Five Examples of Great B2B Storytelling Websites

Good storytelling is the new frontier for the website.

As Responsive Design homogenizes the look and feel of websites (I love the usability but dislike the cookie cutter designs that Responsive Design so often engenders); now, more than ever, we need compelling content to break through the visual monotony and fuse the “brand experience” with the “user experience.” This is especially true in B2B, where it is easy to “live above the neck” in a world of features, functions, dense and often technical content.

Here are five websites that successfully use compelling storytelling to build their brands. Read more

Is Removing Top Navigation a Web Design Trend to Avoid?

For the most part, I’d answer yes, but at the same time, it may be inevitable.

By the time a web design trend is recognized as such, it is a fait accompli, and practically all new sites begin to look the same. Take a look at the most recent web trends such as Parallax scrolling, long scrolling pages, use of icons, full bleed images, infographics and the list goes on.

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Do People Read Long, Scrolling Web Pages?

Mobility has rendered the long scrolling web page the design standard for modern websites. But does it work? By work I mean does it provide a good user experience for your visitors and do people actually scroll down to that 3rd, 4th, 5th panel and beyond? Even as someone that is creating scrolling sites, I’ve had a gut feeling that few visitors venture “beneath the fold,” just as few Google visitors venture past page one of Search results. So I did a little research to either support my instincts or cause me to reflect on my dinosaur delusions. Read more

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_ffunnel2Using 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.

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5 Reasons Why You Need a Website Content Editor

I’ve seen many clients, who with the best of intentions fall into the same rut year after year. There are certain universal truths about successful websites; one of them is that on website projects that include a quality content editor as part of the dedicated team, the process is smoother, stays on schedule and client satisfaction is high.

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Branding is Now a Google Ranking Factor

This is kind of a mini-post. I’d like to reference an important post  I saw on HubSpot’s blog indicating the rise in importance of branding to SEO, in the aftermath of Google’s Penguin 2.0 release. While we have always stressed the relevance of branding to user experience, it is good to know that Google is recognizing the validity of branding in the realm of Search. I recommend you read the post but here is what I see as the key takeaway:

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5 Reasons Why B2B Marketing Campaigns Need to Go Mobile Now!

describe the imageIt’s a well-worn fact that B2C marketers set the trends that B2B businesses subsequently adopt. Between them there are usually several years of lag time. The case for B2B companies to adopt mobile marketing practices and a mobile-friendly web presence warrants an acceleration of that schedule in direct correlation to the speed at which mobility is reshaping the world. Here are some compelling arguments pointing towards the value of mobile to B2B businesses.

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Improving User Experience through Digital Storytelling

In a previous post, Three Cases of Websites Using Modern design Techniques, I touched upon some of the exciting new design techniques — that have become available on the web—which are beginning to change the face of the modern website. Digging down a level, these design techniques exist to serve your company’s need to tell your brand story. The speed at which business is being done and the amount of noise you must cut through have elevated the need for distinctive, on-brand digital storytelling.

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What We’re Thankful For, And One Thing We’re Not (Marketing Edition)

It’s the start of the holiday season and time to celebrate one of the most thoughtful (if derived from historically misguided events) days of the year: Thanksgiving. And 2012 has given us a lot to be thankful for. In light of this, we wanted to share some of the many things we at RainCastle are most grateful for this year in the world of web design and marketing. But, ever the Scrooge, couldn’t resist the opportunity to highlight one particular 2012 frustration.

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Capitalizing on a Trend: the merits of Catvertising””

Catvertising is the future, and we’re on board.

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