marketing – Meta Pixel Solutions

PHOTOSHOP (AND GOAT) MAGIC

Stardate: April 16, 2018 by Rachel - Photography

Photoshop

Jollity Farms is in the Sierra Foothills, near Placerville – and we love it! We visited in April to snuggle with the new-born kids and to take some product shots.

One thing our client wanted was a shot of their new display case full of cheese. But we did not want to waste their entire stock, so we sacrificed five containers, and took thirty photos of those same five containers in different positions (like the photo you see below) and then merged all shots together to create a “full” fridge.

It was not all work – in fact mostly play. Thanks, Charlie and Mary Lisa, for our fun (and delicious) visit to your farm.

Check out the full album, or scroll down for some adorable goat photos…

Visit the farm! 5314 Marigold Mine Way, Garden Valley, California.

Trip Advisor

California Cheese Trail

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PLAN AND ORDER NOW FOR HOLIDAY MARKETING

Stardate: September 22, 2016 by Rachel - Client Support, Getting It Done

A gentle reminder from Rachel that now is the time to start thinking of the holiday season.

And then for those of you who like a heavier hand, here’s your “I told you so.” Every year, around September, we remind our clients to start prepping and ordering gift bags, greeting cards, holiday decor, gift certificates, gift tags, posters, etc, and plan your online marketing: e-mail campaigns, seasonal web site changes, and AdWords campaigns. And then each year in November and December we get a slew of last-minute projects for which clients end up paying rush shipping and printing rates. (Reminder of our rush project policy.)

Are you sending cards, party invitations, and/or gifts to your clients and partners this year? Let’s get on that too!

Selling gifts? Check your inventory and the lead times of items you wish to stock. From October on-wards, order fulfillment and shipping from your vendors may take additional time. Also, be sure you stock plenty of festive packaging and shipping supplies if you plan on mailing items.

No stress, added costs, and drama this year — let’s get started on marketing’s silly season work now! We’ve plenty of ideas and sources for product.

Here’s some key dates to keep in mind…

OCTOBER

Halloween, Monday, 31th

NOVEMBER

Daylight Savings, Sunday, 6th

Veterans’ Day, Friday, 11th

Thanksgiving, Thursday, 24th

Black Friday, 25th

Cyber Monday, 28th

DECEMBER

Pearl Harbor Remembrance, Wednesday, 7th

Green Monday, 12th

Festivus, Friday, 23rd

Hanukkah, Saturday, 24th through Sunday, January 1st

Christmas Day, Sunday, 25th

Boxing Day | Kwanzza, Monday, 26th

New Year’s Eve, Saturday, 31st

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GOOGLE ADWORDS EXPANDED TEXT

Stardate: August 17, 2016 by Rachel - Online Marketing

Here’s John, enjoying his clients’ AdWords reporting on a summer day in the garden. He says this the new expanded text Google AdWords are a really big deal.

Expanded text AdWords ads are the next generation of text ads, designed for a mobile-first world. They benefit users with more information before they click an ad and benefit advertisers by giving additional control over messaging. This can mean higher quality clicks from users with keen interest in the subject while cutting down on lower quality clicks less likely to convert to a sale. They are also better-designed for device responsiveness and display more clearly on devices from smartphone to desktop monitor.

More bang for your AdWords bucks!

This is all fairly new, but early reporting is showing expanded text ads are getting a 20% higher click through rate. This is mostly because they are larger and stand out amongst the older, smaller ads. Right now, we’re suggesting that we upgrade any old-style AdWords campaigns we have running for our clients.

There’s two main updates. The headline (purple text in the graphic below) can be 60 characters, rather than 25. You can be more compelling and precise which leads to better quality clickers. And, the ad display text (black text in the graphic below) has been expanded from two 35 character lines to a consolidated 80 character line.

This graphic shows how an expanded text ad will display on a smartphone vs. a monitor:

cs-ad-screenshot

Summary – better quality clickers = better quality conversions.

Google AdWords is a specialty of John’s. Contact him at johnp@metapix.us or 408 252-8664 with any questions.

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ENT PRACTICE RE-BRANDING

Stardate: May 3, 2016 by Rachel - Marketing

We’ve recently been working with our long-time clients at Ear, Nose & Throat Associates of San Mateo on updating their brand. They still like the logo we developed for them a decade ago, but have updated their print items and we’re wrapping up a new responsive website.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO PHOTO SHOOT

Stardate: March 16, 2016 by Rachel - Photography, Web Sites

We enjoyed a trip to South San Francisco last week to photograph a property for our home-owners association management client, Tri-State Enterprises. Some of the apartments had this view, which even in the rain, looked amazing.

These photos will be used on a new website, currently in production. Thank you Tri-State!

One of the highlights of this property is the fabulous succulent garden:

PARTNERSHIP MARKETING

Stardate: February 25, 2016 by Rachel - Client Support, Marketing

First of all, credit where it’s due. This fabulous corporate head shot was produced by Lisa DeNeffe Photography – a business we are lucky to work with from time to time. The model is one of our long-time and favorite clients, Rosemary Camposano of Halo Blow Dry Bars and G3 Strategy.

Lisa and Halo have put together their services in such a great way. Halo is offering a discount to Lisa’s clients on hair and/or makeup styling before their photo session. And Lisa is offering Halo clients a discount on a corporate head shot package.

Both Halo and Lisa will send an e-mail campaign to their clients, so Halo will be introduced to potential new clients and vice-versa. There will also be printed collateral for display and hand-outs and the web page version of the Halo e-mail campaign can be linked to from blogs and social media. At the least, each business is generating new in-coming links from credible sites to their own web site for a nice search engine optimization boost. A few such links are below – you’re welcome!

Partnership marketing is a win-win situation. Your business’ clients win as they get an introduction to a new service or business and they get a nice deal. Your business wins with exposure, added brand recognition, and SEO.

MPS wins too! We have the opportunity to work with these great businesses and we developed the e-mail campaign Halo will send. Here’s the landing page version: Professional hair and makeup + professional photographer = best headshot ever!

And my Facebook post for Halo that reached eighty Facebookers in the hour after being posted.

TIPS! Think about the types of services that would compliment your business and would be of benefit to your clients. This is such an excellent sample – what could be better than hair and makeup right before a photoshoot? Find a partner:

with an over-lapping target market to your business,
with a nice-sized e-mail list and/or blog following,
with the ability or contractor able to bring about a quality e-mail campaign and print collateral,
and with your level of energy and commitment to work to maximize all possible marketing pathways to make the partnership a success.

Be sure to check out:

Lisa DeNeffe Photography • Town & Country Village • Palo Alto • http://lisadeneffe.com/

Halo Blow Dry Bar • Burlingame, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Palo Alto • https://www.haloblowdrybar.com/

Thanks for reading – Rachel

LOGO RE-DESIGN AND PRINT COLLATERAL

Stardate: January 27, 2016 by Rachel - Getting It Done, Marketing

MPS is lucky to be working with Vintage Affaire – one of the Bay Area’s premiere wine auctions which benefits Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

First project, redesign the logo and craft the save the date postcard.

YOU TUBE CHANNELS AND VIDEO

Stardate: December 17, 2015 by Rachel - Client Support, Getting It Done, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

YouTube is the second largest search engine. Make sure you have a channel — optimized and hosting your optimized videos. We’ve set up a few: Halo Blow Dry Bar Channel and Palace Cafe and Catering Channel.

But keep in mind that you have to either create your own videos or have copyright permission from the owner of the video to post to your channel.

We recently came across videos hosted within Vimeo and embedded on a client’s site. But we recommend YouTube over this. Vimeo puts a link to their site in the footer of the video, so you could potentially lose a visitor to the Vimeo playlist. Plus, with YouTube being the second largest search engine in the world, going with Vimeo does not seem to make sense.

The specs for the header graphic (see above) can be tricky as it needs to render from smartphone to desktop to TV and all devices in-between.

And even better for search engine optimization and for visitor engagement, be sure you add any video to your site, as we have done with this Palace Cafe & Catering video of wine pairings, appetizers, and setting the perfect event. Once you have created and posted your own videos to your YouTube channel they can be embedded on your website which saves you money — no need for custom coding — since you can generate the code to embed right from your YouTube channel.

PHOTOSHOOT AT HALO BURLINGAME

Stardate: October 19, 2015 by Rachel - Online Marketing, Photography, Print Marketing

What could be more fun than working with Halo Blow Dry Bars and HPD Public Relations? Halo is using their clients as models. MPS got to shoot the models at Halo while the stylists were working on them. We now have a library of unique photos our client will have on hand for use in print or online marketing.