Blog

B2B Social Media Trends for 2020

Mar 18, 2020 | Digital Content

Social media changes every day. While we do our best to stay on our toes with the latest trends, we often see platforms adding new features overnight that become the next hottest craze. It’s crucial to integrate these new tools into our marketing strategies as quickly...

Ask the Designer: How to Mark Up Changes With Acrobat

Jan 30, 2018 | Branding, Creative, Digital Content

PDFs (Portable Document Formats) were created by Adobe 25 years ago and they've served as an excellent way to share photo- and font-embedded designs ever since. (See this Adobe Blog for more PDF history.) At Blue Star Design, we send our proofs to clients via PDF....

7 Must-Have Components of Successful Digital Marketing

Jan 22, 2018 | Digital Content, Inbound Marketing

Sure, successful digital marketing requires quality software, computers, networks, and data. But tools are no substitute for savvy. Perhaps the greatest challenge is figuring out how to get smart about digital marketing when Amazon has hundreds of books on the topic...

4 Signs You are Ready for Marketing Automation

Jan 22, 2018 | Inbound Marketing

Marketing automation can push your sales and promotion efforts into the fast lane — but only if you’re prepared for it. That’s a point many companies miss in their hunger for sales. They want marketing automation software because it seems so powerful in principle. Who...

Google Adwords — How it Works, Why you Need it, When to Use it

Jan 15, 2018 | Digital Content

Google AdWords is the system that puts all those ads at the top of your Google search results. Companies invest in AdWords because it’s a savvy companion to traditional search engine optimization. That being said, we did not say AdWords is superior to traditional, or...

3 Benefits of a Marketing Retainer

Jan 8, 2018 | Inbound Marketing

A marketing retainer helps agencies and clients stop bouncing from one project to the next. Retainers also cement lasting relationships because they naturally align the interests of marketers and the companies they work for. But what does a marketing retainer look...

3 SEO Factors You can Manage for Improved Ranking

Dec 26, 2017 | Digital Content

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about managing what you can control and adapting to what you can’t. You can’t do much about Google’s penalty policies. Improving your website structure might be somebody else’s job. But you can have a direct impact on a few vital...

5 Major Google Penalties and How to Avoid Them

Nov 23, 2017 | Digital Content

Google can bestow life upon your business, granting search results that help you sell your products and services and outmaneuver competitors. Well, it can — as long as you avoid the dreaded Google penalty. The penalty happens to websites that run afoul of Google’s...

Top 3 Favorite Project Tools for Content Creation

Why Research is Vital to Good Content

Oct 31, 2017 | Digital Content

Research is the bedrock of content that converts shoppers into buyers. Why? Because it helps ensure your content is credible, helpful, and engaging. Credible: Strong content weeds out the junk on authoritative insights. Authority builds trust that strengthens bonds...

7 Ways to Create Better Content Than Your Competitor

Aug 11, 2017 | Digital Content

If you’ve found the benefits of content marketing, chances are that your competitors have, too. Your job as a marketing manager is to ensure that your content is better than your competitors. It needs to be more engaging, interesting, well-written, and precise than...

5 Common Typography Mistakes Every Designer Should Avoid

Jul 3, 2017 | Creative

“It's not a mistake to make a mistake, but it's a mistake to repeat the same mistake.” – Author Unknown The first mistake you should never make as a designer is thinking that you're not responsible for the text in a layout. The art of arranging type is called...