Sunstar Creative

Social Media Marketing Seminars, Victoria 2010

Dec 14, 2009 Social Media Marketing Victoria 2 Comments

***Sold Out***

What better way to start 2010 than to attend a series of social media seminars geared to help your business thrive? We’ve had a lot of requests for an educational series that goes beyond scratching the surface of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for business. We’ll take the time to explore local case studies, but also to go through an in-depth “how-to” so that you leave with an understanding of how social media can benefit your business, and how to tweet and network online effectively.

Where: The Union Club 805 Gordon Street, Victoria, BC V8W 1Z6

When: January 9, 16, 23, 30.

Schedule of Events:

Saturday, January 9, 2010 8:30am – 1pm. Special Guest, Brent Hammond

• Welcome to Marketing 3.0 – First Annual Seminar Series
• A New Approach to Goal Setting with Trailblazer’s Brent Hammond.
• Social Media is Here to Stay – Now What? with Terri Davies, Sunstar Creative

Saturday, January 16, 2010 8:30am – 1pm. Terri Davies

• Inbound Marketing: Your clients are surfing the internet – are they finding you?
• Twitter: Why and ‘How-To’ use it for your business.

Saturday, January 23, 2010 8:30am – 1pm. Terri Davies

• Facebook for business:  How to get results with fan pages & advertising
• LinkedIn: Maximize the potential of online connections

Saturday, January 30, 2010 8:30am – 1pm. Terri Davies

• Blogging: One of the best marketing tools of 2010
• Completing the marketing mix – networking, advertising and print material
• How to Make 2010 the best year ever – mastermind sessions

Seating is very limited. REGISTER NOW

Web Design & Colour theory

Dec 9, 2009 Web Design & Design Principles 2 Comments

Colour is used in design to attract attention, group elements, indicate meaning and enhance aesthetics.

Colour can make designs more visually interesting and aesthetic, and can reinforce the organization and meaning (often importance) of elements used in design. If applied improperly, colours can seriously harm the form, function and therefore effectiveness of your website. Colour theory is a massive subject, one well worth learning more about, so here is a set of guidelines that address common issues regarding the use of colour in website design:

Number of colours

Use colour conservatively. Limit the pallate to what the eye can process at a glance (generally about 5 colours. Of course, this depends on the complexity of the website design). Don’t use colour as the only means to impart information, as a significant percentage of the population has limited colour vision.

Colour Combinations

At a glance, the possible range of colour combinations may appear limitless. And to a large extent, it is. That being said, aesthetic colour combinations can be achieved by using adjacent colours on the colour wheel (analogous), opposing colours (complimentary), colours at the corner of a symmetrical polygon circumscribed in the colour wheel (triadic & quadratic):

Appealing and engaging colour combinations can also be found in nature.

Use warmer colours for elements you wish to appear ‘more in the foreground’ (read: eyecatching) and cooler colours for elements you might wish to appear ‘background’ elements.

Light grey is a safe colour for grouping elements without competing with other colour.

Saturation

Use saturated colours (pure hues) when attracting attention is a priority.

Use desaturated colours when performance and efficiency are the priority.

Generally, desaturated, bright colours are preceived as more friendly and professional; desaturated, dark coloursare preceived as serious and professional (as with the Whitehouse logo above); and saturated colours are preceived as more exciting and dynamic.

Exercise caution when combining saturated colours; they can interfere with one another, appear to vibrate and cause eye fatigue.

Lastly, and this is more a point of academic interest: There is no substantive evidence supporting the general effect of colour on mood as most of us tend to think. Similarly, there is no universal symbolism for different colour -different cultures attach different meaning to colours. Therefore, verify the meaning of colours and colour combinations for a particular audience prior to use. (see the ‘Color of Power’ by M. Walker, 1991).

Dot Tel Buzz (i.e. what is .tel anyway?)

Dec 1, 2009 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business 8 Comments

A few weeks ago I was reminded of a type of directory website  called .tel offered by Telnic Ltd. (and available through several re-sellers worldwide). This is a very basic-looking website that serves as a home-base for all of your contact details online and offline and allows others to find you easily.

Here’s a clever .tel commercial that got me excited about owning my very own little piece of internet real estate:

After I saw this, I went out and bought terridavies.tel, thinking that it could be beneficial in multiple ways:

1) If I get caught in a situation where I don’t have business cards on me (heaven forbid!) I can just say “go to terridavies.tel and you’ll see links to my website, blog and social media”

2) Since even my business card doesn’t have links to everything I do online (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube etc.) it’s nice to have a central location for people to find this info.

3) Having an additional inbound link from .tel to my website and blog can’t hurt (and could help) in terms of their Google rankings. Plus, .tel might actually ranks all on its own one day for those searching for info about “Terri Davies, Victoria, BC” (since I’m not listed in the Yellow Pages).

However, even after all that I am still unsure that I am actually going to reap the benefits of owning this account. I’ll really need to direct people there if it’s going to be effective (like Ben in the commercial), and that sort of defeats the purpose because why not send them to our Sunstar Creative website? It would be good if I didn’t have my own website….but for a web-savvy business owner I have yet to see the real benefit. I also found that the look was really boring and I am craving the ability to get into the code and modify it!

The cost of securing my dot tel name was about $45 ($44.56 if you want the exact figure) for two years through one of the Canadian resellers called Webnames (other resellers include TuCows, Sibername.com, DomainPeople, Netfirms and more ) and this included the domain registration and hosting. What do you think? I’m happy to hear any ideas you have of how .tel can be beneficial. Here’s what Telnic Ltd. has to say in their Telegraph eNewsletter I received today (it looks like some business are trying to make it work, but it seems like a stretch to me…)

The ROI of Social Media

Nov 26, 2009 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business Leave a comment

A little while back we posted an excellent video from Socialnomics that went viral, and here is another one that they’ve just posted. It talks about how businesses can profit from using social media effectively.

One question that I get repeatedly when educating business professionals about social media is “how is this investment going to benefit my bottom line” and that’s a tricky one to answer because, as one of my colleagues says, it’s like asking “what’s the ROI of owning a telephone?.” Social media is a communication device, and you can use it however you like. There are both effective and ineffective ways to do that – and whether or not you’re willing to spend the time to really learn to use the tools and integrate the strategies has everything do with your success.

Look at Gary Vaynerchuk (mentioned in the video) and his Wine Library – I have been watching Gary for months now as an internet success story. He’s really done something different – he provides entertainment for free and attracts hordes of people by doing that, and only makes money when you buy his products (which he doesn’t make explicit on the site – that’s always nice, it’s not a salespitch).

Take a look:

Web Design and Aesthetic-Usability Effect

Nov 23, 2009 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business Leave a comment

Aesthetic website designs are perceived as easier to use than less-aesthetic designs

The aesthetic usability effect describes the phenomenon in which people perceive more aesthetic designs as easier to use than less-aesthetic designs -whether they are or not. The effect has been observed in several experiments, and has significant implications regarding acceptence, use, brand-value and performance of a design. As you can imagine, this principle will apply to a vast number of design considerations but for our purposes, we will focus on website designs.

Here are examples of extremely poor aesthetic-usability and excellent aesthetic-usability in web design:

Both of these site offer driving skills. Now imagine you owned one of these driving schools and the other was local competition. Hmm…

Aesthetic designs look easier to use and have a highter probability of being used, whether or not they are in fact, easier to use. In the case of the two sites above, the better aesthetic site is easier to use but that does not need to be the case, from the perspective of the user. Perception comes first, remember. There are very few second shots on the web.

Aesthetics play an important role in the way a website is used. Aesthetic designs are more effective at fostering positive attitudes than unaesthetic designs and even have side-benefits of making people more tolerant of functionality problems. Creating positive, even personal relationships with a design evokes feelings of affection, loyalty, trust and patience -all significant factors in long-term usability and overall success of a website design.

Obviously, a company that excels in creating highly-aesthetic designs is Apple. And it’s not just their products that adhere to this very important principle; their websites, whilst clean and simple, demonstrate a high degree of aesthetic-usability effect.

The website looks uber-slick, modern, and cutting-edge with a clear uncluttered layout, that allows them to promote items of interest (read: importance) whilst allowing visitors to choose from other areas of the website with no confusion.

Always aspire to create aesthetic designs. Aesthetic designs are perceived as esier to use, are more readily accepted and visited over time, and promote positive brand awareness to help foster positive relationships with your target audience.

If you want to learn a bit more of how this and other design principles will help create you a more effective website, get in touch and we’ll see how to improve your company’s web presence.

Facebook Contest

Nov 19, 2009 Main Sunstar Creative Website, Social Media Marketing Victoria Leave a comment

YOU could WIN!

Hello Blog Visitor/Subscriber!

I thought I should let you know that Sunstar is having a contest right now where you can win some Starbucks VIA coffee if you become a fan of our new Facebook page. We’re doing a draw for the first 100 people to become a fans.

Rolltop – the laptop of the future…

Nov 19, 2009 Technology Leave a comment

Are you as fascinated as I am with the direction our world is moving in? This is an interesting illustrated video of how we may interact with personal computers in the future. I want one just to make power point presentations easier – plus, I wouldn’t mind doodling with a digital pen on the screen….

Introducing…the “Rolltop” computer

Victoria Diving – Website & Marketing Design Process

Nov 13, 2009 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business, Web Design & Design Principles, Web Design Victoria, BC Leave a comment

With my passion for diving it was a no-brainer to jump at the opportunity to design this website. Beyond Deep Diving is a shop which had a decent looking website before, but it didn’t cater to all of the potential visitors the website can have. We identified that there are 4  types of people that visit the site: those who haven’t been certified, those that have, technical divers, and out-of-towners who want to get in a dive while they’re in Victoria (it does has been rated by Jacques Cousteau to have the best diving in the world second only to the Red Sea!) So, instead of providing the same home page that needs to cater to everyone, we designed a splash page as a point of entry to qualify our site visitors.

The rest of the website has been designed to interlink to other areas so that you are never “stuck” within a category, and we’ve done this while still keeping the main information relevant to the desires of each category of website visitor.

Just in case you’re curious, this is what the older version of the site looked like. Overall – not a shabby looking site by any stretch, we’ve just gone a few steps further (including an eCommerce area where you can buy dive gear online – coming soon!).

This website also included a social media marketing strategy that was integrated into the website. Facebook and Twitter are both great ways to get traffic to the site, and to the blog, but at the end of the day the website has to be stellar to motivate visitors to engage or make contact for purchase of products or services. This was an entire strategy to appeal to the dive industry and prospective divers and we’re quite proud to share it with you (and hear your feedback – even if it’s critical please, let us hear it).

Online Marketing & CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Nov 9, 2009 CRM Marketing, Online Marketing TIPS for your Business, Social Media Marketing Victoria Leave a comment

Let’s demystify this a little – CRM – defined as ‘Customer Relationship Management’ is a marketing strategy for staying in touch with your clients and prospects. This creates TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) so that when clients/prospects need your services or hear of someone who does, you come to mind as the obvious business to contact.

Here’s an example: Lora is one of our clients who owns Creating Occasions,  a baking school and baking supplies store in Victoria, BC. She tells the customers that come into her store that if they want to receive special offers, discounts and free recipes, they can sign up to receive an eNewsletter twice a month. People who she has never met can also sign up for this email newsletter on her website. When Lora sends out the eNewsletter it has a coupon at the bottom, so when people come in to redeem it she can track the effectiveness of her CRM marketing. Another benefit of giving these exclusive offers is that people look forward to reading her eNewsletter and also find out about new classes she is offering and other exciting ongoings at the store when they do so.

So many of us forget the potential our current clients have as repeat customers and brand ambassadors. CRM helps us by creating a system for following up with people en masse so that it is both efficient and effective.

There are other ways to accomplish CRM in addition to eNewsletters, and that is using social media. With the popularity of Facebook for both personal use and business, this is an ideal way to interact with many of your clients and stay connected. Each time you update your status on your business fan page your “fans” will see it in their personal news feeds – keeping them up-to-speed on what’s new and exciting with your company.

On the Creating Occasions Facebook Page Lora even has an eNewsletter sign up box and links to other social media she uses giving clients a variety of ways to stay updated.

For more information on CRM and how Sunstar Creative can help you with that aspect of your business, click here.

Web Design and the 80/20 Rule

Nov 4, 2009 Web Design & Design Principles, Web Design Victoria, BC Leave a comment

A high percentage of effects in a large system (or website) are caused by a low percentage of variables.

Okay great. Now what does that mean for your website?

Well, let’s get a little bit more background on the rule first. Sound good? Great!

The 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle) is observed in all systems including economics, management, and quality control to name but a few. For our purposes I’m going to focus on user-interface design, which is really just a fancy way of describing what people see when they look at your website and how they get around that website based on the design and how the site functions. A few brief examples of how the 80/20 rule can apply to website design to help get the brain juices flowing are:

• 80% of a product’s usage involves 20% of its features
• 80% of a company’s revenues come from 20% of its features
• 80% of progress comes from 20% of the effort
• 80% of errors are caused by 20% of the functionality components

This rule is great for focusing resources and marketing messages and, in turn, realizing greater efficiencies in design, thus improving prospect for a good ROI (return on investment). Based on this, when creating an effective website, regardless of weather it is a lead-generating website or a fully-fledged eCommerce website, focus will need to be given to those 20% areas that will help deliver the 80% of return.

All elements in a design are not created equal. We use the 80/20 rule to assess the value of elements, target areas for design (or redesign) and optimization, and focus resources efficiently. Noncritical functions and aspects of a website that are part of the ‘less-important’ 80% should be minimized or even removed altogether from the website design. Everything has to justify itself. Of course, this doesn’t mean that your website should be boring; it only means that when creating the best solution possible for your business, we ‘keep the wheat and cut the chaff’.

Check back soon for related design principles such as Cost-benefit, Form Follows Function, Highlighting and Normal Distribution as well as many others.

If you want to learn a bit more of how this and other design principles will help create you a more effective website, get in touch and we’ll see how to improve your company’s web presence.