ORYX | Agency & Industry News

There are a lot of solutions available on the web which enables extensive tracking of your website’s activity. One thing that has become a strategic tool for us at ORYX is using the data for “Retargeting” your audience/customers.

Tracking codes can be installed on your site so you can see where your visitors come from, but also where they go to after visiting your site. Knowing which websites your visitors go to after shopping on yours allows you to retarget them. An example of this would be if we install
a code to a on-line clothing store for women. We see that a woman shopper (consumer) comes to the website from Google Search and then bought a dress on the website. If the woman goes to chatelaine.com after she is done shopping, we have now learned that there is another possible touch point to retarget a message or offer to her. Perhaps we communicate specials for shoes, bags, skirts, etc.

The power of retargeting allows you to upsell, cross sell and gets new customers.  This is just one strategic way of refining your on-line approach and utilizing the data to refine your media spends.

When buying media space within magazines or newspapers, most companies focus their budget allocation in two areas – the Reach of the message and secondly, the Frequency of the message. Depending on your media budget, you may feel it is better to reduce your ad sizes to allow more placements throughout the year, but stop and think about the strategy before you make that decision.  One component that often gets overlooked is the impact the ad space makes on your brand and what the size of the ad reflects. For example, if your company offers high-end or luxury items, you should be using full page ads most of the time. This not only conveys “luxury” to your audience, but it has stopping power and reinforces credibility to your audience.  People want to invest in a product or service that reflects their personality and most often full page ads do this for the wealthy audience.

If you’re a discount company, increase frequency and reach by only using 1/3 page ad sizes. Half page ad size at most. If you too many full page ads, consumers may start thinking that you have too much money and/or that you mark-up your products too much which will work against you and shrink your market.

Size does matter. At least when it comes to advertising and communicating your brand.

When designing a logo, there are two main approaches a designer can take. They can develop a graphical treatment that represents something about your company or they can develop a word mark. The ORYX logo is considered a word mark.

A graphical treatment can be very powerful when it comes to brand recall and recognition, however you run the risk of having a design that becomes dated over the years as styles and trends change. A word mark is simply the name or initials of the company in a specific font with minimal design treatment.

Originally when we went through the brand identity stage, we knew we wanted to develop a word mark logo that would capture the following words through design – “Modern”, “Business” “Innovation”, “Leadership”, “Simplicity”, “Strategic”, “Creativity” and “Service”.  The result was a clean and timeless logo seen below.

Banner ads are a cost effective way for your company to increase awareness and engage your target audience. Another great aspect of banner ads is that you can associate your company with specific content, which becomes a powerful thing. For example, ORYX may develop banner ads and manage a media buy for a client targeting High Net Worth individuals. We may place the banners on the Wall Street Journal website – This not only targets the client’s audience, but it gives them credibility when aligned and associated with specific content from WSJ website.

There are numerous options to consider when it comes to sizes. Usually when ORYX builds banner ads for clients, we develop three main sizes to allow the flexibility with media placements. The three main sizes of banner ads you should have within a campaign include: 728 x 90 – Known as a leader board, 90 x 728 – Known as a skyscraper, and 300 x 250 – known as a Big Box banner. (All measurements are in pixels)

Set your expectations.

Banner ad campaigns need to be designed and developed with their own strategy in mind. You may use banner ads as part of a strategic brand development initiative to introduce your company or new product/service – If so, you may be more interested in the number of people that see it (Impressions) versus the number of people that click on it (Click thru). To achieve higher click thru rates, you need to have an offer or an incentive communicated. Doing this will get people to click thru to your website, but the content on your website will need to then convert the audience to spending money with you. Converting the audience on your website is another component of the online ecommerce strategy we develop for clients and will be covered in other posts.

Hope you found this helpful.



Sample of recent Casco creative

In the world of business, we witness far too many companies forgetting to pay enough attention to their brand image. They let it slide, slowly weakening the brand until eventually it becomes obsolete or irrelevant. Corporate brand image should be diligently maintained and evolve – just like one’s personal image.

You wouldn’t want to be seen in a boardroom with track pants and a t-shirt, would you? You would likely want people to think that you’re contemporary, interesting, prepared, smart, attractive, and more – and you would dress to play the part.

Consider what your thought process would be if you wanted to meet the love of your life. You might sign up for a dating site or simply go out more and meet people. Either way, you would certainly ensure that you looked your best in order to attract the best. If you’re overweight, you might hit the gym. If your fashion is dated, you may go shopping. People tend to be very good at maintaining and adjusting their personal brand to various situations, yet companies often forget that prospects review their businesses the very same way.

When it comes to branding a business, it’s necessary to package the culture, the quality of service, and the quality of goods the company is selling into one unified image. It goes even further than that though – how your website looks, the quality of your copy, your ads in the market, even how your office and employees look play a role in how people perceive a business. All of these factors need to be considered when clarifying the brand essence. Once the brand essence is defined, the brand image can begin to take form.

So how can this be addressed in your organization? Think of your company as an individual – a person – and assess how it looks and sounds compared to your market. After doing this, you may realize parts of your business have become dated. Don’t stress – this happens to most companies because they are busy dealing with other things that seem more important. Once you identify what needs to be addressed – whether it’s your signage, dress code, website, or ads, you need to find the solution – the right agency with the right expertise to help you define and spread the word about your new image.

Don’t let your company brand image slowly deteriorate. People admire and choose companies that are leading edge and continuously evolve. It makes you worth following and separates you from your competitors in the market. Make updates, stay relevant and integrated. You will realize the benefits, attract more business, and employee morale will stay high.

Remember – people define you by what you look like and how you act – it’s the same in business.

Dewdocks Inc. manufactures and distributes high-quality floating docks and dock accessories.  Their floating dock structures are lightweight and durable and are customizable to any waterfront property.  The recently-launched Easy-Out-Ladder has been redesigned with angled steps and setback handles to help you enter and exit the water quickly and comfortably.  Their products are currently sold across Canada making their business very seasonal.

Faced with the challenge of seasonality, Dewdocks approached ORYX to develop activities that would even out their seasonal sales volatility.  A thorough market analysis and assessment revealed an opportunity to approach retailers in the southern United States and establish a number of new retail partners in this market.

ORYX researched a contact list for local businesses and used this list to deploy a 3-prong communication strategy.  We developed a direct mail piece with sales letter and product brochure as well as electronic mail, and a micro site specifically for this activity.

The goal of this campaign was to secure face-to-face meetings with prospective retailers in the target area, visit them and introduce the Easy-Out-Ladder in person to generate a partnership and subsequent sales for the ladder.  The results:  We generated an 85% response rate which is an incredible result for a B2B campaign consisting of direct response marketing.

The success of this campaign is directly attributed to the quality of the contact list, and the integrated components that went into the deployment of the campaign.  Having the right message, with the right product, targeting the right people at the right time are the keys to running a successful campaign and the reason why clients select ORYX to help them get results.

Here is a tiny snapshot of some of our recent work.  Great work team!

Below is a recent sales kit we developed for a client – Short trimmed sheets and a sexy design came to life with a great printing job.

The information was well organized and enticed prospects to do business with Primus.