Economic development organizations face the interesting challenge of presenting compelling data for consultants while showcasing a region’s vibrant lifestyle for companies and their employees.

The Henrico County Economic Development Authority needed to do just that, while creating a friendly browsing experience. Toney Hall, Henrico County EDA’s Director of Marketing, recalls their challenge. “We wanted to totally refresh our website, making it more appealing, exciting and user-friendly. It was our main goal to do a better job of telling the Henrico story by not only focusing on key business elements and our strategic location in the world, but also by highlighting the county’s quality of place and life.”

Having done audience research for other economic development consulting jobs, we instantly understood the challenge and had ideas to present both critical data and Henrico County’s way of life in an engaging way. “Economic development experience gave Rick Whittington Consulting the edge over the other consultants we considered,” said Hall.

We decided to focus on improving visitor engagement, knowing that the longer visitors interacted with content on the site, the more likely they would be to consider Henrico County for their company’s relocation or expansion. “Rick Whittington Consulting was able to create a much better balance between the mounds of site selection data embedded in our website and the county’s lifestyle and cultural offerings.”

While content on the website is displayed in many ways, the interactive map we built was one way to improve engagement and present information differently. The map pinpoints different business and lifestyle features and landmarks in the County, and serves as a foundation for future development.

The display of content was of critical importance, as was the ability to measure results of the website redesign. We implemented analytics to give Henrico EDA staff a way to not only analyze common metrics like visits and search engine traffic trends, but also built ways to measure site feature usage, see what companies are visiting the website and track phone calls and e-mail prospects originating from the website.

“Rick was very responsive and results-driven in an aplomb manner. Rick put our needs first and seemed to have the right balance between technical development and creative layout. I liked it that he told us new things about the redesign process that we could actually apply,” said Hall.

To date, results of the website redesign are positive. “Based on preliminary analytics, visitors are spending much more time on the site and visiting a variety of pages.”

I came across an interesting article in my RSS reader last week, and since it’s a sales blog, the headline instantly caught my eye — Seemingly Little Mistakes That Cost You Big Opportunities.  When reading the section about “doing a poor diagnosis or needs analysis,” I couldn’t help but think about how the same mistake is made in planning websites.

We put in a lot of time up-front meeting with clients and discussing a project while quoting it — long before we send the proposal or win the job.  Some of my peers think I’m crazy for doing this work up-front, and I even know of one firm that charges for quoting jobs.

Fact is, most companies and organizations think they know what they want, but we as designers and developers know that when we learn more about a project, there are more opportunities to build a better, more technologically sound site than clients know about.

Doing research and having meetings with prospects up-front is worth the time because a) it will never cause us to lose the job, b) we can help the client understand possible ways to meet their goals that they may not have thought of, and c) we develop a rapport with the client.  It’s an opportunity to demonstrate thought leadership.

To us, web design, development and online marketing requires significant planning and analysis.  It’s the foundation of a well-planned project. This prevents re-work during the approval phase and in the end, gives our clients a solution that will often exceed their expectations.

Do you need a firm that is willing to immerse themselves in your business? Contact us.

Porter Realty has been a pillar of the Richmond, Virginia business community since 1965.  Forty-five years later, the family-owned company still embodies its founding principles of market knowledge, vision, creative thinking and an optimistic outlook toward the future.  The Porter brothers deserved a website that reflects nearly a century of experience in the Richmond industrial and commercial real estate market.

Our initial meetings with the Porters and Liz Greving, their IT & Marketing Manager, uncovered their vision for the project.  “We wanted the site to be informative and user-friendly with an updated, professional look.  We initiated this project with the idea of a complete overhaul of our firm’s website, specifically with the intention to streamline and to modernize the look and feel of the size and to improve the functionality in terms of listing searches, news release publication, and integration of client testimonials,” said Greving.

“We became familiar with Rick Whittington Consulting’s work on other industry sites and after a preliminary interview process, elected to move forward with RWC.  We immediately felt that Rick was the most responsive of the vendors we met with, and the most capable of translating our ideas into a finished product.”

Our process involved using an in-depth knowledge of how people use commercial real estate websites combined with Porter’s know-how and experience serving their clients.  “RWC was able to distill our project goals into a clear development plan and was a tremendous resource in helping us to understand current trends and options in terms of both design and development.  In terms of both look and functionality, the new site will allow us to showcase our capabilities, services and past successes with greater ease and broader reach.”

The finished product is a fast-loading site that the firm can update themselves and keep up-to-date. We also expect that going forward, Porter Realty will receive new business leads from their website like never before.

“RWC was patient and persistent in helping us to organize our ideas for the site into a polished finished product.  Rick was receptive to our thoughts throughout the design and implementation process, and was always extremely responsive to our inquiries and suggestions.   We are looking forward to working with Rick on additional projects in the future!”

Visit the Porter Realty web site

If your company wants to have a nicely-designed custom landing tab for non-fans on Facebook, you’ll now need at least 10,000 fans or be working with an advertising account manager (you’ve got a large ad budget).

Facebook used to offer businesses the option to custom-design a tab especially for non-fans. As the page administrator, you had the option to show non-fans the Wall or the custom tab. Many businesses used a custom tab for promotions or to invite people to become fans.

To see an example of a custom Facebook tab, click over to REI’s Facebook page. If you’re not already a fan, you’ll notice that rather than going to the Wall, you go directly to a custom-designed tab.

Rather than leveling the playing field by letting small or local businesses have the same options as large companies, Facebook has made the decision to force small businesses to spend lots of money on ads to have the option of a custom-designed landing tab.

Read more at the AllFacebook.com blog.

Will this affect your company’s Facebook marketing strategy? Leave a comment and tell us how.

With the release of the iPad this past weekend, many web design companies and consultants like us are scrambling to test client web sites on the iPad. Here’s an online application that lets you see your web site on the iPad and what you need to look for.

To see your web site on the iPad, simply go to ipadpeek.com and type in the address of your web site in the site’s iPad interface. Viola!

So what should you be looking for?

• Do your Flash applications work properly?

  The iPad runs the Safari web browser and does feature full Flash support, but you should test your Flash site or application to make sure it renders properly.

• Where’s the “fold”?

  When we design web sites, we pay special attention to where the first screen of content ends.  We try to design key pages so that the screen ends while cutting some text or graphics in half so there’s a visual cue to scroll.

  You look at key pages on your web site to see that  this convention has not been broken.  If the iPad shows the site differently than you intend it to, you may need to make adjustments accordingly.

• Do your forms work properly?

  While there’s no reason to think they would not, you might want to run a few form test submissions to make sure nothing is broken.

When I talk to marketing prospects, the conversation eventually turns to landing pages.  “Landing pages” are often confused with pages that anyone can see on your company web site, like the homepage.

This blog post focuses on what a landing page is and how it’s almost always better to use them in your online marketing efforts.

Using landing pages in your marketing campaigns is almost always more effective than sending people to your homepage from an ad, so it’s important to make the differentiation.

So what is a landing page?

Landing pages are actually pages with a single focus that are hidden from the normal browsing paths on your web site.  Unless you visit a landing page from a marketing campaign, you’d never know it was there.

A landing page also speaks to a specific target audience.   In service-based businesses, perhaps a landing page would speak to the benefits of a specific service with the purpose of getting a decision-maker to download a whitepaper.  For an online retailer, a landing page would speak to someone who’s interested in a certain product with the goal of having the customer buy the item.

Why create landing pages for marketing campaigns?

So why would companies invest in creating pages specifically for an ad campaign rather than link to existing pages on their web sites?

1. Landing pages are persuasive.
   Not that your web site isn’t persuasive, but when someone comes to your company web site, you really don’t know why.  Since specific advertisements send people to your landing page, you know what copy enticed them to click.

   Your market research (B2C) may indicate that you need to address different concerns with men and women, or you may want to speak differently to younger and more mature customers.  In business-to-business selling, you may want to highlight different advantages of your product or service based on the size and budget of the prospects you’re advertising to.

2. Landing pages have a single focus.
   While your web site is trying to reach multiple decision makers with different products or services, a landing page focuses on a single product or service.  Since the focus is singular, you can describe the benefits of the product or service, some testimonials about the specific product or service and reassure potential customers.

   The single focus helps your company address the specific needs of your target audience, increasing the likelihood that you’ll entice them to take action.

3. Landing pages minimize distractions.
   Your landing pages should look different than your company web site.  They should not have standard site links that allow people to jump around to other areas of your web site.  Also, landing pages should be perfectly clear what action you want customers to take.

   The problem with “deep linking” to existing web site pages from your ad campaigns is that there are distractions all over your web site.  For instance, online retailers might link an online ad campaign to a specific product category that shows many products.  Customers can be distracted by navigation to other sections, a wish list, related items, accessories, unrelated offers, etc.

   Landing pages contain just the information that is needed to persuade the customer to take action.

In conclusion

Here are some questions for consideration within your company:

• If you link your online ad campaigns to pages in the normal flow of your web site, how can you test a landing page to see which performs better?
• Are you currently testing different landing pages to see what design and messaging produce more leads or sales?
• Can you affect bottom-line results by making your segmenting your target audience?
• How are you measuring the effectiveness of “destination pages” (either landing pages or pages on your web site)?
• Does the sales cycle of your product or service require more of a hard sales approach or a lead nurturing approach?

I’ve written quite a bit about conversion rates on this blog, but the fact is that most people that visit an e-commerce web site have no intention of buying.  They are window shopping.  Optimizing your web site to increase your conversion rate is very important, but you can’t forget about optimizing for the 70-80% of people or more that are “window shoppers.”

The mistake that a lot of online retailers make is to not engage the vast majority of their visitors — the ones that don’t intend to buy.

Yes, you can entice a small percentage of these window shoppers to buy with offers like “buy one, get one,” coupons and free shipping, but what about the remaining lot?

The answer is engagement.  If you can engage window shoppers, you can get them to continually interact with your company, and when they are ready to buy, your site will be top-of mind.

So how to you engage window shoppers?  Here’s how.

Make your e-mail newsletter signup more visible

If you don’t have an e-mail newsletter, you really need to start one.  Next, make sure your e-mail signup form is visible.

Many web sites have e-mail signup forms at the bottom of their sites.  While that’s an acceptable place for the form, why not duplicate the form and place it higher up on the page where people can see it right away?  By making the form more visible and writing a good call to action (like “Get sales and exclusive tips by signing up for our e-newsletter”), you’ll increase your subscriber rate.

This probably goes without saying, but you need to publish your e-mail newsletter regularly and pack it full of good content.  Remember, it’s about keeping prospective customers engaged.

Write a blog (regularly)

No matter what you’re selling, you should publish a blog with RSS feed.  Other than product inventory and pricing, the typical e-commerce site is rather static.  By adding a blog, you’ll freshen the site by regularly adding content that complements the products you’re selling.

The goal in blogging is twofold.  First, you want to generate some credibility for your company (see the next section on social media for some promotional tips).  Second, you’re giving prospective customers some good information and keeping your company top-of-mind.  Also, good search engine optimization is often a by-product of a well-written blog.

Engage in social media

Admittedly, social media isn’t for everyone.  But if you, your marketing manager or other staff in your company are already using Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, etc., then you need to get them involved.

I won’t go into all of the options that social media offers (I may go into that in a future post), but for starters, you can create a discussion group on a Facebook Fan page.  You can tweet latest blog posts, new products and sales on Twitter.  You can make how-to videos for a You Tube channel and embed them in your blog.  There are many more opportunities, so be creative.

In conclusion

Here are some questions for consideration within your company:

• How can my company test positioning of newsletter signup forms?
• Can I offer people in my company the opportunity to write blog posts to distribute the workload?
• Who in my organization can I tap to help brainstorm customer engagement ideas? (Don’t be afraid to ask entry-level employees for their advice!)
• How could I make a blog more visible?
• How can my company use social media in ways my competitors are not?

Lately, I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about marketing lead generation. For many companies, the economy has really caused slumping sales.  Some are responding by stepping up their sales efforts, and the most intelligent companies are improving their web sites to generate more leads.

There’s one simple yet often overlooked step your company can take to generate more leads from your web site: include a contact form on key pages. On our site, key pages are the pages that talk about the web consulting services we offer and, not surprisingly, the contact page.

Companies typically have a single contact link or button at the top or bottom of their web sites.  But why make your readers hunt for a place to contact you? By putting a short, simple lead generation form beside or at the bottom of your web pages, you’re giving people an easy way to make contact.

Many web designers will argue that you don’t need the form — that it “junks” up a design.  If that’s the case, ask them to create a second version of a key web page (perhaps a whitepaper download, a sales page, a product page, etc.) with a form included and use a testing tool like Google’s Website Optimizer to test the page with the form against the page without.  This head-to-head comparison will reveal which is more effective.

In nearly every case I’ve seen, the page with a form will generate more leads than a page without a form.  There are exceptions, such as requiring that someone fill out a form before downloading, viewing or listening to content.

By placing lead generation forms on key pages of your company web site, you might just be able to thrive during this recession.

A while back, I stopped promoting my personal Facebook page. I did this because I received friend requests from random people I “knew” from Twitter or networking, but weren’t actually friends of mine.

What’s worse is that I kept getting cause and fan requests for things I’d never heard of.

One challenge of social media participation is that it blurs the line between business and personal activity.  I now expect that using social media sites like Facebook opens me up to friend requests and fan requests from people I don’t know or for businesses/causes I’m not familiar with.

As we all become immersed in the social web, where social proof (number of Facebook friends, number of fans on your Facebook Fan Page, Twitter followers, etc.) is seemingly important, we need to proceed with caution because being too pushy is likely to impact people’s perception of our companies or causes.

If you’re too persistent, here’s what people may be thinking:

“If I’ve never heard of your company, your band, your clothing line, your cause, so I’m unlikely to become a fan. Don’t even ask.”

“You might think I like your business because I know you, but that’s a dangerous assumption to make.”

“Just because we grew up together doesn’t mean that I’ll support your cause, especially if I’ve never heard of it.”

On the other hand, you still want Facebook fans.  What can you do?

Rather than sending out a mass message to all Facebook friends asking people to become a fan of your business or cause, send invitations to people that have enough experience with your business or cause to evaluate whether they’d like to be a fan.

If you support a cause that your friends may be unfamiliar with, send them a message telling them that you support the cause and ask them to learn more if they are interested.  Be sure to place a “Become a Fan” link on your “About your company” or “About your organization” page on your web site, so that when people do seek information, they have a logical next step.

Some questions to ask within your organization

• How can you generate buzz and interest to grow your Facebook fan base organically?
• How can you integrate Facebook efforts with other marketing channels?