous.

If we have a company, new or old, the same image is important. We are a brand.

A brand, as we said, is the image that our company projects in its customers. It is the way in which they see it, the way in which the company defines both its products, the target audience and even the treatment it grants. This is where branding takes action.

Branding is the administration of brands. Through structured strategies, this process seeks, in the long term, to create expectations and illusions towards your brand. Users are still people, we should not forget this, and, like stories, emotion plays an important role in their lives: what makes our brand feel? Do you give them confidence? Do you create illusions? Do you have positive opinions?

What the users or the future customers have seen fundamentally in the brand, since it seeks to create an emotional link to our brand so that the overall image is positive. It's not the same to sell cell phones as the possibility (it's a fact!) To connect with your family and friends no matter the distance. The emotional and the benefits of our products must go hand in hand.

The brand has three vital aspects that it takes into account at the time of management:

• Why?: is the reason for our brand. Why should you be there? The reason must be defined and be strong enough to distinguish between our competitors.
• How?: This is the part where we define the strategies to get our business to people: this does not only include, literally, the strategies to publicize but also the treatment we give our customers. It is the construction of the image.
• What?: is what our brand offers. Whether products or services, in the end, it is necessary to see this triangle so that everything flows in harmony.

Source: Branderstand.

All marketing strategies must be monitored and measured, without this happening, however, we will be unable to determine our practices. Setting aside the measurement will not help us increase or increase the number of followers. Sales are not the only indicator.

You can use methods to measure efficiency or digital marketing strategy.

Visibility

Examining the visibility we have is a good step in determining whether our strategy has worked or not. Before our clients did not know us and now they know who we are, is not it?

Visits

The capture of users on our website, attracted by the content, is fundamental. You should analyze what type of content attracts our customers through the number of visits or visualizations you have. The same can be done in reverse: verifying the contents with few visits.

Statistics and forms

If we have forms that have been filled by our followers, we can bring to light our future life.

Leads

How many of our followers become potential customers? While we can count on quality content, not all of our followers register on our website and, in any case, not all of them become buyers. While I may not understand / request our products or services, this does not mean that we should underestimate them: they can become future buyers.

Number of clients

Although it is obvious, the number of clients helps us determine if our campaign is effective or not. If they are numerous, we are doing a good job. If they are not or are kept in the same amount as in the beginning, then we must verify what we are failing according to the above and correct it.

Source: Media Source.