Search Engine Optimization

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SEO Cycle

Most of what we offer in Media Mix is search engine optimization help. Now, this term may seem advanced, however it involves common sense issues that every business owner and consumer should understand. When we say that we provide SEO work, that includes more than just creating a paid search campaign, and actually the list can be quite long if you were to accomplish this task. Everything from listing your business on multiple directories, expanding landing pages on your site that drive the most traffic, using targeting keywords in your paid search, and much more. In Media Mix, this usually comes down to how well your site is organized, what paid search you are running, and getting the business name noticed through content and PR. Continue reading

Email Blasts and Newsletters

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iContact_white600Many of our clients include monthly or bimonthly email blasts or newsletters. Usually, we focus on current campaigns, special events or blog content. We use both major platforms for email marketing, Constant Contact and iContact. Some of our clients already had Constant accounts setup when we signed them, but any new clients get put on our iContact account (which I personally prefer.) We create almost all messages by hand in the Message Builders, once in while creating a template for a certain client. Continue reading

Social Media

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Social media is a tremendous growing industry, literally updating everyone’s lives to an exciting level.  I have always been attracted to the digital side of marketing, but also wanted to be involved in the guerrilla movement of social media. This position with Media Mix gave me that. I believe that social media is a very strong tool, and with the proper etiquette and creative thinking, can be world impacting.

One way to attract your viewers is through imagery. We like to try to use images in most of our posts as to catch the viewers eye. Especially in today’s world, the format that Instagram created is what Facebook has essentially turned into – it is no longer a social network but a photo sharing platform, only better. The artwork below are pieces that I made for Facebook, a newsletter or web banners. I used Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and a free website called Pixlr.

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Talent Booking One Sheet

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One of my first projects with Media Mix was assisting in public relations for a motivational speaker and former Jacksonville Jaguar, Tom McManus. Tom was a part of the inaugural team from 1995-1999. Since then, he has accomplished many roles, from radio broadcaster to author and producer.

Tom asked us to help him expand on his inspirational speaking. He has a great background and message, just needed the extra help spreading that to hosts. We listed him on directories, and I made contact with local Jacksonville schools to connect him with athletic directors. We also created a new branding website for him to show his videos and past work with potential clients.

One piece that I made for Tom was his one sheet that we sent out with our contact emails. I arranged it in Microsoft Word (surprisingly, and only because I didn’t have InDesign) and saved it for PDF viewing. It took me a little white to get the arrangement right, but overall we were pleased with it, and it synced with his branding colors. Click here to view the one sheet PDF.

Media Mix Marketing Solutions

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February 3, 2013 – Not a date that most would really care about, unless you’re a Baltimore Ravens fan. It was the 2013 Super Bowl, and just another day to me. I just left my shift at Outback Steakhouse, and drove across town to join my then-boyfriend and his family for the rest of the game. I did not know that would be getting a first-hand crash course on the powers of networking!

It was there that I met my current internship supervisor, Natalie Dunlap, owner and president of Media Mix Marketing Solutions. Media Mix is a local Jacksonville advertising agency specializing in nothing and everything! The agency works in both traditional and digital media, and we are always becoming inspired for more. Even though we are a family of 7, we accomplish large scale projects, such as whole website designs and hosting, TV and radio production, etc.

Since working at Media Mix, I have gone from part-time intern to full-time employee. I have been established as the Social Media Director, managing our client’s social media accounts, Google listings, and performing monthly Search Engine Optimization (SEO) reporting. I have completed many different tasks for our clients, including writing scripts, updating websites through WordPress, established Google places listings, and produced monthly email newsletters.

Creating a Direct Mailer w/ InDesign

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The final project assigned in my Basic Computer Images course was one for Adobe InDesign. We were required to think of a service, event, business or some other topic and create a direct mailer with that information. It was to be created on InDesign and have at least one fold in the piece. I went with my involvement in the Women in Business Society to create a flyer for our upcoming Spring Forum. I knew I could easily get the information, and what was better, we might actually look into using these to mail out as marketing for the forum!

The number one obstacle that needed to be jumped was learning the viewpoint on InDesign and how to reflect that to what you are trying to accomplish. My professor gave us the help of asking us to use a regular sheet of tabloid paper and create a “mock-up” of our brochures. This way, we can physically see how it need to fold and how the information needs to be arranged, and from what angle. Once we figured this out, we created the document in InDesign, noting the Facing Pages and making it 2 pages that will be printed duplex. We used the guides in the program to create our fold lines so we knew our boundaries, and then created margins and bleeds that we wanted to use. All that was left was filling it in with information!

My brochure included one folded side where the actual mailing information would be located. The other side of that would include all our sponsors. Once opened to the half size, it displayed the key general information about the event. The full inside spread became a poster that could be displayed around the campus or town. Images of the first page, being the outsides, and the second page being the inside poster, are included below.

This assignment was very helpful to me for many reasons. I learned more about using multiple pages and layout, which I have always been interested in. I played with rotating the views to create different effects and arrange the information in the way easiest to read the brochure. I was able to create an entire poster for an event, my first ever. I played not only with InDesign, but with Illustrator to create the text boxes and logo. This was a very beneficial assignment overall for me.

For a link to a PDF version of my WBS Spring Forum 2013 direct mailer, click here. 

Women in Business Society

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Last semester, I interviewed for and got the position for Marketing Chair for a student organization on campus called the Women in Business Society. This group is based out of the Coggin College of Business, however, obviously you don’t need to be a business major to be a member. Our main goals for the society is to educate and connect our members with the professional community in Jacksonville. We participate in many different volunteering opportunities and help our members with career planning, interview skills, and more.

As marketing chair, my main duties are to design the fliers/posters for our meetings and events, promote those designs across campus and our social media accounts, to which I monitor and play with. WBS has accounts for Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as a new Twitter account that I created for the group.

Below is a gallery of the many fliers and posters I have created so far for WBS. The group traditionally uses the services of Vistaprint to create their fliers. However, as an advertising major, I have been attempting to use the Adobe programs as much as possible to help myself and create more original images for WBS.

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My next major project with WBS is our upcoming annual Spring Forum. Forum is a full day’s event where we invite many, many speakers, representatives and professionals from different industries to network with our society and campus community. For the forum, we have invited Donna Orender, former president of the WNBA to be our keynote speaker. Alongside her, there will be three different breakout sessions with panels that the professionals mentioned above with sit on. Our members and guests will get the chance to discuss a variety of topics with these leaders, and then attend a networking social with them after the forum.

This is an event that we take great pride in as a society, and is something we work towards all year long. My position as marketing chair slips over to forum where I will help with creating ground signs, brochures/programs, event cards, invitations, table tents, signs and more. After the forum, I will include some examples of those marketing materials in a new post.

Original Skateboards Magazine Ads

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As promised, I have finally provided the final draft magazine ads for Original Skateboards that my agency Wonder+ created last semester. In wanting to practice my skills of Photoshop and Indesign, I tried working on the ads first before sending it to my team for touch-ups.  For example, this first, family-looking ad, I used Photoshop to insert the skateboards in to the image of the entry way. One of my team members, Adam Lankford, edited those changes and added the copy and logos.

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As for the Businessman ad, our team member Courtney Boydston is an aspiring photographer and spent a good amount of time working with Ricky Horton, the actor, on getting the perfect shot. We chose this shot because of the great negative space to place copy and logos, as well as it being an interesting angle. Overall, we were pretty simple in the ads, but complex in the concept and branding for this campaign.

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Original Skateboards Campaign

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Throughout my Principles of Advertising course, I have been working with my first ad agency – wonder+ advertising. This agency is my class group in which we came up with a agency name, type of agency, individual positions and titles, and it all culminated in a brand analysis and campaign.

Our agency fought a bit over which brand we would choose to represent, but eventually we came up with Original Skateboards. This product and brand was perfect because it allowed our already creative and experienced agency a chance to branch out.

Our agency created three different ads for this project. Not one person worked on them all. Every one of us contributed to each ad. The last two, titled Urban Savvy Businessman and Family Longboarders

were the two we used in our campaign. They will be uploaded to this post soon.

Our final presentation went better than I thought it would. We each chose to wear a piece of red clothing to represent the brand’s colors. We knew our parts well, we executed passing the clicker during the presentation and were under our time limit. We received A’s for the project as a whole! If you’d like to see the presentation, you can find it here.

We went the extra mile with wonder+. We not only created our own website, but also a twitter account and now have a portfolio! You can learn more about our agency by going to our site here. Take the Wave With YouUrban Savvy Businesman

Best Election Day Commercial? Not from a Candidate or Super PAC!

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For over a year now, we have seen and heard all the commercials, radio ads , web ads and banners. History was made once again Tuesday, a second term for the country’s first African American president. But who’s commercial reigned supreme on Election Day 2012? It wasn’t the President’s. And it wasn’t Mr. Romney’s. It was Nestle with their election advertisement from KIT KAT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NUtAGhUS-s Continue reading