Build a website – create a powerful first impression!
People are shopping online now more than ever, and websites are the real life corporate façade with which many consumers interact. Think about it. When you hear of a new product, where’s the first place you look for information? In North America, the internet is the most convenient research tool available. The companies that do the best job facilitating commerce, convenience and brand interaction are fast becoming the biggest online favorites. This shift is measured in money. Corporations that enjoy strong online sales are moving their media buys away from the television and toward the internet. Tracking results and purchasing behavior on the web is now a precise science. Without question, good websites are powerful sales tools.
What makes a website powerful
There are seven integral components to a successful commercial internet presence. First and foremost it’s crucial to recognize and nurture all seven elements. A company must harness all of these components in order to design a website generates a favorable ROI.
Studies show that creating a positive first impression is fundamental to establishing credibility, perceived high quality, consumer trust, and acceptance.
Online, a positive first impression could mean the difference between profit and loss.
Surprisingly, there are still lots and lots of online firms with respectable revenues and bed websites. Poor websites instill a rather dismal first impression. Cluttered pages and slow navigation hold these firms back from realizing their true potential. Why? These companies made the wrong purchasing decisions regarding their web design contracts.
Inevitably some companies cheap out and hire under-qualified webmasters. Kids, bless their hearts, often take on big projects which, in reality, require a team of highly skilled professionals. They’ll learn on the job – at their client’s expense. Other corporations have optimistically ventured out beyond their means and hired high-end advertising agencies with exorbitant rates, hidden fees and mind boggling legal agreements. It’s sad when they have to halt development halfway into the project because of hemorrhaging budgets. In both cases the wrong decisions were made because those responsible were unable to perceive the big picture.
The free articles at Lifecapture Interactive’s website are designed to equip marketing executives and business owners who recognize the importance of a properly designed web presence.
Stand alone piece of marketing collateral?
Single professionals like real estate agents often spend thousands of dollars online to stand apart from the competition. Unfortunately, some recent studies show that unless they have cool original branding and well thought out marketing strategies that include other media buys like print, radio, television and billboard, their websites will languish online and get very little traffic - nor will they be indexed favorably in search results.
Effective, revenue driving corporate websites of today require rich media integration, integrated online sales collateral, backend functionality, smart calls to action, CMS, SEO, Google Adwords, Yahoo Overture - direct appeals to all demographics of interest ensures success.
Automated communications and backend processes, professional product photography, succinct and effective sales copy, engaging interactivity, video streaming integration, metrics, simple navigation, lead generation capabilities and much more can be put in the site project and used as weapons to advance your brand message.
These are advanced skills, and only skilled professionals may execute such tasks flawlessly. Don’t over-estimate your designer / programmer’s abilities – or you’ll commission an ugly site with poor functionality.
A good website sets a pleasant tone. In the best cases an ambiance or digital environment is layered to become a sophisticated experience for a big factor in sales. The tone and feel of the site should convince visitors to make a purchase decision within five seconds of arrival at the domain, and never even consider searching for, or exploring the competition’s sites.
Online brand presence must be strong from every angle; front end design, functionality, navigation, visual appeal, interactivity, e-commerce, automated backend processes, online forms, video streaming, integrated databases, etc. There is no room for weakness or compromise – its profits that suffer.
Hungry young companies do not need to spend millions of dollars with McLaren McCann or BBDO to compete with the Fortune 500. The same shift in technology that’s given birth to streaming media, has also streamlined brand marketing companies - interactive agencies like Lifecapture Interactive.
A new breed of marketing firm now caters directly to the needs of more traditional corporations in today’s fast evolving marketplace where audiences are becoming more discriminating and increasingly fractured. Interactive agencies are driven by smart entrepreneurs who know how to navigate the modern commercial landscape.
Evolving old advertising practices
Gone by way of Commodores, 8 bit video cards and obsolete technology, old school advertising agencies now languish as ineffective dinosaurs unable to adapt to today’s technologically savvy corporate climate. Even when the big traditional advertising agencies create interactive new media departments in-house, their old fashioned methodology stifles innovation. As the saying goes; ‘It’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks’.
Lifecapture Interactive performs a competitive analysis for each new client. How else can this interactive firm help its customers position their products beyond the competition? Be concerned if the webmasters that your company hired hasn’t researched your firm’s competition.
The internet is an entirely new medium of communication. Corporations that employ a cookie cutter approach will seldom profit and never realize their firm’s true online potential. Spending a few thousand dollars on a template design will put your enterprise beside or below your competition’s presence.
With so many choices, how do you know what web components are truly necessary? The answer is simple – design an overall strategy that is unique and compliments your product or service, and then employ the parts and pieces of the plan as needed. Innovative marketing firms develop both site and strategy.
Everything depends on having a good plan - an in-depth understanding of the necessary ‘next moves’ inside the competitive landscape online.
Companies like LifeCapture Interactive tailor websites to the specific needs of their clients and offer guidance and consultation throughout the design and development process as part of their client relationship. This is the very reason why it’s important to have a marketing savvy firm design your site. Websites must be made part of a larger picture - not just a stand alone piece of marketing collateral. The best websites are marketed on and offline.
Credentials and Expertise
What credentials and expertise should an interactive agency have? Today success is measured in results. The most effective online brands have the best people behind them – look at the work that’s being done and judge the marketers on the basis of client ROI. LifeCapture Interactive has a litany of satisfied clients sporting excellent sites and, increasingly, is being called upon by other to salvage their improperly designed sites and strategies.
LifeCapture Interactive is an agency with a solid understanding of the psychology behind the first impression. They also boast a strong understanding of branding and marketing strategy both on and offline. Their in house Creative Director and Senior Designers run a tight ship in which they demonstrate a thorough knowledge of general user interface design and web architecture. LCI also sports several computer language programmers who have the skills to tailor your custom backend functionality, calls to action, highly effective navigation techniques. LCI also employs a professional in-house photography with both video and commercial photography expertise. They have copy writers and skilled project managers with knowledge of accounting. The entire crew is a veteran team of seasoned business professionals who oversee timely delivery and perfect execution of each project. The team ensures that your new site speaks properly to the intended target demographics and works in perfect unison with a pre-approved marketing strategy. This is what has made LifeCapture Interactive a Profit 50 company this year.
How is this new interactive agency model different? LifeCapture Interactive employs the above specialists in-house. This ensures the left hand is speaking to the right. Its bottom heavy – full of workers, not budget gouging executives that would otherwise be necessary to ‘over-see’ all elements of production.
See the big picture and how it all ties together for your business?
For a free consultation on Web Development, Online Solutions and Marketing Services for your company please contact:
Lifecapture Interactive
tel. 416-408-4669
info@lifecaptureinc.com
www.lifecaptureinc.com
