23 March 2010

Building Successful Relationships with Professional Services Firms

Professional services businesses include, but are not limited to lawyers, accountants, management consultants, financial services, marketing, PR, design, architecture, engineering and construction.

Having worked with many firms across this spectrum, I find they share some specific characteristics that color our approach in working with them. Understanding what makes Professional Services firms different from businesses that sell products is key to building and sustaining mutually satisfying relationships.

Trusted Partners
Professional Services firms are often literally selling themselves. Their success depends on building a personal bond of trust with their client. They must become deeply involved in their client's business in order to provide meaningful counsel or support. Professional Services firms often work in teams and routinely bounce ideas off of one another in a group situation.

With this understanding of the importance of relationships in a Professional Services company, we know that developing a bond and rapport are critical for building trust. We also know that the decision process for reviewing our work is sometimes a consensus building exercise requiring us to show both flexibility and leadership.

Comfortable Leadership
Professional Services firms are used to being "the experts" that lead their clients toward solutions. Their clients rely on their objectivity, intellect and professional experience to guide them in the right direction. Because Professional Services firms are usually in the position of being the consultant, with all of the respect and expertise that implies, they often have strong opinions about the design, writing, web and marketing services we provide. Because of our strong facilitation skills, we have found success managing the many strong opinions of a Professional Services client.

Brand Matters
Professional Services firms don't have products upon which to build a brand. When thinking about Professional Services brands, "rational" and "emotional" are the two sides of the same coin.

On the rational side, their brands generally reflect traits or ideas their organizations admire. Accenture's "Performance" brand is a good example of a Professional Services company building a brand around a concept.

"Persona" defines the flip side of the coin. What is the character of the firm? What is the culture like? Is it a buttoned up, somewhat conservative feel, suggesting black and white photography of business subjects, or is it a more casual environment that might seek more conceptual imagery, perhaps even illustration?

We work closely with our Professional Services clients to tease out ideas, themes, taglines, color palettes, font choices and style of imagery. When we achieve the right balance, we then build brands that work cohesively across the electronic and print worlds.

Think Differentiation
In the end, our job is to differentiate our clients using all the tools, experience and intuition we possess. Our understanding of how Professional Services companies think increases our value to them and makes the process smooth and enjoyable!

Categories: General
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 11:45 AM   |  1 Comment

10 March 2010

Five Tips for Creating an Effective U.S. Website

We've been asked recently by some global companies seeking to increase their U.S. business, "What makes an effective website for the U.S. market?" This article is addressed to them but the answer represents general best practices.

Before we get into the details of how to create an effective website for the U.S. Market, it's useful to understand key characteristics of American audiences.
Which of the below characteristics is true of the U.S. audience?

• Americans are in a hurry
• Americans like things to be simple
• Americans are benefit and not features-oriented
• Americans respond to self interest as well as corporate interest 
• All of the Above

Now that you've decided to do business in the States, these are the people you need to understand and to whom you must deliver value... in a way to which they will respond.

The 5 tips for creating a successful website that will appeal to American audience, are as follows:

1. Relevant content: Make it brief, clear and to the point
Content describes the text, imagery, audio and video of a site. The site needs to have an American voice, use American colloquialisms when appropriate and generally communicate in a savvy, no-nonsense style that pushes the benefits of your products or services rather than the nuts and bolts of why your product or service is great. On the practical side, all copy, including press releases should point to U.S. related news. I strongly recommend engaging a professional U.S. copywriter to help you tailor your content to meet the needs of the U.S. audience.

2. Brand Strategy: What makes you different and why does that matter?
America is a land of brands. People here identify with corporate cultures as well as products and services. Even in Business-to-Business marketing, it is important to understand the competitive landscape and position your company to differentiate yourself in this marketplace. The generic, hard sell will not work. As a foreign company entering a new market, you also need to understand your audience and what needs they may have that aren't being met by the competition. Then you'll be in a position to craft unique messages and establish a website that makes it clear to visitors why to consider your company.

3. Navigation: Keep it simple
It's tempting to include as much information as one can on a home page. You never know who may visit...unless you look at your analytics, which a surprising number of firms still do not do.

Americans view the homepage like it's both the cover of a book and its table of contents. They expect to be drawn in by a compelling message and great design and to be directed quickly to relevant content. If your value proposition is clear enough, and you can speak with the brevity favored by U.S. audiences, you will successfully guide the visitor on a concise information path of your choosing. Too many websites have multiple agendas, audiences and messages and present a confusing array of options, leaving the visitor confused, frustrated or bored. In a nutshell, keep it simple.

Some Navigation Tips
When thinking about navigation, again, consider your audience.
• If you are in many markets, perhaps the main navigation should reflect that multi-market strategy. An example of this kind of navigation is the site we did for Shawmut Construction at www.shawmut.com.

• If you have several distinct buyers, then, perhaps you should offer role based navigation option as Unica does at www.unica.com.

• Maybe there are a handful of business problems you regularly solve. A navigation scheme that allows users to identify with these problem areas might be the most intuitive navigation approach. Our site for software firm Open Connect is a good example of this "pain-based navigation" approach. Visit www.oc.com.

There is no one right way. By understanding your audience, you will better be able to create the web experience that best addresses them.

4. Design: Design sells
Design is a strategic tool for visualizing your brand strategy. The use of color, fonts, imagery and interactivity such as Flash are all ways to help you focus the user and differentiate your company. Although American audiences are analytical, they still respond to emotional cues. When I work with clients, I often begin with an exercise of printing out the homepages of all of their competitors and even a few companies they admire. When we lay them all out on a large table it is clear what are the predominant colors, image styles and navigation used in their market. This will be instructive for understanding the American business landscape in your field. You will then be prepared to determine how to differentiate from what's out there. At this point you will need a professional web designer to bring your brand to life.

5. Optimize your Website: Learn from your audience
Your website should be the hub of your marketing effort. All of your other marketing activities should lead prospects and customers back to your website to learn more or fulfill offers. The entire site should be "offers-oriented." Every page should include some kind of "call-to-action," a way for the user to interact with your company.

Your website content should be optimized by including key words and phrases that visitors will use to find you. By carefully embedding the right key words and phrases into your web code and content, your website will be more visible to search engines and more intuitive to web visitors.

Finally, to maintain relevance of your website, something critical in the U.S. market, you need to have your web designer set up a basic Google Analytics account. This will enable you to view user behavior and clearly see which areas of your website are most frequently visited or whether users are leaving the website after they get to the homepage. This data will be instructive in ascertaining whether you are successfully reaching your U.S. audience.

If you understand the character of the U.S. audience and focus on the 5 points I've discussed, you will be in a great position to succeed with your new website!

Categories: Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 5:32 PM   |  1 Comment

03 March 2010

5 Reasons to Hire a Professional Web Writer

In our many Web engagements clients often question whether they need an outside writer on the project. The reason for rumination is usually either related to budget or whether internal resources have the time to get the job done. From experience I believe that hiring an outside writer is necessary and often mandatory. Here are five reasons to consider:

1. Save Time
Most clients have a short timeframe in which to create a website. Content is arguably the most important component. In our experience, content development is the single thing that we've seen blow schedules. Content development takes time and a review cycle. Busy executives who have a web writing assignment added to their already full schedule, understandably tend to back burner it in favor of client work. Working with an outside copywriter takes that pressure off and allows the schedule to be maintained.

2. Provide Objectivity
It can be challenging to keep a fresh perspective when you work in a company and most of your exposure is to other company insiders. It is easy to become enamored of your product or service and view the world from that prism. Adding a professional writer, with a broad perspective and top communication skills, to the team will avail you of new ideas and potentially a different and compelling way to share your value.

3. Establish Messaging and Brand Cohesiveness
Nothing less than the success of the website is dependent on having the right messaging. A professional copywriter is trained to ask the right questions and distill pithy content from the answers. A good writer is also aware of all of the ways your brand is presented to customers and prospects and looks for ways to present cohesive messaging.

4. Be Brief
It's common knowledge that nobody reads anymore. More accurately, people skim web content, looking for relevancy. Not only does messaging need to be branded, it needs to be brief. As Mark Twain said, "Successful writing is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it."

5. Optimize for SEO
Copywriting and SEO go hand-in-hand. Optimizing your website for Search is an important part of the web development process. The first step is to identify key words and key phrases. The skill then is in embedding those key words and phrases into the content. A good copywriter can liberally apply key words and phrases while maintaining brevity, messaging and a natural flow to the language.

Together, these 5 points present compelling reasons for adding a professional copywriter to your team for your next web project.

Categories: Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 3:28 PM   |  1 Comment