MOTIONS BY ISSUU December 2019

A Word from Meghan Cole, Product Marketing Strategist at Issuu

We find ourselves at the beginning of the holiday season. The final push before the new year. For some, it’s a time to reflect on the culmination of your efforts-- a cause for celebration and relaxation. But in the eyes of a marketer, the job is never done. Holiday marketing campaigns are in full swing, strategies laid out for undoubtedly the busiest season for promotions. Sales have been steadily increasing even before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which begs the question: is your team prepared to take advantage of every opportunity this season?

At Issuu, we’re aware of the challenges that marketers face during the holiday season, and we’ve prepared the tools to drive sales and engagement. With features like shopping links, video embeds, and Stories for social, marketers are simplifying their holiday marketing with all of these tools in one place. We’re proud to offer an advanced array of content marketing tools to allow marketers to distribute branded materials.

While the job of a marketer is never done, we at Issuu are more excited than ever to provide new solutions for the job. The power of storytelling on Issuu is the perfect addition to the holiday season. Let your audience get better acquainted with your brand’s story with an experience optimized for the digital landscape. Tell your story this holiday season.

How to Create a Holiday Catalog for Your Brand

THE BASICS OF CREATING A HOLIDAY CATALOG

The holidays are fast approaching. It’s time to get your customers ready for it. Is your holiday marketing strategy ready for the rush? It’s time to get your digital holiday catalog together for the season.

Promoting your brand digitally is a huge key to holiday season success. Consumers are combing social media and the web trying to figure out exactly what to get for their loved ones. The more visibility your brand has, the better. But we’re not talking about just a post here or there–– we’re talking about a clean, concise catalog of what your brand has to offer.

DOES MY BRAND NEED A HOLIDAY CATALOG?

From major retailers to one-person shops, holiday catalogs are a staple for businesses of all sizes. Having a collection of the best of your brand, all in one place, gives shoppers a handy guidebook to what your brand has to offer. It’s professional, it’s helpful and it gives your consumers more.

WHY PUBLISH A HOLIDAY CATALOG DIGITALLY?

The benefits of digital publishing for brands in 2020 are overwhelming. But one of the biggest attractions? In-publication shopping links. Your viewers can easily click through to purchase the products featured in your digital holiday catalog. Lay it out for them in an attractive booklet, and watch the sales roll in.

Additionally, having a digital catalog for the holidays gives you more flexibility on sharing. Reach a global audience with the click of a button, and easily share to social media. Plus, you can break your catalog out into Stories to better target your audiences.

I’VE NEVER MADE A HOLIDAY CATALOG. HOW DO I GET STARTED?

We’ve got easy to use Adobe InDesign templates to help get you started. All you’ve got to do is fill it in with your own branding and products. It’s so simple!

Once your catalog is ready to go, publish with Issuu for brand success. Packed with optimal features like seamlessly embedded video, shopping links and customizable embedding, Issuu is ready to help make your holiday marketing a success.

SHARING YOUR HOLIDAY CATALOG

Share your holiday catalog with Issuu Stories. Segment out different parts of your catalog and link your audience directly where they need to go. Or, you can publish Visual Stories of your catalog and sell your catalog items with design-forward visual assets for social.

Staying Focused During the Holidays

The holiday season brings a time of great festivities and fun. But, it also brings heavy workloads, tight deadlines, and for many, lots of stress. To ensure you keep both work and play in order, and your self-care intact during the hecticness of the holidays, we’ve outlined 5-holiday productivity tips. Stay focused during the holidays with these tips.

Set Goals

The first key to productivity during the holiday season is to set goals. Whether big or small goals, it’s important to remain honest and aware of the tasks you must complete during the busy time of year. Decide what’s important to achieve and set priorities. Set specific timeframes and deadlines for hot deliverables and your work will be buzzing to completion in no time.

Organize Your Tasks

First, you must set goals. Second, you must organize yourself and your tasks in order to reach those goals. A simple to-do list and in-depth and updated calendar will work wonders to keep you organized. Additionally, communication will help ensure you’re organized this holiday season. Talk to your co-workers, talk to your clients, and talk to yourself to ensure hot items and deliverables are met in a timely manner.

Work Distraction Free

To increase your holiday productivity, it’s imperative to work distraction-free. Turn off those texts, unplug from social media, and focus on what’s truly important — the work in front of you. To truly boost productivity, give your desk, home-office, and desktop a little love to. A clean workspace will not only decrease distractions, it’ll keep you organized. Thus, increasing holiday productivity.

Leverage Resources

Just because it’s a hectic time of year doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help. If you feel your plate piling high, be proactive! Look to your co-workers, friends, family and more for help, advice, or just a little boost to keep you chugging along. Additionally, look to the web for helpful resources to increase your holiday productivity. For example, look to The Issuu Blog. The Issuu Blog is filled with helpful resources for businesses and brands of all types. From content marketing tactics to design tips, to general lifestyle inspiration, there’s bound to be a helpful resource for all.

Take Breaks

While working away during the busy time of year, it’s important not to burn out. Thus, ensure you’re taking work breaks and recharging. Not only are work breaks essential to self-care and well being, they actually prove to increase productivity when back to hitting the grind. So, set some time for yourself. Whether it is a 15-minute coffee run or a 60-minute actual run, pick a few activities that you know will help you unwind and recharge.

10 Publishing Habits for 2020

Ready to take your publishing game to the next level in 2020? Here are Issuu’s 10 publishing habits you need to learn for 2020 to elevate your business.

Share to Social

The first publishing habit that is crucial to implement in 2020 is to share to social. Now more than ever, readers are digesting all kinds of content on their preferred social platform. So, leverage The Issuu Story Cloud‘s suite of integrated publishing tools to reformat and redistribute your content. First, create and publish your content to Issuu. Second, leverage Issuu’s many tools to ensure your work is seen by many.

Format Your Content into Stories

2019 brought us story-sharing experiences on all types of social platforms. From Instagram to Twitter, to Facebook and more, Stories are now the most popular format to connect with new audiences. Thus, it is imperative to make Stories sharing a publishing habit in 2020. Transform your content with a few simple steps so it can easily be viewed on mobile. Think long bulky text that is reformatted into simple-to-read and scrollable content. Optimized for mobile, now your content can be viewed anywhere and at any time.

Next, leverage Issuu’s innovative Visual Stories tool to take your content to the next level. Think, imagery and eye-catching quotes, that will do all the heavy lifting and draw in readers to your publication and social platforms.

Create Multi-Media Experiences

The days of text and image only content are behind us. Instead, leverage embedded video within your publications to create a multimedia experience for your audience. Simply link to a YouTube or Vimeo video, and let the content instantly play right on the page.

Let Your Content Design Shine

You’ve spent hours upon hours crafting creative copy and capturing vivid imagery. Don’t let sloppy design overshine all of your hard work. Instead, ensure your content shines with sleek and easy to read publication design.

Publish Creative Covers

Sadly, in most cases, books (or any publication for that matter) are judged by their covers. So, ensure you’re publishing your work with creative, unique, and eye-catching covers. A few key tips to learn when making creative covers a publishing habit of yours: be innovative, be who you are, and have fun with it!

Use Captivating Copy

A major habit to ensure you’re learning in 2020 is to use captivating copy. In today’s over-saturated content-driven world, ensure your work stands out with fresh and innovative use of words!

Create Revenue Driven Content

Looking to scale up your digital publication in 2020? Why not leverage Issuu’s shopping link and digital sales features to turn your creative work into revenue-driven publications. Whether it’s an editorial magazine, digital lookbook, or catalog, earn money by directing readers to your own marketplace or to e-commerce sites like Amazon, Etsy or eBay. Preferred affiliate links programs work too. To set up shopping links: Go to the “Links” section of your publication. You can highlight the clickable areas and then add the link where readers can shop for the item or service.

Additionally, with Issuu Sales, publishers can sell digital access to their content on Issuu as a subscription or sell as single issues. Now, sell your content to readers all across the globe. Thus, increasing your potential customer base to the 100 million+ monthly Issuu readers. Looking to make more money in 2020? Then make revenue-driven content a publishing habit today.

Understand Analytics

Understanding your audience and the way they interact with your publication is a powerful publishing habit to learn in 2020. Issuu offers powerful page-level data analytics on the Issuu Story Cloud that enables brands, content creators and marketers to know when their audience is the most engaged, view which pages perform best and track their ad’s performance. First, understand your publications analytics with Issuu’s innovative tools. Second, leverage those understandings to pivot and create work that will perform to its very best.

Leverage Collaboration

Whether you’re a team of one or a team of many, collaboration is the key to business (and publication) success. Don’t let all of the pressure and to-do’s lie solely on one individual. Instead, leverage your team, mentors, creators, and more to help within the publication process. Whether it be a design critique, words of wisdom from a friend, or hiring a professional to help with a complex job — let the expertise and mind power of many help along the way.

Be Inspired

The last publishing habit to learn in 2020: be inspired. Over 15,000+ publications are uploaded to Issuu daily. Thus, let all of the unique brands, creators, and businesses inspire you and your work. Whether you’re looking for design inspo, fresh branding techniques, or simple spins on classics — Issuu is home to thousands of creators pushing the limits and thinking outside of the box. Find your next get idea within the publications of Issuu.

How Brochures Help to Grow Your Business

IN TODAY’S EVER-CHANGING BUSINESS LANDSCAPE, IT’S IMPERATIVE TO LEVERAGE THE MOST EFFECTIVE TOOLS OUT THERE. FROM STORIES TO SALES TO SHOPPING & WEB LINKS AND MORE, ISSUU OFFERS A VARIETY OF INNOVATIVE FEATURES TO HELP ELEVATE BUSINESSES. ANOTHER EFFECTIVE TOOL TO ELEVATE ANY BUSINESS, LARGE OR SMALL, IS BROCHURES. WHETHER PRINT OR DIGITAL, BROCHURES ALLOW COMPANIES TO HIGHLIGHT THEIR OFFERINGS IN A SLEEK AND EASY-TO-DISTRIBUTE MANNER. ADDITIONALLY, WITH THE ISSUU STORY CLOUD, BRANDS CAN REFORMATE THEIR BROCHURE CONTENT FOR VARIOUS PLATFORMS, AUDIENCES, AND MARKETING TACTICS. KEEP READING TO LEARN HOW BROCHURES CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS.