O2’s Local Media Survey
O2 Creative has been conducting some local media research lately, including the creation of a local media survey. We’re trying to better understand our market; to better understand the different ways that different media can reach consumers in our area. This is all part of our efforts to better serve our clients as a professional marketing agency.
We’ve been contacting various media sources – anything from local newspapers and magazines to local TV and radio stations. With this information we hope to get an idea of how much distribution and exposure each type of media can create for our clients.
We will also be conducting a media survey among local residents and guests. With this survey we intend to better understand exactly what types of media are best for what types of businesses. Where do consumers go to get information about, say, a restaurant? Or a hotel room? Or an auto repair service?
The more responses we get, the more accurate our survey will be, so we obviously hope to get as many survey responses as possible. That’s why we’re offering an incentive: everyone who completes our survey will be entered into a drawing to win a $100 gift certificate to Tabernash Tavern! (Oh, and in case you aren’t familiar, Tabernash Tavern is totally delicious). It’s O2’s way of saying thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our survey. We appreciate your responses!
The survey will be about 17 or so questions long, and should only take a few minutes to complete. It’ll be an online survey that we’ll be sharing on social media and through emails…or if you’d prefer to fill out a survey on paper, feel free to stop by the O2 office and we’ll provide a print copy.
Please keep an eye out for the survey, which will launch some time next week (November 17-21), and please take a few minutes to give us your feedback. Thanks so much for helping us out. Oh, and we wish you good luck on your chances to win that gift certificate to Tabernash Tavern…nom nom nom!
We’ll update this post once we have a link to the live survey, so keep checking back here as well.
UPDATE: the survey is live! Please click here to take the survey.
Thanks again, everyone!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]
Click here for our last blog: Holiday Cards from O2
Holiday Cards from O2
Halloween already came and went. That means we’re in the midst of holiday season! Thanksgiving is fast approaching, which makes Christmas and New Year’s Eve just around the corner.
That also means holiday card season is just around the corner as well. Holiday cards are a great way to keep in touch with family and friends. They’re also a fun way to spread some seasonal cheer, whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or another holiday yet.
O2 can create the coolest holiday greeting cards for your business, or even just for you personally. We’ll design cards that truly reflect your holiday spirit, whether you’d like to include fun family photos, or even a custom-designed graphic.
The card creativity doesn’t have to end there either: we can design cards of all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of finishes, on all sorts of different materials. You can go big, small, matte, glossy, square, round, or just pick your own custom shape. We can even print cards on unique papers or other specialty materials. The choices are virtually endless!
In addition to providing professional graphic design services, we at O2 are what you call print brokers. We have close working relationships with several different wholesale printers, which affords several advantages. Since we don’t own our own printing presses in-house, it allows us to keep our overhead lower, which keeps the price lower for you. Since we work with several different wholesale printers that offer a variety of unique printing services, we can quickly and cost-effectively source a variety of print products.
In addition to holiday greeting cards, we can create lots of other stationery for you or your business as well: business cards, brochures, letterhead, posters, you name it. For the best print products, and the most eye-catchingly memorable holiday cards, contact us today.
Happy Holidays from O2!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog: hiring a marketing agency vs. marketing in-house
Hiring a marketing agency vs. marketing in-house
Hiring a marketing agency vs. marketing in-house – which is better for your business? We at O2 believe that hiring a professional marketing agency can benefit your business in a number of ways. Here are just a few:
Time: Ah, precious time. This can be a premium for many businesses. Marketing takes time too, from devising strategies to coordinating campaigns to creating ads and promotions to…you get the idea. Hiring an agency means the agency will worry about marketing for you, which saves your business precious time.
Expenses. Hiring an in-house marketer can expend a lot of money (salary, benefits) and expend time too (recruiting, interviewing, hiring, training). Hiring an agency can often be less expensive than marketing in-house, especially when you consider that O2 specializes in working with small businesses – we’re a small business too! We can create marketing packages that will fit your needs as well as your budget.
Experience. At O2, we have over 30 combined years of marketing experience, and we’re undertaking new marketing endeavors every day. We can provide you with expert direction if you aren’t sure how to market your business. Our experience also contributes to our next point…
Efficiency. Since we’re extensively experienced, we can quickly and efficiently identify the best marketing initiatives for you. We do this stuff every day! We’ll help you create the right message for the right business at the right time.
Perspective. Small business owners must often keep a narrow focus on their business. While this can be necessary for the sake of the business, it can also make it difficult to step back and think about your business in the big picture of marketing. Hiring an agency can provide a much broader perspective on marketing and other matters. Let us handle your marketing so you can focus on the operations of your business.
Resources. We’re a comprehensive professional agency with a large variety of services to offer. In addition to marketing and advertising services, we can also provide graphic design, web design, promotional products, printing services, and more.
Fun. Okay, why does this matter? Well, we really think you’ll enjoy working with us at O2. In addition to being experienced professionals, we’re actually friendly fun folks too. For instance, even though we’re in the office working hard on Halloween, we still took the time to have a little holiday fun. To prove it, here’s Brad dressed up like Joe Dirt, and Sophie dressed up like a ladybug:
Happy Halloween!
To contact us at O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]
Click here for our last blog: Dolls for Daughters
Dolls for Daughters
O2 is pleased to be a part of the holiday toy drive for Dolls for Daughters and Toys for Boys.
We initially heard about the Dolls for Daughters organization through our friend at Powder Addiction, Jennifer Harper. Jennifer introduced us to the founder of Dolls for Daughters, Jessica Bachus. Jessica started the organization in memory of her daughter Kenzi, who was stillborn in 2007. Toys for Boys was founded to provide for boys as well. Kenzi’s Kidz was also launched to provide fundamental items for children to succeed in school – anything from school supplies to clothing to toothbrushes.
Since its inception, Dolls for Daughters has continued to grow and make a positive impact on communities. Each year has been increasingly successful: in 2013, over 21,000 new items were delivered to underprivileged children throughout Colorado, including some 4,200 new toys.
We at O2 hope to add to the momentum for Dolls for Daughters, which is why we’re pleased to be a drop-off spot for new toy donations. Other toy drop-off spots in the Fraser Valley area include Epic Mountain Sports and Riverside Spirits (the liquor store at the base of the Winter Park Resort). Together we hope to expand Dolls for Daughters and Toys for Boys to Grand County, in addition to the organization’s presence in the Front Range. All the toys we collect here will be donated to the Mountain Family Center for the benefit of underprivileged children in our community.
So this holiday season, please stop by the O2 office or one of the other drop-off locations and donate some toys (please, new toys only). We hope you’ll agree with Jessica and us when we say that every child should be able to enjoy a new toy during the holidays. Help us support Dolls for Daughters, Toys for Boys, and Kenzi’s Kidz. We hope to have all the donations collected by December 5, so please drop off donations ASAP!
To learn more about Dolls for Daughters, check out their website at www.dollsfordaughters.com.
To contact us at O2, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]. To drop off some toys, just stop by our office at 345 Zerex Street in Fraser (across from the Shell gas station). Thanks everyone!
Click here for our last blog: professional communication
Professional Communication
At O2, we work with all sorts of clients in a wide variety of markets, industries, and locations. One of the biggest factors in successfully working with such a variety of clients is successfully communicating with each client. We think professional communication is important for every business, so we thought we’d share some tips and tactics that have helped us become better communicators in our business:
Meet regularly. This is perhaps the best way to communicate. In-person, face-to-face meetings help us to get on the same page with the client and really get the creative ball rolling. You’re always welcome to stop by the O2 office, and we’re also happy to come meet you at your business. Or, if you’d like to get even more casual, we’ll gladly meet with you over a drink somewhere around town.
Communicate across multiple mediums. In addition to in-person meetings, we’ll regularly talk to our clients over the phone, via email, Skype, or even on social media. Each of these mediums can be convenient and effective ways to communicate, and can even offer their own unique advantages.
Address issues immediately. If there is ever any confusion or misunderstanding, we try to clarify the issue ASAP. Multiple mediums of communication come into play here too: for instance, if we’re not sure about something in an email, we’ll contact clients by phone to seek quick clarification.
Be timely. Communication should always be timely! This is especially important when keeping a campaign or other project on track. When we fall behind in communication, we fall behind in the campaign.
As a creative agency we genuinely care about the success of our clients. We want each of our clients to be as successful as possible in their respective market, and the success of a project is directly related to the quality of professional communication. This is why we put so much effort into communicating, and encourage our clients to effectively communicate with us as well. If you don’t communicate with us, we can’t work as hard for you.
So whether you’re a current client, or you’re just curious about working with us, please communicate! We’d be pleased to discuss all the opportunities we might have to create a more successful business together.
To communicate with O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected]. Or contact us on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re in our area, just stop by our office at 345 Zerex Street in downtown Fraser, CO. You can also mail us at PO Box 1349, Winter Park, CO 80482. Or, feel free to Skype us too!
Click here for our last blog: Facebook insights
Facebook insights
At O2, we use social media for lots of different marketing initiatives. In particular, we use Facebook a whole lot. Part of marketing on social media and Facebook is learning about your audience and understanding who is following you. So how do you do that?
Well, Facebook is making it a little easier to gain insight from your audience with the aptly named “Insights” tool. To use Facebook Insights, look for the Insights tab located on the top left of your profile page above your cover photo.
Clicking on the Insights tab prompts a wide collection of data and interactive graphs about your Facebook page. You’ll first be presented a quick overview of your page insights, including likes, reach, and engagement (more on the engagement metric later in this post).
In addition to the overview, there are several other tabs you can click to gain more specific info about your page. You can gather data about your page likes, including paid likes, organic likes, and unlikes. You can learn about the reach of your page, which is basically the total number of people your page “reached” over a certain time. The Visits tab shows you the number of times your timeline and each unique tab on your page was viewed. The Post tab gives you insight into each particular post on your page. The People tab offers demographic information about your audience – gender, age, location, and so on.
But the insight doesn’t end there. Facebook also offers the Export option, which you’ll see near the top right corner of the Insights tool. This feature allows you to export numerical data about your page and download it as a spreadsheet (e.g. an Excel file). These spreadsheets include an extensive collection of data about your page – likes, reach, engagement, etc.
We could go on and on about each metric, though for this post we’ll just briefly discuss one metric in particular: engagement. The engagement metric offers insight into the daily or weekly activity between your page’s posts and your audience based on several measures:
- Likes: the number of likes each of your posts get in a particular time frame
- Comments: the number of people actually commenting on posts. This is a great way to gain insight as a marketer, since you get to read precisely what your audience has to say about your page and posts
- Shares: the number of people who share your posts. This is also great for marketing, since your fans are helping you spread the word about your page. Shares can exponentially increase the overall exposure of an individual post as well as your page
- Clicks: this is every single click your page received in a particular time – clicks for a like, clicks for a comment, clicks for a share, clicks on a photo, clicks on a link, and so on
This is just a brief overview of the Insights feature on Facebook. Give it a try some time to learn more about your own page’s audience. Of course, if you have any questions, or would like to further discuss more about Facebook Insights, or about social media marketing in general, contact us today!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog: an ode to summer
O2’s ode to summer
This week marked the first snow accumulation here in the Fraser Valley. We at O2 really enjoyed seeing the changing seasons on the surrounding mountainsides. We also enjoyed the spectacular snowy fall photos that have been trending on social media. So cool to see fall and winter in the same pic!
The first snows also signaled that summer is officially over. Like, for real this time. We took a moment to reflect on what was a great summer for all of us, and reminisce about some of our favorite moments from the warmer months.
Eric and Philip both enjoyed their first summer of camping in their new RV camper. They took the camper to some of the most colorful corners of Colorado’s Favorite Playground and beyond, enjoying the glamorous style of camping (“glamping”) that the RV affords them. The whole family enjoyed camping, including their son Jacob…
…and the pugs too…
…well, maybe not so much for Sophie.
Jaryd looked back on some cool camping trips of his own, including a hike-and-camp on the 4th of July. The Fraser Valley’s fireworks looked incredible from up on the Continental Divide!
Brad, of course, enjoyed yet another summer season of fly-fishing. He also got a cool camera capable of underwater photography, which allowed him to capture some stunning images of trout. It’s also apparently proof that, yes, sometimes he actually does catch fish. Sometimes.
With that said, we’ve accepted that summer has passed, and we’re ready for the snowy season. The snowfall also got us excited for all the wonderful winter activities in Colorado’s Favorite Playground. Time to get ready for some skiing and snowboarding!
As an agency, we also realize the winter months are among the busiest of the year for local businesses, and we’ve already been preparing for it. (Remember to get your winter marketing planned today!)
So what was your favorite memory from the summer? Are you excited for another snowy winter? Which season do you like more??
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Top 5 print products from O2
We at O2 are your printing specialists in Grand County, Colorado. We’re always designing new print products and using those products in all sorts of different marketing initiatives. We can create a virtually endless variety of print media for all sorts of businesses and campaigns. Here’s a quick list of some of our top 5 print products that we can create for your business.
Business Cards. We can create the coolest business cards for you, from clean and simple designs, to glossy finishes and materials, to even unique shapes and sizes.
Stickers. These print products really make you “stick” in the minds of your audience. They’re a great way to build brand awareness and establish an identity in your market.
Posters. Putting up posters around town is a good way to make your presence known. Whether you’re advertising for your business, campaigning for a specific cause, or promoting your event, posters can really communicate with your community. Speaking of which…
Banners. Like posters, banners really catch the eye of your audience. They’re especially effective at establishing your presence at a specific event, and can also direct traffic to your business within your physical area.
Stationery. This one’s sort of a catch-all, since stationery includes LOTS of different print products. Whether you want office supplies, greeting cards, postcards (direct mailers work!), envelopes, letterhead, brochures, invitations, gift certificates, or any other sorts of stationery, we can create it for you!
This is just a quick list of five of our most popular print products. Of course, the list really does go on and on, from business signage to vehicle wraps to promotional products to…you get the idea. So for all your printing needs in Colorado and beyond, contact us at O2 Creative today!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog: O2 on the set of a shoot
O2 on the set of a shoot
O2 Creative’s graphic designer Eric recently had the opportunity to work on a commercial shoot!
Eric served as a production assistant for the art department on the set of a commercial shoot for Blue Moon Brewing Company. The shoot took place at the nearby Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, just down the road from the O2 office in Fraser. We’re all pretty excited to have a member of team O2 on the set of a shoot.
Eric has always wanted to work on a film set, ever since his parents took him to Universal Studios as a child. When he was offered a spot on the production crew for this project, he jumped at the opportunity.
As an art production assistant, Eric’s job was to set up each scene and make sure every little thing would look good for the camera. The shoot was incredibly detail-oriented, from minute elements in the background of a scene, to the placement and appearance of each prop. For instance, the glass of beer in each scene had to have exactly one inch of head, which had to begin just above the Blue Moon logo on the glass. If the head didn’t look just right, Eric and the crew had to “fluff” it back up before taking the next shot.
Eric was one of about 25 people who worked on the set. He really enjoyed the opportunity to contribute his own creative suggestions to the director throughout the project. Each person played a unique role in the production of the commercial, and everyone functioned as part of a greater team with a unified goal. Eric’s experience working as part of a creative team at O2 better prepared him to work on the set of the shoot for Blue Moon. Working on the set also helped Eric gain new insight on how O2 can work as a creative team more efficiently on future projects.
The commercial itself offers an artistic perspective into the similarities of craftsmanship between snowboard making, woodworking, gourmet cooking, and of course, beer. The commercial will feature the rustic spaces of Devil’s Thumb Ranch, as well as the mountain scenery of Colorado’s Favorite Playground. Keep an eye out for the commercial to air soon!
Do you have any cool experiences working on a creative project? Please share your stories with us!
To contact O2 Creative, call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].
Click here for our last blog – O2 at Gears & Beers!