We created the DH+ INSPIRE Newsletter to spread marketing inspiration and to educate and enlighten you with a variety of marketing solutions and topics. The newsletter has grown into a much larger INSPIRE initiative, being delivered to you via blogs, podcasts and videos. To help make it easier to find all of our INSPIRE content in one place, we're officially launching a new webpage.

We are excited to announce that because the DH+ INSPIRE podcast and initiative have received so much great attention, we've created a website specifically for the DH+ INSPIRE Initiative to host our blog posts, newsletter, videos, and podcast episodes. Now you can consume your favorite INSPIRE content any way you please by listening, watching, or reading all from the same location.

After months of working from home, businesses are slowly beginning to transition their employees back to an office environment. While adjusting to new routines, teams must quickly adapt to new safety protocols and social distancing guidelines in order to be safe around others.

Because it is up to employees to comply with these new rules, challenges may arise even if people have good intentions. Returning to a familiar office environment may also mean returning to old habits, which can lead to forgetting new precautions and amplifying the risk of spreading infections.

As DeanHouston’s Emma Mendenhall stated in a recent DH+ INSPIRE podcast, “One thing I’ve noticed getting back into the office in person is that you fall into your old habits. You’re in a different environment, so you have to recalibrate yourself.”

In order to break these old patterns, visual cues and signs are helpful in subtly promoting the most recent safety guidelines and new sanitization practices.

Signage in the Office Environment
The CDC suggests that offices implement many new procedures in order to minimize the risk of employee exposure to COVID-19, including taking steps to physically separate employees and rearranging office flow. These tactics can be achieved through clear communication and visuals to make understanding the new protocols simple.

Signs are an easy way to visually demonstrate how employees should be moving through the office. The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) also acknowledges the significant role that signs play in making workers aware of workplace conditions, which is a key factor in promoting a clean and sanitized environment.

Key Elements of Effective Signage
As signage and visual cues become more prevalent in offices, it is important to keep a few key factors in mind when choosing which signs to display. The ASSP states that signs should be simple and straightforward – this means easily understandable visuals and text that avoids lengthy, confusing messages.

Additionally, placement of visual cues is important, too. Place signs in or around an area that requires new safety or social distancing protocols, and ensure that they are easily readable to all who pass through. One example of the importance of sign placement is demonstrated through the newly suggested “6 feet apart” rule. Signage can easily demonstrate this distance in an office setting so communication and collaboration are still easily achievable in a safe manner.

Conclusion
Though it may be easy to fall into old habits, visual cues can serve as reminders for teams to comply with new safety protocols in the changing workplace environment. In order to simplify this process, Exhibit Logistics has created free, printable graphics available for download here.

These graphics serve as reminders for teams to self-screen, social distance and respect the comfort level of others within the office environment. Because ultimately, an environment built with the care and safety of others in mind leads to more comfortable teams and more productive and collaborative interactions.

To learn more about getting the tools and PPE equipment needed to help you successfully reopen your office, please visit exhibitlogistics.com.

What says getting in front of your audience more than getting physical? Physical mail that is. With the world on its head and many people working from home, there is no better time to utilize direct mail marketing!

Reasons Why Direct Mail Rocks
While digital marketing is all the rage, direct mail is far from dead. In fact, it's one of the oldest forms of marketing, and it’s still effective in closing the gap between brands and customers. It’s also a good way to help your business stand out. Here's why it works:

Businesses are getting creative implementing a safe, methodical reopening process after months of work-from-home. At DeanHouston, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time working to get our teams back together in the safest way possible.

To ensure social distancing, we decided on a 4-10 reopening plan.

What’s 4-10?
The 4-10 is a rotational plan dividing the office into two groups so only 50% of our staff is in the office at any one time (while wearing their PPE, of course).

Group 1 will work 4 days in the office (Monday-Thursday) and then 6 days from home. When Group 1 is working from home, Group 2 will rotate and work 4 days in the office (Monday-Thursday) and 6 days from home.

Both groups will work from home on Fridays.

Where’d the Idea Come From?
This reopening strategy has been recommended by The New York Times as one of the most effective return to the office tactics. According to a recent New York Times article, the 4-10 is recommended for many reasons, one being the possibility the 4-10 provides to “exploit” a key property of the virus: “its latent period, the three-day delay on average between the time a person is infected and the time he or she can infect others.”

The 4-10 also allows us to take advantage of the virus’s “weak spot” by reducing the density of people at work and weaken the transmission of the virus.

The Most Important Thing to Remember
Even though the 4-10 is one of the best strategies to get some normalcy back into our lives, it is essential that we continue to monitor the local situation and prepare for the local government to reverse phases if infection rates begin to rise again.

Flexibility and nimbleness will be key to navigating the future of this pandemic.

To learn more about getting the tools and PPE equipment needed to help you successfully reopen your office, please visit exhibitlogistics.com.

I’ve been struggling with thinking bigger while the world is so crazy, and I’m quite certain I’m not alone. 2020 has brought us a pandemic, an election year, societal unrest, and economic upheaval – and for crying out loud, we’re just midway through. Every day I fight a wait-and-see attitude, and find myself focusing on smaller tactical items that, if I’m being honest, make me feel like I’m moving forward and adding value. That need for control is probably something most of us crave right now.

But there has to be more. Being from the Detroit area, I grew up a Red Wings fan with an appreciation for excellent hockey. Not your “just show up to play” hockey, but the passionate, driving sort of play that fully engages fans in the arena and more importantly, in their hearts. I believe we can apply that same intensity to get through this patch, and not just survive but thrive. These are the correlations I’ve drawn between best practices in marketing and hockey.

From digital billboards to geotargeting a crowd using Snapchat, technology has drastically evolved how we market our goods and services. Technology, of course, has been a great thing for the marketing world, but it has also added complexity. It’s now more difficult than ever to not only get your customer’s attention, but keep it long enough to make an impact. However, one way to help ensure your marketing efforts remain effective is through the use of data-driven marketing.

Data-driven marketing is not only extremely helpful, but it is essential to any successful marketing plan. And thanks to technology, customer information can be captured at every stage in the buying process, providing us with valuable insights into customer behavior, pain points, buying habits, social media activity, and much more. With all this information at your disposal, there’s no longer an excuse for developing a marketing strategy that isn’t targeted, specific, and effective.

Here are a few of the reasons why data can help make your marketing plan more effective:

The spread of coronavirus has caused event cancellations worldwide, leaving the experiential marketing industry with no other option than to adapt to a new world of remote work and social distancing. While pivoting and adapting to new processes can be difficult, we have found that turbulence brings new opportunities, especially in experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing, also called engagement marketing, is a marketing strategy that invites an audience to interact with a business in order to create experiences between the brand and consumer. This marketing tactic provides an opportunity for your brand to leave an impression on consumers while getting at the heart of what motivates people: their emotions. For that reason, all good experiential campaigns focus on people, aiming to challenge, inspire and motivate. Examples include live experiences, sampling, roadshows, festivals, social content, PR stunts and partnerships.

At DeanHouston, putting people first is what we do best. That’s why we excel within the arena of experiential marketing. But when COVID-19 was causing disruptions and cancellations to most in-person experiential events, we knew we had to begin paving a new path and quickly innovate new offerings for clients in order to stay ahead of the curve. For an answer, we decided to take our experiential marketing virtual – creating virtual events like digital trade shows.

We’re not going to lie; shifting from executing in-person experiential marketing events to virtual events isn’t always easy. However, using the right approach and following a few best practices is key to getting the most out of your virtual experiential events.

Put Your Attendees First
Determine what attendees need and want, and design your event in order to provide them with the best ROI. Make sure attendees feel like you’re investing in them even though your event is virtual.

Keep It Interactive
Provide attendees with a fully immersive experiential marketing experience by gamifying your virtual event. In other words, take your content and make it fun by providing a way for your attendees to interact with your information so they stay attentive and interested.

Don’t Stress About Production
Consumers aren’t looking for a perfectly staged event. Yes, the event should run smoothly, but consumers may feel disconnected if the event is overly produced; just be authentic and entertaining.

Create Scalable Experiences
Experiences vary in size and scale. Don’t be afraid to customize an experience for a smaller audience than what you normally have during an in-person event.

To learn more about how you can turn your experiential marketing virtual, please contact your DeanHouston account/marketing manager.

If you work in B2B marketing, then you know that falling short of your customer’s digital experience expectations is an increasing threat to business. With every industry being oversaturated, meeting the expectations of customers with their first visit to your website is more important than ever. In order to ensure that you are meeting their expectations, you must prioritize the customer experience and customize your online channels to adapt to their wants and needs with the use of self-service applications. It doesn’t stop at self-service applications though, that is just the tip of the iceberg in staying ahead of the rise in B2B customer expectations.

Here are a few ways you can ensure that you are staying ahead of the B2B rising expectations: