Atlanta Web Design – DoubleDome Web Technologies

Web design goes hand in hand with integrated marketing strategies.? People focus so much on the web interface of their company that they sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture.? Creating a consistent company image is key when establishing a brand name in the market place.? This can be tough for amateurs, so many people turn to professional design firms to get the best results.? If you are developing an outreach strategy, do not forget about integrated marketing as you set your marketing budget.

Integrated marketing is an approach that relies on consistency and systematic strategy.? It is important to establish consistent images, content, and tone as you create and deliver marketing messages and materials.? A brand can generate greater sustainability over time by doing this.? Establishing consistency between various media and points of distribution will really pay off in the long run.? Aside from a company’s web design and presence on the internet, there are also other media outlets to address.? Print, radio, and television campaigns are very effective for marketing.? However, the effectiveness of all these campaigns depends largely on the integration of each element.

A professional web design company can help in this regard.? You see, it is all about getting the lion’s share while dealing with fewer metrics on performance and lowering overall costs.? Most companies have limited budgets, and that means there is a need to focus on the expenditure of dollars and other resources.? When you create an integrated marketing campaign, the results multiply.? It is possible to set up an outreach strategy that benefits from past messages and builds on that momentum for new marketing messages.

Once of the most prominent examples of this concept is logo design.? Think about some of the most powerful and lasting logos out there.? McDonald’s and Pepsi come to mind as iconic logos that have stood the test of time.? Consistency and long term application is important for a brand logo.? Skillful design sets the foundation.? A web design firm can work to integrate logos for all forms of media.? Developing a sleek logo that can be used in various marketing settings is crucial.? The same is true for other design details.? Marketing materials must flow together across different types of media.? You get better results when you project the same tone and message in your web, print, radio, and TV campaigns.? This is how you build brand recognition and establish a positive image.

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The euro Ford Festiva must be cooler than the US version we remember.

In an aggressive social-media program that goes far beyond what Ford has done in the past — and reaches beyond just the marketing department — the automaker is counting on 100 bloggers to introduce its new Fiesta, which is set to reach U.S. dealers in early 2010. The idea behind Fiesta Movement is to get the model’s target audience to drive and, hopefully, chatter about the car for months to come.

The Fiesta is Ford’s global subcompact vehicle and was designed in Europe, where it’s been on sale since August 2008. The diminutive hatchback (a sedan will be launched here) seeks to provide stylish transportation in a small package with low acquisition cost, high fuel efficiency and cues that appeal to young consumers.

Ford is loaning 100 German-built Fiestas to social-media trendsetters for six months. The 100 “Fiesta agents,” chosen from 4,000 who applied online, will share their experiences behind the wheel, completing monthly, themed missions from travel to social activism; posting videos; and updating their friends and followers on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. The participants begin training with their Fiestas in late April, and they will begin receiving the cars in the first week of May.

While Microsoft’s SliverLight has been trying to pry market share away from Adobe Flash, Adobe has been expanding it’s base to television and mobile. This means more good things to come for interactive marketing firms and flash designers.

Flash was once known primarily as the technology behind those niggling Web ads in the 1990s that gyrated and flickered on the screen. Today, it is a ubiquitous but behind-the-scenes Web format used to display Facebook applications, interactive ads and, most notably, the video on sites like YouTube and Hulu.com.

Now Adobe Systems, which owns the technology and sells the tools to create and distribute it, wants to extend Flash?s reach even further. On Monday, Adobe?s chief executive, Shantanu Narayen, will announce at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas that Adobe is extending Flash to the television screen. He expects TVs and set-top boxes that support the Flash format to start selling later this year.

For consumers, what sounds like a bit of inconsequential Internet plumbing actually means that a long overhyped notion is a step closer to reality: viewing a video clip or Internet application on a TV or mobile phone.

For Hollywood studios and other content creators, a single format for Web video is even more enticing. It means they can create their entertainment once in Flash ? as the animated documentary ?Waltz With Bashir,? from Sony Pictures Classics, was made ? and distribute it cheaply throughout the expanding ecosystem of digital devices.

?Coming generations of consumers clearly expect to get their content wherever they want on it, on any device, when they want it,? said Bud Albers, the chief technology officer of the Disney Interactive Media Group, who will join Adobe executives at the convention to voice Disney?s support for the Flash format. ?This gets us where we want to go.?

Adobe, based in San Jose, Calif., is among the oldest Internet powers but perhaps one of the least visible to users. Founded in 1983, the company first developed a common language for laser printers called PostScript and later built or bought popular desktop publishing tools like Illustrator and Photoshop.

In 2005, Adobe acquired Macromedia, the originator of Flash, and expanded from making software to create and share digital documents, like Adobe Acrobat and the PDF file format, to dominating the budding market of tools to create online graphics and video. Last year the company reported net income of $871.8 million on revenue of $3.6 billion.

According to Adobe, Flash is now on 98 percent of all computers, and about 80 percent of Web videos are viewed using it.

Adobe says Flash was installed on 40 percent of cellphones shipped last year, and it recently announced efforts to increase that penetration by abolishing the licensing fees it was charging handset makers, much as it offers the Flash player free to consumers and video sites like YouTube.

Adobe makes money on Flash by selling software to help companies create and deliver Flash content to the Web.

Some major players in the phone market do not support Flash. Most notably, Apple, maker of the iPhone, says Flash uses too much processing and battery power. Mr. Narayen says handset makers will ultimately not be able to resist, since it will make viewing the Web on a phone no different from surfing on a PC.

?Anyone who wishes to deliver Web browsing on smartphone devices, supporting Flash will be an integral part of the experience,? he said.

Despite its problems wooing Apple, Adobe considers the television screen the last great frontier for Flash. To support the new effort to bring Flash to the TV, it has signed partners including Intel, Comcast, Netflix and Broadcom, the company that makes many of the components that go into cable and satellite set-top boxes. (The New York Times Company has also agreed to support this initiative to bring Flash to the TV set.)

While television makers like Sony and Samsung are not involved yet, analysts say integrating Flash ? or at least some kind of Internet video ? into the living room television is inevitable.

?It?s hard to differentiate TVs these days. They?ve gotten about as big and thin as you can get them,? said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Interpret LLC. ?This idea of being able to standardize on Flash-based content across devices and platforms will be something TV vendors can get excited about because it will distinguish their products.?

One company standing in Adobe?s way is Microsoft. Its rival to Flash, called Silverlight, is used by Netflix and the BBC, among others, and was used by CBS to stream the N.C.A.A. men?s basketball tournament and by NBC last year to stream the Olympics.

Microsoft says the second version of Silverlight has been installed on 300 million PCs since it became available six months ago. It also claims that Silverlight better supports live, high-definition video in what is called 1080p resolution, which is paramount to bringing Internet content to large HDTVs.

?I can?t imagine what could be more important on a television than high video quality,? said Brad Becker, director of rich client platforms at Microsoft ? and a former Adobe executive. Adobe executives say the new Flash for televisions will support such high-definition video.

Some analysts are not counting out Microsoft just yet. They say the company has a significant presence in the living room with devices like the Xbox 360 game consoles that can stream movies to a TV. Microsoft, with annual revenue that is 17 times that of Adobe?s, also has the resources to finance an escalating competition.

?There hasn?t been a true competitor to Adobe for quite some time and Microsoft could potentially start bridging the gap between the PC and the TV even more effectively,? said Josh Martin, an analyst at the Yankee Group. ?Maybe they could start putting out some of the fire that Adobe has long held.?

This is great news for web designers, flash designers, and anyone else in the interactive space!

The longstanding complaint in online advertising circles is that the Web has yet to receive its fair of ad spending, considering the amount of time most Americans spend online these days.

Conventional wisdom has been that online advertising still pulls in less than 10 percent of all media dollars, while more and more users spend as much as 20 and 30 percent of their media time surfing the Internet.

Yet according to a new report issued by eMarketer, online industry executives may soon have less to complain about. The researcher predicts that the Web?s share of ad dollars will approach 10 percent this year and will exceed 15 percent by 2013. Those projections are based on recent trending, as the Internet?s share of total spending has been gradually increasing by a rate of one percent each year, found eMarketer.

Ironically, that rate of growth should accelerate because of the ongoing recession, which is causing many brands to reevaluate all of their ad and marketing budgets, according to the report. That optimistic assessment comes just after eMarketer revised its 2009 online ad spending forecast, dropping an earlier prediction of 8.9 percent growth to 4.5 percent.

Despite that slowdown, the Web is benefiting from an overall share shift, claims eMarketer. ?Marketers are spending more on Internet ads, while spending less on advertising in other media, such as newspapers, radio and magazines,? reads the report. That shift is being driven primarily by most brands? intensifying need to track and justify every ad dollar in the current climate?which the Web?s inherent trackability offers.

?Digital marketing offers compelling benefits, especially for cash-conscious companies,? said David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst . ?Marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media.

This produces more efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn pushes traditional media to compete with lower pricing.?

Web design has a huge impact on your business. Some people lose sight of this simple fact, but it is something that should not be forgotten. A website serves as the face of a company. Quality design with sleek features and solid content will make for a successful online venture. On the other hand, a confusing website with sloppy graphics and generic features will bore users and turn people off almost immediately. Believe it or not, most web visitors form an opinion about a website based on the initial impression that they get when opening the page. That means you have only a few seconds to impress new visitors. An impressive design will get you more traffic and create a positive image, whereas a poor design will greatly damage your credibility and ability to attract traffic.

Poor creative design is one of the main pitfalls for web design. You need a solid foundation on which to build. Without this, you will struggle with the implementation of many prominent features. Poor navigation is often a result. Few things are as frustrating to a user as a confusing navigation setup. If there is no usability, then visitors will leave the site immediately. Another common mistake is when designers forget to make a site cross browser compatible. If a website only works for one type of browser, then you are cutting yourself off from tons of other potential visitors who cannot open your site with their browsers. It is a rookie mistake, so keep an eye out for it.

Poorly written content is also a big mistake. Internet browsers are generally intelligent, and they want to read good content. Garbage writing is an insult to their intelligence. People won’t return to your website if they find poor content. A professional web design firm can provide consultation so that this does not happen. They can also help to correct unfocused marketing messages. Speaking of marketing, it is important to make your site search engine friendly. Many amateurs forget to do this, and that is a major mistake that will affect the levels of traffic to your site.

Another web design mistake is using the wrong technology. Sometimes people will use Flash when HTML should be used. Remember to use an enterprise class data center. A slow hosting environment is never good for business. Finally, look for a firm that performs a post launch evaluation. If you spend a lot of time developing a site, a post launch evaluation should definitely be carried out to make sure everything works how it should.