Posts from: 10/2008

• Votethesite.com Featured on Download Squad!

  Oct 30, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Microsite, New Media Campaigns, VoteTheSite, Web Marketing | Comments (0)

  

  The friendly team over at Download Squad featured our microsite votethesite.com on their homepage.  They also are holding an impromptu poll on their site asking visitors "strictly from a geek perspective" which Presidential website they prefer.

  We really appreciate the shout out as it has driven a fair amount of votes to the site - we're now over 8,000 votes in just 40 hours!  Also, it helped us fulfill one of our goals in marketing a microsite by getting picked up by a major blog.

  For those of you not familiar with Download Squad, they've got some great content and contributors - I definitely recommend checking them out.

• Why a Microsite Can Help Market Your Company

  Oct 29, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Microsite, New Media Campaigns, Politics, VoteTheSite, Web Marketing | Comments (2)

  My last post was about how to successfully market a microsite for your company, and it outlined the current steps we're taking to market our recent microsite votethesite.com. However, I realized today that in that article, I didn't put forth the basic tenets of why a microsite can be a very good choice for many businesses.
  
  I think the general philosophy behind a microsite is one that Jason Fried articulated in his keynote at Northwestern (if anyone has the video, leave a comment):

  "Out teach, out share, and out contribute"
  

  Fried was describing how the marketing of celebrity chefs demonstrated to market online, and I think that quotation is nearly identical the goals of launching a microsite.
  
  Perhaps the biggest reason to build a microsite is to drive traffic to your organization's main site. Due to the fact that you're out contributing to your space, people will be driven to your site. It's nearly impossible to make a corporate site go "viral" and quickly spread around to thousands of people - however, an interesting microsite can easily take off and start referring traffic to your main organization's site. In addition to the upfront traffic from initially marketing your microsite, there will also be a longtail, as different blogs continue to pick up the site down the line and it continues to rank on Google for keywords.
  
  One great example of a long tail generated by a microsite is Website Grader. This microsite was created by an internet marketing and SEO company named HubSpot. It started off as a fun experiment and microsite for their team and has resulted in thousands of sites linking to the tool, references from major blogs, and more than 400,000 URLs being graded. The microsite captures people looking for a free website evaluation and then drives a portion of that traffic to HubSpot as; almost all of these visitors are part of the company's main target.
  
  Another great reason for a microsite is to establish your firm as an innovator in the space. This would be considered out teaching. By creating a forward-thinking microsite that has great content and addresses an important topic, people will begin to look to you as a thought leader and innovator in your space. This was certainly one of the motivations behind votethesite.com; our firm has always done a great job of developing political websites, but the microsite helps establish us as a thinker in the space that is exploring how online campaigning is affecting real elections. By taking the time and putting in the effort to build an innovative microsite, people will realize that you're a leader in the space and a company worth following.
  
  A microsite also allows you to create powerful spinoff content, whether it is blog posts, free reports, white papers, or others. Giving this content away would be classified as out sharing. Our microsite wasn't just a one-off solution, we've used it to generate several good blog posts (one of which drove nearly a thousand visitors to our site today), and it will also allow us to repurpose the data for reports and white papers. A microsite gives you an ideal opportunity to generate valuable data and content that you can continually use for your company's advantage.
  
  These are a few really compelling reasons to build a microsite. It is certainly a time investment, but is well worth it when you think of the longtail and the ability to create spinoff content. However, be sure not to half-ass it; if you're going to build one, really throw yourself behind marketing it and getting value out of it. Have you had success with a microsite? If so, leave a comment and let us know your story and why you decided to build it.

   

• Six Hours In: Launching a Niche Microsite

  Oct 29, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Blogging, New Media Campaigns, Politics, VoteTheSite, Web Marketing | Comments (4)

  Earlier this evening, we launched a microsite at www.votethesite.com to allow people to vote for their favorite political websites.  In just six hours, the site has already recorded 3,000 votes, received dozens of comments, and been viewed by hundreds of visitors from across the world.  This site wasn't just launched with an "if you build it, they will come" strategy, but is the result of a multi-stage, concerted effort by our team to publicize and market it.
  
  We launched the site hoping to gain as many votes as possible, and hoping to get picked up by outside political blogs and circulated around the designer community.  We knew that we had to crawl before we could walk, so first we needed to get traction with low hanging fruit, such as friends and family.  So far, we've followed a pretty regimented roll out; here are the steps we're taking to market our microsite.

  1. Send to friends and family - Everyone on the NMC team sent the project to their friends and family, encouraging them to pass along to others.  This was kind of a light launch that let us fix any problems that arose, knowing that the visitors would "love us no matter what" as my grandma told me when her district's screenshot didn't appear correctly.  This led to a good first wave of traffic and gave the voting some momentum, encouraging others to vote when they got to the site.
  2. Distribute to Favorite Social Networks - For this stage, we all posted on the social networks that we spend the most time on, which are still composed of mainly friends, but more distant than in stage 1.  We each posted the link as our Facebook status, Tweeted it (follow me for more updates on the site), put up as our Gchat away message, and a couple more.  This round was really successful, leading to several re-tweets (including from complete strangers), and getting picked up by a North Carolina newspaper's blog.
  3. Email out to list of political contacts - As a political web design firm, we have a pretty sizable amount of consultants and campaigns that we work with, who we knew would be interested in the site.  We sent them all individual emails, encouraging them to try the site out.  This resulted in some good feedback and even a call from a contact that we hadn't spoke to in months who wanted to hire us to work on a new site (nice!).  In addition to just our personal political clients, we also sent out an email to each contact from the campaigns featured on the site, letting them know that they had been highlighted and to let us know if they had any feedback or changes for us.

  These are the stages we considered part of the initial rollout.  The goal here was to gather a decent amount of votes on the site, so each race had multiple votes and to start a little buzz around certain circles that we had launched this site.  Considering we launched the site at 5pm, we had modest expectations for the results of these phases, and have exceeded all our expectations so far.
  
  Below is a brief overview of the next steps we're taking to get the site in front of more voters.  I'll offer more details on these steps later this week, after we have tangible results on whether they worked or not.

  1. Continue Blogging about the project - Over the next few days, we'll be continually blogging about the project, the programming behind it, and it's coverage.  By continuing to create good content about the site, visitors to our main site are likelier to go to it, it can spark interest in different web communities, and will more likely get indexed by Google.
  2. Submitting to popular news aggregators - This is the stage where we really try and take the views to the next level.  We'll be submitting to Digg, Reddit, Hacker News, and some others.  If it gains steam, these sites could drive some serious traffic.
  3. Reaching out to industry decision makers - In this stage, we'll reach out to the big time players, such as Politico, large newspaper blogs, and other relevant sites.  Hopefully, they will like the idea, see that it has already been fairly popular, and write up the site.  This would result in huge traffic and give the site a lot of credibility.  This would be the ultimate win.

  Well, there's still 6 days before the election, so we think people have plenty of reason to check out votethesite.com and vote on their favorite political sites.  Per #4, we'll be keeping the blog updated as we keep publicizing the site and we'll let you know if we reach our goals and how the traffic is doing.  Wish us luck and be sure to go vote - both in our fake election and in the real one!

   

• Vote for the Best Political Websites

  Oct 28, 2008 by Joel Sutherland | Filed in: VoteTheSite | Comments (0)

  

  Even though our days are consumed with building client websites and providing customer support - that doesn't mean we don't have some free time in the evenings to work on some side projects together.  The New Media team just released a new microsite at www.votethesite.com - the site allows you to browse campaign websites from races across the country and vote on which candidate has the better site.

  We had a lot of fun building it, but it also serves a functional purpose - we want to see if there's a correlation between which campaign has the better site and who wins.  As a political web design firm, we're very interested to see if the better campaign site is also winning the actual election.  The more votes we record on Vote the Site, the more data we'll have to include in our results.  If you'd like to signup to receive the final results after the election and the correlation chart, send an email to results@votethesite.com.

  To get this site up and running was a team effort.  Everyone burned the midnight oil gathering screenshots, designing the interface, and programming the functionality, but we're really pleased with the product.  Please be sure to check out votethesite.com, vote, and let us know your feedback.

• Great Email Customer Support from Campaign Monitor

  Oct 23, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Tools | Comments (1)

  As a thank you to companies that go above and beyond the call of duty in customer support, we like to give them a shout out on our blog.  Previously, we highlighted Wufoo's personalized thank you cards.  Now, another company has joined their ranks as customer service rock-stars. Campaign Monitor majorly helped us out the other day when we were blasting out an email for one of our clients.

  We've always been a big fan of Campaign Monitor and their email marketing product; we previously included them in our list of tools we use to build successful websites.  The other day, I was having trouble importing a list of contacts for the client, even though I was pretty sure that I had formatted it correctly.  I emailed the support team at Campaign Monitor, expecting to get some generalist advice on how to format and try again.  Instead, I got an extremely friendly email and a completely reformatted list.  That's right, their friendly customer service rep, Diana Potter, actually went into my CSV file, did some reformating and sent it back to me along with this note:

  "After switching that the file was still having problems, I think that's due to the handful of names with first and last comma separated and such. I went ahead and cleaned up your files, removing the names with associated email addresses, and converted it to a .csv file. It should import fine now but let me know if you're still having any problems."
  

  How awesome! She saved me the time of having to figure out the error and reformat the list, and it allowed our client's e-mail blast to get out on time.  There was no extra charge at all, they just wanted to make sure they got it fixed; maybe I was so happy because this philosophy reminds me of our no hourly fee approach to customer service.  No matter what the reason, it made my day and I just had to thank them in a public way.  Anyone else have stories of companies going above and beyond the call of duty to keep you happy and your business rolling along?

• Proprietary Software Sometimes Has the Upper Hand on Open Source

  Oct 22, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Clients, Content Management, New Media Campaigns, Technology Partner | Comments (0)

  Let's just get it out there - we have built proprietary Content Management Software that we put all of our sites on.  That's right - we built it from scratch.  We are the ones responsible for improving it and we handle the tech support.  It seems that at every business pitch I go to, people are either in disbelief that we actually built it from scratch or scared to death of using a proprietary system.  I'll let you in on a little secret: proprietary software doesn't have to scare you or your organization.
  
  It seems that open source is all the rage nowadays, whether it be open source CMS options or project management solutions.  However, there are drawbacks to most open source solutions that make them impractical for many users.
  
  One example of a huge drawback to open source software is support.  What happens when you can't figure out how to format an image using your Drupal CMS or you can't get projects to work correctly in Project Pier?  There's no support phone number or email to reach out to - looks like you'll just have to sift through forums and documentation and try to find the appropriate answer.  This may work for some people, but I know that the majority of our clients need instant support or someone to walk them through the process.  This just simply isn't going to happen with open source options.
  
  Even with the support issue and other drawbacks with open source software (too broad/generic, slow to advance), people can still be hesitant when looking at a proprietary solution.  The perpetual "elephant in the room" that people hesitantly bring up is what if NMC goes out of business or they want to leave NMC down the line?  Those are completely fair questions that people shouldn't be scared to bring up.  However, they are also concerns that shouldn't be fretted on too much.

  • First, you have data portability with our system.  If a client ever wants to leave for any reason, they have the right to all of their data and it can easily be exported out for them to use in another system.  We never claim to own your design, content, or data, so should someone decide to leave us, they can easily move all of their data to a new vendor.  
  • Second, as long as people are paying hosting, our system can keep running on our servers.  So, even if for some inexplicable reason, NMC disappeared, that doesn't mean our CMS would also disappear.  We have launched over 150 websites, all of whom pay monthly hosting fees to cover our server fees and use of our system.  As long as people continue to pay those fees, our Content Management Software will stay active and can continue to be used by our clients.
  • Third, we're a growing and healthy company with over 100 clients.  Even though we're a Raleigh web design firm, we have clients of all sizes from across the country that look to us as their web partner. This allows us to be in a healthy position to continue innovating and improving our CMS rapidly, which is something that rarely happens with open source solutions as they tend to stagnate or lose sight of niche clients and focus on general improvements rather than ones that help their existing client base. 

  I just wanted to address the concerns I hear everytime I meet with a new client - there's no denying that there are some powerful open source solutions; however, they frequently lose sight of immediate goals and who their main consumers are.  With our software, you know we'll be here every step of the way to support you and continue making our system even better.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on proprietary vs. open-source.

• Choosing a Web Design Firm? Ignore These Things

  Oct 15, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: New Media Campaigns, Web Design Firms | Comments (0)

  We recently wrote about important criteria to consider when choosing a web design firm. This post is about the opposite: things that don't really matter when choosing a firm. In today's economy, it's important to invest your marketing dollars wisely , and as organizations seek out their web partner, many get scared away from firms for reasons that really shouldn't be deal breakers.

  Location, Location, Location...Rarely Matters

  Don't let the location of a firm be the sole factor in deciding whether or not to work with them. In today's connected and flattened world, the location of vendors has almost become irrelevant. Still, we encounter clients that are scared to work with a firm that isn't a stone's throw away. We're a Raleigh web design firm , but we have clients across the country and the majority of them are outside of the area. By using collaborative tools such as doing presentations through GotoMeeting , project management through Basecamp , or using Google Docs , we're able to keep our clients informed and up to date on the development of their site often without ever even meeting them face to face. Don't limit your options geographically. Look for the best possible web provider based on price, quality of work, and culture not just because they have a familiar area code.

  Size is Not the Solution

  The bigger the better does not necessarily apply to web firms. We're a small web design firm. We're not shy about it, in fact, we embrace it. We think our size is an advantage and helps us do better work at more affordable prices than many of our bigger competitors. Large firms must deal with many inefficiencies and their billing must overcome their overhead and bureaucracy. We're a small company and we've built web presences for public companies, national non-profits, and political campaigns at every level - don't think that just a company is small that they can't handle your project.

  Variety is the Spice of Life

  Just because a firm doesn't work exclusively in your niche market, doesn't mean they can't design well for your organization. If you're a law firm, you don't have to work with a web company that only designs law websites. Look at a web design firm's general body of work - frequently, diversity is a good sign and not a bad one, as it shows they've been able to understand not only different organizations but also different industries. If the web design firm has had success across multiple industries, they'll most likely be able to do a great job on your site, even if it's their first foray into that specific industry.

  These are some of the most common hesitations that we have encountered when speaking with prospective new clients. If you have other criteria that should be added to the list, please comment on the post.

• Single-Line vs. Multi-Line CSS: A Tool to End the Debate

  Oct 10, 2008 by Joel Sutherland | Filed in: Tools | Comments (2)

  Quicklink: Open up the css style converter here.

  An interesting divide exists among web designers, one that is rarely commented on. When coding CSS, do you put your properties on a single line or across multiple lines? If you don't know what the difference is, here is a quick example:

  Multi-Line

  #wrapper {
  width:800px; 
  margin:0 auto;
  }
  
  #header {
  height:100px; 
  position:relative;
  }
  
  #feature .post {
  width:490px;
  float:left;
  }
  
  #feature .link {
  width:195px; 
  display:inline; 
  margin:0 10px 0 0;
  float:right;
  }

  Single Line

  #wrapper            {width:800px; margin:0 auto;}
  #header             {height:100px; position:relative;}
  #feature .post      {width:490px; float:left;}
  #feature .link      {width:195px; display:inline; float:right;}

  The benefits to selecting one over the other may not be immediately obvious. Generally when writing code of any kind, it is best to optimize your code for readability as opposed to writing speed. This makes your code more understandable to others (and yourself) when reviewed. CSS is no different.

  Which method is more readable?

  The answer is that it depends. When using the more popular multi-line format, it is much easier to find individual properties. This is especially true when you stick to a declaration ordering convention. Using the single-line format, it is much easier to find selectors as your file is much more vertically compact. I prefer the single-line format as I can return to a stylesheet in the future and quickly figure out where to make changes. You can look at the selectors quickly to understand the structure of your document.

  Obviously there are a number of varying opinions on the subject. Here is a list of links to people arguing for one format or another:

  Ordered List: Single Line CSS adii: Horizontal or Vertical Time Wasting? Stack Overflow: CSS editor that expands declarations Sugarenia: Single-line or multi-line CSS? Matt Wilcox: Organising CSS, revisited

  Superfluous Banter: Regex Patters for Single Line CSS CSS Vault: Selection Made Simple Jens Meiert: CSS Rules for Organization Designer Mojo: Single Line CSS Monday By Noon: CSS Organization Methods

  If you and your collaborators can't decide on a common style, I've got a tool to make your life a lot easier. It parses and converts css files between the two formats. It isn't a CSS Compressor, instead it is designed to make your life easier if you write css. Try it out and let me know if you think it needs any tweaks in the comments.

  Open up the css style converter.

• When Companies Don't Fear Customer Support, Everybody Wins

  Oct 10, 2008 by Clay Schossow | Filed in: Clients, Design, New Media Campaigns, Web Design Firms | Comments (0)

  We've been designing websites for a while and have seen how other firms approach customer support. Typically, customers to "pay as they go" on an hourly basis. So, after client X pays a hefty setup fee to have their site built, they're then stuck paying for customer support by the hour.This method can become quite expensive for the client and leads to a fair amount of tension and inefficiency. The client becomes hesitant to ask for help, afraid that they're "on the clock," straining what might be a good relationship.

  At New Media Campaigns, we have a different approach to customer support. We think our method is pretty easy to grasp; it just relies on a little bit of trust. We never charge hourly for support or small changes to a client's site. How are "small changes" defined? They aren't really. Some people think that it's a dangerous offer and puts us at risk to needy clients. Recently, after hearing about our policy, someone commented:

  No charge tech support via phone, unless you really screen your clients upfront can be a killer... Granted, your service philosophy sort of squares that up, but no where does it state when the project ends, free phone support ends as well.

  In no way is this person's opinion ill-informed; in fact, it's extremely consistent with the mainstream view of customer support. However, while our choice is outside of the norm, it is also not ill-informed and is based on our corporate philosophy and other calculated factors.

  Why we think avoiding hourly charges is wise:

  First, we put all of our sites on our Content Management System.This allows our clients to be in full control of their content and dramatically reduces the numbers of calls/emails we get for small changes.If there is something small a client can't handle, or if they have a question that we need to hop on the phone to talk out, we're happy to do it. Willingness to provide support atno cost does two things:

  1. Encourages our clients to try things themselves, knowing we're just a call away. Our strategy reduces required support in the long run and educates our clients.
  2. Informs us when our software needs a tweak. If several of our customers struggle to accomplish the same task, it isn't their fault. It is ours.

  Second, all of our clients pay a small monthly licensing and hosting fee to cover the unlimited use of the Content Management System and also the hosting of their site. To be clear, this is not a retainer. With that fee, we understand that there will be times when theclient needs support from us and needs to get us on the phone or shoot us an email. So, the monthly fee helps offset the cost of us helping the client out when they have questions or need some help with the CMS.

  The typical reaction to this policy is fear that the clients will call and ask us for a massive project like a site redesign or to build them a social network for free. However, by building a relationship based on trust and free education, clients become aware of when a change would no longer be considered minor. They're also more receptive to charges after having dealt with our no-hourly service philosophy in the past.They understand that we onlycharge when it's necessary, and that leads to a much more friendly and productive relationship.

  Think we're crazy? Haveyour own customer support policy that has had great returns for your firm andyour clients? Let us know by leaving a comment.

• McDonald's Embraces Twitter by Agressively Following Others

  Oct 9, 2008 by Joel Sutherland | Filed in: Social Media, Tools, Web Marketing | Comments (0)

  

  This morning I stopped by McDonald's for a cup of coffee and realized they had started their Monopoly game again.  I've always had a gripe with the game so this morning I posted the following to twitter:

  JoelSutherland McDonald's Monopoly needs to incorporate houses and hotels before I get interested.

  Not long after, I gained a new follower on twitter, MONOPOLYatMcD. If you compare the search results for McDonald's Monopoly, to those the game is following, you can see what is happening.

  Agressively following those that talk about your company or product is a great strategy for using twitter. It puts you in direct contact with those that care about what you do.  Additionally, those on twitter are early adopters.  They'll tell you if you're headed in the right direction.

  Following those that talk about you seems too important to leave to chance.  Is there a service that uses the twitter API that keeps track of those that comment using a particular phrase?  If so, leave it in the comments.

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