Monthly Archives: July 2008

$50 for a Color Wheel?

Posted on by Tony

As a designer with years of experience under my belt, working with and integrating color schemes into both print and web pages has always been a bit of a challenge, and it’s not something I take lightly. Color plays such a vital role in anything designed — it sets the mood and tone of the work, targets market appeal, brand and market position and even implication of the work (which identical Mercedes Benz ‘looks’ more expensive — a black one or a green one? I’ll quote Wesley Snipes: “Always bet on black”).

Enter ColorSchemer Studio. I used to use color theory books galore, and still rely on my own sense and experience with color, but ColorSchemer Studio ($49.99) is now officially in my arsenal. It’s a powerful little app that isn’t overly complicated, and does the job very, very well. And that is — speeds up the process of color selection, down to the nuances, and gives you a nice, simpatico color palette to work with. You can even work ‘backward’ by taking an image, picking a few key colors letting the ColorSchemer generate a palette from those.

When finished, export your palette in a number of compatible file types for the development program you’re working in. For casual users ColorSchemer offers less expensive version that retains the core application but without some of the bells and whistles.

I highly recommend this app for designers — web, print or other. It makes what could be a frustrating and painful job a whole lot easier. Enjoy!

A Recipe for Successful Local Marketing …

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Franchise companies have many challenges, one of which is local marketing. Traditionally, it has been difficult to produce consistent local marketing campaigns that drive leads to the local office. These campaigns normally consist of some sort of direct mail, “yellow pages” or print advertising, all of which are becoming much less effective in these techno-savvy times.

A new recipe for local marketing includes 2 cups website, 1/2 cup email, 1 cup search engine and a dash of tracking. Mixed well to make a successful local marketing campaign.

2 cups Website – A website is made of visual imagery and textual content. When mixing up your website, please choose only natural and relevant text for your content. This will allow the search engine and website to blend well together and produce a better tasting (more leads) dish. Use the combination of visual imagery and text to produce the fragrant smell (call to action) that entices your guests (site visitors) heads toward the kitchen (your contact information)

1/2 cup Email – An email is one page of your website delivered to your contact’s email box. It’s a combination of problem-solving and education. If you can brew these two items together to create interest and anticipation then you have succeeded in stirring up interest in your website. Email should never outwardly sell your services, but should educate your customer.

1 cup Search Engine – Search engine is the final and most often forgotten ingredient to your successful local marketing campaign. Search engine is only effective if it is incorporated well with website. If your website and search engine have similar content then customers will find website in their search engine queries.

A dash of Tracking – To realize success is to measure success. Use Google analytics to track your website and your traffic sources to understand if these ingredients are producing an increase in customers coming to your website. This tool will also show you the increase the number of customers who contact you.

We hope you enjoy this new recipe! If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

Deconstructing Your Home Page

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Your web site’s home page design should be insightful and creative. It should engage your clients and guide them through your site, compelling them to take action in the places you specify. Your home page is also your client and future clients’ first impression of you as a person, company, brand, product and/or service. And at the hyper-speed with which everything technological moves these days, you want your home page to do it all and say it all – all in a few minutes.

Eye Contact

A visually appealing design will draw your clients into your site, but placing your important messaging and calls to action in prime locations encourages them to stay and participate. By structuring your home page effectively, you’ll create a visual hierarchy that provides users with an intuitive path through your home page.

Understanding how users’ eyes typically move on a web page will help give some logic to getting the most from your home page’s real estate. Most users’ eyes begin either in the upper left corner of the page or in the middle of the page and then move to the upper left corner. So, placing your company logo and possibly your brand messaging in the upper left corner is a great start.

Your clients’ eyes may then scan across the top of the page to the upper right corner. This path is logical based on Western readers reading from left to right and generally follows your main navigation bar. The users’ eyes may then zig back left and down, so putting calls to action or action items in a left side bar (buy now, join now, learn more) tells your users how to participate.

Typically, your users’ eye movement zags the rest of the page ending in the lower right corner of the page. So, this gives you another chance to make an impact on your client.

Remember, these are general eye movement theories*. There are many other synergistic factors that draw your clients into the site and compel them to move through the page and stay on your site.

This Company Speaks to Me

Establish your credibility immediately on your home page with accurate and compelling content. Your home page introduction should not be a dissertation because users “scan” and “skim” more than read. Convey what you do or are offering to your audience and why you do it better than your competition. Get this message across in the first minute of their visit.

Make your headlines inspiring and informative. “Welcome to my home page” misses the boat…think Ferris Bueller’s econ teacher, “anyone…anyone.” Establishing what you do or what you want your clients to know in your headline is much more interesting. For example, we want our clients and our future clients to know that we “Know why. Know how.” We know why our clients need our products and services and we know how to implement solutions to achieve our client’s goals.

Your content should be relevant to your target audience and make clients say, “this company speaks to me.” Educating your customers with information they want and need gives them a reason to visit, stay, and return, again and again.

Are We There Yet?

Easy and intuitive navigation is a must for your home page and web site. Web sites that use breadcrumbs help their clients navigate backward. This is especially helpful if your site is large. Also, limiting the amount of levels your users need to “drill down” into to find the info they want is good user-friendly design. Making your clients and users work to find information is a great tool to drive them away. Users equate a poorly organized site with the quality of your company, product or service.

  • ~ Place important page links in several place on the page (main navigation, side bars, call to action buttons)
  • ~ Offer different ways to get there. Use both text links and graphic buttons for site navigation.
  • ~ Organize content on your page so it’s logical. Place the most important message pieces in prime spots “above the fold.”

Less is More

Graphical elements can add elegance to your home page. But, if your design is not thoughtful, your site can look and feel like a three-ring circus. Your graphics should fit your company’s messaging and branding. Flash might be snazzy, but it can also be distracting to search engine spiders and eat up valuable user time. Automated slide shows are a nice alternative. Used wisely, slide shows dynamically feature multiple images in one place. If your business requires other images on the same page, give careful attention to the number of other images and their sizes relative to your main image area.

Interactivity

Calls to action such as joining your e-newsletter, signing up for a monthly email, donating online or buying your product offer your users direct interaction with you in a click of a button…well, a click and then some data entry. These links or graphic button links should be clearly labeled and strategically placed. Putting an important call to action or two in various places on your home page gives your clients several opportunities to participate.

Keyword Relevancy and Density

Search engines are looking for relevant keywords within your content. This doesn’t mean just repeating your keywords over and over; they need to be written logically into the text. A good rule of thumb is between 150-250 keyword rich content. You can write more, but keep in mind that scrolling can sometimes be an issue for users. Keep your main messaging “above the fold” for good measure.

Double-Check and Check Again

Links that go back home, nowhere or contain 404 errors are frustrating for your clients. Typos and grammatical errors are a big no-no. Invest in the time to make sure your message is proofread and spelled correctly. With spelling and grammar check programs, there is no excuse for these errors on your home page. It destroys your clients’ confidence in you and creates the impression that you are not competent, therefore whatever your offering is of poor quality.

Make your page visually stimulating and easy to navigate. Optimize your branding and calls to action by placing these messages in strategically smart locations. Make your sparkling content accurate and error-free. Remember, your home page is your first impression and sometimes, you only get one chance to make it a lasting one.

*We will discuss eye movement and web site design more in-depth soon!

Project Manglement, um… I mean Project Management

Posted on by Michael Boyer

In today’s interactive environment; design, marketing and creative companies rely on their high-powered creative professionals, executives and sales teams to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

BUT … these leaders can only promise you an unsurpassed product or service, they, themselves, generally are not delivering the end result.

THIS is left to another member of the team, the project manager.

Tasked-based project planning and management is the backbone of successful enterprise Internet marketing initiatives. This is the essential element to effective PM and driving both internal and external accountability. Using PMI best practices for project planning, change management, risk management and resource allocation provide stability, predictability and control to any large complex project.

Project managers often walk the fine line between micro-managing and holding team members accountable for hitting targets. The task-based plan empowers individual team members to take control, especially on large web interactive projects – and it provides a clear level of accountability to the team as well as to the client.

By applying the task-based PM practices, the Elements team is able to deliver world-class products and exceptional customer service.

THE REAL DIFFERENCE is the project manager who is committed to superior service.

Michael Boyer, CMO of ELEMENTS, shares a “Core Belief” that guides our project management methodologies and superior service goals.

The humility of the transparent (Service: authentic people, real service)
To be of service to others lies at the core of the meaning of honesty. For to facilitate lasting change and progress the goal must be to do the good thing, the right thing, and to speak the truth. It is from this place of honesty that we do well.

Thus our way is to share, in service to our clients and partners, what makes us special. We are a transparent company; our clients and partners can feel our passion, touch our intelligence, hear our camaraderie, see our energy and sense our difference. We have quiet values yet we hold them fiercely; we have our custom definitions of quality, value and professionalism.

And at the end of the day we ask the simple questions ‘Did we matter?’ and ‘Have we contributed?’ for the measure of our longevity will be in how others judge us. In an era when change is a whirling dervish it is the fact that we come back time and time again to a place of transparent humility that will enable our world to see us and our company for what it is – human, real, humble and different.

Keep ‘Em Coming Back for More – The Write Way

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Cultivating users and customers who return to your site is no easy task. What? Your business doesn’t offer a product that you can advertise as “special clearance!” or “for a limited time only!” that will entice users back? Well, developing repeat customers the “write” way can keep you connected to them as well as build your reputation as an industry leader, grow your brand awareness and spark interest from prospective clients.

First Things, First

Unless you have a way to capture your users’ contact information, you won’t be able to send out an online marketing campaign. You’ll need an online marketing manager that includes a database to store your client information list.

That in place, include a “join us” or “sign up” call to action prominently on your website, in multiple places (tastefully). Whether the user visits your site once or several times, or visits one page or explores your entire site, that call to action should always be available.

Special E-livery

For any company, e-newsletters and/or e-mail campaigns are a logical start. Make no mistake, however, compelling and successful campaigns take work

  • ~ Share your knowledge and choose a topic relevant to your client base to focus on. Whether it’s an intro or advanced level topic for a service, clear and direct copywriting will always inspire learning. Include tips and advice – builds trust and shows your expertise.
  • ~ Providing an in-depth view of a product or service may also introduce clients to something new. Emphasizing benefits rather than features encourages the customer to view you as a solution-provider. How are you leaps and bounds in front of your competitors? Leading with benefits inspire confidence in your company, your brand and your product.
  • ~ If your clients experience a Success Story, write about it. Testimonials about your product or service increase your credibility. Real life stories also give your campaign another dimension and human touch – your customers relate to each other.
  • ~ Q&As and interviews are a creative way to break up the content of the newsletter while offering quick nuggets of information. Generate participation by inviting your clients to submit questions and choose a few to answer. Or, a more interesting approach is to interview another expert in the field answering the question. Your partner should offer a product or service that complements your own.
  • ~ If you do offer a product for sale online, sending an e-mail campaign featuring products often encourages return visits. Whether it’s seasonally, monthly or weekly, schedule the email consistently so that your customers look forward to “what’s next?”

What Can New Do For You?

“New” and “free” and “Improved”…but especially “new” and “free” attract us like…well, you know. They are probably the most attractive and potent words product and service providers can use in marketing and advertising. There are studies that show that something in “new” activates a reward center in our brain. And whether the reward is to be the first to get the newest, shiniest widget, or to learn something new, it’s a great tool for online marketing as well.

Advertising new products on your site and in your e-marketing campaigns is a no-brainer, the novelty is built in.

If your company doesn’t offer a product? This “new” does not necessarily involve developing a new service each month…it’s you “new” content. Keep your site content (articles and images) updated regularly. Your users will return often to see what’s “new.” If your content doesn’t change for months and months, your web analytics return rate will probably reflect that.

An excellent source of new content is your own company news – New and Press, Press Releases, Media, Press Center. Give your news some prominence on your home page, include a spot for it in your main navigation and make it easy to find. More importantly, keep on top of issuing your news – being diligent about this takes commitment and dedication. Sending out monthly news is good; sending out weekly news is great!

It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It

  • ~ Your writing should paint a picture in your client’s head: write in the active voice (who did what, rather than what was done by whom.
  • ~ Be persuasive and clear: avoid the $25 paragraph to say 25-cents worth of message.
  • ~ Be engaging in your approach: clever writing balanced with professionalism in a tone that is appropriate to your message: urgent-action needed; helpful; warm-fuzzy; fun.
  • ~ Write to inspire action: think about radio spots or movie reviews – they’re quick and evocative, and they make you want to see the movie.

One-on-One

Write as if you were talking to your best user or client. Your ONE best user or client. Writing as if you were presenting your widget or widget service to your entire client list takes away from the personalization of your message. Writing on a personal level, like a one-on-one conversation addresses your client’s individual needs…just the way he or she receives your e-mail or e-newsletter – as an individual.

Journalism 101

Learn the upside-down paragraph used in journalistic writing. Write general to specific. Remember to lead with benefits, so start with that in your headline. Repeat that benefit early on in first paragraph and include a few more benefits as well. Detail the features and logistics of how your company delivers your benefits in the following paragraphs. Learn it, use it, live it!

4 Laws of Effectiveness and the 80/20 Rule

Posted on by Brandon

There is a general consensus that 80 percent of results are produced from 20 percent of the work. Think about this statement for a second. What this is really saying is that 80 percent of the work you do only contributes to a small amount of the results you produce. It also means that 20 percent of your customers or clients are responsible for 80 percent of your revenue. How much time do you spend each week working with the 80 percent of your clients who don’t buy from you?

I remember when I discovered the 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle) – I was plugging away at a development project which looked like it was about to go over schedule and over budget. I looked at what I was doing and realized I was using a lot of time answering phone calls, emails, and building modules that didn’t need to be built to get the project out the door. I turned off the phone and email and focused completely on the required parts of the project. I finished the project in two hours!

After this experience I realized that I could apply this to many areas of my life and ended up developing a simple set of rules for getting through the work day:

1. Batch process as much as possible: This means taking common, repetitive tasks and grouping them to a specific time of day. For me, this means I read and respond to email only twice per day. This was hard at first; people would come by my desk (and still do) to see if I received their email. I setup an auto-response message letting people know when I am available to answer their email and if they needed me immediately they could send a message to my cell phone. This one step saved me at least three hours every day.

2. Get rid of the distractions: Turn off the email program and disable any audible notices that sound when a new message arrives. Turn off the ringer and all phone calls go immediately to voice mail. I have an out-going message stating that callers can email my cell phone for emergencies, otherwise I returns calls at a specific time. This saved me another hour each day.

3. Automate as much of the work as possible: ElementsConnect and ElementsLocal are built on this principle. We create a template or templates (we can provide this service) that websites will use and choose a default for new pages that need to be created. We also built a set of page layouts (we provide several of these upon install) that can be inserted into content pages once they are created, again with the ability to select a default.

This covers 20 percent of the effort needed for getting a site up and running, and 80 percent of the work is done! Hiring a copywriter is a good way to produce your site content. I had an excellent experience with elance.com (craigslist.org also has a lot of freelance listings). The copywriter I hired from elance.com gave me a very affordable rate and produced some of the best content I have ever read. Once your copy is ready, copy and paste it into your pages and your site is nearly done. The navigation builds itself, as do the sitemap.xml and robots.txt files. You may want to add a few extra features here and there (slide shows, a blog, etc.) but your site is effectively complete. Automation is your friend!

4. Duplicate relationships that bring you the most benefit. For example: if you have two clients who responsible for 80 percent of your orders, and twenty that you are always talking to but never buy anything from you, stop calling those twenty people. Concentrate on finding more clients like your two high volume customers. For me this was finding more people who I could have interesting discussions with, which eventually lead me to meeting my wife.

There you have it, 4 simple rules to make your life easier to manage. The hard part about all of this is getting everything in place – and having the strength to put down the Blackberry.

‘How may I help you?’

Posted on by Brandon

Excellent customer service practices can help a good business become great and keep your company in the forefront of people’s minds. I’d like to share some tips that have helped make Elements successful.

Everyone in the world has dealt with someone from the a customer service department. However, not everyone is satisfied at the end of the interaction.

Two statements come to mind when I think of this topic:
“The customer is always right,” and “You can’t satisfy everyone.”

The biggest problem for customer service departments is that these two statements contradict each other. So, if your business follows these beliefs, throw them away.

Instead, keep this thought in mind;

“How may I help you?”

The customer is not always right, but they are justified in needing assistance, which is why they have contacted you. That being said, you cannot always make everyone happy, but you can try to help reach that goal, by keeping “How may I help you?” in mind when ever dealing with clients or potential clients.

In some cases, your company may be too big, or too small, to assist the client, but you can always give them a reference, or some tips, or just be there to listen to their complaint.

By striving to ‘Help’ a client or potential client you will accomplish two things.

One: you will potentially win a life-long client or at least have good word-of-mouth from their interaction with your company.

Two: you have neutralized a client’s attitude and allowed yourself to become part of their solution, rather than their problem.

You may not fully satisfy the client’s issue, but by offering anything to move them closer to their goal, you will move further and further away from an upset or angry client. You’ll turn clients into happy individuals who are confident in seeking your assistance, opinion or tips because of your professionalism and desire to ‘Help’.

For example:

I deal with two communication companies:
One lacks general service areas, but excels at customer service, while the other has incredible service areas, but I cannot reach a representative when I need to resolve an issue.

I’ll give you one guess as to which company I refer, look forward to working with and will renew my contracts with. Need a hint? It is not the company I have trouble reaching.

My point is, follow these easy tips and you will find an increase in customer satisfaction and a decrease in customers leaving your company for your competitor.

1. Be honest!

  • If you don’t have the answer, but promise to provide one … follow through and do what you say you’re going to do.

2. Be Realistic

  • Nobody wants something they are not looking for. If a customer comes to you with a email issue or product issue, don’t try to sell them a product or service that doesn’t solve the issue they came to you with.

3. Create relationships with other companies

  • If a company can highlight your services with their own and you can with theirs, create an open dialogue with them on how you want to refer them and have them refer your company.

Elements did just that with two companies: Digitalwest & Mind Body Online. Both are great companies, with great customer service that share the same values as we do. It was a ‘no-brainer’ to become partners and because of this relationship all parties have benefited.

Take some simple steps to ‘Help’ your clients and you will see BIG retuns in the long run.

Unlocking your website by using key performance indicators …

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Whether you have a website aimed at generating leads or selling products, you should be unlocking your businesses’ key performance indicators (KPI). By focusing on your KPIs you will begin to understand what makes your website and online marketing initiatives successful. KPIs will reveal trends that can point to toward measuring your success/failure based on real metrics and will help you make educated decisions concerning future changes to your website.

Over the next few months you’ll be able to pick up and apply some easy strategies while we tackle some of the basics of website optimization using KPIs and web analytics.

Start by reviewing your website statistics or analytics. If you don’t know how to view your website statistics STOP READING THIS NOW and call your website design/interactive/development agency. Ask them to show you how to view your website stats. If for some reason, you cannot get this information with your agency, call us at (805) 547-1160 x201 and we will help you setup website stats for your future use.

Once you have access to your website stats, you will notice statistics such as number of Unique Visitors and many other critical web metrics. These stats are referred to as indicators. Many of these statistics are not relevant to our focus, so we have to choose a few “key” indicators that will help you improve your business. The indicators that you should pay attention to are:

  • Average Page Views Per Visit
  • Average Time Per Visit
  • Average Bounce Rate

The Bounce Rate is the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

For a lead generation websites these three indicators (average page views per visit, average time per visit and average bounce rate) should be your initial KPIs. KPIs should always be tracked using comparative time-frames that will communicate a some sort of trend upward or downward.

Next week, we’ll discuss these initial KPIs (average page views per visit, average time per visit and average bounce rate) in detail and provide best practices surrounding the decisions you can make from each of these three KPIs.

Life is a composition

Posted on by Tony

I remember clearly when it happened. It was my junior year in college studying Art and Design. I was driving, when, I recall looking out onto the landscape before me, everything suddenly popped into place. The world before me had become a composition. The billboard in front of me and to my left juxtaposed with the trees in front and to the right, the road itself balanced the equation. The clouds above added just the visual texture needed against an otherwise blanket of eternally light blue sky.

This was a somewhat profound moment for me, and I’ve been able to see this “real-life still-life” situation time and time again. If you look at the world with a clinical artistic eye, you’ll be able to see it too.