Yes, I Collect

The Power of “Nostalgic” Marketing Inspired by Collecting

I’m not sure why, but I collect flower frogs and doorknobs. I don’t arrange flowers frequently and I really don’t need the doorknobs, but I just can’t stop. It’s the emotional connection I have that compels me to collect. I have other collections as well. Crate labels, coins, and of course as a designer, I collect bits and pieces of art, wood type, advertising and designs I find interesting and inspiring.

For me, the items I collect are points of inspiration. I tend to surround myself with these items as constant visual stimulation. Others may display collections in their homes as décor. In most instances though, our collections are nostalgic ties to our past. We have memories connected to these objects.

Today I find myself even collecting people. Yes, people. With the invention of Facebook, I’m finding myself wrapped up in nostalgia. Connecting (and collecting) people from my past. Each new connection brings back a memory. Sometimes not so great, but overall memories that are positive, and make me feel good inside. Don’t think the people running Facebook and other social media applications haven’t picked up on this. It’s a form of Nostalgic Marketing, and it’s working!

Creating an emotional connection with your audience is one of the most important objectives when trying to get and keep ones attention. We strive to make these connections with our design strategies at The Byne Group with each project we work on. Many times I look to my collections for inspiration or try to find out what others collect, both physical and emotional, to come up with an idea. Using a certain font or color combination may be all it takes to evoke a nostalgic, emotional response from a particular audience.

Some companies are re-introducing the nostalgic product itself as a marketing strategy such as Ford’s re-launch of the Mustang, and Coca-Cola’s vintage glass bottle packaging. Other companies, like VISA, are banking on your nostalgic connection to visual stimuli by using vintage footage in their recent Olympics sponsorship commercials. Then there are the companies that want you to start collecting products. How many times can you remember the end of a commercial yelling, “Collect them all!”

Take a look at what you collect. What is your particular audience collecting or have a nostalgic (emotional collection) attachment to? Video games, barbed wire, milk glass, Facebook friends? Whatever it is, it can become a powerful tool in your marketing and design strategy.


-Amanda Holt, Art Director, The Byne Group

Cultivating Your Brand in the New Economy: How Social Media Becomes a Trust Agent

I don’t believe social media will ever replace the need for business development people or traditional marketing but in the new economy it definitely needs to be a part of your marketing arsenal.

Traditional branding is a top down approach with companies, both profit and non-profits defining their own brand. The difference today, brands are being defined by conversations, by what people say both good or bad about your firm. Is this how your firm is engaging clients?

Promise + Experience = Brand

Core values of a firm are created internally, but the branding of the promise happens outside by how clients experience you. In today’s environment where every firm offers “quality services, on time and under budget,” it is difficult to differentiate. Difficult unless you have built trust and relationships in the market place. “Look at it this way: "Traditional marketing was like taking a sledge hammer and hitting your prospects and clients over the head with it. It was almost like, “Believe me, or else.”

Branding today is like a magnet that draws clients to the company a “trust agent." This is the real value and purpose of social media in a business context.

Facebook and LinkedIn are already well established. And your firms’ employees and clients under the age of 40 use Twitter and text messaging as a part of life. So, this is definitely not a fad. Social media is the place where you cultivate your brand in the new economy and where ambient awareness is a way of life. And yes like everything else worth doing it takes thoughtful strategy and a real commitment of time to do it right.

–Ann Byne, Creative Director/Principal of The Byne Group

Parts excerpted from: engineeringdaily.net

Building Relationships: Pleasing Your Existing Customer Base

How are you getting through this tough economic time?

Last year during our regular Monday morning meeting I broached the subject about the economy with my team. Lets talk about our future? None of us knew exactly how things would play out and yes I was more than a little nervous. What I did know and shared with them was, now more than ever, our clients needed to know how valued they were and we needed to approach their assignments no matter how small, as if it was our first and only chance to prove ourselves. We’ve worked very hard this year and we’ve been lucky, our clients are all still in business and happily, not one of them has gone elsewhere.

While a growing business needs to constantly have new customers, the focus must be on pleasing your existing customer base. From my experience companies that fail to nurture and retain their clients ultimately fail. I remember when the dot com was all the rage in the 80’s (ok, so I’ve been around awhile). Firms I knew were dropping their clients pursuing the glitzy new kid on the block! Sadly when it all went bust many of those firms went out of business.

According to an article in Harvard Business Review “Building Relationships” shows where many companies are headed, and all must inevitably go if they hope to remain competitive. The key distinction between a traditional and a customer-cultivating company is that one is organized to push products and brands whereas the other is designed to serve customers...”

–Ann Byne, Creative Director/Principal of The Byne Group

Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/2010/01/rethinking-marketing/ar/1

A Guest Post : Taking on Social Media – How One Non-Profit Took on the Challenge

Our Guest blogger and friend, Amy Stern, Director of United Hospice of Rockland shares her personal story.

On a fairly regular basis, Ann Byne, a member of our board of directors and principal of The Byne Group, encourages us to rethink how we are approaching our branding and marketing efforts. She suggested that we needed to start using social media to “get our name out there” as well as to develop and strengthen relationships with our supporters. My initial reaction was, “You’ve got to be kidding.” The resistance came from two areas of resistance: (1) This fifty-something was somewhat apprehensive about stepping into an area with which I was not familiar and (2) With everything we already had our plate, how would we make time for this? I’m sure many of you can sympathize.

Ann encouraged us to start small but to start. We agreed that we would publish an e-newsletter every other month. This seemed manageable to us. The first task was to begin to gather email addresses.They were gleaned from a variety of sources throughout the organization and are now added to on a regular basis so that the list will grow over time. Leadership staff has been asked to collect business cards with email addresses when they attend meetings. Donor envelopes allow for email addresses to be provided. Directories of local membership organizations were sources for the list. Responsibility for writing the newsletter was assigned to a staff member. The Byne Group taught us how to use the mass mailing software, Emma, into which we regularly download new email addresses. They also created a template into which we place our newsletter text. Their skilled eyes review and polish it before we distribute it. We just completed our fourth issue. Feedback has been positive and few addressees have asked to be omitted from the list. The challenge has been to write assorted snippets of news that encourage readers to: migrate to our website, open a link, answer a question or engage with us in some way. I can’t miss this blogging opportunity to share the most recent edition of our newsletter, click here.

Ann became quite the taskmaster and informed us that we were not yet done! The next step in the process was to identify a social media site on which we would create a presence. With trepidation, I volunteered to learn about Facebook. In order to become an administrator of a Facebook page, you must first sign on as an individual user. I spent a few weeks trying to learn some of the ins and outs. The Byne Group created our page and then like coaching a child to jump into the pool to learn how to swim, they sent us out on our own providing feedback along the way.

We soon learned that in order to make an impact, you need to gather fans. We didn’t want just any fans but rather fans of substance. For starters, we wanted individuals who lived in Rockland, supported our work, would believe in our mission, and would help us to spread the word about what we do.

In mid-November, I arbitrarily decided we should set a goal of 1000 fans by year end (we had 130 fans at the time). New Year’s came and went, our goal was so close, then by January 4 we hit 1000 fans. As of today we are at 1,196 fans. Success feels very sweet! Yes, It took a little work but we think it was worth it. We post something on our page several times a week. Examples of postings on our page are (1) unsolicited testimonials from fans about the services we provide (2) upcoming events and (3) a request for help with sign language translation that yielded a volunteer. Soon, we will post a survey and use its results to shape some of our advertising efforts. We are sold on the impact that social media can make. My recommendations, don’t miss this opportunity, start slowly, but start!

Oh and please join my list of fans, who knows 2,000 by the spring? [click here to visit The United Hospice of Rockland Facebook Page]

–Amy Stern, Director of United Hospice of Rockland

How Non-Profits Can Leverage the Web

On Friday, we gave a presentation for United Way and Pace University Not-for-Profit Management Center, How Non-Profits Can Leverage the Web: Marketing Your Organization Using Online Tools. We had some help from our friend Howard Greenstein, Social Media Evangelist and President of The Harbrooke Group.

We wanted to post a few of the videos we presented, for anyone interested.

We received these fabulous video's from JohnHaydon.com







Social Networking in Plain English is done by the smart people at Common Craft.

Case Study : How Did We Do That?

Every Thanksgiving The Byne Group tries to have some fun putting together unusual cards for our clients. This year Ann Byne was inspired by the most amazing aprons her mother-in-law recently gave her (her mom's mom had made them in the 50s). Through the magic of Photoshop we happily gathered wearing the aprons in a 50s kitchen preparing a Thanksgiving meal with attitude!

So how was I able to do this you may ask. On Halloween we all dressed up as 50s house wives. We then all took photos of one another against a white wall. As you can see some of us really got into character.




After the photos were taken, I downloaded them onto my computer. Using Photoshop I cut away the background so just a silo of each person remained. Since we didn't have a turkey laying around I also had to add a photo of a turkey in my hands.




Once everyone was cut out, I added them into the kitchen photo I had found. I re-sized each appropriately, people in the front were larger and people in the back were smaller to give the illusion of depth.

All of us had a lot of fun with this year's Thanksgiving card. It's always great when each of us can bring an idea to the table and incorporate it all. We have gotten amazing feedback from those who have received the card. Look for our upcoming issue of Freshly Squeezed where we'll have a downloadable PDF of drink recipes of the top 6 mixed drinks from the 50s and favorites of the MadMen characters.


-Melissa Behrens, Senior Graphic Designer, The Byne Group

Have you submitted your website to all the top search engines?

At my recent presentation at Pace University on Social Media I was asked, "Why can't people find my website when they search online?" My answer, a bit flippant, was that it would take another three hour class for a decent response about search engine optimization (SEO).

On reflection, my answer should have been another question. Have you submitted your website to all the top search engines? Seems obvious, right, but often this first very simple step is overlooked. Search engines are the most used sites out there, and there is a much greater possibility that people will find you if you are registered in their database. The good news, you don't need to be a programmer or a website whiz or pay somebody loads of money and it's simple to do!

How To Do It
First: Visit the search engine that you are interested in submitting to and at the bottom of the page; there is usually a link that says something like, "submit your site." If you cannot find this link, try the site map or the "about" page.

Second: Make sure that you completely fill out each section of the submission form and submit your site only ONCE to each engine.

Another interesting fact is that after a website is indexed in Google, Bing and Yahoo then new content will automatically be picked up by the crawler each time it visits the site. And don't forget social media sites. After you have submitted your site to the big search engines, you can submit it toask.com and stumble.