Staying Busy

You can feel when the agency is doing well.

Everyone has a glow of confidence and there is a definite smoothness in the work process. Everyone’s busy and the work is good.

We’ve been hiring over the past few months; writers, designers, account managers, even some just graduated trainees.
We took our “it’s the economy” hit last year. We got so freaking paranoid as business slowed down that we trimmed down, tightened up and re-evaluated every process and procedure. We got focused on what clients need, right now.
We must have done something right.
The agency came out of the gate strong in 2009 and whatever it is that we are doing right; we plan to keep doing it!

Speaking of Trainees
We have three new college grads starting next week.
They will go through six months of training and if they’re still here in 6 months will be promoted to Assistant Something or Other. Their first week, we don’t give them any work. It’s all about orientation by different departments and agency process training, which can be pretty intense. They walk around in a daze and tend to cling to each other. We have a pretty good training process in place. On average, it takes two to three months before it all comes together for them and they have what I call the AHA! moment. All of a sudden, they understand how the agency can go from a challenge to a brilliantly executed solution and what part they can play in that.

What’s good with having several trainees at once is that they learn to work as a team and support each other. Once several years ago, I had a trainee that just wasn’t getting it. She was a hard worker and very smart, but not firing on all cylinders. I called together three other trainees in the agency and told them that it was their responsibility to get her up to 100%. I also told them all of the terrible things that would happen to them if they failed.
Worked like a charm.

I love eCommerce
Ever since we built the PetFoodDirect.com site in the late 90’s, I’ve been fascinated with eCommerce.
We just soft launched an eCommerce site called www.SkinRenu.com . The site sells high quality skin products. We needed to keep the budget in control while we built the first phase of the site. So we went with a Yahoo Store Front that we customized. It looks pretty good and started pulling orders right away. But there’s still a lot to be done over the next six months.

A RPV session led to the concept of “Love what you see when you look in the mirror.” The brand vision is paid of well on the site. Next we start to build in all the response triggers. Things like special offers, promotions, and events. Once we get all the bugs out of it, we’ll begin testing Search Engine Marketing (SEM). You’ll see the site grow and change over the next year and I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening and what I’m learning.

And I’m open to your suggestions! Really.

Jon

Eyeball Candy Websites

We’re working on a lot of websites at the moment.

When I think of websites, I think of a seminar I went to given by Amy Africa, an authority on how people use the internet. Go take a look at her website and when you come back, I’ll make my point.
http://www.eightbyeight.com/

My point.
You probably think her website is butt-ugly. But I’m telling you, Amy Africa knows more about building websites that generate business then I will ever know (and I’m pretty good). She uses all the tricks she’s learned doing research on how people surf, purchase and interact with anything on the web. This is a website that generates response!

Using the Rosen Velocity Scale -- http://www.rgrosen.com/velocity.html ,
I would rate Ms. Africa’s site at an 8 or 9.
That’s because the site is totally focused on visitor interaction.
When I tell our interactive and web designers to go to Ms. Africa’s website; they all moan and cry about its lack of beauty and failure of design. They are missing the point.

The secret to a customer interactive site is Eyeball Candy!
Ms. Africa has eyeball candy piled up all over her site. Your eyes go from tidbit to tidbit. Offer to offer. She knows that the reds and blues and orange are the best colors for a website.
The secret to improving your website is not to copy the Africa look. Though I would say that you couldn’t go wrong if that’s what you did.
The trick is to incorporate eyeball candy technique into your site wherever possible.

One trick to create your eyeball candy is to make a list of every key fact, offer, benefit and feature you want the site to deliver on the home page. With this list you create individual pieces (eyeball candy) that show a visual, headline and a short punchy copy lead that draws to eye to it. Each one of these candies allows you to click deeper into the site to find out more. You might have three different eyeball candies that all click to the same inside page, each one leveraging a different feature/benefit.

Go take a look at this site:
www.PetFoodDirect.com

I designed this site 10 years ago. It’s an eyeball candy site. I think Amy Africa would be very pleased with it. The homepage consistently converts visitors into orders better than anything that has been tested against it. That’s because the homepage delivers everything it can to pay-off the anticipated needs of the visitor. It then draws the visitor into the site to capture the orders.
If I could redesign this site based on what I know today, I would do a better job of brand delivery, but the eyeball candy style would remain and continue to draw visitors in.

Eyeball candy design need not be ugly. Done correctly, it can be dramatic and award winning design. If your website is to be judged on clicks, sign-ups and/or orders…eyeball candy works!

Jon