All Posts, Marketing, Web Design
When it comes to designing a website, there can be a lot of opinions thrown into the hat from all parties. Opinions from the designer, who usually is considered the authority figure. From a company’s marketing team. My favorite are the opinions from the executive team. Now all of these opinions can be good and valid, yet all could be irrelevant when it comes to what opinion matters most; your potential client’s.
Website redesigns are touchy to me. When a client calls our office and asks about how much it will be to overhaul their entire website for a more modern look, our first thought is “great, let’s do it!” Especially if their existing site hasn’t been touched in over 3 years. We explain the importance of having social plugins, e-commerce, responsive web forms, and more. However it almost always is in the perspective of that site/business owner.
I’ve been doing some reading on effective landing pages and site designs, and I have to admit that I don’t always design or develop in the mindset of the online visitor. They’re the ones that spend the 7 seconds deciding whether or not a website has what they’re looking for before continuing on or bouncing off the website to another search result. This is a really important aspect to put into perspective. We’ve all heard the lines “a brilliant website means nothing if no one sees it,” or “content is king,” and so on. However if a potential customer or client doesn’t understand your website, or doesn’t feel comfortable enough to stay on and contact you or buy something your website is pointless.
Here are some points you should consider about your website; whether current or in development:
Lead Generation: Having a compelling call to action will not only help your sales team, but if tracked on a regular basis it will tell you what content people are hungry for.
Readability: Aside from complex wording, slang, or simplistic; your content needs to hit home with your target audience. It needs to resonate to their exact need for your product or service and they should understand that (hopefully) in the first few words or sentence on whatever page they landed on in your website.
Visual Candy: Not all customers and clients are into a wordy website. Some prefer rich and high quality images, graphics, and logos. Things that make them imagine themselves in or with your product or service. Lets face it, a good TV commercial for a piece of clothing will stay in your head until you visit the mall and feel compelled to buy it, or it will immediately turn you off.
Problem Solving: We’re all in business to solve a need right? If your homepage or landing page can effectively address your reader’s issue, you’ll draw in more leads than your biggest competition. Simply because of how you addressed the problem, you’ll win a clients vote of confidence – at least enough for them to give you a call or email you.
Market Research: This may sound like a big R&D project, but it really isn’t. There are many ways to poll people to get their opinions on things as a consumer. The data is out there, and we all know data doesn’t lie. So take the time to do some questioning and research to put into your website. You’ll not only have a greater confidence in your work, but be backed by hard evidence from doing your homework.
Really think about these things the next time you plan on redesigning your website or before you start a new one. One of the things we are proud of doing is sitting with our clients and really trying to get inside of their minds and really get to know what makes their business strategies so unique.
Have something to add? Please do so in the comments below. Your suggestions are always welcome!
All Posts, Marketing, Web Design
As 2011 starts to get closer to end, we as entrepreneurs and self startups all start to think of what we will improve on for the coming year. We reflecting on all of our accomplishments for this year, as well as any pitfalls that we learned from. As a designer, 2011 had many new apps, design improvements, and devices that helped contribute to our creativity. For all the small businesses out there, here are some great items you should implement to your website for better engagement and ROI.
Video – Having a 30-90 second video on your homepage is a great way to briefly talk about your products and services. It gives your visitors a great visual look at your products in action or how truly effective your services are against your competition. My only suggestion is to turn off the auto play option on your embedded video. There’s nothing more frightening than a loud video that automatically starts playing even before a website loads and your visitor scrambling for a mute button or just closing out of your site all-together.
Call To Action – Most everyone who is on the internet has an email address. They’ve got a Twitter handle, a cell, phone, and a physical address. Though they have all of this, it doesn’t mean they’re just going to hand it over to you for nothing. Give them a reason to give you their contact information with something they are looking for too. Could be a short e-book on how to make their own business card out of clip art for starters. Or how to find the best hosting company with the most options for a WYSIWYG editor. Change your CTA maybe each month and see which “gimmick” lands you the most leads. And tailor to suit after that.
Google Analytics – I can’t stress enough how having data is vital to your website. Knowing how many people view your site with some free site-hit button at the bottom of your page is so 90’s. How about knowing which pages people view the most; or how long people stay on each of your website pages; or what buttons and links they click on. What browsers they use (mobile, Firefox, IE, etc). There’s so much more Google offers you for free in data it will blow your mind. What’s key about all that data is that you continue to use it to tweak your site.
Social Media – I don’t need to beat the horse on this one, but your newer potential clients are out there talking about your products and services. They’re talking about you and your competition. If you want free crowd-sourcing social media will give it to you in a lot more than 31 flavors. Your business needs to join and be part of the online conversations that are happening right now. Take advantage of using specials with FourSquare Check-ins or Facebook Places. Check your listings on Yelp. Promote a one day sale with Twitter. Host a webinar and post it on YouTube and inspire people to watch and share it.
You – Yes you, you need to be on your website. For those of you that think a website is only important just to have and not to monitor and keep up with, you’re wrong. I’ve seen too many websites (good and bad) fail to keep updated. Plan a date with your website at least once a month. Our team at Design Theory make it a point to reach out with our clients at least once a month to discuss their website performance, things learned from the previous month, and new ideas and tactics we’ll try for the following month(s).
So what do you plan on doing with your website for 2012? Anything more than what we’ve listed above? Share in the comments below. We’d love to dialog with you.
Marketing
These days we have so many ways to talk about our businesses, products, and services both online and off. From talking about a new addition to your business or soliciting visitors to your brand using social media. The point is, we’re always looking for ways to grab attention to our business. Enter Testimonials. There usually isn’t too much focus on grabbing the feedback we receive from clients when finishing a new design project. Usually the great gratification is a nice email or phone call appreciating the hard work and efforts followed by a nice check or direct deposit. However I’d like to challenge you to sift back through some of your conversations with not only your recent clients but ALL of them in an attempt to modestly “brag” about your design skills.
Testimonials sometimes come in few different ways. Could be a follow-up phone call from a firms executive team thanking you for putting together such a great new website redesign. Or an email from a marketing director who never worked with a designer that actually put to life their exact thoughts for a brochure. Personally, anything you can get in writing is fantastic because you’ll always have their words exactly. A phone call is good too, but try to ask them if they wouldn’t mind being quoted and their testimonial being used on your media.
So how do you use all this to brag? Let me show you a few great ways:
On Paper: A hand written letter from a client may be harder to get than some other means. But most won’t mind typing up a few sentences (or paragraphs), in Microsoft Word and printing it on their company letterhead and mailing it to you. I’ve actually visited a few storefronts where they had a cork board in their entrance that was full of letters from clients. It immediately give you a sense of validity towards that establishment.
Via Email: A really easy and may be a more common way of receiving a testimonial is via email. This is because it’s short, direct and to the point. You can even provoke a client to send you one by pre-emptively sending them an email asking for their opinion or grace of your recent or past work.
From a Phone Call: This one could be a bit tricky. Since we’re all busy, phone conversation usually start one way then drift to another before the call is ended. So remembering what was exactly said (verbatim) may be a bit tricky if you don’t write things down immediately after the call. Also getting the “ok” at the end may sometimes be hard or awkward to ask for.
From Your Website: A great way to capture testimonials that’s almost effortless is your own website. It’s already up right? Why not make it work a little more for you. Setup a page that can be linked from your Contact Us page that will be solely for testimonials. I’ve provided some links to some nice examples below. You don’t have to get crazy elaborate. Mainly you want to have an example of the work you did next to the text of your testimonial along with the clients name. Maybe first name and last initial to keep a bit of their identity hidden.
Testimonial Examples Link 1
Testimonial Examples Link 2
So after all this, I’d love to hear your own success and stories with testimonials. Share with us in the comments below. We can all learn from each other.
All Posts, Marketing
As the end of the year gets closer most of us start thinking more about our family and what we plan to do for the holidays. Family trips, big dinners, presents right? Well a lot of you are pretty talented designers, so why not come up with some pretty cool ways to reach out to your clients to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving in a truly personal way that’s all your own. It’s a really great way to grab their attention from all the other pieces of mail, email, and rudimentary things they’ll be receiving that they plan to immediately shove aside.
Idea One: Give thanks with a custom infographic about their business and your role in it. Use 3-4 statistic examples or metrics that can be replicated easily from customer to customer so you can quickly replicate your efforts. This gives an eye pleasing approach to some facts but also promotes your service back to them.
Ideal Two: A handwritten letter sent via snail mail. Do we even write anything anymore outside of our name as a signature? Sure we’re used to emails and SMS but can you imagine how a client would feel opening a letter from you on a papyrus style paper or something with really good texture? It’s something I’m sure they’d share with others and the livelihood of it being read fully are much higher than a typed letter on regular print paper.
Idea Three: Offer an exclusive and personally direct special offer to some of your clients. Did you design a logo a few months ago? Why not offer a special deal on business cards or letterhead. But take it one step further and create a mockup already made and ready to print for them. With a watermark of course.
Idea Four: Customer Loyalty program. Track back in your previous or past conversations with your clients and see if you can find any hints on some products or services you offer that they may want. Specifically the things they want that they may have felt at the time was just out of their budget. Offer it to them at a sale or discount. They’ll appreciate the sale/discount because they will remember what the true value or price was prior to your new offer. Make it compelling by leaving a purchase window for 24-48 hours.
Any tactics you’ve used in the past that were beneficial that you’d like to add? Share with us in the comments below. If you’d like a copy of the Happy Thanksgiving graphic, request a layered (un-watermarked) PNG here.
All Posts, Marketing
Yup it’s that time again. Time to get the fireplace ready, decorate the house with lights, and set your travel plans. All is good though if this is your slow season and you look forward to it. However, it’s also the perfect time to set things up to hit the ground running as soon as the new year kicks off.
Most businesses start ramping down efforts at the end of the year. Closing out books, updating bookkeeping, and the like maybe. As a designer you may not have too many new projects coming in. If you’re one of them keep reading. I’ve got some ideas for you to keep busy and productive if this will be your slow season.
Update Your Own Work
One of the things we always neglect, is our own work. Whether it’s our website, logo, business plan, chances are there are quite a bit of housekeeping items we need to get done that we’ve been putting off all year due to being busy. Why not take the time to revamp your work. If you haven’t been able to add some social media items to your website, schedule it in now.
Brush Up On Your Skills
Have you been wanting to learn more about javascript or HTML 5? Why not take some easy to follow classes with Lynda.com or your local university. Knowledge really is power. Especially when that knowledge can be traded for money. Lets face it, the more you know the faster you’ll be at your trade and the more money you can request for your skills.
Setup a Referral Program
I know I’ve talked about this before but it actually works. Start with people you already know like friends and family and ask them if they know anyone who may need the services you provide. Entice them offering a referral fee. $50 is usually good enough to wet anyone’s appetite.
Get Out There and Network
Everyone is hosting parties. Host one yourself and invite all your clients and their friends, or attend their parties and socialize with their clients and friends. Don’t push your business on anyone, but you can provide your card if asked for it. Being in the presence of your clients gives both of you memories and a sense of friendship outside of just the business relationship.
Do you have some tips on staying busy during the slow times of the holidays? Share with us in the comments below.
All Posts, Marketing
Of the past few weeks I’ve been getting quite a few questions about SEO. With the growing consciousness of the power of search and keyword relevancy, all questions are pretty much valid. Let me start off though with stating that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a service all on its own. My personal recommendation is that you find a reputable company that provides these services almost exclusively. They’ll work with your web designer or if you don’t have one, they’ll make the necessary updates for you in their marketing plan. Typically you’ll see prices range from $700 to $2,000 a month. And that’s where I notice a lot of people’s facial expressions drop.
For the average small business start-up, forking over $1,500 a month in SEO services may be a bit high. There are a few things I want to bring to light about SEO and the shoestring business.
- SEO is not for every business on a budget. If you can only allow for a budget of $100 or less per month, you’ll be better off doing a local PR campaign, or an ad in your community newspaper, or social media.
- Evaluate how much profit you make per each new customer before doing SEO. If each new client brings you a profit of $50 to $100 but you’re monthly invoice for proper SEO is over 1k, that SEO plan needs to bring in more than 10 new clients a month at least.
- SEO should incorporate many online facets like, directory listings (DMOZ, Altavista, Google), local directories (Yelp, Superpages, Google Places).
- There should be some goals and metrics involved before and during an SEO campaign. I’ve heard a few people say they’re doing SEO but have no idea what the increase of inbound links are from month to month or what their lead to conversion rates are.
- Don’t think SEO is something you’re going to do for one or two weeks or months and then turn off or stop the service. Like any other marketing plan, SEO needs to be considered as an ongoing plan. You’ll want to monitor and even graph your traffic, leads, and conversions each month. Stopping altogether really isn’t an option, but switching providers due to bad performance may be.
There are other things a business owner can do to boost traffic on their own website. Some free tactics include Google Analytics and Website Grader from Hubpspot. The data that these two sites provide can really give you an in-depth look at the traffic coming into your site, what keywords are relevant, browser usage and more.
I do want to stress that SEO is fantastic when you’re ready to really compete against your competition. You’ll certainly want to expect more traffic to your physical brick and mortar store too. Having great sales reps and customer service already in place will help capitalize on all this new recognition too.
