posted by Robin Tooms @ 11:57 PM
A great idea, executed well, really can be done on a budget.
Case in point. Artist Rebecca Ward uses everyday materials, such as fluorescent gaffers tape, in an unexpected way to create something memorable. Granted, there’s a LOT of tape that got sacrificed as part of the Kate Spade Broome Street New York store installation, but it’s easy to see how the finished installation transcends the actual cost of the tape rolls. It’s how the tape was used that makes it worthwhile.
Creatives tend to look at challenges in different ways. Where one person may just see a roll of tape for its utility – a way to attach or mark off something – a creative sees the possibilities. It’s what is often called “thinking outside the box,” and it’s what we, as designers, do for a living everyday, so we’re rather good at it.
kate spade ny party from Jessica J Schroeder on Vimeo.
This was also interesting. During the event, there was a “tape bar” setup where attendees could get into the spirit of the installation by creating their own keepsakes of custom decorated journals. Kudos on the event marketing committee for extending the theme in a relevant way that appealed to their fashion-conscious attendees while reminding them of the Kate Spade brand. Living colorfully is good!
2.19.2010
posted by Nicolette Beard @ 12:27 PM
One of the most challenging aspects of owning or managing a website is the consistent need for new content.
Unless a website is frequently updating its pages with new product information or service offerings, it will see its influence, with both readers and search engines, decline over time. We talked about the hazards of becoming a “tombstone” web property in a recent post.
I’d like to share ways to generate content that not only will help you maximize your website’s visibility, but also improve its usefulness to your visitors.
Leveraging Your Digital Assets
I’ve borrowed a page from the so-called “Internet marketing gurus,” who’ve mastered the art of re-purposing their “must-have” e-book. You, too, can leverage your existing content and enjoy better search results at the same time.
There are portions of your site that are easy to forget: a letter to shareholders, pictures of the company sales convention, a podcast of a new product demo, etc. You may not realize that this content can be optimized for more search value. These are your digital assets. They took just as much time and money to develop as your user-friendly navigation or your killer app.
Optimizing Images
If you’ve paid for professional photography and own the rights, you need to start earning back the money you paid by optimizing those images for search engines. Allow the search engines to reach the directory they live in, and offer a plain image behind any that are displayed in Flash enhancers, so they can be indexed.
You can also leverage your images in social media profiles such as Flickr or Photobucket. I knew a photographer who had a limited budget but wanted to showcase his fabulous portfolio. His web developer set up an account and linked the website directly to Flickr. Unfortunately, the images were named 0700154scl.jpg – not search friendly at all.
Ideally, you want to include alt tags, a link title tag, a proper title (not some number useful only for filing) and metadata inside the images to better associate them with branded and non-brand keywords.
Re-purposing PDFs & Documents
Besides being a great B2B lead generation tool, white papers can enjoy a shelf-life beyond their initial post date. Most companies spend hours developing sales materials, press releases and collateral material as well. Not only do your visitors see this as valuable content, but search engines do too! They are capable of crawling and indexing this content if you provide a pathway to it.
When you post your PDFs, or similar documents, to your site, make sure they contain at least one link back to your site inside the document, preferably with anchor text pointed to specific pages. This is a great way to leverage “free” downloads of your case studies. You’ve now created an incoming link from web properties that have downloaded and shared your content, which helps lift your pages in search engine results.
YouTube No Longer “Kids Only” Content
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and a marketing channel not to be ignored. The Diet Coke & Mentos experiments went viral with 11 million views in 3 years. I’m sure every B2B has a “how-to” video just waiting for an audience.
Post the video to your website, and let the search engines get to the files. Give your video its own page with corresponding copy, and submit a simple video sitemap via your robots.txt file.
With these three tactics, you’ve solved the problem of creating new content on a regular basis. Make re-purposing your digital assets a way of life for your business website.
Additional Resources: Optimizing for Universal Search
2.15.2010
posted by Nicolette Beard @ 6:27 PM
With 82%* of consumers using a search engine as their first step in researching a product or service locally, developing a company website is critical to long term business success.
But what happens once the site is launched? Without a content strategy or goals for building and maintaining a web presence, your site will become a “tombstone,” as Lee Odden so aptly phrased it on his online marketing blog.
A tombstone website is one in which the content is static. In other words, DEAD.
Search engines don’t visit static websites often, which hinders your search visibility. Google likes sites with fresh, frequent, relevant content. They’re in business to serve up the best, most accurate and authoritative results. When you stop feeding their “bots,” you are invisible to them.
More importantly, your customer or prospect won’t stop by either, limiting your ability to engage, communicate and convert that visitor to a buyer.
Worse than dated content, however, is an out-of-date design. If you spend any time online, you may have noticed that websites today are less cluttered, easier to navigate, incorporate social aspects and take advantage of the wider computer screen widths and crisper resolutions.
If you think of your website Home page as your “front door,” ask yourself if you’d be embarrassed to invite your boss or coworker over for dinner. What would they encounter? Rusty tools leaning against the doorjamb?
Not having a website is no longer an option for businesses today. Having a website that works is crucial to your online health and longevity.
If you want your visitors to feel welcome and prolong their visit, make it easy for them to stay. Slow loading pages, poorly laid out navigation, flash intros, dated material, all point to a tombstone website.
And if you don’t want your visitors hitting the back button, please don’t have your brother-in-law’s mother’s cousin redesign your website.
*Source: LocalConnex
2.10.2010
posted by Paige Hebert @ 1:10 PM
In July of 2009, Savage design director Doug Hebert and brand strategist Robin Tooms were invited by Graphis to participate in an article regarding the increasingly popular migration of annual reports from print to digital format. In the article, “AR 2.0” – the buzzword moniker given to the new report medium – is revealed as a tool that is not out to replace the printed books from which they were spurred, but to enhance information accessibility and connect with investors in ways that print is not capable – such as video and animation.
Savage was an early pioneer of the online annual report, designing them as far back as 1999 for Kodak and General Motors and has recently created award winning print and online investor campaigns for companies such as Sysco and Baker Hughes.
The article was included in the recently printed Graphis 2010 Design Annual. To download and read the insightful article, please visit our marketing communications website.
2.10.2010
posted by Paige Hebert @ 11:16 AM
Savage is excited to see the redesigned TPC Group website go live!
For the rebuild of the TPC website, Savage utilized the powerful FlexWeb CMS platform to run both the former and the new website in tandem during development. TPC was able to reuse many of the former web assets that were applicable to the new site, which accelerated the development process greatly and provided cost savings in several aspects of the project. The same security and content management tools were able to manage both websites and provided for a smooth and flawless transition to the new TPC website.
To see our Web & Interactive Design in action, visit the TPC Group site.
