Kerry Burd Design

This is a huge 12" x 9" direct mail postcard (the largest size permitted in the USPS EDDM program). About 10 hours of design time in a quick two-day turnaround for Duncan Gun Shop's Black Friday sale in Wilkesboro, NC. Over 10,000 mailboxes will be seeing this in about 2 weeks opening up huge potential for them to reach new customers that have not been to the shop yet. If you are a small business owner and want to reach customers within a few miles of your front door at LESS THAN THE COST of a postage stamp, then we need to talk! (On average, 5,000 mailers are $2,500 or .50 cents per mailbox and that includes design, printing AND delivery!)

Yes, I do photography too! A quick behind-the-scenes for a product photo shoot today at SpartaCraft in Icard, NC. I am available for product photography or head shots in the Charlotte and Western NC region. Just send me a message and let's talk!

OCTOBER 11, 2023: It's been a busy week for direct mail at Kerry Burd Design! I just got back from Huntersville, NC where I took this photo of "DR. J" for his winterization promo. For the past 10 years, around this time, I get an email from Jeremy saying that he is ready for his annual mailer. And every year since I've given him a fresh redesign. I then do a mail merge of 1,000 names from his CRM and print them directly on the postcard for the most professional look. These will be in his customer's mailboxes within the next 5 business days from today. While many businesses sit back and let clients and employees coast out the remainder of the year, Jeremy knows successful business TURN IT UP IN Q4! Even if you aren't in the Charlotte area, I can design high quality postcards and get them out to your mailing list anywhere in the country!

EDITORIAL ARTICLE BY Kerry Burd Design (originally published on LinkedIn October 9, 2023)

Content Creation? Is it worth it?

As I sit here and write this article I understand the sheer waste of time, and the irony, I am guilty of for even writing it. (This statement will make more sense as you continue reading). For about 15 of the last 25 years of my professional career I have been involved in social media content creation, even before it was coined "content creation."

I was one of 80 developers in the entire world that was embedding an HTML window that could be embedded into Facebook business pages. I could force the user, (YOU), to like the page in order to receive a coupon. The second you clicked LIKE, the page would reload with a coupon. It was the absolute height of my social media business. In 2014, Facebook banned this marketing strategy known as "fan gating" as they began to lay the groundwork for a more aggressive Facebook Ads platform.

I have since spent so much time creating cover photos, profile icons, doing photography, logos, video taking, video editing, hash tagging, writing copy, monitoring shares, comments, feedback and then training clients at times how to manage their own content that the following premise to me seems absolutely absurd.

That premise is, that without a constant stream of original content, you are doomed to be forgotten, let alone quite possibly never even known. And well, that could very well be true.

However, it is also quite possible that you will also never create a viral piece of content or gain one new customer by spending hours per week creating content that you think will gain a customer.

A good example of this, and actually one that inspired me to write this article is a former business broker in the Lake Norman area. He's here on LinkedIn and I actually managed his Facebook account at one point in addition to designing his logo that he used for years. I recently saw that he has made the conversion over to more content and is focusing on being a YouTuber.

Now, I do say recently only because I personally just recently happened to click on one of his videos. I then went over to YouTube and clicked on "VIDEOS" only to find he has been doing these highly produced, two-person interview style videos for over a year! I quickly scanned down dozens of videos and came to the conclusion that, on average, he might be getting 20 views per video.

I found this pretty depressing considering many of his guests are typically positioned as being the best leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians, marketers, self-help gurus, financial analysts, etc. in the Charlotte region. So my conclusion is not only are people NOT watching his videos on his channel, none of his guests are marketing the content either.

So my question is WHAT IS THE POINT in investing thousands of dollars in equipment and hundreds of hours of time into something that can not possibly have any return on investment other than the frequent comments I see of personal friends saying, "Great job!" ??? It does feel like much of the content is being given away for free simply because no one knows how to package it otherwise. Or, is this simply one big ego stroke that drives this podcast and YouTuber phenomenon?

That question goes hand-in-hand with asking, what is the point of LinkedIn? I have found LinkedIn to be an endless stream of reposts, general comments, "celebrations", likes, but ZERO engagement. I don't even know the last time I stumbled in to a collaborative comment section that I found provoking. Check it out for yourself. Randomly choose three of your connections, go to their page and look for the last piece of ORIGINAL content. How long has it been? Did anyone truly engage with it?

Even personally speaking, I have probably wrote about 4 of these articles over the last year and not one meaningful comment or conversation came about from it. I frequently post actual projects I've created explaining this is what I do for a living and with 500+ connections, I can't name one B2B lead that came as a result of LinkedIn. I guess everyone has logos, branding, social media posts, marketing and graphics that are working perfectly for them.

I do believe that we are entering into a disturbing chapter in creative consumption where people are just simply caring less that what they read or see is "original". This will only get worse with AI. Within 3 years we will be assuming the majority of these articles were AI generated so why read something that we could just prompt AI to write specifically for us? Maybe we are also just happy with letting the top tier content creators do their thing and by us reposting, we've played some glorious part in an algorithm that will help our visibility. (NEWSFLASH: It won't).

DIRECT MAIL CASE STUDY: (October 9, 2023) A previous client contacted me this month and inquired about running Google Ads specifically to real estate agents in Charlotte. He has 14 luxury AirBnB properties in Charlotte that he wants to convert to short-to-midterm rental properties. Realtors are frequently in a position to refer their home buyers to interim properties to rent while their house is being built or is closing. Realtors know this gesture can help build a deeper connection with their clients. It become quickly apparent that the solution here was a direct mail campaign, one of my specialities. I handled the entire process from manually researching about 250 firms and agents, designing the postcards, securing the QR codes, and working with the property manager to finalize the proof. If your product or service caters to those within a few miles from your front door, message me so we can discuss some more highly targeted options for you other than Google AdWords!

STOREFRONT GRAPHICS CASE STUDY: (September 12, 2023) I had a client in Clemmons, North Carolina whose storefront was a considerable distance back off the main road. Other than the logo on the top of the building, the storefront was hard to distinguish from their neighbors. I came up with a full-width design incorporating the address. This is PHASE 1. For PHASE 2 I will be doing a full-size product lineup with large pop-up banners, all lit up at night with soft glow LED lighting. One challenge with this design was because the town of Clemmons has a "Maximum 25% Window Coverage" which means that 75% of the glass is not allowed to have graphics on it. If you are in the Charlotte region and need a vinyl logo for your door or custom storefront branding, let me know! I can normally do full-color graphics cheaper than companies that individually cut solid color vinyl (which is old school!).

TRADESHOW BOOTH DESIGN CASE STUDY: (September 11, 2023) I recently received a referral call from a reputable exhibit builder in Charlotte, NC (Perfect Point Exhibits) who needed an experienced graphic designer FAST for one of their client's booth for FABTECH 2023 tradeshow opening today in Chicago. The client needed an impressive above-head cloud concept in their lounge area as well as graphics prepped for 3 backlit product displays. Lastly, they needed a very specific size prepared for the backlit logo on the wall. The project went so incredibly smooth between both of us that I will be meeting with the owner upon return from Chicago for future collaboration on large scale tradeshow events. So, I can now handle anything from traditional pop-up banners and custom table drapes for standard 10' x 10' booths all the way to LARGE scale booths where you need a custom exhibit built. My one-stop-shop can also provide you with brochures, business cards, posters and even CUSTOM looping PowerPoints!!!! Send me an email to get the conversation started.

GRAPHIC DESIGN CASE STUDY: (September 11, 2023) I was recently hired by the new owners of an established car dealership in North Wilkesboro (NC) to strategize some fresh marketing efforts. The previous owner did not even have car prices on any of their inventory. After a consultation with the owners, I suggested a large hanger from the rearview mirror listing make, model, price, etc. - Since it is a used car lot, I also devised a "21-Point Service Check" that each car must undergo before it is available for sale. The previous dealership never had any type of handout that the customer could leave with so I designed a tri-fold brochure incorporating all aspects of their business, then came up with 2 coupon specials encouraging walk-in business to their auto detail shop and service center, as well as carrying over the "21-Point Service Check" information. Lastly, I came up with a Google Maps QR code for driving directions since some of these brochures will be distributed throughout the community thereby more quickly converting interest to an onsite visit. If you need ANY type of marketing collateral for your business, regardless of size, let's talk!

I was hoping to have at least one epic shot from a recent trip to Colorado that I could make into a 36” x 24” poster. This is Longs Peak, the highest summit in Rocky Mountain National Park. It took some extensive editing but I definitely have it. Believe it or not, the photo is actually comprised of 3 different layers (the foreground rocks, the middle ground mountains, then the sky). This way I could adjust each one of those elements individually to really give it the hard-to-achieve Ansel Adams feel. Let me know your thoughts. I'd also be glad to sell the high resolution version to you (with or without the text on it) for $30. The cost of a poster print at Walmart is about $20. Grab yourself a poster frame at Michaels for about $25 and have an epic photograph print from me for about $75.