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letsdesignbrostuff-blog · 4 years

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What is the price for a logo design in 2019?

Running a business involves estimating costs to deliver the highest quality products to your clients. However, it is likely that you’ll often encounter unexpected obstacles, especially when pushing projects through that final 1% until completion. Being able to approximate costs, in particular when it comes to outsourced professional work related to marketing, can do wonders for the quality of your projects and personal stress levels. Knowing the fair price range for a service can also make you a much better negotiator, since you’ve gotten the information to leverage. Although this won’t make much of an impact when negotiating with a single designer or a small agency, it can definitely come in handy when dealing with companies, which by default are often predatory and want to squeeze as much profit out of their client as possible. Having this kind of information supplies you with a professional tone that enables you to avoid some of the costs that’s considered to be part of the professional logo business. So, let’s take a look at the price for a logo design in 2019.

How much does a logo design cost?

Logo design price often doesn’t include marketing, supplies, or branding costs unless explicitly stated. When you’re dealing with a freelancer, you might get by with a couple hundred dollars. However, the full package that includes a professional logo, the art and involvement at all stages of the design process can cost up to a million with some well-known agencies or graphic designers. The problem is that, at times, the logo quality doesn’t necessarily match the price that designers or agencies charge. This means that you cannot always expect a higher-priced logo to be better than a logo that costs less. You might find an agency that delivers exquisite work below the market price or a pricey agency that delivers mediocre results. Although it might sound surprising, it is actually quite true – the price tag is often a poor indicator of what you’re going to get when it comes to professional design services. Discovering what your brand needs often requires a human-centered approach that assesses your business from a design standpoint to deliver branding materials. If you already know and understand your brand, you’ve just made the work that much easier, and in all likelihood, cheaper. The more research and data you can provide in your brief, the more you’ve cut down on the cost and complexity of the design before even hiring anyone. Depending on the preparatory work you’ve already done, you can often negotiate for more favorable terms for your logo design project. Or, you can also just indicate that you know what you’re doing and expect previously agreed on results.

How much would I pay for a logo design?

At DesignBro, the price for logo design starts at $199. This includes, at the very least: 3 original, high-quality logo designs production-ready files needed for your business full copyright on all logos As your requirements increase, so does the price, however you will be involved in the logo design process every step of the way, even down to inputting RGB values of colors you want to see used in the design. Alternatively, you can fill out the client brief with as much information as you can, and we’ll work on the design until completion. If you don’t have any ideas about which design direction to go for, we can help you out by finding other great logo designs that can serve as inspiration for you. As with all the other design processes, logo creation is iterative. Throughout the design stage, you’ll be able to communicate with the designers and give feedback on their logo designs. Once they’ve sent you their revised versions, you’ll be able to select 1-3 finalist designs that you love most. More polishing will be done accordingly to your feedback, and by the end of the finalist stage, you would have to pick the winning design. Our platform works like a design contest which allows professional and top-quality designers to compete for your business. By doing this, we can ensure that you will be fully satisfied with the results of the logo design project.

Create a logo design by yourself

If you’d like to flex your creative muscles, you can easily find any of the numerous logo design services online. They typically have an automated process where you type in your name and click a couple of logo designs you already like to get a simple, but usable logo that can be immediately passed on to the branding department. However, there will be a couple downsides to this. At the other end, a computer algorithm crunches your choices and determines what you want to see based off of what previous users who clicked on those same images were happy with. That process is a rough estimate that works most of the time but might not produce anything unique you’d actually like to use for your business. There are also free programs and apps that you can use to produce a high quality logo. But to be perfectly clear – given enough time, you can create a professional logo for free all by yourself. The only problem is that we can often be so busy with daily tasks that we simply can’t spare a single hour, let alone hundreds of hours needed to make a professional logo. You could buy Adobe Photoshop for $20.99 a month but you’d also need to watch or read a bunch of tutorials to learn how to use it. Affinity Designer is another great tool for making logos, except it costs $49.99. How about CorelDRAW at $659? The easiest solution is to hire a professional who has already acquired some of these tools and get a high quality logo much more quickly. Working with a human designer rather than a computer algorithm means actually being listened to by someone who’s been through these same logo design process and knows them inside out. Here at DesignBro we use a human-centered design process that emphasizes personal access to a professional designer, resulting in client agency and logo quality. You get to be in charge of the process and detail exactly what you want and expect the logo to look like instead of struggling with a computer algorithm. You’ll have a professional designer address your concern while also having the freedom to be as involved in the design process as you desire. If this is what you’re looking for, the DesignBro platform could be the perfect solution for you.

Buy and customize a logo template

The easiest way to make a logo is through what’s known as a “logo template”. In essence, these are pre-made logos that have been stripped of details and often get bundled together by thousands. The designer company that made these logos saves money by selling the same template over and over again, while the user also doesn’t have to make a logo from scratch. Apparently, it’s a win-win situation, so what’s the catch? The catch is that you, the final user of the logo, aren’t actually buying the logo template, but rather a license to use it in some capacity. That single word, “license”, means that you’re not the owner of the logo but a restricted user who has to abide by the terms and conditions set out with the license, which can be anything the real owner says they are. For example, buying a “MEGA BUNDLE 1100 Logos & Badges” that costs $19 may seem like a great deal, except that’s the “Personal License”, which means you can’t use the logo for anything except for your own amusement. You won’t even be able to upload the logo to a social media account that has any form of “commercial activity”. It’s only with the $38 third-tier license, the “Extended Commercial”, that you can finally use the logo in your business. However, there’s still fine print limiting how many products can bear the logo. If you breach any of these terms, you’ll learn the meaning of another fine word – copyright. In copyright cases, the creator of the content almost always outright wins, resulting in ruinous penalties for the defendant. This is why DesignBro offers such beautiful terms, with two wonderful words: “full copyright”, meaning that once you buy the logo from DesignBro, you are the full owner of the logo design and may use it as you please. There is no fine print, no terms attached and absolutely no legalese.

Online Logo Maker

For those who can’t imagine designing without an internet connection, there is a whole plethora of online logo makers. They range from plain to complex with prices to match. In most cases, the online logo maker doesn’t put the price upfront. Instead, it waits until you’re well underway to making your logo then later presents you with the fee. Just like what we’ve seen with logo templates, companies that provide the logo services will try to squeeze out as much money as they can out of you. That’s not a problem on its own, except when the fee is intentionally hidden so that you get invested in the logo design process. This typically takes the form of charging up to $50 just to be able to download the logo that you spent time to make. In worst cases, you may experience the owner company of that logo who will offer several tiers of downloads, with the lowest quality file that is practically unusable for any business purpose still being charged $10-20. There is typically no way to know these fees in advance but there’s another catch – you often have to create an account before being able to access the online logo maker. The charge then comes out to be: expose your email address to potential spammers spend time to make logo that might be downloadable be charged money to get the logo you made With DesignBro, it’s all very simple and there are no hidden fees or catches. You commission a logo, pay the amount upfront and get your logo design. It’s straightforward, fair, and sensible.

Crowdsource the design

Crowdsourcing is defined as the “method of outsourcing work by appealing to people to contribute to the project”. In essence, crowdsourcing means the client puts up an order, specifies a budget and gets dozens or hundreds of sample designs. When the client chooses the best design, the winning designer gets paid. Logo design projects on crowdsourcing websites are priced at around $150, which often nets the client up to a hundred designs from different designers. In theory, this sounds amazing but in practice there is very little involvement from the client, who has to sift through a large number of designs and pick one as the winner. Worse yet, the client can only provide a short description of the logo purpose and a couple of words, such as “playful, traditional” to explain the logo’s look and feel. Crowdsourcing websites promise that all work sold there is unique but a client doesn’t always have a way of knowing that. If a designer submits a logo design based off of a logo template in breach of a license, the client will get burned with a copyright claim. At DesignBro, you’ve got plenty of ways to describe your logo and how you want it to look with the creative brief. All work is 100% unique and the copyright is all yours.

Hire a freelance logo designer

Freelancers are a mixed bunch and vary from graphic design amateurs to geniuses. The best way to find out which are which is to prepare a bunch of minor work, such as doing sketches, and see which freelancer turns out to be the most reliable. Because it’s a single person you’ll be dealing with, time zones, the language barrier, and personal issues can all come into effect, hampering how much work you can forward to that one person to do. Roughly speaking, graphic design freelancers are priced as follows: Offshore Designer: $100 – $250 Beginner Freelancer: $100 – $1000 Experienced Freelancer: $1000 – $5,000 Renowned Freelancer: $5000 – $15,000 The hardest part of working with a freelance graphic designer is searching for that one amazing worker and then having to repeat the entire searching process when he/she eventually takes a break or quits. You’ll inevitably get involved in your freelancer’s personal affairs and have to juggle your own business and that of your freelancer. However, at DesignBro, there’s an entire team of design experts who can jump in whenever one of them goes down. To ultimate leads to quality and consistency across all DesignBro services.

Hire a logo design agency

Past the freelancer services, there’s a whole new layer of graphic design professionals grouped as agencies. They are roughly priced at: Small Design Studio: $5000 – $30,000 Mid-Sized Agency: $5000 – $50,000+ Branding Agency: $50,000 – $100,000 Renowned Branding Agency: $100,000 – $1,000,000+ World Famous Designer: $100,000 – $1,000,000+ Working with a sizable logo design agency comes with a whole slew of benefits, some of which are getting access to a great marketing strategy and a global brand identity. This kind of agency is no longer just a hired worker, but a legitimate business partner that closely coordinates with your company to find the best approach in any given market. At this stage of the logo design game, the cost can be monstrous. Millions are spent left and right to assess and define the brand without necessarily netting any actual results. That kind of iterative design process is certainly lucrative for the logo design agency, but not many clients can afford that kind of price for such services.

What logo design & branding process include?

Logo design and branding process are complementary parts of a greater design process. In other words, the branding process acts like a framework while the logo design is similar to a small vine spreading across and around the framework. The branding process involves discovering what makes the brand unique and special from all of its competitors within the same market. It’s all about aligning all communications to this identity so that the brand stands out and is meaningful and memorable to its target audience. Once that is completed, the logo design is halfway done and simply has to be polished accordingly. For example, a fruit yogurt company might discover that kids and teenagers are the ideal market for the brand. The company decides the marketing will involve purple and red smiley faces with white splashes and starts implementing these elements in all of its marketing materials. By doing this, there is a consistent graphical theme to all the marketing materials that appeals to the target audience, after which point it’s fairly simple to come up with a logo that represents the brand and reinforces that same appeal. Note that both of these processes should be based on market research and be made to appeal to the target demographic. After all, the more data and research done in advance, the better the results of both branding and logo design will be.

Tips for a successful logo design

Logo design is a creative process that is meant to produce art; simple, but still art. Brainstorming helps immensely when doing creative work, including logo design. So, before you finalize the design concept, try to pick up as many interesting ideas and jot them down. Carefully discard the least valuable ones and repeat the process until you come up with something that is perfect for your brand.. Just like all graphic design processes, logo design is iterative and benefits from grooved communication channels. Everyone should chip in to give their input on what the logo should look and be like. After one logo version is complete, forward it to everyone who gave their input and again ask for opinions. This helps everyone identify with the logo and feel like a part of the team, which means that the logo will ultimately represent everyone in the company.

How to choose a logo designer

Now that you’ve gotten some information on how to create a high-quality logo design, you can leverage what you’ve just learned into striking a great deal for yourself and your business. Ultimately, getting a great logo designer means weighing all the pros and cons until you reach the optimal solution, whether it’s a freelancer or a design agency. No matter what you choose, DesignBro’s platform will always be at your service to help you discover just the kind of logo that will make your brand shine the way it truly deserves. Read the full article

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top10clothessteamers-blog · 5 years

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Genesis Steam Cleaner

The painters picture Bento fitting to the 3 compartments into your everyday routine like this: Pack up your lunch before going to bed. Steamer's sort you use to steam clothes won't be successful for bed bug treatment. It's stated that her capacities will be seriously tested in carrying three thousand soldiers, but I am assured by Mr. Culver, who had been the assistant superintendent in constructing her, that she can carry that amount easily and relaxation. The Waverley is in need of urgent work on its own boiler systems to make sure it can get back to the water, according to supervisors. Click here How much do I want to spend on a steamer? You can use the steamer vertically and horizontally to refresh clothes. Mochiko is often accessible in regular supermarkets in the US (Mochiko may be used as a thickening agent).

Besides this, you can pick up bargains on tableware. We've discovered Best Buy steamers that you are able to pick up for under 30. Why should I buy a steamer? It's also a simple way to cook perfect rice (provided that you get a steamer with a rice bowl). Here we answer. But, that is neither here nor there. I understood yesterday mint chocolate smoothie recipe using a teaser about a beverage that includes molasses would get you. Please say no, since there's ONE recipe. Are you getting tired together with a ginger snap recipe's flavor of things? And after that, you're likely to get all those hot (actually ) fuzzy feelings you get when you crunch to a sweet healthy ginger snap. That you snug up with this INSANELY EASY, Cookie Steamer Snaps.

How do I use steamerContain poultry, poultry, rice, pasta, shellfish, shellfish, hard-boiled eggs, and fruit? Steamers' marketing images normally reveal them packed with fresh vegetables, however, you can use these to cook a great deal more than greens. It is also possible to use it to wash surfaces. Also, its layout makes sure without needing to lift it that you can take it. The caster design shows that manufacturers of steamer indeed had your relaxation in mind not all of the producers care for a push and it will get moving from room to room. I promise you, it will only take you around a minute. Hand finishing with special finishing equipment as well as pressing together with particular attention to the minute details. One Minute. 1. O-N-E. Once you know what type of steamer you want, head to our round-up of the best steamers to find one with the qualities you're searching for. The Turboclean has lots of the attributes we like over the pricier Bissell's, such as a removable brush cap, and advantage bristles, like the bigger ones, do, even if these do not twist.

It will not have any additional fancy features like an option or delayed start, so keep this in mind when cooking. Steaming retains more of the vitamins and nutrients in meals than other cooking methods, such as boiling. The idea behind Bento, say the designers, is to make it much easier to eat healthy meals. But food steamers aren't for everyone. Steamers utilize hot steam eliminate wrinkles without damage thus prolonging the life of your clothing and clothes and to gently unwind fabrics. Her maiden voyage from London to Southampton, Quebec, and Montreal began on 23rd May 1911, and around 13th Jun.1918 she was crushed 20 kilometers east of Cape Ray, Newfoundland with no loss of lifestyle. Make sure that your pantry is neat and organized so that you know you'll have less stress as you're preparing your favorite foods and where every ingredient is. The steamer Constitution arrived at half past ten as soon a huge concourse of people residing for the attractiveness of her lines and her model, as she piled up to the ending of Long Wharf.

https://library.princeton.edu/resolve/lookup?url=http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/isde-ised/RG42-2-63-3238-eng.pdf

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currenthealtheventsblog-blog · 5 years

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20 Mexican Recipes That Won’t Destroy Your Diet

New Post has been published on https://currenthealthevents.net/awesome/20-mexican-recipes-that-wont-destroy-your-diet/

20 Mexican Recipes That Won’t Destroy Your Diet

Feel like a fajita? Sure! Craving a quesadilla? Go for it. Yup, you can even have fish tacos and crispy nachos. And nope, we’re not going loco.

Some Mexican dishes were not able to be very diet-friendly( full-fat cheese and sour cream, we’re looking at you !). But with some simple tweaks and substitutes, you can still enjoy those unique and inspired south-of-the-border flavors without derailing your health objectives. Check out these figure-friendly, mucho yummy recipes for quick mid-week dinners, tasty snacks and crowd-pleasing apps.

Helpful hint: Just click on the name of the dish, its image or the link in the caption to access the full recipe.

Mexican recipes that get the food fiesta started: 1. 10 -Minute Shrimp Fajitas > You get shrimp that’s crisped and coated in cumin, chili powder and smoked paprika, along with brightly colored buzzer pepper slicings and sweet onions–all roasted to perfection in 10 tiny, little minutes. Wrap all that deliciousness up in a warm whole wheat tortilla for the perfect high-protein, high-flavor meal on a night when you’re short on time. Click here for the full recipe > 2. Cheesy Chicken Quesadillas Looks like the quesadilla of your dreams. It’s got shredded cheddar and chunks of chicken, like a quesadilla should. And most importantly: It savor like the quintessential kind you know and love. However, with low-fat cheese and lots of veggies to plump up the fill, this healthier version can be ran into the perfect flex dinner for your Nutrisystem plan. Click here for the full recipe > 3. Veggie and Rice Stuffed Peppers > Bell peppers get Southwestern flair when they’re filled with rice, black beans and vegetables. And when that base is brown rice or quinoa, the meal is even healthier and more filling. Serve these stuffed beauties at your next meet. Or, if you prefer a little meat in your peppers, try this loaded version, which includes ground turkey breast. Click here for the full recipe > 4. BBQ Chicken Nachos > We did say you could have nachos. But did we mention that the whole wheat chips would be topped with sweet and tangy barbecue chicken, zesty peppers and smoky bacon? It seems so wrong for your diet, but when you use the Nutrisystem BBQ Seasoned Chickendinner entree, this crowd-pleaser savor so, so right. Only add some extra veggies, fat-free cheese and a explode of fresh cilantro for guilt-free noshing. Click here for the full recipe > 5. Party-Perfect Pico de Gallo > A fiesta isn’t a fiesta without salsa on the spread. Made with fresh veggies, herbs and a few squirts of lime juice, Pico de Gallo is the perfect healthy dip for your favorite whole grain chip or cracker. For a little heat, add a splashing of hot sauce. Click here for the full recipe > 6. Black Bean and Rice Salad > Pick up a Nutrisystem Black Beans& Ricelunch entree for this super fast and filling salad–just add tomatoes, green onions and pico de gallo to sample a favorite among Nutrisystem members. Click here for the full recipe > 7. Savory Turkey Chili > Take a long whiff while it’s cooking: The fragrance of this simmer pot of peppers, onions, kidney and pinto beans, spinach and celery,( of course) lean turkey and a whole lot of spices is sure to get your belly growling. Good thing it’s as hearty as it is healthy! For a twisting on this warm-your-bones recipe, try the Butternut Squash Turkey Chili. Click here for the full recipe > 8. Loaded Mexican Baked Sweet Potato > Uno potato, dos potatoes, tres potatoes, cuatro! The sweet spuds take center stage in this dish, as a great source of vitamins A and C, plus fiber. Not to mention, these sweet potatoes are loaded with chicken, cheese, salsa and avocado, so they’re muy delicioso. Side it with a salad, and dinner is served. Click here for the full recipe > 9. Tasty Taco Salad > Start with a crisp base of shredded lettuce, and pile on the goodness: Fresh diced tomatoes, a prepared package of the Nutrisystem Chili With Beans dinner entree, shredded cheese and crunchy baked tortilla chips for one fulfilling salad. Click here for the full recipe> 10. Easy Chicken Fajita Bake > Add this dish to your weekday rotation for three very good reasons: It takes minimal effort to induce, it savours like a Mexican party in your mouth and it offer wide-ranging nourishment. On Nutrisystem, it counts as one SmartCarb, two PowerFuels, one Vegetable and three Extras. Need more convincing? You can sub in your favorite veggies, tweak seasonings and experimentation with spices for a different flavor every time you make it. Click here for the full recipe > 11. Baja Fish Tacos > Not for the swoon of heart, these tacos pack in some hot: Chili powder is the star of the mahi-mahi seasoning blend, with cumin, coriander, garlic and salt taking supporting roles. Jalapenos make their debut in the southern slaw to gives these tacos a zesty crunch. Click here for the full recipe > 12. Mango Salsa > Go citrus with your salsa! This tropical fruit packs a healthy dose of vitamin C and folate, and assistances provide the perfect combination of sweet and tangy that you can use on top of grilled chicken or shrimp, or alongside a serve of cooked whole wheat tortilla chips. And before you say you hate peel mangoes, we make it easy with these simple tips. Click here for the full recipe > 13. Santa Fe Chicken > Maybe not the prettiest of dishes, but we’ll go out on a limb and say you’re truly not going to care once you stick a forkful in your mouth. Between the chunks of sauteed peppers, tomatoes, onions and corn, the cumin, paprika and Tabasco seasoning, this baby’s get flavor. All of this mixes into the southwestern taste of the Nutrisystem Sante Fe Style Chickenentree and is topped with creamy avocado slices, so …. trust when we say appears can be deceiving. Click here for the full recipe > 14. Cilantro Lime Cauliflower “Rice” > It looks like regular rice. It’s got the same texture and soaks up sauces and marinades, like regular rice would. But “rice” made from cauliflower is super healthy, super easy to make and when mixed with fresh lime juice and cilantro–super delicious to eat! Consider this alternative the next time your recipe calls for rice. On Nutrisystem, cauliflower is an unlimited vegetable–you can have as much of it as you like! Click here for the full recipe > 15. Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas > Toss a few basic fajita ingredients–chicken, salsa, onions, garlic and beans–into the slow cooker and let it work its magical. This set-it-and-forget-it recipe attains several servings, perfect to feed the whole family. Or, freeze the leftovers for when you’re hankering for your next fajita. Click here for the full recipe > 16. Shrimp Taco Bites > They’re cute, they crunch and they savour delicious–perfect appetizers to take the “hostess with the mostess” title at your next fiesta! Click here for the full recipe > 17. Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad > The list of ingredients may be long, but the combination of tastes and textures is worth every shred, chop and dice. Plus, the homemade dressing–featuring fresh cilantro, avocado, lime juice and garlic–elevates this salad to epic, Mexican-flavored proportions. Restaurant quality all served at your house. Click here for the full recipe > 18. Baked Chili Casserole > Never heard of a chili casserole? Your taste buds will be happy to make its acquaintance: Savory chili, topped with a layer of creamy polenta and all covered in melted cheese. The Nutrisystem Vegetarian Chili-complete with four beans, zesty tomato sauce and spices-works perfectly as the base to this satisfying meal, or you can construct your own Savory Turkey Chili instead. Click here for the full recipe > 19. Turkey Tex-Mex Black Beans and Rice > Take the Nutrisystem Black Beans& Ricelunch entree and up the flavor a notch by adding ground turkey, onions and corn, as well as cumin and fresh cilantro to create a delicious Tex-Mex dish. Click here for the full recipe > 20. Best Guacamole Ever > Last, but certainly not least–the gold star of Mexican fare–the one, the only, the smooth, the creamy … guacamole! Guacamole offer lots of vitamins and minerals, healthy fats and fiber. However, high in calories, it’s easy to overeat. Thankfully, this lighter version is constructed with nonfat Greek yogurt and extra veggies, so you can enjoy a little more without worrying about diet destruction. If you’re feeling adventurous, add pineapples for a touch of sweetness. Click here for the full recipe >

Ready for dessert? Check out Nutrisystem Succcess Stories’ favorite chocolatey treats >

Click here to get the official rules for our awesome giveaway >

The post 20 Mexican Recipes That Won’t Destroy Your Diet appeared first on The Leaf.

Read more: leaf.nutrisystem.com

#baja fish tacos #guacamole #healthy food #mango salsa #mexican recipes #top article #top articles

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listiqueblog · 6 years

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The 8 Tools and Strategies Proven to Acquire New Customers & Increase Customer Engagement

How is a sinking ship different from a failing ecommerce site?

At least the captain can go down with their ship!

You can’t – so you better do everything in your power to keep the customers coming.

As we approach crunch time in the world of online shopping, now seems like as good a time as any to review the best tools and techniques for acquiring new customers, increasing repeat business, and minimizing loss.

The whole ecommerce game boils down to getting people to buy your product. And then, hopefully getting some of those customers to come back again and again.

Whether you’re new to ecommerce or a grizzled vet who remembers what it was like to sell on eBay, this guide should give you some new ideas and reinforce old ones, including:

Why actionable, helpful content is your responsibility (i.e. curation isn’t key)

When to ask customers for reviews (and then how to use those!)

How to do influencer outreach to earn increased SEO (the science + the art)

How to use live chat to increase conversions and customer loyalty

Why your site doesn’t need to be beautiful, it needs to be helpful (and what the difference is)

You’ll also find recommendations on BigCommerce apps and integrations that fellow entrepreneurs use to succeed.

If there’s anything you want to add, please leave us a comment or email us – don’t be shy!

Customer Acquisition Tactics: The 4-Step Process

Customer acquisition is the process by which ecommerce brands actively find and then convert net new customers to their sales cycle.

Many brands think that to effectively create a customer acquisition cycle, all you need to do is launch your website.

But that is far from the reality. Once you launch, you need to then:

Create targeted ads on Facebook

Install 1-step checkout

A/B test your copy

Get niche bloggers to talk about it

That’s how net new customers will come.

Let’s go a layer up here, though. Good customer acquisition breaks down into four major categories:

Promotions.

Design.

Testing.

Outreach.

If you nail these four areas of ecommerce customer acquisition, you should expect to do pretty well at convincing Joe Web Surfer to buy your stuff.

What is cost of customer acquisition?

The cost of customer acquisition is typically referred to as CAC, and it is easily broken down into a simple formula.

It is the cost spent on acquiring new customers (marketing expenses) divided by the number of customers acquired for that given period.

For example, if you spend $100 in a year and acquire 100 customers, your CAC is $1.

Additional Recommended Reading

In case we’re moving too fast: here’s a comprehensive guide on how to drive traffic to your ecommerce site.

Customer Acquisition Strategy Ideas + Examples

1. Give ‘em a deal they’ll never forget.

What’s the last thing you bought online?

Chances are, it probably was on sale, came with a discount code, or was shipped to you for free.

People love discounts.

Giving someone the feeling that they “won” a deal is a powerful way to make them like your product more than a competitor’s.

You can go about promotions in a variety of ways.

Use your social media channels to run ads featuring a coupon that’s redeemable on your website if you have a pretty solid target demographic figured out.

If you’re more into drip campaigns or interacting with customers off of social media and perhaps have a popular blog, your email list is a bona fide money-making machine.

Encourage people to subscribe to your email newsletters and occasionally reward them for access to their inboxes with an exclusive offer.

Additional Recommended Reading

To get the most out of welcome emails, check out these battle-tested templates.

If you have a less popular item in stock or dwindling inventory of a SKU that’s no longer made by your suppliers, put it to use either as a limited-quantity loss leader or throw it in as a freebie on orders over a certain quantity.

Not only does this free up valuable space in your ecommerce fulfillment warehouse, it gives customers the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from getting a great deal.

Don’t forget that when you’re crafting deals to lure in new customers, you should pay attention to related trends or the time of year.

That could mean putting together ads that drum up anticipation for the winter holidays or spoofing the new hit TV show that everyone in your demographic follows.

The only thing better than a sale is a sale that connects with the lifestyles of the people who are your customers.

BigCommerce app that could help: Coupon Pop entices new visitors to become customers with instant pop-up discount offers designed to get sales.

2. Design your website to be helpful, not sophisticated.

No one cares if your website has 1080p image sliders or embedded QR codes.

The only thing that matters is that a first time visitor can find what they’re looking for, and then buy it from you.

So keep things simple and easy to use.

Use an ecommerce database (otherwise known as a search bar) for customers that actually answers their queries — and leave breadcrumbs for them to navigate your selection of items if you have an especially large inventory.

When a visitor is ready to make the leap into becoming a customer, make sure your site has a 1 page checkout to keep things as easy as possible.

Write detailed product descriptions that tell your customer exactly what they’re getting when they order from you.

If you sell clothes, include specific sizing charts and model dimensions. You wouldn’t buy something online without knowing what you were buying — so take that into consideration when you think about your customers.

That said, writing an immaculate product description is only the first step to true customer satisfaction.

The real test is ensuring that your order fulfillment process 100% ensures that your customer get the correct product, in the right size, and on time.

Whether these operations are handled in house, or outsourced, the financial cost and soft costs of mispicks, lost inventory, and late shipments can be disastrous to your bottom line.

Additional Recommended Reading

Need to explore different fulfillment tactics more? Check out our article on ecommerce fulfillment, self fulfillment, and dropshipping.

Another underrated feature of any good ecommerce site is load time.

If you’re using a bulky web platform or cheaping out on server space, there’s a good chance you could have a higher bounce rate as visitors decide it’s not worth waiting for a page to load.

You can’t afford to lose traffic just because your load times are slow. Optimizing page load times is fundamental to your site’s chances at success.

Additional Recommended Reading

Need ideas on ecommerce store design? BigCommerce wrote a thorough guide with great examples from around the web.

BigCommerce app that could help: Live Chat Inc. One of the classic drawbacks to shopping online is that customers can’t try on or test out products.

While futuristic solutions such as virtual reality shopping could change that, specialty or customizable items will be a tough online sell so long as customers feel like they can’t know for sure what they’re buying. One method for covering that gap of uncertainty is a customer-facing live chat integration.

ZenPro Audio’s Story

Warren Dent is the owner and founder of ZenPro Audio, an ecommerce site that sells high quality audio equipment and products.

At this price point, most folks have various audio needs and order size requirements, making the product difficult to sell without direct interaction with individual customers.

That’s why Dent decided to install a live chat app. He explains the benefits best:

“I tried a half dozen or so live chat apps, and always ended up coming back to LiveChat. It’s not the cheapest. However, it has the ability to customize the chat window with logos and avatars, allows file transfers back and forth with customers, and is fast and responsive.

The admin page is very clean, and the chat page to me was the most sensibly laid out. Popup notifications work, and when you click them it carries you to the open tab and chat for immediate response every time.

The incoming chat sound is spoken as “incoming chat” which also makes sense to me, when a customer is initiating.

Afterwards, standard message sounds apply.

You can watch your customer type in real time which can be helpful.

Also, customer support is outrageously awesome –– and work, of course, via live chat. They’ve never been unavailable when I had dozens of requests to tweak my design etc.

I tried the rest and found the best in my opinion anyhow.”

How ZenProAudio 2X’D AOV

Live chat isn’t the only tool that helps convert. See how Klarna can turn prospects into customers for high-priced items.

Get a 100% Increase in AOV with Klarna

3. A/B test everything.

A/B testing is important not to see which designs are best or to use data to outwit other colleagues (though it can do both of those as well). No, A/B testing is about figuring out which options produce the highest numbers of conversions.

Ecommerce conversion rate optimization is the #1 tactic to growth for brands past the startup stage.

Why?

Because the more customers you convert (moving the needle from 2% of site visitors to 5%), the more money you make, the lower your CAC (the calculation of which is explained earlier) and the less you have to spend to acquire that customer again.

It’s smart for your brand to have a test plan for online shopping website optimization. That means that you:

Mark on Google Analytics every time you launch a new test

Have a standard for how long you run them and how many visitors must experience both versions

Have a process for executive approval to launch the winner

Move onto the net item to test to increase conversions

Repeat as needed.

This is especially true with copy on landing pages and product pages.

If there’s one thing you should remember about copywriting, it’s this:

The sole purpose of the first sentence in an advertisement is to get you to read the second sentence.

Copywriting guru Eddie Shleyner said that, and he knows a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t.

Without good copy — without the sort of hook, line and sinker content that gets customers’ eyes moving down the page — your product is as good as dead.

So write product copy.

Test out a sentence.

Test out your tone.

Test out corny jokes.

Test out every facet of your website.

Not just the words themselves, but the layout of your website. Does it make sense to have the product search bar tucked into the top right corner, or would you have larger order sizes with a full-width behemoth?

Do blue “buy now” buttons get more clicks, or are they outperformed by red? Is “buy now” a better CTA than “get this?”

The more you know, the better your ecommerce businesses will do.

Here’s a list of 5 fundamental parts of your business that need testing; if you can’t do it, then find someone to do it for you. It’s simply too important to not take into consideration these ecommerce testing scenarios.

5 Ecommerce A/B Testing Ideas:

Product copy

Landing page/lead magnet layout

Email drip campaign copy

Blog content: Video vs infographic vs photo gallery vs test

Advertising layout + copy

Best BigCommerce app for this: Visual Website Optimizer gives you 7 different testing options, including conversion tracking and A/B testing.

Additional Recommended Reading

If you’re stuck on optimization ideas, check these landing page and checkout page design articles.

4. Reach out to influencers.

People who work in marketing either love or hate influencer outreach. It just depends on your personality and whether you like cold-emailing folks to ask for favors or not.

What no one denies is that working the back channels of major media websites or Page 1 heavyweights is not an option if you want your business to succeed.

It’s mandatory.

So how do you stock your pipeline full of quality influencers? This largely depends on where it’s most effective for you to do your marketing.

Additional Recommended Reading

Stuck on influencer marketing? These nine influencer marketing case studies should help.

Building up a catalog of valuable backlinks usually starts with the content you create.

Quid pro quo is a reliable strategy for breaking into more venerable websites. If you allow someone from a relevant website to write a guest post on your company’s blog or simply link to one of their posts from somewhere on your site, you can leverage that into getting a guest post or backlink on their site.

Depending on what sort of audience you’re targeting, it might be more effective to seek out backlinks via an Instagram or Youtube channel instead of on a facebook page or on a blog post.

How do you know which channels make the most sense? By looking at our Google Analytics or BigCommerce Analytics to determine from where your most profitable traffic is coming –– and then working with influencers to get more of that.

In terms of finding influencers, free tools such as the BuzzSumo trial version or Google Alerts go a long way to connecting you with people and media channels who can make a difference.

While it’s not cheap, Pitchbox is a highly effective platform for performing keyword matches on influencer sites in your niche and scraping contact info for you to cold email in automated sequences.

It’s a huge time-saver and can get you handfuls of backlinks, especially if you craft a winning cold email.

Examples of Ecommerce Influencers:

Ezra Firestone

Richard Lazazzera

Sujan Patel

Noah Kagan

Shayla Price

Krista Fabregas

James Thomson

Daniel Wallock

Rieva Lesonsky

Andrew Youderian

Emil Kristensen

Tracey Wallace

Overview of Customer Engagement Tactics That Work

Customer engagement is how much interaction your marketing, merchandising and business as usual activities inspire in your customers. In other words: how often do your customers engage with you?

Customer engagement is a good measuring stick for customer lifetime loyalty and a brand’s overall messaging effectiveness.

Brands typically begin measuring customer engagement once a prospect has bought something –– or turned into a customer.

This is because once you have those new customers coming through the door, it’s time to focus on the next step: getting them to buy again.

What can you do to foster a better relationship and drive trust with your existing customers and ensure that they come back to you for future purchases?

The key to converting new ecommerce customers into repeat customers lies in keeping them interested in what you’re offering. How you do that depends most of all on your brand and what you’re trying to accomplish by engaging with them.

Good customer engagement breaks down into four major categories:

Rewards

Social media

Content creation

Post-purchase experience

6 Examples of Customer Engagement Strategies

1. Build loyalty through rewards.

Making your product appealing to customers on an emotional basis is a powerful way to build loyalty.

After all, when marketers use words like “loyalty” that have emotional connotations, it’s clear that the endgame is to make people feel like your company is more than just a brand and they’re more than just customers.

They want to feel valued.

How do you make someone who paid hard-earned cash for your product feel special? You reward them for it.

Give out discount codes to customers who review you on Amazon.

Have a digital punch card on hand for repeat buyers so they get their 6th product refill for free.

Organize members-only meetups and get your customers talking about your brand to each other and within their social circles.

You can grow customer lifetime value in just a year if you follow these tips.

True brand loyalty – “My daddy only drove Fords and so do I” – is incredibly valuable, hard to fake, and hard to earn.

By showing your customers that you’re willing to give them an exclusive discount, you demonstrate that you want their business and want them to feel satisfied with your product.

Best BigCommerce app for this: Smile.io incentives customers to share your brand with their friends through social media as well as encourage customers to post positive reviews in exchange for future discounts or redeemable rewards points.

Formerly known as Sweet Tooth, the app integrates with BigCommerce businesses with the sole purpose of building customer loyalty through incentives such as discounts and reward points.

Lisa Chu, owner of toddler fashion company Black n Bianco, knows the importance of keeping her customers hooked to her brand.

“Month by month my conversion rate and traffic started to increase [with Smile.io]. By rewarding our customers I built brand loyalty and created a positive feedback cycle of happy, passionate and vocal customers. Rewarding them really helps keep my brand relevant and competitive. Smile.io is the perfect app because it incentives customers to post reviews (especially the positive kind!) and share our brand with their friends through social media.”

After using BigCommerce for 4 years, Black n Bianco integrated Smile.io led to an increase in customer engagement of 38%.

Most businesses would kill for that sort of return on their investment. Maybe you don’t need to kill at all; you can test ride it and start getting the love from your customers you always dreamed of.

2. Reflect your audience’s tastes in your social feed.

There’s nothing sadder than seeing an inactive social media page for an ecommerce business.

How are you supposed to connect with your customers?

Have them call an (800) number? That would be acceptable if your customers were in the senior age bracket and this was 2010.

But even grandma has a Facebook account these days, so you pretty much have no excuse.

Do some research and put together a core list of social media channels you want to focus on.

The plan of attack for successful customer engagement varies depending on your goals and what network you’re using.

Tractor company John Deere uses a clever Instagram hashtag that their customers might use when they’re out in the field on a combine harvester or perhaps dressing up their youngest as tractors for Halloween.

It connects the image of practicality and reliability that characterize the brand with current owners, aficionados, and potential future customers.

Le Creuset knows its customers tend to be passionate about cooking and swoon over food porn. There’s no better social media platform for this than Pinterest, since the focus is on images (in this case of gorgeous browned crusts, sumptuous stews, and other culinary delights).

Oftentimes their enameled cast iron pots are not even in a shot; all you see is a close-up of a freshly-prepared meal with a link to the recipe.

This exemplifies the goal of social media and online customer engagement: you’re not trying to upsell, you’re giving them value for something they already got.

In some ways, this overlaps with the goal of creating loyalty. Either way, the end result is the same: by reflecting your customers’ tastes on the appropriate social media channel, you keep them interested and poised to buy from you again when the moment presents itself.

3. Create useful, actionable content.

It’s not just enough to share other peoples’ creations on the company Twitter account.

You need to proactively create content that your customers will appreciate and find useful.

If done right, your content should not only augment the experience of your customers; it should also be shared and reposted by other influencers, too.

Quality content comes in a variety of forms.

You could release a series of guides or mini ebooks that correspond to the product you sell.

Maybe host a YouTube channel or a podcast with tailor-made episodes.

Or pay bloggers to publish short stories that feature your item just as it was intended.

Whatever content you make, it should connect existing customers to your brand.

So what does useful, actionable content look like in the real world? Here are a couple examples.

Blue Bottle Example

If you’re a coffee addict, you’ve probably heard of Blue Bottle — they’re a heavyweight in the world of subscription premium quality coffee.

They have a few brick and mortar locations, but the creme de la creme of their revenue comes from their ecommerce store.

For anyone who loves coffee, their website is a treasure trove of useful information about how to make the perfect cup.

Whether that comes in the form of a Bialetti or a cold brew, Blue Bottle has step by step guides with clear photos and written instructions that walk you through the process of making coffee the way you like it.

youtube

When creating content to engage with existing customers, they asked one simple question — What’s the best complement to our excellent coffee? — and the answer was this series of useful guides.

Excellent content doesn’t need to sell your brand at all; it just needs to feature it.

Ipsy Example

Ipsy understands that principle and that’s why their partnership with popular makeup and cosmetics artists on Instagram is such a brilliant idea.

They run a subscription service that sends out a personalized selection of sample-sized cosmetics and makeup once a month, and they use Instagram for the heavy lifting of content creation.

The brand re-posts images with permission from Influencers like Ashly to help grow their audience and engage with fans.

Turn Your Instagram Fans Into Customers

Instagram Shopping is now available for U.S. sellers. Install it here. And download the guide below for 80+ examples of brands already using it.

Get 80+ Instagram Shopping Examples Now

4. Follow up on purchases.

There’s one other way that your business should cater to existing customers: right after the sale.

As you probably know from experience, after you buy something the novelty slowly fades away.

Sure, you’re going to be addicted to your new PS4 for the first couple months that buy it. But eventually other distractions or new toys get in the way and all of a sudden the only reason you use it is when you want to watch Netflix on a Sunday night.

When a new customer comes along and buys something from you, don’t wait til the novelty has worn off to approach them with a social sharing incentive or free product in exchange for answering a survey.

While this is anecdotal and not the same as a scientific survey, most online shoppers I know tend to leave reviews for products within a week after they made a purchase.

Additional Recommended Reading

If you’re having trouble with abandoned shopping carts, you might want to learn how to reduce them — and gain more purchases.

Greg Bullock, director of marketing at longtime BigCommerce website TheraSpecs, has advice for any ecommerce business looking to increase customer engagement in the post-purchase phase.

“Like most ecommerce companies, we use an automation tool — in this case ActiveCampaign — for outreach before and after a purchase. Our precision-tinted glasses often require some time in order for customers to experience relief for their light sensitivity, and we want to experience that journey with them as well as help set and manage their expectations.”

Keeping in touch with customers and demonstrating that you care about their experience after the sale helps to create a positive feedback loop.

That’s only natural when someone places their trust in your brand and is rewarded with a quality product and a friendly email asking if there’s anything that can be done better.

Bullock says that looking for feedback is even more important if a customer isn’t satisfied with their purchase:

“We have automated emails that go out from our service team to learn more about how TheraSpecs are working, and we want to engage with that customer in order to share in their joys of relief or provide service if there are any issues. For those who offer positive feedback, we like to delight them by offering a discount on their next purchase as well as the opportunity to share their story on our blog and social channels.”

This is why following up with customers matters: if you do it right, it just turns right back into good marketing for your brand.

Key Metrics For Customer Engagement:

Email open rate

Email click through rate (CTR)

New versus repeat visitors

Time on site

Bounce rate

Frequency rate (how often the same visitor returns)

Repeat purchase rate

Customer loyalty program activity

The Complete List of Tools

Here is a final list and links to all the tools mentioned in this piece:

Active Campaign

Smile.io

Buzzsumo

Pitchbox

VWO

Live Chat

Coupon Pop

Klarna

What’s your secret to winning new customers and making repeat ones? Tell us in the comments below!

Want more insights like this?

We’re on a mission to provide businesses like yours marketing and sales tips, tricks and industry leading knowledge to build the next house-hold name brand. Don’t miss a post. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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The 8 Tools and Strategies Proven to Acquire New Customers & Increase Customer Engagement published first on http://ift.tt/2wGG0YJ

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emmaeatsandexplores · 7 years

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Hey guys, welcome to another edition of Friday Favourites and all the things I’m loving this week. It feels like a long time since my wonderful holiday through France and Spain but I’m off again next week to Portugal so I have that to look forward to. So here’s a catch up on what been going on in my life this week…

The UK Paleo Awards

You guys I’m so excited! I’ve been nominated for UK Paleo Blogger of the year by the UK Paleo Awards. I put a lot of time, love and energy into Emma Eats & Explores and it feels absolutely amazing to get some recognition for that! There are seven blogs shortlisted and I can’t believe I’m one of them!The voting opens today I’d love it if you could click on the picture above or go to https://ukpaleoawards.co.uk/vote-now/ and vote for me. It would really mean so much to me to have your support and it only takes a few seconds. It’s the 5th category down and I’m the 5th name! The title will be awarded through a mix of a judging panel points and public votes so every single vote really does count. Voting closes on 30th September 2017 so please tell all your friends and family to vote too! Thank you so much in advance!

Margot my Niece is turning 1

Doesn’t time fly. I can’t believe it was a year ago that this little bundle of gorgeousness arrived.

Proud Auntie

And now look at her! She started walking this week. My brother Sam and his partner Mary have done such an amazing job bringing up this sweet, loving little girl and I’m in awe of them everyday!

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I’m so looking forward to her birthday BBQ on Sunday where we’ll get to celebrate with the whole family. I can’t wait to see her open her presents! Margot time is always so special, she just makes everyone smile and makes everyone’s day better! I cant wait til she’s old enough to want books read to her and we can watch movies together and do girlie things!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARGOT!! WE LOVE YOU XX

Portugal

Anyone that knows me knows that this is my ultimate Happy Place! I’ve been going to Portugal for as long as I can remember, over 30 years and it is such a special place to me. It’s the one place in the world where I feel that I truly relax. I love everything about it. The weather, the beaches, the restaurants and just the whole feel of the place is one that makes me feel centered and really blessed.

I love the chance to spend time with my family too – real quality time, there’s nothing like it. 10 years ago my cousin Charlotte met her fiancé out there and moved to be with him. They had two gorgeous boys, Ethan and Louie and spending time with them is my favourite thing to do. Ethan is my godson and I love playing cards and board games with him, going to the beach and swimming in the pool.

It really does feel like coming home when I go out there – can you tell I’m just a bit excited?

Smoothie Bowls

The weather in London has been scorching this week and when I get back from work I really don’t feel like cooking in the kitchen. I’ve been doing a ‘breakfast for dinner’ thing a lot recently and making myself a smoothie bowl in the evenings. I make it with frozen fruit so it has the added benefit of being nice and cool to eat too. It’s the perfect way to get a huge dose of vitamins in one go. I tend to hide veggies in there too as you can’t even taste them. I use whatever fruit I have in the house, paired with a frozen banana, half a frozen avocado, some spinach and some almond milk. Blend it altogether and then top with nuts, seeds and cacao for a bit of protein, healthy fats and crunch! Perfect when you don’t want to turn the oven on and heat the house up!

And they look beautiful too! I vary the fruits I use to maximise the vitamins and usually add a tbsp of superfood powder such as Acai or Matcha. A super healthy dinner (or breakfast)!

That’s it, a quick glimpse into my life this week – check back next week to see what I’ve been up to. I’d love to hear what you’ve been loving this week. Leave me a note in the comments and I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Friday Favourites #3 – UK Paleo Awards Hey guys, welcome to another edition of Friday Favourites and all the things I'm loving this week.

#Almond Butter #Almond Milk #Cacao #Ethan #Friday Favourites #Fruit #Louie #Margot #Nut Butter #Peanut Butter #Portugal #Smoothie Bowls #Snacks #Vegetables #Vitamins

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hermitshell · 9 months

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Testing out a coppearl design :DDD

#pearlescentmoon #nlsmp #new life smp #new life fanart #she is so small #please click for quality if the image gets crunched <3 #bec art

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repwinpril9y0a1 · 7 years

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9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats

For many of us, pets are such a vital part of our lives that we love them like our own flesh and blood, sometimes more! It’s only natural that we should want to capture them on camera and hold their memory close to our hearts. The problem is that taking great pet photos can be tricky, especially when the animal is a single-minded cat.

If you’re reading this, chances are you have a cat or two of your own, or maybe a whole pride of them (wrong cat, maybe). You might just be someone who enjoys photographing cats around your neighborhood. Whatever your story, I’m going to help you take great feline shots with these tips for getting better photos of cats.

1 – Patience is key

First things first; when photographing cats, you should expect a high failure rate. The more discerning you become as a photographer, the more this is the case. Cats are not an ideal subject for impatient types since they don’t strike obliging poses for long. Just as you’ve framed the shot, they’re likely to walk up to you and sniff the lens. If not that, they’ll turn their heads at the precise moment you release the shutter. Guessing what they’ll do next is part of the fun. Have your camera ready.

Cats tend to strike random funny poses, especially when they’re lolling about half asleep. To capture these comical moments, it’s best to always have a camera handy, even if it’s a phone. If you need to go dig out your camera before taking a shot, the cat will most likely hear you and move. Likewise, if you’re outside with your cat, have your camera ready for some outdoor action shots. You’ll miss great pictures if you first need to fetch your gear from inside a bag.

2 – Attention seeking

By now, you’ll know how much your cat likes to thwart you at every turn and foil your photo attempts. However, there are tactics you can use to get the pictures you want. When working alone, learn to use your camera one-handed, even though it’s not textbook technique. Set everything up on Auto so you don’t have to fiddle around before taking the shot. With the other hand, you’ll be attracting your cat’s attention. Clicking the fingers usually works for a time, until the cat wises up to it.

Cats are intrigued by rustling noises too, so you can crunch a paper bag to make the cat look towards you. Use a cat toy if you want a livelier picture, but the success rate will be lower. You’ll make life easier if there’s a window behind or beside you, so plenty of natural light falls on your cat’s face.

3 – Getting down to your cat’s level

One common mistake made by budding pet photographers is that they photograph their cat or dog from a human height. This rarely works well. Photos of animals taken on their own level tend to have more impact and show the animal’s personality better, from the perspective of an equal.

If you want to capture a cat in hunting mode, getting down to ground level gives the feeling of being the cat’s prey and adds drama to the photo. If it’s hard to adopt these low positions, you’ll achieve the same thing using a digital camera with a swivel screen. Since cats like to climb, you won’t always have to stoop to be at eye level.

4 – Frame your subject

Framing your cat in the shot with surroundings like long grass, shrubs, or tree foliage gives the photo added depth. It also creates the feeling of peeking into the cat’s own natural habitat, or his world. It’s a technique you’ll often see in wildlife photography. Indoors, you can frame your cat by including any cubby holes or hiding places that cats generally like. Comfy towel cupboards are a frequent favorite.

5 – Focus on the eyes

If you’re taking a close-up portrait of your cat, it’s important to make sure the eyes are in focus. This is surprisingly easy to get wrong in animals since it takes only slight carelessness to focus on the nose instead. The camera you use and its sensor size will affect how easy this is. A phone camera will typically give you loads of depth of field, so it’s difficult to get the eyes out of focus, whereas an SLR with a larger sensor gives a shallower depth of field and demands more control over technique.

If you’re taking the portrait from an angle, try to have the nearest eye in focus, as it looks unnatural to have only the far eye sharp. These same principles are generally applied to human portraits, too. They are only guidelines, however, so you can ignore them if you’re going for a specific effect.

6 – Lighting for cats

You’ve probably seen photos of people taken at night that exhibit the dreaded red-eye effect. This is the result of using a flash, either built into the camera or directly mounted onto it. Blood vessels in the back of human eyes create a red reflection. Cats and other animals have a special reflective layer in the back of their eyes that enhances night vision. This causes a variety of colors to be bounced back when a flash is aimed at them, but typically it will be blue in a kitten and green in an adult cat. These colors are more attractive than red, but still undesirable in your photo.

By mounting or holding a flashgun away from the camera, you can take night photos of your cat without this demonic eye effect. Covering the flash with a softbox will help avoid harsh shadows. High-quality flash photography requires a further investment in gear and is not strictly necessary when window light provides an easy and effective alternative. As well, digital cameras have greatly improved in high ISO performance in recent years, so you can grab photos in relatively low household light and avoid excessive noise in the picture. The only downside with that is you’ll be often forced to correct the color cast created by electric light bulbs.

Try photographing your cat outside when the sun is low in the sky. You’ll achieve some very attractive photos if the sunlight catches the cat’s fur, which requires that you shoot towards the sun. In this situation, you can sometimes get away with using a flash directly on your camera for a little “fill-flash”. The harsh green-eye effect that happens at night doesn’t occur if the flash is diluted by enough daylight. This avoids the cat itself being underexposed, which is a possibility when shooting into direct sunlight.

7 – Lens choice

A portrait lens around 85-130mm (or equivalent) works well with cats, giving just enough working distance that they don’t instantly make a beeline towards you. If it’s also a macro lens, like the classic Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro, you’ll have the option of moving in for some ultra-close photos of eyes or even paws.

Wider reportage type lenses around 35mm are good for grabbing full-body photos of your cat. At the other end of the scale, a long telephoto lens allows a greater working distance and lets you be more selective about the background, as it will have a narrower field of view. You’ll probably go for a shorter lens indoors since you won’t need as much light to keep the photo sharp.

Compact cameras or a mobile phone will normally let you move in so close to your cat that you’re almost touching him or her, but be aware that this closeness distorts perspective and your cat’s features. Despite this drawback, the resulting photos are often pleasing enough.

8 – Camera settings Manual Mode + Auto ISO

If you have a solely automatic camera, you can ignore this section, but it’s a neat trick for anyone with access to Manual mode and an Auto ISO feature. A lot of experienced pros and amateur photographers routinely set their cameras to Aperture Priority mode (Av/A) and have their ISO set to a low value for minimum image noise. The camera is then left to automatically adjust shutter speed for the correct exposure. This is fine, but it reduces the chances of taking sharp action photos in low light, as the shutter speed will often end up too slow. For cat photography, that’s a potential problem.

By setting the camera to Manual Mode in combination with Auto ISO, you always have control over the aperture and shutter speed settings, while the ISO is sorted out by the camera. In fact, the “manual” setting in this instance is no less automatic than aperture priority (Av/A) or shutter priority (Tv/S) modes but gives more creative control over the photo. This technique is more viable nowadays than it was a few years ago since modern digital cameras produce high ISO images with very little noise. That said, if you try this technique in poor indoor light you’ll be pushing your camera’s limits and may well be dissatisfied by the results. Given a reasonable amount of light, it’s a versatile way of working.

Camera settings – Continuous Drive mode

Capturing pictures of your cat chasing a toy, leaping or running around a garden or scurrying up a tree is not going to be easy if you leave your camera in single shot mode. That is true unless you literally have lightning reflexes or get lucky with the timing. Therefore, if you know you’re going to be attempting action shots, switch your camera to its continuous drive or burst mode. You’ll need to set a fast shutter speed too if you want to freeze the action (I’d suggest a minimum of 1/500th of a second).

While this may be less skillful than snatching single photos with ninja-style dexterity, there is no shame in stacking the odds in your favor. Remember that your audience won’t usually care about how you took the photo but will admire great results.

9 – Black cats, white cats

Left to its own devices, your camera’s exposure meter will often underexpose a white cat and overexpose a black cat, particularly if they take up a large portion of the photo or are set against a similarly toned background. The white cat will look murky gray and the black will lose the deep luster of its fur and appear grayish, too. You can remedy this by using your camera’s exposure compensation feature and dialing in one or two stops of overexposure for a white cat or underexposure for black. While it’s generally better to do this in-camera, with digital you can usually fix it later when editing. Being aware of the issue is the main thing.

Lastly, take plenty of photos

If you keep pets through much of your life, sooner or later they’ll break your heart. Don’t be caught when it’s too late without any good photos of your beloved cat. Think about his or her personality and try to record their various traits on camera. Take lots of photos to enjoy during and after your pet’s lifespan, including selfies of you both together. Cherish your cat and celebrate living!

For more info check out: Your Essential Guide to Photographing Cats and Dogs: Snap’n Paws

Did I miss anything? Please share your cat photos and tips below as well.

The post 9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats by Glenn Harper appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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exfrenchdorsl4p0a1 · 7 years

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9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats

1 – Patience is key

2 – Attention seeking

3 – Getting down to your cat’s level

4 – Frame your subject

5 – Focus on the eyes

6 – Lighting for cats

7 – Lens choice

8 – Camera settings Manual Mode + Auto ISO

Camera settings – Continuous Drive mode

9 – Black cats, white cats

Lastly, take plenty of photos

For more info check out: Your Essential Guide to Photographing Cats and Dogs: Snap’n Paws

Did I miss anything? Please share your cat photos and tips below as well.

The post 9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats by Glenn Harper appeared first on Digital Photography School.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2kV1OMW

#DIYS

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repwincoml4a0a5 · 7 years

Text

9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats

1 – Patience is key

2 – Attention seeking

3 – Getting down to your cat’s level

4 – Frame your subject

5 – Focus on the eyes

6 – Lighting for cats

7 – Lens choice

8 – Camera settings Manual Mode + Auto ISO

Camera settings – Continuous Drive mode

9 – Black cats, white cats

Lastly, take plenty of photos

For more info check out: Your Essential Guide to Photographing Cats and Dogs: Snap’n Paws

Did I miss anything? Please share your cat photos and tips below as well.

The post 9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats by Glenn Harper appeared first on Digital Photography School.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2kV1OMW

#DIYS

0 notes

joya34blanco · 7 years

Text

9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats

1 – Patience is key

2 – Attention seeking

3 – Getting down to your cat’s level

4 – Frame your subject

5 – Focus on the eyes

6 – Lighting for cats

7 – Lens choice

8 – Camera settings

Manual Mode + Auto ISO

Camera settings – Continuous Drive mode

9 – Black cats, white cats

Lastly, take plenty of photos

For more info check out: Your Essential Guide to Photographing Cats and Dogs: Snap’n Paws

Did I miss anything? Please share your cat photos and tips below as well.

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The post 9 Tips for Taking Better Photos of Cats by Glenn Harper appeared first on Digital Photography School.

from Digital Photography School https://digital-photography-school.com/9-tips-taking-better-photos-cats/

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