If you reference my blog from last year, we set our sights on a growth goal of 40%-50% with a hashtag of #HereWeCome. Well, I am thrilled to share that we organically grew at 61% for 2019, surpassing even the outsized goals we set for ourselves (and 2018’s growth of 43%).  How did we accomplish this? Here are a few of my observations.

1. We were incredibly fortunate to have two outstanding Executive Creative Directors (ECD’s) that previously led large creative teams at well-known agency brands. One even started his own agency in the past. To have this caliber of talent, as an agency of our size, is a blessing. And, I believe had a direct, positive impact on our 2019 success.
2. We signed an average of 1.3 contracts per week throughout the year. The result of two forces working hand in hand. One, our BD team’s tireless efforts to put our brand in front of new prospects and turning those prospects into clients. And two, our incredible account and project managers turning those new clients into long-term, successful relationships that want to continue to work with us. Yalo’s 2019 success doesn’t happen if both forces aren’t performing at the top of their game.
3. Our BD outbound program kicked into high gear the second half of year. Our brand is getting in front of more prospects than ever. Those prospects are taking a keen interest in Yalo’s approach of leveraging film, art, music and sports to generate truly creative, unique ideas. These conversations are creating opportunities at new prospects.
4. We have a balanced client portfolio. We have large and small clients. A mix of project work and retainer work. In some of our clients, we are their entire marketing department. Two of our clients each are about 17% of our revenue. We have clients in multiple industries from healthcare to education, within multiple states across the CT and ET time zones.

What about 2020? How do we fuel the rocket ride?  

We just returned from our team offsite in Nashville (dubbed NashYalo), and it was the best one yet. We covered A LOT of ground, 92 slides to be exact! We had A LOT of new faces in the room. In full transparency as I do every year, I shared all the good, bad and the ugly of Yalo 2019. We discussed and debated areas for improvement and ways to attack and fix them. With the addition of new faces, we had fresh energy and ideas flying all around. Our expertise and our skillsets (creative, writing, tech) have expanded to better serve our clients. We continue to diversify our culture with young talent and leaders (captains of their collegiate swim and soccer teams respectively).  And of course, we spent a lot of time bonding over good times, good food and good drink. 

As we set our sights on 2020, the Tribe shared what Yalo could be next year. Here are a few key words from that exercise:

• Grit
• Nimble
• Growing
• Agile
• Hungry
• Hunting
• Bold
• Electric
• Tenacious
• Badder
• Amplifying
• Unapologetic
• Determined
• Fireworks
• Neoteric

Now doesn’t that sound like FUN? The Tribe can’t wait to get rockin’ in 2020.

To wrap up our NashYalo 2019 experience, I needed to close the meeting with a BANG. We discussed the veracity of the article published in 2019 by Newsweek (maybe you’ve seen it?). And, since we leverage film, art, music and sports in our creative approach, I felt we needed to walk the walk and talk the talk.  

So, I introduced a new, innovative health benefits program. The first and only Concert Benefits Program in the marketing industry. The Yalo Tribe will get compensated for attending concerts because it is clearly GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH! In 2020, you can expect to see the Yalo Tribe anywhere and everywhere loud, live music is happening.

See you on the flipside of 2020!

#rocketride2020

K.I.S.S. — keep it simple, stupid.

You’ve heard this before, right? If not, I can bet you have been a victim of over-thinking marketing opportunities at some point in your career. I know I have. 

I get it; you want to make sure every checkpoint has been reached along your project destination (as you should). But, have you over-complicated things? 

More often than not, keeping it simple is a win-win for everyone. 

Whenever I get stuck in the marketing mud, I fall back on these K.I.S.S. principles to roll out the best possible strategy for my team and customer:  

• Does it make sense? 
  Internally, is your strategy well defined? Does your go-to-market strategy provide clear direction and understanding? What is the end goal, and will your audience get it? Don’t assume everyone speaks your language. Keeping your message concise can make all the difference.
• Make it memorable. 
  People typically remember a few items and stories. Tying in real-life scenarios to drive home your message is a great way for your audience to retain information. 
• Cut the fluff. 
  It’s said we retain approximately 10% of what we see, 30-40% of what we see and hear, and 90% of what we see, hear and do. So…get to the point.

The K.I.S.S. principle brings clarity to an often chaotic situation.

See what I did there? I gave you three simple takeaways. The K.I.S.S. principle brings clarity to an often chaotic situation. Keep this SIMPLE principle in mind next time you get stuck in the mud!

We’ve written recently about how brick-and-mortar retailers are working hard at creating great customer experiences in order to compete with the convenience of Amazon. But I’ve also noticed recently that online retailers also seem to be working harder to create personal connections with their customers in an effort to bridge digital and physical experiences and cement brand loyalty. Both of the examples below show the impact a personal touch can make.

Warby Parker

With just fewer than 100 physical locations in the U.S., I think many of us original fans still think of Warby as primarily an online retailer. For style – and value – conscious shoppers, it has always hit the mark and had a quirky enough personality to have a boutique feel, even as it grew. These have all been contributing factors to my feeling that it’s a “cool” brand and really my go-to for glasses for the past seven or eight years. I was already loyal. And then they upped their game.

After visiting the new store on Atlanta’s Westside (I happily would have continued to buy exclusively online had this not been so close to my home), I returned home to find that my favorite Warbys had been no match for our new puppy.

Within a few days, I had a response — not on Insta, but IN THE MAIL (which I obviously also Instagrammed).

Anyone’s social crew could have responded to my first post with a “sorry this happened” message, but these guys turned it into a great story I could share. In the process, they got a brand ambassador and an even more loyal customer, showing how a little creative thinking and a personal touch can have a big impact.

Wayfair

I recently embarked on upgrading light fixtures, cabinet pulls and a few other items throughout my home in order to give it a refresh without having to drop a ton of cash. Once again, style, value and convenience played heavily into my decision to explore Wafair and I happily discovered that they indeed had, as the jingle goes, just what I need. I spent some time searching and saving items and over the course of a few weeks ordered several light fixtures, a coffee table and some other accessories with the intention of ordering a few more once I could see how everything was coming together. I was also busy posting before-and-afters of my finds on social and happily recommending Wayfair to my friends. 

Then, one Friday night, I received a voicemail from Connor at Wayfair. My heart leapt for a moment, thinking I must have won the shopping spree I signed up for at the start of my relationship with the retailer. When I called back on Monday, there was good news and bad news. Bad: I had not won the shopping spree. Good: Connor had been assigned to be my very own personal service consultant. I have never had a personal service consultant before, but it felt very fancy! What did it mean? Connor’s job seems to be a mash-up of customer service rep and personal stylist. He’s apparently there for me (via a direct line) whenever I need help finding options for a piece I’m shopping, questions about products or my orders and can even help get me status on backordered items and more routine asks like that. I haven’t yet taken advantage of my personal in at Wayfair, but the experience sure did get me interested in learning more about their more extensive design services and gave me mega warm fuzzies about continuing to shop and and recommend the company to my friends. Adding this personal touch to what is typically a fully-digital transaction creates a great story for customers to share and provides Wafair with an easy way to upsell services and products.

So, especially if your business operates primarily online, think about how you can add a personal touch ang bring a little IRL charm into your customer interactions. Just a little effort can go a long way.

As a small organization, I believe you must acknowledge the good days and successes, as well as the tough days and challenges. 2018 presented Yalo with both good days and tough days. However, we were fortunate to have an abundant number of good days and successes in 2018. We amped up our 2017 TAG Agency of the Year award, and it served us well. We pushed the boundaries of our tag line “Defy. Fly.” with our clients and it served us well. So well in fact that we had matched our 2017 numbers by end of June, which positioned us for a breakout finish to 2018. We finished 2018 at a very successful +43% YoY!

So, when it came time to plan our 2018 end-of-year offsite, I wanted to celebrate our team, their resilience, and their tenacity for a resounding rebound from 2017. What better place to celebrate than New Orleans? We all shipped out in early December from OH and GA and planted our New Yal’ins flag in the French Quarter for two days of hard work and soulful inspiration. Like all our meetings, New Yal’ins was no different than previous meetings . . . they are wide open, all comments welcome, no holding back type of gatherings. I believe in full transparency, and so we covered a lot of ground, including both the good days and tough days.  This way everyone knows exactly where we have been, what we accomplished, where we are going, and that everyone has their share, their workload to pull. We rely on every piston firing as one team at high capacity, packing a powerful punch into every client and every day of work. For Yalo, we were a well-oiled machine in 2018.

I am very proud of the team and culture we have built. Everyone trusts each other, everyone supports each other, and everyone is DIY GSD (Do it yourself, Get sh*t done — which is our company motto). I believe our culture allows every individual to excel in their own way, putting their best foot forward every day to create unique, atypical marketing solutions for our clients.  And when all pistons are firing as one team, that makes each day exciting and exhilarating.

So as Yalo heads into 2019, we are positioned for growth, for strength. We have hired additional powerful pistons onto the team to accelerate our growth and strength. We have great relationships (even partnerships) with our clients. We have a strong tailwind driving us forward. We have a clear outlook for 2019, and when we have done our job to the best of our ability, we will grow again by 40%-50%. The Yalo Tribe is poised to kick a lot of ass in 2019.

So our new hashtag for 2019 is . . . #HereWeCome

Arnold Huffman was back on Atlanta Business Radio 1190 AM again last week to spread some soul! It was a fun conversation about our unique approach to marketing, what we do differently from other agencies and how that gets real results for our clients. If you missed it, no worries! Just listen below.

For almost 2 years, Yalo has partnered with ACG® Atlanta to boost the organization’s marketing efforts and get the word out about the opportunities it provides to help middle-market companies foster corporate growth. The organization is one of the oldest of 59 chapters worldwide representing 14,500 members across a variety of industries from professional services to manufacturing. As part of this partnership, Yalo keeps its finger on the pulse of the organization, regularly attending board meetings and planning meetings for signature events like the Georgia Fast 40. We’re proud to have created the organization’s 2017 Marketing catalog and, for the second year in a row now, we’re creating social content, event collateral and press releases for Fast 40. It’s been an exciting partnership, where we’ve learned a lot about Atlanta and Georgia’s wide-ranging and fast-growing business community and made some great connections, ourselves!

So what’s this Fast40?

Each year, ACG Atlanta honors the top 40 fastest-growing middle-market companies in Georgia. Each year’s nominees are for-profit companies headquartered in Georgia, whose annual revenues for the preceding year are $15 million to $500 million. Last year, the Fast 40 companies created over $2 Billion in revenue in Georgia and up to 960% in growth! This year, Yalo has 20+ nominees in the mix and are eagerly awaiting the finalist announcements soon! Nominations are now closed, but we’re looking forward to seeing the incredible growth and attending the awards dinner and gala in June and would love to see more familiar faces. 

Event Info

June 14, 2018 at Flourish Atlanta

Tickets & Details

Spring is in full bloom and spring cleaning around your home and office seems only natural. But what about decluttering and putting a shine on your marketing efforts? You probably started the year with a list of goals you wanted to hit, activities you wanted to try and even a game plan for getting there. How’s that working out for you? We know. Life gets in the way sometimes, but now is a great time to do a quick reset and reinvigorate your committment to your own marketing efforts with a few housecleaning tips to streamline the process and amp up the results.

Tackle That Pile of Analytics

That’s right. Tackle one of the toughest jobs first. Do you collect the numbers, but never really look at them? Have you put off adding tracking to key elements of your communications program? Now’s the time to take a deep breath and dive in. Getting a clear picture of your site, social and campaign analytics can help you decide which is the next most pressing area to tidy up. Taking control of this pile of data will give you a sense of accomplishment and might even show you that your efforts are producing better results than you thought!

Scrub Your Email Lists

You’re probably purging your unsubscribes on a regular basis (not that you have any, of course), but keeping your list(s) optimized requires doing a little more. Clear out inactive addresses — meaning not just bounces, but the ones who have literally never opened one of your emails. A more streamlined list will give you a more accurate analytics picture and help you to focus your content. You can think about grouping your contacts by industry or engagement rates so you can start to create personalized content and campaigns just for certain subscribers. While you’re at it, you might even want to give your email content a fresh look like Yalo did recently. (Subscribe to see what you’re missing.)

Dust Off Your Content

Been a while since you really looked at your website? We mean really looked? You’re not alone. Do a quick content audit to see where you can freshen things up a bit with new case studies, new service offerings, new blog content or even just a new client logo. Doesn’t have to be a major overhaul, but giving return visitors a slightly different experience from last time they came can help give the impression that you’re a dynamic organization with a lot going on. And while you’re making changes on the front end, double check your behind-the-scenes descriptions and tags because those search engine bots get excited by new content, too!

Polish Up Your Social Presence

Not posting regularly? Posting content that’s all over the place? This is another place where that analytics exercise can help you figure out where to go next. See which posts are getting the most engagement and start developing a plan to give your audience more of what gets them going. Spend some time thinking about buckets of content you can go to over and over again, including serial content, which gives your audience something to look forward to on the regular. And commit to doing more than just posting a link to an article every now and then. Original content, even if that means just adding a sentence or two of analysis before that article link, goes a long way toward helping you stand out.

Organize Your Output

The key to follow-through is planning! From mapping out a legit content calendar (you know those six bullet points you jotted down during your last team brainstorm aren’t gonna get you far) to formalizing your content creation process and schedule (so painful, yet so worth it), laying a solid groundwork is your number one key to success. Once you’ve gotten this part of your house in order, your whole team has clear direction on what’s needed from them and when. That means it’s easier to avoid that last minute “Oh snap! We’ve got an email going out tomorrow!” moment and develop content that’s more cohesive, more creative and tells a better story about your organization.

When the date is locked for your stock to launch and for you to ring the bell at the NYSE, there’s not a lot of wiggle room for getting your ducks in a row. While your lawyers are dotting I’s and crossing T’s, your marketing team’s in overdrive. Your branding, your website and all your communications materials need to be ready and on point. Failure is not an option.

Recently, when two of the largest distribution companies in America merged, Yalo helped launch a new $10 billion brand for their IPO. Unisource and xpedx were set to come together as Veritiv Corporation and the new company’s website would be a key piece of the communication, introducing the new brand to the world. And the big day was just three months away. Time to hustle.

If you’ve ever been part of an effort to build a new corporate website, you know you’re typically looking at several weeks to several months to design build and launch, depending on the amount of content and level of functionality that needs to be included. That’s for one site. In just 12 weeks, Yalo delivered two new SharePoint websites (from design through development), plus two new intranets — all in both English and French.

It took a dedicated team of professionals at the top of their game, best-in-class project management, flawless communication and probably a couple of the right stars aligning, but we got it all done. Failure wasn’t an option.

We don’t always take on projects with impossible deadlines, but when we do, we nail it. Think about who you want on your team next time there’s no room to fail.

It’s a pretty amazing feeling when it all falls into place, isn’t it? You’ve done your homework. You put in the hard work and preparation. Now the stars are beginning to align. Slowly but surely, you start to see the results you were hoping for. Everything is going according to plan.

On the flip side though, it can be a real punch to the gut when all that effort and prep work doesn’t quite start off on the right foot. We’ve all seen this story play out time and time again. This is a pretty common theme in sports lately, especially on the big stage. One team gets hot while the other team suddenly realizes they are down in the series or facing a daunting deficit in the game. 

Cavs down 3-1 in the NBA Finals, the Cubs looking down and out in the World Series or the Pats losing by 25 in the Super Bowl. How does a team react when things don’t go their way?

Do they play the blame game? Do they crumble under the pressure? Perhaps they stick to the plan at hand, persist and hope for a different result?  Or do they adapt to the situation and switch up the gameplan? Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide were gut punched by Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs in the first half of this week’s College Football Playoff Championship. Bama was shutout in the first half of play and found themselves down 20-7 late in the 3^rd quarter. How did they react to this situation?

Well of course being a Nick Saban coached team, they persisted when it came to effort and intensity. They trusted “the Process.” What came as a surprise to many however, was the fact that Saban decided to adapt to the situation by turning to his bench. More specifically, to a true freshman QB with zero starts under his belt…at the start of the 3^rd quarter…in the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME. This bold change of plan paid off in a big way for Bama. 

So, ask yourself, how will you or your company react when things don’t go according to plan in 2018? Will you blame? Will you crumble? Will you simply continue as planned? Or will you adapt when the time is right? Saban didn’t call his audible until the start of the 4^th quarter. Yes, it’s important to be patient while your plan unfolds, but at a certain point you must recognize when it’s time to make a change in order to reach your goals. 

Being agile and trying something outside conventional wisdom can pay big dividends (just ask Nick!). So consider this in 2018 if your plans don’t pan out as you expected, be willing to try a different approach and think outside the box with Yalo. Dare to Defy. Dare to Fly.

The Yalo Tribe this year once again congregated for a rockin’ 2.5 days of idea-storming, creativity, planning…oh and a good dose of good ole’ fashioned comradery and fun. There is nothing more invigorating than when the Tribe rallies and jams. The result is an inspired Tribe riffing off of each other’s ideas, challenging each other and ultimately raising the bar for new ideas. We don’t get to do this very often because of the geographic diversity of our team, so when we do all get together, it’s like a Motley Crue reunion tour.

This year had an added dimension of excitement to it because it was also Yalo’s 5 year anniversary. Something we are very proud of. Coupling our anniversary with our recent TAG Agency of the Year award, and we are over-amped about 2018 and all the great things to accomplish ahead.

So in the spirit of also getting our clients over-amped for 2018, we did something new this year in preparation for the holidays, which we have dubbed Yalodays. We re-created the Speed Dating scenario to get the creative juices flowing for our clients. And instead of giving gift cards or some other gift lacking soul that they won’t remember or use, we used Speed Dating as a structure for every Tribe member to contribute ideas in a “rapid, in the moment, try to impress me” kind of way. The idea was to ideate a Yaloday gift that would be simple, impactful and memorable without just buying tickets to a basketball game (as an example of ‘lacking soul’). We did this for 24 clients and prospects with each client receiving 6 ideas, and the results were fantastic. I got to tell you, the Tribe was on top of its game. The ideas ranged from a deconstructed ice sculpture (think water for a water company) to video clips of our kids trying to describe what our clients do to even a t-shirt with toilet paper on it (a client is in the facilities business). It was an incredible 2 hour session, and one of the best activities we have ever done together.

We left that session and took our excited neurons into the evening where we proceeded to laugh heartily together, discuss our future together, and rack up a tab that was as long as my arm. Ouch! Although it was not as bad as Rob Gronkowski’s…

Nonetheless, it is all well-deserved for a great Tribe that has a lot of wind at its back and a clear vision of our future.

Stay tuned for samples of the Yaloday gifts on our social feeds over the next 2 weeks. We hope you enjoy them.

Happy Yalodays!

Our own Arnold Huffman appeared on Atlanta Business Radio 1190 AM last week to talk about our recent Digital Agency of the Year win at the TAG Marketing awards. It was a fun conversation about our approach to marketing, what we do and the difference it makes for our clients. If you missed it, no worries. You can listen right here. 

The clubhouse dynamics you create for your employees lays the foundation for how work’s going to get done. Do you all listen to the same music? Do you like to eat different foods? Do you make baseball caricatures of your teammates like the #WIndiansdid this season? If you’re not all friends who love working together, the workplace can be uptight and uncomfortable. A loose clubhouse fosters better work results because people enjoy coming to work and being given the latitude to kick ass their way with their teammates.

However, the loose clubhouse only works if everyone as a team is held to a high standard and takes accountability and ownership for getting the job done together (something we at Yalo call ‘DIY GSD’). But if you can’t all enjoy other things outside of the office together, you don’t really have much as far as a team relationship or comradery. It’s important to see how people are in their real lives; what affects them, things they enjoy, things they don’t like. Getting to know those things makes it easier when you’re inspiring them to success; discussing projects, brainstorming, assessing deadlines, giving feedback. You must know how to communicate those things effectively. Terry Francona is known as a master of this, built on his years of experience in the clubhouse starting as the son of a MLB player.

Having the right work environment and fostering the type of relationship with your team makes all the difference in losing or winning, which in our business is making every project the best it can be and having very satisfied clients. At the end of the day, we all are expected to deliver for clients what they expect from us. We have to produce excellent work. If you like the people you’re working with and if you know them well and vice versa, then you’ll work well together, and excellent work is will happen.

So, my perspective on our Yalo clubhouse is this.

“I find nothing wrong with opening a bottle of Four Roses at the office after a team lunch. As long as everyone’s held accountable for the more professional, if you will, aspects of the day, I really don’t see why we can’t all sip together.”

A.H.

See great Cleveland website designs right here in Northeast Ohio.

Digital is hot, hip and now. Everyone’s doing it! And if you’re NOT doing it, where have you been hiding for the past decade and a half or so?!! As a Cleveland web design agency, the Yalo team loves seeing what other designers have designed and built to manifest a company’s digital persona – in other words, their websites! We have no problem celebrating the excellence and skills of others in the web design world because, frankly, there’s a LOT of work to go around.  

In this post, we’ll be highlighting some great website designs for Cleveland-based companies. See what YOU think about American Greetings, Great Lakes Brewing Company, and Progressive Insurance – giants of industry in the Cleveland area and pretty famous nationally as well.  

American Greetings  

For more than 100 years, American Greetings has been the go-to company for meaningful and caring cards, gifts and party supplies for every holiday and occasion. 

The company’s digital persona is colorful and seasonal. What’s great about their website in Yalo’s mind is their stand-out photography, attention-grabbing headlines and sub-headlines – strong copy-writing! They also have that classic website design look – perfect for the company they have grown to be in a market where they want to relate to every demographic. Why not present a design that users are comfortable with? Another standout about American Greetings’ website is that they are promoting what is trendy and technology-driven these days – environmentally friendly and super-convenient Ecards! It’s always good to see a business that knows how to tap into current market desires and to hype what is popular and “hot” with consumers. 

Great Lakes Brewing Company 

The Great Lakes Brewing Company is an Ohio, Cleveland-based company that was started by two Irish brothers in the late 1980s. It offers a sophisticated, diverse selection of craft beer with a focus on celebrating the abundance of the Great Lakes region in every bottle. 

As a web design company, we think it is very important for companies to keep consistent themes in all their branding. Great Lakes Brewing Company does a great job with this through their colors, typography and images. They excel at creating images with a consistent artful style that have meaning beyond the face-value of the images – usually historic in nature. When you visit their site you instantly recognize the brand. GLBC has fun with their products and their customers’ tastes by presenting imagery that introduces new, limited-edition, and brand-standard beers. Their new, year-round Great Lakes IPA – a popular American IPA – recognizes the company’s independence and employee ownership, for example. Great Lakes also mentions in their banner slider about delivery service – a timely bit of marketing when their facilities are closed to visitors. 

Progressive Insurance 

Progressive is an insurance company that was started in 1937 in Cleveland, Ohio and has a long and storied history that is very …. well, progressive. The company even has an impressive art collection and curatorial staff that takes the artwork on the road to their various offices for displays and educational lectures. Progressive provides peace-of-mind and protection for vehicle, property, finance, personal and commercial claims. Their objective as a company is to sell you on their services and overall affordability. 

Progressive’s website does a great job in showcasing qualities that customers care about when it comes to insurance policies – savings, support and customer trust. What we like about their website is that they make finding specific types of insurance – say motorcycle, condominium or recreational vehicle – very easy via graphic icons right on the Home page. The process of getting a quote for each type of insurance is quite simple – in our industry we call this User Experience or UX, a set of best practices and tactics that help site visitors to enjoy their experience on a website. Bad UX leads to visitors abandoning a website before any kind of engagement transpires – NOT GOOD if you want to be successful.  

We’re also delighted as a Cleveland marketing agency at the genius of their marketing “mascot,” the comedic Flo. The company has basically rewritten the rules about marketing for what was once considered too serious a topic for humor in advertising – insurance. Ongoing gags, visual puns, even a faux musical on ice – Progressive has set the bar high with this advertising gimmick and many other insurance companies are now following suit and trying humorous ad campaigns to keep up. Go, Flo, go! 

So that’s Yalo’s micro-tour of some great website designs and campaigns for Cleveland, Ohio companies. As a Cleveland web design company, Yalo is always checking-out local companies’ websites to drive inspiration in OUR house. We believe success comes from feeding off each other, learning from each other, improving upon what has come before. Art is rarely created in a vacuum. 

If you are interested in learning more about Yalo as a web design company and what we can do for your digital profile and branding in order to make you rock, please get in touch with us and we’ll communicate shortly. We’d love to chat with you!