Within its cardboard goodness contained four titles from the good people at HOW. I took advantage of one of their incredible sales. I strongly recommend signing on to their email list.

Anyway, one of the titles that I purchased was The Essential Principles of Graphic Design by Debbie Millman. The title is somewhat misleading; it is a compilation of case studies by some great designers and strategists. They write about projects and give insight into their process which is always welcome information. On the whole, it’s a fantastic book, even better at only $9. She’s aces in my book; her favorite design color is orange.

One of the contributors, Hillman Curtis, wrote about his process for creating the design for the  New York Metropolitan Opera website. One of the points that he made was to design/wireframe the sub pages first and  do the home page last. His reasoning is that through small design changes on the sub pages, the character of more important pages will be more clearly defined. He has a point and I am expanding my rationale for doing so.

I am now a convert because I’d like to devote more design and strategic energy to the pages that people actually use. When those pages are perfected, then the kicking it up a notch for landing/home pages will be much easier as the personality of the site has already been established through the sub pages; color schemes, font usage, proportions, etc. will tend to reveal themselves.

Another benefit of this “reverse engineering” is to create a site where content is paramount. Pages are designed to fit their content, not to fit a style established by a  tricked-out home page. Secondly, the home page design will reflect the actual content and the navigation can be built with that consideration in mind, not just the  aesthetic.

If anyone designs this way or adopts this method, I’d love to hear from you.

Seriously.

It’s cool to take a design and develop a system around it. Right now, I am working on brand guidelines for a client that is undergoing a complete rebrand. It started innocently enough…”Hey, can you whip up a sales video for us?” “We need a new white paper design, can you help?”

Before too long, a style developed and the client decided that it was the look of their new brand. Most times, with bigger entities, there is a more prolonged process to defining the look, feel and voice (yes, voice) of a brand before it is deployed.  Small businesses tend to wing it just a little more. With the proper documentation of a project, you can define a brand based on the project at hand.

Many times, a new project helps the business owner(s) define what is important and what their brand actually stands for. When you have that information, it can be fairly easy to extrapolate to a brand standard. So it is with my new medium-sized client.

Todd Moto's Bulletproof Brand Identity Guidelines

Thanks to Todd Moto‘s posting his Bulletproof Brand Identity Guidelines, I have refined my brand guidelines to an easily digestible document that makes brand stewardship approachable and easy to comprehend.

One thing I learned early on is that the brand guidelines or style guidelines document should epitomize the best case scenario of use of the brand. Keep that in mind when you are creating a style guide. Something über modern, cool and sleek like Todd’s might not work for a more conservative organization, so keep that in mind as you are creating your document.

Something else I want to note…brand guidelines are just that. While in the corporate arena, I made my bones pushing, stretching and making the brand go places that it had not gone before. It’s a living document meant to foster creativity, not inhibit it.

I’ll post an image when the document is approved.

I revisited the HUGE website. These guys rock as far as creative is concerned and I feel connected to them in that we chose the same color to represent our brand. It takes a special person to embrace magenta. M=100!

Anyway, I noticed that their website did not scale down for the 1028×768 viewport. I try to stay on top of the design and development best practices and from what I can determine, they made a conscious choice to make those with small (non-widescreen) monitors scroll horizontally. And I am not hating.

I spent a lot of time and vocal chord cells arguing against 800×600 while I was at Bank of America. And I made a fairly public declaration that IE6 users are on their own; I wasn’t considering them when I developed sites anymore. (If I can find that Facebook post, I’ll add a screenshot.)

I have a feeling that the brilliant guys and gals at HUGE, Inc. looked at their traffic and determined that those with old school monitors were either so small a percentage of their audience or there was some other factor that caused them to make the strategic design decision to move past that resolution constraint.

Good for them. I may follow suit….at least for B2B.

Here’s what it did:

• Established me as a subject matter expert
• Demonstrated that I’m interested in their success, regardless of their budget
• Indicated that I have more tricks up my sleeve

Sometimes giving information away is a great way to build trust and perhaps a client. I left the door open to them to work together if their budget permitted. I’ll keep you posted on their response.

I got a call out of the blue from a prospective client that found us on The Google. I love it when that happens. One of the most important conversations you will have with a client is the first call. Like a date, this is where you can determine whether there is compatibility between the two parties.

Here’s what I did:

Let them talk. One of the best things that you can do is listen. Most of my clients are owner/operators and have a lot of emotion wrapped up in their businesses. When you are actively listening to them lay out their business needs, you are also personally validating them. That goes a long way to establishing trust.

When you do speak, couch everything in terms of a benefit to the client. This is the time to process what the prospect has said and turn it into possible solutions. When I asked my latest prospect what his goals were, he said “I need to get some money coming in the door.” This tells me that he is price sensitive and that he is on a pretty tight timeline. I mention that the site that he has in mind is a simple brochure marketing site that will help people find him and pick up the phone to call him. I also said that based on the simplicity of his site (make sure you don’t use the word simplistic), he can be up and running fairly shortly. I also told him that part of building the site would entail search engine marketing which can help drive traffic.

Only promise things that you can control. Too often to get the sale, business over promise and then inevitably, under deliver. Make sure that you don’t fall into that trap. Tell him about your experience with similar clients. Tell her about the results of the project in emotional terms “You’ll have a site that you can be proud of”, “you’ll be well-represented on the web”. Specific numbers or results or dollar figures are out of your control and you’d best avoid giving them any specifics there.

You can offer information about past projects, but be careful to inform them that their results may vary.

Take them through the process. Your diligence and thoroughness as a creative professional is an asset. Briefly take them through the process and let them know how much thought will go into producing their web presence. Communicating your understanding of strategy and audience sets you apart from the run-of-the-mill designer.

Don’t weaponize your knowledge. Using acronyms, professional terms or idioms will only alienate your client, especially over the phone.

Give them a ballpark price. That’s the real reason that they called. The whole time that you’re talking, they are thinking, “This sounds great, but how much will it cost?” Prepare their expectations for what’s to come. If they want a proposal, then you’re looking good. Why blow it with sticker shock? Give them a ballpark and let them know that it is a ballpark figure. Chances are while you were talking, you had already formulated a price in your head. : )

Avoid yes or no questions. When I gave him the ballpark price, I asked, “How does that work with your budget?”. It implies cooperation and doesn’t put him/her on the defensive. Open-ended questions require more thought and you’ll get more information about how this project is going to work for both of you.

Recap and thanks. Tell them what to expect next and do it. Then thank them for calling and smile when you do so!

Hopefully, you can work these principles into your next First Contact conversation and generate a very favorable result.

The digital space can be a scary place. Lots of bad people are are sending you emails from Nigeria or Kansas asking for your banking information so that the can send you millions of dollars. Companies are asking you to fill out a form so that you can download a PDF of fairly useless information. It’s enough to make you uninstall your browser.

I have long told my students my axiom: brand=trust. So how can a business make that true on the web, which is a low-trust environment? More importantly, how can you get a user to perform a task that he/she is inherently reluctant to?

Transparency

So many times as a youngster, I asked my parents “Why?!?” is response to their requests. Your users are asking the same thing…so tell them! What does it cost you to be honest with your user and tell them why you are asking for information? Better yet, what can you gain in loyalty to be up front and honest with them about the information request and what you plan to do with it? If cast the ask in terms of a benefit for the user, chances are they will comply.

Demonstrate that you value and will protect the exchange of information.

Make sure that you convey to your use that the information that you collect from them is safe in your hands. Have a privacy policy. Make sure that the user knows that you have a privacy policy and, most importantly, let them know what to expect from that exchange of information.

Trustworthy design

Ever bought fish from a beat-up station wagon or a generic white van? Of course not. Equally, shabby/confusing/cookie-cutter design does not lead to user trust and actually deters them from making the purchase/engagement decisions that you want them to make. Need I say more?

The bottom line is that users expect shady behavior in the digital space. Pleasantly surprise them and never make them feel that they are not in on the joke.

Remember the traveling salesman that would put his foot in the door to keep it from being slammed in his face? Your emails can be like that, albeit a little more welcome.

You or your creative professional can design an email that is compelling and cross-platform compliant, but it is the subject line that makes or breaks a campaign.
The key to success is managing the recipient’s expectations when the email arrives.

Before anyone opens an email, they ask themselves the following questions:

Who is this?
Make sure that your email subject line identifies who you are and your relationship to the user. A line like “Thanks for signing up for the M19 MEDIA mailing list” properly identifies you to the user as someone that they know.

Why are they contacting me?
People generally don’t like surprises and are leery of opening emails for fear of viruses and all sorts of other bad things. Give them a specific sense of what the email is about before they open it. “Claim your small business social media marketing report for signing up with M19 MEDIA” let’s the user know what they can expect to find when they open the email.

How did they get my email address?
Many email marketers take too long to respond to people who sign up for their email mailing list. That time lag can allow your user to forget all about that form that they filled out on your site. Make sure that, even though they opted in twice, that you send them a reminder within a day or so to remind them that they did. Here, you can use the email client’s preview pane to accomplish that goal. Many email clients will display the first sentences of your email and here is where you can lead off with the reminder that they signed up in the first place.

What do they want?
Make sure that your offer or Call to Action is displayed in the subject line. Tiger Direct does a good job of putting some of their specials in the subject line. So even if I am not interested in a 21″ monitor for $200, I know that the email is about their special sales for that week. “Thanks for signing up for M19 MEDIA’s mailing list. Your 30% coupon is ready!”

Why should I care?
Your email subject line should that be relevant to the audience that is receiving it. This means that you may have to segment your list so that everyone gets an email that means the most to them. “Solve your small business lead generation with this white paper from M19 MEDIA.” should get the attention of a small business owner that is struggling with lead generation. That person will likely open my email.

Some other considerations:

Make the Call to Action time sensitive. Emails that feel urgent or require immediate action usually get opened more quickly, especially if the email arrives soon after the user signed up for the email newsletter.

Avoid spammy words. This should be easy when you are customizing your email subject line to resonate with your audience. Here is a list of words/phrases to avoid.

Stay tuned for a post about email content!

This prospect has a great concept to take their brand’s product to the next level and wanted to discuss with me how to go about getting into the mobile app arena. They said that they have ideas that they wanted to keep secret. No problem, I responded, I will bring along a standard NDA (non-disclosure agreement) so everyone can speak freely. After a nice preliminary discussion and a few moments of wrangling over just what the NDA was supposed to protect, I finally said, “This document is designed more for your protection than it is for mine. ” When I began to volunteer advice about how best to tackle their problem, the owner of the company set the NDA aside and said “I don’t need this. I trust you.”

The reason for this post is that, yes, in the information age, information is power. Many people then guard information so closely that they come off cagey, vague and shifty. Not the best way to build trust with your client.

Establishing your expertise is one of the best ways to build user/customer/confidence in your brand. So how better to establish your expertise than giving away some information for free. Demonstrate that you have expertise to spare by being free with your knowledge. Don’t be threatened by sharing what you know because the implication of sharing is “what can they do if they really tried?”

So if you have a client that needs some free advice on a subject you know a lot about, do them and yourself a favor and just give it to them. You’ll be helping to win over a new fan and perhaps sales and referrals down the road.