May 2009
Three BIG ways to manage costs when planning your Web site:
News flash: budgets are being slashed nation-wide. Even companies not yet impacted by the downturn are rejecting non-essential expenses. While these cost-cutting considerations are appropriate, they shouldn’t stop your aggressive marketing innovations.
We have continually refined our approach to projects to quickly identify client’s goals and specific actions needed to reach them. Eliminating unnecessary efforts helps hone the project costs to fit reduced budgets without sacrificing results. The best information our clients can initially give us is the size of the budget for the complete project.
Quickly corralling the budget enables all to work within the same framework, towards a reachable goal, cost effectively and with efficient use of available time. That’s the Olive approach to a successful project.
Small things can make BIG differences. Here are 3 ways to manage costs when building a Web site:
1. Let interactive wireframes do the heavy lifting before building the site. Complex, interactive projects require assembly of detailed wire frames, (like blue prints of construction) which define what goes where and how developers need to build the site. Olive recommends interactive wireframes in place of traditional static documents. Clients can easily see how their site can be made to work for their customers. Our wire frame process lets all members of your team click through the proposed site architecture before design or coding has begun. This involves clients in the design and avoids costly surprises near the end of production. Olive is known for completing on time and within budget.
2. Finding a content management solution that’s right for your needs. It’s increasingly important to be realistic about how your company will use a content management tool. There are very simple, effective options with limited functionality, and powerful, complex systems. They affect the budget significantly one way or the other, and can also greatly impact the cost and effort of long-term maintenance. Olive can help you evaluate all options to find the best fit.
3. Prune the amount of information you put on your site. Very often we are brought in to estimate on a project after a company has settled on what they think the site structure should be. Typically, this is basically the same site they already have with a few extra sections added to support a new initiative. This process ignores perhaps the single most important part of a Web site project. Seriously consider what information people are accessing on your site and build around that. Too often, pages are added just as another place to put stuff, rather than considering if an existing page would benefit from the added content. Olive can help you get perspective on the most essential content on your site, and how the rest can be streamlined without losing important information. This results in a simplified site map, clarified navigation, and less coding.
If something is too costly for your budget, we want you to know at the outset, not after it’s spent. Prudent spending is always the wisest investment in your company’s future. We encourage you to refuse to compromise the results you need because of a smaller budget. Olive can help identify innumerable ways to maximize your budget. Let us show you how you can do more with less—with terrific results.
Work effectively within your budget by;
• Seeking expert and proven advice
• Using that advice help your team make smart decisions
• Setting reasonable budgetary goals and working hard to make the most of the investment.
Olive launches e-mail management tool
Nearly every client uses HTML e-mail as an essential part of their marketing plan. Olive has designed and built some of the hottest e-mail designs for quite a while now. However, it’s not as easy as it should be to create an attractive, effective e-mail campaign. Now it can be. Olivemail is a full-featured e-mail marketing management tool that leaves you in control of content, recipients, and timing, with assistance from the experts at Olive just a click away.
See if Olivemail is right for you »
Is your site optimized for mobile devices?
Web traffic continues to shift dramatically to mobile devices. Are your most important content and services available to customers and prospects on the go? We realized ours wasn’t so we recently redesigned our entire site and optimized for iPhone and Blackberry devices, which account for the most active and fastest growing segment of mobile users.
We can do the same for you. Even if only a small portion of your content or services would benefit from being optimized for mobile, it can make a significant impact on your ability to reach your most dedicated customers.
You can read a little more about our design process on our blog. If you use a supported device, just visit our site—you will automatically be directed to the new version.