A Brand Agency Needs Core Competencies in Multiple Media

A Brand Agency aims to develop a brand in-line with the brand strategy. The brand creative (graphic devices, key headlines, color and imagery) need to be consistent in execution for the strategy to take effect, to achieve this, an agency needs skill sets across online and print media.

If your company is sending out clean, consistent messages through multiple forms of media, the chances of engaging a customer through clear brand messaging is much greater.

Charles Elena Design is a creative multi-disciplined agency with expertise in both online and print media. Boasting a well-rounded team of brand strategists, corporate identity designers, web developers and designers and email marketers, Charles Elena has helped many Australian and International brands to achieve corporate goals through consistency of design.

The Method

As a multi-disciplined agency Charles Elena realizes that not every brand is the same. Our brand strategy experts carefully analyze past campaigns, customer and market data before building a brand architecture that takes into account the core message of your brand. Once the core message is developed, our strategy experts will then work on:

• Brand position in the market
• Current identity analysis (visual audit)
• Brand personality and tone

The master brand strategy

For companies with multiple products or services various master strategies can be utilized. This involves creating an overarching "master" brand look and feel, with sub-brands that have a unified "family" look in relation to the master brand. Our brand strategists work closely with creative corporate identity designers to ensure the message and display are consistent with business objectives.

Consistency of design

Achieving consistency of design amongst multiple advertising mediums can be a challenge when using different agencies for each media type. Luckily, Charles Elena Design is a multi-disciplined agency with a well-rounded team with expertise in both online and print media, including:

• Web design
• Web development
• Graphic design
• Email Campaign Management
• Banner ad and landing page creation
• Newspaper and magazine advertising
• Flyers and newsletters
• Annual reports
• SEO and SEM
• Internal templates and letters
• Copy-writing and editing
• Graphic Design Studio

In today's global marketplace, having a consistent and wide spread presence is rewarding. A company's ability to create positive and indelible impressions of its brand is critical for its survival. 'What does not meet the eyes doesn't get sold' and this is why you should choose a brand management company with a proven work record to establish your brand with our expert brand strategist.

Charles Elena Design has its domain expertise in developing brand strategy for start up companies, enterprises and corporate. We create lasting brand impressions for our client company with consistent brand campaigns. View our work samples on http://www.charleselena.com.au/.

5 Must Haves for Your Website Development and Design

1. Engaging content: Online sales are majorly content centric. If your website text fails to strike a chord with your visitors, you are definitely not getting their business. Key messages and call-for-action words should be highlighted to catch instant attention. Check the home page and landing pages on your website. Do they make up for a quick easy read? If no, then its time for a content make over.

2. Right CMS technology: A fashion e Store requires different set of functionality when compared with a real estate web portal. Based on these specific business requirements the CMS or content management system is chosen for website development. Right website development technology increases your sales potential. Say, you want to launch a new e Store. Choosing an open-source CMS for your website development will significantly cut down your launch to web time and you can start to make sales early. Further, you can integrate secured payment gateway and shipping modules as well. This will elevate the shopping experience on your e Store. Right web technology also helps web owners to manage their website's back-end smoothly.

3. Compelling visual hierarchy: Every element on a website is strategically placed to guide the eyes of the visitors towards a preferred goal. This is done so that the visitors form an intended perception of the website. Your website is an extension of your brand. An expert website development company knows it and can help you to make your website more interactive and engaging with HD graphics, nifty designing, videos and much more.

4. Seal of credibility: If you have won any awards or are accredited by a renowned authority, flaunt it. This will build a trust between you and your visitor. Remember, people do business with those whom they trust. Discuss with your website development company to have accolades on major landing pages or right next to your company's name on each page along with your home page URL as link on that.

5. Conversion points: Perhaps, you are not able to tap into high sales because there aren't enough conversion points to turn visitors into sales. Here's a quick example. Say, you own a wedding planning company and most of your business comes from your website. You can increase conversion points with 'add to wish list' option, post quick inquiry, ask for free quotes feedback from visitor and so on to garner more leads which eventually can be converted into sales.

Charles Elena Design is an expert website development company in Melbourne, Australia. We provide effective website development solutions for start-up firms, small companies and corporate. Get in touch with us on http://www.charleselena.com.au.

Web design Melbourne Trends and Opportunities

Web Design Melbourne

Web design is never a static culture – it is constantly updating, growing and moving with technological advances, social shifts and greater reliance on business intelligence. Many of these advances in technology are revolutionary, exciting new ways of moving closer to the customer, giving web design melbourne consultants the chance to engage directly with customers in mediums they prefer.

A website that was perfectly adequate 5 years ago may be lacking crucial functionality for today’s market, and therefore is at risk of losing valuable clicks to competitors. The following list describes some of the real trends in web design Melbourne over the past year.

Search Engine Friendly

Free advertising is a huge benefit. Free advertising on the first page of a Google keyword search is almost priceless, and should be the aim of all web design Melbourne consultants. More and more, companies and individuals are learning that search-engine friendly websites – with well research SEO keywords and linked phrasing – are worth their weight in gold. Organic, unpaid search engine listings can generate a huge amount of traffic, and should always be prioritised as a core business objective.

Always ensure that you are using a Content Management System that is SEO friendly, and research your keywords extensively before building them in to your text.

Social media Integration

It’s a fairly sure bet that you know more people with Facebook than without it. The same could almost be said about Twitter. The same could probably be said for your client base. The more exposure you have to current and potential customers through different media avenues, the better. Social media is a huge part of the online lifestyle, and Web Design Melbourne consultants that properly merge social and traditional online material are those that are winning more affection than their competition.

The hardest thing about social media for many companies is the loss of control – once a post is up, it can be commented about freely by the community, with both positive and negative feedback. To corporate citizens trained in PR, it can sometimes be tempting to jump in and administer the community with a heavy hand. This defeats the entire purpose of social media. Just wait – generally, the community becomes self-moderating with 80% positive and 20% negative contributors. Having your customers build their loyalty to an extent where they are commenting on, and defending your company’s products or services is absolutely priceless, and should be the core aim of web design Melbourne consultants.

Simplified websites and landing pages

Gone are the days where a simple link back to your home page from a Google ad would be sufficient to capture a lead. Simple, effective landing pages that display a product run down, as well as a short lead form (name, email address, postcode) garner the most positive amount of clicks to views. Don’t be afraid to experiment with landing pages – once you find a style that works, it can then be tinkered with to generate more sales and delight your customers.

Mobile and tablet websites

A rising percentage of users are now accessing the web from mobile and tablet style devices, with the number to reach parity with PC and laptop browsers over the next couple of years. Consequently, the number of customers viewing content and purchasing online whilst on the move is rising exponentially. Most modern web architecture platforms allow web design Melbourne consultants to build mobile and tablet sites right alongside regular pages for little to no extra cost.

Security

Security of databases and personal information is of paramount importance. You only have to look at the hacking of the Playstation network, or the infiltration of 200,000 Citibank accounts to observe just how crucial it is to properly secure all customer information. Web Design Melbourne consultants must ensure that all databases are protected by multiple layers of security.

In summary, current web trends are about moving closer to the customer, serving them streamlined, simplified content over every device they own.  New advances in mobile computing technology are putting an emphasis on quick loading, elegant and streamlined pages, with social media integration as standard. Chat with your local web design Melbourne consultant to find out more!

Web Design Melbourne – What you need to succeed

Birthing a web site from scratch can be a long process, especially if all branding, functionality and logic have to be created from the ground up. There are also some common pitfalls that customers often fall prey to when undertaking the process, whether with Web Design Melbourne or outsourced overseas. Next time you are engaging a company to build a new website, or even update an existing one, take a few of the following points into consideration.

Be realistic

If you want a website with a ton of bells and whistles, that’s great. If you that website up and working next week, it’s probably not. Proper time is needed for bug checking and user acceptance testing, as well as the build itself. Think about releasing it as a three or four stage process, with an initial release of the basic site, followed by large updates. Remember, when a web site is activated, it is literally a baby – it then needs to be worked on, and populated with dynamic, relevant content before it begins being effective.

You also need to understand what your customers want. There is no use going for a flash heavy site with a huge intro movie when your users want a simple point and click directory. The key to an effective website is a powerful, logic driven back end with a simplistic yet attractive front end. Check with your web design Melbourne contact –they’ll be more than happy to give you some options.

Be prepared to constantly update your website

Google and other search engines react best to sites that offer dynamic content. It should never be a case of “set and leave” – a website needs to grow organically to deliver the best results. Customers will be encouraged to visit the site more often if they believe it will display updating, relevant content. Often, the hard work begins after the website is released!

Ensure all functionality is agreed upon before design and implementation

The situation: you are a Web Design Melbourne consultant, sitting down with a customer to design a fantastic web portal with a robust content management system, and simple yet elegant front end. You both agree on the specifications, and work is begun. A few weeks into the process, the customer requests a heap of extensive last minute changes. It’s now back to the drawing board – much of the work already completed needs to be thrown out, timelines are now extended by a few weeks, and costs blow out. Both the customer and the web designer are now unhappy. Sounds pretty bad hey? Unfortunately, it’s all too common these days.

It’s vital to agree on the basics for the site before any work is begun. Obviously, some additions or modifications may crop up – if they are not completely essential, try relegating them to a second stage of the build. It’s a much better idea to launch a simpler version of the site, then add modifications in subsequent stages, than it is to spend months and months agonising over the launch version of the site. Remember, as noted above – once a site is released, it is only a baby. It needs updates, content and revisions to begin growing and maturing.

Inspect what you expect

This should be your mantra. Ensure that you are across every stage of the design and creation process – nothing should ever come as a surprise. It is much easier to discuss minor flaws with your web designer Melbourne before they are implemented and become major issues. All good web designers should keep you fully updated about what is happening with the site, and provide a build schedule to track the various processes.

The birth of a new website should be as hassle free as possible, to ensure that you, as the customer, can spend your time wisely within your business, rather than running around trying to put out web design spotfires. Simply follow some of the key points above – be realistic in your goals, provide continuous updates and content, agree on core functionality and inspect everything that goes on – and you and your web design Melbourne should have no issues putting together a website that will aid your business and delight your customers.

Website Design Company Melbourne tips

Wordpress is now a powerhouse in the field of web design, plugins and blogging. But, it wasn’t always this way – how did a simple blogging platform evolve to becoming a hugely powerful force in web page creation and website design company Melbourne stocks? Read on to find out . . . 

Website Design Company MelbourneFrom around 2002, blogging exploded on to the scene. Google released a platform called Blogspot, which enabled users to create records of their lives, feelings, and often trivial accounts of day-to-day routines for others to read and comment on. Web design company Melbourne consultants often linked these blogging sites into larger web portals. They were the first tentative steps into user driven content above forums and bulletin boards, and the forerunner of social media.

However, Blogspot wasn’t SEO friendly. This left a niche for “The Wordpress” to exploit, bursting on to the scene as a search engine friendly blogging platform. Initially spread by viral word of mouth, what excited web design company Melbourne consultants was the second major release in 2004, named “Mingus” after legendary jazz composer and double bassist Charles Mingus, which allowed user created PHP plugins and themes. This level of customisation and user-generated input was unprecedented in blogging circles until then, and resulted in huge growth for the fledgling site.

Today, web design company Melbourne consultants use Wordpress extensively. It has now grown into a fully-fledged open source CMS, and it is estimated that Wordpress powers 8.5% of all websites on the Internet. The open source factor is what sets Wordpress apart from the rest – instead of the Wordpress developers working on all functionality themselves, they have extended the interface out to the web design company Melbourne community, who are free to build all the plugins they desire. 

The numbers around Wordpress are phenomenal. At this point in time (June 21^st, 2011):

# There are 47,372,518 Wordpress sites in the world

# An average of 500,000 posts, and 400,000 comments on wordpress.com sites per day

# Over 297 million people view more than 2.5 billion pages each month

# And, 96,426,922 words were written on Wordpress blogs today!

Wordpress is an extremely powerful and customisable platform used by web design company Melbourne consultants every day. It’s unparalleled scope and versatility offer bloggers and browsers alike a flexible, user friendly web design system with a myriad of user-created themes, plugins and designs. Charles Elena Design uses Wordpress for many clients – ask us today how we can make it work for you!

Advertising Agency Melbourne

They provide skills and expertise in many different facets of advertising, such as media booking, graphic design, market research and web design, amongst other specialties. But what should you look for to ensure that you select the right one for your business? Read the guide below for some handy tips in selecting your next agency.

Size

A rule of thumb is to select the right size Advertising Agency Melbourne for your business. If you run a small to medium size business, it’s best not to go with a large agency. Their focus would be on the big brands such as Nike or Coca Cola, and may not have the niche expertise necessary for a smaller entity. Conversely, if you work for a fortune 500 corporation, it’s probably a good idea to find an agency large enough to cope with your needs.

What do you need?

Before selecting an advertising agency Melbourne, investigate your own business for large gaps that need filling. If you have a dearth of talented graphic designers in your company, or have relied on outsourcing the skill previously, try and select an agency that compliments your weaknesses. Many agencies offer more than one service – the more services you use from a single agency the higher you’re likely saving.

Skillset

Different advertising agency Melbourne offer different basic services to clients.  Some focus almost exclusively on media bookings and dealing with TV, print, radio and outdoor suppliers. Others act as creative and branding agency, coming up with new concepts for campaigns and above the line marketing. Yet others may focus on video production, or re-branding, or market research. Select one that has core strength in areas you require.

Niches

Some advertising agency Melbourne businesses fill creative niches within the marketplace. Some are on the cutting edge of online viral advertising and social media. There are some others who specialize in guerrilla advertising and edgy creative branding. Try looking them up if you are looking for something a little more risqué to differentiate your brand from the pack.

Online

There is a whole new breed of advertising agency Melbourne that has cropped up over the past decade or so – the specialist online agency. Dealing with landing pages, traffic, web analysis, SEO and creative web content, these agencies are the go-to companies when your web traffic is dropping off or stagnant. 

 The most important part about selecting an Advertising Agency Melbourne is to find one that compliments your business and neutralises your weaknesses. If you can select an agency that fits your business requirements, you will find competing in the marketplace a much, much easier affair.