Use Ambient Video on Your Website to Enhance Your Brand

Much like last year when websites with Parallax scrolling took off, we’re seeing a growing number of sites using video on their websites, in new ways, to enhance their brands. But rather than, and in some cases in addition to “talking heads,” we’re seeing “ambient video.”

Ambient video is background video whose purpose is to establish a visual brand identity. While words and still images do the heavy lifting in terms of creating messages, the addition of web video can provide an emotional resonance that can help an otherwise purely rational brand become a more emotionally satisfying user experience.

April 14, 2015/by Garrett Dandreo

Brand personality: who really cares?

In our data and analytics driven marketing world, why would something so touchy feely, so ethereal and hard to quantify as brand personality be something you care about?

Everyone wants to be Apple. Everyone wants to, “Think Different.”

January 28, 2015/by Garrett Dandreo

How to Use Video as a Marketing Tool

The Benefits of Video Marketing for B2B Companies

Are you struggling with your company’s content strategy and social media strategy? Video is an effective way to elevate your social media plan and hook your viewers. Several of our clients are asking us to integrate video into their websites and social media and here’s why we recommend doing it.

A short video (up to two minutes) is an opportunity to tell your company’s story. We recently updated our website and by embedding a video on the “About RainCastle” page, we were able to tell our story in a new way. Within seconds, prospective clients and employees gain insight into our culture and team, even some of our technologists who often work behind the scene.

Video shows how your product or service works. In less than a minute, by showing a demo, a video can explain how a new technology or product works. Our client, AirStrip Technologies, creates medical software that allows healthcare providers to monitor patient data on their mobile devices. They use video to demo and promote the exciting new technology they’ve developed – technology that enables clinicians to interact with and respond rapidly to clinically relevant patient health information.

October 21, 2014/by Garrett Dandreo

An Effective Web Design Strategy Starts with Your Brand

We’ve talked about Market Strategy, Brand Strategy and Content Strategy, so why do we need a Web Design Strategy? Because, of all of these strategies, only your Website Design Strategy is externally facing. Let’s put Website Desgn Strategy into context to clarify how these strategies work in tandem.

Strategy_ffunnel2 Using a funnel metaphor, your Market Strategy is your highest level strategic decision, in which you define the markets for your products and/or services and determine whether your market approach is industry specific, solutions or applications-focused or some combination.

Once this is determined, your Brand Strategy encompasses the way you describe what you do, for what audiences with a compettive value statement, which sets you apart from your competition. You socialize this brand internally, and externally at every customer and employee touchpoint.

The power of a relevant Content Strategy — based on sound Market and Brand Strategies — is to create a program to disseminate and exchange your valuable content across all media and over time, which leads us to your Website Design Strategy.

September 29, 2014/by Garrett Dandreo

Why Messaging is so Important for Successful B2B Marketing

Branding is Lead Generation’s best-kept secret. And what is “Messaging” if not the public face of your brand?

When clients and prospects approach us about a lead generation campaign or website, they’re seeking a way to cut through the clutter of similar sounding competitors or the perception of market monotony. Sometimes, they have a target number of leads in mind, or some idea of a marketing campaign to achieve goals, and usually a tight time frame for achieving results.

In these situations, the success or failure of marketing campaigns and websites often comes down to one thing — Messaging —finding the right concept and meaning that will authentically express the value of their brand and engage with customers to make a lead convert.

Here are some compelling reasons for you to focus on your brand messaging before launching a marketing campaign or website:

September 22, 2014/by Garrett Dandreo

Why B2B Branding Works – And Why It’s More Important Than Ever

creamypb If you buy the wrong brand of peanut butter, you can always buy another brand when you finish the jar. The wrong trio of underwear, you might be out $14.99, but buy the wrong computer software or hardware solution for your business and you have a major problem. Brands matter in the B2B world, sometimes more than B2C. A strong brand means the perception of reduced risk and makes doing business — whatever the business — easier. As with B2C, buyers of B2B products value vendors’ reputation because it makes the purchase decision safer.

In fact, a Forbes survey found that B-to-B purchasing decision-makers consider the brand as a central rather than a marginal element of a supplier’s value proposition. Their survey found that decision-makers say the brand is almost as important as the efforts of sales teams in encouraging them to make out a purchase order.

September 9, 2014/by Garrett Dandreo

Creating Websites People Love

We create websites people love. Of course I can’t say that officially — although it’s true — as HubSpot has already created a great campaign around “love.”

June 10, 2013/by Garrett Dandreo

What Makes a Good infographic?

Infographics are taking over the earth! At least it seems that way. There has been an explosion of infographics on the web — in both B2C and B2B — literally illustrating that a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. But before we get into what makes a good one, let’s define what an infographic is and why they have reached the tipping point.

May 2, 2013/by Garrett Dandreo

5 Points for Determining the Price for a New B2B Website

In — what we’re all hoping are — these post-recession days, we’re happy to be seeing a lot of activity from companies wanting to remake their long dormant websites. When I get to the point in the conversation in which I ask about the investment they wish to make, the answer is often gray. The subtext is that they will let the market dictate price. Following are 5 points I recommend companies gain some certainty around, prior to speaking with potential web design and development partners. Being clear on these points will help avoid ambiguity and aid in identifying the best firm for the job, which may or may not be the low price option.

February 16, 2010/by Garrett Dandreo

Use Ambient Video on Your Website to Enhance Your Brand

Brand personality: who really cares?

How to Use Video as a Marketing Tool

The Benefits of Video Marketing for B2B Companies

An Effective Web Design Strategy Starts with Your Brand

Why Messaging is so Important for Successful B2B Marketing

Why B2B Branding Works – And Why It’s More Important Than Ever

Creating Websites People Love

What Makes a Good infographic?

5 Points for Determining the Price for a New B2B Website

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