New Is Better, Part l
Oh boy! A New Project
The only thing I like more than finishing a project is starting one. It’s kinda like starting a new relationship. You find out about each other, the likes, the dislikes, how she takes her coffee. I like the process of looking into the personality of a new client and finding out about their design sense, the way they communicate with their viewers and what they’d like to change or improve about the process. It’s a wonderful time in the development of a project and always teaches me new things about human nature, communication and individual preferences.
With most new clients, starting out on the road to a brilliant, new website or marketing campaign is tenuous, stressful experience. They often think they’ll need to do all the heavy lifting. But that’s our job. We like heavy lifting. We do it all the time. In fact, the only thing a new client really has to do is be their own, charming self.
The first step is the questions. And there are a lot. I always start off with the big one: “What do you want to have at the end of this process?” And I’m not just talking about, oh, I want a shiny new website, or please make me look like a cupie doll with frogs legs. What I want to hear is “ I need to sell 10,000 units of hand cream to retired school teachers from Des Moines." That’s something I can work with. Right there I know that we’re gonna set up eCommerce, that we have a demographic, a solid product line and I can research the hell out of retired school teachers to see how they view life, how they shop online and what they want from their hand cream out there in Iowa.
Here’s another big one: "How do you want to be seen by the world at large?" Remember, we’re building a very specific vessel for communication here. Whether it’s a website, a direct mail campaign or a billboard, it's there to deliver one very specific message and to deliver it in no uncertain terms. It’s an extension of the client’s personality, business practices, image, etc. From single artists to big companies, the process is the same: distill the entity to its essence and use that to write the next chapter.
Contents under pressure
Well, once we know where we’re going, it’s time to decide how to get there. In terms of a new website, the next step is to decide what kind of content we’re going to offer. Content is an extremely powerful aspect of a website. Consider MySpace for instance. A MySpace page is really a mini-website. If you know 10 people with MySpace accounts, chances are, at least 1 of them, we’ll call him Bob, never bothers to update his stuff. There are a million unanswered comments, the same old pictures of Bob’s Jack Russell Terrier, and every time you check it out, you’re accosted by the same, tired version of “Too Much” by Dave Matthews Band. Then there’s your ever-so-slightly-annoying friend, Kate, who uses the web for nothing but updating her MySpace page. She always puts her newest favorite song in the player, her friends list is ever-growing with new and interesting people you can check out and there’s always a blog to read or a survey to take. So which page do you wanna visit more often?
Right - Kate’s. Why? Because Kate ain’t boring – that’s why. And guess what Kate has. Eyeballs. And Eyeballs are pretty powerful when it comes to websites. When you have a website that encourages viewers to keep coming back, you are in a powerful position to disseminate information. And this is the information age. You know who else likes eyeballs? Advertisers with money to burn. ‘Nuff said.
So, what are we putting in the site? Why would someone want to come to your site instead of the billion others they just found on Google? Content comes in every form you can imagine from a message on the home page updated daily, to relevant pictures in the photo gallery, to timely news articles and blog entries. Whatever it is, it needs to be custom tailored to the viewer. There’s no waiting around for the web. The viewer wants his content like his women, fast and interesting. (half kidding)
Even if your viewers already know about you (as opposed to finding you via a blind Google search) you still need to keep them interested enough to visit, stay, and decide to come back again later. Again, this takes careful content management and attention to detail. You need to know who you’re dealing with and talk to them instead of at them, over them or around them. Luckily we’re here to help with that very thing.
Is there anything else?
Well, yes – there’s lots. But much of the rest of it is left up to us to think about. While you're producing your delicious content (keep in mind we also produce oodles of content when required), we’re engineering a foolproof system to deliver it. This includes an intuitive navigation layout, pages that load quickly and efficiently, code that lends itself to search engine placement, and lots of other goodies.
When it all comes together, what you’ve got is a smooth information delivery system that’s enjoyable for the viewer and lucrative for the owner. In part II, we'll look at the graphic side of things.
