Forty (Design+Marketing)

Shlock and Awe: Little Things on Your Website that Drive People Nuts

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-07-20T20:05:37+00:00

No website will ever be perfect (unfortunately), but we’ve compiled a list of little tweaks and changes you can check on your website to make sure you’re not irritating your visitors. Go through this list of our top 8 pet peeves and change what you can to create a more usable, less annoying, and generally more enjoyable website that your visitors will be ecstatic to visit:

1. Microcopy – Do you require a form for your website visitors to receive information or to contact you? One of the best things you can do to these seemingly pesky forms is to make sure the “submit” button you most likely include, is modified to state exactly what happens when a user sends their information. Does the form actually send an email so a sales rep? Say so with a button that states, “Send my request”. Does your form subscribe someone to your newsletter? Maybe your button should say, “Sign me up”. This little change can help your visitors feel more comfortable using your forms.

2. Company information inaccessibility – We’re not here to bash flash (though that is quite catchy, huh?), but if you must have your Flash website up and running, just be sure your important company information is in readable, copy-and-pasteable text so users can quickly skip on over to your site and grab the information they need. Too often are companies’ contact information and phone number, along with employee bios and titles, stuck right into Flash (or in an image), making it difficult for customers to record your information, or members of the press to grab the information they need to promote you!

3. Goose hunt for company information – Not only should your company info be readable and copy-and-pasteable, but it must be easy to find. If a customer comes to your custom t-shirt design webpage and wants to make an order now, they should be able to find your number or email now. Never make a customer chase down your contact info, because at some point they’ll stop and go somewhere else. And you will be sad.

4. Pixelated images – No website should ever have pixelated images on their website. No excuses.

5. Not knowing what to do – When visitors come to your site they should understand what to do within the first 10 seconds or less. If a person searches for local car repair shops and clicks on a link, they should be able to find out how to contact the company within one click. Nothing makes a visitor leave your page faster than not finding the information they are looking for. Get into the mind of the user of your site. Figure out all the reasons they might come to your site and try to address them in a way that makes the site functional and pleasing to use.

6. Death to dropdown menus – These pesky little menus will end up costing you a ton on development costs while delivering no value to the experience of your website. In fact, the annoyance factor of difficult-to-navigate menus may decrease the usage of your site, costing you more than you can calculate. Simple, usable menus will always provide the most accessibility and reduce the frustration that users feel when trying to jump around your website.

7. Use your words wisely – You should be treating your homepage as your storefront. Would you clutter the windows packed full of signage, stickers, clever phrases, images, etc.? By cutting down the text on your homepage (and throughout your website), you’ll make the text that’s left even more readable and attention-grabbing. If there’s information overload on your website, there really can’t be any information download.

8. No visual indication of context – It’s easy to assume that every visitor to your website will enter from the homepage and navigate from there, creating an easy-to-follow path. More often than not, visitors will come to specific pages on your website from search engines, meaning they’ll need a quick way of determining exactly where they’ve landed on your website. This could happen in a visual manner with arrows or tab indicators, or it could mean the use of bread crumbs. Either way, it’s important to always tell a website browser where they are now, so they know where to go next.

How Targeted is Your Target Audience?

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-06-15T22:30:47+00:00

I can think of several times when a client has come in for an initial meeting to discuss their brand and what they wanted from our work with them. When I spoke with one client in particular about their target audience, they expressed a desire to advertise to men and women of all ages across the country. Pause. You mean you, as a small business in Phoenix, you want to reach everyone? It became quickly apparent that this local business probably didn’t have the multi-million dollar budget it would take to adequately reach every member of American society, let alone with any relevant messaging.

Today, people are so used to being advertised to that they tend to ignore the overly generic messages that inundate their email inbox, billboards they drive by, radio stations they listen to, magazines they flip through, and especially Internet sites they frequent. Today, people expect to be advertised at, so it’s our goal as advertisers to figure out how to advertise with our customers. This means we need to be giving them information they can relate to and connect with, turning them into more than eyeballs or foot traffic; they become consumers of our product, conveyors of our message, and advocates of our brand.

Now that we understand this concept, it’s time to dig in and figure out how we go about doing such a task on what is more often than not, a miniscule budget. That’s where our most valued tool, the Audience Persona, comes in and rescues the girl while saving the cat from a tree.

How We Help Clients Create a More Targeted Audience

At Forty, we use Audience Personas to help us visualize the specific consumers of our clients’ services or products down to the most finite detail. This information allows us to better design, write, and advertise with the actual consumers, instead of just reams of data. Some of the details we outline for our Audience Personas include most prized possessions, political stances, biggest motivating factors, psychographic groups, etc. We get to this information through research into these specific individuals and the lives they’re leading mixed with a bit of gut instinct. The goal of these Audience Personas are to cause our clients to say, “Yep! Those are my customers. How did you know?”

The personas make it easier to define just what type of advertising our client’s customers will respond to best, and ensure that we’ve identified the various types of consumers of their product. Using ourselves as sample customers can only get you so far and quite a flawed way of thinking about customers.

With Audience Personas in tow, you can now tackle the big, wide world of possible customers with usable, accurate information that will lead you to make more informed decisions. And we all know what more informed decisions mean, right? Thought so.

Forty’s Brand Handbook: How to Understand Your Brand

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-06-07T21:17:58+00:00

Have you ever worried that your company’s marketing materials are nice, but don’t reflect who you really are?

There’s a lot more to marketing materials than just design and copywriting. Before we ever begin visual design work, we conduct interviews, survey the competition, brainstorm brand concepts, develop a content strategy, etc. It’s all part of understanding the problem before we begin solving it.

However, we noticed that this background work was sometimes confusing to our clients, who didn’t really get to see it as it happened. We disappeared for a while and came back with really great work, but they didn’t get to see the hows and whys behind it.

We decided it was time to begin showing our work, so we took the results of all the research, the brainstorming, the refining, etc., and put it together into a clear, beautiful, customized package we could deliver to our clients: The Brand Handbook.

Every Brand Handbook is unique.. It covers the background research conducted, as well as the conceptual, verbal, and visual foundations of the brand. Many of the reports we used to deliver to our clients separately (personas, positioning statements, mood boards, etc.) are now all part of their customized Brand Handbook.

Reading through a company’s Brand Handbook (which usually comes to about 20-30 pages) gives you a crystal-clear picture of what their brand is about, how it feels to consumers, why it exists, how it looks, etc. It’s emotional and practical at the same time, embracing all the key elements of a memorable brand presence.

Good design is about knowing what you’re designing for, and the Brand Handbook solves that problem, reducing the sway of individual preference and opinion, and keeping things focused on agreed-upon goals and strategies.

A customized Brand Handbook is a completely portable document that exists not just as part of a single project, but as a resource that clearly and decisively explains your brand to an internal team or external partners or vendors.

We’ve seen such success with this so far that we’ve made it a mandatory step for almost every project we’re involved with. The up-front investment in your brand pays off quickly as you begin to see how clear and focused your marketing materials become as a result.

So, if you’ve ever wondered whether your marketing materials are nice, but ultimately ineffective, a fully customized Brand Handbook is probably exactly what you need to get things back on track.

Basecamp Walkthrough

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-04-13T22:09:27+00:00

So you want to learn about Basecamp, huh? Well, that’s what we use for project management, so you better!

Check out this little 2:14 long video and let us know if anything doesn’t make sense.

Check out Forty in Process Magazine

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-03-22T22:29:03+00:00

Q: Describe Forty. Who makes up your creative team? What’s the company culture and philosophy?

Forty is a small design and marketing agency made up of four intense,
creative, and clever individuals (myself, Sunny, Amy, and Kim). As
with any small shop, our roles overlap in interesting ways, but we’re
each genuinely passionate about our respective professions, and we’re
known for being highly involved in industry-related initiatives
(including having co-founded several of them).

As a team, we’re bold, open, fun, curious, and flexible. We love our
jobs, we love working together, and we love helping good companies
find their voice in the marketplace. Passersby may get the impression
we joke around all day, but we’re actually tremendously productive; we
just have fun while we’re doing it!

Q: If you were to compare a typical day to a movie, TV show or song,
what would it be and why?

A similar question came up for us at a conference last year, and
without hesitation, Sunny answered “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” It
was actually a surprisingly accurate answer. Like the Ninja Turtles,
we have very different skills and personalities, but we mesh together
surprisingly well.

We also don’t quite fit in with the traditional agency world, so we
kinda go out and do our own thing. We’re in this to help people, not
get rich or win awards.

Oh, and we live in a sewer.

Q: What types of projects do you work on? Do you specialize in any
certain area?

Our client list ranges from solopreneurs to Fortune 500 companies,
across every sector, from across the street to around the world. It’s
not the size or industry that defines our clients, but their mindset.

We look for clients who are willing to push beyond the obvious. It
doesn’t have to be edgy or outlandish—those campaigns often don’t
work either—but we really have no interest in churning out generic,
ineffectual marketing placeholders. They’re a waste of the client’s
money. We want to create refreshing, memorable work that moves people
to action.

Q: Let’s face it. There’s a lot of competition out there. What’s the
most challenging thing about giving your clients something new,
something fresh, something they’ve never seen before?

Actually, we’ve had really great luck with that over the years. Our
brand discovery process helps us quickly dig into the real identity of
a business, and once we really understand that brand, everything that
follows has a sense of natural inevitability. When you design around a
distinctive brand, there’s no reason it should look like anything
other than itself.

Design is about much more than aesthetics. It’s about communicating
emotion, providing comfort, inspiration action, and advancing an
overall strategy. Those principles are deeply engrained into the
approach we take to our work, which helps everything else sort itself
out.

Q: Tell us about your projects. What have been the most memorable or
challenging?

While we’ve worked on a lot of notable projects (most recently, John
McCain’s new website), I think the most memorable or challenging has
always been our own marketing efforts. We put a lot of effort into
our own work, and we’re able to push it in creative ways that we often
can’t do with client projects. We try to experiment on ourselves
first.

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Decision Modes: How People Buy

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-03-22T20:35:59+00:00

James explains consumer “decision modes” (spontaneous, competitive, humanistic, and methodical), based on FutureNow’s buying persona breakdown.

Forty’s Pocket Guide to SEO

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-03-22T20:39:52+00:00

Our Pocket Guide to SEO contains everything you could want to know about SEO from your friends at Forty. Buried deep inside its pages you’ll find tips, tricks, general information about search engines, and how you can make them work for you - in a completely ethical way, of course. Download it today to feel that search engine love.

Download the SEO Booklet

Things you’ll find inside:

SEO Dictionary
Ethical SEO
SEO Resources
Quick Search Engine Optimization Tips
Ongoing SEO Maintenance

UI Sketch Sheets

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-03-22T19:21:02+00:00

If you’ve been keeping up with us lately, you’ve undoubtedly noticed our hand-drawn UI sketches. We get so many requests for those darn sheets that we decided to officially release them! We do, however, want to give credit to the proper people that led to us using this particular style of UI presentation.

In 2009, Team Forty attended Leah Buley’s session entitled UX Team of One at South by Southwest. Leah went through the entire process of how Adaptive Path uses these sketch sheets to speed up the UX design process. Seems like Adaptive Path has been using these sheets for quite some time as Brandon Schauer wrote an article about them in 2007, “Sketchboards: Discover Better + Faster UX Solutions” where they linked to the templates they currently use.

After using Adaptive Path’s sheets for a bit, we realized the grid in the background was not really suitable for our style so we decided to edit them and use a dot grid instead:

Download the 6-up sketch sheet.
Download the 1-up sketch sheet.

5 Steps to Cleaner Copy

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-01-07T19:33:15+00:00

Warning: The following post includes technical jargon. If you are averse to learning something new or revisiting concepts learned in grade school, hit the “x” at the top left of your screen immediately (or top right if you’re on a PC).

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry

The trick to incisive copy is to vacuum up the crap you don’t need, dust off the crap you have, and polish up on your writing knowledge. The following tips will help you to ensure your copy is nothing short of gleaming.

1. Take a look at your “that” count.

This word has a tendency to creep into copy much too frequently. The best way to address this factor is to write out your copy, then go through it count all of the times it appears. Once you have an idea of how many times it shows up, (note: this will probably be a very high number), see where you can’t simply remove the word entirely. A sentence such as, “As a company, we were certain that this client would never agree to such terms,” reads the same without “that” and makes it much less wordy. Another option for your “that” population is to replace them all with “which” to create non-restrictive clauses (does not limit the meaning of your preceding subject). Non-restrictive clauses can sometimes alter the meaning of your sentences, so use them wisely. The benefit of replacing “that” with “which” is your copy becomes much more reader friendly and engaging.

2. Lose the “I think,” “in my opinion,” “according to us,” type- phrases.

Be confident in your writing. Writers often revert to these phrases when they are unsure of their claims or fear the ramifications of their statements. Clearly, if the copy is on your blog then it’s your opinion. You’re not claiming to be a hard-hitting news organization with completely objective articles; so own that copy, darnit. If you are trying to discuss statistics or incorporate quotations then you will be citing origins, right? Second, these phrases are just fluff – they don’t provide any relevant information to your copy. Get out the broom, and sweep away these bad boys.

3. Rethink your periods.

More often than not, semi-colons, commas, or hyphens are more suitable than a period in most complex sentences. The trouble is that periods are simple, and don’t have many rules – so they often get thrown in by default. Here are some rules of thumb so you can make greater use of these grammatical gold mines:

* Rule of thumb for the semi-colon: Use a semi-colon to join two sentences which are connected.

* Rule of thumb for the hyphen: If you want to change the thought in the middle of the sentence without using a full stop, the dash is a good way to do it. (Ex. I didn’t get tickets in time for the ballet last month – I wouldn’t say I’m all that upset with this fact.)

* Rule of thumb for the comma: Use a comma when you put a phrase into a sentence to give more explanation.

4. Don’t start every sentence with the same word.

This one’s easy to fix, and has some of the biggest impact. Just imagine how boring a paragraph seems when each sentence begins with the same, or similar, words. Just thinking about this makes me cringe. I just think this can all be avoided if you are aware that this may happen, and taking another look at your copy can fix it. Just look at the first word of your sentences. OKAY! You get the point. Just keep in mind that variety is the spice of life and mix it up a bit. Just be sure not to…sorry, I won’t.

5. Make it interesting, gosh darnit.

Writing clear, concise sentences is perfectly fine, but can easily become quite monotonous if it’s all you do. Mix it up, have fun, and my goodness, enjoy your writing. Getting too caught up in the technical aspect of all of this will result in bland, yet technically accurate, copy – which no one wants to read (myself, included).

There you have it! Go ahead and send your copy through this hypothetical wringer, and it should come out spotless/squeaky clean/shiny and new/countless other themed phrases I could put here, but will spare you from.

Quick Tips for Naming Your Company, Product, or Service

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-01-07T17:41:01+00:00

It’s an odd reality that people often name their companies on a whim, because of an inside joke, or simply because they have a certain word that appeals to them and will make it work.

The truth is that your company/product/service’s name is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. Just as you didn’t rush into a functioning business model, production schedule, or marketing plan, you shouldn’t rush into something as important as what your customers will refer to you as for as long as you’re in business.

Here are some quick tips to consider before committing to a name:

1. Without a doubt, you will have better luck introducing a new word into someone’s vocabulary than introducing a new spelling for a word they’re already familiar with. This phenomena can be seen in the struggle with homonyms such as “here” and “hear” and “they’re,” “there,” and “their.” It’s probably safe to assume they were introduced to one of the spellings first and struggle to remember other versions introduced later in their lives.

2. Pronunciation and spelling are not the same things. Pronunciation should be the least of your concerns as everyone will pronounce a name differently (think “Jaguar”), but a spelling problem is a huge issue in a text-based world. If someone can’t type your name into a search engine, you might as well not exist.

3. All the good names are definitely NOT taken. The English language alone includes almost three quarters of a million words. The world speaks as many as 20,000 languages, not counting endangered or extinct ones. I promise you, there are still good names out there.

4. Think your name doesn’t really matter since your product speaks for itself? Ask yourself why companies such as Apple, Google, Blackberry, and Yahoo aren’t called “Sturdy Computer Company,” “The Lookup Place,” “Dyrex,” and “Surch Enjiin.”

5. Don’t discredit simplicity. Just because a potential name doesn’t sound flowery and complex, doesn’t mean it can’t be incredibly awesome. Some of the best names are also the simplest. Ex. Etsy, Yelp.

6. Be willing to “go there.” Sure, your competitors all have similar sounding names, that doesn’t mean you have to as well. In fact, imagine the possibilities of going somewhere with your name that others are terrified of going? Yeah, “out there” is a scary place, but it sure can have its benefits. A great example is Happy Hammer, a local construction company in Arizona. In a sea of southwest/generic sounding names, Happy Hammer certainly stands out.

7. Don’t get caught up in domains. If your name research simply involves looking up available domains, you should just stop while you’re ahead. A good name is a good name is a good name. The domain is in another realm all together. Domains vary wildly, and people are used to such a thing. If you’re smart, you’ll find a killer name, get a domain, and work on your SEO to ensure that when people search for you, they’ll find you.

Check out our previous post for even more tips on company naming.

Developing and Using Personas: Create One of Your Own

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-01-03T22:39:14+00:00

In case you missed it, we did a live Forty Training Session on developing and using personas in design, marketing, packaging, etc.

As promised, you have a little homework to get you working with and creating personas. Below is fictional data about a client you’ve just recevied, and it is your job to create a persona that will help guide the direction of their project.

Please create a jpeg, PDF collage, personal blog post or whatever you can think of with all of the information you’d like to include in your persona – the details are up to you – and post the image or a link in the comments below.

So here’s a fictitious client scenario for everyone to create their own persona around:

1. Client: Oh Mega (custom iPhone cases)
2. Goals: structure a marketing plan to get more people using their service, specific standard imagery available, color choices to make available, and general awareness of product/service
3. Known demographics: males, ages 15-25, females, ages 16-30, iPhone owners, tech savvy, hip/fashionable, business owners, innovators, thought leaders

Mood Boards for Designers

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-01-03T22:30:58+00:00

If you’re working on a design project, a mood board is a great way to present the visual direction of a project or brand separately from the layout of a specific project. They’re a helpful step that helps keep everyone on the same page without a huge time investment.

Top 10 Tips for Corporate Naming

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-01-03T22:15:17+00:00

1. Determine How Important the Name Really Is

Having a clever name isn’t always important. Many companies thrive in industries that are based on government contracts, bidding wars, business friendships, etc., and their name is often just a unique identifier to be placed on legal paperwork.

For most companies, however, their name can be an integral part of their marketing process. A clever, memorable name can make a potential client think about the company for a few extra moments, which may be all you need to get the edge on your competitors.

2. Stand Out

The most common mistake made when naming a new business endeavor is to make it sound like the other companies in that industry. This is based on anxiety about whether the new business will be taken seriously. In reality, it’s critical that you stand apart from your competition, and that you look to your competitors as examples of what to avoid.

Your company name should feel like asking someone on a date. You should worry about it. You should be nervous. You should be afraid it might be taken the wrong way. You should be afraid of rejection. Indeed, sometimes you will be turned down—but when the answer is “yes,” you’ll be glad you were bold enough to ask.

3. Avoid Generic Surnames

Unless you’ve got a truly fascinating and memorable family name, or you’re building the company around your own personal brand, it’s usually best to leave it out of the mix.

Examples of what to avoid: Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Archer-Daniels-Midland, Haliburton, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin

4. Avoid Descriptive Names

Traditional naming wisdom long held that your company name should describe what you do, so that people would quickly understand your business. While good advice at the time, this principle now hurts more than it helps.

These days, there’s plenty of context to help customers figure out what you do. You don’t need to name your new software firm, say, “Texas Software Group,” because people will be finding you by searching Google for “software companies in texas,” or by looking you up in the local phone book under the appropriate heading. They’ll often know what you do before you ever talk to them.

Instead of trying to overburden the name by making it do everything at once, take advantage of other ways to explain your business (your business card, your website, your elevator speech, etc.), and liberate the company name to be used to engage and fascinate potential customers.

Examples of what to avoid: American Airlines, United Health, United Parcel Service, United Technologies, International Paper, Northwestern Mutual, Computer Sicence, Public Service Enterprise, General Mills, International Business Machines, Bank of America, Waste Management, Progress Energy, Continental Airlines, United Auto Group, Fidelity National, Automatic Data Processing, Southwest Airlines, United Health Services, Interstate Bakeries, Advanced Micro Devices, American Financial Group

5. Avoid Acronyms

We all know there are too many acronyms in the world already. Don’t contribute to the alphabet soup by coming up with your own.

Examples of what to avoid: BASF, IBM, GE, BMW, AT&T, TIAA-CREF, AFLAC, SBC, CVS, ABC, CNN, MBNA, MGM

6. Avoid Faux Latin

Latin-like names sound great, and they’re easy to trademark because you can make one up that nobody has used before.

Unfortunately, these great qualities have resulted in an overabundance of such names over the past few years. Whenever in doubt, companies lean toward Faux Latin to save the day.

Examples of what to avoid: Abertis, Calibrus, Novartis, Vocera, Nutiva, Pentium, Accordis, Atomica, Altria, Valero, Nantero, Aventis, Axius, Innovene, Veriton

7. Avoid Faux Latin (Cont’d): -nt Names

This subset of Faux Latin is, without question, the biggest joke in corporate naming.

Examples of what to avoid: Agilent, Lucent, Acquient, Alliant, Aquent, Reliant, Thrivent, Aucent, Covisint, Guidant, Consilient, Levilant, Naviant, Conexant, Candescent, Telegent

8. Avoid Spaceless Names

It was clever the first half-dozen times it was done. After that, it was trite.

Examples of what to avoid: RetroBox, SimpleFire, MessageOne, BlueArc, BeSonic, TeamWorks, ChevronTexaco, MetLife, BellSouth, AutoNation, FleetBoston, PacifiCare, FedEx, InterActive, AutoZone, WellChoice, RadioShack, LandAmerica, HighBeam, JetBlue, BlackBerry, FatSplash

9. Avoid “Tech Power Synergy” Names

This type of name was saturated even before the dot-com area, so your chances of using it effectively are almost non-existent now.

Examples of what to avoid: Certegy, Spherion, Viacom, Sysco, Intel, Avnet, Centex, Omnicom, Dynegy, Cinergy, Qualcomm, Omnicare, Biotechonomy, Initech, as well as e-anything, i-anything, or anything.com.

10. Find Examples to Emulate

Search out examples of great, evocative, powerful, memorable, witty names, and keep a list of them handy. They’ll give you avenues for finding new names, and a familiarity that will help you spot the right name when you see it.

My own partial list of names I admire: Ludicorp, Skype, Vigilante, Old Navy, Broad Daylight, Cruel World, Breadbox, Front Porch, Ithaka, Alfalfa, Left Field, Bandwagon, Chuckwalla, Clutch, Iroko, Ironweed, Jamcracker, Jamoka, Makoro, Steelhead, Talisman, Zatso, Subway, Snapple, Oreo, Opera, Firefox, Virgin, Wendy’s, Jack in the Box, Caterpillar, Banana Republic, Restoration Hardware, Stingray, Safeway, The Gap, Staples, Chubb, Sprint, Anthem, Fifth Third, Apple, Amazon, Ikon, Starbucks, Quiznos, Jetboil, Rhino, Rivet, Method, Smartwater, Octopus, Heartstring, Antidote, Igor, Gulliver, Moreover

Creative Marketing Ideas Workbook

info@fortyagency.com — 2010-01-03T21:53:47+00:00

Does Your Marketing Need A Little Sprucing Up?

Stagnant marketing can be detrimental to your business. In order for it to continually flourish and grow, sometimes it just needs a little kick in the shorts. That’s where this workbook comes in!

Download Our Creative Marketing Ideas Workbook

We spent a good while compiling some of the most overlooked, unusual, and just plain creative marketing ideas that we could come up with to do just that for your company. In its pages, you’ll discover tips, tricks, and suggestions split up into varying categories based on time, cost, and effort needed to pull them off.

And don’t worry, most of the ideas cost you little to nothing. The book is meant to spur creativity and help to light a fire under your dwindling marketing efforts.

Be sure to keep us updated on what you’re doing with these ideas. We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences!

SEO for the Average Joe

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-07-31T20:49:06+00:00

I was recently working on an SEO checklist to ensure we weren’t missing any important steps in providing higher search results for our clients. Instead of creating a list from scratch, I thought I’d glance through existing lists and not double up my efforts.

Much to my surprise, I found most lists already published (and commonly used) to be confusing, stuffed with opinion, and not really relevant to our purposes (our clients don’t typically have any interest in promotional activities that skirt the line between ethical and not).

Creative Commons License photo credit: zenera

From about 10 lists I found, I gathered only the points that we would need and would make sense to the average person looking to ensure their SEO is up to snuff. I only found about 15 usable points in all of those lists; but from my research, I came to discover something much more valuable.

After collecting these 15 items and putting our current client’s new website to the test, I noticed a lot of these items were already done. Not because we had an SEO expert on staff, but simply because SEO really is something that comes pretty naturally with effective copywriting.

Keyword density in body text between 5-20%? Any decent copywriter pretty much does this without thinking twice. Singular and plurals of keywords and keyphrases? Once again, a copywriter with experience will automatically do this. Anchor text links created for internal pages using keywords and phrases? You get the point by now…

So the next time you’re looking for a company that performs SEO services and hands over keyword filled copy, go ahead read it over. I bet you’d be surprised to find that even you can’t understand what’s been written, which means your audience won’t have a clue either.

The best thing you can do for your website? Hire a copywriter.

Anyway, here’s that handy-dandy checklist (which you may not even need):

1. Keyword density in body text – 5-20% depending on topic. Use http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/
2. Keywords appear in H1, H2, and H3 tags
3. Keyword prominence – keywords and phrases should appear as close to the top of the page as possible
4. Keywords in title tags – Should be close to the beginning, 10-60 characters
5. Keywords in description meta tag – less than 200 characters
6. Keywords in keyword meta tag – less than 10 words, every word should appear in body text or else you can be penalized. No repeating of words more than twice.
7. Keyword phrase order – the phrases directly match search queries
8. Keywords appear in alt text
9. Keywords are used in links to site pages (anchor text)
10. There are less than 100 links to external pages
11. Incoming links are present
12. Site Map was created and submitted
13. Make sure singulars and plurals are used in keywords and phrases
14. Send website to directories for listing
15. Set up Authority Labs website ranking and Google Analytics

Marketing has Never Been Easier: Forty Visits the Grand Opening of The PR Store

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-05-28T21:34:47+00:00

Last month, Phoenix welcomed the newest PR Store to open in the country. At first glance, one might assume this is a clever name for an up-and-coming ad agency sweeping across the country, but in fact, it is exactly as the name states: a store for PR.

Upon walking through the cut ribbon of the grand opening, I was greeted by chipper folk in blue shirts with friendly smiles. I was surrounded by games (I won a $100 gift card!), drinks, food, and informative brochures. The store was filled with shelves lined with promotional frisbees, hats, pens, and hacky sacks – everything you would assume to see in a store selling something as intangible as marketing.

I had mixed feelings about such a place upon entering, but didn’t let them affect me whilst investigating the merits of such an establishment. Russ Perry, of Keane Creative, and I pulled aside Wynne Angell, the owner of the newest location, to learn more about this friendly little store.

According to Wynne, they charge a single fee (ranging from hundreds of dollars, to thousands) for their marketing services whether they be web design, logo creation, radio ads, etc. and give their clients 3 revisions – any revisions over this number will accrue an hourly fee of $75. She also discussed the idea behind having an actual store front is so that their clients can come in whenever they want, no appointment needed.

Seems reasonable enough to me. I can see where the idea of this type of business would appeal to a small business owner with no knowledge of marketing who might be looking for a quick set of marketing tools. They walk into PR Store, look at some colorful brochures and branded jar grippers, they sell you on their products, and promise a delivery date in the near future. You’re sold! One problem: marketing isn’t a product.

Similar to a restaurant with an order counter, you choose what marketing services you would like from a menu of options. Want extra pickles? No mayo? Double cheese? You got it! They type your order into the cash register, press enter, and a few minutes later, you have some food. PR Store is no different from this model. You select business cards, a website, and some branded baseball hats. Six weeks later, you have them and you go on your way.

Unfortunately, marketing is not as simple as ordering from a menu. There is the concept of branding, differing markets, changing needs, etc. that must be addressed, and readdressed. Marketing is complex and complicated – more than “would you like a glossy finish with your order?” Marketing is a service, something The PR Store is fresh out of.

The idea of a menu in and of itself is flawed. People should be coming to marketing agencies for guidance, suggestions, research, and help from those who know what they are doing. Sure, the client can get what they want (spicy mustard, please), but do they know what their customers want? Most likely, no. By putting these decisions in the hands of the small-business owner, marketing professionals become obsolete and these important decisions are left to those with no idea what they’re doing.

PR Store might be a good idea for someone looking for standard, run-of-the-mill websites and marketing materials that aren’t targeted, researched, or tailored to meet specific needs. But at least you can be sure to get exactly what you ordered. (Burger King built their company around this idea and it worked okay for them.)

Just be careful when working with an establishment such as this. As I learned when opening my gift card’s envelope back at the office, it was only valid on services totaling $750 or more. Kinda like finding out those extra pickles cost you 75 cents.

I Love Marketing, and Here’s Why

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-05-28T21:06:15+00:00

When I was young, I had a really pessimistic view of marketing. I thought advertising was about emotional blackmail and manipulation, branding was conceptual mumbo-jumbo, design was pointless visual fluff, and public relations was just a way to hide your faults and deceive your customers.

Taken together, all this “marketing” crap was fundamentally about making people do something they didn’t want to do, just so some rich white guy could get a couple extra digits in his bank account.

Maybe Marketing Isn’t All Bad…

As I got out into the real world, I slowly came to realize that marketing wasn’t quite as evil as I had originally thought.

Creative Commons License photo credit: thivierr

My first job was in the Public Relations department of a community college, and I was really excited at the opportunity to help get the word out about the school. They were doing great things with scarce resources, and I want to help the community understand that and get excited about it. For that, we needed marketing.

That’s when I started to realize that there might be more to marketing than I’d originally thought.

Maybe Marketing Is Good?

In every field of endeavor (sports, politics, religion, etc.), the selfish minority tends get the attention, tarnishing the efforts of the generally well-intentioned and hard-working majority.

Almost every experience I’ve had with real people involved in real marketing has challenged my formerly pessimistic view of the industry. I’ve watched marketing help people build thriving small businesses to support their family and employ others. I’ve seen it used to promote initiatives that build communities and improve lives. I’ve experienced the excitement of a worthy effort finally getting the attention it deserves.

Creative Commons License photo credit: rhettmaxwell

Over the years, I’ve come to understand marketing is fundamentally about connecting.

Sarah starts a business to meet a need, and John has that need. Marketing brings them together so they can both benefit.

That’s it. That’s what it’s about.

Maybe Marketing is Awesome!

In fact, marketing is the only thing that brings the supply and demand together. Without it, the market never knows the product or service exists, and the business simply fails. Without marketing, there would be no business. There’d be no economy. There would be no “American Dream.”

That puts us, as a marketing agency, and a remarkable position. We sit between our clients and their future customers, and figure out how to bring the two together. It’s like setting your friends up on date, and then watching them fall in love. It’s exciting and rewarding to be part of that process.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Glenn Loos-Austin

Over the years, we’ve enabled scores of businesses, non-profits, and individuals connect with their customers in ways they probably wouldn’t have without us.

We’ve helped people start the business they’ve always wanted. We’ve helped people come back from the brink of bankruptcy. We’ve helped people grow their business to provide for their own families (and the families of their employees). We’ve helped non-profit organizations get the attention and support they need. We’ve helped change industries for the better. We’ve helped movements get started.

In short: we’ve helped.

I’m Not Kidding About Loving Marketing

Some people hate their jobs, and can’t wait to retire so they can do something fulfilling. I don’t have to. I do something fulfilling every single day.

That’s why I love marketing. That’s why I love coming to work at Forty. And that’s why today, like yesterday and tomorrow, is going to be an awesome day.

The Five Pillars of Social Media Optimization

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-05-01T21:50:49+00:00

Whether you’re just getting started with this whole social media bandwagon, or you’ve got 20,000 Twitter followers and no idea what to do with them, there are some basic principles that you should know if you want to use social media to your advantage.

Pillar #1: Focus on quality, not quantity

Creative Commons License photo credit: hoyasmeg

When engaged in an endeavor as complicated and subtle as social media, it’s hard to know how you’re doing, since there aren’t really any useful ways to measure effectiveness.

Unfortunately, this means people have reverted to relatively useless ways of measuring their effectiveness, such as the number of friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, visitors to your blog, etc.

Social media isn’t a numbers game; it’s about building real relationships. You’re better off ten people who actually understand you and care about what you’re doing than 10,000 people who can’t remember your name or why they’re connected to you.

Pillar #2: Make it a two-way conversation

Creative Commons License photo credit: mark sebastian

It’s tempting to try to apply traditional advertising and marketing techniques to social media, and to use it as a vehicle for one-way communication with an audience.

Those who take this route usually don’t last long, though, since people don’t respond well to someone talking at them rather than communicating with them.

Instead, focus on engaging with your connections. Talk to them. Ask them questions. Give them answers. Find out what makes them tick. Find out what value you can provide to them. And don’t just do this at a superficial level (occasionally replying to one of your thousands of followers), but really dig in and get to know the people you’re connected to.

As with so much else in life, the more you give the more you’ll get back in the long run.

Pillar #3: You don’t need to be viral to be successful

When the news talks about social media, they love to cover the “overnight sensations” that get a million views on YouTube in a matter of days. The stories you don’t hear, though, the majority of social media success stories that have taken months or even years to develop.

Get the notions of sudden stardom out of your mind, and focus on moving forward at a steady pace, methodically and intentionally building a community around your brand.

Don’t give up a week or two in, when you’re wondering why you’re not famous yet. Just keep moving forward.

Pillar #4: Come to people on their own turf

Creative Commons License photo credit: alborzshawn

Instead of trying to bring people to your content, focus on bringing your content to the people.

For example, instead of posting a video on Vimeo.com and then trying to get everyone to visit that page, post it on Vimeo, and then also post it to YouTube, Viddler, and other major video sharing sites. That way people can see it on the site where they already have an active account (and friends), and are more likely to comment, share, and engage with your content in other ways.

Spread your content around. Decentralize. If you do this right, you may not even need your own website at all!

Pillar #5: Be original (even when it’s difficult)

Creative Commons License photo credit: furryscaly

One of the tricky parts about social media is that you’re expected to generate a lot of content. Suddenly normal, average people are expected to be writers, photographers, videographers, designers, etc.

It can be hard, and it’s tempting to slip into the habit of just reposting other people’s work. “Hey, check out this video” becomes a substitute for actually posting new content.

Unfortunately, reposting other people’s content provides very little value (compared to original content), and you wind up watering down your social media sauce. Nobody’s going to link to you linking to someone else.

You may not be able to post as frequently when you focus on original content, but people will notice when you do (and they’ll appreciate it).

Hi. We’re Forty. Things will go wrong.

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-04-21T01:11:13+00:00

You know how a new project makes you feel? Blue skies, birds singing, anything is possible. Then something happens and it’s like the skies darken and the bird poops on your head.

Creative Commons License photo credit: recubejim

Recently we were reminded of an important step in a new project: explain to the client that there will be bumps in the road. The experience involved a web project that had a form error after launching, but it could have involved any unexpected and undesired issue that surfaced as a result of implementation.

Problems come up regardless of expertise, and they’re inevitable when creating something unique within tight constraints.

Originality on a Budget

Creative Commons License photo credit: peasap

Testing is an important part of a project. It can involve getting feedback from people about visual design, such as a logo or packaging (think of the now-infamous Tropicana redesign), or it can be testing a web site for functionality. However, budgets don’t always allow for this testing. Time restraints are a factor in testing, too. Not enough time to test? Be prepared for glitches.

When originality is a project goal, there will be bumps in the road because that exact thing in that exact situation has never been done before. The technologies and techniques are repeated, but this combination of them is original and untested. It’s not that we’re sloppy, but limited time and budget mean that choices have to be made and it can be a better use of the client’s money to keep a project moving forward rather than get stuck resolving minor imperfections.

When You Spot Something, Jump on It

Creative Commons License photo credit: Vibrant Spirit

Even with testing, it’s a fact of life that unfortunate things will happen. What matters is how people handle those situations. (Our recent issue was fortunately resolved within fifteen minutes.)

When hiring a marketing agency or design firm, don’t set out to find the company that will be problem-free. Find one that’s responsive to the problems that will come up. Since it won’t always be blue skies, it’s nice to know you’re part of a team that’ll give you their umbrella.

The Perfect Tagline in 12 Steps

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-04-20T21:56:33+00:00

Taglines are a real art, made especially difficult when you are external to the organization requesting one. So where do you begin? How do you begin to narrow down an entire company you know little-to-nothing about into one well-crafted, compelling sentence? It’ll never be easy, but the following steps may help:

1. Ask your client telling questions – Asking them a question such as, “What are some keywords associated with your product/company?” can give you much more insight than asking, “Does the word, ___, accurately describe your organization?” Some examples of good questions to ask (courtesy of CreativeBits.org):

* Describe your company in one sentence
* Describe your company in 3 words
* Describe your company in 1 word
* Describe your company in 1 letter
* How would you explain your company/product to someone with no knowledge of your industry?

2. Research, duh! - Take a look at their competitors, their suppliers, or any other entity that can be associated with them. This will give you excellent insight into what the client expects to see. If it is industry standard to explain what a company does in their tagline, and not necessarily have a clever one-liner, and the only way to know this is by diving into the industry, head first. Another great resource is industry specific dictionaries – they will clearly tell you which words/phrases are commonplace in the specific industry along with their definition so you know how to use them.

3. Ask someone in the industry - Not only does this help you to refine your research, it also adds quite a bit of credibility when pitching your taglines to the client. Stating that you’ve run the potential taglines by a current/past/potential client shows you’ve adequately done your research and substantiates any claims you make about the effectiveness of such a tagline.

4. List out the keywords - In all of your research and questioning of clients and customers, you probably came across a boat load of information. The best thing to do at this point is to list out all of the keywords or phrases you’ve come across to view them visually. From here, it’s very easy to notice patterns or synonyms and reduce your list into a few major keywords to work from.

5. Determine the audience - As simple as this step is, it is also quite important. The difference between a tagline meant for a consumer and one for a business can be huge. Not only is it important to make such a distinction, but getting as targeted as you possibly can will only help to further refine your tagline into something incredible.

6. Determine the tone - Are they a serious organization? Do they make fun of themselves? Make sure their tagline aligns with the company’s persona or else it can be quite confusing.

7. List out anything you can think of and DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING – The worst thing you can do at this point is to write out a potential tagline and decide then and there that you don’t like it. Make it a point at this step to keep everything you take the time to type out – deleting is for later, once you’ve let all of the possibilities come out. This is the time to write down any phrases or word combinations you can conceivably think of.

8. Create variations - Once you have a daunting list of possibilities in front of you, add more. For every phrase you’ve constructed, you now have a launching pad for several more. These variations to your existing phrases can be slight tweaks such as adding an article, rearranging the words to make the phrase flow better, or even replacing a word with several synonyms. Example: “A tried and true software suite for the amateur web designer,” can become, “The perfect software suite for beginning web designers.” Or even, “Becoming a web designer has never been easier.”

9. Walk away- As every writing job goes, the best thing you can do is to walk away and get the project out of your mind for a while. I’m sure you can think of something to do – and everyone’s cooling off period is different, so maybe you need a day or maybe you need an hour. Just get it off of your mind and come back refreshed and full of new ideas.

10. Narrow them down – Once you’ve had time away, come back to your exhaustive list and begin the narrowing down process. This step is completely subjective as only you know which ones you want to keep and why.

11. Give your client a few choices, but not too many – Make sure to deliver a variety of choices to your client such as variations in flow, rhythm, message, and keywords – but be sure you don’t overwhelm them. Unless your client specifically stated that they wanted 15 taglines to choose from, I would keep the number under 10. Keep in mind that you will most likely be asked to refine several of them, so if there are others you didn’t present, this is your opportunity to incorporate elements from other favorites.

12. Be confident in your delivery - You worked your butt off on this so make a case for each and every one of them - simply handing them a list and walking away isn’t an option here. Also, you are the marketing expert that they hired, so make sure your expertise is mentioned when delivering your beautifully constructed taglines.

Can a Marketing Agency Be Agile?

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-04-13T22:08:56+00:00

After years of soul searching, experimentation, and dipping our toes in the water, we here at Forty have finally committed to fully adopting the Agile methodology across the board.

This is a pretty radical change for a marketing agency. The Agile methodology was developed in the software industry, and for the most part has stayed there (albeit with great success). Most marketing professionals don’t even know the methodology exists, let alone have implemented it.

We’re probably not the first agency to adopt this methodology (there must be some out there), but it’s still uncharted territory, and while there’s much we can learn from others, we’re also going to have to figure out a lot on our own.

Err…What the Heck is “Agile”?

If you’re used to the word “methodology” meaning “tons of paperwork and annoying procedures,” Agile may come as a pleasant surprise.

Creative Commons License photo credit: pinguino

According to the Agile Manifesto, this methodology values…

* Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
* Working software over comprehensive documentation
* Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
* Responding to change over following a plan

Over the years, a variety of elaborations and refinements of those basic principles have become prominent, but those are the key tenets of the Agile approach.

Agile is NOT What You’re Used To

Most people (especially those hiring a traditional design/marketing agency) are accustomed to a “waterfall” process, in which the whole project is planned out beforehand (with detailed scope and budget guidelines), and broken into discrete stages requiring deliverables, reviews, sign-offs, etc.

Creative Commons License photo credit: joshuahoffmanphoto

We’ve used that method for years, and it sucks. The only reason for all those scope documents are so the agency and client can argue with each other later about who did something wrong, when the problem could have been solved early on by simply talking instead of worrying about a comprehensive paper trail.

Why would we stick with a methodology based on the antiquated notion that we can accurately predict and plan for the future? That may have worked 20-30 years ago, but the industry simply moves far too fast for that to be effective now.

Design/marketing projects simply evolve too quickly (based on competition, new technologies, changing trends, etc.) to accurately plan it all out in the beginning. We need a methodology that is nimble, flexible, and able to respond quickly. In a word: Agile.

What the Agile Methodology Means to Forty

Creative Commons License photo credit: Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha

We’re still sorting out the specifics of our day-to-day routine, but these are the principles behind our own implementation of the Agile methodology:

* We believe in a single project team, comprising members of both our and our client’s organizations. (There is no “Us and Them,” just a single team working together.)
* We believe project team members should interact freely, without a project manager getting in the way.
* We believe the project team should have frequent (even daily) conversations.
* We believe real communication happens face to face or over the phone. (E-mail should be a last resort.)
* We believe in showing and discussing rough work (sketches, partial designs, etc.), instead of trying to perfect them before showing the client.
* We believe in delivering business value as early (and as frequently) as possible.
* We believe the project team should measure all work performed against identified business goals.
* We believe projects do (and should) evolve; we welcome course corrections.
* We believe in sustainable work habits. Weekends and evenings give everyone time to think, rest, and recharge.
* We believe project team members share accountability for results and performance. (Finger pointing is counterproductive.)
* We believe each project is unique, and requires flexibility regarding strategies, processes, and practices.
* We believe in learning, having fun, and doing great work.

We’ve been headed this direction anyway, but officially adopting Agile gives us a much-needed kick in the pants to formalizing our processes and workflow around these concepts.

We’re In Good Company

We’re novices when it comes to Agile, and I’m sure we’re going to run into many obstacles over the next several months (or years) as we find out what works best for Forty.

In the meantime, though, we have some great sources of guidance and advice. We’ve shared office space at Gangplank with Integrum, a well-known Ruby on Rails software development firm that’s up to their eyeballs into Agile all the time; and we’re lucky to have as a client Michele Sliger , an expert in helping companies adopt and implement the Agile methodology.

More Resources on Agile in Design / Marketing

* Getting Real About Agile Design
* How I Learned to Stop Complaining and Embrace Collaboration
* Applying Agile Principles to Communication Design
* The Agile Web Design Manifesto
* Agile Marketing
* Agile Marketing
* Agile Design

Stay Tuned for Agile Updates

We’ll be posting more about our adventures (and misadventures) with the Agile methodology on this blog, so be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed if you’re interested in following along.

Questions for You!

* Are we wrong about this?
* Does a marketing agency have any business mucking around with what is traditionally a software development methodology?
* Clients love the waterfall methodology because it feels so predictable. Can we convince our clients to adopt Agile, even if it means more up-front uncertainty?
* If you have experience with Agile, what would you recommend to an agency like Forty trying to adopt it for the first time?

The Wrong Way to Use Images in Your Blog

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-04-02T22:23:35+00:00

Curious as to the inspiration for this post? Here she is:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there is some excellent content to this post, but I couldn’t help but be completely distracted by, while laughing hysterically at, the picture of the dolphin in a post about Facebook.

I seem to come across this problem quite often. You know the one, where people are told to stick some pictures into their posts so they search do a quick search for images on Google based on a few words they’ve used. This method is wrong. This method will only have people distracted from your content, or in my case, peeing their pants with laughter; both of which aren’t exactly ideal.

Here are a few tips for incorporating images into your posts without causing people to write entire blog posts about them:

1. Use screen shots – A better idea than the dolphin in the above mentioned photo would have been an actual capture of the idea they were discussing. It’s always a better idea to show people what you are talking about, not tell them; as is the case with the photo of the dolphin.

2. Paparazzi App - This little app allows you to enter in a URL and capture the entire page in a single jpg (it’s what I used for the photo above.)

3. Give them a purpose (not to be confused with porpoise) – If you’re going to use photos in your post, they should serve a specific function (i.e. laughter, supporting graphics such as a logo you are referring to). Otherwise, lose ‘em. They just distract the readers from what you’re really trying to say.

4. Make your own – Open up Photoshop, Illustrator, or even Paint and manually create the image you are trying to convey. What better way to have relevant images in your posts?!

5. Make sure you place them properly – I know I struggle with this one all the time, do you place your pithy little supplementary photo before or after the content that outlines it? I like to think of them as ice breakers; they go in front of the copy about to discuss them so the reader has a general idea of what the next chunk of text will be. The only time I forgo this rule is when I am unveiling or introducing the imagery that follows.

6. Limit the number - Unless it is a design post, or perhaps even a photography post, don’t overwhelm your content with images. People like visuals, so if you give them too many, that’s all they will look at; which makes all of your well-crafted copy go to waste!

7. Set a theme – Introducing imagery in the middle of your post with nothing preceding it just confuses your reader. Set a tone by either including an image or two right off the bat, or don’t use any at all. Just a side note, if you’re not going to use any imagery, make sure your text doesn’t look daunting to read by adding bullet points, numbers, etc.

Stop messing up your blog posts today, save a dolphin tomorrow.

The 20 Universal Brand Types

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-03-30T22:25:23+00:00

Anyone who’s delved deep into branding has probably eventually run into the concept of “brand archetypes,” popularized by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson in the book The Hero and The Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes.

Creative Commons License sergis blog

The basic notion behind brand archetypes is that brands are a basic human social concept, and that the same patterns and ideas tend to repeat themselves over time, such that what we now consider “brands” are roughly equivalent to archetypal characters in literature, religion, folklore, mythology, etc. They’re a way for us to understand ourselves and affiliate with others, and by associating them with those common themes and characters, we can better understand how consumers connect with brands.

At Forty we actually buy into this mumbo-jumbo. We’ve done archetype-based branding exercises with a number of clients, and each time there’s been a sense of revelation and excitement about their new understanding of the relationship between their brand and its consumers.

But Then It Kinda Started to Suck

As we’ve continued to use the Pearson system, we’ve run up against certain obstacles. We found some types to be overly general, and thought they should be split up. We found other types that seemed like they were superfluous and should be combined with others. Sometimes we’d be frustrated that the type the exercises seemed to be pointing to didn’t actually exist.

Creative Commons License iboy_daniel

In short, the 12 Pearson Archetypes weren’t working well for us.

We struggled with this concept for a while. The Pearson system was relatively well established, and used by many other branding agencies, so it seemed to have that in its favor. On the other hand, it was tempting to either switch to another system or start over entirely to get away from some of the concerns that had been nagging us with each project.

Starting From Scratch: Finding New Archetypes

Finally we decided: rather than just tweak a system that (for us at least) was broken, the best way to come up with the right system for Forty was to do it from scratch. We had a solid understanding of the conceptual foundation of archetypal branding, and had confidence that we could do this on our own, regardless of what system anyone else was using.

Creative Commons License Wm Jas

Our first step was to gather raw archetypes from as many sources as we could. We begin reviewing a variety of fields, including literature, religion, mythology, folklore, video games, movies, comics, cartoons, contemporary fiction, role-playing games, etc. We came up with hundreds of common character types that together formed a reasonable cross-section of the universal characters in human culture. (Please note that this was a non-scientific process, so don’t base your doctoral thesis on it or anything.)

Creative Commons License ewen and donabel

Then, we started performing clustering exercises, asking participants to combine these characters into groups to help us determine where the overlaps occurred. Every participant had a different take on it, but in aggregate we were able to find correlation patterns between individual characters that enabled us to isolate the universal types.

The 20 Universal Brand Types

When we spread out the data in the conference room and began the process of isolating universal types, the data seemed to jump off the page. We spent some time trying to figure out how best to identify each type with a name that would make sense, but the actual isolation process went pretty quickly.

Based on our own research and process (your mileage may vary), we came up with a set of 20 universal brand types that we feel very comfortable with.

Here they are (with some rough additional explanations):

MAVERICK (Rebel, Outlaw, Rogue)

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* Brands: Harley Davidson, Virgin, MTV, Rimmel, Steve Madden, Urban Outfitters, Orbit
* People: Henry David Thoreau, Sid Vicious, George Washington
* Goal/method: To achieve freedom from the establishment through defiance, disobedience, and nonconformity.

EVERYMAN (Good Old Boy, Girl Next Door, Average Joe)

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* Brands: Miller High Life, Sonic, Walmart, Lowe’s, Walgreens, Southwest, Visa, Covergirl, Hollister
* People: Jack Black, Homer Simpson, Tom Hanks, Princess Diana
* Goal/method: To bond with others by being humble, hard-working, and friendly

INNOCENT (Saint, Goody-Two-Shoes, Angel)

Creative Commons License Amir Fathi

* Brands: IKEA, Google, Apple, Dove, Lysol, Master Card, Aveda
* People: Mr. Rogers, Gandhi, Boy Scouts, Oprah
* Goal/method: To achieve a simple, pure life by always doing the right thing

ENTERTAINER (Clown, Jester, Performer)

Creative Commons License Pink Sherbet Photography

* Brands: Budweiser, Fanta, Jack in the Box, Hulu, Woot.com, Taco Bell, Doritos
* People: Robin Williams, Bob Hope, Jeff Foxworthy
* Goal/method: To make friends (and avoid making enemies) through humor and fun

VILLAIN (Bad Guy, Monster, Vampire)

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* Brands: Megadeth, Hot Topic, LA Ink
* People: Marilyn Manson, Darth Vader, Dr. Horrible
* Goal/method: To satisfy internal drives or passions through whatever means necessary

INTELLECTUAL (Sage, Genius, Expert)

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* Brands: Ask.com, CNN, Gallup, MIT, Harvard, CIA, Bloomberg
* People: Stephen Hawking, Marie Curie, Ken Jennings
* Goal/method: To find the truth through research, objectivity, and diligence

SENSUALIST (Hedonist, Pleasure Seeker)

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* Brands: Victoria’s Secret, BMW, Godiva, Versace, Food Network, Nivea, Sephora
* People: Madonna, Jane Austen, Dracula
* Goal/method: To pursue perfect enjoyment through physical experiences.

SERVANT (Martyr, Slave, Monk)

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* Brands: Red Cross, Amnesty International, Peace Corps, Humane Society, Police Department,
* People: Mother Theresa, Pat Tillman,
* Goal/method: To lose yourself through service to others

Traditionalist (Conservative, Old School, Miser)

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* Brands: Old Spice, Wendy’s, Procter & Gamble, Wells Fargo, Folger’s, GAP
* People: Norman Rockwell, Ronald Reagan
* Goal/method: To restore the world through a return to old-fashioned values

NURTURER (Mom, Mother Earth, Healer)

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* Brands: Campbell’s, Pampers, Volvo, Johnson & Johnson, Loreal, Allstate
* People: June Cleaver, Paula Deen
* Goal/method: To help others feel loved by providing for their needs and wants

CONNECTOR (Networker, Politician, Talker)

Creative Commons License star5112

* Brands: AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, Linkedin,
* People: Oprah, Donald Trump
* Goal/method: To make things happen by knowing the right people

ARTIST (Creative, Creator, Craftsman)

Creative Commons License lanuiop

* Brands: hp, Adobe, Lego, Home Depot, Michael’s, Black and Decker, HGTV
* People: Beethoven, Salvador Dali, William Shakespeare, Bob Villa
* Goal/method: To create something of enduring beauty and value

PHILOSOPHER (Sage, Prophet, Guru)

Creative Commons License Mitmensch0812

* Brands: Scientology, Calvin Klein, Nikon
* People: Plato, Deepak Chopra, Paulo Coelho
* Goal/method: To help people understand the world by seeing things from a different perspective.

DREAMER (Magician, Sorcerer, Wizard)

Creative Commons License h.koppdelaney

* Brands: Disney, Axe, Rock Band
* People: Tim Burton, Carlos Castaneda, Steven Spielberg, Harry Potter
* Goal/method: To help people achieve supernatural experiences by promoting faith and wonder (transformation).

MOTIVATOR (Mentor, Preacher, Promoter)

Creative Commons License vicambulist

* Brands: Truth, (RED), Electronic Frontier Foundation, MoveOn.org
* People: Tony Robbins, Barack Obama, Richard Simmons
* Goal/method: To achieve amazing goals by getting people excited about a cause

RULER (King, Leader, Father)

Creative Commons License law_keven

* Brands: Microsoft, Rolex, Gillette, The New York Times, Jack Daniel’s
* People: Steve Jobs, Franklin Roosevelt, Moses
* Goal/method: To lead people to a common destination through confidence, determination, and influence

EXPLORER (Seeker, Wanderer)

Creative Commons License Darcy McCarty

* Brands: North Face, Pier One, Jeep, Greyhound, Subaru, Starbucks
* People: Christopher Columbus, Jacques Cousteau, Steve Irwin
* Goal/method: To learn what’s constant in life by always changing your environment.

DEFENDER (Knight, Superhero, Warrior)

Creative Commons License Paul Keleher

* Brands: U.S. Army, Greenpeace, Marlboro, Dial, Band aid,
* People: Batman, George S. Patton, John Wayne
* Goal/method: To protect others from harm through bravery and service.

THRILL-SEEKER (Gambler, Swashbuckler, Adventurer)

Creative Commons License Raúl A.

* Brands: X Games, Mountain Dew, Chrysler Crossfire, Carnival Cruise Ships, New Zealand, Camelback,
* People: Richard Branson, Ben Saunders, Errol Flynn
* Goal/method: To achieve great rewards through great risks

ACHIEVER (Athlete, Hot Shot, Strongman)

Creative Commons License shoothead

* Brands: Nike, Ford, Home Depot, Adidas, Under Armor,
* People: Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods
* Goal/method: To prove yourself through amazing physical acts

So, Now What?

These are still very rough, and we’re working on sorting out many of the subtleties, but we wanted to at least get the information out there in case anyone else finds it useful or interesting.

What do you think? Are we crazy?

You Know You’re a Copywriter When…

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-03-26T22:46:57+00:00

It’s finally time for copywriters to get one of these lists. They are humorous, pointless, and fantastic.

1. Without fail, typos make you giggle.

2. It makes your week to stumble across a humorous burnt out store sign.

3. Jay Leno’s Headlines act as your ab workout for the week.

4. Very public and/or permanent typos don’t receive your sympathy.

5. Engrish.com is your homepage.

6. Incorrect usage of the word “literally” drives you bonkers: If you “literally” exploded, you wouldn’t be able to post about it on your blog.

7. Incorrect usage of quotation marks – and pictures of their usage – make your day just a little brighter.

8. Incorrect usage of “air quotes”: see above

9. Mocking internet speak could be your religion, IMHO.

10. When people add a syllable to a word creating a brand new word, you don’t congratulate them – you punch them in the face.

11. Unnecessary capitalization both confuses, yet intrigues you. (You wonder, “…why would anyone want to capitalize that word? Is it a name? Is this a clue?! Cue National Treasure.”)

12. When people say “ice tea” instead of “iced tea” you feel the need to correct them while informing them that “Ice T” is a former rap artist now featured on Law and Order; not a refreshing beverage.

13. Highlighting typos in books/magazines/newspapers, and sometimes sending the revised versions back to the original authors, is a hobby of yours.

14. Unintentionally humorous paid ads are shamelessly screen captured and saved to your desktop.

15. The instant Editorial Emergency hits your inbox, you squeal.

16. You cringe at T9 mistakes: you know what I’m talking about, citag.

17. Double negatives thoroughly confuse you; no matter how long you think about them, you just can’t decipher. Too. Many. Grammatical. Issues. Does. Not. Compute.

Got any more? Share and I’ll add them to the post!

People Hate Your Website… Now What?

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-03-26T00:55:33+00:00

So there you are, site has been completely built and in your opinion it couldn’t be better. Then it happens…. BAM… someone complains that they can’t find something on the site. Then another complaint…. BLAMMO… they can’t see the site at all in their IE6 browser. Suddenly you realize that though your site looks beautiful in Firefox, and to you it makes total sense navigating your way around, your users aren’t having the same experience as you are.

How the crap do you fix it?? How do you even find out what exactly people are having a problem? Well let me try to help you with this brief but completely badass post about accessibility and usability.

What the Hell is Accessibility and Usability?

I’m sure you’ve heard the terms before, but do they make sense? Accessibility refers to the idea of your website being available to a wide range of people on a wide array of devices. Sure, your site looks good on your computer with Firefox, but what if you were blind? Would your site still function in a logical manner?

Usability refers to the ease of use and understandibility (yes, I just made up that word) of your site. Often times the “curse of knowledge” prevents you, as the creator, to understand what its like being a brand new user of the site. More often than not, a site fails because users of the site can’t find what they are looking for.

So what happens when you don’t include these two aspects of design into your process? Quite simply, you suck. Users of your site become agitated and leave, thus your business suffers. But how do you know if you suck? Ask yourself some simple questions:

* Are visitors finding what they need on the site in an efficient manner?
* Are visitors encountering any unexpected results that hinder their experience?
* Is the site usable by someone who is visually impaired or blind?
* Can the site be visited by using a mobile phone or other non-standard device?
* Are people happy to use the site? (This one might be the most telling)

So… do you suck? If the answer is yes, I’m sure your next question is, “why bother fixing it?” Well let’s take a look at some numbers that may change your perception:

* An estimated 19.4% of civilians in the United States, totaling 48.9 million people, have a disability.
* Between 15% and 30% of the population have functional limitations that can affect their ability to use technology products (50 million in US, 750 million worldwide).
* Use of assistive technology increases with age, with 52% of AT devices used by those 65+.

These numbers are more than just statistics, these are your future customers. By continuing to engage in your sucky ways you are excluding a huge amount of potential business. The simple fact is, if users find your site difficult to use, they will leave.

So How Do I Make My Site More Accessible?

There are a grip of tools that exist both online and offline that provide excellent insight your website’s possible problems with accessibility. Lets take a look at each tool individually and see how they can help us.

HTML Validation

The first and simplest stop on your path to an accessible website is to actually test the code your site is built on. Often times some of the biggest issues boil down to simple omissions or errors in code. The authority on web standards, W3C, provides us with an invaluable tool; the HTML Validator.

HTML Validator – http://validator.w3.org

While this tool tests your website thoroughly, the results can sometimes be a little hard to decipher. Often times a set of errors are actually caused by one small error; so don’t fret if you are seeing 30 errors on a page as this may only be 5 typos in the code. Some of the other common errors your website could be facing include:

* Doctype: Each website is required to have this parameter at the top of the code. This tells the application viewing the code (browser, phone, screen reader, etc) what type of code it is dealing with. Omitting this vital parameter can lead to errors in loading the page with some applications.

* Alt Attribute: The “alt” attribute is what describes these images without actually relying on context. When using images on a site, it is important to include the alt attribute to describe the content of the image. While an image in context may make complete sense to a sighted individual, someone who is visually impaired may not find it as easy to understand.

* Closing tags: Each element in HTML consists of an opening tag and a closing tag. For some tags, both are contained in one block of code. For instance the “br” tag can be written as both
and
. While both correctly work in all modern browsers, the same may not be true in other applications. The correct form to use in this case is
as it accounts for both the opening of the tag and the closing denoted by the “/” character.

* Form Labels: Forms are crucial to most websites, acting as anything from a sign-up form to a newsletter subscription form. A common error with form elements is the lack of labels needed to describe them. Similar to an “alt” tag for an image, these labels help the visually impaired to understand the form being shown.

Section 508 Compliance

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is an amendment that deals with removing barriers in information technology. Building a site that doesn’t follow the 508 guidelines is actually illegal (edit: for federal websites), and it’s also just plain uncool. To figure out if your site is 508 compliant, use the validator provided by Cynthia Says:

Cynthia Says Validator – http://www.cynthiasays.com/

WCAG Compliance

The WCAG is a set of accessibility guidelines that have been put together by the W3C, an organization that provides the HTML Validator tool mentioned earlier. This guideline is meant to provide general best practices for a website design. While the list is often criticized and not universally agreed upon, it still serves as a good resource for developing a more accessible and usable website. Some tools for validating your site under WCAG are:

Functional Accessibility Evaluator – http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu/

HERA – http://www.sidar.org/hera/

Browser Testing

One of the most challenging obstacles in web-design today is that every browser renders a page differently. Aside from installing every browser and every operating system on your computer (if you do this, you are my hero, nerdlinger), you can use services such as BrowserShots or Litmus, which will give you an image of what your webpage looks like on a particular browser.

Browser Shots – http://browsershots.org/

Litmus App – http://litmusapp.com/

Colorblind Testing

10% of all people currently suffer from some form of colorblindness. Fortunately, there is a super funky fresh application available to assist in designing your website for this demographic. Color Oracle will actually replicate your website and allow you to view it as your colorblind audience would. It’s available at http://colororacle.cartography.ch/

So How Do I Make My Site More Usable?

Usability testing is specific to each website and audience. Some sites are more complex than others or may expose users to unfamiliar experiences. The only reliable way of knowing if your site is usable is by watching people use the site.

Selecting the Ideal Participant

* Profile fitting: The best choice in participants for testing are strangers that fit the profile of your website’s target audience. For instance, a fifteen year-old boy may not be the best candidate for the testing of a website selling hearing aides.

* Existing users: Some of the best user testing comes from those already using your site. These people not only have insights to the site first time users might not have but they also have a self-interest for the site to become better.

* New hires: Brand new employees can be perfect for usability testing as they have a vested interest in familiarizing themselves with the site so their input can be very insightful.

Conducting the Testing

After you have selected participants, the testing can begin. Some major points to keep in mind when conducting your test:

* Have participants vocalize their thoughts: It’s important to know the thought process of your participant to understand what they are expecting, trying to accomplish, and where he/she may be having trouble. Plus it can be weird sitting in a completely quiet environment… I’ve had dates end up badly cause of it.

* Do not participate in the testing process: This is very important! Let the participant act on their own without affecting them in anyway. Give them only the necessary details, let them know you cannot assist them in any way during the test, and let them be.

* Use scenarios: This is helpful if you are trying to test certain key aspects of your site. Give participants certain duties, such as signing up for a new account or registering for an event to identify areas of struggle. Identify some key concepts of your site and tell the participant to complete them. If you want to test out how users sign up for a new account, let them know.

* Record the testing: While a notebook and copious notes is a start, the ultimate goal is to record their interactions in a format that others can observe later. Videotape the testing or use an application like Silverback (discussed in the next section) to fully record everything. This will allow your team to come to their own conclusions based on their own perceptions of the recording; thus resulting in a more valid test.

Silverback

I cannot stress enough how utterly badass this application is. It will record the entire testing session including mouse movement, mouse clicks, and even has the ability to take a video recording of the participants’ face. This tool will be vital in any website usability testing you decide to conduct.

Silverback Intro Screen – http://silverbackapp.com/
Results from Usability Testing

The results from your initial test will help to improve your site in the short-term, but the only way to know with certainty that your website is usable is to constantly test, analyze and make appropriate changes to your site. This should be an ongoing and regular process, typically coupled with any changes you make to your website. Each new round of testing should result in fewer changes.

Why, Thank You, Sunny!

No friend, thank you for taking the time to make the web a better place. I hope this guide has at least directed you towards that path.

0 Web Design Tips for Writers

info@fortyagency.com — 2009-03-19T01:22:55+00:00

So, I tweeted a while ago about this article, see, here’s the tweet -

See, I did tweet about it.

The gist of the article is tips for writing copy as a web designer. It got me thinking. As a professional writer of sorts, I feel that someone who takes on someone else’s specialty is just asking for trouble. So, as an experiment, I thought I would go ahead and try my hand at graphic design. I mean, if web designers are going to be responsible for writing poignant marketing copy, I might as well attempt graphic design; with no formal training, experience, or clue what I’m doing. Here goes:

Yay! I designed something! It looks pretty good, I would present it to a hip client targeting a younger audience, but I couldn’t tell you a thing about it. I don’t know what colors I used, why I did what I did, or what I expect people to get out of the design. I’m not a designer! I like to leave these tasks up to those who know what they are doing.

The point of this post is: Designers, if you’re thinking of “filling in the spaces” of your design with written content, think about that horrid design up above. Would you want a writer to tackle a design project simply because they know the basics of Illustrator? We feel the same way about designers trying to dabble in writing for their clients simply because they think it’s easy.

We’ll leave the designs up to you, if you leave the content up to us. Deal?

P.S.

If it’s a budget thing, I would be willing to bet that what a designer may budget in for time to complete the copy portion of their project, a copywriter can do in half the time.

Simple Tips to Amp Up Your Copy

info@fortyagency.com — 1970-01-01T00:33:06+00:00

Well-written copy can inspire its readers to do pretty much anything. In order for your copy to have this same impact, there are a few key things to keep in mind as your drafting these motivating words:

1. Make your headlines action-oriented – The difference between: “New Website is Up” and “Be the First to See Our Newly Redesigned Website,” is huge in your reader’s eyes. You want to get them excited, regardless of what it is that you’re writing about. In order to get anyone else excited about what it is that you’re talking about, you, yourself, need to be as well. Even if you’re just writing up a quick announcement about a small change to something, write as if it’s the greatest thing in the world! You can always tone it down later if you go overboard.

2. Organize your content appropriately – This is especially important when drafting up newsletters: put the most important items in your newsletter at the very top, then work your way down. People get bored after a chunk of text or two, so make sure they’re seeing the good stuff, first! It’s also important to think about this idea from a business perspective, It may not be the most important thing to you, but what do you ultimately want to get across in your message?

3. Use better more effective words - You don’t need to be a walking thesaurus to know which words make people more interested in what you have to say than others. A fatal flaw in your copy can be the insertion of ordinary, subjective words that don’t really paint the picture you’re looking to tell. Here are a few quick examples:

* Instead of “great,” use words such as: incredible, monumental, special, admired, renowned, notable, etc.
* Instead of “fun,” use words such as: enjoyable, amusing, entertaining, carefree, etc.
* Instead of “new,” use words such as: just announced, unveiled, novel, latest, current, advanced, modern, etc.

4. Cut the Fluff – If you ever want people to enjoy reading any of your copy, you need to make sure that every bit of it is powerful, and worth their time. People learn quickly, so if you stick in some filler copy in one area and people read it, they’ll start to think the rest of the your site isn’t worth reading as well. Your copy should be thought of as important as your design – cut out the unnecessary words taking up space and get to the root of what you’re trying say. Travelzoo has a great newsletter that is tremendously popular, yet only includes the absolute basics: Headline, price, and link:

5. Cut the Copy - As much as I love copy, it really is not always a necessary aspect of everything you do. Yes, maybe a sentence or two is required, but beyond that, it can be OK to say nothing else. The most effective and popular newsletters, are often the most simple. Here is an example of a newsletter that does a terrible job of this:

picture-6

Stats about this newsletter:

August 3rd edition word count – 4,077

July 29th edition word count – 5, 653

Guess what I do with this newsletter when I open it up? I don’t read a single sentence and it gets deleted. How am I supposed to know which of the 26 pages of text is actually important to me?

6. Forget SEO - Your first instinct might be that all of this text means search engines will love your website more and reward you with higher search result rankings. If you’ve checked out our post titled “SEO for the Average Joe,” the you should know the most naturally written websites tend to do best with search engines. Just write for your audience, and the search engines will do the rest.

So get writing already! And make sure you keep in mind that your copy should always try and encourage its reader to take some sort of action when they’ve finished consuming it, so make it good!

Questions to Discuss

1. Do you have any other tips to add to this list?

2. Where have you seen copy that really got you interested in doing something?