Blog

We are delighted to welcome Chris Schoonover to the HDG team.

As a designer and front-end developer, with a degree in advertising from Rowan University, Chris brings a terrific combination of skills to Howard Design Group.

From SEO to website design to social marketing, Chris will be using his creative talents and knowledge of programming and the web to support the digital needs of our clients.  Hailing from the rolling hills of southern New Jersey, Chris joins us after working for the Philadelphia Magazine as an interactive designer.

This is a very exciting time — we created this position in response to the continued growth that we’re seeing here at HDG.  We are very much looking forward to introducing Chris to our clients and partners over the coming months.

FYI, in his spare time, Chris sings and plays rock and roll. Ah, the talent!

In June of this year, Google launched the Google+ Project, a field trial for a new social network. Within weeks, millions of people signed on to be part of the trial, which was by invitation only. Google+ is now open to the public and has reached 40 million users according to Wikipedia this month. That’s a lot of Google circles (in-joke for all you Google+ users).

So, what’s this got to do with putting a Google+ Button on your website, and why is this so important?

Two powerful influences working as one—search and word of mouth
Google+ users can recommend a product, service, or something they’ve read, to people within their circles by clicking on the +1 button on the web page that they are looking at. Clicking on the +1 button is similar to liking something or giving it the thumbs up as you would with Facebook.  This recommendation will show up in the search results of people within their Google+ circles when those people use the Google search engine to find a product or service, or information on something they’re looking for—exactly when they need it. The number of people who +1’d the web page will also show up on the web page, next to the +1 button—building social proof and trust. This month, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association released an infographic showing that 49% of Americans believe online word of mouth is highly credible (http://womma.org/word/2011/10/16/infographic-the-word-and-the-world-of-customers/). Now imagine if that online word of mouth recommendation came from a friend or a colleague.

Search visibility
Google has put together a FAQ page in response to questions about the +1 button and its impact on search ranking and results. It’s well-worth reading. Here’s the link: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/. In short, when you add a +1 button to a web page, you are making the page visible to the Google search engine.  Google also says in the FAQs that they are watching carefully to see how the recommendation information, which they refer to as a new ranking signal amongst the many signals that they already use for page relevance and ranking, can be used to improve overall search quality. Stay tuned…

For instructions on how to add a +1 button to your website, go to: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/.  We put the +1 button on our blog and contact us page, above the fold.

At HDG, a number of our clients are on retainer agreements for marketing and design
services, paying monthly for a set of hours.  While you may think this is a decision about
talent, headcount, and budget, it is actually much more than that—it is about allowing your
organization to focus on what you do best.

When considering the outsourcing of marketing and design work, where you use an outside vendor for services that would have traditionally been done in-house, understanding the
benefits and challenges upfront, and knowing the tips for success can really help smooth
the way. Here are our thoughts on this…

THE BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING YOUR MARKETING AND DESIGN WORK

• Access to a team of qualified, capable people that can hit the ground running
• Access to talent without the expense of adding people to your payroll:
  creative minds; technical skills and know-how; and seasoned professionals
• An outside perspective to your business—fresh ideas and views on tactics,
  strategies, and processes
• Easy to budget and plan for
• Less paperwork (than billing on a project-by-project basis)
• Manpower when and as you need it
• Accountability and results—clearly defined deliverables, expectations, and outcomes

THE CHALLENGES OF THIS TYPE OF ARRANGEMENT

• Working as one. Define priorities, set clear deliverables, keep communications open, and make sure everyone is on board.
• Account management. Work out who is responsible for what upfront.
• Employees feeling threatened by an outside firm. Point out the positives
  and keep all team members in the loop.
• Organizational readiness. Brilliant marketing ideas are only brilliant if the
  organization has the resources to put them into action and the desire to do so. Communicating your capabilities upfront is really important.
• Patience. Allow the new team enough time to gain momentum.
  Rome was not built in a day!

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED—THE 8 MUST-KNOW TIPS FOR SUCCESS

1. From the beginning, put in place best practices for team communications and project management
   • Regular meetings to keep things moving, with an agreed upon agenda and time limit
   • An upfront understanding of how to manage correspondence (who should be copied
   on messages and when)
   • A person, with influence, coordinating on behalf of each organization. For us, it’s usually Carl or Doodie.
   • Establish priorities, set deliverables and due dates, and assign roles
2. Invest in relationships. At HDG, we make the time to introduce ourselves to key staff and executives, and to understand the client culture and workplace practices. All key to getting the job done well!
3. Make sure there is an alignment of goals and budget. Our clients share key documents with us like their strategic plans and marketing plans and budgets, so that we are working towards the same end-goal. We agree upon priorities and deliverables, and are held accountable for the work to be done.
4. Act in good faith. Kick off the relationship with a financial agreement that is fair to both parties.
5. Discuss and agree upon an arrangement in advance for managing the financial aspects of the relationship. For example, in a monthly retainer agreement there may be more or less time used up than anticipated in any one month. Most professional services firms can manage mild fluctuations, but poor planning can leave projects without the manpower to get the work done or too many folks sitting on the bench. How would you handle this situation?
6. Create opportunities for the creative team to put forward new ideas for consideration.
7. Aim for continuity. As much as possible, if we feel that a designer is the right fit for a client, we try to keep them paired.  We introduce new designers to projects when different skills are needed or more manpower is required.
8. Provide continuous feedback—it’s really important for nurturing the relationship, and employee growth and motivation. Find a way to make it happen!

Interested in learning more? We would welcome the opportunity to talk to you about possibilities that may exist to work together. Please feel free to call Carl or Doodie for more information at 609-924-1106.

Your marketing budget is an easy target for accountants under pressure to improve the bottom line. It’s like turning off a tap—the impact is immediate. Good for cash flow in the short-term, but is it wise?

Whether an organization is big or small, the allocation of financial and human resources requires serious consideration. In putting together a budget for a new financial year, the management team looks at the organization’s current financial situation, agrees upon the vision for the future, and then decides where and how to spend hard-earned cash in order to meet both short- and long-term business goals.

Throughout this process, the following factors are critical to decision-making:

• What’s going on in your industry
• The overall political and economic climate in which you operate
• Emerging technologies and global trends
• Your customers’ current and future needs
• The capabilities of your workforce and their readiness to respond to new opportunities

As a marketer, if you can bring these big-picture, strategic thoughts and perspectives to budget negotiations, you will not only improve the likelihood of getting the resources you need to be successful, you will outsmart the competition in the process.

If you need help with strategic planning, call us. We’re great at this!

Since its launch as a Field Trial a few weeks ago, the Google+ Project has been getting a lot of attention from bloggers and the media. Demand for invites to try the new social network immediately following the launch was so high that it became a story of its own. For more on that story, check out HuffPost TECH’s posting on June 29: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/google-plus-invitation-google-social-network_n_886755.html.

Some background information
To get a good overview of Google’s new social network, visit http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/. You can take a tour of Google+ at http://www.google.com/+/demo/. There is a posting on the Google Blog introducing the project and the platform’s features, which is also well worth reading: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html.

The Google+ project is by invitation only. Once you have an invite, you can invite a limited number of others to join the project. Which is why the invites have been in such hot demand! If you have not been offered an invite already from someone you know, there’s a Join the Project button at the top of the Take a Tour web page. When you click on the button, a note will pop up giving you the opportunity to be notified by Google when they are going to make more invites available.

Exploring Google+
I was lucky enough to receive an invite to join the project and have been exploring the new platform over the past few days. I’ve only scratched the surface, but I can tell you this: you can look to add these new words and concepts to your social vocabulary:  Circles, Sparks and Hangouts.  Below are some notes of my experiences with Google+ so far—

• The circles are awesome, and make it so easy to organize your contacts in groups and to share information with only those that you want to share with. Circles can include friends, family, acquaintances, work friends, people you follow, and any other group of contacts that you want to create. You can add people to your circles, even though they may not have added you to their circles. When you share news on the site, you can choose to post publicly to everyone, or to any one of your circles. And, there’s a tab that allows you to edit your posting if you’ve made a mistake - an option that I really appreciate. 

• Hangouts allow you to video chat with up to 10 friends at one time! For those of us who have family and friends spread across the country and around the globe, this is huge. Google is not kidding when they say Check your hair and make sure your mic works! It took only seconds from the time I clicked on the Start a hangout button and installed the Google Voice and Video plugin to seeing myself on the screen, ready for a chat. Now to find some friends on Google+ to hangout with and try it out…

• Sparks are designed to help you easily find and share information about topics or subjects online that you have an interest in. There’s a button that allows you to pin an interest under Sparks for easy access in the future. Google+ offers suggestions for Sparks with featured interests, like fashion, recipes, and race cars. Not too exciting at first glance. But, then I popped into the search bar a popular, current event topic, US Debt Ceiling, and was immediately impressed—a news feed of recent online articles on the subject. I tried US women’s soccer next, and then a broad topic that I follow, social media of course.

• On the mobile front, you can add your location to your postings, if you want. And, you can instantly upload photos from your Android phone to a private album on Google+ and share them with everyone or only those you choose to share with. Wow! Good news for all my iPhone buddies (that would be the rest of the team at HDG), you will be able to do this soon too. http://www.google.com/mobile/+/ (As at 7.20 available on iPhone). One last feature, which I am looking forward to exploring when I have a few more friends on the site, is the Huddle. This allows you to instant chat with a group of 6 people at one time.

• As I have an iGoogle account set up as my home page, my Google+ account is easy to access. I simply click on +Joann in the header, next to my Gmail and Google Reader. I added my photo to my profile and had the option to edit the image, changing color saturation, and so on. Nice.

Our thoughts
So far, so good! From all accounts, Google is trying to create a social networking site that is more about you and your needs as a user of a social networking site. They comment in their blog posting, which was referenced above, that “online sharing needs a serious re-think”. It feels like they have done that and more.  Time will tell as we use and explore Google+ over the coming months.

At HDG, as marketers and designers, we’re interested in understanding how the new platform is going to impact businesses. Facebook pages are a great way to share corporate stories and to connect with your audiences, and they’re optimized for the search engines. We wonder what’s on the horizon for businesses in this regard with Google+.

To our clients, we recommend (1) adding the +1 button to your website with your other share buttons, so people coming to your website can recommend your content on Google+—users signed into Google.com will be able to see the +1 button in search results — http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/; and (2) pay close attention to what’s going on with this.

There is no Like, or Thumbs up, button on Google+. We hope you +1’d this!