A Few Good Tips for Good Audio

A picture can tell a thousand words, but what if that picture is accompanied by bad audio? Will it be able to tell anything at all? It does not take years of experience as a "sound guy" to record quality audio for your video presentation. By planning ahead you can produce a project you'll be proud to show.

Always be prepared for outside, uncontrollable factors such as wind, industrial sized air conditioners, trains, cars, ham radio interference, hums, etc. You can plan ahead and prevent these kinds of annoyances from ruining your production by utilizing a professional windscreen (known as a "possum") for your lavaliere (lapel) or boom mic and scouting all locations before you shoot. Windscreens reduce wind velocity, which minimizes wind noise, pop noises and breath sounds from your interviewee. By taking advantage of a location scout you will have the chance to notice any unwanted noises and find ways to work around them or the opportunity to find another location that better suits your production needs.

Once while shooting a video project in Dallas we encountered radio interference on our lavalier mic that was coming from several possible sources such a nearby tv station, cell phone towers or a ham radio tower. No matter what channel we switched the mic receiver and camera transmitter to we got a nasty "hummm" in our audio feed. Having exhausted our known solutions we were forced to use a hand held mic taped to a steel rod that was kept out of the video frame. It worked. The moral of this story is to always take as many back ups as possible. Tape, cameras, mics, batteries, etc.

Audio is just as important as video in any production. A clean audio track will take any video project to the next level. Try listening to just the audio track from any program you currently like then imagine it without the audio. Plan ahead and make the effort to scout all locations before your shoot.

Navigation professionally produces a variety of audio and visual needs. http://www.navigationadvertising.com

Big Sales Boost with Email Marketing

By Tiffany Vance

E-mailing company newsletters and announcements are a great way to generate more business...when they are used correctly. Sending out e-mail blasts via an e-mail marketing service will allow you to successfully manage your contact lists and measure your results. They can show you how many were opened and which key content was clicked through to so you can gauge the effectiveness of your strategy. Your email list must be accrued through "opt-in" subscribers, not through bulk email lists sold through brokers. A smaller number of subscribers who care about your product or service is much more effective than thousands who have never heard of you.

One of the most important ways to get your newsletter or announcement read is through the subject line. Considering the how people think and react is essential. You may think you are announcing something that no one in the world will want to miss out on, but the reality is that people may be weary of being "sold". You must pay acute attention to those very few words in the subject line. One company that deals in stock investing found that when they would e-mail what people considered positive news, the unsubscribe rate was in the single digits and they received positive feedback. When they sent negative news, however, they received record single-day unsubscribers and little-to-no feedback.

Valuable content is another essential to receiving the proper response. While many subscribers may want to know what the latest sale is they may also appreciate helpful content derived from your expertise.

Another way to boost sales through e-mails is to resend the same blast. Many companies have found that by simply resending the same e-mail one week later to the addresses that did not open the original message increased response dramatically. Some choose to change the subject line and others do not. The beauty of using an e-mail marketing service is that you can experiment with your messaging and actually track your success rate with tangible numbers. Navigation Advertising has been providing email marketing services to clients for several years. We understand that the proper mix of creativity and strategy garners the results companies and organizations are looking for through Internet advertising. There's not a magic wand - it takes consistency, repetition and valuable content to succeed in email marketing.

The Ever Changing World of Advertising and Marketing

The Economy. Those two words are on the tips of everyones tongues these days. It's amazing how quickly things can change. Just a few years ago we were all talking about terrorism. Every industry has it's own "ese", i.e., words and phrases that are specific to that industry and the people in that industry understand, but others don't. In the world of advertising the phrases such as "branding", "direct response" and "demographics" have been part of the advertising "ese" for several decades. We are experiencing a profound change. The new "ese" includes words and phrases such as: 

"Tweeting", "Behavioral Targeting", "Keyword marketing", "Mobile media", "Rich media", "RSS", "Search Engine Optimization", "Social media", "Third-person recommendations", "Unique users", "Viral marketing", and "Wiki". These new words and phrases don't necessarily eliminate the "ese" that has been used for decades but they do provide insight into the new approach to promoting a product or service. There isn't one learning curve, there are several and the challenge for client and agency is to keep to the fundamentals while intelligently exploring progressive methods. Just because it's new doesn't mean it works, just as it doesn't always work because it worked in the past. Thoroughly confused now? Many are, but it's our job to use cutting edge technologies and methods without falling off the edge :)  <---- "emotioncons" is another word in the new "ese". 

Ecommerce: Custom Shopping Cart vs. Paypal

Cost
One of the main deciding factors between using Paypal and a Custom Shopping Cart is going to be the number of items for sale. With few items, it is more economical to simply use Paypal (they charge a small fee per transaction, and setup is free). A shopping cart will require the purchase of the cart engine ($299-$???) and an SSL certificate ($149) which must be renewed yearly.

Management
The advantage with a shopping cart is that if you have lots of items it can (literally) manage those easier, were-as using Paypal (each item by hand) would be tedious and inefficient. When we create an online store for a client we ask, "do you want to manage your products, pricing, shipping, discounts, inventory, image posting, and most importantly, how many products will you ultimately be selling?" These basics pieces of info are absolutely vital to developing a proper online shopping cart experience.

Look
A shopping cart is typically more advantageous because it's easier to keep a consistent graphic look by designing it to look like the parent website; thus, it looks more professional. However, there is a lot of time spent on the front-end doing the custom styling to match the parent website. When using Paypal, the user clicks a button which will redirect the user to a Paypal purchase window (leaving the parent website) where they will select the amount of the product they want, and proceed with checking out. Yet, a shopping cart is self-contained in that all the information and confirmations are handled within the parent website.

Examples
For a visual, we refer you to the Murfreesboro Symphony Orchestra and Secure Product Sales (MSO uses Paypal, and SPS uses a custom Shopping cart).
SPS: http://www.secureproductsales.com/
MSO: http://www.murfreesborosymphony.com/tickets/

Happy Online Shopping!
—Josh Morrison, Senior Web Designer, Navigation Advertising

Web Marketing 101

Navigation Advertising recently conducted a Search Engine Optimization and Web Marketing seminar for a prominent Nashville-based corporation, solidifying our position as regional web marketing experts. Our internet-based marketing skills are extremely important to the overall success of our clients advertising and marketing campaigns. We provide the expertise our clients need to succeed on the web.

As with traditional advertising there are numerous elements to web advertising and marketing. Search Engine Optimization, pay-per-click campaigns, email blast campaigns, and linking strategies are just a few—but all are growing in importance and advertisers are wise to fully engage their audience through the web. Remember web marketing is extremely organic so what worked a year ago may not work now. It's vital to stay on top of the technologies, strategies and tactics to make sure your results exceed your expectations.

Most have heard terms such as keywords, meta tags, and banner ads, but trust us this is just the tip of the proverbial ice berg and we'd like to help your company make the web work for you.

For more information about how you can succeed with effective web marketing please contact us at 898-1496.

Welcome!

Welcome to our first official blog entry. One of the greatest tasks is to make these entries not sound like press releases. After developing thousands of promotional tasks for clients over the past 14 years we tend to think in a certain way, but we'll do our best to just communicate about our industry, community, families, experiences and projects. We enjoy our position as Murfreesboro and Rutheford County's premiere advertising and marketing company. We look forward to serving our community by helping our client's put their "best foot forward" through effective advertising, marketing and public relations. We understand that when businesses and individuals are successful they have the funds necessary to pay employees, provide for their families, eat at Toots, or buy a home from Ole South Properties. This blog will provide interesting information about the world of advertising, marketing, public relations, website development, print design and video production. At Navigation Advertising we practice The Art of Persuasion. http://www.navigationadvertising.com