Help, Tips, and Advice for writing a script

Help, Tips, and Advice for writing a script

By Angelina Harlow

Creating a commercial is a great way to set yourself apart, promote your company, and reach an entirely new audience. Developing a commercial involves several components including, brainstorming, script development, production, and post-production. In this article, we are going to provide some tips and important information everyone should know when creating the script component of a commercial.

Storyboard vs. Two-column layout

If you are a creative person who works better visually, you will want to create a storyboard by brainstorming how you want the commercial to present visually and then add dialogue later. A storyboard is just a series of squares where you map out how you want the scene to look with comments and notes put on it.  If you like seeing the script written down first and then add the visual later, a two-column layout is the best place to start.  You can find a two-column layout anywhere online and it is set up for you to brainstorm the audio and video of the commercial.  

Link to Download

Link to Download

Script Length Guidelines

Once you have decided how long the commercial is going to run, you will need to gear your script to fit the length.  Here’s a breakdown of the proper length for a script based on the seconds of airtime you buy. This applies to radio and television commercials.

This appears commonly in Radio Scripts

10 seconds- 25 words

30 seconds= 65 words

20 seconds= 45 words

Geared more towards television commercials

60 seconds 125 words

90 seconds= 190 words

120 seconds-250 words

Things to keep in mind:

• The person delivering the announcement also effects the number of words that can be spoken effectively in that allocated time frame so just keep that in mind. It can be shorter or a bit longer for all of these breakdowns!
• When writing think of your audience and how you want to appeal to them. There are 3 different appeals you can use ethos, pathos, and logos.
• Get at least 3 shots of the same scene just incase something is wrong with one of them. This is a golden rule in production.
• Check your audio levels or make sure your audio person is making sure you don’t have many peaks in it.     
•       Don’t try to fix all your mistakes in post-production, make sure you try to get it all done in production.

Keep these tips in mind when begin to write your script and you won’t run into as many problems when production starts because you will have a clear vision of your commercial.

10-step Guide to Creating a Winning Marketing Plan

10-step Guide to Creating a Winning Marketing Plan

By Yetta Blair

Download The Step-by-Step Guide Here


The key to growing sales and adding profit to your bottom line is implementing a sound marketing strategy into your business plan. Below is a step-by-step plan to help you create a winning marketing plan for your business.

1. Executive Summary. An executive summary is a snapshot of your overall plan. You should include the following: a description of your product; the differential advantage of your product; the investment needed; and the anticipated results.

2. Introduction. Describe in detail what your product or service is and how it fits into the market.

3. Situational Analysis. Your marketing plan should include an analysis of the situation you are facing with your product or service. Included should be: The Situational Environs; The Neutral Environs; The Competitor Environs; and your Company Environs. Below is a description of each.

• Situational Environs. What is the forecast demand for the product: is it growing or declining. Who is the decision maker? Who is the purchase agent? (How, when, where, what and why do they buy?) What are the Social and cultural factors. How is technology affecting your product?
 
• The Neutral Environs. How does the availability or unavailability of funds affect the situation? Anything going on in the government environment that can affect marketing this product? Anything going on in the media favor, or not, this product. Any special interest groups, other than competitors, likely to affect your plans?
 
• The competitor Environs. Describe your competitors, their products, plans, experience, know how, financial, human, and capital resources, suppliers, and strategy. Do their customers like them? If so, why? What marketing channels do they use? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
 
• Your Company Environs. Describe your products, experience, know-how, financial, human, and capital resources and suppliers. Do you enjoy the favor of your customers? If so, why? What are your strengths and weaknesses?

4. The Target Market. Describe exactly who your customers are. You can define your target market by demographics (such as age, income, education); their geographic location; their job, profession, industry; or their life-style (their activities, interests, opinions). Also, include the size of each market.

5. Problems and Opportunities. List them one by one and explain why is it a problem or opportunity and how you plan to take advantage of each opportunity and what you plan to do about each problem.

6. Marketing objectives and goals. Explain your objectives and goals in detail - what you intend to accomplish in terms of overall sales, market share, return on investment, or any other goal. Make sure they are SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

7. Marketing Strategy. The what-to-do section of your plan. Specifically describe what you must do to reach your goals and objectives.

8. Marketing Tactics. Describe how you will carry out your strategy. For example, in war, a strategy is what is done before you arrive to the battlefield and what is done on the battlefield is your tactics. List the action required to implement your strategy including the timing of the actions. This is your marketing mix.

9. Implementation and Control. Compute sales projections and cash flow and calculate your break-even point. Know these things on a monthly basis. You can use these after implementation to keep the project on track and within budget.

10. Summary. Discuss advantages, costs and profits and clearly state the differential advantage or competitive advantage that your service or product offers over the competition. This is what you have that your competition lacks. This will tell you why your plan will succeed.

An 80’s Looking Website Isn’t so Groovy!

An 80’s Looking Website Isn’t so Groovy!

By Yetta Blair

You may be asking yourself, can I run a business and not have an updated looking website?  The answer is yes.  It’s obvious that you can run a business without an updated website. Some companies run their business without having any website. But investing in a well designed, well thought out website can definitely help your business generate more leads, increase sales and be more successful.

An up to date, modern looking web presence is good for any business.  It reflects your brand. It shows your customers you care about details and you care about staying up to date in the market.  Updating your website creates a buzz and can bring fresh energy to your business. Just as you would make an investment in traditional advertising, the company phone and your printed brochure, the investment in a website will bring you tangible and intangible benefits.

Having a professional web presence on the Internet is good for your existing customers, potential customers, employees and partners. An attractive looking website will encourage visitors to stay longer on your website giving them an opportunity to know more about your products or services – potentially increasing sales.  Another reason a successful business needs to update their website is the growing number of mobile users. If your website is not set up to be mobile friendly, it needs to be. Being mobile friendly and up to date will give you a better chance of capturing the attention of mobile customers and improve your SEO and rankings on Google.

Whether a quality website helps you make a good first impression with a new visitor or makes it easier for existing visitors to do business with you, having an effective, up to date, web presence can make your business more successful.  More people than ever are online and the numbers continue to grow exponentially so make sure your business is out there and looking its best.

Ink Publishing & Design announces affiliation with Lil SociaLyte

Ink Publishing & Design announces affiliation with Lil SociaLyte

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2015

Louisville – Ink Publishing & Design announces its expansion and progression by affiliating with digital marketing company, Lil SociaLyte, LLC who offers a state-of-the-art text marketing program.

Poised for growth, this proactive approach for the future allows Ink Publishing & Design to build upon its already established social media marketing services and bring text marketing to its customers.

“This is really about looking long term for both companies and building on our menu of services to clients,” said Ink Publishing & Design President Yetta Blair.

Established in 1999, Ink Publishing & Design has more than 16 years of marketing experience and is supported by an experienced staff to facilitate any size marketing, publishing and design project.

Lil SociaLyte is headed by CEO and founder, Ellie Blair. Ellie has ten years experience in marketing and brings fresh and exciting ideas to engaging customers and helping businesses add to their bottom lines.

“This change enhances the positive growth the employees of Ink Publishing & Design have created since we started and we are excited by the possibilities,” said Yetta Blair. “By sharing resources and being affiliated with Lil SociaLyte, we can grow and expand our client services.”

Ink Publishing & Design is located in Louisville, KY and located at:

833 Valley College Drive
Suite 8
Louisville, KY 40272
502-271-1166

www.inkmagazines.com

Yetta Blair founded Ink Publishing and Design in 1999, with a passionate drive to produce high quality custom company magazines for organizations. Fast-forward to nearly two decades later and IPD is now thriving as a strong and nimble creative marketing agency offering a menu of products to help clients market their business and communicate with their customers. They offer website design, graphic design, custom developed company magazines, help in self published books, email marketing, printing and now text marketing. They are client focused and results oriented and do everything they can to ensure they are delivering a high quality product each and every time.

Mobile-Friendly: Data, Thoughts and Updates

Mobile-Friendly: Data, Thoughts and Updates
By Amber Hyde, Creative Coordinator

Being mobile these days is more than just a fad, it is a trend. It is part of everyday life. According to GlobalWebIndex, “80% of online adults now own a smartphone, while almost 50% have a tablet.” And out of that 80%, 75% use the device to search online. These are huge numbers. Mobile device users will continue and increasingly want access to the web anytime, anywhere. Businesses need to be prepared and adjust their online web presence to meet the changes that come with growing trends, including a big one- Google mobile rankings.

If you’re not one that needs to keep up with new technology trends or the ever-changing Google algorithms, that’s all right, I’m here to fill you in. Google has just recently updated their algorithms and have “made it easier for users to find mobile-friendly web pages” and will be using “mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.” Google says “ this change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

So what does this mean for your business and your web presence? This means that when a person is searching on Google for items or your company on their mobile device, if your website is not mobile-friendly, Google will begin to rank it lower in the search results. This will ultimately result in fewer views/clicks on your website. Why would you want that to happen, with 75% of smartphone users searching online on their mobile devices! I say that it is a necessity to go mobile with your website. This can involve simply adding a mobile friendly version to your current website, or going for a full update on your entire website to keep everything fresh, innovative, consistent and to increase your web presence to produce top ranking results in Google, to continually grow your business.

Check here if your site is mobile-friendly!

Ink Publishing and Design 2.0

Last Spring we rolled out a much needed update to our Ink Publishing and Design website. It featured more contemporary design, better functionality and ease of use for our viewers. But, just as fast as technology and business changes, our concepts were changing and we were already thinking about how we could take our website to the next level. This is where we introduce IPD 2.0, which incorporates many of the same design elements and aesthetics, but presents a more polished and refined website than the previous year.

Our main concept for the update was to now present viewers with what they want/need to see, our work. Not only can a potential customer read about what all we have to offer, but they are first and foremost presented with the quality of our design and how we execute those services. 

With IPD 2.0 we also moved to a new building platform, allowing use to control more of the design elements to ultimately provide the look and functionality that we knew we needed! This new platform is not only unique from other platforms that the majority of website designers use, but it is very user friendly and can be used to maximize mobile and tablet design.

We are firm believers that your website is "your marketing director, top sales rep and PR all in one". We encourage everyone to check out the new site, www.inkmagazines.com, and all the marketing and design services we are providing to our clients. And if you have any questions or would like to talk to use about updating your website, don’t hesitate to give us a call at 502.271.1166.

Social Media Explained...with bacon! Because it Just Makes Sense.