tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19483948441720953832024-03-06T13:47:55.759+05:30Some Trade SecretsWe at eSites Network, a consulting and development company based in Jaipur, would like to share some trade secrets with you to get the most out of your systems, software and web presence. We invite you to eVolve Your Business with us.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-61576297559095407302016-03-14T12:41:00.000+05:302016-04-15T12:46:41.769+05:30Responsive Logo Design<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<b>The modern logo has to work harder than ever before. In the past, a company logo was perhaps intended simply for a shop sign and printed in local newspaper adverts. Today’s logos have to work with <i>a growing plethora of smart devices</i> with varying screen sizes and resolutions, displaying responsive websites.
</b></blockquote>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3tJizOIW2_cBpKr5lEpXMMFuZfUkqFbNiiRSyuOPxOU-QWk1PUuL2Ri6K_GBL206aHDe9r4xNvmj7KlH0ZPO2TJOFMGPlPbrz_lqrDy1SU9ii__DKto4Gpxo-mCffH5j5uz2ae8ZaWk/s1600/900x482xresponsive-logos-screenshots1.jpg.pagespeed.ic.MxPK3IhWmb.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3tJizOIW2_cBpKr5lEpXMMFuZfUkqFbNiiRSyuOPxOU-QWk1PUuL2Ri6K_GBL206aHDe9r4xNvmj7KlH0ZPO2TJOFMGPlPbrz_lqrDy1SU9ii__DKto4Gpxo-mCffH5j5uz2ae8ZaWk/s1600/900x482xresponsive-logos-screenshots1.jpg.pagespeed.ic.MxPK3IhWmb.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
Often logos end up suffering within responsive website design. Many have not been designed with responsive frameworks and variable sizes in mind, and are just resized to fit whatever available space has been provided for them or not.<br />
<br />
However, there are brands that do well within the responsive web space. These are brands and logos that have been designed carefully, with consideration as to how they will display within changing formats. The very best logos are simple and flexible, with varying formats and layout options so that when a site is optimized for a device, the brand is also optimized to the space allocated for it.<br />
<br />
Let's see why simple, flexible and versatile logo design has become so important in today's landscape. Industry-leading, born-in-the-cloud brands such as Twitter, Facebook, Spotify and Google are refining and simplifying their brands owing to responsive web design and the growing impact of the mobile device market. We can consider their solutions when thinking about our own brands, and how to optimize our logos to thrive within <a href="http://www.esitez.net/website_design.html" target="_blank">responsive web design</a>.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
A Simple Fact</h3>
The human brain remembers simple forms far more easily than complex ones. One of the most common factors that separates a good logo from a bad logo is the element of simplicity. <b>Quality, memorable, successful brands are always simple. </b><br />
<br />
This concept is nothing new and was known long before responsive web design started pushing the envelope of simplicity. The simplicity of this design allows these logos to work well at any size on practically anything. Perfect for responsive web design, despite being made decades prior to the availability of such technology.<br />
<br />
However, the original branding mistakes of iconic logos like Apple is a common recurring issue for most businesses. Small startup companies typically have a limited budget. To avoid costs they mistakenly turn to the wrong person for a logo, someone who is not a professional logo designer. Someone who feels compelled to add things to create something.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXfZfqm0X4aemfiUPyBNVGPHWnI3ukUk-n8vb6P2bEwgeVK0TA2DM5wfelXEoW4BvS7QOnbRPLSL5baBkCPZiVezTJF_StbRmvMGMSdLWqm7FLFzxzB3KNEzJLbNkTe9sDEELETN8uBE/s1600/02-simple-and-complex-logos-opt.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXfZfqm0X4aemfiUPyBNVGPHWnI3ukUk-n8vb6P2bEwgeVK0TA2DM5wfelXEoW4BvS7QOnbRPLSL5baBkCPZiVezTJF_StbRmvMGMSdLWqm7FLFzxzB3KNEzJLbNkTe9sDEELETN8uBE/s1600/02-simple-and-complex-logos-opt.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An example of simple and complex logos</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Consider the Great Lakes Golf logo above on the left. Somebody spent a lot of time adding things to that design. The result is quite busy and it’s not going to scale down well at all; whereas the Skype logo on the right is simple, clean and memorable. It will work on anything and is scalable to small areas on mobile devices.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjZu_0wPeRuVTj_mtsJZKhbBOS4bcKHbQTgowYmZla8D96I9S6puibsS4eMqCMX7NiS4P3dSebRxkm0bumD5XeSiXCk809Eek30rEpgyPRQZftfuC1mr0YOV2gbqhJdAK1NT6NbiOfns/s1600/03-logos-viewed-on-mobiles-opt.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjZu_0wPeRuVTj_mtsJZKhbBOS4bcKHbQTgowYmZla8D96I9S6puibsS4eMqCMX7NiS4P3dSebRxkm0bumD5XeSiXCk809Eek30rEpgyPRQZftfuC1mr0YOV2gbqhJdAK1NT6NbiOfns/s1600/03-logos-viewed-on-mobiles-opt.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The logos as viewed on mobile devices</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
At full width you can identify the ball sport elements on the Great Lakes Golf logo. But scale down 50% and it’s barely readable. On the right, the Skype logo scales down beautifully. And if space gets too small, the Skype brand is flexible enough to drop the wordmark altogether.<br />
<br />
This simple comparison shows how simple, clean and versatile design wins over more complex arrangements. The Great Lakes Golf logo probably suited its original intention just fine. However, in the context of a responsive website, the inability to scale cleanly becomes very apparent.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The Tech Industry Response</h3>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
FACEBOOK</h4>
<div>
<div>
Web-savvy brands are simplifying their logos to suit responsive mobile web design. Facebook removed the faint blue line from the bottom of its icon’s ‘f’ in 2013. And in July 2015 it simplified its wordmark by removing the ascender on the lowercase ‘a’, swapping it out for a simpler, more rounded version.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Overall, the other letters have also been slimmed and refined. The changes might seem insignificant but the reasoning is not. Facebook is changing its brand as a direct response to viewing on mobile devices.</div>
</div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“This is actually a huge change and it’s much more than the ‘a’. It’s driven by mobile.”<br />
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<span align="right">– Howard Belk, co-chief executive and chief creative officer of branding firm Siegel+Gale.</span></blockquote>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
GOOGLE</h4>
Another case in point is Google - Google recently unveiled its latest logo update, their simplest yet. The Google logo has been evolving to new levels of simplicity since it first graced our browsers in the 90s.<br />
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In recent years it would have quickly become apparent that their thin, serif type was not going to scale nicely within responsive web design. So, like other tech brands, they’ve simplified to a sans serif typeface with a flat design and a friendly and distinctive ‘G’ icon.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh543Jb9W4zXdVVw8PdBQY9XMaVr0OUJd0I1HJsVdLHSbPo216gFUmqvvu0Fke2h8M_V6QktD52yMMDNRuVtt9-cMHrGTP8oUqS3aGDXFvEvRtEWe0VzX-xWClxNzm_0hkNiodcLCtjKZs/s1600/08-google-logo-changes2-opt.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh543Jb9W4zXdVVw8PdBQY9XMaVr0OUJd0I1HJsVdLHSbPo216gFUmqvvu0Fke2h8M_V6QktD52yMMDNRuVtt9-cMHrGTP8oUqS3aGDXFvEvRtEWe0VzX-xWClxNzm_0hkNiodcLCtjKZs/s1600/08-google-logo-changes2-opt.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Google's recent logo changes for the responsive world</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Once upon a time, Google was one destination that you reached from one device: a desktop PC. These days, people interact with Google products across many different platforms, apps and devices...<br />
<br />
Today we’re introducing a new logo and identity family that reflects this reality and shows you when the Google magic is working for you, even on the tiniest screens."<br />
<br />
– Posted on the official Google Blog by Tamar Yehoshua, VP, Product Management.</blockquote>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The Trend - No Words</h3>
When Prince changed his name to a symbol in 1993 most of us thought he was nuts. But perhaps he was just ahead of his time. An increasing number of companies are refining the simplicity of their logo, moving towards a flat, simple symbol design with no wordmark at all.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0vNWwRT4dtk_1bIAIXtorTDXobAhFfp2HWXJQimGY9V1lcFVDkvUw4n4pLl9kUwWQUblCjO9aFsWotvXaeLQ3hCMZqIVMYKnxLSIwc_NDNOidQqBdoLVDvOS8yxEhkKUuID3z6b803k/s1600/10-various-logos-opt.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0vNWwRT4dtk_1bIAIXtorTDXobAhFfp2HWXJQimGY9V1lcFVDkvUw4n4pLl9kUwWQUblCjO9aFsWotvXaeLQ3hCMZqIVMYKnxLSIwc_NDNOidQqBdoLVDvOS8yxEhkKUuID3z6b803k/s1600/10-various-logos-opt.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Logos for Twitter, Nike, Apple, Starbucks and Pinterest.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Of course, these are all well-known brands that can get away with reducing their logos to only a simple icon. Not everyone can or should do this. However, this is another example of the effect responsive web design is having on brands. Certainly, using an icon graphic as part of an identity increases the flexibility of the brand for use on mobile devices.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Moving Forward</h3>
Does this mean all logos are going to end up as simple flat icons or flat sans serif typefaces? I don’t think so. However, there is little denying the influence responsive web design is having on branding and it will be interesting to see how far this goes.<br />
<br />
The historically sacred view that a company’s logo is a rigid form that must never change is giving way to a new kind of branding freedom, where logos respond and vary. From horizontal formats to vertically stacked, from wordmarks to simple icons, even changing colours to suit dark and light screen backgrounds.<br />
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One might argue that looking at the branding direction of the tech industry isn’t relevant to, say, a law firm or a restaurant. However, <b>all industries are going to eventually end up within responsive web design one way or another</b> and become affected by the rise of mobile devices. Some companies may wonder why this doesn’t seem to work as well for their brand as it does for Twitter or Pinterest.<br />
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Those who understand the design principle of simplicity and embrace this flexible approach to their branding will respond best within this new medium. At the very least, how a brand appears when scaled down on a mobile device will become a staple test for any logo designer or branding project.<br />
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Logo designers ought to help educate clients to embrace this new flexible approach, where logos can be optimized within responsive web design while maintaining brand consistency. Otherwise we will witness more web builders taking it on themselves to alter a problematic logo on the fly to suit their individual project. Not an ideal solution for anyone.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-91048561430447103822016-02-02T13:01:00.000+05:302016-04-15T13:02:46.498+05:30Reducing Abandoned Shopping Carts In E-Commerce<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In March 2014, the Baymard Institute, a web research company based in the UK, reported that <b>67.91% of online shopping carts are abandoned</b>. An abandonment means that a customer has visited a website, browsed around, added one or more products to their cart and then left without completing their purchase. A month later in April 2014, Econsultancy stated that <b>global retailers are losing $3 trillion (USD) in sales every year from abandoned carts.</b><br />
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<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdg_P5C-2a618G6W9hN_T91iDU30ndT0cTu7l5kCXnfBmf50FosJsi41eDJFpKUs7SS0gXqRmn6KJLN4gclijBa6Gnl2YVac0NRBCXOKj8onW8r2-d4QUIcmt6owyF66ct7nVtP6KofXI/s1600/shopping-cart-abandon-ss-1920.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdg_P5C-2a618G6W9hN_T91iDU30ndT0cTu7l5kCXnfBmf50FosJsi41eDJFpKUs7SS0gXqRmn6KJLN4gclijBa6Gnl2YVac0NRBCXOKj8onW8r2-d4QUIcmt6owyF66ct7nVtP6KofXI/s1600/shopping-cart-abandon-ss-1920.jpg" /></a></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Clearly, reducing the number of abandoned carts would lead to higher store revenue — the goal of every online retailer. The question then becomes how can we, as designers and developers, help convert these “warm leads” into paying customers for our clients?<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Before Cart Abandonment</h3>
Let’s begin by looking at recognized improvements we can make to an online store to reduce the number of “before cart” abandonments. These improvements focus on changes that aid the customer’s experience prior to reaching the cart and checkout process, and they include the following:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Show images of products.</b><br />This reinforces what the customer is buying, especially on the cart page.</li>
<li><b>Display security logos and compliance information.</b><br />This can allay fears related to credit-card and payment security.</li>
<li><b>Display contact details.</b><br />Showing offline contact details (including a phone number and mailing address) in addition to an email address adds credibility to the website.</li>
<li><b>Make editing the cart easier.</b><br />Make it as simple as possible for customers to change their order prior to checking out.</li>
<li><b>Offer alternative payment methods.</b><br />Let people check out with their preferred method of payment (such as PayPal and American Express, in addition to Visa and MasterCard).</li>
<li><b>Offer support.</b><br />Providing a telephone number and/or online chat functionality on the website and, in particular, on the checkout page will give shoppers confidence and ease any concerns they might have.</li>
<li><b>Don’t require registration.</b><br />This one resonates with me personally. I often click away from websites that require lengthy registration forms to be filled out. By allowing customers to “just” check out, friction is reduced.</li>
<li><b>Offer free shipping.</b><br />While merchants might include shipping costs in the price, “free shipping” is nevertheless an added enticement to buy.</li>
<li><b>Be transparent about shipping costs and time.</b><br />Larger than expected shipping costs and unpublished lead times will add unexpected costs and frustration.</li>
<li><b>Show testimonials.</b><br />Showcasing reviews from happy customers will alleviate concerns any people might have about your service.</li>
<li><b>Offer price guarantees and refunds.</b><br />Offering a price guarantee gives shoppers the confidence that they have found the best deal. Additionally, a clear refund policy will add peace of mind.</li>
<li><b>Optimize for mobile.</b><br />Econsultancy reports that sales from mobile devices increased by 63% in 2013. This represents a real business case to move to a “responsive” approach.</li>
<li><b>Display product information.</b><br />Customers shouldn’t have to dig around a website to get the information they need. Complex navigation and/or a lack of product information make for a frustrating experience.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Unfortunately, even if you follow all of these recommendations, the reality is that customers will still abandon their carts — whether through frustration, bad design or any other reason they see fit.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
After Cart Abandonment</h3>
The second approach is to look at things we can do once a cart has been abandoned. One tactic is to email the customer with a personalized message and a link to a pre-populated cart containing the items they had selected. This is known as an “abandoned cart email.”<br />
<br />
The concept is pretty simple. At the right time, a customizable email is sent, complete with a personalized message and a link to the customer’s abandoned cart. Of course, this approach assumes that the customer has submitted their email address — effectively, they’ve done everything but paid. Abandoned cart emails represent one last attempt by the merchant to convince the buyer to check out.<br />
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In September 2013, Econsultancy outlined how an online cookie retailer recaptured 29% of its abandoned shopping carts via email. This is a huge figure and one we might naturally be skeptical of.<br />
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To get a more realistic perspective, I asked my colleagues at Shopify to share some of their data on this, and they kindly agreed. Shopify introduced “abandoned cart recovery” (ACR) in mid-September 2013 (just over a year ago at the time of writing). Here’s a summary of its effectiveness:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>In the 12 months since launching automatic ACR, $12.9 million have been recovered through ACR emails in Shopify.</li>
<li>4,085,592 emails were sent during this period, of which 147,021 carts were completed as a result. This represents a 3.6% recovery rate.</li>
<li>Shop owners may choose to send an email 6 or 24 hours after abandonment. Between the two, 6-hour emails convert much better: a 4.1% recovery rate for 6 hours versus 3% for 24 hours.</li>
</ul>
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<div>
It’s worth noting that the 3.6% recovery rate is from Shopify’s ACR emails. Many merchants use third-party apps instead of Shopify’s native feature. Given that Shopify is unable to collect data on these services, the number of emails sent and the percentage of recovered carts may well be higher.</div>
<div>
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<div>
<div>
Given the statistics, abandoned cart emails are clearly an important part of an online retailer’s marketing strategy. Luckily, most leading e-commerce platforms enable merchants to send custom emails, either in plain text or HTML. Knowing how to implement these notifications is a useful skill if you are designing for e-commerce, and they represent added value to your services.</div>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Conclusion</h3>
<div>
<div>
While there are many tactics to persuade customers to buy, inevitably some people will get to the payment screen and decide not to continue. Any tactic that helps to seal the deal is certainly worth considering, and given the small amount of work involved in implementing an email to recover abandoned carts, it’s a great place to start. Designers and developers are in a powerful position to help their clients increase their revenue, and being armed with tactics such as the ones outlined in this article will hopefully enable them to offer a wider range of services.</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-63287082371456836582016-01-15T10:30:00.000+05:302016-04-15T13:25:22.785+05:30Flat And Thin Are In<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the last several years, we’ve seen a rapid shift in software and app interface design, from 3-D and skeuomorphic to flat and minimal. Although this trend has become nearly ubiquitous, let’s take a moment to consider how we got here and what influence it’s having on interface design as a whole. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTDUo5KwI1XDcqEjLnhhWq6Bp7swmy19Vq0vpD0vwALYcdvMBJciytkJMfUsLQpCiN9u7j7AxE5nUKvDC0JSP4DIZMLgzPhY_jfNw94Kgj70nqgXZE9vvoBhY8Q74L6WftRKVP_KPdOo/s1600/How-to-Lose-Fat-From-Your-Belly-Hips-Butt-and-Thighs.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTDUo5KwI1XDcqEjLnhhWq6Bp7swmy19Vq0vpD0vwALYcdvMBJciytkJMfUsLQpCiN9u7j7AxE5nUKvDC0JSP4DIZMLgzPhY_jfNw94Kgj70nqgXZE9vvoBhY8Q74L6WftRKVP_KPdOo/s1600/How-to-Lose-Fat-From-Your-Belly-Hips-Butt-and-Thighs.jpg" /></a><br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
What Happened?</h3>
So, how did the collective consciousness swing from a love of all things textured, beveled and drop-shadowed to a desire for flat colors and simple typography? Many factors have fuelled this transition, but here are a few that stand out.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
INFORMATION OVERLOAD</h4>
As a constantly connected culture, we deal with a nonstop flow of information, some of it important and relevant, most of it not. We are constantly evaluating, filtering and, of course, creating content, and it all gets pretty exhausting. In addition, much of our content consumption has moved to devices with small screens, thus exacerbating that feeling of overload. Becoming overwhelmed is all too easy, and a reduction of clutter in a user interface (UI) can create a little visual zen.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQZ8IR7Fd0ex32GIq7RVUrUY5B_pPSYwS1Cyp7ZDEjryEeDUtTEfeI07ewgAtLfiiSRi4N-5dkYm4R77JNPaFjtR-bGEGoYNjsYvokpBHV6sONVsQhxyHdZeESq9ek-XaXvdJM4PjnxM/s1600/geckoboard_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVQZ8IR7Fd0ex32GIq7RVUrUY5B_pPSYwS1Cyp7ZDEjryEeDUtTEfeI07ewgAtLfiiSRi4N-5dkYm4R77JNPaFjtR-bGEGoYNjsYvokpBHV6sONVsQhxyHdZeESq9ek-XaXvdJM4PjnxM/s1600/geckoboard_mini.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Free of clutter: </b>Geckoboard‘s visualisations are designed to make key data easy to interpret at a glance.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
SIMPLICITY IS GOLDEN</h4>
In a similar trend, a lot of disruptive Web apps and services are offering highly focused tools with extremely limited feature sets. Whereas traditional software developers tend to load their products with a glut of features to justify the high price tags, this shift towards focused micro-apps favors simplicity over feature set. Simpler apps mean simpler interfaces.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt_pyrmrgRK7fI7Ft5sU_JRuXcaOotwEcuoZ0pqxQCrHERdzJv5sW5WlsQj8LfgyqcNYhp_k9S7gdS5cg2gjYNXUD1_ll3Tf7Cj-vgN_MfCdCSIJNj8DqilNqyKk0ZsAVyK9-iCy-PjHM/s1600/blue_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt_pyrmrgRK7fI7Ft5sU_JRuXcaOotwEcuoZ0pqxQCrHERdzJv5sW5WlsQj8LfgyqcNYhp_k9S7gdS5cg2gjYNXUD1_ll3Tf7Cj-vgN_MfCdCSIJNj8DqilNqyKk0ZsAVyK9-iCy-PjHM/s1600/blue_mini.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Beautiful and minimal: </b>The Blue weather app by Oak.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
CONTENT IS KING, AGAIN</h4>
As so often happens when new devices and technologies enter the market, we become fascinated by what they can do and how we can advance interactivity. This interface frenzy is usually followed by a return to a focus on content. Media consumption, whether of text, audio or video, is probably the activity we engage in most on our devices, and for that use case, we just want the interface to get out of the way.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
TECHNOLOGICAL LITERACY</h4>
As smartphone and tablet adoption has rapidly penetrated all user demographics, concern about the obviousness of controls has reduced. Whereas we once feared that users might miss a button if it didn’t pop off the screen, we are now willing to explore subtler interactions. Windows 8 and Chrome for Android even support touch commands that start off screen, without any visual indicator.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6zlHUrTfeH9I3l11IKUnTmhCv6X9e3flgwaI4Lw76rurnRCxuqLEdAkAPL58v6V1Lt5fSBsSeu9GKJEaUgvo1dMwc0W36lVo3RFP5NAHuE85Ynv5W4QvRn6QuwhDWiBdOXr2TNm4hzE/s1600/fitbit_dashboard_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu6zlHUrTfeH9I3l11IKUnTmhCv6X9e3flgwaI4Lw76rurnRCxuqLEdAkAPL58v6V1Lt5fSBsSeu9GKJEaUgvo1dMwc0W36lVo3RFP5NAHuE85Ynv5W4QvRn6QuwhDWiBdOXr2TNm4hzE/s1600/fitbit_dashboard_mini.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fitbit’s dashboard is a bright, bold, and easy approachable visual identity.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
TECHNOLOGY’S INFLUENCE</h4>
Most software will be limited by the platform on which it runs. Screen dimensions and pixel density are the confining factors of hardware. A minimal interface demands a very limited design palette, which means that every element needs to sing. Typographic scale and font weight will largely determine both the aesthetics and usability of a flat design.<br />
<br />
If your target devices can’t handle that level of nuance, you’re out of luck. As screen size and pixel density continue to increase on mobile devices, thinner and smaller type can be presented with better clarity. Of course, support for @font-face has also boosted the appeal of minimal typographic-focused designs.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsC7bRhyphenhyphendvggPotNIJ82y0tD9Rlj02QzfV6VG2dlp-uOTAlded2O69zBznf9BFenhifpzJKI4gTmBKT9WhWMd-pgHzmIRWcT4izMtYmaZKbZv50oSU1lNmofl4Rshn94ovBKA_2D29xxc/s1600/wallmob_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsC7bRhyphenhyphendvggPotNIJ82y0tD9Rlj02QzfV6VG2dlp-uOTAlded2O69zBznf9BFenhifpzJKI4gTmBKT9WhWMd-pgHzmIRWcT4izMtYmaZKbZv50oSU1lNmofl4Rshn94ovBKA_2D29xxc/s1600/wallmob_mini.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Live sales monitoring with Wallmob: keeping track of the figures from any device that has a browser.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
RESPONSIVE DESIGN</h4>
With the proliferation of connected devices of various dimensions, UIs have had to become more fluid, and the responsive design movement has responded. While responsive design does not call for a particular aesthetic, one could certainly argue that flat UIs lend themselves to it more easily than many other styles. The other advantage of minimal design is the reduction in page weight and loading time.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazGutpw3CXtkp1X_dlu6nG0oDP62QUfeJ1Gpyp1dk5bOkulFHRzuk1tQg11vFe76GZZYiqA7yZ-tyBVli4TTyWuY8F5TLrJSCNrN9QM21lsp7BrRmkJ8sEmsunx3rqjVglcIngt_aLe8/s1600/onsiteio_500_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjazGutpw3CXtkp1X_dlu6nG0oDP62QUfeJ1Gpyp1dk5bOkulFHRzuk1tQg11vFe76GZZYiqA7yZ-tyBVli4TTyWuY8F5TLrJSCNrN9QM21lsp7BrRmkJ8sEmsunx3rqjVglcIngt_aLe8/s1600/onsiteio_500_mini.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To the point and weightless: OnSite.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Best Practices</h3>
OK, enough with the theory. Let’s get down to some practical considerations. Creating an effective minimal design is surprisingly challenging. As you strip away common UI tricks (drop shadows, bevels, textures and the like), you quickly realize how important the few remaining elements become. While the following tips are mostly universally applicable, they are especially relevant to flat UIs.<br />
<br />
As with any project, the first step is to ensure that your chosen style makes sense. Before diving into a flat design, <b>make sure it aligns with your target users’ sensibilities and your target platform, devices and application type. </b>Following a trend is pointless if it’s the wrong solution for your project.<br />
<br />
Here are some ideas to keep in mind when aiming for simplicity:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>The Process </b>you follow is pretty important, no matter what style you are adopting. </li>
<li><b>The Grid </b>plays a crucial role in so much of interface design, and no exception here. </li>
<li><b>The Colors </b>are obviously always a key component of visual design and with minimal interfaces, it is even more critical.</li>
<li><b>The Typography </b>is the hero when it comes to flat content-driven websites, so don’t be afraid to experiment.</li>
<li><b>Intuitive Interaction </b>in a flat UI is crucial and indicating that an element is interactive can be tricky. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Wrapping Up</h3>
<div>
<div>
I don’t believe in hard and fast rules in design. Seeing designers so heavily invested in creating extremely clean and simple user interfaces is pretty awesome. Does exploring flat design mean using absolutely no gradients or shadows? Of course not. In fact, some of the most intriguing work I’ve seen recently balances flatness and dimension by presenting content intelligently while keeping the interaction intuitive.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In this highly connected, information-rich and feature-packed digital world we live in, minimal design’s widespread resurgence is refreshing to witness. It is <b>by no means the right solution for everything (no style is)</b>, but when applied thoughtfully and appropriately, it makes for a highly usable and enjoyable digital experience.</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-37847429796799960652015-12-01T07:00:00.000+05:302016-03-21T15:12:50.780+05:30Does Your Website Have Liftoff?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCNjeCOlXxQWU_92_FCbeucimmIvYzaKhTT5CImogYzDSHYQRSlDayi9pTNGNVhQuY2PaHGeWu4NojlJUQQmZgIDp-J0eBSl6kF1qeGnrhQUn9LCF8yXjlFl8cbOEJaDTAxkzbUm8xvs/s1600/PROFESSIONAL-TEAM_EN.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWCNjeCOlXxQWU_92_FCbeucimmIvYzaKhTT5CImogYzDSHYQRSlDayi9pTNGNVhQuY2PaHGeWu4NojlJUQQmZgIDp-J0eBSl6kF1qeGnrhQUn9LCF8yXjlFl8cbOEJaDTAxkzbUm8xvs/s1600/PROFESSIONAL-TEAM_EN.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The secret to successfully building a good website is similar to how the Wright brothers invented the first airplane.</blockquote>
Before the Wright brothers came along the common belief was that the way that you’d be able to get an airplane to fly was to create a large enough and strong enough engine that would be able to propel the plane to fly. And so most adventures focused most of the energy on building more powerful and stronger engines for the plane to get the plate actually take off. But with the Wright brothers did instead was they tried to come up with an airplane design that was as late as possible that was a sensually as close to a glider as they could make it so that all they would need was a very small and light engine and because the glider design was so efficient I would only require a small engine to propellant and posit to fly which as it turns out was the correct way to go about it and that was the reason that they were the first people to effect the airplane.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqiJFSM7_s-9kOENWRxd5NG2NXvDKbEgOmUskHVLa8exDeqWhz1zZhgHGuIx2eDC3SXPzOr66qao1NQGoum4gWgzEZJQfJB10boY54PwnECLX8sWWyF7DGMvEO2ANQ60HKW3smetfEnY/s1600/MPj04311300000%255B1%255D.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWqiJFSM7_s-9kOENWRxd5NG2NXvDKbEgOmUskHVLa8exDeqWhz1zZhgHGuIx2eDC3SXPzOr66qao1NQGoum4gWgzEZJQfJB10boY54PwnECLX8sWWyF7DGMvEO2ANQ60HKW3smetfEnY/s1600/MPj04311300000%255B1%255D.png" /></a>In many ways that’s the same story as to how many people try to generate traffic to their website.</h4>
One of the problems I see quite often is companies and businesses that spend money on Google Adwords, Facebook advertising, Yelp, SEO and other traffic generating mechanisms. They spent all of this money and time and effort getting traffic to their website and then they get upset or confused when they don’t generate that much business from their efforts.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
What they might not realize is that the relationship between traffic and the design of the website is very similar to how the wright brothers invented the first airplane.</h4>
While many people focus on how do to get people to come to their site, they fail to realize is that the most important thing is having a website that converts. In this analogy your website is the airplane design and the engine is the traffic to your site.<br />
<br />
If you do not have a well-designed, well-developed, clearly thought out website then all of that traffic is the same as having a really giant engine strapped to a skateboard.<br />
<br />
So the first to successfully generating traffic to your business is creating a website that is well-designed, has a strong call to action that is proven to successfully convert traffic into leads and leads into customers.<br />
<br />
Then once you’ve worked out the conversions on your site you can go ahead and pay for Google Adwords, Facebooks Ads, etc…<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
So the question to ask is, does your current website have liftoff? And if not, why not? It’s the single best thing you can do for your business’ success.</h4>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-55209300631764369222015-09-07T15:05:00.000+05:302016-03-21T15:06:23.418+05:30How to Write a Website Development RFP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wfEhqOxTwJbGH1pqGoDQu7S4uTN3-Vp3W7TMLMIAmR6jI7IELSiTFI91LCRHTxMhvDkB57lhzlPyRpiL-0o8uY1JZkEVHL3n5l8ARmKNH1BfcxZCjN3k6CMUZs5iSUv-M1-G_k-tCFQ/s1600/header_lots-of-pencils.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5wfEhqOxTwJbGH1pqGoDQu7S4uTN3-Vp3W7TMLMIAmR6jI7IELSiTFI91LCRHTxMhvDkB57lhzlPyRpiL-0o8uY1JZkEVHL3n5l8ARmKNH1BfcxZCjN3k6CMUZs5iSUv-M1-G_k-tCFQ/s1600/header_lots-of-pencils.jpg" /></a><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
What is Website Design RFP?</h3>
A web design RFP is a request for proposal where you send a document to several website design firms for the purpose of them all competing and bidding for the chance to work with you. An RFP can range from being just a few pages to as many as 20 to even 100 pages, which depends on the scope and complexity of the project.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Who needs a Website Design RFP?</h3>
Not everybody needs to put together a website design RFP. Here is who a web design RFP is right for. If your project is in the $10,000 or above range and or you are looking to work with a large agency, then your best bet might be to use an RFP. RFPs are a more formal instrument and because of this they are more suited for corporate or government type websites.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Who doesn’t need a Website Design RFP?</h3>
If on the other hand you have a budget under $10,000, or your company culture is more relaxed and easy-going, you may not actually need an RFP to choose the right design firm to work with. For most small to medium-size businesses, simply filling out the contact form on the website design company’s page and initiating a telephone call is all you need to do to get the ball rolling. During this phone call, the design firm can typically get a sense of your needs and then send you a proposal based on the needs and goals determined in your phone call.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
What experience are you going for?</h3>
When it comes to submitting an RFP, the question you want to ask yourself is what is the experience I want to go for? Designing a new website is ultimately a creative process that involves discovery, intuition and outside the box thinking. Some RFPs can be so daunting and intimidating that they are more likely to be completed by more business oriented design firms rather than truly creative companies who might be put-off by the laborious effort of filling out a 10 page RFP.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmLq7_TwO2KI9eRi0rCu5LhCJ0iHDneJiSHjuJm1ahUQ8HSoUy5bgs54WNdU8gpAFgxVQN3uQkhHO_ZrBFxsTps2jkaKEaXV4rkrY0rL8AquQD1zqhmUTyZIpi1NO6J4Z0B4Qb3PZexw/s1600/sample.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSmLq7_TwO2KI9eRi0rCu5LhCJ0iHDneJiSHjuJm1ahUQ8HSoUy5bgs54WNdU8gpAFgxVQN3uQkhHO_ZrBFxsTps2jkaKEaXV4rkrY0rL8AquQD1zqhmUTyZIpi1NO6J4Z0B4Qb3PZexw/s320/sample.jpg" width="320" /></a>
Bottom Line</h3>
The bottom line is that most people do not need to put together a formal RFP when initially contacting a web design firm. A one-page e-mail detailing your specific needs for the project is often the perfect amount of content to get the ball rolling. Also, one last thought: the best indicator for the quality of work that a firm does is in their portfolio. Beware of a great proposal from the firm that has a mediocre portfolio. At the end of the day, you’re looking to get any website and if the websites delivered previously by this firm aren’t great, the chances are that yours won’t be either<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Major Topics to cover in your RFP</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.” <br />
- Rudyard Kipling</blockquote>
With all of that being said, if you decide to move forward with your RFP below is a list of topics you might want to cover. Again, don’t go overboard, but be specific with exactly what it is you’re looking for in a new site, and exactly who you’re looking for in a firm.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Who</li>
<ul>
<li>Who are you?</li>
<ul>
<li>What does your company do?</li>
<li>Where are you located?</li>
<li>How many people work at your company?</li>
</ul>
<li>Who are you looking for?</li>
<ul>
<li>A large agency?</li>
<li>A local design firm?</li>
<li>A single man shop?</li>
</ul>
<li>In the RFP, you may ask the firm to describe themselves and include the following:</li>
<ul>
<li>Company history</li>
<li>Number of employees</li>
<li>Employee bios</li>
<li>List of references you can contact</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>What</li>
<ul>
<li>What kind of site are you looking for?</li>
<li>What is your budget for the project? (larger design firms typically don’t take you seriously if you don’t have a budget in place)</li>
<li>What type of design?</li>
<ul>
<li>Show examples of other sites with the design you have in mind</li>
</ul>
<li>What functional requirements do you have?</li>
<ul>
<li>CMS – Do you need a Content Management System?</li>
<li>Will the site require a backend database?</li>
<li>Will the site require payment processing?</li>
<li>Are there other features you need? Reference other websites to describe the function you have in mind</li>
</ul>
<li>What features do you want to include?</li>
<ul>
<li>Responsive Design</li>
<li>Search Engine Optimization</li>
<li>Home Slideshow</li>
<li>Contact Form</li>
<li>FAQs</li>
<li>Email Signup</li>
<li>Gallery</li>
<li>Video Integration</li>
<li>Custom Map Integration</li>
<li>Blog</li>
<li>Social Media Integration</li>
<li>Payment Processing</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<li>When</li>
<ul>
<li>When will you need to receive questions from designer by?</li>
<li>When will you need the proposal submitted?</li>
<li>When will the project commence?</li>
<li>When is your anticipated launch date?</li>
</ul>
<li>How</li>
<ul>
<li>How many pages will the site be? (very important for the designer to be able to clearly define the scope of the project)</li>
<li>How many page templates will the site have? (a page template is a group of pages with the same design and layout, but with different content)</li>
<li>How many people from your organization will be involved?</li>
<li>How many rounds of revision will you need for the project?</li>
</ul>
<li>Why</li>
<ul>
<li>Why are you having the site designed or redesigned now?</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Logistics</h3>
If you’re wondering what format you should use for the RFP, a simple Microsoft Word doc will suffice. Some people use Google Docs or a PDF, which are both fine too.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Conclusion</h3>
So there you have it, everything you need to put together a web design RFP. I’ve attached some sample RFPs that you might find helpful, just click just click the link below to view.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-77245637197855650862015-08-28T14:02:00.000+05:302016-03-21T14:03:50.787+05:30Branding in Web Designing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAf6qUnxoMPt_LZ8mbYxlHbfCzQXbr1udmkzIBdT7hF1cGnHUiriUeW5zTkMZ-Fw4ak5ACFcw50qcwEo-CSsgVLwv4DxTybtkhxMV6lF_lmcLpoHJxX8YOB_7-DMNCKR4fgOtIS30gd2E/s1600/esites_network_banner.jpg" />
<br /><br />
A lot of businesses provide very similar products and services. How do you identify one provider from another? The answer is <b>branding</b>. Branding of products and services is what differentiates a business or even its website from those of its competitors. This may sound elementary but often companies neglect to understand the importance of branding and identity. A brand is the representation of products or services, their characteristics including customer experiences and the values associated with them. When people use a product or service, they remember their experiences whether it be good or bad and these experiences are what get associated with that product or service. This association is what is helped by way of branding.<br />
<br />
For this product or service representation as branding to work, it is imperative that websites feature how companies see themselves, what their end customers think about their company, and how companies want future clients to perceive them.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Branding is not Just About Having a Good Looking Logo</h3>
A company logo or a product logo is just the tip of the iceberg in branding and identity. Other facets of a well-designed brand experience and brand website include quality imagery, relevant and up to date content, ease of use, consistent colors, relatable emotion and character, consistency, and a memorable user experience.<br />
<br />
<div style="clear: both; display: block; min-height: 120px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM8YdkpxVo5Ys_FaybBrhPRG87D_E5oNpc6mc1yArhZkfforYcvQ6Bf5vZz5ajbl3Zog9uhT6sq9GXNHjXgfesr0UpBhJs6jfM0ViLAMgx_-vxfhXjqtXoYz5rXRzGONs-9YpP_KjV_24/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM8YdkpxVo5Ys_FaybBrhPRG87D_E5oNpc6mc1yArhZkfforYcvQ6Bf5vZz5ajbl3Zog9uhT6sq9GXNHjXgfesr0UpBhJs6jfM0ViLAMgx_-vxfhXjqtXoYz5rXRzGONs-9YpP_KjV_24/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p1.jpg" /></a><b>Quality Imagery</b> – The majority of website visitors are extremely visually focused and nothing can catch their attention better than a well-placed and relevant image of the product or service offered by a website. Quality, relevant and fresh imagery is what helps people associate emotions with brands.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="clear: both; display: block; min-height: 120px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsomhLiTJ5Gc5DufEW9bDeN4G1IDX29FKflmucmfENMmh0ssKtTRggDdydMFUoeqwFno1jNOLfwtoRsiwbcyt9XOAcSj2oUtSjPN2bOlct5ZTylgd_DPTHldKSsqcg57zmAiMh1KFRoMk/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsomhLiTJ5Gc5DufEW9bDeN4G1IDX29FKflmucmfENMmh0ssKtTRggDdydMFUoeqwFno1jNOLfwtoRsiwbcyt9XOAcSj2oUtSjPN2bOlct5ZTylgd_DPTHldKSsqcg57zmAiMh1KFRoMk/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p2.jpg" /></a><b>Relevant and Up-to-date Content</b> – Website viewers initially look to find out what a website is all about and if it can answer any of their wants or needs. By providing clear, relevant, and updated content, the proverbial phrase: “beating around the bush” can be avoided.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="clear: both; display: block; min-height: 120px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwcVgONi6y9ZsPspFhC5rmsSkG93LrCzbpSuqGSAg6uuBiB94YHtJfZ_PGwBLrJHs3uUtF81RtvT3-ri4M_Xto0MU5-6RapVLJ21cK7yUW7qzdjbiw1mjttOk4iK3h37cEwECBczRrm8/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcwcVgONi6y9ZsPspFhC5rmsSkG93LrCzbpSuqGSAg6uuBiB94YHtJfZ_PGwBLrJHs3uUtF81RtvT3-ri4M_Xto0MU5-6RapVLJ21cK7yUW7qzdjbiw1mjttOk4iK3h37cEwECBczRrm8/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p3.jpg" /></a><b>Ease of Use</b> – It is very irritating to get lost inside a website and not know where to go or what to do next. Clear, familiar, and intuitive navigation makes it easier to promote a product or service or to hopefully close a sale.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="clear: both; display: block; min-height: 120px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmFkrWvW3BoFikJyhcqblariZj8BxIDcqiCsEvr68p02Tu1M8YWoC5wRtsA33GvU5sE6u7RBhBcpR3wDmFKXB1MFDqDo06KoRedr5bCDs80X4lybByN60FlFgODM9NlVVqH3BQaHz7ls/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmFkrWvW3BoFikJyhcqblariZj8BxIDcqiCsEvr68p02Tu1M8YWoC5wRtsA33GvU5sE6u7RBhBcpR3wDmFKXB1MFDqDo06KoRedr5bCDs80X4lybByN60FlFgODM9NlVVqH3BQaHz7ls/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p4.jpg" /></a><b>Consistent Colors</b> – Color is not just aesthetics, it also serves to trigger subconscious associations and emotions. Blue for example symbolizes trust; green for health, nature or environment; and red for energy and enthusiasm among others.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIvqU1Evf86XDe2J3tF0AmIF2_vdb8w6E2mdCn9SJ_wBCTwi5SB0bcy3euzhfwDWLss0GIV_z4lWZVWoxD9kTz6SFsOPzin9gmebEWKIkUdWNpxPRkayO1GYke_vZ_H3w3TBSTlH3iA0/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIvqU1Evf86XDe2J3tF0AmIF2_vdb8w6E2mdCn9SJ_wBCTwi5SB0bcy3euzhfwDWLss0GIV_z4lWZVWoxD9kTz6SFsOPzin9gmebEWKIkUdWNpxPRkayO1GYke_vZ_H3w3TBSTlH3iA0/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p5.jpg" /></a><b>Relatable Emotion and Character</b> – A website’s character and personality have to be in line with what the company stands for. If a company is all about trust and security then site viewers must be able to relate to this when going through the company’s website.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymM6wqZplu98fQ0ZfU0LKiztB6M_Ti-S02-DVCKLvXefXmcRbJIrdDVpvusvEIr8_5MhDj2NJzEZO_ModbGxsWRvsj5gLTVufyF7ksTqow__qW5rrHfrls45z_LF3v3ubfNvKyw0_SpY/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymM6wqZplu98fQ0ZfU0LKiztB6M_Ti-S02-DVCKLvXefXmcRbJIrdDVpvusvEIr8_5MhDj2NJzEZO_ModbGxsWRvsj5gLTVufyF7ksTqow__qW5rrHfrls45z_LF3v3ubfNvKyw0_SpY/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p6.jpg" /></a><b>Consistency – </b> Setting a consistent look and feel throughout a website and its pages in terms of typography, colors, visuals, and layout not only helps to make a brand memorable but also makes web pages load faster<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-rI8GS5KvMumg7qRbqLK5NNPhUOuiknDvgfUsn-sRsCBQonXo5h3OQyYqFvaRhanD_BWAWitjS3n-EgaogAfHV0y4TMsZ4ECxOuniNMgeS74eIMgGhlbOst8TLjJg94sxGzFDNlZqmXE/s1600/san-francisco-web-design-p7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-rI8GS5KvMumg7qRbqLK5NNPhUOuiknDvgfUsn-sRsCBQonXo5h3OQyYqFvaRhanD_BWAWitjS3n-EgaogAfHV0y4TMsZ4ECxOuniNMgeS74eIMgGhlbOst8TLjJg94sxGzFDNlZqmXE/s400/san-francisco-web-design-p7.jpg" /></a><b>Memorable User Experience</b> – Website viewers now use a bevy of platforms and devices to browse websites. Mobile compatible websites leave a positive impression on site visitors.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Conclusion </h3>
Branding in web design is so much more than a company’s logo and tag line on a website. Branding is a well thought out strategy to help people associate a product or service with a value – to increase brand equity through a well-designed website. Brand equity adds value to a company’s product or service and thereby allows them to charge more compared to competitors; gain higher market shares; get higher positions on browser search results; or become a leader in their specific niches.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-87089786173517443262015-06-05T19:27:00.000+05:302015-06-05T19:27:28.271+05:30Basics of Branding Today<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wC9Vh6tIfqZy2FJOnQk9WPn3iHac70YbD7rfcb5xuzO9Q7Hh1kmNHmFRnFywoeOhMQ5dkrP2IY6pIIngr2IQxeL3Rh_l-joIe1PLelkIImTk3tNUAN-paqSqls4kHTIqHAOc_hGkKuI/s1600/woman-eyes2-595x240.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wC9Vh6tIfqZy2FJOnQk9WPn3iHac70YbD7rfcb5xuzO9Q7Hh1kmNHmFRnFywoeOhMQ5dkrP2IY6pIIngr2IQxeL3Rh_l-joIe1PLelkIImTk3tNUAN-paqSqls4kHTIqHAOc_hGkKuI/s1600/woman-eyes2-595x240.jpg" /></a></div>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
A Brand is MORE than a Name or a Logo </h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
A Brand is EVERYTHING, and everything is a Brand.</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
A Brand is your STRATEGY for EXPERIENCE.</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<b>So what to do? </b></h4>
<div>
<div>
Brand is no longer what the ad agency says about your product or service but what customers say, share and experience about your company. That means how your retail staff interact with customers or how your marketing team creates conversations at your events is more important than what's said in an advertising campaign. This is the reality of the sharing economy today. Experience is only real when shared and if customers aren't sharing your brand, you might as well be invisible. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here is a branding manifesto for today's sharing economy:</div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Engage your Audience through Visuals</b><br />65% of online audience are visual learners.</li>
<li><b>Keep your Tone Friendly</b><br />73% of customers stick with a brand because of friendly customer service.</li>
<li><b>Colours Bring Life</b><br />Colours increase Brand Recognition by upto 80%.</li>
<li><b>Flaunt the Typeface</b><br />For the past 50 years, Helvetica has dominated design.</li>
<li><b>Whitespace Sells</b><br />Whitespace increases the perception of information by 20%.</li>
<li><b>Establish your Brand's Voice</b><br />45% of a brands image can be attributed to <i>Who Says It</i> and <i>How It Says It</i>.</li>
<li><b>Invite Trust</b><br />54% of people don't trust brands.</li>
<li><b>Be the Market Leader</b><br />Top brands outperform the stock market by 120%.</li>
<li><b>Focus on Content Strategy</b><br />49% of brands do not have a documented content strategy.</li>
<li><b>Personalisation is the Key</b><br />74% of online consumers expect a brand's web content to be personalised.</li>
</ol>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<b>Okay but what do customers what out of a brand? </b></h4>
<div>
<div>
Eighty percent of companies think their brands have superior experiences. Unfortunately, only eight percent of their customers agree. It’s time for brands to tackle the experience gap – the gap between how consumers want to experience brands, and what brands are actually doing. It’s not just a marketing imperative; it’s a business imperative. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here are the best brand experience principles:</div>
</div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Invite participation.</b><br />Great brand experiences are design-driven: simple, accessible, easy and inviting to the participant.</li>
<li><b>Build around users.</b><br />Brand experience learned it from the web: people want their experiences to be relevant and feel customized to their needs. Even delivered at scale, experiences should “fit” the user.</li>
<li><b>Make it shareable.</b><br />Experience sparks recommendation; experiences should be designed to tap into technology as well as our primal human desire to share.</li>
<li><b>Create community.</b><br />Beyond fueling recommendations and referrals, experiences should be designed to connect people around brands—to leverage the few to inspire the many.</li>
<li><b>Make it useful.</b><br />It should go without saying: any experience should add value to people’s lives.</li>
</ol>
<div>
And here are the top trends that people term as "great brand experiences":</div>
</div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Honesty and transparency are valued </b><br /><i>“The sales staff were knowledgeable and helpful [in] understanding my needs and aspirations. They were also prepared to provide better prices and throw in extras. A great and pleasant experience.”<br /><i></i></i></li>
<li style="display: inline !important;"><i><i>“[The] benefits of the product are exaggerated </i></i></li>
<i><i>
<li style="display: inline !important;">during purchase, but claim settlement is complicated </li>
</i><i>
<li style="display: inline !important;">and slow… We [had a] very bad experience and </li>
</i></i><i>
<li style="display: inline !important;">will hardly choose this company again.”</li>
</i>
<li><b>Individual treatment and respect are expected</b><br /><i>“One dealer in particular inquired more about my personal needs to help look for what I really needed. He showed me the features and benefits of each car. Asked if overall price or monthly payment was more important. Took me for a test drive and also told me I could return it no questions asked in 30 days”<br />“When they put your name and number into a computer system and you have a different person calling you back every day for weeks, it’s rude and completely impersonal” </i></li>
<li><b>“Above and beyond” experiences are remembered (so are their opposites)</b><br /><i>“She sent me a thank you card mentioning something I had said while I was there. She actually listened.”<br />“I was in the showroom looking at the vehicles and no one would approach me. So as I walked past a desk I took down the phone number. Then I called the number to get [the salesperson’s] attention... You should have seen his face when I waved to him.”</i></li>
</ol>
<div>
Finally, here are steps to better the brand experience:</div>
</div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Map the overall brand experience.</b><br />Assess all the touchpoints that add up to brand experience to understand gaps, white spaces and areas for improvement. From a customer journey perspective, this is an invaluable step toward “plugging the holes” at which people defect or get distracted.</li>
<li><b>Improve existing experiences.</b><br />Do the work of elevating existing experiences, with particular attention on drivers with the highest levels of impact, like customer-facing staff, partners and other people that represent the brand.</li>
<li><b>Invent and innovate.</b><br />With so few truly differentiated experiences, brands have a huge opportunity to stand out and be special. Look at the tremendously low current performance scores for the extra, discretionary experiences brands create—and take advantage of that white space.</li>
</ol>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Branding is Dead. Long Live Brand Experience.</h4>
</div>
<div>
Wait... What???</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Welcome to the sharing economy...</div>
<div>
<div>
…a world where everything gets shared</div>
<div>
…everywhere</div>
<div>
all the time… </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Today, every conversation </div>
<div>
…every moment</div>
<div>
…every story</div>
<div>
…creates an experience</div>
<div>
…which becomes your brand</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So what works Today? Branding? Brand Experience?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Branding is…</div>
<div>
…Tell ‘em you’re cool</div>
<div>
…Tell ‘em in a BIG way</div>
<div>
…Keep telling ‘em</div>
<div>
…but Branding doesn’t work like it did 30 years ago</div>
<div>
Branding is dead…</div>
<div>
Long live… Brand Experience</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Brand Experience is…</div>
<div>
…customer storytelling</div>
<div>
…stuff worth talking about</div>
<div>
…creating value</div>
<div>
…creating events</div>
<div>
…creating memories</div>
<div>
…joining the dots</div>
<div>
…reconnecting communities</div>
<div>
…asking “what’s broken”?</div>
<div>
…fixing pain points</div>
<div>
…taking risks</div>
<div>
…creating touchpoints online</div>
<div>
…and touchpoints offline</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.</div>
<div>
which means… </div>
<div>
your brand is what people say about you and…</div>
<div>
you can’t always be in the room…</div>
<div>
they will soon forget what your brand said but they’ll always remember how you made them FEEL</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>FROM BRANDING TO BRAND EXPERIENCE</i></div>
<div>
Traditional marketing was a Branding based approach: positioning, awareness, campaigns. </div>
<div>
In the 21st century, marketers need to focus on Brand Experience </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>FROM OUTSIDE TO INSIDE </i></div>
<div>
Branding use to start outside the company: agencies celebrities, campaigns. </div>
<div>
Today however, Brand Experience starts inside with the intersection of your people, culture and metrics.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Welcome to TODAY!</b></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-55270121987996134972015-05-09T12:42:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:44:29.752+05:30How To Craft Excellent Content<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxANd1mPmt6kCU-OeAh8vNUX8UstvL91lITGett_e2WJEu1tYTgC4LK-EDzYaImRQf31PC8h1tBDMVk7mGVHLha1H7zGbTtEctR_YGyBRfNrxuUnTViwTSxgaNzLIO5gZC2bpSbupXEBM/s1600/crafting_content-1024x740.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxANd1mPmt6kCU-OeAh8vNUX8UstvL91lITGett_e2WJEu1tYTgC4LK-EDzYaImRQf31PC8h1tBDMVk7mGVHLha1H7zGbTtEctR_YGyBRfNrxuUnTViwTSxgaNzLIO5gZC2bpSbupXEBM/s1600/crafting_content-1024x740.jpeg" /></a></div>
<b>Content is king. </b><br />
It’s the king of SEO, and it’s the king of every great website, blog, infographic, Twitter account, and Facebook page out there. Excellent content drives traffic to your site. It’s as simple as that. No image, blog post, video, or anything else that has ever gone viral has contained content that is anything less than excellent – be it excellently funny, excellently informative, excellently shocking, excellently entertaining, or excellently silly, they have all had one thing in common: <i>excellence</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>So, what makes excellent content? </b><br />
Well, it depends on the medium, but in this post I am going to be focussing on written content and blog posts in particular. I like to think that I know a thing or two about how to craft together some excellent content for my worldwide audience. I didn’t learn the best practices of the craft overnight, but through years and years of hard work and writing literally hundreds and hundreds of blogs on all manner of subjects.<br />
<br />
And so now you can take advantage of my experience as I detail for you some of the very best tips for crafting excellent content that I have picked up along the way, which will hopefully help to make your journey towards excellence a lot shorter than mine was – if only someone had been so kind when I started out.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
1. Make It Positive</h3>
Positive content is infinitely more shareable than negative content. This may actually seem counter-intuitive – if you read the news, then you may think that negativity was a necessity. But marketing content doesn't work like that. People like to read and to share positive posts from businesses’ websites. Indeed, finding the perfect tone for your content is essential for it to be enjoyed by your following, and for them to feel that other people in their networks might enjoy it too.<br />
<br />
<b>So, what is the right tone for your blog? </b><br />
Well, it’s all about finding the right balance between formality and informality. You, of course, want your content to be useful and informative for your readers, but ideally it should also be entertaining to a certain degree as well. In a sense, the perfect tone for your blog will probably reflect the tone and the style of your favourite teachers at school. Do you remember them? They somehow made what might otherwise have been some very dry information come alive, didn’t they. You may well even remember some of the things that they taught you even now. They did this by inserting a sense of fun and enjoyment into their content, and that’s exactly what you should be doing, too, no matter how serious or informative your post may be. Which brings me onto my next point.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
2. Make It Practical</h3>
Aside from being positive, excellent content is almost invariably practical for the user to some degree. This of course makes sense when you think about it, and perhaps goes some way to distinguishing why the news we read seem to make its success out of being negative, whilst blogging is all about positivity. The news are simply there to spread the word of current events and affairs, whereas a blog post should have real, useable value for the reader.<br />
<br />
Quite often you will find that posts will take the form of this one, where some practical and actionable tips are being offered for those that discover them. Indeed, this clean and clear simple style can be a great place for you to start out when getting to grips with crafting some excellent content for your blog. Think about your audience in relation to your product or service – what sort of thing do you think that they all have in common? Can you come up with a list of some great tips that might be useful to them all?<br />
<br />
What’s so great about this is that your readers will have something of genuine worth that they can take away with them after they’ve finished reading your post. They can apply it in their work or lives, will see some great results in return, and will remember you and your blog for it.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
3. Evoke Emotions</h3>
If you can hit on an emotion in the reader then you’re onto a serious winner, and the chances of your content going viral significantly increase. High arousal emotions are the best ones to target, and in fact sometimes the odd negative emotion can actually be of benefit here if used well. So, what are the high arousal emotions and how do you tailor your content to target them?<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Awe: </b>If you can inspire awe in your readership, then they won’t be able to resist hitting that share button or leaving a comment or reply. Awe can be inspired by of a story, a real event, or even from an impressive list of tips or links.</li>
<li><b>Surprise/Shock: </b>Try and find something to write about that goes against people’s expectations in a manner that surprises or even shocks them, and they’ll just have to read on. Find new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking about things, challenge assumptions in your writing and prove those notions wrong – indeed this last point leads me onto to a negative emotion that inspires engagement…</li>
<li><b>Anger: </b>If you manage to mount a serious challenge against some common assumptions, then you’re almost certain to tick a few people off, and what you’ll find is that they’ll start tweeting about you, sharing your post on Facebook, leaving lots of comments and perhaps even a few blog posts will be written in reply. This of course is great for generating traffic to your website, but you must of course be careful with it. Don’t just be contrary for the sake of it. Remember, you must still be writing positively even if you are inspiring a negative emotion, and you of course must still be practical. So, inspiring anger works, and there’s nothing wrong with igniting a healthy debate about something, but don’t make yourself unpopular, and always check your facts before challenging established conventions.</li>
</ul>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3A4EToPRy2wylEXEZ4fnDYXmlxTlsMMMpPFZkbMZYYAK9LH9jA1RCQmhgHeYZ1fwxQnLH-N4sONlJwUPhLKEONQcu9FzsX54HSTn27fZXztlTXFAKadirc75D8tKcjgio9pBlZrHOUz0/s1600/o-WOMAN-ON-COUCH-facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3A4EToPRy2wylEXEZ4fnDYXmlxTlsMMMpPFZkbMZYYAK9LH9jA1RCQmhgHeYZ1fwxQnLH-N4sONlJwUPhLKEONQcu9FzsX54HSTn27fZXztlTXFAKadirc75D8tKcjgio9pBlZrHOUz0/s1600/o-WOMAN-ON-COUCH-facebook.jpg" /></a></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Some Final Thoughts and Tips</h3>
Creating excellent content is a matter of practice and experience, but hopefully the tips I have provided for you above should save you some time when trying to find the right path that will work for you. Experiment a little, find what sort of posts arouse the most engagement from your following, take note, and recreate those sorts of posts again.<br />
<br />
When it comes to formatting your posts, it also pays to follow a few conventions of style. Firstly, give your post a very ‘clickable’ title, something short that shows the reader instantly that what you’ve written has value for them. And then, once you’ve done that, do the same with your subheadings. You want to format your posts so that the content is easily scannable for readers, so lots of subheadings, lots of paragraph breaks, and a few bullet points are always good as well.<br />
<br />
Finally, when you sign off on your post, make sure that the last thing that you do is ask for your readers to take some sort of action.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-20297305462414681292015-04-22T14:29:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:45:27.476+05:30Getting Great Testimonials<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Ever seen a sales page for a major marketing training course? Did you notice the dozens of testimonials? There’s a reason the guru used up all that valuable space on their sales page: Testimonials are a marketer’s secret weapon. There’s a mountain of marketing studies to back this up, but I’ll stick to just three of the choicest examples.<br />
<br />
<b>Example #1 from the B2B market</b><br />
The <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-trends-2013" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">B2B Content Marketing Report’s 2013 Survey</a>, found customer testimonials to have the highest effectiveness of ANY other content marketing tactic. And that’s not according to just a few members – 89% of those polled said testimonials were effective. Even podcasts, considered to be THE sleeper content marketing tactic, got a mere 23% of marketers saying they were effective.<br />
<br />
<b>Example #2 from the B2C market</b><br />
<a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2012/consumer-trust-in-online-social-and-mobile-advertising-grows.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nielsen’s Global AdView Pulse report</a> found the rate of trust among consumers also puts testimonials at the top of trusted information, second only to “Recommendations from people I know”.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIkWJ7sYGOWlEaOso0DtEMIiMW4MpUByvKiW3ZMylLG6Q6U40R_VjvLzlTyX6hvpwPqKvSpvb2rQDnEZXw1u39yPXlxRf9GG1dI-yPGobY2XY4d6lgpOTDAp8f5NYgQE6XJmRhAAoMSs/s1600/trust-in-advertising.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIkWJ7sYGOWlEaOso0DtEMIiMW4MpUByvKiW3ZMylLG6Q6U40R_VjvLzlTyX6hvpwPqKvSpvb2rQDnEZXw1u39yPXlxRf9GG1dI-yPGobY2XY4d6lgpOTDAp8f5NYgQE6XJmRhAAoMSs/s1600/trust-in-advertising.png" /></a></div>
<b>Example #3 Testimonials are a very close second to a personal recommendation</b><br />
<a href="http://searchengineland.com/study-72-of-consumers-trust-online-reviews-as-much-as-personal-recommendations-114152" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Search Engine Land</a> found 72% of the consumers they surveyed said they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 52% said positive online reviews make them more likely to use a local business.<br />
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With stats like that, I know you’re eager to find out how to get some testimonials for yourself. But before we delve into how to get testimonials, here are few tips for what separates great testimonials from so-so ones.<br />
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10 essential elements of a great testimonial</h3>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>It’s from a real person.</b> 99.9% of you don’t need to be told this, but just in case one of you was tempted to write a fake testimonial, because you heard on some forum it was okay, let me remind you: It’s not okay.</li>
<li><b>It’s not perfect.</b> The person giving the testimonial doesn’t have to sound like an advertisement or look like a model. They don’t have to say things that perfectly align with your marketing strategy. Your production values don’t have to be Hollywood material. Keep it real to keep it believable.</li>
<li><b>It’s specific.</b> A 200% improvement sounds like it could be marketing hype. A 187% improvement has clearly been measured.</li>
<li><b>It’s authentic.</b> Don’t force people to give testimonials. Don’t make them read a script, or do anything they wouldn’t naturally do.</li>
<li><b>It’s comparative. </b>While you shouldn’t force people to say things, you can give them some helpful guidelines. Asking them to describe what their experience of something was like before and after using your product is a good way to frame a testimonial. For example, “Before I used Sparkle Car Wash, I had to wash my car once a week during bug season. Now, I only have to wash my car about every six weeks.”</li>
<li><b>It hasn’t been edited. </b>This leans on the point about not sounding like an advertisement, and not forcing people to say things they wouldn’t naturally say.</li>
<li><b>It’s been given with permission. </b>What’s the single best way to take a customer who used to love your brand and turn them into someone who will never trust it again? It would be to use their words without their permission.</li>
<li><b>It describes benefits, not features. </b>It’s nice for someone to say “I loved the 500 horsepower engine.” It’s better when they say, “Now I can pass whomever I want on big hills.” To honor the rule of not putting words in people’s mouths, you might have to give them another “framing question” for their testimonial, like “what’s your favorite thing about the Mustang GT Fastback?”</li>
<li><b>Get video testimonials when you can. </b>A study of how to use testimonials to boost conversion rates had four segments – page A with no testimonials, page B with a text (written) testimonial, then page C with no testimonial and page D with a video testimonial. Adding a testimonial lifted response in both cases, but the videos blew the text away… by nearly ten-fold.</li>
<li><b>Place the testimonial near a part of the checkout process where people tend to bail.</b> Even the best testimonials won’t help you much if they’re hidden away for no one to see. So don’t do that – put your testimonials out on all the places where people need them most. For ecommerce sites, this is the order form, or possibly the product pages. For B2B sites, it might be on the contact page or on a form for a project brief. For both types of companies, it couldn’t hurt to sprinkle a few testimonials on your home page, or in the navigation column of your blog.</li>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
How to get great testimonials</h3>
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Now that you know what you’re aiming for, here’s how to get it:</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Get the timing right. </b>This applies to any testimonial, but with video testimonials, when you ask is especially important.<br /><br />I saw one marketing expert get video testimonials from people immediately after they had seen a presentation by her. Many of the people coming out of the talk were energized, excited and just basically blow away by what they had learned. More than half the people that were asked to give a testimonial did. They just stepped away from the flood of traffic, got under a decent light and a stable background, and were recorded for 5-20 seconds while they described their impression of the marketer.<br /><br /><i>The timing was key</i> – the marketer would not have gotten anywhere near the enthusiasm or willingness to give those testimonials if she had asked the next day, or even a few hours later.<br /><br /><b>Key takeaway: </b>When asking for video testimonials, ask at the right moment. If you can get the moment right, less-than-perfect production value won’t matter.<br /> </li>
<li><b>Use the Reviews tab in Facebook</b><br />You’ll need a Facebook page set up as a local business to apply this tip, but if you are set up that way, this a great way to add a reviews feature to your Facebook presence in a snap. Facebook’s instructions for how to do this are easy to follow.<br /><br /><img border="0" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_U6FkKPC5xoD04_BoComdJfR0umGsuwbRLq3R0U_Z4F6CmipotBFZYFhhWZPJNvCrPJqdUVzzaraLVPEaJgqctaVz-v1sLEftaxQphh-qAunv8lbuGUU8abD_ODSzKtz_lFUbOsAJsU/s400/Facebookreviewsexample-1024x991.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" width="400" />
<br /> </li>
<li><b>Have a plan in place for when you get the glowing email from a client or customer</b><br />Just as the best time to ask for a video testimonial is when your client or customer is thrilled, the best time to ask permission to use someone’s words is when they’ve just sent them. The next time you get a glowing email from someone, have a reply ready that asks if you can use their words on your website (or elsewhere).<br /><br />Something like this might work:
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Claire,<br />
Thanks so much for those kind words! Would you be open to letting us quote you on our website? I could identify you as the AOK Marketing Manager, or just identify you as Claire S. from Somerset New Jersey.”</blockquote>
<br />Giving people a choice in how they are identified often makes them more likely to say yes. If they seem even a little uncomfortable, and they have a website, offer to link to their website. Often the incentive of a link is enough “pay” to get people on board.<br /><br />If that first script doesn’t work, try this: “I would really like to share your success with my other clients. Would that be okay?”<br />
</li>
<li><b>Make the most of LinkedIn </b>LinkedIn offers an endorsements feature for people you’re connected to. If you’ve gotten any endorsements on your profile or your company page, you could potentially use those endorsements on your website or other materials. Again, it’s always nice to ask permission first, so get an email out to people who’ve endorsed you… before they see themselves quoted on your business card.<br /> </li>
<li><b>Make it easy </b>Contact forms are ready-made tools to collect testimonials with. You can add a separate page for people to submit testimonials to, of course, but so long as your contact form has a field that’s long enough for 3-4 sentences of type, it can serve double duty. Perhaps a call to action added to your navigation column might increase testimonials, too. It never hurts to ask.<br /> </li>
<li><b>Hold a Facebook contest </b>These can be for video testimonials, essays, or just quotes. The benefits of contests are that you can easily frame how you want your testimonials to be delivered.<br /><br />The drawback is that you are, in a sense, paying people to leave a testimonial. There is a little bit of inauthenticity to contest testimonials. However, I’m including the technique here because it is widely used for getting testimonials, and it certainly does work.<br /><br />What do you think? Is holding a contest a bad way to get testimonials? Are there other way to get testimonials that I missed?</li>
</ol>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-59702395361348021392014-12-03T17:17:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:45:57.684+05:30Visual Content Can Improve Sales<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjadyL-WnmDoSLzA70GOgDk6er3QjkkOdzJlNfHnx2l1aCCZtcgpR5bzPGNn7beWDwITu5t-r4FU5JGK428E0C-IKTmPGYbff8d3jN6iJoxgiryAU7oUwAJ4qckcU4hTP6gBgZt_gKBFd0/s1600/iStock_000059535562_Medium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjadyL-WnmDoSLzA70GOgDk6er3QjkkOdzJlNfHnx2l1aCCZtcgpR5bzPGNn7beWDwITu5t-r4FU5JGK428E0C-IKTmPGYbff8d3jN6iJoxgiryAU7oUwAJ4qckcU4hTP6gBgZt_gKBFd0/s1600/iStock_000059535562_Medium.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>Appearances can be deceiving, but numbers don’t lie! </b></div>
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Carefully selected visual content can add real value to your brand’s sales and marketing process. Research validates that out, and not your traditional type either. Experts who study brain scans correlated with tracking eye movements indicate these patterns can speak volumes about consumer preferences.<br />
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Part physiology and part art, the reasons for this reality are varied. What it means is that no matter where you market your products or services, from tiny gadgets to in-person events to subscription packages, visuals should be at the core of how you plan your communications strategy.<br />
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Consider this as your opportunity to take an honest look your brand’s image and touch it up for a public appearance. After all, when was the last time you headed to a business meeting or into the office without taking a look at the person staring back at you?<br />
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We’ll explore a few principles driven by statistics that help us understand why visuals are such a big deal for sales and content marketing.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Photos and videos appeal to our brains</h3>
Let’s get technical for a moment and acknowledge the fact that we’re built to process visual cues far better than text-based ones. Quoting from a Nieman Reports interview with Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Processing print isn’t something the human brain was built for. The printed word is a human artifact. It’s very convenient and it’s worked very well for us for 5,000 years, but it’s an invention of human beings. By contrast Mother Nature has built into our brain our ability to see the visual world and interpret it. Even the spoken language is much more a given biologically than reading written language.”</blockquote>
That reality means photos, videos and related tech gadgets play well with human audiences overall—not just humans in a specific demographic.<br />
<br />
Another good example is this somewhat dated yet valuable Unbounce.com roundup of research pointing to the power of the human face in images to generate empathy and improve conversion rates among viewers. The roundup identifies one successful example of such a pairing in Wistia, a video hosting and marketing firm— mouse over any of these photos to watch a series of still frames strung together to spotlight zany dancing and even a disappearing head.<br />
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<b>Fun visuals can indeed generate powerful engagement.</b><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Social media helps prepare buyers to purchase</h3>
No duh, you say? Social media may seem an obvious delivery platform for visual-driven sales, and for good reason: Data bear out those assumptions.<br />
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For example:<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>93 percent of Pinterest users use the platform to plan purchases <i>[Shopify]</i></li>
<li> Ad recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration experience lift within the first second of a Facebook video ad playing <i>[Facebook]</i></li>
<li> Consumers view native ads such as those on social media 52 percent more than banner ads <i>[Right Mix Technologies]</i></li>
</ul>
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Sites such as Social Media Impact explain how you can capitalize on Pinterest visuals and visuals on other platforms to drive sales. Even developers can tap Pinterest for a buck as Bloomberg reports via InternetRetailer.com.<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Visuals boost pre-sales credibility</h3>
Content marketers can support their sales by emphasizing credibility through visuals. Consider Stanford Web Credibility Research, which has compiled a list of the 10 most critical factors affecting perceived credibility of websites.<br />
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No. 6 on the list should catch your eye. That’s the line item noting the value of a professional-looking presentation.<br />
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“We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone,” the researchers note. “When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. The visual design should match the site’s purpose.”<br />
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Be sure to check out MediaPost report on home-buying and consumer spending points out. If your brand happens to produce sports apparel, what athletics trends might impact your next marketing campaign? How might you generate revenue based on activity in similar-but-different industries?<br />
<br />
In similar fashion, a small shift on the visual marketing front can unleash a tidal wave of engagement and, ideally, consumer spending. A major component of the infographic and other visual media is to grab viewers’ attention so you have more time to build your case, GetResponse.com points out on its blog.<br />
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Journey into the frenetic online world, the 500 million-tweets-per-day fray and snag eyeballs with photos and video.<br />
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And don’t forget to love a little. It might just boost your sales close to 13,600 percent.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-48717010782662701482014-11-04T15:52:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:46:39.651+05:30New Rules Of Visual Content Marketing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHHxOqZv-8AvNQEbhyOdU0u_qFjRszhwOggL9_USYt7L1y-twmd1pJjc7X03vb4GXzNl965ThGsVKXQc0-SDY15J8FMmYKit_iR7gz8BCt7_OS6OxydKKq6bJWjp4E9mfWGRZSX5N_yU/s1600/Eye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHHxOqZv-8AvNQEbhyOdU0u_qFjRszhwOggL9_USYt7L1y-twmd1pJjc7X03vb4GXzNl965ThGsVKXQc0-SDY15J8FMmYKit_iR7gz8BCt7_OS6OxydKKq6bJWjp4E9mfWGRZSX5N_yU/s1600/Eye.jpg" /></a></div>
When it comes to visual content, your customers expect something very different compared to just a few years ago. It is now supercharged by mobiles and visual social media networks.<br />
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It used to be OK to have a static website gallery, post text to your social channels, and use corporate photos and videos online. Now, readers depend on visuals to figure out whether your content is worth their time.<br />
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Expectations of consumers have changed too. They no longer have time to click through to an image or link to see what your content is about. They make split-second decisions based on the visual content provided.<br />
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So whether your content is being consumed within social channels or on your website, visual content remains a powerful tool – but only if done correctly.<br />
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<b>In short, the rules of visual content have changed.</b><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Why should you use visual content?</h3>
Just take a quick look at these 3 snack size facts about the visually wired human.<br />
In a visual content format :)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-UfRjN6yeHaofuqdPobGvn2PzSsJiWbM-HPcNINGzpLstMuuSui6Af-EQpYSyIYdqUI6Y8AVcIwUQfdWAG7u6s-CzNpO5ON8SqmIn0YS6tyyHaRyhbomJFdvxS4gSpUez3YTJ5dCx4fg/s1600/Visual-content-marketing-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-UfRjN6yeHaofuqdPobGvn2PzSsJiWbM-HPcNINGzpLstMuuSui6Af-EQpYSyIYdqUI6Y8AVcIwUQfdWAG7u6s-CzNpO5ON8SqmIn0YS6tyyHaRyhbomJFdvxS4gSpUez3YTJ5dCx4fg/s1600/Visual-content-marketing-11.jpg" /></a></div>
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Below are new rules of visual content marketing. Break them and you risk losing your customers.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
1. The law of the recent</h4>
When we go online, most of the content we consume is from today, or at best yesterday.<br />
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Content from last week is practically unreachable unless you’re looking for something specific. And content from last year has become history so ancient, it might as well be obsolete.<br />
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Skeptical? Test it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirilZXZJflxXzpb5qzhGY7kPEeJEjQ8FVxwh-W946_7DTyK3t1l1Yqhirl1LiZ7xS1lVyQNubLegDouCKZ8vNlN3fzcHOVpegN2U0nabcdV-VQu3I3_pPaiqF0H1fsDCoNjUsGK6cr9Rg/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirilZXZJflxXzpb5qzhGY7kPEeJEjQ8FVxwh-W946_7DTyK3t1l1Yqhirl1LiZ7xS1lVyQNubLegDouCKZ8vNlN3fzcHOVpegN2U0nabcdV-VQu3I3_pPaiqF0H1fsDCoNjUsGK6cr9Rg/s320/Visual-Content-Marketing-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Go to your favourite social network. Open it up and take a look at your home feed. Can you find a post from last week in the first 25 updates?<br />
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Notice something else? The only way you can tell how recent a post is, is by the time stamp on them. Posts from today will either have the time they were published visible or tell you how long ago the post was made. E.g. an hour ago, five hours ago, yesterday.<br />
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In order for your content to be relevant, it has to be recent. The best way to do that is by time stamping your content or featuring topical events.<br />
Honda has created a social hub on their website where they curate and display recent customer content.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
2. The law of authenticity</h4>
People are more likely to trust a referral from a friend or relative than a company.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik3KFlA0H4cDyvIzuBf-n5j_DmJC-neC4z-23IUmRgHdG0ZG3PWcbUI3gOAOCplYpTBg0PHLYS4kSiSMoyEXi2N6dQvv6QHSog6rtYLmFzEhfc1-TE2vESjMTXS2RIDXCAwjAgL5wU6PA/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik3KFlA0H4cDyvIzuBf-n5j_DmJC-neC4z-23IUmRgHdG0ZG3PWcbUI3gOAOCplYpTBg0PHLYS4kSiSMoyEXi2N6dQvv6QHSog6rtYLmFzEhfc1-TE2vESjMTXS2RIDXCAwjAgL5wU6PA/s320/Visual-Content-Marketing-2.jpg" width="320" /></a>In fact, research has shown Millennials are even more likely to trust a complete stranger than a company. It’s why user-generated content is considered far more compelling than any content a brand produces.<br />
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Photos and videos from your customers tell the real story of your brand and are far more effective.<br />
NZone is an extreme sport (skydiving) company. Customers who share personal pictures of their experience increase authenticity and can instil trust for anyone considering making a purchase.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
3. The law of credibility</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42qbpPjbolrWFpkBViVtk0TrCzqhe7U-iw6R_6ZhQS95K9wMcGoLNe0EWPxmrZB9oCe4yRFzGnaMPIt3YGsr8zvREDCjJqClejSrzHjweqDXHLddswtYDN_XISCHAlW_ayFgOY6jIB8k/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42qbpPjbolrWFpkBViVtk0TrCzqhe7U-iw6R_6ZhQS95K9wMcGoLNe0EWPxmrZB9oCe4yRFzGnaMPIt3YGsr8zvREDCjJqClejSrzHjweqDXHLddswtYDN_XISCHAlW_ayFgOY6jIB8k/s320/Visual-Content-Marketing-3.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
The law of credibility states that your customers must be willing to stand by your brand by publicly aligning themselves with it.<br />
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In layman terms, if your customers are posting images and sharing their experiences, they should be linking back to you or tagging you in their social media updates.<br />
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Think about it. What would you trust more? An image or video shared by a company showing how happy and satisfied their clients are? Or the same thing shared by one of their customers?<br />
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Dole is an international brand which markets and distributes fruit including pineapples, bananas and paw paws. They often get their customers to share content from events or at home consuming the product.<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
4. The law of relevance</h4>
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Visual content needs to be presented in context. It has to be relevant, informative and well organized.<br />
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So if you’re selling a product online, you need to provide corresponding visual content for it. Make sure you place relevant content in the right place.<br />
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For example if you are selling particular line of clothing not only do you need to place photos of that on the right web pages, you also need to place the correct user-generated photos on the right webpage, which in this case may involve your customers with those clothes in a real life situation.<br />
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Superette is an on-line retailer. They take care of this law by linking customer photos to their products.<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
5. The law of the caption</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJG0NcqtuZCyEw6BWgecYh-rUzToOCFDRQcuvqAPq4CYCrJKPDVn3yp2KNVLuTroxhijUlHgkGIx5sTbwiam1X00QpOfdDj4AnKWIQuPmRZTNX6WdFGnIGJl7TruxTReM12dS5MxaBAxs/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJG0NcqtuZCyEw6BWgecYh-rUzToOCFDRQcuvqAPq4CYCrJKPDVn3yp2KNVLuTroxhijUlHgkGIx5sTbwiam1X00QpOfdDj4AnKWIQuPmRZTNX6WdFGnIGJl7TruxTReM12dS5MxaBAxs/s320/Visual-Content-Marketing-5.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>
A picture may be worth a thousand words but a caption or headline can often bring it further to life.<br />
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There’s no denying that we process visual content faster than text-based content. But a simple caption is often required to tell a visual story more effectively.<br />
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A caption also helps you communicate your brand’s identity. For example if your brand focuses on making things easy and fun for your customers, then the caption can be humorous.<br />
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The Press, a daily newspaper, ran a photo competition and asked their readers to submit their best backyard cricket photos for a World Cup promotion. One user submitted the image below with a caption that made a photo infinitely more interesting.<br />
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6. The law of social</h4>
Your customers expect to be able to interact with your visual content – whether it’s on your social channels or on your website.<br />
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Make it easy for them by providing them opportunities to comment on your content, share them easily on their preferred social networks, and even email the content to their friends if they want to.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT_BpqLs1EAo5ogO590ERRkLDI-vtzH5s07nwZiyiBMXxMeMN_T3z9mrzxA2LnZP4w0kytmjgDUgqU2LZrAOZgmRKqBGnrxaXfO4MCbKNnqcJwljVvxcP4rpcpCt7ttjDesXcmK162I04/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT_BpqLs1EAo5ogO590ERRkLDI-vtzH5s07nwZiyiBMXxMeMN_T3z9mrzxA2LnZP4w0kytmjgDUgqU2LZrAOZgmRKqBGnrxaXfO4MCbKNnqcJwljVvxcP4rpcpCt7ttjDesXcmK162I04/s400/Visual-Content-Marketing-6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
The law of social doesn’t end here though. Your customers also expect you to acknowledge their efforts. If they’ve left a comment, reply to it. If they’ve shared on social media, thank them for it. Find a way to make it worth their while and they’ll continue giving your visual content the same attention.<br />
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Interislander – a ferry service ran a photo contest that asked their customers to share their favourite Interislander memory on their website or Instagram and tag them.<br />
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Needless to say, the competition was a huge hit!<br />
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7. The law of personality </h4>
For too long brands have been bland and boring. Think stock photos.<br />
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Thankfully, the recent developments in visual content make it easy to bring a brand to life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxTB8PQmpGaOG1-OJu2tVoYmMpadIqx-AQ1N0AqbA4dnj5JlHy8aVdOKwiV9I-6oeOkDe-XFHhtIlb_PKJwnp7SjYz23Hxww9V6sSnZWAU3mL4hvSQZaiDpX6bOghUqyfeawPB3YRottM/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxTB8PQmpGaOG1-OJu2tVoYmMpadIqx-AQ1N0AqbA4dnj5JlHy8aVdOKwiV9I-6oeOkDe-XFHhtIlb_PKJwnp7SjYz23Hxww9V6sSnZWAU3mL4hvSQZaiDpX6bOghUqyfeawPB3YRottM/s320/Visual-Content-Marketing-7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The right visuals, including photos, videos, infographics, and e-books can add depth to your brand story and reinforce your culture.<br />
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One of the easiest ways to do so is to give your customers a “behind the scenes” look. Show them what goes into making or marketing your brand, post pictures from office events, maybe even how you brainstorm.<br />
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The more your customers know about the culture of your company, the more your brand’s personality will shine through.<br />
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The Queensland Opera does this brilliantly. From pictures of their costume designs, rehearsals, and makeup – they keep their fans and followers engaged.<br />
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8. The law of consistency</h4>
Apart from engaging customers, the role of visual content is to reinforce your brand. For that to happen, your content needs to have consistency.<br />
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This isn’t strictly a new law, but it’s worth reinforcing. We’re not referring to publishing visual content consistently. It’s more about elements in your visuals that tell your target market that the visual is from your company – even if you’re not linked or tagged in it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcb_7iyF3xUq2j4-zdoOVY0VTLzfUyJiaLUstyqpRdoCu4puO_ue-P3U5at3sz8HRTPmQVT-aiBqzs_Kv3rSb2oJMrsrTzmFW0aMM4RGZdo4wTEy7_Uevq-xrYmbybE0_9gGiR_Vq1Kz8/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcb_7iyF3xUq2j4-zdoOVY0VTLzfUyJiaLUstyqpRdoCu4puO_ue-P3U5at3sz8HRTPmQVT-aiBqzs_Kv3rSb2oJMrsrTzmFW0aMM4RGZdo4wTEy7_Uevq-xrYmbybE0_9gGiR_Vq1Kz8/s400/Visual-Content-Marketing-8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
You can do this by using the same:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Fonts and colours as your website</li>
<li>Images in your company’s social media accounts and profile page headers</li>
<li>Design element like a background, banner, or logo.</li>
</ul>
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Customers should be able to recognize the content is from your brand at a glance.<br />
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All Blacks, New Zealand’s national rugby team, have their photos naturally branded. Whether their visuals are from their own team or from fans, they all include the All Blacks in one form or another.<br />
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9. The law of resilience</h4>
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Content never sleeps and neither does your online presence.<br />
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Visual content is not a campaign that ends in a few days or weeks. It’s not a one-off thing. It’s an on-going strategy.<br />
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Make creating, publishing, and maintaining visual content a key part of your marketing strategy.<br />
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Jucy, one of tourism’s top content marketers, has created an on-going visual content, much of which is from their customers.<br />
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10. The law of quality</h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfMec-eIlX867SFWh71qHZvPvnEq73oNtuiEp__33cpyLHmyWoxQqTgsDrDJDhEyDNGzM2qEzPDA6DDKT-bBUYalVWnMX85djVgOn3_0lOqiiIzmoNPOBYGWnlF9H243WG4jJ9qpHEl8/s1600/Visual-Content-Marketing-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjfMec-eIlX867SFWh71qHZvPvnEq73oNtuiEp__33cpyLHmyWoxQqTgsDrDJDhEyDNGzM2qEzPDA6DDKT-bBUYalVWnMX85djVgOn3_0lOqiiIzmoNPOBYGWnlF9H243WG4jJ9qpHEl8/s320/Visual-Content-Marketing-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
With cell phone cameras getting better and better by the day, customers have learned to take great photos and videos themselves.<br />
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And with the numerous filters available through Instagram and others, it’s possible to source high quality content from your customers.<br />
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The good news is, you can use that content and combine it with your own in-house efforts to help with your marketing activities.<br />
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Dilmah, a renowned tea company, encourages its tea drinkers to share their best photos with them for a chance to win awesome prizes like a 10-day trip to New Zealand and Sri Lanka.<br />
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A photo submitted by one of Dilmah fans. Source: Dilmah Tea in the City Photo Competition<br />
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Visual content – a vital part of your content marketing strategy.</h3>
There’s no denying it. Visual content is a vital part of any marketing strategy.<br />
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The days of the old website photo gallery are far behind us. When done right, visual content can drive traffic to your site, increase page views, lower bounce rate, and convert website traffic into sales.<br />
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Use these new laws of visual content to up your marketing game and grow your business. Ignore them and you risk becoming obsolete.<br />
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How do your current visuals compare against these new laws? Are they giving you the results you want? Or are you struggling to create visuals that would interest your customers?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-4917136033363074212014-09-18T14:31:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:47:12.262+05:3010 Commandments of Great Copywriting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Follow these tips to help you create clear, concise, lively writing that captures your e-mail readers' attention.</h3>
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E-mail marketers use many strategies to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns, but one area often overlooked is what fills the page--the copy you write.</div>
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Whether you're a seasoned writer or a novice, it's always important to strengthen your editorial skills and make sure your e-mail marketing communications contain valuable information. Good copy helps your readers understand your offer--and how to respond. The following copywriting tips are ones that pros know well. Keeping these "commandments" in front of you when you write will help you create compelling copy that engages your readers, conveys your business message and creates effective calls for action.</div>
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Commandment #1: Know your audience. </h4>
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Who is this e-mail going to? Picture the average person on your list. Give them a name, even. Think about what their day is like. Think about what's important to them. What are they passionate about? How old are they? What products or services have they purchased from you in the past and why? The more you know about the audience you're writing for, the more targeted and relevant your copy will be.</div>
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Commandment #2: Determine your value proposition. </h4>
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Know the answers to these questions: Why should your customer buy your product or service? What's in it for them? Why is your product better than the one down the street? What are your key differentiators?</div>
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Commandment #3: Find a unique selling proposition. </h4>
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The more your offer stands out from the competition, the better your chances of getting a response. Rosser Reeves, author of Reality in Advertising, defines the unique selling proposition as a promotion that offers "something that competitors do not, or will not, offer." He also says, "The proposition must be strong enough to pull new customers to the product."</div>
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Commandment #4: Establish an objective. </h4>
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What's the purpose of this e-mail? What action are you trying to get the reader to take? You need to be clear on this before you start writing. If the answer isn't clear to you, it certainly won't be clear to your reader.</div>
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Commandment #5: Use a compelling subject line. </h4>
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The subject line is what gets your e-mail opened, so don't write something quickly just before sending. You have to convince your readers that they really need to open your e-mail. The best word you can use to get the reader's attention is you. The word you says that the message is about them. Other great words for subject lines (and headlines) include new, exciting, exclusive and introducing. Also, try to keep your subject line to 50 characters or less, including spaces.</div>
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Commandment #6: Write a great headline. </h4>
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If the subject line gets your reader to open the e-mail, then the headline gets them to read further. Consider using some of the buzzwords mentioned in commandment #5 in the headline so it'll grab readers with an obvious "What's in it for me?" message. Here's a question to ask yourself: What if my customers only read the headline? Will they know enough about you and what you offer?</div>
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<b>Tip:</b> Write five to 10 different subject lines and five to 10 different headlines to see what works best. Also, you may find that it's easier to write a subject line and headline after you've written the body copy.</blockquote>
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Commandment #7: Avoid weasel words. </h4>
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When writing headlines, subheads and body copy, don't use words that avoid a direct command, aka weasel words. These include may, maybe, hope, wish, try, but, could, perhaps and strive. Instead, use words like will and can to describe what your product or service will or can do for your reader.</div>
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Commandment #8: Don't use passive voice--write in the present tense. </h4>
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Passive voice weakens your message. It's best to avoid it. Here are a few examples to help you see the difference:</div>
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"Our company was chosen to receive an award" vs. "Our company received an award."<br />
"We have had 15 new products arrive" vs. "Fifteen new products arrived."<br />
"Ten new designs were created" vs. "We created 10 new designs."</blockquote>
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Commandment #9: Include a customer quote. </h4>
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Do you have a great customer quote that you can include in your e-mail? A brief and convincing quote can add credibility to your campaign. The more real you can make the person to your readers, the better. Including their name, what city or state they live in and even a photo, if it fits your campaign, is a great way to communicate the value of your service.</div>
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Commandment #10: Keep your copy clean and concise. </h4>
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After you write your first round of copy, read it out loud. Also, have someone else read it to see if they understand the message and the call to action. As you edit, cut unnecessary words and consolidate ideas. See if you can get your text down to 30 to 50 percent of what you started with. Also, include bullet points and possibly subtitles to make it easy to read-and, more important, easy to scan--as most readers scan a page before deciding whether or not to read all the details.</div>
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<b>Great copywriting is within your reach.</b> Keeping these tips in mind when you write will greatly improve your copy, making it easier for readers to understand and respond to your e-mail campaign. Good, thoughtful writing will ultimately improve your success as an e-mail marketer.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-79306964534446771652014-07-11T18:08:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:47:28.025+05:30Defining Your Brand<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Defining Your Brand: The First Step In Your Marketing Strategy to Build a Local and a Global Brand</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8d4-HyJ8F_SdyFHkjZPLtcK24l0XwRD_g7gwRfJ7vcZxrN44iwkcVXY_fJhPkN8eYo1DCfDyDF57FhktxmnkFItDwbiHJT6hN-wZnAQMR6lsIyTFhe6XGdGCuTBqxah-VZDN2k17nFAY/s1600/defining-brand-first-step-marketing-strategy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8d4-HyJ8F_SdyFHkjZPLtcK24l0XwRD_g7gwRfJ7vcZxrN44iwkcVXY_fJhPkN8eYo1DCfDyDF57FhktxmnkFItDwbiHJT6hN-wZnAQMR6lsIyTFhe6XGdGCuTBqxah-VZDN2k17nFAY/s1600/defining-brand-first-step-marketing-strategy.jpg" /></a></div>
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Truly defining your business is a critical first step in developing your marketing plan. Through a continuing series of stories, we've been examining how to build a compelling brand experience that will drive customer loyalty -- highlighting the principles of big brand marketing so that small business owners can replicate those kinds of successes. But before you can start building your brand's experience for customers, you need to take some fundamental first steps to define the kind of brand you want to be.</div>
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To guide our marketing plan, we need a very well-crafted statement of the type of business we are in, the type of customers we serve and how we serve them. We have to define what we stand for and the types of products and services that our customers can expect from us. This truly is the first step in the branding process.</div>
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At first glance, defining your brand may seem easy, but it takes some soul searching, decision making and data gathering.</div>
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Take, for example, someone going into business as a lawyer. It's pretty easy to define that brand -- a person who practices law, right? But to build a brand around his practice, a lawyer needs to determine specifically what kind of law he focuses on and what kind of client he is targeting before any marketing can begin. That means thinking through what regions of the world, categories of law, style of service and other offerings he brings to the table.</div>
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When defining your brand, put as much clarity as possible into how the brand and business is described, so that you can build a specific brand experience to match it. Here are three key steps to help you get there:</div>
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Make an inventory of your skills. </b>List out what you are especially good at and what you want your customers to think of when your brand comes to mind. Your unique set of skills will form the basis of your brand definition.</li>
<li><b>What are your customers' needs? </b>From your list of skills, identify those that your customers particularly need. Think through the kinds of things you do that your customers will come to you for. You should define your brand based on your ability to fulfill such demands.</li>
<li><b>Focus on what differentiates. </b>It's important for your brand to be different than other similar options available to customers. Of course your brand experience will ultimately differentiate you, but being unique starts with deciding what attributes set you apart from others. Your goal is to be different and better than your competition.</li>
</ol>
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Let's revisit our lawyer example. A well-defined lawyer wouldn't just say he "practices law." He would be much more definitive and specific about his focus if he wants customers to see his business as a brand. So instead of calling himself a "practicing lawyer," he may define his brand as a "compassionate attorney specializing in family law in the state of California, servicing women who need help getting through the tough times in their lives."</div>
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Notice the clarity in the brand definition?</h4>
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While it's important to be as specific as possible, you also want to be careful not to box your business in with a tightly constrained brand definition. For example, if a hair salon only defined itself as providing "women's short haircuts," it would close itself off from business that could come from customers seeking other hair styles, salon services like coloring or straightening and other demographics like children or men.</div>
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If it makes sense to be super specific because you have identified a strong niche market, just be sure to do this consciously. I've seen many salons that specialize in just curly hair or blowouts. If the business is large enough, those could be very well-defined, successful brands. Just be careful not to define the brand too strictly, which would close out future business-building activities.</div>
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The trick is to balance specificity, focus and differentiation with the ability to expand. When defining your brand, make sure to describe the type of business in a way that allows for growth over time.</div>
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Strategies to Build a Global Brand</h4>
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Building a global brand requires more than just launching a website that's accessible from almost anywhere in the world.</div>
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<div>
From language missteps to misunderstanding cultural norms, veteran branding expert Barbara E. Kahn has seen it all when it comes to the missteps of launching a brand across borders. Here, she shares five tips to help entrepreneurs avoid the pitfalls.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
1. Understand customer behavior. </h4>
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Just because consumers have certain buying preferences or habits in one culture, doesn't mean that such preferences are universal. "It's astonishing how many retailers haven't made it because they haven't studied how consumers shop," she says.</div>
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<i>For example, </i>Walmart's mistake in choosing locations in China that were near industrial parks when consumers were used to shopping closer to home instead of near work.</div>
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2. Position yourself properly. </h4>
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Good brand positioning includes truly understanding your competition and then looking at your competitive advantage. Who are the providers of similar products and services that you sell in this country? They may not be the same providers as in your country.</div>
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<i>For example, </i>if you sell athletic clothing, look at where people are buying their athletic clothing. It could be from specialty stores, online retailers, or sporting goods stores. If you have a high-end brand and you're going into a market where the preferred buying location is discount retailers, it may take a different strategy from the one you use in your country. </div>
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You need to understand how people shop and how your brand will fit into that mix.</div>
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3. Know how your brand translates.</h4>
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A clever brand or product name in one language may translate into an embarrassing misstep in another. For example, the French cheese brand Kiri changed its name to Kibi in Iran because the former name means “rotten” or “rank” in Farsi -- not exactly the association you want for cheese.</div>
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In addition to ensuring that your brand translates well into other languages, consider which colors are favored in various markets. In the U.S., blues and greens are favored, while reds and yellows are frequently used in some Latin American countries and may be appealing and familiar to audience members from those areas.</div>
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4. Think broadly. </h4>
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Since your company may need to expand into offering new products based on regional market demands, it's important that your company name be broad enough to accommodate those changes.</div>
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<i>For example, </i>Boston Chicken changed its name to Boston Market because it had expanded into other foods,. If your company name is Brian's Computers for example, consider whether that will be limiting in other markets if you also sell peripherals and services, she says.</div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
5. Find good partners. </h4>
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Work with your attorney to protect your intellectual property overseas, filing the appropriate trademark and patent protections in the U.S. and elsewhere, if applicable. Find trade representatives who come recommended from colleagues or state or federal trade offices, since they're more likely to be reputable.</div>
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<div>
If you decide to license your product or service name to a manufacturer or provider overseas, exercise tight controls to make sure that the provider is reputable and won't misuse or misappropriate your name and will adhere to your quality control standards. When you put your brand name on a product or service, you want a consistent experience so that every time, people have it, they understand the values of the brand.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-92105826777941767662014-06-28T06:30:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:47:42.383+05:30Marketing like the Big Brands<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Being a brand is what separates you from your competitors and creates a much stronger connection with your customers.</h3>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Marketing like the Big Brands shows entrepreneurs on a small-business budget how to apply marketing strategies used by big brands. </i></span></h3>
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Whether or not you realized it before, if you're a small business owner, you're also a marketer. Maybe you were never trained, but you are in fact marketing your business. While lots of people have different perceptions about what marketing should be, for me, good marketing is all about creating a powerful and compelling brand experience for customers.</div>
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It takes a special kind of person to run a small business. You wear many hats. Entrepreneurs don't often have a clearly defined role within a well-oiled machine, nor can they generally count on multiple resources to complete projects. There's no marketing team to do the heavy lifting.</div>
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We also expect marketing to be a never-ending job. The minute we have our plan in place, something changes -- a competitor enters the market, legislation changes the rules or a technological advance requires a rethink.</div>
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This is true of big businesses and it's certainly true of small ones. Many entrepreneurs look longingly at the big brands, wishing they could replicate their activities and generate their impact. I believe that in small business, you can get the same kind of results as the big brands, just on a different scale.</div>
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The methodology needed to create an amazing brand experience remains the same whether you're Nike, a local restaurant, BMW or a consultant. It's the same process regardless of the size of the business. Sure, the budgets may be different, but how you get there is essentially the same.</div>
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<b>To start, small businesses can learn a lot from how big brands create experiences that connect with customers, creating sharing and loyalty.</b></div>
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It's a matter of knowing what you want to accomplish and following proven best practices that work on any size business. It's a matter of turning your business into a brand by creating an experience tailored to your specific customer. Small businesses can often do that even better than big ones.</div>
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<b>Brands should be inspiring. </b>That should be your ultimate goal. As an entrepreneur, you may not think you can be inspirational, but you couldn't be more wrong. It comes with the entrepreneurial territory. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and way of life. You can add more value to people's lives than most large corporations. Innovation and creativity doesn't necessarily come from the towers of big business. It comes from the breakthrough, on-the-ground thinking of small businesses.</div>
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Explore the different aspects of small business marketing, using principles seen from the big brands. Investigate how to act like a brand, identify your target customer, position your business and map out touch points -- all with the goal of helping to create a comprehensive marketing plan that builds toward a compelling brand experience.</div>
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Forget What Your Customers Need; Branding Is About What They Want</h4>
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There's a major distinction between advancing your marketing efforts and actually transforming yourself into a brand. If you want to be a brand -- which should be your ultimate goal -- you need to understand the difference between what your customers "need" and what they "want."</div>
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<b>Need. </b>Our customers need certain things from our business. A need is fulfilled by a functional benefit -- a fact or rational attribute about your company. Generally speaking, most competitors in any field supply roughly the same functional benefits and can therefore generally fulfill the needs of their customers. If they couldn't, they wouldn't be in business. Fulfilling a need doesn't differentiate one business from another; it's a cost of entry.</div>
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<b>Want. </b>In order to be truly successful in business, your customers have to move beyond just needing your product or service to actually wanting it. While they may need the functional benefits that your business offers, it's important for your brand that they want to choose you over other options. The "want" is what separates your business from others, and turns you into a brand.</div>
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<i>"Want" </i>is an emotion, and therefore represents the more connective benefits your business and brand offers. When you reach an emotional level with your customers, you become a brand in their minds. You've made an emotional connection that rises above functional features and that builds loyalty. It's the "want" that moves you from being an ordinary product or service to being a desired brand.</div>
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<b>Let me illustrate. </b>You need to wear a shirt every day -- we all do -- to keep warm and dress appropriately for work. These are functional benefits you quite honestly can get from almost any shirt company.</div>
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But let's say you personally choose a shirt brand that targets a younger more stylish consumer. Maybe it's the style and fit of the shirt, or the way it's merchandised in-store, or the website that draws your attention and sweeps you in. In fact, all of the above work together to build an emotional connection that make you want this specific brand shirt.</div>
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But it's that emotional connection that resonates most with you. You "want" these shirts because they help you feel younger, stylish and more individual. You want them because of how the brand makes you feel. It's an emotional choice based on emotional benefits that the brand provides for you, personally.</div>
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This brand, for you, has risen above the functional benefits of just any shirt to the emotional benefits of what the brand does for you. </div>
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Finding the "want" is key to building a stronger, more emotional connection with your customers. And it's this emotional benefit that will become the basis of your entire marketing plan moving forward.</div>
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Through your daily activities with customers, start thinking about how you can connect more emotionally, moving them beyond just needing you to actually wanting you. Think beyond product needs and think of customer wants.</div>
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Is There a Difference Between a Product and a Brand?</h4>
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDO02rE_Pmn1mKX1eXQPhvfYpTKtjsTeErsxBeIsYtc2SpHszvivUf37c1-TFXQVi1Ix3xrgAZiYgEkzfvxBpLtUZEvBt89vt3GwzYz7ZBb0TmhX5kgfRtmq_dReuLs9Xf9lXbvFfhfiI/s1600/20150318171332-starbucks-coffee-cup-park-fence.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" /></div>
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So what is the difference between a product and a brand? It’s been a fascinating exploration because on the surface it probably seems like there is no difference between a product and a brand. But when you dig a little deeper, there actually is a big difference -- <b>a huge one.</b></div>
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I’m going to take you on a journey, so to speak, in a class-by-class, column-by-column look at what separates a product from a brand. </div>
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If I were to sum it up in one word, the difference is <i>emotional. </i>You’ll see what I mean.</div>
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Products perform a function.</h4>
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They have properties that when combined together do something for customers. The problem is that within any given category, most products perform similar functions. There’s very little differentiation. Ingredients are ingredients and they tend to be the same across a category.</div>
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Products are all about what they do for people. Products fulfill a customer’s needs.</div>
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Functions, ingredients and needs -- that’s what makes up a product.</blockquote>
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Brands offer an emotion.</h4>
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Brands are actually quite different from products because they don’t just cover a customer’s needs, they fulfill a customer’s wants.</div>
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We don’t fall in love with products -- we fall in love with brands. Brands offer a promise and an emotion. Brands are about how they make people feel. Brands fulfill a customer’s wants.</div>
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Promises, emotions and wants -- that’s what makes up a brand.</blockquote>
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The big difference.</h4>
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In short, while you may need a product, you will want a brand.</blockquote>
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So for example, I may need a cup of coffee, but I personally want to get it at Starbucks.</div>
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Coffee is the product in this case and caffeine is the ingredient. I need it to get going in the morning and I could get it literally anywhere, including at Dunkin’ Donuts, the corner market or at home. But I choose Starbucks.</div>
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Starbucks is the brand in this case, and the experience at Starbucks is the emotion I want in the morning. I want a Starbucks coffee because of the unique experience I get and from how it makes me feel. It prepares me for the day ahead and makes me productive in the morning. With Starbucks coffee, I am ready! I want Starbucks for how it makes me feel.</div>
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Products equal functions. Brands equal emotions.</blockquote>
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Hopefully you can see that products are basically at parity to each other, they fulfill the same needs. Brands are what differentiate because of how they uniquely make people feel. This is the basic lesson we can learn from Big Brands which we can apply to our brands - Make your customers WANT your brand.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-22298578220227094752014-05-13T14:38:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:48:00.509+05:30The Basics of Branding<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<b>Learn what this critical business term means and what you can do to establish one for your company.</b></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghVCyDcQt9hw4HmE9W6RBc7aA-8m9NUP0qeO5GYg5xTG64eCyqYw3yDAl2DSbTx3hQ7cnZv-5g7GlQTLUaG6nxlUKdcLMfVFLf8tHR9pT0S-4jNoCYStnCiUwl4kGfcpqnSzqXzTnjxXg/s1600/20150325214454-goretec-tradeshow-trade-show-convention.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghVCyDcQt9hw4HmE9W6RBc7aA-8m9NUP0qeO5GYg5xTG64eCyqYw3yDAl2DSbTx3hQ7cnZv-5g7GlQTLUaG6nxlUKdcLMfVFLf8tHR9pT0S-4jNoCYStnCiUwl4kGfcpqnSzqXzTnjxXg/s1600/20150325214454-goretec-tradeshow-trade-show-convention.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>Branding</b> is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets. But what exactly does "branding" mean? How does it affect a small business like yours?<br />
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<b>Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer. </b>It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from your competitors'. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be.<br />
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Are you the innovative maverick in your industry? Or the experienced, reliable one? Is your product the high-cost, high-quality option, or the low-cost, high-value option? You can't be both, and you can't be all things to all people. Who you are should be based to some extent on who your target customers want and need you to be.<br />
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<b>The foundation of your brand is your logo. </b>Your website, packaging and promotional materials--all of which should integrate your logo--communicate your brand.<br />
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Brand Strategy & Equity</h4>
Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering on your brand messages. Where you advertise is part of your brand strategy. Your distribution channels are also part of your brand strategy. And what you communicate visually and verbally are part of your brand strategy, too.<br />
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Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong brand equity, which means the added value brought to your company's products or services that allows you to charge more for your brand than what identical, unbranded products command. The most obvious example of this is Coke vs. a generic soda. Because Coca-Cola has built a powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its product--and customers will pay that higher price.<br />
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The added value intrinsic to brand equity frequently comes in the form of perceived quality or emotional attachment. For example, Nike associates its products with star athletes, hoping customers will transfer their emotional attachment from the athlete to the product. For Nike, it's not just the shoe's features that sell the shoe.<br />
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Defining Your Brand</h4>
Defining your brand is like a journey of business self-discovery. It can be difficult, time-consuming and uncomfortable. It requires, at the very least, that you answer the questions below:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>What is your company's mission?</li>
<li>What are the benefits and features of your products or services?</li>
<li>What do your customers and prospects already think of your company?</li>
<li>What qualities do you want them to associate with your company?</li>
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Do your research. Learn the needs, habits and desires of your current and prospective customers. And don't rely on what you think they think. Know what they think.<br />
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Because defining your brand and developing a brand strategy can be complex, consider leveraging the expertise of a nonprofit small-business advisory group or a small business development center. If you have sufficient funding or wherewithal, consider hiring a brand consultant and a logo designer.<br />
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Once you've defined your brand, how do you get the word out? Here are a few simple, time-tested tips:<br />
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<li><b>Get a great logo. </b>Place it everywhere.</li>
<li><b>Write down your brand messaging. </b>What are the key messages you want to communicate about your brand? Every employee should be aware of your brand attributes.</li>
<li><b>Integrate your brand. </b>Branding extends to every aspect of your business--how you answer your phones, what you or your salespeople wear on sales calls, your e-mail signature, everything.</li>
<li><b>Create a "voice" for your company that reflects your brand. </b>This voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated in the visual imagery of all materials, online and off. Is your brand friendly? Be conversational. Is it ritzy? Be more formal. You get the gist.</li>
<li><b>Develop a tagline. </b>Write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand.</li>
<li><b>Design templates and create brand standards for your marketing materials. </b>Use the same color scheme, logo placement, look and feel throughout. You don't need to be fancy, just consistent.</li>
<li><b>Be true to your brand. </b>Customers won't return to you--or refer you to someone else--if you don't deliver on your brand promise.</li>
<li><b>Be consistent. </b>I placed this point last only because it involves all of the above and is the most important tip I can give you. If you can't do this, your attempts at establishing a brand will fail.</li>
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Closing Thoughts</h4>
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Branding is a huge subject with diverse areas that need addressing and so many SMB's stop with their logo and business card. <b>Branding is an experience that is seen, heard and felt. </b>Too many times we see owners try to piecemeal it together over way too long a period. Branding should be just as important as the business plan itself and done will proper attention to get all the pieces of the puzzle together and then over time enhance and build on the foundation. So many try to put the roof on (advertise) before they have the walls up (message, slogan, website.......). And as will hear here - <b>Consistency, Consistency, Consistency!</b></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-7334566514160855962014-03-19T19:53:00.000+05:302016-04-15T13:48:03.718+05:30How to Name Your Business<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjylIBa3ZmiiIMwMqxcS24XhkgzVCb4MWAluKymWIVV556hqC4nJVRm9xnD5ZQa3oV6WXZXYQO2eipeDl4C3FG-s10Hoxlq30bgO3xkFGi8idaUYato6JDTooUDpAYmW4bHF1n8CElMidI/s1600/whatsinaname.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjylIBa3ZmiiIMwMqxcS24XhkgzVCb4MWAluKymWIVV556hqC4nJVRm9xnD5ZQa3oV6WXZXYQO2eipeDl4C3FG-s10Hoxlq30bgO3xkFGi8idaUYato6JDTooUDpAYmW4bHF1n8CElMidI/s1600/whatsinaname.jpg" /></a></strong><br />
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<strong>What's in a name?</strong> <br />
A lot, when it comes to small-business success. The <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">right name can make your company</a> the talk of the town. The wrong one can doom it to obscurity and failure. Ideally, your name should convey the expertise, value and uniqueness of the product or service you have developed.<br />
Some experts believe that the best names are abstract, a blank slate upon which to create an image. Others think that names should be informative so customers know immediately what your business is. Some believe that coined names (that come from made-up words) are more memorable than names that use real words. Others think they're forgettable.<br />
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In reality, any name can be effective if it's backed by the appropriate <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">marketing strategy</a>. Here's what you'll need to consider in order to give your small business the most appropriate and effective name.<br />
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Enlist Expert Help to Start</h3>
Coming up with a <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">good business name</a> can be a complicated process. You might consider consulting an expert, especially if you're in a field in which your company name may influence the success of your business. Brand identity consulting firms have elaborate systems for creating new names and they know their way around the trademark laws. They can advise you against bad name choices and explain why others are good.<br />
The downside is cost. A <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">professional brand identity consulting firm</a> may charge a lot to develop a name. The cost generally includes other identity work and graphic design as part of the package for <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">brand identity development</a>. Online naming services that charge little do exist, but spending a reasonable amount of money early for quality expert advice can save you money in the long term.<br />
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What's in a Name?</h3>
Start by deciding what you want your name to communicate. It should reinforce the key elements of your business. Your work in developing a niche and a mission statement will help you pinpoint the elements you want to emphasize in your name.<br />
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The more your name communicates to consumers about your business, the less effort you must exert to explain it. According to naming experts, entrepreneurs should give priority to real words or combinations of words over fabricated words. People prefer words they can relate to and understand. That's why <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">professional brand identity consultants</a> universally condemn strings of numbers or initials as a bad choice.<br />
On the other hand, it is possible for a name to be too meaningful. Common pitfalls are geographic or generic names. A hypothetical example is "San Pablo Disk Drives." What if the company wants to expand beyond the city of San Pablo, California? What meaning will that name have for consumers in Chicago or India? And what if the company diversifies beyond disk drives into software or computer instruction manuals?<br />
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How can a name be both meaningful and broad?</h4>
Descriptive names tell something concrete about a business - what it does, where it's located and so on. Suggestive names are more abstract. They focus on what the business is about.<br />
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Consider "Indtour," a name that was developed by a brand identity company to help promote package tours to India. Though it's not a real word, the name is meaningful and customers can recognize immediately what's being offered. Even better, "Indtour" evokes the excitement of foreign travel.<br />
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When choosing a business name, keep the following tips in mind:<br />
<ul>
<li>Choose a name that appeals not only to you but also to the kind of customers you are trying to attract. </li>
<li>Choose a comforting or familiar name that conjures up pleasant memories so customers respond to your business on an emotional level. </li>
<li>Don't pick a name that is long or confusing. </li>
<li>Stay away from cute puns that only you understand. </li>
<li>Don't use the word “Inc.” after your name unless your company is actually incorporated.</li>
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Get Creative</h3>
At a time when almost every existing word in the language has been trademarked, the option of coining a name is becoming more popular. Some examples are Acura and Compaq, which were developed by naming firm NameLab.<br />
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Coined names can be more meaningful than existing words. For example, "Acura" has no dictionary definition but the word suggests precision engineering, just as the company intended. NameLab's team created the name Acura from "Acu," a word segment that means "precise" in many languages. By working with meaningful word segments (what linguists call morphemes) like "Acu," the company produces new words that are both meaningful and unique.<br />
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However, made-up words aren't the right solution for every situation. New words are complex and may create a perception that the product, service or company is complex, which may not be true. Plus, naming beginners might find this sort of coining beyond their capabilities.<br />
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An easier solution is to use new forms or spellings of existing words. For instance, NameLab created the name Compaq when a new computer company came to them touting its new portable computer. The team thought about the word "compact" and came up with Compaq, which they believed would be less generic and more noticeable.<br />
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Test Your Name</h3>
After you've narrowed the field to four or five names that are memorable and expressive, you are ready to do a trademark search. Not every business name needs to be trademarked, as long as your government gives you the go-ahead and you aren't infringing on anyone else's trade name. But you should consider hiring a trademark attorney or at least a trademark search firm before to make sure your new name doesn't infringe on another business's trademark. <br />
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Simultaneously you should also lookup the availability of suitable domain names for your business so that you do not have a problem later on in developing a online presence.<br />
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Final Analysis</h3>
If you're lucky, you'll end up with three to five names that pass all your tests. Now, how do you make your final decision?<br />
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Recall all your initial criteria. Which name best fits your objectives? Which name most accurately describes the company you have in mind?<br />
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Some entrepreneurs arrive at a final decision by going with their gut or by doing consumer research or testing with focus groups to see how the names are perceived. You can doodle an idea of what each name will look like on a sign or on business stationery. Read each name aloud, paying attention to the way it sounds if you foresee radio advertising or telemarketing in your future. Use any or all of these criteria.<br />
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Keep in mind that professional branding firms devote anywhere from six weeks to six months to the naming process. You probably won't have that much time, but plan to spend at least a few weeks on selecting a name.<br />
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Once your decision is made, start building your enthusiasm for the new name immediately. Your name is your first step toward building a strong company identity, one that should last as long as you're in business.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-21036792308499080062014-03-07T18:16:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:49:45.407+05:30Psychology of Colours in Logo Design<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<em><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-UshGej1mV2Q/Uxm_9FiWZLI/AAAAAAAAFv4/a60xG7Y7u0k/s1600-h/colourpsychology_header%25255B7%25255D.jpg"><img alt="colour psychology logos" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-9rK7FqSrCqw/Uxm_-TNi3rI/AAAAAAAAFwA/sCktcLZRJiY/colourpsychology_header_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="colour psychology logos" /></a> When you look at the <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">logo of a brand,</a> have you spared any thought to their choice of colours in the logo that they have had designed?</em> <br />
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Today a red, white and yellow logo immediately signifies a <strong>McDonald</strong> outlet and the yellow and blue logo shows us it is <strong>Visa</strong>. But we have never given thought to why these colour combinations were picked. The motivation behind this has to do with the <strong>psychology of colours</strong> and the way in which our minds take in a colour and the message that we draw from it. We may not even be aware of the way the message is being sent to our brains via an image. It clearly shows that <strong>colour psychology plays vital role in the designing of professional logos</strong>.<br />
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Here we will look at the ways in which many colours will have an effect on those seeing the logo. First we will look at the messages our brains get when we see different colours and also a look at colours in the way they complement each other. This should have an impact in the effect <a href="http://www.esitez.net/brand_identity.html">your company logo</a> will have.<br />
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What colours tell the people look at them?</h4>
<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--gDa1cbZgMI/Uxm__tMaiRI/AAAAAAAAFwI/6Ju17XZGIBw/s1600-h/Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-1%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Role Of Colour Psychology in the Designing of Professional Logos" border="0" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-E9p9oH2EY-A/UxnAA2abrUI/AAAAAAAAFwQ/aPyhULBm0zE/Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-1_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Role Of Colour Psychology in the Designing of Professional Logos" /></a><br />
<em>When you see the yellow and blue combination of <strong>Wal-Mart </strong>for example, what do the colours tell you?</em> <br />
<em><br /></em>
In most situations blue is the colour of power and confidence while the colour yellow is of being upbeat. Combined these two pack a good punch and tell us what the company wants us to feel about the brand.<br />
Colours carry a message with green suggesting <strong>good health and growth</strong>, while brown tends to be more earthy and shows usefulness, while <strong>red</strong> shows intense <strong>emotions</strong>, <strong>purple</strong> manages to show a <strong>lushness</strong>, <strong>white</strong> is a symbol of <strong>pristine things</strong> and <strong>black</strong> is the <strong>bold colour</strong>.<br />
<br />
The inferences we have given are all of a positive nature but colours do have negative connotations. The same <strong>green</strong> that is seen as a prosperous colour is also the <strong>hue of jealousy</strong>, like <strong>red</strong> is for <strong>fury</strong> and <strong>black</strong> means <strong>demise</strong>. While this actually is not much an issue while making a logo design due to the many elements that go into a brand, one still has to keep these things in mind.<br />
<h4>
Using a colour wheel to pick out the right tone of colour</h4>
<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-l7tDLvCQHdM/UxnAB53vLqI/AAAAAAAAFwY/0O6Jf1AuJSk/s1600-h/Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-2%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Role Of Color Psychology in the Designing of Professional Logos" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-5WyAOs8fjgo/UxnAC9PwiYI/AAAAAAAAFwg/JGVhcKvRr_g/Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-2_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Role Of Color Psychology in the Designing of Professional Logos" /></a> <br />
If you are not careful in picking out colours they may not send the message they want to. So instead of doing it randomly, do make use of a colour wheel. This is a tool that will help in putting colours as per the way they work with each other. The norm is that you can go with colours on the opposite sides of the wheel to ensure that they complement each other.<br />
<br />
Normally the colours that are side by side may not work out that well. It goes without saying that all this will be dictated by the brand image of the company. But in spite of that do take colours that work well with each other.<br />
<h4>
Why are colours so important in designing of logos?</h4>
<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-OhdxmgenbhU/UxnAFfcgjxI/AAAAAAAAFwo/g_zgoievKgc/s1600-h/Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-1%25255B4%25255D.png"><img alt="Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-1" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-6HohDltSi1Q/UxnAH5HZhbI/AAAAAAAAFww/lglYw3Xm2V8/Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-1_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Role-Of-Color-Psychology-in-the-Designing-of-Professional-Logos-1" /></a><br />
Even without us being aware of it colours play a part in the way we view things. The colours seem to touch a subconscious part of our brain even without our awareness. Each colour like the ones we see online or on roads or anywhere else have an effect on our psyche.<br />
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Just think about how many times <a href="http://www.esitez.net/">the logo of a company is shown to people</a>. You are hit by this several times throughout your interaction with them whether it is in person or via television and other media. Since it is shown and seen so many times, the colours in the logo need to be selected with care.<br />
<br />
We are creatures that are impacted by what we see and then we respond to that too. In this case a logo that company uses will leave its own imprint of the brain which will then affect our decision making. That is why colour of logo for companies is so vital.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-65296765950224786272014-02-07T13:03:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:54:21.645+05:3010 Commandments of Writing Headlines<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote>
On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.</blockquote>
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A well optimized landing page is perhaps the first funnel point and one of the most important aspects that decides whether a user becomes a prospective client or a lost opportunity. Hence the headline, the line that catches the eyes first becomes the primary part of that landing page. <br />
When a visitor lands on a landing page, the window for him to convert or sway to another website is very small. Hence, when you are planning a landing page, spend a good amount of time deciding the headline, because you also have a small window in which you have to grab the readers attention.<br />
<h3>
Keep it short, simple and sweet </h3>
Keep the landing page headline simple and to the point. This will take the readers’ attention off the bat in an instant and will deliver what the content has on offer. This again depends from business to business and campaign to campaign.<br />
Your headlines can also be funny and inventive, but do so only if you have expert copywriters to do the job for you. In order to be funny, make sure you do not loose the essence of your content. There is a thin line that draws between being offensive and funny. <br />
<h3>
Give a Glimpse of what you are trying to offer</h3>
By looking at the headline, the visitor must get a glimpse of what exactly it is that you are trying to offer. An ideal headline should provide just enough information to the user, but not disclose all details. It should give away just a small glimpse of the benefits and should entice and urge the user to further read the contents of the landing page. <br />
As an example, a landing page states…<br />
<strong>What’s on offer </strong>- <em>‘Earn your degree online’. Any user who wants to enrol or get more details will have to fill up the form.</em><br />
<strong>Solves a problem -</strong><em> A user will not have to run around colleges to enrol, attend classes and then attain a degree. All he will have to do is, fill the form and register to enrol…problem solved?</em><br />
<h3>
Add numbers to your headline</h3>
Yes, they do help. <em>(Well this is also another reason why you are reading this blog, isn’t it?).</em><br />
Providing numbers in a headline means that the reader will not be reading just a lump of information, but a specific list of insights into the said details. In some blogs, numbers also connote hierarchy of events and are easy to point out details that are otherwise difficult to mention in paragraphs. <br />
That said, sometimes adding obscure number like 19 or 37 can really catch people’s attention. Numbers leave a mark on the readers mind which makes him think that this message is important. Marketing experts have analysed over the years that figure numbers (1,2,3,4) work a lot better than numbers that are spelled words (one, two. three, four). <br />
<h3>
Adding Questions is also a go getter</h3>
I find that adding questions in an easy and a very powerful way to grab people’s attention. When used effectively, questions rope readers into a story no matter how busy they are. A well formatted question headline has several viewpoints which makes the readers curious.<br />
Now, asking a question in a headline can also be a risk. Most questions by default have a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ answer. If we take an example, there are three instances that can occur:<br />
<em><strong>YES:</strong> Someone who wants to study abroad will fill the form immediately.</em><br />
<em><strong>YES, but NOT at the moment:</strong> Someone who is not willing to study at the moment, but wants to give it a thought later may also fill the form. </em><br />
<em><strong>NO:</strong> Someone who does not want to study abroad will move to another page the very instant he/she reads the headline.</em><br />
Like you can see above, the ratio of people filling the form to not filling is much higher. This way question headlines also ensure that relevant leads<em> (students who really want to study abroad)</em> are much more than junk leads <em>(students who fill the form without any reason)</em>.<br />
Though writing a question headline is a gamble, it is a necessary one.<br />
<h3>
Trigger negative emotions</h3>
Negative headlines if used well can work as very powerful motivators.<br />
Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs? He had stated that in order to survive, we thrive on safety, affection, attention and our need to outdo ourselves. So with a headline, when you play upon man’s basic need, that of survival, and offer to help him out of that situation, it leaves a positive impact on their mind.<br />
In an example, the headline and the image play on the negative emotion of ‘Hate’. The headline communicates a problem – something that most people don’t like – bugs. Now, a user who hates bugs will want to read further or sign up to get the solution.<br />
But at the same time, if negative headlines are used in the wrong context, they can kill the message.<br />
<h3>
Make the headline believable </h3>
<strong><em>Only 10 seats left – Study with us for 1 week, get an MBA seat at Harvard </em></strong><br />
If this was the case, everyone would have been a alumni of the Harvard, rated the best MBA college in the world! This headline will put anyone on guard. Forget about the user reading the content further, he will close your website and move onto another. Your claim may be true…but keep it subtle. However, the headline should not be misleading, because then the reader will hit the back button and never come back. <br />
By going overboard, you may lose trust with your users. Instead write…<br />
<strong><em>Only 10 seats left! Study with us, get a step closer to your dream – Harvard</em></strong><br />
<h3>
Add USP to the headline</h3>
In your landing page headline, try words that help sell a product – free, discover, secret, results, quick, guaranteed, off etc. If you know what pain points your potential customer is facing, it should help you write the correct headline and offer him the right deal. <br />
The words ‘Limited’, ‘Off’ and ‘Discount’ are mentioned in the landing page headline and grabs the user’s attention immediately. <br />
<h3>
Do not use too may keywords in the headline</h3>
Yes, putting keywords in the headline makes sure that it ranks well in SEO searches, but stuffing the headline with too many keywords overwhelms the reader and makes it look pushy. Use just the right amount of keywords in a landing page headline which will give you an advantage during web search, search through social networking sites etc. <br />
<h3>
Landing page headline aesthetics</h3>
The less complicated your headline, page and its design, the more likely it is to convert. Here are a few things to keep in mind: <br />
<ol>
<li>The headlines should ideally be 2 sizes larger than the content. </li>
<li>Do not colour them black, instead colour them a dark shade of grey or ivory white if using the headline against a black/dark background. </li>
<li>Use Title Case – Capitalize The First Letter Of Each Word. </li>
<li>Font size is really important considering that we live in a world where the internet is mostly accessed over Smartphone's. </li>
<li>Don’t use a period at the end of the headline. A period or what is also known as a full stop is a mental note for a user to stop reading there. Remember, a period in a headline is a major mistake! </li>
<li>Don’t keep the main headline very long. If you have a lot to say, break it down into bits. But again, the sub-headline should not be of the same size as that of the main headline as this will kill the essence of the main headline. </li>
<li>Quotations at times can work for headlines. </li>
</ol>
<h3>
Use A/B Testing </h3>
Make sure you do A/B tests for your headlines to check which version of your landing page and its headline is working best. You can also use free A/B testing tools like Lander A/B and Google Website Optimizer. Over time, A/B testing will also help you analyse your visitors behaviour and what is it that is helping you connect with them.<br />
Then again, when A/B testing, do not make a lot of changes in your headlines or landing pages. This way, when you analyse which landing page is faring better, it will be easy for you to gauge, adding or removing which part did the trick.<br />
<strong>Example:</strong> When testing a landing page headline, change either the colour or the text or the words. Do not change everything at once. You will not be able to analyse which headline is faring better.<br />
<strong>While there are many ways to create headlines, the above mentioned ones are most compelling. </strong></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-21678230970862836882013-09-20T19:15:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:51:43.658+05:30Web Design is Product Design<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Debate is usually an indication of intelligent human pursuit. But not always. </blockquote>
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<br />
One issue for design students—this no-brainer, simplest of issues—has ever been kept alive within the inane realm of debate since it first arose. As such, it is an unflattering indictment on those who contest the simple fact that a web designer must craft markup and css.<br />
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A designer who does not write markup and css is not designing for the web, but drawing pictures.<br />
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Web design is product design. Drawing a picture of the product is not designing the product. Web design is experience design. Drawing a picture of on-screen content or mechanism behaviors is not designing the experience. The functioning html/css (and sometimes JavaScript) is the design.<br />
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Graphic design is often important in web design, but only as one component of web design’s requirements. If you stop at the .psd you’ve stopped well before midpoint in the design. The graphic designer who lacks html/css skill is insufficiently prepared as a web designer. A designer who lacks competence should address that issue rather than seek refuge within embarrassing debate.<br />
<h2>
How Design Fails</h2>
It is my experience that design seldom can do much good for most second– and third–tier companies and organizations. The reason for this is that these sorts of entities almost always fail themselves before they even enlist the services of a designer or a design agency.<br />
<br />
More often than not, companies and organizations first need business consulting before they need design – else all the design in the world can do little good for them.<br />
<br />
For instance, the following scenarios are pretty much regular fare in our industry:<br />
The client comes to us with an ever expanding list of print collateral they need produced. They don’t seem to understand that so much of it is redundant and they insist on spending 3 times what they should. They prefer a scattershot approach to marketing collateral instead of examining what their specific needs are and planning a targeted program to address those needs.<br />
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The client comes to us for a website or a site redesign. Their reason for this need is to “keep up” with their competition; to “look competitive.” They so often fail to first make their business competitive and then reflect that difference with their online presence.<br />
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The client comes to us for a website or site redesign in order to better reflect the gravity of their brand. They so often fail to notice that their brand is the problem; that the logo lacks gravity, that their copy writing lacks gravity and direction, that their company culture and client relationships are pure boilerplate.<br />
<br />
Now, it is quite understandable that this can happen. After all, it is hard for any of us to grasp just how much we don’t know and to take steps to address those issues. What’s so very disappointing though is that when these kinds of oversights and deficiencies are pointed out, they’re almost always dismissed by the client as irrelevant.<br />
<br />
In such cases, there is a high probability that the client will end up being unsatisfied with the agency and its work. After all, design cannot produce excellent results when it is being poorly employed. Design should never be the first step in dressing up or “fixing” a business or an organization.<br />
<br />
Excellent design coupled with sound business strategy works. One without the other almost never does. But it’s too bad design so often takes the wrap for this failure.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-2110502079633009112013-09-04T19:00:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:52:50.556+05:30Digital Marketing – A Primer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-X-98ia94G28/UkQ3P4167xI/AAAAAAAABlo/oHWhuFvNX_w/s1600-h/SEO-Digital-Marketing-Agency1%25255B6%25255D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="SEO-Digital-Marketing-Agency1" border="0" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-FXmGP2zk_RM/UkQ3Rr0dPFI/AAAAAAAABlw/osMbOMcjVsQ/SEO-Digital-Marketing-Agency1_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="SEO-Digital-Marketing-Agency1" /></a></div>
Digital Marketing nowadays is a major component for Marketing of any Product, Service or Brand. Why Digital Marketing is taking precedence over traditional way of doing marketing is that it’s so fast & quick that it happens on a click of button with very minimal cost & efforts. If not handled properly, it could make or break any Person, Group or an Organization in less than 24 hours. Digital Marketing is nothing but Internet Marketing. Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Social Media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc) are components of Digital Marketing.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<u></u><u></u><br />
Digital Marketing is a field which is not restricted only to Sales & Marketing Professionals but now it’s mandatory that each & everyone, whether a Business owner, a Working Professional, Politician, Bureaucrats, Film Star or even Sportsperson’s can’t survive in coming years if they will not have knowledge or habit of using Digital Marketing. <br />
<blockquote>
According to Wikipedia, is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.</blockquote>
Digital marketing is a marketing process which leads to the development of any organization or brand by using a variety of digital channels such as email, social networks etc. It can be defined as promoting of brands or products and services using all forms of digital advertising. Digital marketing uses Television, Radio, Internet, mobile and any form of digital media to reach customers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.<br />
<h3>
<b>A Primer of the term of digital marketing:</b></h3>
<b>What is Digital Marketing</b> - Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cell phones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>What is Social Media</b> - Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Social media is a term used to collectively describe a set of tools that foster interaction, discussion and community, allowing people to build relationships and share information.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>What is Search Engine Optimization</b> - SEO is a technique which helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to a search query. SEO thus helps you get traffic from search engines. SEO covers all the necessary information you need to know about Search Engine Optimization - what is it, how does it work and differences in the ranking criteria of major search engines.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Why Digital Marketing</b> – With the increased amount of social media platforms, many companies are taking advantage of digital marketing strategies to promote and market their products and services. Since the Internet allows us to communicate instantaneously, launching a digital marketing campaign can take place more quickly than traditional marketing campaigns and are sometimes less expensive. The wonderful thing about digital marketing is that it’s immediate, thus you can monitor feedback, input and actions in real-time from your target market. <u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Methods of Digital Marketing</b> <b>&</b> <b>Social Media Use</b>- This type of marketing enforcement or implementation is very integrated as various platforms can be utilized at once in promoting products or services. One can use websites, PPC ads, mobile apps, mobile websites, SMS, instant messaging, email among others to effectively communicate messages to his or her target audience. This mode of marketing is not only interactive but also very cost effective.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Email marketing</b> - Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Blog & Directory Submission </b>- A directory is an Index of websites compiled by people rather than a Crawler. Directories can be general or divided into specific categories and subcategories. A directory's servers provide relevant lists of registered sites in response to user queries. Directory Registration is thus an important method for building inbound links and improving SEO performance. However, the decision to include a site and its directory rank or categorization is determined by directory editors rather than an Algorithm.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Google Analytic </b>- Analytics refers to all the technology, programming, and data used in Search Engine Marketing to analyse a website's performance or the success of an Internet marketing campaign.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Meta Tagging </b>- Also known as a meta description tag, a description tag is a short HTML paragraph that provides search engines with a description of a page's content for search engine Index purposes. The description tag is not displayed on the website itself, and may or may not be displayed in the search engine's listing for that site. Search engines are now giving less importance to description tags in lieu of actual page content.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Pull Digital Marketing </b>– It is a method of advertising companies use to try and get consumers to find the company on their own. The idea is that people will find your company because your company was able to build a successful brand. This would mean that a company has offered a valuable product and created enough social media visibility to become something that a person wants all on his/her own.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Push Digital Marketing </b>- is an approach that tries to put advertisements in front of someone who does not necessarily have any knowledge of your company. Push marketing strategies could involve cold calling, advertising banners, or generating referrals. They are designed to get others to really promote the company and “push” the idea that your company is something of value.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Google AdSense </b>- Google AdSense is a paid service offered by Google that provides relevant text, image, and video-based advertisements to enrolled site owners. Advertisers register via Google AdWords and pay for ads on a Pay-Per-Click, Cost-Per-Thousand or Cost-Per-Action basis. This revenue is shared with Google AdSense host sites, typically on a PPC basis (which sometimes leads to Click Fraud). Google uses its search Algorithms and Contextual Link Inventory to display the most appropriate ads based on site content, Query relevancy, ad "quality scores," and other factors.<u></u><u></u><br />
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<b>Google AdWords</b> - Google AdWords is a paid and often expensive Keyword Submission program that determines the advertising rates and keywords used in the Google AdSense program. Advertisers bid on the keywords that are relevant to their businesses. Ranked ads then appear as sponsored links on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and Google AdSense host sites.<br />
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<hr />
Apart from using many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, digital marketing extends beyond this by including other channels that do not require the use of the Internet. Due to non-dependence on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole lot of elements such as mobile phones or cell phones, display / banner ads, sms /mms, digital outdoor, and many more.<br />
<br />
Digital marketing is now<sup> </sup>being enlarged in vast areas to support the "servicing" and "engagement" of customers.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-86008161605161106072013-08-31T18:53:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:56:05.211+05:30So, Your're A Web Designer, Right?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote>
What is the role of a web designer nowadays? An article about the changes that came with the awareness of responsive web design and the new workflow of designing in the browser.</blockquote>
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<h3>
THE WEB OF YESTERDAY</h3>
When I started doing this we were what you’d call a <em>petit-comitè</em>. I called myself a developer and worked with a great graphic designer, one of a kind. Our roles were crystal clear back then. Seasons came, seasons went and we started getting deeper and deeper into it. As our imagination kept moving forward, our websites grew more and more complicated. We soon found ourselves in a crossroads and we were forced to rethink our whole model.<br />
<br />
My journey into design started with typography, perhaps the only field where <em>my man</em> was not stunningly fluid. I never called myself ‘designer’, though, until I cut off from Adobe’s <em>Creative Suite</em> cold-turkey. Slowly but steadily my role evolved on to designing for functionality and interactivity, copywriting, structuring content, making layouts responsive, building strange custom web applications… <strong>Then</strong> I was designing. The <em>Graphic Designer</em>’s role evolved too, as he started getting gradually into development, my former side of things. It was from working together that we both expanded our notions and eventually our process. We were naturally responding to a new kind of situation.<br />
<h3>
THE WEB, TODAY</h3>
‘A designer who does not write markup and css is not designing for the web, but drawing pictures’.<br />
<blockquote>
‘Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works’ – Steve Jobs</blockquote>
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It’s been a few years now since the Mobile-First/Responsive meteorite shook the Web community. It has been an arduous but beautiful process. Hard in rethinking the way we work but beautiful in that it opened up a wild ground for madly intense collaboration between everyone involved. We’ve seen every field of the profession coming together and sharing their wonders: techies on Progressive Enhancement, typographers on lettering, grids and layout, designers on workflow, content strategists on sensible structure, top-notch freelancers on how to handle clients… <br />
To remain on top of the situation, every kind of Web professional has had to cross enemy lines to create symbiotic partnerships, in some cases lifelong friendships. And of course, the up-and-coming generation finds itself full of strange creatures that don’t fall under any of the previous categories. They are something in and of themselves.<br />
<blockquote>
‘Web Design is Product Design’ – Andy Rutledge</blockquote>
Some time ago, thinking of a designer as just a <em>‘Graphic designer’</em> wouldn’t have made much sense. Designers were actively involved in obscure parts of the process. Carving wood, painting, modelling, sometimes building, gardening…<br />
<h4>
<strong>So who killed the product designer?</strong></h4>
I haven’t been around long enough to have a clear view, but my guess would be <em>compartmentalization</em>. The sudden boom in demand might have driven companies to define enclosed cells of roles and responsibilities, or ‘silos’; then to hire <em>disposable</em> professionals that would fit, silently contributing to the creation of a thick, standardized, leaden model that would stand the test of time and ensure high-level productivity.<br />
<br />
Some people are making public the interest of high-end companies in finding a new sort of profile. They call it the <strong>Unicorn</strong>. They even went as far as creating the <a href="http://unicorninstitute.com/">Unicorn Institute</a> to groom this sort of designer. He is defining a position, a new <em>Experience designer</em> or <em>UX Generalist</em>, whose skills make them ready for this entirely new scenario.<br />
<br />
He makes a clear division between <strong>Specialists</strong> (experts in one field over others), <strong>Generalists</strong> (experts in more than one field) and <strong>Compartmentalists</strong> (having expertise in <em>only</em> one area). He argues that neglecting the possibility of expanding your boundaries and falling into the compartmentalist category is a career-limiting decision. Plus it’s no fun.<br />
<br />
Today’s way of things calls for a new kind of Web designer. A <em>Jack-of-All-Trades, master of none</em>. Startups are looking for the kind of folk that can follow the process end to end. Big enterprises for a more flexible worker that can move swiftly between the many aspects of a project, without hiding behind the barriers of their specialty.<br />
<h3>
THE WEB OF TOMORROW</h3>
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A designer today has to be able to dodge dangers of many kinds. Today’s Web is dynamic, fast, adaptive, mobile-optimized, ready for the modern consumer, which is pretty much everywhere and thus totally unpredictable, very intelligent and thus easily annoyed; and capable of showing an unbelievable capacity to dive blindfolded, headfirst into information overload and not only survive but make something of it.<br />
<br />
<strong>We’ve been exposed to some groundbreaking design work recently:</strong><br />
<ul>
<li>The journalistic community has seen incredible new layout techniques that may get to redefine the way content will be presented.</li>
<li>More and more services are going online. We are seeing smarter, faster, stronger web applications that are way closer to software than what a blog ever was. Plus many either benefit from the advantage of being an online tool. Many are based upon collaboration, and what better place than the web?</li>
<li>Experiments with 3D graphics that resemble high-end videogames, straight in the browser. And so on.</li>
<li>We are not in a header-nav-content-sidebar-footer scenario anymore.</li>
<li>The skills needed to achieve the Web of tomorrow will mutate with the scenario. So changing the way we do websites starts by revising our process.</li>
</ul>
<h3>
IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY GRAIL</h3>
<h4>
The First step is the hardest</h4>
There’s always a phase to devise how to build a product. It is critical that designers and their teams are aware of the technology at their disposal and show little fear in trying something new. Most of the time all this new tech is out there to make our lives easier, and yet you see so many people reject it every day.<br />
Then there’s a time for envisioning the application. <br />
<br />
‘Hanging on to older processes that include creating static wireframes and pixel-perfect mockups for design is counter-productive […]. Instead of spending time designing for […] device widths […], designers now have to focus on designing for content’.<br />
<br />
The static mockup has seen its time in the spotlight. We are designing for dynamic scenarios now, so we need dynamic prototypes.<br />
<br />
‘Designing in the browser’ said: ‘Print tools give you an illusion of control that doesn’t exist on the Web’. It goes on to point out a number of things a Photoshop mockup will never be able to account for:<br />
<ul>
<li>Pixel perfection: never happened </li>
<li>Feature uncertainty: browsers differ when handling effects, even the syntax is different </li>
<li>Things never designed to interact together will end up interacting </li>
<li>No control over content: take Google+ as a modern dynamic application. Never will anyone be able to mockup something such as this on Photoshop without a million problems.</li>
</ul>
So what better way to achieve this than diving straight into HTML? Here are some of her reasons. Out of the box, it makes you able to:<br />
<ul>
<li>Design around content and user interaction </li>
<li>Design for complexity and uncertainty </li>
<li>Find where design breaks the user experience </li>
<li>Find where data breaks design </li>
<li>The outcome is a template ready for any use </li>
<li>Use print tools later on to optimize prototypes</li>
</ul>
There are tools out there to prototype in HTML in a very visual and easy way.<br />
<h3>
DESIGNING IN THE BROWSER</h3>
I’ve seen way too many comments on blog posts saying something like ‘But that’s not designing in the browser, you’re using an editor!’. So let’s clear some assumptions first. Designing in the browser is <strong>not</strong> about using the browser as the one and only tool for designing.<br />
<blockquote>
‘Don’t design in the browser, decide in the browser.’ – Unknown</blockquote>
It is all about having direct communication between design, code AND the browser. Start designing, see it in the browser. Change stuff, see it in the browser. And if you get to do it in mobile at the same time, all the better.<br />
<br />
There are a number of concerns in Web design that can be cleared straight away with this method. For instance, your site’s readability. It is a great way to gain time too: when you’re deep into designing for different states and screen sizes you tend to focus and lose that habit of moving stuff one pixel up or down. The perfectionist inside of you will be too busy checking relationships between elements, fine-tuning interaction details, etc. The big picture will benefit from this as well, as you are producing something that works, as opposed to a picture of it. It feels like moving from a flight simulator onto the real deal… kinda.<br />
In the browser I learned the value of letting content drive my way of developing.<br />
<br />
For example, I stopped using <em>device media queries</em> altogether. I started relying on visual cues when deciding where to insert a breakpoint. There was another time when suddenly it made no sense to make complex calculations anymore to account for margins, paddings, positioning… I started trusting my gut and experimenting with Developer Tools and learning to accept what was happening before my eyes. I grew so used to inspecting elements, rearranging them, playing with measurements, content and interactions that the habit ended up <em>trickling down</em> onto my everyday Internet activity. Now, whenever I stumble upon something that catches my eye – some layout detail, typography or anything interesting -, I find it very difficult to stop my urge to inspect it and play around with it. Questions start arising, like ‘What would happen to this thing if it had more text in it?’, ‘How does this guy float that there?’, ‘How in hell are the inline comments on Medium laid out?’. That last one I just had to include.<br />
<br />
In the end, it’s all about learning how the browser handles the Web. It is not only possible but easy to learn to speak its language.<br />
<br />
The first website I ever did I did in Chrome. I had no idea that by simply switching to Firefox it would look completely screwed. And my troubles got worse because I started testing it when I felt I’d finished it. It was a terrible week. But I’ll never stumble two times over that same stone. From that moment on I integrated visual testing in the development phase. And later on it became a crucial part of the design process. I ask myself how could I be OK with something if I never knew it would work?<br />
<br />
Today I design and develop with my devices connected to the computer and I kind of catch problems before they even appear, this way. It’s become essential to me. I don’t trust my beautiful Apple stuff to fully represent the Wild, Wild Web, though. I never do 480, 768 or 1024px media queries anymore. And it feels liberating. It chooses random values each time (Small-ish. Medium-ish. Large-ish). Your site should look great in all of those. For the <em>mad ones</em>, it includes a ‘Disco’ mode, like those old Casio keyboards, ‘to watch the viewport bounce around like a maniac’. Is your site up to this?<br />
<h3>
THE LEAP OF FAITH</h3>
In Spain, a lot of us <em>speak</em> English. Most of us don’t, really. It’s more like this: we think of something in Spanish, in our heads we translate it into English and <em>then</em> we verbalize it, with an accent. And we look like morons. That’s not really speaking languages. It’s more like half-assed interpreting. The day you start <strong>thinking</strong> in English you start speaking in English. The more confident you grow, the better you speak. <br />
But the key lies in the method. What makes the fluent speakers different from those who plainly interpret languages? It’s the lack of fear when challenged with a conversation. You learn to speak by speaking.<br />
As I see it, this is very related to a designer learning to code. After all, it’s language we’re talking about. It’s not until you make that <em>leap of faith</em> that you’re starting to truly learn how an application works. It might look scary but there’s many people that have already done it and loved it.<br />
<br />
The time you spend in learning to design <strong>for</strong> the Web comes back full circle.<br />
<br />
Back in the day it was an odd feeling for us. On one hand we felt like we were somehow breaking out a proven way of working. On the other hand it felt like we were gradually let in on a big secret. We were making up our own rules as we went along. We were making our journey more interesting and as we grew more confident, the result was becoming stronger.<br />
<br />
<strong>We were redefining ourselves as designers.</strong></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-66714331273946271762013-08-13T18:46:00.000+05:302015-06-06T14:56:34.464+05:30Copywriting Tips to Boost Your Online Marketing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When it comes to online marketing – good copywriting is essential. Flashy websites are great, but copy is what ultimately sells. But, good copy isn’t as easy as slapping a few words on a page. It takes fineness. These 10 copywriting tips will help you take your copywriting to the next level.<br />
<h3>
<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-enMh-x8w-4I/UkQz6HMKQkI/AAAAAAAABlU/KajHeTx05l8/s1600-h/copywriting%25255B4%25255D.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="copywriting" border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-wmE7T9U3xBA/UkQz8XmF3xI/AAAAAAAABlc/9AuGtrFpAXc/copywriting_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="copywriting" /></a> Copywriting Tips That’ll Make Your Online Copy Shine</h3>
<h4>
<b>1 – Write your copy first</b></h4>
Often the hardest step is the first one. This can be especially true for copywriting. Get your thoughts down on paper. Don’t worry about making them perfect. Just say what you want to say.<br />
<h4>
<b>2 – Let it sit for five (or more)</b></h4>
Nothing will kill your credibility like typos. While it’s best to have a fresh set of eyes review your work, even the best of the best have editors, sometimes that’s just not possible. But, there is rarely a time your copy can’t sit for at least five minutes.<br />
<h4>
<b>2 – Edit. Edit. EDIT</b></h4>
Similar to letting your piece sit, editing is critical. From the simple typo and punctuation mistake to the misspelled and misused word – it can be easy to publish copy littered with mistakes. The end results not only make you and your business look bad, but also can deliver a message you didn’t intend.<br />
<h4>
<b>3 – Optimise your text</b></h4>
While spending the time to optimise your text with search engine optimisation (SEO) rich keywords may not seem like actual copywriting, in the online marketing world it is. And, it is essential to your success. Why? Because it doesn’t matter how good your copywriting is if no one reads it.<br />
<h4>
<b>4 – Address the reader</b></h4>
“You” addresses the reader. It brings the reader inside the story and engages them on a personal level. In short – “you” is one of the most powerful words you have as a copywriter.<br />
<h4>
<b>5 – Tell your reader a story</b></h4>
Nothing bridges the gap from sleazy car salesmen to personal relationship like stories. By telling your reader a story, you speak to their wants and needs. You can address their problems and eventually present your product and/or service as the solution.<br />
<h4>
<b>6 – Make your headlines catchy</b></h4>
Most people scan web pages. It’s the unfortunate truth. And, if they aren’t engaged they click away. Engage them immediately with a catchy headline.<br />
<h4>
<b>7 – Use Calls-to-Action</b></h4>
The reason you’re writing copy is to get your readers to act. Adding calls-to-action in your copy shows them and tells them what that next step is. It makes it easy for them. And if there’s anything we all know about readers, they will not work hard.<br />
<h4>
<b>8 – Call attention to your important facts and figures</b></h4>
Like headlines, calling attention to the most important parts of your copy helps readers navigate the page. You can do this by:<br />
<ul>
<li>Putting important facts in bold </li>
<li>Breaking up long paragraphs </li>
<li>Adding bulleted lists </li>
<li>Using reader friendly text size, font and colour</li>
</ul>
<h4>
<b>9 – Enhance your copy with images</b></h4>
The old saying, “A picture’s worth a thousand words,” couldn’t be truer when it comes to online copywriting. Utilise pictures to help tell your story.<br />
<h4>
<b>10 – Get social</b></h4>
Social Media may seem like a big can of worms you want to keep shut. It’s open. Ignoring it leaves you behind. Share your writing on social media platforms. Add share buttons to your copy to make it easy for readers to also share.<br />
<br />
Have you used any of these copywriting tips? Have you used other copywriting tips? What works best for you?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-57066471218925441392013-07-26T13:53:00.000+05:302013-09-23T19:05:31.399+05:30Authentic Design – A fad?<strong>The recently popularized “flat” interface style is not merely a trend. It is the manifestation of a desire for greater authenticity in design, a desire to curb visual excess and eliminate the fake and the superfluous.</strong><br />
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<strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxDnvbFYwiYmxnLo2ckh7t2ChtgRpqUvJs1Jm69EYQBBoEmtG7mlr2ED_wDQR4BgW3u0Ro-pw-T_EaFPsjMp0Q0zvnFlrzScAqCaIPHn3fGuldgp7jA1zbeMdhJ3wuI1DTXVii8dPwhZY/s1600/windows8_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxDnvbFYwiYmxnLo2ckh7t2ChtgRpqUvJs1Jm69EYQBBoEmtG7mlr2ED_wDQR4BgW3u0Ro-pw-T_EaFPsjMp0Q0zvnFlrzScAqCaIPHn3fGuldgp7jA1zbeMdhJ3wuI1DTXVii8dPwhZY/s1600/windows8_mini.jpg" /></a></strong></div>
<br />
In its desire for authenticity, the Modern design movement curbed the ornamental excess of the 19th century, making design fit the age of mass production. Today, we’re seeing the same desire for authenticity manifest itself in the “flat” trend, which rejects skeuomorphism and excessive visuals for simpler, cleaner, content-focused design.<br />
<h3>
Digital Ornament</h3>
If we compare the history of modern design with our short history of software and Web design, a parallel can be seen. In the same way that mechanized mass production resulted in an overuse of ornament, so did advances in display and styling technology result in the heavy use of decoration in software interfaces and websites. Designers in the early years of the Web were especially explorative on this front, using animation and sound together with images to produce excessively rich and often garish experiences.<br />
Early operating systems with graphical user interfaces were still fairly basic in their look and feel. As technology evolved, designers were granted greater visual freedom with their interfaces. Styles that imitate real-life objects and textures are said to be “skeuomorphs” — that is, design elements based on symbols borrowed from the real world, for the sole purpose of making an interface look familiar to the user. Recently, designers have started questioning the logic of styling a notes app as a paper pad, or of adding leather and page-turning effects to a calendar app. These effects provide visual interest, but they are also <strong>relics of another time</strong>, relics that tie an interface to static real-life objects that are incompatible with the fluidity and dynamism of digital interfaces.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjexwA2vMB5W9gVyGenZWEghhy3WoCzBwaSAIhzxTMdfHtrQcOWTUlm5cmTcc20jCZt77gBIGfGoowKSSnJjEgOXVOvmMv2PIW-YPRgA4TQnKtclqele7ir1qt3By0yNLN00lgp4jvFGg/s1600/calendar_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjexwA2vMB5W9gVyGenZWEghhy3WoCzBwaSAIhzxTMdfHtrQcOWTUlm5cmTcc20jCZt77gBIGfGoowKSSnJjEgOXVOvmMv2PIW-YPRgA4TQnKtclqele7ir1qt3By0yNLN00lgp4jvFGg/s1600/calendar_mini.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<h3>
Modern Design</h3>
With the latest release of Windows 8, <strong>Microsoft took a brave step away from such superfluous visuals</strong>, attempting to give its operating system a wholly digital and, in its words, “authentic” look. The latest interface is built upon the principles that Microsoft developed for its earlier mobile release, presenting the user with an aesthetic that is almost wholly devoid of textures or imitations of real-life objects.<br />
Instead, Windows 8 relies on typography, spacing and colour to bring order and elegance to the digital canvas. Real-life effects and superfluous styles are discarded, and all that is left is simply the content itself. Much as Muthesius once submitted railway stations as examples of <em>Maschinenstil</em>, the designers at Microsoft point to examples of railway station signs as inspiration for the new Windows interface, previously known as <strong>“Metro.”</strong><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio65Tok2yy7eqDxuGFvSwdBbrWIsVi102GsoYzcfDq-5_UlD0_f6FrWjxn1KRgI7aLtk6CfZprgWd6m6KHmxdU5eMi-kq6XC3NJ-U8HriYwrJ0kMxQ_gF9RgsjFJRwxE-rT7LMsZgGelI/s1600/ios7_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio65Tok2yy7eqDxuGFvSwdBbrWIsVi102GsoYzcfDq-5_UlD0_f6FrWjxn1KRgI7aLtk6CfZprgWd6m6KHmxdU5eMi-kq6XC3NJ-U8HriYwrJ0kMxQ_gF9RgsjFJRwxE-rT7LMsZgGelI/s1600/ios7_mini.jpg" /></a></div>
The Web has seen a similar transformation over the years. Early table-based and Flash-based designs gave developers pixel-perfect control over their interfaces, and so designers did not hesitate to create visually rich containers for their content. As we began to grasp the fluidity of the new medium and to disconnect presentation from content using CSS, Web design became more restrained. Highly decorated containers could not change their width and positions easily, so designers used fewer images and relied more on simpler CSS styling to make their layouts more adaptive and easier to maintain.<br />
The latest <a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank" title="Latest website designer">evolution of responsive design (which is to adapt a single page to suit various screen sizes and devices) as well as the move among designers</a> to work directly in code from the start, skipping visual editors such as Photoshop, moves us even further towards a simpler, content-focused Web aesthetic, one that derives its beauty from typography, spacing and colour rather than from a heavy use of textures and decorative images.<br />
<h3>
Authentic Design</h3>
What ties the pioneering days of Modern design to the current shift in software and Web design is the desire for authenticity. This drive towards greater authenticity is what moved designers to scrape away ornament from their work over a hundred years ago, and this force is what is moving digital design today towards a cleaner, more functional aesthetic. <strong>But what exactly makes design “authentic”?</strong><br />
<a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank">Authentic design</a> aims to pierce through falsehood and do away with superfluousness. Authentic design is about using materials without masking them in fake textures, showcasing their strengths instead of trying to hide their weaknesses. Authentic design is about doing away with features that are included only to make a product appear familiar or desirable but that otherwise serve no purpose. Authentic design is about representing function in its most optimal form, about having a conviction in elegance through efficiency. <a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank">Authentic design</a> is about dropping the crutches of external ornament and finding beauty in pure content.<br />
In authentic design, style is not unimportant, but it is not pursued through decoration. Rather, beauty of form depends on the content, with the style being a natural outcome of a creative solution. In digital design, authenticity means a few things, which can roughly be summarized as the following:<br />
<ul>
<li><strong>Embrace the digital look.</strong> <br />
We do not have to mimic textures such as metal, wood and leather on a computer display. They are not what a digital interface is made of, so pretending that it is makes no sense. This does not mean that a design should have only plain flat backgrounds colours — rather, it means we should not try to imitate or be restricted by textures from the real world. </li>
<li><strong>Do away with skeuomorphism.</strong> <br />
A digital book need not imitate physical paper as one turns the page, nor does a note-taking app need to look like a physical paper pad, with a leather cover, torn edges and a handwriting-styled font. Skeuomorphism is not always bad, but it always introduces needless constraints on the interface. For example, while a paper pad is static and one dimensional, a digital interface need not be; but as long as the interface is made to imitate a paper pad, it has to bear the constraints of the physical metaphor. </li>
<li><strong>Make the style content-centered.</strong> <br />
<a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank">Focus on the content rather than on its styling and decoration.</a> You might think this point is trite, but how many times have you seen an off-the-shelf theme on a website? A theme is always built on dummy content and so, by its very nature, could never be an optimal representation of the content it will eventually hold. Building themes with dummy text pushes the <a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank">designer to focus on styling and decoration</a>, rather than on content, because there is no content yet to work with. Only when you work with real content can you begin to truly transform function into form.</li>
</ul>
<h3>
NOT MINIMALISM</h3>
Design whose beauty lies in function is not the same thing as <del>minimalism</del> minimalist style. With the former, the designer seeks to remove the superfluous, to make the product easier to understand, to make it perform better and to <strong>make the most of its medium</strong>. The latter seeks to create a minimalist aesthetic, to give the object an aura of simplicity and cleanliness. One is a fundamental principle of design, the other a stylistic choice.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio65Tok2yy7eqDxuGFvSwdBbrWIsVi102GsoYzcfDq-5_UlD0_f6FrWjxn1KRgI7aLtk6CfZprgWd6m6KHmxdU5eMi-kq6XC3NJ-U8HriYwrJ0kMxQ_gF9RgsjFJRwxE-rT7LMsZgGelI/s1600/ios7_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio65Tok2yy7eqDxuGFvSwdBbrWIsVi102GsoYzcfDq-5_UlD0_f6FrWjxn1KRgI7aLtk6CfZprgWd6m6KHmxdU5eMi-kq6XC3NJ-U8HriYwrJ0kMxQ_gF9RgsjFJRwxE-rT7LMsZgGelI/s1600/ios7_mini.jpg" /></a></div>
It would be a mistake to rigidly apply a minimalist design aesthetic to an interface as a style in the hope of making the interface simpler and more digitally “authentic.” For example, ruthlessly eliminating visuals such as shadows, colours and varied background styles would not necessarily make an interface easier to use. In some cases, it would achieve the opposite by undermining hierarchy and focus, which were established by those very shadows and background colours.<br />
In <em>The Laws of Simplicity</em> John Maeda posits, “The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove. But <strong>be careful of what you remove</strong>.” The final warning is important. Removing things often leads to simplicity merely because the user has fewer items to process. But removing visual cues that help the user mentally process the interface — such as graphical elements that group items, that differentiate buttons and labels and that make things stand out — could do exactly the opposite by giving the user more work to do. So, rather than guide the design by style, guide it by principle.<br />
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WHY AUTHENTIC DESIGN MATTERS</h3>
The Rise app is a perfect example of <a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank">digitally authentic design</a>. The alarm clock is a problem that has already been solved, but Simplebots decided to tackle the concept from scratch, rethinking the interface in the context of a purely digital canvas.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYNWLHbFJE2xeHu3zQVtyE48VQxwoREeuPHVd25g_jxk7aLJBvs7ZI30oJ5koYSYPhiipD9KsajtRvGhxkheHqzPRrWq9ZVxjHJqn2xgByQ59kCRJXu9yoPncLfCBHynZ26_JuSzF9UDM/s1600/rise_mini.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYNWLHbFJE2xeHu3zQVtyE48VQxwoREeuPHVd25g_jxk7aLJBvs7ZI30oJ5koYSYPhiipD9KsajtRvGhxkheHqzPRrWq9ZVxjHJqn2xgByQ59kCRJXu9yoPncLfCBHynZ26_JuSzF9UDM/s1600/rise_mini.jpg" /></a></div>
Rise’s interface features a full-screen slider, with a background colour that changes to reflect the colour of the sky at the time you’ve set. It shows no attempt to mimic a physical clock or a physical slider or real-life textures. Instead, the designers have fully embraced the touch canvas of the mobile phone, creating an experience that is designed from the ground up to make the most of its medium. The innovative design not only makes for a great user experience, but elevates the app above others in the marketplace.<br />
An interface like Rise’s is only possible when you tackle a design problem wholly within the context of the digital canvas, rather than by translating solutions from the real world. The digital screen allows for abstract forms, animation, bright colours and uniform shades. It need not be limited to a subdued palette or static representation, nor must it be bound to skeuomorphic forms. By figuring out how best to represent content using the pixel grid, we can arrive at better, simpler solutions, innovative interfaces that feel at home on the screen, designs that provide a better user experience and that stand out from the crowd.<br />
The recently popularized “flat” design style may be a trend, but it is also the manifestation of a desire for greater authenticity in design, a desire to curb superfluous decoration and to <strong><a href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank">focus on the content itself.</a></strong> Technological progress sometimes leads to excess, as mechanized mass production did in the 19th century when ornament became overused, and as display and styling technologies did during the early years of Web and software design. But ornamental excess was curbed over time by the pioneers of Modernism, who sought beauty in function, and today’s excesses in software will in time be curbed by an underlying desire for authenticity in design.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-26650536033181308562013-07-10T19:07:00.001+05:302015-06-06T14:58:27.639+05:30Make Customer Testimonials Meaningful<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<img alt="Perfect Your Customer Testimonials" src="http://unbounce.com/photos/12-Posts-To-Perfect-Your-Customer-Testimonials.jpg" style="display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Perfect Your Customer Testimonials" /></h3>
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Bring out the value of your product or service with compelling user reviews.</h3>
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Using <a href="http://www.esitez.net/customer_testimonials.html" target="_blank">customer testimonials in your advertising, marketing materials</a> and on your website is a common practice. If your customers are saying great things about your business, then why not publicize those positive testimonials for the world to see?</div>
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Not so fast: There are two main problems with customer testimonials--overuse and legitimacy. Testimonials are used so often that they have lost some of their value. Furthermore, prospective customers don't always trust the truthfulness of testimonials. How do you make your customer testimonials stand out from the crowd and make them more meaningful for your prospects? To create effective, <a href="http://www.esitez.net/customer_testimonials.html" target="_blank">meaningful customer testimonials</a>, they must be:<br />
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<li><strong>Authentic:</strong> One of the main problems with customer testimonials is their believability. Prospective customers need to believe the testimonials you provide are real. Too many companies advertise using customer testimonials written by a copywriter with no involvement from actual customers at all. To make your customer testimonials believable, authenticate them by using pictures of the customers who provide them along with those customers' real names. In other words, prove your customer testimonials are real up front so there is no room for doubt in the minds of your prospects.</li>
<li><strong>Quantifiable:</strong> Add meaning to your customer testimonials by putting hard numbers in them whenever possible. If customers talk about the amount of money or time they saved by doing business with you, find out exactly how much they saved, and ask them to include those figures in their testimonials. A customer testimonial that says, "I saved $100 at XYZ Store" is far more compelling than, "I saved money at XYZ Store."</li>
<li><strong>Specific:</strong> Customer testimonials are useless unless they give prospective consumers a reason to care about them. Vague testimonials, such as "It was great to do business with ABC Store," provide nothing of value to prospective consumers. Instead, guide customers who give you testimonials by asking them to provide a specific reason why working with your business benefited them. Effective customer testimonials won't leave a prospective customer saying, "Why should I care what that person thinks?" Instead, effective customer testimonials tell prospects exactly what's in it for them when they choose your business based on another customer's prior experience. In other words, prospective consumers should be able to personalize your customer testimonials and apply them to their own lives.</li>
<li><strong>Diverse:</strong> Not only is it useful to obtain customer testimonials from a diverse audience who your prospective customers can relate to, but it also helps in terms of keeping your testimonials meaningful. If you use the same testimonial again and again, prospective consumers will wonder if this is the only person who had something good to say about your business. The testimonial will lose meaning because the individual who provided the testimonial becomes more of a spokesperson rather than another satisfied customer in the eyes of prospects. Obtain a varied collection of customer testimonials that prospects will relate to, from a diverse group of people and also about a variety of experiences and benefits.</li>
<li><strong>Approved:</strong> Always obtain approval and written permission to use any customer's testimonial, name or likeness in your marketing and business materials. Remember Step 1 of creating meaningful customer testimonials is to make them authentic by naming names and using pictures. You shouldn't do that unless you have permission from the source first.</li>
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In short, don't leave room for guesswork when it comes to your customer testimonials. Leverage the role of your loyal and best customers by asking them to provide testimonials. Make sure your customer testimonials are verifiable, and specifically tell prospective consumers the benefits of doing business with you. If <a href="http://www.esitez.net/customer_testimonials.html" target="_blank">your customer testimonials are honest and trustworthy</a>, then people will respond to them--which translates to positive results for your bottom line.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948394844172095383.post-66993811036527717432013-07-05T17:57:00.000+05:302013-07-05T18:00:29.157+05:30Is Responsive Web Design The Future?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Do you need a responsively designed website?" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTfUmu_Bb8smzuMHEQ2wCX65WmIgloaP48XaX2E8WjgPWPZEEqmGj6psylYdY7xcz24Twv69qB65ocmQAArNENZ0XWVr-8ffDnm8fj8q5nlo-Qo_XpJXx_fGF9ltz6U1uDvcHvakBMAc/s640/Do-you-need-a-responsively-designed-website.jpg" title="Do you need a responsively designed website?" width="600" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"You put water into a cup it becomes the <i>cup</i>.<br />
You put water into a bottle it becomes the <i>bottle</i>.<br />
You put it in a teapot, it becomes the <i>teapot</i>"</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.esitez.net/">Web developers and online businesses</a> are constantly looking for ways to improve, enhance and perfect their online presence.</div>
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In the last few years, many internet trends signalled to be the “next big thing” have come and gone. So with responsive web design currently making the biggest waves in the web development world, how can we know if it’s really here to stay?</div>
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What is responsive web design?</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicO97vVX45nFnYUv4iNU6ymYo0NvxtM0Pm_EJMrMNkAq4HetIFCRn_L23x8ydy9VGPF7F477w2Ae6cYshu41Dt3_esS8Yyii9cGby4BzY3TMQ8EwgTH4X1vYWc3JNAlcqiboIX_BmxB6Y/s400/What-is-responsive-web-design1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What is responsive web design?</td></tr>
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Before the advent of tablet computers and smart phones, the majority of people viewed the internet on a PC or Mac computer. This meant that screen sizes varied very little across the spectrum, so a website could easily be designed in a ‘one size fits all’ manner.</div>
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Today an increasing number of people are using devices with differing screen sizes to browse the web.</div>
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However today more and more people are using mobile devices to browse and interact with the Internet. This means that a single website can now be displayed on a wide variety of screen sizes, every one of which will present a site in a slightly different way.</div>
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Previously, users would either need to pan and scroll across a standard site or be directed to a mobile site to find the information that they were looking for.</div>
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<a href="http://www.esitez.net/">Responsive web design</a> allows the content to adjust automatically to whichever screen size it is being viewed on. So the site appears on your smartphone exactly as it would on your desktop computer.</div>
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What are the benefits?</h3>
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<a href="http://www.esitez.net/">Responsive web design benefits both the website owner and the user.</a></div>
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Whereas in the past a company or individual would either have needed two sites – a standard site and a site tailored to mobile devices – or accepted that customers viewing the site on different screen sizes would have had a poorer user experience, now the business can simply create one site that can be viewed quickly and easily by all.</div>
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This does away with a lot of the duplicate content that appears when you have two sites makes users a lot more likely to return to your site in the future. As the trend continues to grow many <a class="post_link" href="http://www.esitez.net/" target="_blank" title="web designers in Hertfordshire">web designers in Jaipur</a>, India and the surrounding areas are adopting responsive site design into all their website builds.</div>
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What are the disadvantages?</h3>
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There’s no getting around the fact that creating a responsively designed site is more expensive than a standard site. And even if you've got an idea about coding and web design, you’ll probably have to hire someone to create and develop a responsive site for you.</div>
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There are also some issues when it comes to advertising as any adverts on your site must also shift and adjust to the screen. This can cause problems when advertisers want a guaranteed placement for their ad.</div>
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Do you need a responsively designed website?</h3>
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If you’re not sure if investing in a responsive design will be worthwhile for you, have a look at <a href="https://www.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a> or another analytical site to see how many of your visitors are currently using phones or mobile devices.</div>
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If more than around 5% of your visitors are using devices with smaller screen sizes, it could be a good idea to create a site that will work for them as well.</div>
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Responsive web design allows content to shift and adjust to suit the screen.</div>
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Is it the future?</h3>
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Judging by the shear numbers of people now browsing the internet on their phones or mobile devises, the demand for responsively designed site is set to grow.</div>
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And unless someone comes up with a better solution, it won't be long until all websites are responsively designed.</div>
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When it comes to the internet, the future is incredibly hard to predict. But with current trends moving towards a multitude of devices becoming internet enabled, it seems inevitable that before long, all websites will be responsively and intelligently designed.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0