If you’ve ever been handed a program at a meeting or conference, you’re familiar with at least some of the materials we create for our association clients. However, you might not be aware of everything else that goes into promoting an annual meeting—or that we sometimes start working on the next year’s meeting before the current year’s meeting even rolls around. So here’s a short run-through of the lifecycle of one of these promotional projects, from start to meeting.

We often collaborate with the association’s internal team to create a theme for the annual meetings. This generates excitement and recognition amongst the association’s members about the location and meeting events. We then create a design to represent the theme and infuse it into a suite of collateral ranging from PowerPoint templates to meeting final programs—and all of the exciting materials in between.

We’re careful to create designs that can go the distance on the various marketing pieces needed to support and promote the big event. This creates a consistent, memorable message that sends members racing to register. Says Rachel Walsh of Sentergroup, an association management firm that works with many of the associations mentioned above, “Becka and her team consistently deliver innovative event collateral for our meetings, from websites to programs. Creating brands that work seamlessly throughout our marketing campaigns is their specialty.”

We’re currently developing the materials to promote the AAED Annual Meeting. AAED and Sentergroup are a joy to work with, and they tell us they really believe in the process too, knowing that BatesMeron will make their meeting stand out in a sea of options with collateral that will energize the masses. We started the process by creating an initial cover design and incorporated that into an advance program, which highlighted the events that would be offered at the annual meeting. Next, we created a custom eblast header for them get some buzz flowing amongst their contacts. This was followed up with a custom PowerPoint template for their meeting speakers to use—creating a cohesive brand image at the meeting. Again, it’s all about getting people excited about the meeting and reinforcing the look and messaging of the previous pieces. The last step in this process will be to design a final program, which will showcase everything that AAED has been doing all year to make their annual meeting memorable for their attendees.

This process has many steps from start to finish, but with BatesMeron’s help, associations are able to sit back and relax while reaping the benefits of a well thought out, well-designed marketing campaign that their attendees will soon not forget.

Ask us how you can make your event special—we’d love to show you samples of what we’ve done.

This post is part of a series of one-on-one interviews with people we work with who’ve made us proud. They’re rocking their brands in exciting and innovative ways, taking the ideas we developed together and using them to grow their organizations. We find how a brand works out in the “real world” fascinating and hope you will, too.

This week, I interviewed Brad Farris, Principal at small business consulting firm Anchor Advisors. We worked with Anchor on their rebranding last year, and we’ve watched them follow through on the investment they made in their brand with a host of forward-thinking marketing initiatives. Read on to learn what Brad would say to other business owners looking to rebrand, as well as the secret to writing great articles. (Hint: it has something to do with hiring a writer.)

1. Anchor Advisors is a very successful small business advisory firm—and was long before BatesMeron came into your life. How has the rebranding process helped you and your team so far?

We built the first logo and brand ourselves and it serviced us for a long time. But that original brand was starting to look a little dated, and we had grown beyond where it was. The new brand has helped us to project a more contemporary image that’s in sync with where we are as an organization. We have now had prospects tell us that they felt as if they “knew” us long before we even met, simply because the image we projected really reflected who we are in real life.

2. We’ve seen you in action and your clients are extremely eager to refer you. How do you know if a client is the right fit for Anchor?

We look for business founders who are ambitious and open to change. They have been in business for a while, long enough to bump into some real challenges they may not have solutions for. The clients that we work with gain an advocate, a coach, a consultant and a trainer (all in one) who helps them lift their organization’s performance to a higher level where they can make more money and step back from working quite so hard.

3. Your tagline is, “Own your course.” What does that mean to you, and how do you feel it resonates with your audience?

People who found their own businesses usually set out to make some kind of impact. There’s a change they want to make in the world. But the process of running a business can get overwhelming—they feel tossed and pulled in many different directions. We want our clients to get back in the captain’s chair, where they have a clear course and focus. There they are able to maintain focus knowing that their organization and systems will handle issues that arise. That focus enables you to achieve consistent progress toward your goals.

4. How do you set yourself apart from a sea of “consultants”?

By not being a “consultant”! We don’t think that the traditional consulting model works well for founder-led businesses. Most business founders don’t need advice and a list of things they are doing wrong. They know what they are doing wrong—they just need help to do it a different way. So we position ourselves on the business owners’ side of the table. We do give advice about ways to do things more effectively, but then we roll up our sleeves and get work DONE alongside the business owner. That’s how we make the difference.

5. What’s the most valuable piece of advice you could give a business owner looking to rebrand?

As you might guess, I’m big on focus. But when you rebrand it’s really a chance to pull back the zoom lens and take a wider look. Reconfirm who you work with and why they buy from you. Be open to exploring some new directions, taglines or ways of positioning your company. Remember—you hired a branding firm because they are the experts on this—you need to trust them and follow their process. You might be surprised at where it’s going to lead you.

6. You create brilliant content for your newsletter and website. What’s your best piece of advice for sharing valuable content with a key audience?

Thanks, a lot of folks do like our Small Business newsletter. My big secret is that I am only responsible for the lousy first draft. See, writing is hard, and it’s really hard to be consistent with creating good content when you are busy building a business. So I write a terrible first draft of all the articles on the site, then I send them to a terrific writer to turn them into articles that other people would like to read. This keeps me focused on the part I’m good at (understanding and communicating business concepts), and I hire someone else who’s good at the hard part (making written words interesting to other people).

I also do that with video. We have created a lot of video the last 12 months or so, mostly by setting up a point-and-shoot video camera, talking into it until I’ve gotten my point across, then having someone else edit it down to a usable video.

You’ve got to focus on the easy part, and hire people to do those hard parts.

My favorite online dictionary is The Free Dictionary. It pulls from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which is reputable. It displays the dictionary and thesaurus entries on the same page so I don’t have to bounce back and forth. I also like that it often includes usage notes, which are helpful when you’re trying to explain to someone why “utilize” is just a poofy substitute for “use.”

Other online dictionaries? Dictionary.com is fine—not a huge fan of their interface. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, m-w.com, has turned into an ad-ridden hellhole. I’ll also occasionally use Visuwords, a free visual dictionary, if I’m blocked and need to think about words differently for awhile. If you have a word on the tip of your tongue and can’t quite summon it, this reverse dictionary lets you type in a meaning to search for the word. Not terribly accurate, though. And for you true word nerds out there, there’s the Online Etymology Dictionary, a truly interesting compendium of word origins and meanings.

Now you might be wondering, what’s the big deal? Why is it so cool to use graphics to provide information? Well, here are three great reasons infographics are worth your time and your company’s time:

1. Infographics are easier to understand. Visual learners make up 65% of the population—and 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visual. The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. Providing a picture really is worth a 1,000 words.
2. Infographics are more eye-catching. Taking time to create a visually appealing piece of art can really pay off. Infographics make you stand out and create a stronger impression than plain text. They’re also an easy way to add some spice to otherwise flavorless information.
3. Infographics go viral. All it takes is a clever, funny or interesting infographic to set fire across the interweb. Infographics are 30 to 40 times more likely to be viewed and shared vs. text. With the click of a button, an infographic can take over social media and blogs. This buzz can generate more traffic to your website and benefit your SEO.

Here at BatesMeron, we know and appreciate the benefits of using infographics. Our most recent usage of an infographic was for sales and use tax consulting firm YETTER, where we illustrated facts on tax burden. Check it out to learn more about the taxes you might owe—or to simply see a great infographic in action.

This post is part of a series of one-on-one interviews with people we work with who’ve made us proud. They’re rocking their brands in exciting and innovative ways, taking the ideas we developed together and using them to grow their organizations. We find how a brand works out in the “real world” fascinating and hope you will, too.

This week, I’m interviewing Charlie Baase from the American Osteopathic Association. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Charlie for the last several years, first on work for the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery and more recently for the AOA. Charlie’s friendly demeanor and positive attitude help us get excited and eager to create fresh, innovative designs for him—but don’t let that big smile fool you, he’s also a seriously savvy marketer. We’ve watched Charlie breathe life into each project he tackles, and we’ve marveled at the pleasure it is to work with his entire team.

We talked to Charlie to find out how he felt BatesMeron helped on our last collaboration—and what on earth they put in the coffee over there to keep everyone so productive and cheerful.

1. The American Osteopathic Association is very large, and BatesMeron can’t take credit for the brand. Tell us about your position at the AOA and your goals.

I am the Director of the Division of Marketing Communications. This means that my team and I work on all marketing projects for the organization. Whether it is a video that needs to get posted on the website, a brochure to members highlighting a new project or a comprehensive campaign promoting our annual meeting to members, we are the ones who step in and get the job done.

In terms of goals, it is my hope that we can convey messages clearly to our members and cut through the clutter of all the information they receive out there. We also work closely with our department to ensure they are delivering materials that stick to our branding guidelines and convey consistent messages.

2. What should everyone know about osteopathic physicians (DOs)?

I get a lot of confusion from friends and family about what osteopathic physicians are.

Many people aren’t even aware that they have already been seeing a DO or that there are two types of complete physicians in the United States—DOs and MDs.

DOs are licensed to prescribe medication and practice in any specialty from family medicine to pediatrics.

4. The AOA is an association for DOs, but don’t you also work to help patients?

Yes, we do. We work hard to educate the public about not just our profession but about health topics. Our media relations team spends time reaching out to the media on health topics that our members are experts in, from long-term pain treatment to obesity issues.

We also have a public area on our site that gives information on various health topics, gives tips in choosing a physician and provides patients with a Find a DO tool. They can visit our site, Osteopathic.org, and search for a qualified physician in their area.

4. Most recently, we worked with you and your team on the 2012 Member Benefits initiative. How do you feel the project turned out? How did BatesMeron assist in determining and delivering the message?

BatesMeron was a big help! We wanted to take a new, fresh look at our Member Benefit Guide. Instead of a booklet featuring a listing of all the great membership benefits we offer, we wanted to switch it up and focus on telling interesting stories about our members.

BatesMeron came up with awesome concepts that make it hard to pick what direction to go in, but ultimately we ended up with a piece called Why We Belong that featured 10 osteopathic physicians with photos and captivating stories about how they utilized our benefits. It turned out really great, and we ended up with some money left in the budget in the end to do a really fun teaser video, so BatesMeron was budget-conscious as well.

Our members and leaders loved the piece and continue to turn to it as an excellent communication piece for showing the value in membership.

5. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

The ability to be creative on a daily basis is what I love. I work for an organization and a boss who value new ideas and want to see our marketing team come up with innovative ways to reach our members.

Our members are out there doing great work for their patients, and it is our job to help make them aware of ways the AOA can make their jobs easier. I try to not lose sight of that and get creative on each project so we can come up with new ways to deliver the message effectively.

Any chance we get to brainstorm and work as a cohesive creative team is a thrill for me, and this job lets that creative side of me roam free!

6. BatesMeron has been really impressed with your entire team while working on projects. Everyone is positive, professional and happy. What makes your team so successful?

I think they are pretty great too!

I think you touch on it in the question. I lucked out in getting a team that values optimism. We all like the work we are doing and I think we all feel valued. That makes coming to work easy most days. Letting people who know what they are doing “run with it” on projects is important, but we still stress the need for collaboration and input from each other.

Us getting our jobs done is my number one priority every day, but checking in often that those who report to me are happy and feeling challenged is a pretty close second.

Oh, and never underestimate the power of cookies and other sweets to keep a team going!

Click the image below to view the Why We Belong teaser video!

If you’ve ever squinted at a blog on your Kindle Fire, you know that tablets aren’t a great reading environment for the blog format. Thanks to Pressly’s launch of a self-serve platform for bloggers (another reason to love Canada), any web publisher has the ability to create content for iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire, BlackBerry PlayBook and Android tablets. This is great news for writers and readers alike. For writers, Pressly provides an inexpensive way to self-publish. For readers, it’s easier-to-read content, and more of it.

Going live this spring (which is now!), the platform will allow bloggers to transform their sites and feeds into a touch-friendly, tablet-ready medium. This news brings both excitement and relief to the publishing world, as the rumored death of the newspaper seems to become more and more realistic (but for the record I am still keeping my paperboy employed). Although it might not seem like a big deal that you can access more sites on your tablet, having that unique hands-on engagement with whatever form of web content you choose is important. It keeps content moving, people informed and voices communicating.

Pressly will offer both a self-serve dashboard and WordPress plugin for making DIY iPad-friendly versions of sites and social feeds. But unlike other services, Pressly plans to reach across multiple tablet forms, as well as mobile forms. This innovation in publishing will hopefully allow more writers to spread their piece of mind and more readers to take it all in—anytime, anywhere.

You don’t need flashy, big-shot advertising to bring in the bacon—or in Chipotle’s case, the burrito. Yes, while other fast-food franchises have been spending millions on traditional advertising, Chipotle has managed to make a huge impact on consumers without busting their marketing budget.

With an 11% increase in same-store sales throughout 2011, Chipotle gives credit for their success to their smart and savvy grassroots initiatives. Holding a major presence online, Chipotle and their 1.7 million social media fans have created the ideal relationship between a company and customers by simply starting a conversation. In a 2011 Nation’s Restaurant News study, it was found that Chipotle responds to 83% of their Facebook posts—more than any other fast-food restaurant. It was also revealed that about 90% of Chipotle’s Twitter activity is responses to customers. This personalized approach to reaching consumers has driven more traffic and creative opportunities to Chipotle, both online and off.

So how do they pull of this personal approach? By practicing a one-on-one engagement model that utilizes a three-person social media team who individually tweet and post to the Chipotle community. Each person has their own voice and makes an effort to actually talk and listen to Chipotle followers—creating a conversation and getting actual feedback.

Chipotle has also spent time creating video content to stir up the interweb with ideas of promoting positive behavior toward animals and the environment. The launch of their most recent video ad, “Back to the Start,” generated nearly 6 million views on YouTube and created plenty of buzz on Twitter and Facebook. This concept of changing the way people think about their food has played an important role in how Chipotle plans to evolve as a company and communicate with their customers.

As you can see, social media is a great way to communicate with your customers and clients about your business. It keeps you relevant, reputable and real—allowing you the ability to build a stronger, more personal relationship.

Retro Ads in Newsweek’s Mad Men Issue

Top brands are celebrating the return of Mad Men by reviving the design and copy treatments from their 60s-era advertising. A few re-ran vintage ads, but most brands reimagined their current campaigns through a 60s lens. We particularly enjoyed the Allstate “Mayhem” ad and Dunkin’ Donuts’ mod design.

Facebook Timeline for Brands: It’s About Storytelling

If you manage your brand’s Facebook page, you’ve probably heard the news that brands will be switching over to the new Timeline layout on March 30, 2012. As this guest post from Forbes.com points out, the new Timeline is more than a different design—it requires you to think about your Facebook presence in a new way. Read the post for great tips on sharing your brand’s history and creating stories that will get told again and again.

Could Pinterest Become the Next Napster?

We’ve written before about using Pinterest for business, but this article points out the issues created when you pin images you don’t own. It will be interesting to see how Pinterest addresses these copyright issues. For now, brands using Pinterest might want to tread carefully when using content that’s not their own.

Most March Madness Fans Will Place Their Bet on a Name-Brand Team

For all but the most die-hard basketball fans, brand strength has a greater effect on how people fill out their brackets than actual team performance. Name brands, such as Kentucky, Duke and Indiana, often find their way onto brackets based on familiarity and history rather than the skill of the players on the court. Just another example of how consumers don’t always make decisions in a rational, analytical way—and how a great brand can have great power.

Talk of our winter…or rather, lack of winter this year in Chicago has gotten a lot of buzz over the past few weeks. But here at BatesMeron, we’ve been in the spring spirit since last July, when our campaign for the Chicago Flower & Garden Show began.

During the past months, each member of our staff has been hard at work on promotional ads and items for the Show. Finally, this week we have had the much-anticipated delight of seeing and experiencing what all of our hard work has helped to create.

Take a look at some of our pictures from the Flower Show and the promotional campaign—or better yet, if you’re in town, stop by and take a stroll through these glam gardens yourself!