Must Design

Team Curagami (http://www.Curagami.com ) has, over the course of our combined careers, helped thousands of clients build websites and about 99% have cart before the proverbial horse. "What is our design going to look like," they ask.

Most think "web design" is creating the look and feel of a site. Actually the look and feel, while important, is at least #6 on the "do these things to create a great web presence" list. Here are the first 5 things on that list:

1. Elevator Pitch - Who Are You?
If we were riding in an elevator could you explain your business before we reached your floor? If NO is your answer you are not alone and you need to go back to the drawing board and practice until you have your "elevator pitch" down. All things flow from that defining snippet.

Tags can help define your elevator pitch. Curagami.com Cool Tools For Ecommerce Merchants explains what we do in 5 words. Note that I don't have the the site yet so do as we are saying not as we do (always :).

2. Pain Point - Whose Your Tribe?
We create stuff to DO SOMETHING. Your product or service must help some tribe. Curagami helps ecommerce merchants understand content marketing because finding the balance beam between content that works and content that hurts is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for ecommerce merchants. So our tribe begins with ecom merchants and we address the PAIN of understanding content marketing. We don't LIMIT ourselves. We don't say, "Go away" to B2B SaaS clients but they are cream on the top of our core tribe and mission.

3. UCA - What Are Your Customers' Aspirations
Unique Customer Aspirations is a metrics we developed as Marketing Director for Atlantic BT. UCA speaks to the transformation your content, product and service creates. Yes Curagami helps merchants make more money, but we also relieve the STRESS of not knowing what to do and why. We help merchants have confidence in their content. No one can build sustainable online community (everyone's master goal whether they know it or not) without being confident in their ability to create, share and curate content. Content is king online and the implications of that statement go far and wide. It's not enough to know your tribes shape you must know their CHARACTER too. Our tribe is STRESSED OVERWHELMED and WORRIED. Anything we do to relieve any of that makes our content sticky and sure to be shared.

4. Know Difference Between Content CREATION and CURATION
Being able to create content is important. We suggest our clients create about 10% of content from unique brand based strings. 90% of the content we want clients to share, discuss and riff off of comes from gurus, customers and THE OTHER. The other is anyone other than you and keeping tabs on your category information, knowing what matters most to your readers and why and understanding the need to tuck ego in back pocket and share competitive information is one of the hardest skills we teach. Web marketing is MOSTLY about THEM not YOU so knowing when you need to blog vs. when you need to comment is key.

5. Know Social Marketing Basics
I'm staying at The Blackwell Inn in Ohio while being treated at Ohio State's James Cancer Center. I've tweeted several positive comments @theBlackwell. Noneof those comments have been ReTweeted and they don't follow me.

ERROR.

My social following dwarfs theirs so breaking the FOLLOW BACK rule hurts 'em. By not picking up my @tweets they discourage such shares and lose the value of that communication (that they actually LISTEN and CARE). I think they do listen and care, but they don't have the skills to do so ONLINE. Before you create a website you need to know what's up in social media.

The Blackwell's lackof knowledge isn't fatal since they are located on Ohio State's campus and are the ONLY such hotel so located. They can SUCK at social media (for a bit) without pain. Doubtful your website, especially if it brand spanking new can afford such a deficit.

Since the master goal of your site is the creation of sustainable online community NOT understanding the implied contracts and un-stated ways social media works can be DEADLY.

Know those 5 things and we can begin to discuss wireframes, look and feel and visual marketing :). Marty

One More Thing - reason this stuff is so important, as my friend Frank Pollock would explain, is the web is a lie detecting amplifier. If you lie it will be shared with the world and known instantly or before, so don't lie. If you are CONFUSED, as many SMBs are, get STRAIGHT before you put crayon to paper and design a site or risk having your confusion being your main message.

Best In Class From Conversion IQ
The other day I complained about "pretty picture' ecommerce sites that make conversion harder. So much of ecom is ditch digging. Ditch digging to make sure you have things such as:

* Email subscription form (prefer presence to popunders).
* Clearly ECOM - looks like a store with things to sell not content to read.
* Social (easy to find theirs and easy to contribute).
* Content Curation from social / comments / reviews (should feel like a party with people who share love / interests).

* Offers, deadlines and a sense of time (of the year today is Columbus Day for example).

These examples from Conversion IQ are closer to "ditch digging" ecommerce websites. Conversion either BUYING or into a list are easier, more clear and so these designs make more money than the pretty picture websites I shared last (http://sco.lt/4ijZIH ),

This holiday selling season (2014) will happen as close to real time as any thanks to the social / mobile web. Listening and curating are going to be important, but so is tapping the nostalgia and spirit of the season in creative and collaborative ways.

Marty Note
Social Media is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for the future of any website. Why then are social buttons done so poorly on so many websites? Because not everyone believes the TRUTH of my first sentence.

In addition to these 9 excellent Social Media Examiner tips I would add a few:

* Don't change the COLORS of the buttons. Those brands are established now and changing their colors mutes their impact.

* Remember you have 2 kinds of needs - Social SHARES of your content and social shares of your site. Those are two different ideas easily confused. Look at Mashable for some of the best social media button design on the web. Clear buttons on posts with the "SHARES" total number and then buttons on the fiar right for Mashable.com.

Some publishers may have 3 or 4 button groups such as: post, site, author and special content such as polls or Infographics.

* LARGE and IN CHARGE and if your programmers are talented create the total number like Mashable.

* Here is proper structure of an article link:
9 Tips for Integrating Social Media on Your Website http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/9-tips-for-integrating-social-media-on-your-website/  via @smexaminer

Short intro into the link & attribution at the end. Keep your character count down below 120 for maximum RTs.

* Here is a proper structure for a site:
Follow Mashable on Email, RSS & Social Media http://mashable.com/2011/11/18/follow-mashable/#:eyJzIjoidCIsImkiOiJfbWdmMGlqY3p4c3A5bWk4dyJ9  via @mashable


Here are the 9 tips from Social Media Examiner:

1. Include visible social media buttons.

2. Integrate social where it makes sense.

3. Include up-to-date buttons.

4. Include share buttons.

5. Use analytics.
6. Pay attention to terms and conditions (of social media sites).

7. Don't over do it.
8. Stay knowledgeable.

9. Use http://sproutsocial.com/ or something similar to match social to analytics.

Doing good is increasingly the right thing to do and that is the good news. The bad news is many companies are jumping off the "cause marketing" ledge like so many lemmings. 

This new website explains how to embed cause marketing into design, sales and marketing in order to enrich all.  

Steal emotional storytelling tips from these top 10 charities ($ is expenses and use as a model gauge):  

1. American Red Cross $3,329,153,7072
2. Feeding America $1,559,486,3353
3. Smithsonian Instiute $1,101,404,2234
4. World Vision $1,078,549,1555
5. Dana-Faber Cancer Institute $965,097,7186
6. Food For The Poor $950,853,3607
7. American Cancer Society $943,813,2978
8. City of Hope $898,752,8669
9. St. Jude $896,335,00610
10. Nature Convervancy $756,406

*Web Design For DIY*
The Do-It-Yourself revolution is blowing up thanks to mobile apps and social media. This link includes one of our favorite examples: http://www.Casetify.com where we just created our http://www.Curagami.com logo case for iPhone 6Plus.

We are working on a series of posts about how to engage and empower your DIY customers & you can help. Send ideas, comments and your experiences with DIY marketing and we will curate into the piece with attribution and a link (martin (at) curagami.com).

Find more DIY Marketing thoughts and a secret code you can use to get $10 off your Casetify.com creations (8PGZX3). Sharing a code like that is powerful brand ambassador fuel.

Share your DIY tips and check out more notes on GPlus:
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/Nezb4QZgayx

Websites Are Dead Men Walking
At our Startup Factory Funded startup Curagami (http://www.Curagami.com) we've been thinking about the end of tactical marketing. When we were helping The Man make millions online we could do so with TACTICS.

When our team was 2% better at SEO, PPC or email marketing we made millions. "Catch up" time, the time it took competitors to zero out the tactical advantage, took a long time. Sometimes we had YEARS on tactics such as content marketing.

We started content marketing in 2003 and NO ONE CARED until about 2010 / 2011. Oh, our traffic, the traffic that comes from Google, is related to our content. Whoops, okay NOW we care.

As websites become more mission critical in all companies the time an elite priesthood can have a tactic to themselves is shrinking fast. Now extend our thinking about tactics and you begin to understand why the web of boxes, borders and "sites" is so OVER.

As social media scales our loyalty is increasingly to EACH OTHER. Think of how your life changes as your personal network scales:

* Search less, ask more (ask friends, followers and friends of friends).
* Consume less, collaborate more.
* Understand MORE & FASTER.
* Curate More Than Create.
* Engineer, Quant and Artist.

NOW, imagine how you DESIGN a non-website website. Here are some things you will need:

* ASKS are legitimate ONLY in a sea of legitimacy (create that).
* Collaboration depends on EASE and TRUST (get those).

* Images, Copy, Navigation & Social ARE THE SAME THING.
* Leave ROOM for their notes (user generated content).
* Curate more than you create.
* Create Siftable-like "blocks" & relate them to each other & US.

That last bullet is where artist (web designers), engineers (programmers) and quants (data analysts) collide to create an artistic experience capable of correcting itself via flexible business rules and "on call" creative.

Now imagine how to TEST in such a dynamic POOL of content, curation and near real time reactions (thanks to the social / mobile web). Today we test and validate conclusions. The orange add to cart button beats the green button.

Tomorrow we test POSSIBILITIES. Once we test "possible" Multivariate testing wins. Once MVT testing wins you MUST mashup a cross functional team (designers, quants, marketing) because A/B testing will be to static and yesterday's news.

What about you? What do you think is next in web design?

Beautiful Unusual Navigation Designs for Inspiration. Selection of Awwwards websites with a strong presence of unusual navigation. An effective navigation design is crucial for a website

Here is how Beyonce Explained her SURPRISE album:

Beyonce called the project a "visual album" and said "I see music."

"It's more than just what I hear," she said. "When I'm connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion, a memory from my childhood, thoughts about life, my dreams or my fantasies. And they're all connected to the music."

Internet marketers and web designers should read Beyoncé’s note slowly since the visual marketing tsunami is impacting everything now as Beyonce proved.

How VISUAL is your content? How AWESOME? Up to Beyonce levels? When Beyonce introduced the album on Instragram with a single word image social media all but melted down. Here are stats from Jeff Bullas blog:

The tipping point?

With the evolution of the web there are some events that are small but significant. One of those happened on December 13, 2013. It was when Beyonce launched her latest album with an update on Instagram just captioned as “Surprise”

This broke convention.

Normally millions are spent on traditional media. Lady Gaga hyped her latest album by spending millions on bus advertising, billboards, 2 pop up stores and performed countless interviews. The result. She sold 305,000 copies in 2 weeks.

Beyonce, who has 8 million Instagram followers and over 53 million fans on Facebook decided to go straight to her fans. She decided to give the bus a miss. It was launched directly to iTunes and social media. She invoked the power of  ”World of Mouth”

The results:

* It sold 828,773 copies in 3 days

* Twitter reported 1.2 million Tweets in 12 hours

* It was the largest single week ever in the Apple iTunes store

* It was iTunes fastest selling album worldwide

Product developers, Internet, content and social media marketers need to understand the core TIPPING POINTS in the middle of Beyoncé’s results:

* Marketing is about the SOCIAL/VISUAL now.
* Rework creative if necessary to be more SOCIAL and VISUAL.

* Helps if you look like Beyonce.

* If YOU don't look like Beyonce, FIND SOMETHING that does!
* Weave SOCIAL and VISUAL into product development.

* Think about VISUALS as you go.
* Find visuals that work & double down.

* As for HELP as User Generated Content is GREAT if you don't look like Beyonce (They Might & Even If They Don't They Will Support).