Liezl Croft is an utterly lovely wedding and family portrait photographer. A force of South African fabulousness, creative, warm, friendly and with an eye for fun she asked us to create a brand refresh and blogsite that would reflect where her business is today as well as (of course) attracting and retaining lots of new clients.

And whilst we’ve been working with her on her printed literature now for several years, I was delighted when she asked us to give her blog a brandover. Having set up her business less than two years ago, Liezl had previously created her websites herself and felt that her business was at a level where she was ready to step things up a gear.

As well as being a cracking lifestyle photographer, Liezl is also very crafty and I think you’ll see that come through in the look and feel of the site.

We’ve worked on creating direct mail for Liezl in the past (which we won a design award last year for) but this project gave us the chance to really flex our creative muscles! We designed to create Liezl a WordPress based blogsite – a website and blog rolled into one which would give her the chance to showcase her photography without being too onerous to manage.

We put together a colour palette that created an aspirational feel, whilst plenty of texture and elements like the bunting creates a sensory quality and follows on from the work we did previously on the mailers. We all love the icons that Chloe created for each category, and the beautiful pattern that sets off the blog. I’d always known that Liezl’s work was beautiful, but what I hadn’t appreciated was the enormous difference the right surroundings make to her images.

If you take a look at the difference between the old blog and the new, I think you’ll agree they’re night and day apart.

Liezl’s old blog

I don’t want to embarrass anyone by going into this too heavily, let’s just say that the design of the blog had a long way to catch up with the quality of Liezl’s work…

And the new blogsite

Liezl has been so much fun to work with on this project and we wish her lots of luck with the new site and branding. It’s too early to measure the financial success of the blog – it’s been live for less than a month, but visits have doubled and the feedback to Liezl’s Facebook and Twitter page was overwhelming! Do hope on over and take a look (and do leave her a comment too, it’s so lovely to receive feedback when you’re writing your heart out and you know how lonely it can be when you’re first blogging)… You’ll find Liezl’s website and blog at www.liezlcroft.com

What I thought I would do is take the time to comment on how their blackouts are not really blackouts. And all because of Search Engine Optimisation.

I’m going to take WordPress.org and Wikipedia as an example for my post (as they are, to me, the main websites staging this blackout). If you load any page on their sites today you will be confronted by the following pages:

However, on further inspection, these blackout ‘faces’ to these websites are simply masking the content sitting behind them. These websites will load all of the normal content that they should show and then force a full screen display over the top.

With a few bits of in-browser Javascript* you are able to view the full content behind the page as it should be.

So why haven’t they replaced their entire websites to actually ‘black out’?

Being some of the biggest websites on the internet they achieve results through strong search engine rankings. Their sites are rich in content and Google (and others) will check them regularly for any updates in content and update their records of that website accordingly. When a Search Engine wants to look at a website it requests a copy of the ‘source’ of a page just like your browser does. Your browser would then convert this ‘source’ or ‘code’ into a nicely styled version for you to view with pleasure. Search Engines don’t have this same wish for aesthetics and will happily read through the code they’re given to understand what that website is about.

What this is in effect doing is keeping all of the content there to keep their search engines happy but then masking each page using those styles I was talking about to hide the useful content from the user audience. This is instead of supplying user and search engine with just the content and styles for these black out messages.

Now if these websites just supplied the content for the  black out messages then when Google does its check today it will decide that every page on their site now reads on the lines of “WordPress.org protests the protect IP act”. Suddenly you will see every page drop out of its place in the rankings. I guess this is a risk that both websites could not take.

Admittedly for these large websites it wouldn’t take them long to be re-ranked once their normal website content comes back online. And with the number of users that will surf directly to wikipedia.org or wordpress.org without going through a search engine they should still see their traffic rise once again. However this is all theoretical and should happen but will not necessarily happen.

Does this make their stand of less value?

Some could say it does and some could say it doesn’t. Unless you work with websites for a living none of this may be at all obvious to you at all and it will be as though the websites are inaccessible to their normal content. However for me it does show that they’re not willing to take the search engine ranking hit to have a real black out. And taking that hit would potentially be great headlines in the fight against the SOPA and PIPA legislation. But their websites will be left at a huge disadvantage online.

So what do you think?

*Javascript is functionality code that runs within the user’s browser once it has loaded the content of a website. It is most commonly used for powering website slide shows and other pretty things.

**If you would like me to clarify anything in this post please leave a comment and I will do my best to help.

And I do understand that thinking, but it doesn’t make good business sense. Why? Because that same slow decline into Christmas is often mirrored on the other side, and it’s often February before life lets you start planning ahead. As you know, we’re working hard to dangle some carrots to get you thinking about your websites and logos this side of Christmas (and whilst we will be dangling some carrots in January, our biggest carrots will go to the lovely people who have already started thinking ahead!) and so I thought that we might celebrate some of those Forward Thinkers on the blog.

Introducing… Griffin Glasshouses

Linda Lane is Managing Director of Griffin Glasshouses and one of our first Forward Thinkers. Linda is planning ahead for a busy Spring season and has asked us to create a new website. We spent a couple of hours mapping out the website with Linda and her team – planning the customer journey, understanding how we could make the most of Griffin’s sales funnel and understanding how the site should be structured.

For the last couple of weeks Linda has been able to focus on her day job whilst we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes: developing concepts. creating wireframes and this week, creating a knockout design that I hope knocks the socks off the current design.

The Current Website

Naturally there’ll need to be a little input (when Linda and her team are ready) to review the designs and feed back to us with any changes, but the idea is that the whole process is as efficient as possible to enable the Griffin Glasshouse team to focus on what they do best while we do what we do best.

And with a small sprinkle of Flourish magic dust

This is a bit of a work in progress, but you get the idea…

The next step is to create the look and feel for the rest of the pages once we know that these initial concepts are headed in the right direction. I’m really looking forward to seeing the impact the new design, navigation and structure have on the Griffin Glasshouse enquiry levels, and most importantly, their sales. Watch this space…

I class myself as one of life’s impatient. Once I’ve made a decision to do something, I want to get on with it right away. I struggled heavily with the concept of waiting six months for the right builder to be available to work on our house (especially as I’d been super organised and waited until we had Building Regs before going out to tender). And so I totally get the look of terror in your eyes when you learn that a decent website may take around 3 months (or more…) from concept to completion. If it was me, I’d want it right away too!

But consider this. Nothing good ever happens without thought, care and attention. And just as you could go into any fast food outlet and grab yourself an instant hit of something very unsatisfactory, far better to wait at a pub or restaurant for something homecooked. Sure, it costs more, but it’s better value for money, you have a more enjoyable experience and you’re fuller and happier when you leave.

The best things come to those who wait

It’s a bit like this with websites. You can get yourself a cheap and not so cheerful website and you can probably get it turned around in a matter of weeks. But you’ll find that there physically isn’t the time to plan the customer journey, develop a creative concept, pay time, care and attention to the details and execute with style. It’ll be a short lived web-calorie hit.

The alternative is much more satisfying (are you with me on this slightly odd analogy?). Having a new website created is a journey to be savoured. It’s an opportunity to bring some clarity to your thinking about your business, to take what you’re doing up a level and be blown away by someone else’s interpretation of your business. You can’t rush stuff like this. And whilst I don’t want you to think we sit around in meditations all day waiting for ideas to come (I can just hear the design team scoffing at that thought!) it is important that we create a design that is creatively strong and wins you business. And that means we need time to do it. Timelines will vary from project to project, and sometimes things will unexpectedly take longer than you think because (often) you may need more time to think about the creative or getting your copy right. But it’s always, always worth it in the end.

So more than anything, if you are desperate for a new website, get organised and start talking to us sooner rather than later! Don’t think about it for four months and then leave it so late that you need a microwave meal of a website! Allow yourself time to do it properly. 

These posts are a bit like busses aren’t they? You wait for one In The Studio This Week and then two come along at once!

Harriet Tipping is a very lovely nutritional therapist who has just about to launch her business, Nutribeing. She already had a logo but no brand identity to speak of, so we really had a very free rein (within the confines of the brief of course!).

The brief for this blog design was to create something that felt fresh, uplifting and healthy. I think it’s a great example of a very clean and professional Spring design. You can just feel the energy bursting out of that green can’t you? And yet the purple keeps it restrained and the attention to detail in the layout and typography keeps the whole feel professional and smart.

I really can’t wait to get this live for Harriet as I know it’ll be a great platform for her to start to launch her business. Keep your eyes peeled too because over the next week or so we’ll be sharing the new website design for Nutribeing with you too…

It seems like forever since I’ve shared a snapshot of some of our work from the studio doesn’t it? We’ve been incredibly busy over the last month or so working on some really exciting projects and I’m delighted to share a couple of them with you this week. First up… A stunning website design for Sport Surface Solutions.

We love to do things that shake things up a bit, get people to sit up and take notice of a company, and as ever, prove that design for small businesses can be just as well thought out, just as aspirational as design for the big boys. Chloe has really enjoyed the challenge of working on a very masculine, Winter design and I think she’s pulled it off with bells on.

Sport Surface Solutions do exactly what the name suggests. They install and maintain sports surfaces and are clearly doing the right thing getting their marketing literature in order right now in time for Olympic hysteria in the summer!

Chloe has developed a new logo design and brand identity as well as website design which ties the whole look together. Those of you that follow our passion for colour psychology will notice the Winter traits: strong colours, strong alignment and structure, premium feel and impactful images. There is no messing about here: this is a website design for a company that means business.

The designs are currently in the process of being finalised before we move on to the build (hence the positional rather than final images) but I will share the build with you once it’s complete… I hope you like

How to make a January Sales Promotion work for your business

1. Avoid the blanket “10% off our services” at all costs. You’re better than that
2. Think about what you can offer that will compel people to take action now. Get creative, brainstorm with your team (or your marketing partners – Flourish are happy to help!) and think about what you can afford to give away that your customers will value.
3. Consider what it will take to get people to focus. Remember, this isn’t about what you can do cheaply, it’s about what your clients will value. Think about it from their shoes.
4. Think carefully about how you communicate your reasons for running your sales promotion. When worded carefully you’ll gain loyalty and new business so take your time to write your copy well.
5. Really make it worth your clients while – for example, if you’re a photographer, give a credit towards a set of images. If you’re a hairdresser, give them a voucher for a free cut and blowdry or an upgrade to a full head of highlights or whatever it takes to make it worth their while not putting it off until next month

The Great Little Trading Company have had a fab campaign to persuade their clients to shop now for Christmas rather than leaving it any longer. I can’t say I’ve seen the comprehensive marketing that Stu describes with his eBuyer experience, but it’s a compelling sales promotion nonetheless.

You see the problem with sales is that the retail industry has taught us that the longer we wait, the better the deal. And whilst we love the instant gratification of walking home with armfuls of bags, and we persuade ourselves that we need to buy it now or it might be gone, this strategy isn’t helpful for business owners. You need people to buy now don’t you?

And letting people even remotely assume that if they wait, you’ll slash your prices further is bad news for margin, bad news for your conversion rates and bad news for business.

That’s why when I found this promo during a spot of Christmas shopping on Sunday I just had to share it with you. Isn’t it fab? Great Little Trading Company (GLTC) have been completely upfront about the fact that their best deals are available for people that take action now. Wait, and you won’t save as much money. I love the fact that they’re showing all the discounts – past, present and future. It really compels you to take action doesn’t it?

I know I’ll be looking forward to spotting opportunities to use this with our ecommerce clients – how about you? Could you use this in your business?

Postscript: The fallout from not following through

I’m really disappointed. I nipped over to the website to check the URL and look what I saw on the homepage!

I’m so gutted. Why did they do it? I did think twice about whether to reword the whole blog post in the light of this, but I do think it’s important that I share a) what worked so fabulously well and b) how you can undermine it so easily.

What I think is a real shame is that in the grand scheme of things, what difference does 2% really make? Are they going to lose clients tonight just because they are “only” offering 16% off? I really don’t think so. I honestly think the original banner would have trained the consumer to get in early next year (as well as sign up to the newsletter so that they could be the first to hear).

What do you think? Did they make a mistake in backtracking on the offer? I’d really love your thoughts on this one.

Say hello to ebuyer.com

Ebuyer.com are an online company that sell discounted computer hardware and little gadgets on a b2c and a b2b level. They’re good value and reliable (*note here for personal experience – other opinions may vary). I’ve used them time and time again for building computers and servers (some of our machines in the office are in fact made using components bought from them) and we’ve found that they have a very hard working marketing department. At least twice a week without fail I will receive promotional offers from them by e-mail.

The idea

So a few weeks ago they decided they would hold a £1 sale today (Monday 28th November 2011). Lots of clearance stock that they wish to shift – some good and some worthless – all going on sale at different intervals throughout the day. Brilliant idea. Bring in the potential customers and convert them into customers that will now be receiving the e-mail updates several times a week. Sell off some stock that they are finding difficult to sell at full price and in return gain some new faces.

So their marketing department have been hard at work over the last few weeks. They’ve sent out e-mails about this promotion. They created a Facebook campaign that allowed users who have ‘liked’ their Facebook page to access the offers half an hour before everybody else. It’s all looking to be a really brilliant campaign. However 10:30am comes and their site becomes inaccessible. Too many people are trying to access their website to pick up these great deals and their current set up cannot cope with the volume of traffic.

The fallout

The frustrated users that after pressing the F5/Reload key over and over again find that once they’ve finally managed to add an item to their basket and checkout (and even in some cases they’ve paid for their items) that the product that they wanted is now out of stock. Suddenly their incredible viral marketing is about to backfire on them. And it does.

All of the users that they’ve managed to get to ‘like’ their Facebook page are now constantly updating it with bad reviews and poor comments about the company. Rival firms are managing to get in and link back to their websites for users having difficulties. Prospective and current customers lost (though who knows for how long).

We’ve all seen these problems before. Many people had trouble accessing the Olympic Games booking site and if you’ve ever tried booking tickets for popular concerts then you’ll also know the frustration at seeing “This page cannot be displayed” in your browser.

So what should they do better next time?

Well I could personally go into a lot of technical waffle about balanced loads, failovers etc. and I could also talk about how they should have separated their deals website from their main website (there have been a lot of comments on the Facebook page about customers not even wishing to get a £1 deal becoming frustrated at their inability to buy normal-priced products so have gone elsewhere).

However the essence of what they needed to do was make certain that all parts of the campaign were doing their role. The marketing department obviously managed to do their job brilliantly. But the technical and service departments are now not keeping to their end of the bargain. The technical department cannot keep their website online and the customer service department aren’t responding to (we’d all assume inundated with) customer queries and complaints.

Have you had experience of these situations either as a customer or a business owner? How have the issues been resolved? Or do you have best practices that you adhere to to avoid such problems? Let us know below.

We as consumers often see January sales as a way of retailers clearing stock. If you run a business that doesn’t hold stock – be it a craft business where you make everything to order or a service based business where you sell your time, then it’s easy to dismiss sales as not being for you. But is it worth looking at them from a different angle?

Sales are just as much about stimulating demand as they are clearing stock.

And when you think about it like that, it sounds a whole lot more attractive doesn’t it! If your business is quiet in January, rather than sitting about moping about it, should you be doing something about it? A sale could be just the thing, with one caveat, it needs to be planned and executed well.

Discounting can look desperate and damage your brand. It can also affect your pricing strategy in the long term, so I would only ever do it with caution. But it really can work.

A poorly planned sale also looks weak. 10% off everything isn’t a sale – it just looks desperate. You need to give people a compelling reason to buy, and a blanket discount just won’t cut it. If you sell product, consider slicing between 25% and 70% off various groups of products rather than applying a global discount to everything. Again, this gives people a more compelling reason to buy.

Last year Clare Yarwood-White ran a sale that started on Christmas eve – her sales increased by 600% compared to the previous year, and it didn’t cannibalise her figures for the rest of the month. printing.com have run a January sale since around 2003 and it works wonders for stimulating demand (although it certainly affects margin for the month). I’ve yet to see a serviced based business pull this off, but I wonder – can it be done? Should it be done? What do you think?