White River Credit Union • 05/05/2023

Credit Union Loans: Which One Is Your Match?

What Are Credit Union Loans Anyway? Before you find your perfect match, you need to do some homework. If you’re considering borrowing from a credit union, you should understand what differentiates it from a traditional bank loan. Unlike banks, credit unions are not-for-profit financial institutions owned and operated by their members. Credit union loans can be used for various purposes, including buying a car, financing a home renovation, or paying off debt. Credit unions typically offer lower

Carlisle + Byers • 11/30/2022

Independent medical examination guidelines you should know

What is an IME? Before we can get into our independent medical examination guidelines, let’s ensure we understand the basic concept of an independent medical examination (IME). Simply put, an IME is an evaluation performed by a third-party independent medical specialist to give an unbiased assessment of the injured party. Okay, so you are ramping up to attend your first IME appointment. It can be pretty nerve-racking when you’re not sure what to expect. Here are a few things you can do to prep

Outsource Marketing • 10/06/2022

Marketing planning doesn’t have to be scary

Run up that hill with a marketing outsourcing firm If planning doesn’t sound like fun to you, no matter how hard we’ve tried to sell it, consider a marketing outsourcing firm to shed the weight of year-end planning. An outsourced marketing firm will handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on your core competencies. And when it’s time to execute your plan, you can leave that freelancer shuffle behind. At Outmark®, we combine unique and meaningful positioning based on consumer insights and del

Outsource Marketing • 08/11/2022

Popular rebranding projects we're obsessed with

We’ve handled countless rebrands over the last 25 years, so yeah, we love a good branding project. There’s a certain level of risk involved when you rebrand a prominent brand because, over the years, they’ve developed an identity and audience with their existing branding. Change isn’t always a good thing (believe it or not, we’ve urged clients not to rebrand), so every rebranding project must be well thought-out and executed. (Don’t get us started on NBC’s logo rebrand.) Now, let’s get into it.

Outsource Marketing • 07/21/2022

Five critical considerations for effective company branding

As the legendary anchorman, Ron Burgundy once said, “I’m kind of a big deal. People know me. I’m very important.” You may ask yourself, what does this have to do with company branding? The answer is nothing and everything. The thing is, your company’s brand is a big deal. It’s much more than slapping a logo together and choosing a color palette. Your brand is important because it’s the identity and personality of your business. In today’s digital age, branding is an even bigger deal than before

Outsource Marketing • 07/07/2022

How to leverage and understand the content ecosystem

Welcome to the jungle. In today’s digital metropolis, a never-ending content stream is flooding the internet. How much content are we talking about? Well, in 2021, 74 zettabytes of data were created. For context on how much data that is, one zettabyte is equal to 2 to the 70th power, also known as one sextillion bytes. With so much content constantly being uploaded online, you may wonder, how can your business’s content stand out from the crowd? Well, that’s the beauty of a content ecosystem. A

NGS Films and Graphics • 05/12/2022

3M™ DI-NOC™, Visual Change, and Japanese Culture

Because of my work with applied architectural surface finishes, I’ve been blessed to have traveled to Japan and work with the industry there at all levels. The culture surrounding the product and its integration into the design industry totally blew my mind – in a good way. From an architectural standpoint, I was captivated with their progressive design and construction concepts. What I found most impressive was the desire to constantly seek change and progress in every aspect of design and cult

Outsource Marketing • 05/06/2022

Best practices for building your sales qualified leads pipeline

Finding your balance with the basic steps Now that you know what a sales qualified lead is, it’s time to cover the basic steps in building a lead pipeline. You’ll need to nail down the items below before getting on your board and catching a wave. Starting with your prospective buyer list, you’ll want to make sure your list fits your target demographic paired with a budget for the products or services you’re trying to sell — the more details on buyer personas that your list has, the better. Th

Outsource Marketing • 04/28/2022

Email marketing best practices that don't cause you to unsubscribe

So, you’re putting in the time to craft and send emails to your segmented lists, but the response is less than enthusiastic? There, there, you’ve come to the right blog. Take a moment away from crying at your bounce rate percentages to dive into some email marketing best practices that just ‘click.’ That was an email joke. Alright, let’s get started. We have some good news and some bad news. Your emails may not be the problem. (That was the good news.) The bad news is that email marketing lists

Outsource Marketing • 04/08/2022

The A/B testing roadmap for eCommerce

What can you take out for an A/B test drive? Splitting your email list into two groups and changing the email’s subject line is a low-effort way to see what approach customers respond to best. Maybe your first subject line is a question, and the other is a fun phrase with emojis. Seeing the open results from this test will help you draft relatable content for your customers in the future. Another quick way you can A/B test is to update the headlines and subheadings in your emails, on your land

Outsource Marketing • 03/17/2022

What is the difference between UI and UX web design?

UX web design, short for “User Experience,” is an area of web design that interweaves critical analysis and logic to digest and plan for users’ interactions with services, systems, and products on the site. Items that fall under the UX web design umbrella include the site’s basic framework, navigation, usability, and impressions. A simple way to view UX is like a blueprint of a building. The blueprint is used to make sure everything planned makes the building functional, easy to access, and wel

Outsource Marketing • 11/22/2021

Back to Marketing 101: The importance of SWOT analysis

Before we get into the importance of SWOT analysis, let’s break down exactly what it is. SWOT is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These four factors are essential to any marketing plan. Strengths and weaknesses focus on your company’s internal factors, while opportunities and threats concentrate on the external factors that affect your business. Beyond internal and external factors, using SWOT analysis helps you get realistic about how your company i

Outsource Marketing • 08/06/2021

WordPress website tips for beginners in 2021

Picture this. You hear how easy and user-friendly WordPress is, so you start the process of creating a website. As you get started, you realize you have questions (like a lot of them). If this sounds like you, then you’ve stumbled upon the right blog. So, sit back and stay awhile as we cover the latest WordPress website tips in 2021. Updating your WordPress site (without breaking anything) It’s tempting to see that new WordPress update pop up and ignore it. However, updating your website is an

GoodFirms • 04/30/2021

The Updated Guide for Site Backlinks in 2021 (SEO)

It's time to unlock the secrets of the updated guide for site backlinks in 2021. Every business with a website wants to increase the rankings of their SEO on Google. Doing this effectively without spending money on paid page promotion is possible and simpler than one might think. Before diving into the latest site backlink techniques, it's important that the basic understanding of what backlinks are and how they work is covered. Site backlinks are one of the most valuable factors within an SEO

EMPIST • 10/30/2020

Why the Manufacturing Industry Needs IT Services

IT Problems in the Manufacturing Industry Many manufacturing companies are operating on legacy systems with many years of client data and order history that are important to retain. A lot of this information is tied up in old legacy systems that are vulnerable to break down. Basically, working on old systems involves more time spent and is extremely unreliable. IT Service Solutions for the Manufacturing Industry An MSP or IT company has the ability to build middleware apps with their developm

EMPIST • 07/23/2020

Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom [Updated October 2020]

When addressing the question of Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom, there are a few different contexts you must keep in mind. These all have to do with one organizational profile and what you are looking to get from each platform. If conferencing software is your primary goal, then both platforms have exceptional conferencing features. Microsoft Teams does not work with a dial-in number out of the box and requires an IT professional to set it up and an additional license. Both Zoom and Teams can host we

EMPIST • 05/07/2019

What Is a Hybrid Cloud?

Finding the right cloud solution for your business can be daunting – especially as more and more diverse options become available. To make sure you’re selecting the best possible solution for your users’ needs, let’s take a closer look at one of the most popular cloud computing choices on the market: hybrid cloud. Read on to learn more about what hybrid cloud computing, well, is, and how your IT infrastructure could stand to benefit from adopting a hybrid solution today. Essentially, a hybrid

EMPIST • 03/25/2019

Popular Web Design Trends of 2019

Web design has dramatically changed over the past 20 years. It used to be impressive if a company had a website and now it’s become a must-have resource. The design and functionality of your website may be the first experience a customer has with your brand. You want to make sure that what you have online is a fresh and clear representation of what your company is all about. The trends in web design today are not just cosmetic, but they dive into the user experience as well. Does This Website M

EMPIST • 02/04/2019

How to Create a Healthy Company Culture

Over the years, company culture has gotten more attention. The fact is work shouldn’t be miserable. More and more companies are reevaluating their internal practices to compete with the new wave of the modern workplace. Simply put, happy employees = productivity. Good company culture all starts with recruitment! Your interview process is what evaluates if the person is the right fit for the job, the team, and company. It’s important to investigate all those areas when you are bringing on a new

Pivot Point Academy • 02/25/2018

Pivot Point Academy

Whether it is makeup, hair, or clothing -- there are always going to be new trends. This latest trend in hair color is really taking over. Move over highlights and lowlights! There is a new boss in town, and its name is balayage. This is one trend that hasn’t gone out of style within the last few years. In fact, it keeps evolving in new ways with various hair lengths and color palette options. It can only get better from here, right? The word “balayage” is actually a French term meaning to swee