Considering the statistics, odds are good that you have personally scrolled past the advertisements at the top of a search results page, in order to reach the organic content.
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Some people do this almost every single time they conduct a web search. It’s an interesting phenomenon because the first organic results are often from the very same websites as are paying for advertisements associated with the same keywords.
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This goes to show that many consumers are conscious of the potential for corporate manipulation, and prefer to feel as if they’ve made their own decisions about where to find information or make a purchase.
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Notably, though, it’s the feeling that is most important here. And it provides a lesson for how digital marketing companies can make effective use of human psychology.
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There are frequent opportunities to guide consumers toward the decision that is best for a business. But the best way to take advantage of these opportunities is by leaving subtle hints and cues in your digital content, so the user believes the decision was all their own.
There are slightly different considerations that go into designing the website for a law firm, as opposed to most other businesses. Those differences are reflected in the new site we built for MC Reynolds Law Group.
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While there are people who will do extensive online research for any product or service, most people aren’t in that sort of deliberate state of mind when they find themselves in need of a lawyer. Decisions regarding representation are usually made after a phone call, so the MC Reynolds site encourages people to “get in touch” right after the page loads.
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Of course, this doesn’t mean that we deprived the homepage of information. For those who aren’t immediately sure whether it’s worth calling, a quick scroll reveals bullet points regarding the firm’s reputation and expertise, followed by another invitation to call.
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A longer scroll gives more details about the types of cases MC Reynolds has handled successfully, and the page ends with a full array of contact options. All-in-all, it offers a comfortable experience for everyone in need of legal services, no matter how cautious or impulsive.
Stopping the clock to save time would actually make more sense. You wouldn’t be aware of what you’re losing, but at least everything else would continue as normal.
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Halting advertising to save money is more foolish because there’s a good chance you’ll end up compounding your losses over time. Whatever you’d previously gained will steadily erode as competitors’ marketing efforts overtake yours.
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We understand it may be tempting to look back at successful advertising and decide that it’s already served its purpose. But digital marketing needs to be an ongoing process. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
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Of course, individual campaigns can be shut down in favor of others. You can even direct resources away from pay-per-click advertising and into organic forms of consumer outreach. But no amount of brand recognition should lead you to believe that people will keep paying attention once you’re silent.
When we first started working with Desiree Busnelli, her professional focus was mostly on interior design. But she expressed an interest in incorporating more travel and fashion into her brand, and we’ve been helping her to do just that.
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One of our first projects was to mock up a mood board. It helped us to find the right blend of each element she hopes to focus on in the future, while also pinning down an overall visual aesthetic.
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These sorts of first-run projects are a great way of making sure that clients and contractors are on the same page, before moving into more serious collaboration.
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Desiree’s mood board should lay the foundation for a digital presence that will be consistent across all platforms. We look forward to helping her brand take on a new shape. We hope you’re looking forward to seeing the results.
Many experts see potential for TikTok to be the next great frontier in social media marketing. Its user base is growing at a pace that rivals that of Facebook and Twitter at similar points in their history. And the interactions between those users are often intimate and reliable.
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No one has conclusively figured out how to tap into this apparent potential, though. TikTok mostly remains a platform for creative self-expression, and it seems unlikely that its young users would be anything other than skeptical about the sudden appearance of branded messages.
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Still, platforms like Instagram have managed to seamlessly fold advertising into their content without seriously disrupting how users react to it. It’s definitely possible for TikTok to do something similar. But social media marketers will need to tread lightly for a while before they find the TikTok influencers who are both willing and able to help their clients reach a new digital audience.
We recently helped Thomas Bayles to revamp his Real Estate of Mind website. Check it out if you’re interested in pursuing either a personal mortgage or a real estate investment opportunity from someone with more than a decade of experience in the Los Angeles area.
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Our redesign focused on making the site streamlined and user-friendly for both types of customers. The homepage invites visitors to tap on their area of interest or scroll down to learn more about Thomas through his bio, press links, and social media.
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It’s generally good for a website to offer a general overview to new visitors, without stalling anyone who comes to the site for a specific purpose. With the web as fast-paced as it is today, people don’t tend to stick around for long if they don’t get what they’re looking for right away.
It’s no secret that Facebook uses a wealth of data to connect advertisements with the users who are most likely to be interested in them.
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Some of that data comes from the types of news they consume on the site. And even if they are not among the 43 percent of adults in the US who get news through Facebook, that fact could teach the algorithm something important about their ad preferences.
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Social media marketing companies may not have access to the same wealth of data, but they can use some basic facts about Facebook usage to fine-tune their advertising campaigns.
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If a company is targeting demographics that are most likely to get news from Facebook, then there’s an opportunity to make certain ads relevant to current events.
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Conversely, if the target audience comes from the 57 percent who either don’t read news or get it from other sites, then advertisers might benefit from experimenting with content that is noticeably apolitical, or that stays more focused on social relationships t han social issues .
Here’s a quick look at the brand guide we developed for Desiree Busnelli.
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Our digital marketing strategies are always comprehensive, and we work closely with clients to make sure there are specific plans and goals for each aspect of their digital presence. We intend to work with Desiree over the long term, and we’ll regularly revisit this brand guide together, to make sure we still share the same vision.
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Ideally, every aspect of this strategy should work together, giving Desiree a distinctive brand identity that fans can follow across platforms and beyond the limits of social media. But she decides that any individual aspects are not working, we’ll work with her to revise and adjust the elements of this brand guide.
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Every piece of a brand guide should be a reflection of who the client is and who they want to be, both personally and professionally. We don’t take that lightly.
One thing that digital marketing companies should be able to provide to their clients is a sense of narrative structure. If your brand is a story, you need to hire a truly great story-teller to convey it to the audience.
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In practical terms, this means that a digital marketing campaign will tend to lead consumers through a process, from introduction to climax, denouement, and conclusion. The first point of contact tells consumers why they should be interested in your brand, and prompts them to seek more information.
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This might lead to them following you on social media, visiting your website, or examining your product line. And as their brand awareness develops through recurring touch points, a well-told story will lead them to the only satisfying conclusion: a sale.
As part of a larger brand development project for Desiree Busnelli, we designed this logo for use on her social media and promotional materials.
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For all its simplicity, a professional logo can convey a lot of meaning. It’s often the first introduction to an individual or company identity and aesthetic. So it needs to accurately reflect what they’re about.
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Here, we’ve tried to design a logo that is evocative of high fashion and well-known brands, without tethering Desiree’s identity to them. She’s about so much more than that, and we think the open-circle presentation of her entire name shows an ongoing process of development and progress.
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The outer portion of the logo can also be left off if Desiree wants to use a simplified version on follow-up posts or supplemental materials where a complete re-introduction of her brand isn’t necessary. This type of variation is something many clients look for, to make their logo more versatile.
We were excited when Curapure entrusted us with a complete rebrand. The company had already established itself as a CBD manufacturer and retailer, but its website was still a little generic and unpolished. We knew we’d be able to help.
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Now, far beyond building a new website, we’re in the process of helping Curapure to develop an entirely new brand strategy. This means redesigning their logo and the typeface and color palate they’ll display not just on-site but also on physical promotional materials.
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Curapure seems to understand that digital marketing and traditional marketing should go hand-in-hand. The digital strategy we help them to develop will support their efforts to generate leads in-person. And those leads will lead to online traffic from consumers who already recognize the brand.
Courtesy of Unique Chic Studio Shots, here’s a great example of “flat lay photography.”
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This style has become very popular on Instagram and especially on commercial accounts as a way of showing off a specific product, or a whole assortment of them. But different photo studios are always finding unique and interesting ways to personalize flat lay photography.
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Here, an assortment of Signature Essentials wallets are laid out to extend beyond the frame, like a geometric pattern on a larger surface. To us, it looks abstract at first glance, which is a good way of drawing attention from Instagram users with an interest in art and design.
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Not many people can be expected to stop scrolling to look at a wallet. But if they’re not sure what caught their eye at first, many of those same people will find their interest piqued by wallets as stylish and unusual as this.
Speed and ease of access go hand-in-hand. This is true of every site, but especially of mobile sites.⠀
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When trying to capture the attention of mobile web users, it’s important to remember that they’re often limited to slower connection speeds and data limits. So you should make sure that on your end, both the site’s design and its hosting have the fewest possible number of barriers to fast loading.⠀
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It’s also important to remember that not all devices display sites in the same way. So to guarantee consistent ease of access, you should test it on as many devices as possible.⠀
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This may be difficult for the typical site owner, but it shouldn’t be much trouble for an established web services provider. That kind of professional assistance should result in a site that looks its best on any type of phone, tablet, or computer.
It’s always exciting to be on the ground floor of a new venture, especially one that capitalizes on trends that we’ve all been watching unfold. Bonafive is about to launch with a line of hand sanitizers that will bring newfound luxury to a product category that’s become tediously familiar.
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The company has contracted us to develop a brand strategy that emphasizes both the practicality and the premium quality of their products. And we couldn’t be any more excited. It’s a unique opportunity for dip our toes into a new industry, and for consumers to get genuine enjoyment out of keeping themselves safe from germs.
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Look for future promotional materials to outline Bonafive’s formulations, which include essential oils for an all-natural fragrance, and moisturizer to prevent the dry skin that so many people have had to cope with after slathering on alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
Growing numbers of websites and social media platforms are embracing video compatibility. That’s only natural, since there’s clearly a lot of demand for short-form videos all around the internet.
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Video content isn’t likely to become the main form of expression on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But it’s very much possible for occasional videos to have an outsized impact on either platform.
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If your digital marketing campaign doesn’t already make use of video, it may be worth remembering that you can easily fold this into your existing social media strategy.
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You can make it even easier for yourself by starting with a vlog-style video in order to test the waters. But if you find you get more engagement from video content than from most text, you digital marketing team can help you to scale up your production values and take advantage of still-growing demand.
