Web Design

Indiana marketing is about to get cute and cuddly, as Butler University recently announced that its live mascot, Blue II, has taken a puppy named Trip under his wing and will be "training" him how to drum up school spirit.

"Having Trip at Butler now means he will learn from the best (Blue II) and be fully prepared for the day when he officially takes the reins as the University's 'Top Dawg,'" the school said in a statement. "Until then, Blue II will continue to tweet, eat and nap around campus as usual."

Michael Kaltenmark, Butler's director of web marketing and communications, is the owner of the school's current mascot Blue II, and noted that Trip's birth was the deciding factor in bringing on another campus dog. He said the school had not been searching for a third mascot prior to that.

The marketing campaign also includes a web design element, as the puppy has his own webpage, as well as a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and a host of other platforms.

According to Blue III's biography on the site, he's the great grandson of one of the most decorated English Bulldogs in U.S. history.

Many small businesses struggle with search engine optimization and making their websites easily navigated, and an Elkhart, Indiana, web design company wants to help them.

In a recent statement, Effect Web Agency outlined some of the main problems that challenge many web design businesses. Effect's president and web strategist, Steve Schmidt, noted that most companies in the sector either ignore their clients' specific needs and goals and charge straight into "execution mode," or they put the responsibility of being web architect and director on the client's head.

"The best results happen when the experts in the products and services (the client) and the experts in the web collaborate," Schmidt added. Before kicking off a web design project, Effect says, both parties need to lay out plans for branding, serving customers, beating competitors and learning from past strategies.

The company noted that by having the web designer and the client work together in this manner, it "helps clients make informed decisions about their best options to increase website traffic, sales and lead generation."

In addition to providing a better browsing experience for customers, having a well-designed website can serve several marketing purposes. By making it easier for consumers to locate a site and then offering content that keeps them there, businesses may have a better chance of converting a client or closing a sale.

An Indianapolis marketing services company is practicing what it preaches in terms of the importance of internet-based communications, as it recently announced it had completed a web design project. Email and software marketing company Delivra said the industry had changed drastically from when it was founded in 1999, since what was then a "brand new concept" for advertisers and marketers had now become the norm and a key aspect of virtually every digital campaign.

The agency said its new site was meant to "embrace the modern demands of managing email marketing campaigns."

Delivra CEO and president Neil Berman said in the beginning, his company had to manage every facet of its clients' marketing programs. "Now, 12 years later, our clients still turn to us for strategy and managed services because we’ve become their email marketing consultants that can help them achieve their goals," he added.

Startup companies or those who have just developed a new website would do well to pay attention to the principles of search engine optimization. By including relevant keywords in the site's content, businesses can make it easier for search engines to find their pages, thus driving up the chance for a potential customer to visit their site and purchase their products or services.

Ohio's Amer Insurance has overhauled its website design in order to better serve customers and "make the online insurance shopping experience more educational and intuitive for individuals and businesses seeking very specific insurance coverage and services," the company recently announced.

The Akron-based business said it had worked to integrate its new website with a digital marketing campaign that strives to deepen relationships with its customers. The website will allow consumers to browse various product categories - from business insurance to professional liability insurance - learn what their policy options actually mean and even fill out an online form requesting a quote.

The company added that it was "thrilled to move forward with the initiation of its innovative digital marketing strategy and has high expectations for the ease it will bring to its Ohio community."

Bradley Residential Management is another Midwestern company that focused on the layout of its website as a factor in its branding efforts.

The South Bend, Indiana, company redeveloped its website, updated its marketing strategy and adopted a new logo when it changed its name from Real Estate Management Corporation.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of including keywords related to a business on its website content, making it easier for search engines such as Google to find the relevant pages.

While many major corporations have an SEO element in their digital marketing strategies, small businesses that may not be as tech-savvy or have the resources to hire a writer can use a little assistance. In order to help independent companies improve their search rankings, SEO Marketing Media Elite, which specializes in web design and SEO, is offering SMBs assistance on content development at a discounted rate.

"Just making a webpage or Facebook page does not mean that a business will instantly gain more customers," the company notes in the release. "A business needs the page to have traffic driven to it through search engine optimization campaigns."

Businesses can also direct their digital marketing efforts toward improving internal relationships, by developing mobile or social media applications that involve a gaming element.

Computerworld UK reports that gamification - "the use of components of games … to accelerate or enhance things that aren't games" - can not only be powerful for consumer web marketing, but can increase employee motivation, lead to better training and make customer service more effective.

A Columbus, Ohio-based nonprofit organization is under scrutiny about a marketing message featured on its website. The Middletown Journal reports that although cancer charity Pelotonia claims that "100 percent of every dollar raised" is sent straight to Ohio State University's Comprehensive Cancer Center, the top executives actually get significant compensation.

Executive director Tom Lennox took home $363,495 in 2009 alone, with operations director Kelley Griesmer earning $121,680 that year, the newspaper says.

Charity Watch president Daniel Borochoff told the source that the promise to hand over 100 percent of funds raised is "very misleading." However, Pelotonia's officials pushed back against allegations, saying they never tried to dupe anyone.

The charity is under the Ohio State University Foundation, and pays its officials much more than those who head up other organizations in the state, Borochoff said.

On its website, Pelotonia describes itself as an "inspired community of people, a cancer research center, hundreds of volunteers, thousands of riders, millions of dollars and countless stories of inspiration, and one disease that absolutely must be fought … until it is stopped."

A study co-authored by an Indiana University professor shows that mobile applications designed for a specific brand offer an extremely effective marketing tool.

The report shows that branded apps can make consumers more interested in certain product categories, and the users are more engaged if the tool is informational or utilitarian, rather than simply for entertainment purposes.

Robert F. Potter, director of the Institute for Communication Research at IU Bloomington and an associate professor of telecommunications in the IU College of Arts and Sciences, said people tend to have deeper personal connections with mobile devices than they do with websites.

"One benefit of the mobile app is that you go, you get it and you download the app - it's now yours," he said. "It may be a deeper level of interactivity."

The report noted that consumers' attachment to their smartphones presents more opportunities for advertisers, but that they need to change their tactics for conversing with prospective customers.

Amazon has already jumped on the opportunities presented by mobile apps. Direct Marketing News reports that the ecommerce giant has created the Price Check mobile app, which allows shoppers to compare product prices in the store and rewards those who opt to make a purchase on the website instead.
 

A Cleveland marketing company plans to promote the commercial benefits of using search engine optimization and how SEO can work with redesigned websites to make them more usable for businesses and consumers.

The Metrics Marketing Group will be making the presentation during an event celebrating World Usability Day, hosted by the Northeast Ohio Usability Professionals' Association (NEOUPA). The day - scheduled for November 10 - aims to demonstrate how various services and products can be made more accessible and simpler to use.

"World Usability Day is about spreading awareness in the importance of usability and providing education in improving user experiences," Cathleen Zapata, vice president of research and customer experience at Metrics Marketing and president of NEOUPA.

Businesses may be able to improve the customer experience, and ultimately, their sales, if they make website usability a priority. According to Business 2 Community, companies that are planning to redesign their websites would do well to run usability tests before the launch, as it can help root out any performance or navigation issues prior to the site going live, and can reduce the effort of fixing problems later on, the source says.  

A Kentucky-based digital marketing agency recently got a stamp of approval from Inc. magazine, as it was included in the publication's list of 5,000 companies that are achieving success in their respective industries.

LeapFrog Interactive, which has offices in Louisville, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Ohio and Boston, works to help brands connect with their customer base through digital channels. According to Inc., the company was able to grow its revenue from $3.3 million in 2007 to $5.5 million in 2010, and has seen 65 percent growth over the past three years.

"At LeapFrog, we start with a strong foundation on each campaign because we take the time upfront to conduct extensive research for our clients. We then take this data and apply it to each aspect of the campaign, which in turn produces results-driven campaigns," stated Daniel Knapp, LeapFrog Interactive's CEO.

The company said in a statement that it won the No.1 ranking among the Kentucky advertising and marketing industry, and earned a 3,093 ranking out of the total 5,000 companies listed by the magazine.  

A company with ties to Berea, Kentucky, is planning to teach lawyers how they can improve their internet marketing efforts and website design to build up their client base.

Marketing consultancy and website design firm Consultwebs.com recently announced that it would be issuing a newsletter to help lawyers leverage social media websites and their current websites to increase their name recognition and get new opportunities.

"The goal of our newsletter is to call lawyers' attention to the many different marketing opportunities that are available through the Internet," stated Consultwebs.com CEO Dale Tinche.

Some of the tips offered in the newsletter include featuring client testimonials on the firm's website, issuing more press releases and using social media sites such as Google+ to create a larger online presence.

As law marketing consultant Rene Perras writes for Le Buzz, lawyers may be able to pull more affluent clients by using video, search and other forms of digital marketing.

Perras points to research that suggests almost 60 percent of affluent consumers are prompted to act after seeing a digital ad. Additionally, featuring advertisements on digital channels made 51 percent of affluent respondents aware of a new business, and 39 percent were driven to visit the website of the company that placed the ad.