Reporting, performance analytics are becoming critical aspects for large and small businesses. How effective is your organization in measuring impact of social media on your brand, operations and performance? LightMix designed corporate website, identity and user interface for growing social media and business intelligence company, newBrandAnalytics. Innovative suite of tools by nBA targets several key industries and delivers impressive performance analytics. Top corporate customers recognize nBA as best in the industry. LightMix provides user inferface design for social perforamnce platform, corporate website and reporting.

http://www.newbrandanalytics.com

Marketing website on popular networks comes down to populating your content with keywords targeted to the right audience and selecting appropriate language, keywords and conversion mechanism that enables you bring customers to the website and converts them into leads and later in clients.

Tweeting about subjects related to your prospects search items will make your posts and tweets appear in search results in various systems like tweetdeck and others. API access to twitter and other social media networks enables rapid development of applications and integration mechanisms that take content from the networks into many other places thus spreading reach of relevant posts. Post often and on important subjects.

Click here to request an estimat efor professional website design and marketing consultation

Partially, this depends on the company and on the industry, but mostly, on knowledge of a person who is interested in services. True professionals of online marketing realize enormous possibility to increase business in just about any field by creating web presence which compliments and expands their brand reach to users online. Customers that have more traditional brick and mortar businesses rarely possess such in-depth understanding and, therefore, look for services provided at a discount or low cost. They try to find somebody who will offer services at lowest cost with “acceptable” quality, not with highest value to their business. The problem on this approach is that acceptable quality is a relevant term. There are options for any budget, and it can be hard to know the difference. Don’t settle for anything less then 1% of your revenue, best options are 5-12% for website budget.

Our recommendation is that before anyody even starts vendor selection process, its critical to educate yourself about process that it takes to create a typical website and what options exist on the market today. Decide what tier of professional design companies you want to work with. Go for value above all. Professional portfolio, references and open ended design process without fixed number of reviews is important.

Contact LightMix to receive a custom proposal for your site redesign.

What can work in the market while buying tomatoes doesn’t work in the professional services fields. By bringing the cost down, clients eventually devalue services and bring quality of work and workmanship down. Even during the recession, the emphasis should be on doing less and doing better with it, rather then wanting more and paying less for it. Website design services, graphic design, accounting, legal services and many other fields are all fields where investment done in the professional expertise turns out in the product quality. You want a discount on website design project?

Watch this video to reconsider next time you try to bring the cost down too much.

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Why is it critical to understand that website design sample work or what is called speculative work is bad

Read an article by AIGI

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/news-090527

This essentially confirm that designing anything before designers are contracted to design it is not going to turn out well.

LightMix amongst many other professional organizations highly recommends against usage of practice of requesting of what is commonly called “speculative design work”. This means requesting design samples prior to the real start of the project.

Most professional organizations employ professional designers, which do not like to waste their professional time without compensation. Having said that, its important to note that it is not just about money. The entire premise of the logic that some types of work like competition, volunteer, pro-bono work means that the effort that design team puts into a project is assumed to have high degree of risk or done entirely at designers expense. In the professional design field, where clients expect real results and designers are to provide real services, this type of work carries significant risk to everyone as correctly stated by the AIGA article above. Indeed, if the client is expecting that website design samples for example are to be submitted before selection of a vendor, only low quality and unprofessional design work will be received. And as a result only vendors that fall into this category will be chosen leading to poor quality and bad outcome of any project.

What we strongly suggest is that the customers never attempt to save or start a project without commitment to a specific design team that has trust and authority over the project. This assumption is critical as only this puts on real requirements on the creative team to provide top quality output and produce best work without an sacrifice in quality. Being website design samples, print samples or logo samples, all clients should never expect that any of them will be done at no cost. Evaluate strength of designer portfolio, experience and references to make final judgement on the vendor, but never make it based on hastily provided samples of something that can not be done to the professional level.

Click here to request a proposal for professional design services by LightMix

Firms that work for Federal government and their contractors
These companies have ongoing accounts sustaining their operations and expand adding additional resources depending on the contracts. Firms in this category generally are not interested in working with smaller clients and they are all on GSA schedule. Many work with military and its contractors and all appropriate clearance levels.

Firms that have narrow specialization such as companies working with associations, trade shows etc

Companies that service large corporate clients
Washington DC web design companies often work with high level corporate clients as well as government due to proximity of all major forms headquarters in the Dulles corridor. Large consulting firms such as Accenture engage smaller and medium size organizations to participate on large scale projects.

Companies that service medium to small size businesses
There are web design firms here in DC area that focus mostly on medium size commercial projects and do not participate in bidding for Government or top level corporate accounts

Design firms that serve small business and start ups
There is a last category of firms that service small organizations and start-up businesses. Due to the number of small businesses this category also breaks down into firms that have specific marketing budgets or companies that do design on the shoe string budget.

No matter what type of organization you have or level of your engagement, selecting a right web design company in Washington DC area is difficult due to different skill sets present in each firm. In reality even company that focuses on one of the markets can provide an effective design solution to small or large firm depending on the specific task and type of work.

Contact LightMix to receive a proposal for your web design project as well as branding, identity, interface, web development and other visual communication services.

There are many choices in this area and many companies offer different sets of skills. Non-profit organizations tend to go with firms that have experience designing associations websites while technology companies look for hands-on design and development expertise. There are many hidden values though in providers such as LightMix which offers full range of design capabilities to customers in Metro Washington DC (Virginia Maryland DC area) yet due to boutique size can keep prices low while still providing quality of top design agencies.

One important note is to know the difference between design services offered by marketing firms and services provided by companies who do exclusively design and development. True, many firms in Northern Virginia and Washington DC may be looking for full package solution and are not interested in solutions that are more narrow as this requires more understanding of the process. On the other hand, marketing forms provide lower quality, generic and too sales oriented design services sacrificing design, usability and leading to diminished branding.

We strongly recommend while searching for web design and creative services provider in Washington DC area consider following aspects for your organization

• How much experience actual designers on the team of design company have and what other projects outside of the region have they completed
• Demonstrate not only marketing and sales expertise, but also purely creative services expertise, make sure that portfolio is memorable and covers many disciplines
• Examine client list to find companies which business is doing projects that you are considering
• Check for companies with hands-on approach, not too much sales oriented strategy to pitch every service you may or may not need. Best values are were small size firms treat your organization as their top client no matter what size you are.
• Check off-business hours availability. There are many firms that provide creative or design services, but most will not really care about your business and will not answer your call after 5pm or respond to email before next business day. Today’s business requires 24/7 support and responsiveness, make sure your creative services company in DC and Virginia area is able to accommodate your schedule.
• Check to make sure that creative and web design services provider you choose has expertise and experience in fields not only related to design and development. Best results and most creative solutions are designed by those that have multi-disciplinary background. Sales people aside, creative director and art director of a company must have extensive education and professional experience with top level clients an start-ups alike.

Are you interested in the proposal for your creative services project? Contact LightMix for more information

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Does your organization struggle in determining where to go to get pricing and an estimate for website design project? The information below will help to understand types of providers.

There are 5 levels of pricing for website design services. Typically services offered by 5 tiers of providers which include:

Tier 1

Top advertising and design agencies
Typical cost for such services ranges from several hundred thousand dollars to several million dollars. Clients have a great deal of money, have well established marketing plans, large teams and can afford going through many steps to come up with only the best the industry can offer. Examples – top auto sites, sports brands like Nike, Adidas and so on

Tier 2

Highly acclaimed design and marketing agencies
This category includes firms that have top client portfolio, but do not exclusively serve only most wealthy brand names. Budgets for projects are still likely to be in the $50-$300k range. Creative firms offer wide range of design and marketing capabilities and have unique skill set capable of managing complex brand relationships that top clients require.

Tier 3

Medium size marketing and design firms

Marketing, PR and highly specialized design firms that do top quality work for small, medium business and government clients will be in this category. Companies that hire firms in this category can expect budgets $25k-100k for creative assignments

Tier 4

Small size creative design companies and boutique-size marketing firms

Small creative companies (staffed under 30 people) will have many winning propositions to those trying to consider them versus Tier 3 providers. Yet they may not have such extensive network of providers or highly specific expertise, small creative firms will in fact offer better value due to significantly lower fees for creative and marketing services compared to larer organizations. Pricing the same scope of work as larger organizations, small size creative firms will offer still comparable range of experience, good portfolio and solid client list leaving final decision be based on preference of small to large company approach. Smaller design firms also have much more hands-on approach to all tasks and can accommodate changing business requirements much faster then larger size companies. Website design pricing or typical engagements will vary from $5k to $50k

Tier 5

Freelancers and off-shore providers

Last category is an industry by itself. The past 10 years were critical in establishing network of providers across the world offering lowest cost creative services with real price wars at sites like elance bringing the costs down to ridiculous figures. Unfortunately, same is a primary problem of these companies as they are unable to compete for higher quality clientele and are stuck with low cost projects and most frequently provide low to very mediocre quality services. To some extent, latest trends in blogs and social media help end clients minimize some of the deployment costs and even low cost providers can offer fully functional products. Despite this, credibility and established client list play critical role in development of such firms and their abilities to survive for more then 2-3 years. Pricing for website design services will vary from $50 to $2000 for typical projects.

Are you interested in obtaining an estimate from a small size design firm with very extensive expertise? Click here to learn more..

Is your law firm lacking consistent and clear marketing message, campaign? The easiest way to bring visual consistency in communication materials for legal services organization is to upgrade corporate website which will correspond to corporate branding and complement it. What is important is to have a professional and clear design, focused entirely on your strengths and core marketing messages. When hiring a design company for your firm’s website redesign, evaluate firm’s ability to create unique, custom design as well as their understanding of the industry and prior work for law firms.

Our award-winning� samples of legal websites. Contact us for�a quote

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Tips for creating effective legal web site for your law firm

1. Conduct effective research to identify active and inactive local online competitors
The nature of legal services is local. One of the most critical pieces of information is identifying the competitors who are actively engaged in online marketing and aggressively promoting their online presence. Discect� their web sites from point of of organization, SEO friendliness and call to action.

2. Plan on writing a lot of content or hire help to do so
To justify online presence, your website needs to produce leads. Sometimes organizations want websites only as presence , supporting their offline marketing , but more and more firms turn to online marketing as supporting mechanism. Search engine optimization and comfort of a client will be based on your content. More relevant content your website will have the better.

3. Hire professional design firm, stay away from the low end shops and template sites
Never hire companies advertising $1000 websites, packaged deals�or anything which is less then 20 hours of work at average $75/hr rate. No professional result will be produced at that time and no packages will give you truly unique and professional presence, your marketing dollars will be totally wasted. Best method is to try negotiate with firm you know performed well in the past and stick to quality. Stay away from web site templates as much as possible. Those will produce only mediocre, brand less designs.

4. Plan on multi-media marketing following website launch.
Its important to cover all channels of legal services marketing from inclusion your site address in all appropriate legal services directories to local craigslist advertising. Keep your offers current and advertising up to date to gain maximum exposure. Remember, users will only notice your advertising after viewing it many times.

5. Invest in creating professional brand image, logo
One of the main ways to differentiate is to create professional branding for your firm. Hire designer and don’t use online services that advertise $100 or $300 logo design.Professional logo and identity will pay off in the long term.

Website design or redesign is an important step in upgrading your organization’s marketing campaign. It is important to plan in advance and engage key decision makers to define vision and direction for what you would like your website to do. It’s important to set realistic marketing goals and break down the process step by step of how your corporate website new design will help your organization to achieve it. 

Planning for new corporate website design

1. Start by researching corporate websites of other companies in your field and take notes on what key informational elements are commonly used. See if it is common to use news, press releases, marketing and sales messages and so on

2. Identify your primary audience. Its critical to know what your corporate presence will help to achieve and who will be primary viewers of the web site. Even thought your initial marketing plan may not rely on the website as traffic generator, plan in advance on how your website can scale to support more of online sales and lead generation

3. Review your internal communication materials and branding. If you haven’t already done so, review how your other marketing materials are organized and designed. Is there a consistent style, design, is there a well-established branding and identity style guide?

4. Identify vendors. Do research to locate vendors to provide site design service. This can be difficult process, you will have to objectively review portfolio and client list of many companies. Check references, but don’t put too much value it them. Most importantly, try to find companies with hands-on experience, not ones that will try to sell you just about anything. Look for long term partner. Look for understanding of how design and approach can solve your marketing and branding needs.

5. Define RFP and select vendor, selecting corporate website design company.
After creating a list of vendors for your corporate website design, write a formal RFP and send to not more then 3-5 companies. Never send out email addressed to a list of to all emails at once.  A good practice is to call each company and speak with them in detail before sending RFP. Evaluate RFPs from deliverables stand point, not how well written they are. You need final result not polished sales message from the design firm. 

6. Work closely with the design company to go through all stages of the corporate website design process to accept initial design, produce website templates and produce the actual website with all underlying technologies and database programming.

Recent examples of LightMix corporate website designs:

http://www.vitalspring.com
http://www.ascendhealthcare.com
http://www.actimize.com
http://www.insiderscore.com
http://www.optimusfutures.com
http://www.psbresearch.com
http://www.customvault.com
and more at http://www.lightmix.com