Blog

Ever noticed how some businesses get into the holiday spirit with themed social media? Whether it’s spooky vibes in October or red and green accents for the winter holidays, styling your social media for holidays can be a smart strategy.  But is it right for your business? The Benefits: Engagement … Read More

Digital transformation is a buzzword you may have encountered, but what does it really mean? At its core, digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business. This shift brings significant changes in how your business operates and delivers value to customers. It’s not just … Read More

In business, effective communication is critical. Proper communication ensures that businesses convey the right messages to the right audience at the right time. It involves strategic thinking, careful coordination, and expert execution. Why Communications Planning Matters Partnering with a marketing agency can be a game-changer for businesses looking to optimize … Read More

In the fast-paced world we live in, the role of UX design cannot be overstated. UX design serves as the cornerstone for creating products and services that not only meet user needs but exceed expectations. Here’s why UX design matters and why businesses should make it a priority: Enhanced User … Read More

We are excited to share a thought-provoking blog post from our partners at Adobe. In their post, Adobe shares insights on email marketing, challenging the traditional ‘rules’, and encourages us to explore new possibilities. Adobe highlights several commonly accepted email marketing guidelines and suggests it’s time to test, tweak, and, … Read More

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) have transitioned from buzzwords to business imperatives, reshaping how brands engage with their audiences. Today, being inclusive isn’t just a moral stance—it’s a strategic advantage. As a marketing agency committed to driving meaningful change, we recognize that building an inclusive brand requires more than token … Read More

On May 16th, we celebrate the 13th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). It’s a chance to make things easier for everyone, especially by following the rules in the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). The AODA is a law in Ontario that helps people with disabilities. It’s about removing things that make life … Read More

In today’s digital landscape, third-party cookies have been instrumental in helping businesses understand consumer behavior and target their advertising effectively. However, recent developments, particularly Google’s Tracking Protection feature in Chrome, are shaking up the status quo. This feature automatically blocks third-party cookies, giving consumers more control over their online privacy. … Read More

There’s a profound message that resonates within the atmosphere of sustainable design – its impact on branding and marketing not only reflects a company’s dedication to sustainability but also highlights the innovation it brings to integrating sustainability into design.Sustainable design isn’t ‘just a trend’; it’s a dynamic movement reshaping how … Read More

Testimonials have become a powerful tool in today’s business landscape, providing insights into the experiences of customers and clients. They offer a glimpse into the impact your business, product, or service has on people’s lives. However, testimonials go beyond mere praise or feedback; they reflect the level of engagement your … Read More

In today’s competitive business landscape, building a strong brand is crucial for success. Brand development and positioning play a pivotal role in shaping customer perception, fostering loyalty, and differentiating your business from competitors. We delve into the expertise of branding and brand management, highlighting the development of a robust brand … Read More

Marketing is no longer the simple and linear endeavor it once was. With now saturated markets in a digital world, it’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to effectively navigate the ever-changing mechanisms of effective marketing strategies. Today’s marketing plans must include significantly more touchpoints, including social media channels, websites, … Read More

A potential customer clicks on your Facebook Ad. What’s next? Customer journey mapping is a real-time customer-centric approach to driving engaged customers, who keep coming back to you while providing methods that improve their overall experience. Customer journey mapping creates holistic opportunities that focus on your customers’ beginning-to-end interactions. In … Read More

Wondering if you should create a TikTok account for your business? The answer to that question depends on your audience. Who is your audience? Is your audience on TikTok? TikTok certainly makes its mark as a selling platform, with consumer spending reaching $6 Billion in 2022. If you can identify … Read More

How To Capture Sales From Abandoned Carts If you are selling online, then you can appreciate the frustration of abandoned carts! These are potential sales just sitting in limbo, but there are proven strategies to coax even the most stubborn or forgetful shoppers into returning to their cart to follow … Read More

An email subject line is your first course of action in capturing the recipient’s attention and getting your email opened. Emails with personalized subject lines have a greater likelihood of being opened and increases future success of your email marketing strategy. When thinking about what to put in your subject … Read More

Imagine all the ways you might lose that sale or customer? An abandoned online shopping cart gets pulled away to something else. The lost opportunity of a follow-up appointment or sale because you’re not taking advantage of all avenues marketing has to offer. Not leaving a lasting impression, because you … Read More

You are just a tiny fish in a vast ocean, but there are ways to stand out and make sure that your brand is getting noticed. Does your brand need a reboot, a refresh or does it simply just need a fresh coat of polish? Branding encompasses more than just … Read More

It doesn’t matter the business or market you’re in, we all experience some down time or slow season as it’s often referred, but there’s no need for panic. Marketing during the slow season is a great opportunity to really hone-in on your target market and customize marketing strategies that will … Read More

As a creative marketing agency, focused on developing successful and tailored solutions for our clients, we make a point to stay up-to-date on social media and marketing trends. Omni-channel commerce is one of these trends we have expanded a knowledge, expertise and experience base in. When presented with the opportunity … Read More

You may or may not have heard about omni-channel, although it is very likely that you have at least noticed it in passing, across your screen. Omni-channel commerce is a seamless and engaging multichannel approach, used by businesses and organizations, to give access to their products, services and offers, on … Read More

Regularly posting and sharing content on your business or organization’s social networks is a great marketing tactic. However, the simple task of regularly posting is not enough to create engagement and generate leads. Have you ever asked yourself what your social media content should be doing? What are the purposes … Read More

Social media is an industry of its own, that constantly and quickly evolves. This makes it challenging for businesses, in any sector, to properly manage their social media networks. This includes planning, preparing and scheduling social media content. We frequently ask ourselves the question: ‘How often should I post and … Read More

Why does your business need a loyalty program? Customer loyalty programs (CLPs) foster the potential to grow your business and create brand awareness by expanding on your unique products or services while igniting trust in your brand. Keeping customers engaged and loyal is a valuable and ongoing marketing tool that … Read More

In short, Continuous Optimization is the process of getting the best results, by actively monitoring and adjusting your marketing campaign while it is still active and running. The benefits of this marketing method are notable: Helps you understand your audience – their wants and their needs. Gives critical feedback on … Read More

Is your business or organization experiencing a growth? Does it need to refresh its branding? Is it going through a transition? Do you have a new service or product that needs promotion? Do you lack in resources and marketing skills? If your answer to most of these questions is yes, … Read More

Giving Tuesday typically takes place after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, it falls on December 1st. Co-founded by CanadaHelps and GIV3 – a privately-registered Canadian charity, Giving Tuesday Canada unites not-for-profit organizations, businesses, groups/communities and individuals annually for a big day of giving. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this … Read More

As the coronavirus rapidly disrupts our day to day life it is our job as marketers to frequently reassess and swiftly implement strategies. This is our norm. Spring is a critical time for marketing. We are ending the first quarter of a new year, wrapping up the year end for … Read More

Over the years we’ve worked with all types of businesses and organizations, big and small, for profit or non-profit, new and old, service, manufacturing and retail. The first question when we meet is always the same “How much should I spend to market my business?” Now old business can sometimes … Read More

Organizing a strong internal administrative team is no easy task, these are the individuals that may run the day-to-day operations of your organization and are responsible for things running smoothly. These are the people who know the projects, know the customers, answer the phone, oversee the admin tasks and often … Read More

Today, our clients are facing a fast and sporadic world with a magnitude of content, this new generation of professionals does not take the time search for information. As a society we expect the information to be tailored to us, be where we expect it to be and be written … Read More

One of the disciplines that knows how to evolve to the rhythm of society is marketing. It is called new marketing but it really is a reinvention of this and its enormous capacity for adaptation in the face of a new economic and social technological environment. The consolidation of the … Read More

It’s the 21st century, century of technology and Internet! Your website is important, it is the face of your company, it needs to grow, change, adapt, and you must give it the attention and care it needs. Your website should be easy to navigate, potential online customers will not take … Read More

Most of the graphical content on social media is still images. We are used to them, and our attention to still images may be reduced when we scroll down Facebook or Instagram. On the other hand, GIFs and videos are set up by default to start playing right away as … Read More

Branding is not something we normally stop to think about, but if we did we would realize that it is in everything that surrounds us, day by day. If you look at your house, everything has a brand. For example most of the foods in your refrigerator, the refrigerator itself … Read More

To reflect on 2017, we’ve collected our favourite design trends from the year! Colour Transitions Settle gradients started getting popular back in 2016, when Instagram rebranded themselves with an orange-to-purple-through-fuchsia colour transition. Ever since this catchy trend spread, and now you can observe it in graphical elements across many brands, … Read More

Whether it’s a quiz or post, marketing giants like Buzz Feed have shown time and again that interactive content can lead to longer time spent on a webpage and lead to engaging the consumer in more than one article. Social media users are growing everyday, as a result it’s no … Read More

We are quickly moving into the rush of the holidays. If you are a small business owner or manager, then it’s bound to get stressful having to deal with big corporate companies bombarding you with ad after ad. The holiday season is an essential time to put those smart marketing strategies to work to … Read More

It takes hands to build a house… Only hearts can build a home.   Featuring a new website for Degagne Carpentry. The need was to develop an online portal in an effort to share resources quickly and efficiently with potential clients, existing clients and provide a tool for sales staff to … Read More

More and more companies understand the importance of social media, and businesses that don’t have at least one social media page are becoming less common. This is not surprising – social media provides great communication with your clients, helps to get feedback and boosts marketing efforts through consumer generated content … Read More

Direct mail, also known as advertising mail, junk mail, mailshot, admail, etc. is the delivery of advertising materials to a recipient by postal mail. It is also one of the main tools of the direct marketing – the technique of delivering your ad straight to your potential customers. Direct mail is a reliable and time proven way … Read More

Nowadays it seems to be common knowledge, that hiring freelancers from overseas for your website isn’t such a good idea. But do you know why? Security company Tripwire actually performed a study, selecting 10 seemingly reputable freelancers to build a website with an intent to analyze those websites. Each freelancer … Read More

Digital marketing is often a black hole of information for those not entirely familiar with the technology and the complexity of the audience structure. Companies who have remained committed to digital marketing are now seeing proof of their efforts resulting in increased visibility of their brands and in direct sales. … Read More

It’s Time To Redesign Your Website! For most companies website redesign is a serious challenge – your website has to reflect all the relevant information about your company. It requires to be well written, high in search engines, should work smooth and align well with current brand image. Increase your … Read More

Created by Google’s Cultural Institute, Google Street Art Project provides an online catalogue of street art from around the world. The site offers Audio Tours, Online Exhibitors, World Collections, GIF Art and the stories of the artists. Google also tweets out images daily @GoogleStreetArt of worldwide street art, and the … Read More

Snapchat turned Internet communications into a game by letting people send modified selfies and short videos. Just days ago Snapchat reached a mark of 150M daily users, which made the app more popular than Twitter and overall made it the 3rd most popular app in the world. With a 32.9% … Read More

7 Questions to Ask Yourself After a number of years in business, it might be time to dust off your brand. An up-to-date brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets, while wrong branding simply doesn’t attract right people to your business. It is essential that the … Read More

4 Benefits for Your In-House Marketing Team In-house marketing teams know the ins and outs of their company better than anyone. What we offer is a service that integrates with your team’s knowledge, engages your sales staff, in-house marketers or management directly to provide enhanced marketing expertise, additional resources, innovation … Read More

We tell our clients all the time they need to listen to the needs of their clients. Today technology and social media offers us an amazing opportunity to engage with our clients and gain feedback that we can really implement in the success of our business. Even the negative stuff! … Read More

Breaking into the international market can be a challenge for any company, but throw in local government unrest, serious infrastructural challenges and abject poverty and you really have a challenge. For one Tour and Safaris company in Nairobi Kenya, the key to breaking into this market was having a Canadian … Read More

Black Friday is a ‘big box’ game, so what can we do as a small business to help capitalize on this weekend’s shopping extravaganza? Here are a few tips: Use social media – it’s a quick and effective platform for promotions, not to mention easier on the pocket book than some … Read More

As communication tactics evolve and media changes on a daily basis a company can quickly get lost when it comes to integrating their marketing efforts to include online platforms. There are many ways you can improve your marketing approach but having an integrated plan is essential, whether you are working … Read More

When comparing anything you want to make sure that you are comparing the items equally, hence the phrase “comparing apples to apples”. It only makes sense to ensure that the products being looked at offer all the same qualities, right? Unfortunately, in the world of marketing and design, that doesn’t … Read More

With spring inevitably comes “Spring Cleaning”, a phrase often used at home but it also applies to business. Spring is a time to review and evaluate your businesses’ marketing efforts over the last year. Most small businesses in Northern Ontario can look at this time as a catch up and … Read More

LinkedIn is the world’s largest business to business social networking site and as a business owner, it is essential that you become part of it. Here are some facts about LinkedIn and why (if you are not already) you should be involved: It was designed to help small-medium sized businesses … Read More

Most small business owners will tell you that their marketing is working. The proof, they are still in business. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that I would be writing this article from a sandy beach somewhere with a piña colada in my hand. The truth … Read More

Lately, mobile APPs for smartphones, such as the iPhone and Blackberry are all the rage and many organizations are clambering to beat their competition to the APP marketplace. Business owners however, may not be aware of the options available to them. There is a gamut of APP types to choose … Read More

As a web design professional, I have heard on more than one occasion “That much? My nephew will do the work for $200!” Your website is a first point of contact for potential customers and you only get one chance to make a good first impression. What kind of impression … Read More

Studies show that small businesses have the most to gain from Social Media. 88% of all small business owners found that Social Media helped them increase exposure, and 72% of those surveyed saw increased traffic and subscriptions as a result of social media. With small business owners having to constantly … Read More

A successful business owner will tell you, one of the most important things to learn early on in any business is to identify your target market and then figure out how to find them. Once you have found them, how do you get their attention? That’s where marketing comes in, … Read More

After attending an inspiring design conference this month, hosted in Toronto by RGD Ontario, my thoughts about design and how people think about design has been somewhat expanded. This article has come together more as a reflection than a “what to do” type of article. After listening to various legends … Read More

Most people by now are familiar with the term ‘viral video’, but for those who aren’t, a viral video is one that has become popular or famous due to mass-sharing on social media or email. Most of us are familiar with ‘The Star Wars Kid’, which is no surprise as … Read More

Social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube; the buzz words floating around the heads of most business owners these days. More than just buzz words, these can all be crucial pieces of your company’s success online, but none are as important as your website. A recent report from KubasPrimedia points out that … Read More

A recent study by Ottawa based market research firm, Harris/Decima demonstrates the effects of design to the bottom line and the value of graphic design professionals. Harris/Decima together with the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC) brought decision makers and business leaders together to better understand the industry’s perception … Read More

Many tourism operations have struggled to stay afloat in the past seasons. It’s no surprise there have been overwhelming reports of how vacationing has been less and less of a priority through the recession. So what do we do to build up the interest? Billions of dollars are spent every … Read More

Businesses today tend to operate on three speeds; fast, faster and yesterday. In Marketing, the speed we tend to hear from our new customers the most is yesterday. As you spend more time running your business, you can quickly find that technology has taken away the luxury of not having … Read More