News & Features

Moving Beyond Mobile-Friendly Websites

By automatically re-directing smartphone visitors to the mobile website, streamlined content can target their needs while also providing a link to the full site.

All of our websites are designed to be “mobile-friendly” but now Stratejus has introduced a new design approach that increases the effectiveness of sites viewed on smartphones. By displaying a mobile home page and selected content using accordion-style menus, visitors are provided with a subset of information targeting these mobile users.

Working with clients, we’re finding there is a desire to provide smartphone users information such as news and event feeds, maps, directions and phone numbers. Now may be the time to evaluate how your site displays for iPhone and Android users, and if this  approach  might work for you.

View Performa Higher Education mobile website.

Highlights of Stratejus Mobile Websites

  • Specific content is displayed to mobile users by detecting smartphones and providing mobile site content.
  • Accordion-style navigation system is simple to use, and provides a consistent user experience on a wide variety of displays.
  • Integrating News, Events and Blog feeds automatically highlights key content.
  • Calling, email and visitor information is readily accessible, along with directions and maps. The “Call Us” button makes it easy for mobile users to place a phone call.
  • Site managers can select the content appropriate for mobile viewers.
  • “View Full Site” provides easy access to your organization’s complete website.

Content Management Tools

To make mobile website content easy to update and manage, Stratejus has two options that make it easy for customers to update mobile site content:

  • WordPress Mobile Management allows users to create and/or edit pages, and assign categories that correspond with the structure of the mobile site. Site content and menus are automatically updated when new pages and content are added to the mobile website.
  • Our simplified content management tool make it easy to edit and maintain mobile site content using a simplified editing solution. Users simply log-in using a browser, navigate to the page they want to edit and use the editor to edit, save and publish changes.

Call us today at 585-598-6627 for more information on our mobile website solutions.

Website Multimedia Creates “30 Second Elevator Speech”

Your website is your company’s face to the world, revealing who you are and what you offer. Properly designed, it’s both your greatest repository of published information and your 30 second elevator speech.

One of the greatest challenges of any website is how to quickly deliver an accurate, unique first impression of what your company does and how it can uniquely benefit visitors. The problem that every set of web statistics I have seen consistently shows is that a high percentage of visitors (normally more than 50%) are on your site for less than 30 seconds and never navigate beyond the home page. The result is a need to deliver information on the home page quickly and accurately, and give visitors a reason to explore the site more.

Multimedia Speeds Up Communication

Use of interactive multimedia components is one way to engage visitors with your primary message, capture interest and create higher levels of communication effectiveness. A number of different types of multimedia components based on Flash and/or JavaScript technology are emerging, and are normally embedded into the home page as a focal point of the website presentation.

Here are a few popular options. Click on the image to view the live example in a new browser tab.

SlideDeck

SlideDeck provides an intuitive framework for sharing ideas or explaining how something works. It's one example of powerful jQuery slider components that also work well on smartphones and tablet PCs.

Carousel: Product Tour

A Carousel provides an excellent tool for presenting visuals along with captions to tell a story or introduce products. Users can control the display of images, and the component can also contain embedded video.

Sliding Video Player

This Video Player provides sliding navigation that makes viewing videos easy for site visitors. The implementation is mobile-friendly, falling back to single images on mobile devices.

Photo Albums & Galleries

Photo Albums & Galleries provide an elegant interface to display, in this case, photo galleries by product category with captions to help carry the storyline. The particular component combines Flash with a server software solution that makes it easy to manage photo albums on the website.

Why Interactive Multimedia Components Work

The reason why interactive multimedia is an effective option centers on its ability to communicate quickly and integrate use of interesting visuals. Website visitors, particularly when they are no deeper than the home page, are browsing rather than reading. The combination of visuals, audio and video increases the speed of communication. It succeeds because multimedia components naturally invite visitors to explore and take simple actions to gain more information. The user can more easily control playback, skip ahead, select which the parts of the message that are most appealing and move on if they aren’t interested.

Multimedia components focus the message communicated by the site and highlight key sections such as “push” products or technology. Often, a multimedia component becomes a kind of secondary navigation that introduces features of the site, generating interest and linking to related content. This can be effectively used to guide specific targeted audience groups such as current customers, for example.

For those in marketing positions, multimedia cuts through the clutter of every day news and events to consistently deliver important higher level messages and truly reinforce the brand. We think of it as the 30 second elevator speech because it puts the focus on concisely delivering the brand in an entertaining, effective way that will resonate with prospects, customers and stakeholders.

Call Stratejus today at 585-598-6627 for a free consultation and ideas on how multimedia concepts can help take your website effectiveness to the next level.

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Next Step Marketing Collaboration

Stratejus has expanded its team to include strategic partners that work with us to provide broader, more potent solutions. Now, we offer a full set of multidisciplinary skills in marketing strategy, creative design and web development. Click here for a brochure that highlights this collaboration.

Al Presher, President of Stratejus; Ignition Consulting CEO Randal Simonetti; and Mike Sukhenko, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Michael Sukhenko Graphic Design; have announced a working relationship that creates a new paradigm in integrated marketing communications.

This unique alliance of three successful companies marks a new opportunity for small to medium clients who cannot afford the cost of large marketing, advertising and public relations firms. “Clients in this growing segment need expert marketing advice, high quality graphic design and world class website development, but are often ignored or priced out by large agencies,” explains Simonetti.

This innovative collaboration combines marketing communications strategy planning and reputation management with graphic design and state-of-the-art website development. “Our three firms often work as one, providing business, non-profit, government and educational clients with New York City quality at Upstate New York prices,” says Stratejus President Al Presher.

“Our competitive pricing and superior quality work is due to low overhead and our direct involvement with every client,” explains Mike Sukhenko, Chief Creative Officer. “There are no middle men or layers of bureaucracy to sort through. Decisions are made quickly because you are always talking to an owner,” he stated.

Ignition CEO Randal Simonetti has held executive leadership positions at AT&T, Citibank and Frontier Corporation, in addition to leading a statewide non-profit. He has been consulting for over ten years and has an extensive academic and management background to share with clients. Stratejus President Al Presher launched his company in 2002, and was previously Vice President of Marketing for ORMEC Systems.  Michael Sukhenko Graphic Design Founder and Chief Creative Officer Mike Sukhenko has extensive background in graphic design working for several large creative agencies. He is a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Illustration.

Each member of the collaboration plays a specific role in the client interface. The owners actually do the consulting, manage the process and are directly accountable for the work.

Clients get to work with experienced experts and are never passed off to junior associates which is a common practice at large agencies.  In addition, “the collaborative never marks up the charge for media, another common practice with large firms, that can take a big bite out of an over-stretched small company budget,” explains Simonetti.

For more information and to view a 60-second multimedia presentation about the collaboration, please visit www.nextstep-mktg.com.

Ignition Consulting provides a comprehensive array of marketing, management and communication consulting services for business, none profit, government and educational organizations throughout the United States. To learn more, visit www.ignitionltd.com.

Michael Sukhenko Graphic Design provides a broad array of graphic design, advertising layout, branding and illustration services across the country. To learn more, visit www.sukhenko.com.

NSA Kentucky Simplifies Web Updating

Website design links to eSpeakers database and simplifies web content updates.

NSA Kentucky Website Home Page

Home page highlights member directory and topics.

The Kentucky Chapter of the National Speakers Association (www.nsakentucky.org) has a new custom-designed site that makes it easier to manage the profiles of the speakers in their chapter, publicize events, accept payments for events using PayPal and make website updates (both text and photo albums) without assistance.

  • Easily Manage the Roster of Speakers: Integration with the eSpeakers database (www.espeakers.com) makes it possible for individual speakers to keep their information up-to-date, taking administrators out of the loop and saving time. Individual profiles are customized to fit into the website design, and the new website provides a visual directory of all of the members. eSpeakers also provides the tools to browse, search, and display these profiles on your chapter’s website. We worked with them to fully customize and integrate their service into the NSA Kentucky website design.
NSA Kentucky Website

eSpeakers profile is customized to match site design.

  • Multimedia Component Adds Flash: Using Adobe Flash on the home page highlights all of the members of the chapter and the key elements of the site including “How to Find Speakers” and “Speaker Topics”. JavaScript, Flash and animation techniques can be very effective in creatively engage an audience.
  • Easy Updates: Administrative personnel for the chapter are able to add chapter events and update website content on their own using our easy editing tools. They simply log in and navigate to the page they want to edit using a browser and use our editor to edit, save and publish changes. It’s easy to change images or create new pages.
NSA Kentucky Website

Easy editing interface simplifies site updates.

  • Photo Albums: A web-based tool makes it easy to manage and make additions to the photo album on the site. Users can easily upload, delete and sort images or videos. Use of transition effects and thumbnail previews enhance the presentation.
  • Emphasis on Style and Design: Not a template design, the site is enhanced by moving beyond the limited set of web fonts. See www.typekit.com for the possibilities. It’s also optimized for widescreen display which upgrades the look of the site and sets it apart from the crowd. Stratejus follows the direction of HTML5 and CSS3 to infuse creativity into all of our website designs using drop shadows, borders and animation effects.
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Personalized URLs Boost Response

College increases prospective student response rates using personalized URLs and customized content.

Explore Homepage

View Screenshot Gallery

A Prospective Student website developed for Houghton College uses personalized URLs, variable data printing and customized web pages to boost direct marketing response rates and drive website traffic (http://explore.houghton.edu/).

Personalized Marketing

A key component of this project is the use of personalized URLs and variable data printing to gain the attention of targeted prospects, create a more effective direct marketing campaign, and increase direct response rates. The college launched the website by sending a series of printed mailers, plus an email blast, to a mailing list of 25,555 high school students, and received 1,575 responses. The message to prospective students included a personalized URL (http://explore.houghton.edu/firstnamelastname) and a unique password. This information was generated by preloading the mailing list into the database, and the system creating a set of unique user names and passwords that could be used with the mailing.

The 6.2% response rate to the initial communication was almost equally split between those who responded via paper (743 or 47%) and those who responded electronically (832 or 53%).

Customized Web Pages

To create a more personalized experience for prospective students, Houghton’s website now invites users to build customized pages that display information about the college tailored to their specific interests. As part of the registration process, users complete both a personal and interest profile which gathers information on their interests from academics (majors, study abroad programs) to extracurricular programs such as athletics, drama or music. After completing the profile, the site generates a set of personalized pages with an overview of each interest area and links to more content on the college website.

Maintaining Visitor Interest

A key goal of the website project was to gain mindshare and invite visitors to browse the site to learn more about the college and its programs. The site uses innovative technology (Flash video, animated slide shows, a Flash document viewer and visitor polls) to create a more interactive user experience.

Results tracked using Google Analytics have been outstanding with good response in terms of pages per visit (4.5), average time on site (2:33) and a very low bounce rate (less than 5% of visitors are viewing only one page, versus 35% for the Admission section of the main website).

Linked to Ongoing Promotional Activities and Google AdWords

The ongoing plan is to use the website as a key marketing vehicle and landing page as key marketing tools to continue building relationships with prospective students entering their college search. Because the website is targeted specifically for prospective students, the website can speak directly to prospective students and highlight news and create an electronic view book of college life. The new content and expanded capabilities also encourages student prospects to engage in a dialogue that helps bond them with the college and voluntarily enroll in a relationship building process that earns loyalty. Use of Google AdWords each month provides an ongoing stream of new prospects, and additional direct mail campaigns and email blasts are being designed to drive traffic to the website.

Highlights of Website Development

The Houghton Prospective Students Website was developed using standards-based HTML and CSS for the interface, with PHP providing the connection to a MySQL database. The slideshows and video players are driven by SlideShowPro for Flash using a server-based software product called SlideShowPro Director. The Flash document viewer is powered by Issuu. Polls are driven by PollDaddy.

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