The great thing about podcasts is that they provide an entertaining alternative to visual media. In fact, studies show that the brain is more active while listening to podcasts than when watching television. Whether you want to learn about entertainment, history, applied sciences, money, or any number of other topics, there’s a podcast out there to teach you.

You can find and download top podcasts from such places as iTunes and Stitcher, as well as in apps like Downcast and Pocket Casts.

Here are 10 great podcasts to get you started:

Science Rules! with Bill Nye

Bill Nye is on a mission to change the world — one voicemail at a time. Bill and science writer Corey S. Powell take your burning questions and put them to the world’s leading experts on just about every topic in the universe.

Radiolab

Radiolab is one of the most beloved podcasts and public radio shows in the world. The show is known for its deep-dive journalism and innovative sound design. Over the years it has evolved to become a platform for long-form journalism and storytelling. 

Stuff You Should Know

If you’ve ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

Crazy Money

Crazy Money exists to promote financial wisdom and better living through no-holds-barred conversations about the role of money in our lives. Listen as comedian and former Facebook Sales VP Paul Ollinger interviews entrepreneurs, celebrities, authors, artists, and others with a unique perspective on money, wealth and careers.

Hardcore History

Dan Carlin’s work weaves historical information with deep questions and Twilight Zone-style twists to help illustrate the power and continuing relevance of the past. Drama, extremes, empathy, and vivid examples of both the highs and lows of humanity dominate the narrative.

Revisionist History

Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past—an event, a person, an idea, even a song—and asks whether we got it right the first time. 

How I Built This

Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world’s best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.

Overheard at National Geographic

Come dive into one of the curiously delightful conversations overheard at National Geographic’s headquarters, as we follow explorers, photographers, and scientists to the edges of our big, weird, beautiful world.

99% Invisible

Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we’ve just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. 

Philosophize This!

For anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don’t need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained.

Here are some of the current statistics for podcasting in 2021:

• Over 55% of the US population have listened to a podcast
• In 2020 over 155 million people listen to a podcast every week
• Around 24% of the US population (68 million) listen to multiple podcasts weekly
• Podcast listeners consume an average of seven different shows per week
• There are over 700,000 active podcasts and 29 million podcast episodes available
• The most popular age group for podcasts listeners is 25-44 which make up 49% of total listeners

source

As the podcast trend continues to grow each year, one thing is clear: human beings love to listen to each other talk.

Ready to grow your audience online? Yalo offers many creative Design & Development services for 21st century eyes and ears. Let us help.

To usher in your post-pandemic normal, the Yalo Tribe has released its yearly Summer Reading List. Whether you’ll be traveling or lounging at home, summer is a great time to catch up on your reading and gain some expertise. Be it fiction, biography, self-help, or thought leadership any genre of book can give you a more well-rounded point of view. Here are the books that are piquing our interest this summer:

Maggie Tyma
Memoirs & Misinformation: A Novel

Memoirs and Misinformation is a fearless semi-autobiographical novel, a deconstruction of persona. In it, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon have fashioned a story about acting, Hollywood, agents, celebrity, privilege, friendship, romance, addiction to relevance, fear of personal erasure, our “one big soul”, Canada, and a cataclysmic ending of the world – apocalypses within and without.

The Song of Achilles: A Novel

The legend begins… Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Written with Reid’s signature talent for “creating complex, likable characters” this is a fascinating journey through the splendor of Old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means – and what it takes – to face the truth. 

Rachel Stallard
Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare — poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world’s top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him “The Fittest (Real) Man in America.” 

Rich Krahn
Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein’s Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time 

No single breakthrough in twentieth-century physics (with the possible exception of quantum mechanics) changed our view of the world more than that of Einstein’s discovery of relativity. The notions that the flow of time is not a constant, that the mass of an object depends on its velocity, and that the speed of light is a constant no matter what the motion of the observer, at first seemed shocking to scientists and laymen alike. But, as Feynman shows so clearly and so entertainingly in the lectures chosen for this volume, these crazy notions are no mere dry principles of physics, but are things of beauty and elegance. No one — not even Einstein himself — explained these difficult, anti-intuitive concepts more clearly, or with more verve and gusto, than Richard Feynman.

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

With the attention to detail of a historian and the storytelling ability of a novelist, New York Times science writer George Johnson celebrates these groundbreaking experiments and re-creates a time when the world seemed filled with mysterious forces and scientists were in awe of light, electricity, and the human body. Here, we see Galileo staring down gravity, Newton breaking apart light, and Pavlov studying his now famous dogs. This is science in its most creative, hands-on form, when ingenuity of the mind is the most useful tool in the lab and the rewards of a well-considered experiment are on exquisite display.

Lance Shoulders
Outliers: The Story of Success

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. 

Arnold Huffman
Greenlights

From the Academy Award-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction. This is 50 years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It’s a love letter. To life. It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green, too. Good luck.

Anne Dawson Think Again:
The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know

Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. 

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

What makes things popular? If you said advertising, think again. People don’t listen to advertisements; they listen to their peers. But why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious? And what makes online content go viral? Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger has spent the last decade answering these questions.

Denise Cowden
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles―counterintuitive tacticsand strategies―you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life.

Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life

For over 25 years, Jim Kwik has worked closely with successful men and women who are at the top in their fields as actors, athletes, CEOs, and business leaders from all walks of life to unlock their true potential. In this groundbreaking book, he reveals the science-based practices and field-tested tips to accelerate self learning, communication, memory, focus, recall, and speed reading, to create fast, hard results.

Brian Eisenberg 
Restoration Agriculture: Real-World Permaculture for Farmers

Restoration Agriculture explains how we can have all of the benefits of natural, perennial ecosystems and create agricultural systems that imitate nature in form and function while still providing for our food, building, fuel, and many other needs. Using the restoration agriculture system, an oak savanna mimic will produce more than twice the number of edible human calories per acre as an average acre of corn, never needs to be planted again, prevents erosion, creates oil, and can be managed with no fossil fuel inputs. 

The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World

Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum – on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science. In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own.

Rachel Gehrs 
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe

In Signs, Jackson is able to bring the mystical into the everyday. She relates stories of people who have experienced uncanny revelations and instances of unexplained synchronicity, as well as others drawn from her own experience.

We hope you have a wonderful kick off to Summer 2021!

If you’re curious, meet the readerly Yalo team of creatives, developers and designers who put this list together on Our Tribe page. And although they’re not literature, biography or essay per se, we think our Marketing Communications services are letter-perfect and a great way to deliver brand messaging for our valued clients.

It was an unforgettable year. A sentiment lost on no one, especially those in the financial services industry. So when Credigy, a global specialty finance company, tapped us to help with the end-of-year mailer for their partners, we knew it had to balance the tumultuous year of COVID-19 without focusing on the past. People, our clients included, were looking forward to a fresh start. 

Not only did the gift in our mailer need to be unique and engaging, but we faced logistical issues of longer lead times for product and shipping, as well as recipients who were working remotely. As Credigy worked to track down home addresses, Yalo worked with them to cycle through ideas, lock in the appropriate gift and design a customized mailer around it. 

We started early—real early. Ideation began in September with final designs and product and packaging orders being placed mid-October. We landed, pun intended, on a smart-controlled remote paper airplane. It was light-hearted and unique, but also reinforced the message of Credigy going alongside its partners during their journey.

A socially-distanced packing party was conducted the week after Thanksgiving. Each box also contained a hand-written card from an individual on the Credigy Investment team. All 80 mailers shipped the first week of December across 40+ cities coast-to-coast with some as far as Canada. 

Not only did these mailers arrive well before the holiday crunch, but they received high praise for such a creative and memorable gift that could be used by adults—and their kids. Positive reaction and increased inbound traffic has rolled well into 2021 as a result of these mailers. 

From atmospheric Marketing Communications to jet-streamed creative designs and out-of-the-box concepts, Yalo delivers for our customers time and again. How can we help your next effort to be the success it deserves to be? Let’s talk!

You are pretty much guaranteed to impress your audience when you immerse them into a 360° panoramic video experience. But if you are putting forth the effort to produce one of these wow-factor video presentations, you want it to be a home-run with bases loaded and not just a base hit, right?

Here’s a few small things that you should be doing that will make a huge impact on your audience’s overall video experience. Let’s knock it out of the ballpark!

1.    Add Background Music

If your video doesn’t include natural sounds or narration (we will get to that in a second), then we highly recommend that you at least add some sort of instrumental background music or maybe a song that ties in with your brand or message.  Watching videos with no audio are much more boring and you are more likely to lose the interest of your viewer much quicker.

2.    Voiceover/Narration

Videos which include a professionally recorded voiceover that goes along with what the viewer is actually seeing has a much greater impact. Don’t just show people, get as many of the senses involved as possible – tell them what they are looking at too! But give them just enough information to convince them to come to your doorstep for the full in-person experience.

3.    Lights, Camera, ACTION!

There’s such a huge difference in watching a video of an empty space versus one buzzing with activity!  Sometimes, an empty space makes more sense but for the most part – showing people what an area looks like with action is much more captivating and makes it easier for them to envision themselves within your space which is the ultimate goal – to get them there.  So, don’t show them a boring version of your area – show them with action.

4.  The Talent

And it’s not a bad idea to “stage” the video shoot with people who are great at following direction, natural on camera and are very animated (yet not over the top). If you can hire “extras” for the day to be your “talent” – this is the best way to go to get the most out of your production. Professionals make it more professional, it’s that simple.

5.    Smooth Operator

If you have a camera operator who isn’t steady with your camera with smooth and fluid movement through a space, it is not going to be nearly as impressive as one that does. Watching videos that are not professionally produced can even make you a bit dizzy. Of course, at times a more raw feel to the shooting style makes sense for an authentic experience, for example in extreme sports. But overall, a smooth camera operator can up the production value and overall the end user experience exponentially.

At Digital Yalo, we specialize in creating compelling 360° video panoramic experiences. Contact us today to strategize with our team for your own dynamic project. Let us help you bring a larger audience to your doorstep!

Taco Bell toilet Paper? Printing money from your phone? We love a great April Fool’s joke. 

But we love April Fool’s Day even more when companies strike the right tone and execution in delivery of a hoax to put a smile on our faces, rather than making us look like a fool. When done right, April Fool’s Day is a perfect opportunity for brands to increase consumer engagement and deepen reach. 

No fooling, here are five of our favorite, well-thought-out brand activations to celebrate the day created to add some levity into the world and poke-fun at ourselves.  

Party In The Sky WestJet #FlyreFestival

Out of the ashes of Fyre Festival came WestJet’s Flyre Festival. Offering the world’s first premium in-flight music festival. The cheese sandwiches are on you though.

Out-Of-This-World Whiskey 

Taking the trend of aged whiskey to new heights, Jameson introduced triple-distilled whiskey – matured in Ireland and finished in outer space. The brand was so dedicated to pulling-the-wool over our eyes, they actually sent a bottle 110,000 feet above earth. 

Tinder Height Verification Badge

No one likes to get burned by misleading dating app profiles, so Tinder fooled us all in thinking it had created a solution to the biggest lie told on its app – height! Tinder trolled users by announcing plans to introduce a height verification badge. “Simply input your true, accurate height with a screenshot of you standing next to any commercial building. We’ll do some state-of-the-art verifying and you’ll receive your badge directly on your profile”.

The Rosetta Stone – Learn to Speak Klingon

Many a Star Trek fan has marveled at their friends who seem to speak Klingon as fluently as they speak English, German, Italian, or French. Now with this complete Klingon software package you will be able to express your thoughts safely and effectively in Klingon and master the conversational skills required to conduct negotiations, request medical assistance and partake in the rich Klingon culture. 

Money on Your Phone

Who wouldn’t love to print money from your phone? In the UK, PayPal tricked us all by announcing a new feature to turn your phone into a mobile ATM. Got us? We were fooled. 

Do you have any brand antics up your sleeve this year? Or perhaps you’d like to pull-off a similar stunt to one of these you’ve just read and you need assistance devising a concept? Making people laugh is one of our core competencies – let’s brainstorm some clever content and get your team laughing all the way to the bank! Contact us here to get started.

Being consistent for brands has never been more rewarded than in our current, challenging and changing world. But consistency doesn’t and shouldn’t equal boring. 

Companies and brands have a significant opportunity to drive deeper consumer action, loyalty, and advocacy to create a foolproof brand to stay relevant and increase reach no matter what happens in the world. 

Here are five tips to be consistent and create bolder, deeper and foolproof brand engagements:

Color Me Brand: Take the time for a mini brand visual and verbal refresh. Update your color palette for this Spring and Summer to use across social media and advertising. Feature bold, vibrant colors to welcome spring and wake up your feed. Bold colors visually announce a new beginning and are a subtle way to re-energize your visual assets to re-engage your customers. 

Can We Talk? Spend some time asking your customers what’s on their mind. Listen. Respond with smart, deliberate content that lets them know you hear them. Foolproof brands realize it isn’t about them, but about their customers. Start including a quick survey in your social media strategy to direct your content. Don’t be afraid to address the issues that matter to you and your customers. 

Entertain Me: A joke. A good playlist. A virtual cocktail party. Smart brands create a mix of ongoing engagement opportunities to bring their brand personality to life and entertain their customers.   

Surprise Surprise! Nothing drives stronger engagement than an unexpected surprise. Make it a practice to surprise customers in big and small ways. Go beyond liking a post of user-generated-content and ask the creator to collaborate with your brand instead. Go old-school and send a snail mail, well thought-out, curated, box of branded goodness. 

Socially Acceptable: Foolproof brands know that you must continuously evolve to engage with your customers. TikTok and Clubhouse are two social platforms bold brands need to be a part of and have an active presence. Partner with emerging artists and musicians to stay current and always evolve your brand engagements. 

If you are ready to take bold action, our creative team is at the ready…no foolin’.

See examples of our bold branding finesse for clients on this page. Connect with us today and let’s get your brand boosted and blooming like nobody’s business.

For our first virtual event with Imperial, we were focused on many different aspects of the show. The shopping experience, engagement through chat functionality and video presentations were all given consideration and attention prior to launch.

When the time came for our second event, we had a strong experience that we could build on and refine rather than re-invent. While there were many other adjustments and tweaks throughout version two of our custom virtual event, the major user experience improvements came down to two main areas of focus aimed squarely at the customer.

Goodbye Sessions, Hello Live Show

During the first Imperial event, we divided the show by the three main actions a user could take: Shop (merchandise), Watch (presentations) and Meet (in live sessions). The live sessions within the “Meet” pillar took place over two days and featured both demonstrations from vendors highlighting some of the exciting products available in the show as well as chance to ask questions and receive guidance from merchandise category managers. Using FullStory and analytics to see how customers were using the show, we saw lower engagement within the “Meet” category and knew an adjustment would need to be made for our second show. 

While the general offering changed very little, we completely changed the way we phrased and positioned the live elements of the event. The “Meet” section became our “Live Show” and “Upcoming Sessions” became our “Live Schedule”. Repositioning this feature as a live event you can join that is happening now is a much different feeling than asking a customer to attend a live session. In addition to the repositioning, we gave the Live Show a prominent place within the main navigation and during the 2 days it was running we gave it the most visual weight within our virtual lobby. 

An Upgraded Shopping Experience

One of the main points of feedback we were seeing from customers during our first event was that they were feeling lost after adding items to their cart. Because the show featured many different items across many different categories, there was a wish to return to the exact location they were after adding items to their cart rather than being offered a simple “Continue Shopping” button. Customers typically shopped by category and would be adding multiple items from a single category for extended periods of time. Customer carts could easily be in the hundreds of items. 

We improved shopping in a variety of ways for our second event. The browsing was simplified by including the main shopping categories within the side navigation and installing a universal cart link that would appear on every page rather than just within the shopping section. Cart also became the top link within the side navigation giving it more prominence than in the past show. In addition to navigation improvements, we added some core new functionality.

We developed completely new customer journeys for adding items to your cart. Rather than moving the customer to the cart, we offered a cart preview that would slide out upon adding any item to your cart. This allowed you to close the cart preview to continue shopping and remain exactly where you were in the shopping experience. The preview also provided the option to continue to checkout for those customers that were ready to proceed. The universal cart link we created would open this cart preview, allowing you quick and easy access throughout the entire show.

In addition to this major UX improvement, we implemented “Quick Buy” functionality. A Quick Buy button was added to every product result. This launches a lightbox providing the basic details of a product with buttons to learn more or add to cart.  This new feature allowed customers to add items to their cart directly from a results page and remain there throughout their shopping experience if they chose. 

A look to the future

Imperial’s virtual trade show is currently wrapping up and we will begin this process again. Going through internal and external audits to see what could be improved, what worked well and any pain points or issues that we can identify and address. We will be collecting and absorbing that data for continued refinement in the future. Currently, we are already seeing positive feedback on our UX improvements for this second event and looking forward to continuing our improvements and refinements for the future.

Have you given any thought to how a virtual event – from an online trade show to a virtual press conference, product demo or happy hour – might impact your brand and marketing efficacy? Yalo offers stellar virtual events as a turnkey service and would love to discuss the possibilities with you. Please contact us here and let’s have a conversation – virtually of course!

“Got a Rizla?” You might not have heard of it. I had not until I came across the company in a recent edition of the Economist. What really grabbed my attention was how the article compared Rizla to enduring brands like Coca-Cola, Google, Jacuzzi, or Tupperware, whose name defines the product. 

History, design, values, consistent quality – characteristics marketers look at that make brands truly unique. Let’s explore how a cigarette rolling paper company exploits these characteristics to dominate their industry and maintain a tribe-like loyalty in a business that comes with certain baggage.

Don’t have an illustrious origin story? Make one up! “The original…since 1796”. You can find that on the underside of their packaging still. Folklore and generational history have tied the Napoleon era forever to the Rizla history. They remind you of it every time you see the product and the brand. These origin stories: real, imagined—or a bit of both—are powerful plays to help establish and make your brand stand out.

Give people a sneak peek of your secret sauce. Another example is the heavily guarded and super-secret formula of Coca-Cola for over 125 years. They have taken this origin story to another level letting you get as close as you can to the formula in the vault at the World of Coca-Cola experience.

Create unique connections with your brand. The Rizla design is iconic and mysterious. With nods back to original material used to make the rolling papers – rice, and the ode to the founder Peter LaCroix. The logo has been used in a variety of creative formats at the various music festivals and racing events they sponsor. If you want an iconic brand, have a great story and make sure your brand emotes a certain set of values that your customers and fans connect with on a deeper level.

Get to know your customer’s likes and obsessions. Rizla’s customer base is obsessed over attention to detail and a certain sense of irreverence. Their base also shares similar language, looks, and taste that make it a great way to reach them. Really understanding your customer base, why they choose you, and what makes them tick are distinct and personal sets of information that are critical to building the brand and ultimately turning your customer base into ambassadors of your brand. Maybe that software company with the fruit logo or the coffee company near them come to mind. Yes they are juggernauts but they have applied these principles almost religiously to get where they are.

Ultimately what you sell or provide has to be good. “Keep rolling with the World’s #1” has to have some merit or your brand will be a “paper tiger.” (Pun intended)

A crafty story. An authentic design. Customer intimacy. A good product. Nice little checklist to make your brand standout. Give us a shout! We would love to Rock-n-ROLL with your brand!

We are always thinking about your customer journey. Creating the marketing plays to gain brand awareness yards with your customers and the ones you are trying to reach. Using a football field as a tangible visual, we tie each customer journey to the downs we complete as we move towards the end zone. The “touchdown” becomes increased awareness and engagement of your brand, your products and your people.

Outlining the journey visually is critical. It helps keep your team focused on goals. It can be created for personas, campaigns and channels to track impact and reach of each marketing tactic. I personally like to map the journey to find inspiration in testing new tactics or reaching a new segment.

Think of your journey map as an exercise to document the various ways your customers find you—high engagement, targeted, digital, segment or persona-based. Follow along as we outline the field zones and what to consider in building your customer journey.

Coming Out: Traffic

Generating traffic is the first step in the customer journey. Attracting your target customers—or fans—to your brand. These tactics can start simple and build over time to foster awareness. The first zone should focus on market targets, geographies and demographics to reach customers who are ready to start the journey with you.

Recommended Plays: Display Ads, Value Add Content, Press, Social

Open Field: Interest

Generating interest as a marketer is the best place on the field to learn from your potential customers. As your customers make the journey down the field, you execute tactics to reach them at the right time and place. The marketplace is noisy but placing the right content at the right time is fun. There are multiple touchpoints happening through the open field zone. Make sure your analytics are in place to measure and report what plays are working, and which ones might be out of practice. 

Recommended Plays: Retargeting Ads, Personalized Content, A/B Testing

Take a Shot: Action

At this point on the field, your customer is aware, interested and taking action. You will have an idea of the customer type and now it’s time to switch from marketing to a sales conversion focus. Your messaging and content should be specific to the persona highlighting the benefits and solutions you offer.

Recommended Plays: Personalized Content, Meetings & Zoom (B2B), Promotions (B2C)

Red Zone: Active Selling

You’ve made it to the red zone, arguably the most exciting zone of the game! Now is the chance to shine and focus on converting to a touchdown. All tactics at this point should be focused on personalization and user experience. Whether you’re B2B or B2C, your customer journey should map the lead experience, your MVP, to point of sale.

Recommended Plays: Great Product, Customer Service, Easy User Experience

If your customer journeys have grown weary in a more traditional format, test out our football field for mapping your next customer journey! It’s a strategic, yet simple document for current state–tying activities together for visibility and inspiration for future goal state. Drop our team a line if you want to chat further on mapping your customer journey, but we’re also open to have a few beers and chat football too.

Website Design & Development

The Challenge

For over eight years, Tiger Pistol has been obsessively focused on building the most effective and efficient social advertising platform for global brands, resellers, and agencies who realize the power of local activation at scale. When the company was in the process of repositioning its offerings and determining how to better highlight its capabilities and strengths in order to target the right kind of customers and accelerate growth, it came to Yalo for a new website to help tell its story.

Our Solution

We delivered a new website that eliminates superfluous bells and whistles, quickly gets visitors to the info that speaks to them and makes the value of the company’s unique offerings crystal clear. Overall, Tiger Pistol’s new website clearly communicates the company’s value, as well as mirror the product’s customer-first approach, designed for ease of use, simplicity and quickly getting visitors to the content most relevant to them with personalization, self-selection and organization by vertical. It is designed to capture leads and drive demos, elevate the company’s value proposition and showcase its partnerships with large companies who are local advertisers.

Branded Company Video

The Challenge

Sometimes the solution isn’t right in front of you. It comes from above. Star2Star wanted a promotional video that was different from traditional sales tools. Rather than focus on products or demos, they asked for a message that would change their client’s perspectives on how they approach communication solutions.

Our Solution

Yalo created video scripts, full concepts and worked with the client to fine-tune the message. The final video flows with music and graphics, while delivering a sense of purpose behind the solutions Star2Star creates.

The Challenge

Case Western Reserve University, one of the nation’s leading research universities, has graduated numerous notable alumni. From leading Hollywood directors like the Russo Brothers, to founder of craigslist Peter Tippett, and finally Frank Rudy, inventor of the Nike Air Sole. As an institution proud of the success of its graduates, CWRU wanted to honor the powerful impact of Frank Rudy and his important contribution to the ubiquitous Nike Brand by enacting a memorial.  

Our Solution

Using photography and visual design, Yalo created an experience that showcases Mr. Rudy’s one-of-a-kind creation. The M. Frank Rudy memorial provides a dimensional and educational experience to all visitors of the Horsburgh Gymnasium on the CWRU campus.

Chart-busting Results

Located in the Veale Athletic Atrium outside the gym, the memorial is visible to thousands of fans and others attending games and outside activities hosted at the venue. The memorial inspires and educates all that cross its path about the powerful impacts of CWRU Spartans on society, around the world, and in every walk of life. 

ABM Mailer Campaign

The Challenge

Insight Sourcing Group is the largest management consulting firm focused solely on strategic sourcing and procurement-related services. It has been named one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies for 11 years in a row. The company came to Yalo when it needed new, creative ways to introduce the company to a targeted list of C-Level executives to continue building its reputation and fueling that growth. They wanted to secure meetings with 75-100 CFOs and CPOs at Fortune 1000 firms and needed an interesting way to grab their attention.

Our Solution

Yalo developed a toolbox-themed mailer, which we thought would resonate with our primarily male audience, to promote the message that Insight Sourcing Group can give them all the tools they need to build a better bottom line. We included information about the company, as well as a wooden building blocks game to add a little fun and carry the theme through. The package also carried a strong call to action to schedule a meeting.

“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it FUN to read.” – Leo Burnett

With the constant demand for more quality content and the growing need for effective copywriting – one to attract visitors, the other to convert them to leads and customers – consistently producing powerful, high-quality copy is tough. As writers and content marketers, we are constantly looking for inspiration which is why we keep a swipe file. A swipe file is a collection of emails, ads, and other copy or content that you find memorable or performed well. 

Swipe right for our favorite fun and memorable copywriting examples to add to your file:

Get the cluck out of here! KFC UK’s mea culpa for its 2018 chicken shortage was a simple, genius three letters: FCK

L’Oreal Paris’ print campaign focused on workplace gender equality. The result: Copy that reads, “This is an ad for men. Hire more women in leadership roles. We’re all worth it.”

It’s all downhill from here. Snowbird Ski Resort curated negative reviews and turned them into clever advertisements. Challenge accepted!

Ricola ran a series of ads with examples of how a misplaced cough could ruin the meaning of a sentence (and coughing in public now could ruin your life). Funny and slightly edgy yet simple and relatable.

Fast cars love quick wit. Aspirational and humorous. At first glance, you read it and then you kinda sing it. Corvette is right… they don’t write songs about Volvos.

Hey Rulebreakers… here are 3 rules for creating clear convertible copy:

1. Clarity & Cleverness. First and foremost, you want your audience to understand your copy. It’s fun to be funny, but first, you need to:

• Make people understand 
• Make people curious
• Make people engage

2. Use conventional language. Writing that sounds like a person— especially when you use your customers’ voice — it’s easier to understand and believe.

3. Solve a problem. You can’t offer a solution if you don’t know the problem. Target your customers’ pain points and ease their pain.

• Pain: Clearly lay out your customer’s pain point
• Agitation: Shake it up by making it more emotional
• Solution: Finally introduce the antidote to your customers’ pain

Follow these rules, keep a stacked swipe file, and you’ll be well on your way to creating clever, catchy, and concise copy. And if you hit writers block.. we are just a click away.

See more of what we can do with language and verbiage through Content Marketing. Read stories of our past successes with strategic communications that are far from a tall tale.

The Challenge

Visible in businesses and homes all over the world, Kimberly-Clark and its trusted brands are in more than 175 countries. With a company of this scale, Kimberly-Clark has its own R&E University offering internal courses for new hires or those looking to learn a new area of business. These different colleges provide a number of courses, from basic to advanced, in areas such as product development, engineering & development, and material development. With a wide array of options, the department was consistently getting feedback from course-goers that the system was difficult to navigate. Users also did not know where they were in their educational journey.

Our Solution

Kimberly-Clark turned to Yalo to update the system’s design and enhance the user experience. Working under strict guidelines within the site, Yalo worked to simplify the learning process. We reduced clicks by creating easier site navigation that was modern in design and functionality.

Chart-busting Results

Yalo provided new navigation and designs for up to 12 new pages across the R&E University site. Internal constituents can now easily find their courses and track their path to success. The final product has a modern twist that significantly eliminates unnecessary clicks and provides a clear, welcoming journey to its users.  

An ITS Site Takes Flight

The Challenge

Axiom Solutions was founded in 2001 to serve the Information Transport System (ITS) needs of clients nationwide with state-of-the-art structured network cabling and fire containment solutions. With their website launching 15 years ago, both the design and the technology supporting it was outdated. Specifically, the site was not mobile responsive. This made it difficult for users to navigate and left it out of google searches.

Our Solution

Yalo worked with Axiom’s leadership to redesign its site in four key areas. Beginning with a re-platform to WordPress, we enabled the site to become mobile responsive. Technology was also upgraded to leverage the robust, easy-to-use capabilities of WordPress which includes an extensive library of existing page templates for Axiom’s needs.

After an audit of Axiom’s site, Yalo implemented an organic search strategy that included keyword research, creation of a target keyword list, page tagging (meta content), a technical audit, and SEO content updates on key pages of the site. Finally, we implemented Google Analytics, providing measurement and tracking of website performance.

Chart-busting Results

Axiom is now positioned to move forward with outbound marketing efforts including paid search, re-targeting, email, social and more. They have analytics in place to help inform future site optimization efforts and outbound marketing campaigns. The user experience is enhanced for all visitors viewing the site on mobile devices, which is currently 40-60%. The new site also generates significant traffic from Google searches on mobile devices.

The Challenge

Primrose Schools, a national family of accredited early education and care schools, was looking to attract a higher caliber teaching candidate. They needed to articulate that employees are not only serving young children, but working at Primrose Schools builds their future career.

With over 400 schools nationwide, Primrose Schools needed a technical solution to support established schools, new schools, new markets and filling open positions across locations.

Our Solution

With their team, Yalo determined the experience needed to tell the broader story and benefits of working in the Primrose Schools environment. We created a digital experience on their site dedicated entirely to careers.

The new careers site integrated testimonials from teachers and school leadership, videos and benefits of a Primrose Schools Career. The integration of CareerPlug showcases open positions across all schools and search capabilities to find schools near you with openings.

Each career track has a dedicated page to show a day in the life of Primrose Schools. There is also a page dedicated to the National Support Center for Primrose Schools corporate openings as a growing Franchise early childhood education provider.

In addition to the core career pages, Yalo developed a new careers page for individual schools that includes CareerPlug integration for openings and personalized content for the community and schools. This dedicated page and technology allows schools to post openings faster to find the right talent.

Chart-busting Results

The site is now live and features current openings, articles, sources for teachers and a day-in-the-life video of the unique Primrose School. Primrose Schools had 250 schools adopt the new solution in the first week of launch and nearly full adoption in the first 90 days. The Careers site has had over 80K visitors and schools are finding the right talent daily!

The excitement and success of the new launch has new careers focused metro pages coming soon to promote the growing schools across the nation. The aggregation of open positions will help potential hires find their new career and home with Primrose Schools!

Digital Campaigns & Marketing Materials

The Challenge

OpenConnect, a provider of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions, was looking to raise their overall brand impression in the marketplace with systems integrator partners and corporate end customers. They were also attempting to increase lead generation in the sales pipeline and accelerate their growth. They were perceived as the “automation script” company in the healthcare industry and were looking to educate the market on their broad range of capabilities beyond RPA and beyond just healthcare.

Our Solution

Yalo helped this client develop a strategy, marketing calendar and assets to support both brand and product campaigns and other initiatives with the goal of bringing a more cohesive message and look to each piece of their communications.

• Sales Frameworks
• Sales & Partner Presentations
• Product Videos
• Banner and Social Media Campaigns
• Email Campaigns
• Conference Events/Activities, Promotional Items, Email Communications, Ads and Handouts
• Website Design and Content Refresh

Chart-Busting Results

Our small but mighty team is putting OpenConnect on the map in a highly competitive B2B software space. The results speak for themselves in the Q over Q data:

• 31% Growth in Website Sessions
• 32% Growth in Website Users
• 73% Growth in LinkedIn Impressions
• 70% Growth in LinkedIn Clicks

The Challenge

Credigy is a global specialty finance company that works with other financial institutions to acquire and finance consumer assets across multiple asset classes. They maintain the clout of a Wall Street firm, but without the cut-throat culture and needed help explaining their complex business and their unique employee experience in order to help recruit top talent.

Our Solution

We worked with Credigy’s Employee Engagement team to develop a collection of materials to better tell their story in terms anyone can understand. We created a series of live-action videos that capture employees’ takes on what makes Credigy unique — from the interesting, challenging work they do to the camaraderie within the office and the perks they enjoy — to explain both the business itself and the employee experience. Meanwhile, an animated video puts their business transactions in the simplest of terms. Many of these videos live on the new website we designed, while others will be used on social media, at conferences and for onboarding new employees. Finally, we created print materials, including a recruiting brochure to pique candidates’ interest and a one-sheeter for recruits and partners that gives transactional detail about the business.

Ready to Roll

The timing of the launch of these materials puts Credigy in a perfect spot for garnering the attention of top candidates about to lock down their B-school degrees and others looking for the next step in their career.

Whether it’s a weird online sign-up process or an incomprehensible set of instructions to put together a piece of furniture, we all know what it’s like when the creator of an experience hasn’t thought through every single step, hasn’t communicated it correctly or just flat out has it wrong. It’s frustrating, confusing and at least personally, makes me think less of the brand. That’s why spending time to craft every consumer touchpoint throughout your experience is so important.

In a simple-to-fix example, I recently tried to log onto my Clear account to stop automatic renewal since I now have TSA Pre-Check. I’ve probably only logged on once, ever, so of course guessing my password didn’t go well. There was a reset link, so great. Step one: check. But then it went downhill. They asked for my email and birthday. I know I’m old, but my date apparently broke their system. I got “Argument cannot be null.” as a response. Huh? There was no link for more help and refreshing the page, clearing cookies, etc. didn’t seem to help.

So, I bailed (annoyed) and hoped my credit card wasn’t going to be charged the renewal fee that day. Looking back, it was probably a technical issue, but one that could easily have been fixed with more user-friendly copy in place to give members a better idea of why their input isn’t working and how to get the help they need.

In a more complex example, I recently returned some patio lights to Crate and Barrel. It had literally had been about two weeks with no communication, which just feels unusual in the era of Amazon when your refund hits your credit card practically the minute you leave the UPS store. I finally got an email titled “Your Receipt for Order #xxxxxxxxx.” Again, huh?

The attached receipt was equally unclear as to whether I was being charged or credited for something — and good thing I’d only returned one item, since there wasn’t even any description. I get that in a large, complex retail organization, there are different teams creating website or in-store experiences, versus warehouse functions like shipping and returns. But they all should work together and all feel on brand and communicate clearly what is happening at each point in the sales cycle. I want to feel just as warm and fuzzy about my returns as I do about my shopping experience.

So how do you do it? Planning. It seems obvious, but mapping out each step of an experience is a critical part of any multi-step process, as is developing the copy, visuals or other assets that make sense and resonate for each step. Yalo recently developed a multi-part game for Star2Star’s sales team that helped them engage prospects. It included emails, a mailer and an in-person step that relied on interaction with a website. Before building any part of it, we mapped out what would happen during each step and what content or assets we would need for each one. Because of good planning, execution was seamless and the reps were easily able to engage in a fun, multi-touchpoint experience with their contacts. The program generated 200 meetings within a month. See some of how we did it in the process map below and check out the case study for details.