Chicago Archives - Creative Agency Talk

Agency Influence: Generating The Next Market Disruption

Innovation, disruption, a game-changing idea. These are the goals that most clients who work with a creative agency see as the desired result. Requiring collaboration, communication, respect, and mutual understanding – creating the next ‘big idea’ is a process that must be led by a positive client-agency relationship. Creative agencies, on the whole – have a great deal of pressure to churn out work that will make huge changes for a brand. In essence, however – this is the core of working with a creative team of seasoned professionals with experience to draw from. Today, the role of creative agencies is an effective and often essential component for a brand to break into a market and express their point of view in a targeted campaign. The Secret to Success The ‘big (disruptive) idea’ is a problem solved. In this case, both the brand and agency must intimately understand the customer,…

The Creative Pitch Process: Revisited

Hiring a creative agency is one of the most critical and challenging tasks for companies.The problem is that the pitch process hasn’t changed for what seems like forever. Most stakeholders, executives and business owners don’t come to the table with the information needed for agencies to prepare, leaving the agency to provide a muddy view of what a project with entail, and a client who doesn’t have a clear understanding of deliverables. Anatomy of A Pitch Process In the most simple of terms, there are two kinds of pitch processes. Those that are thoughtful, well-planned and considered; and those that are down and dirty, get the job done types. These usually vary depending on the scope of work – whether a focused activity like a logo redesign or a sweeping project like a website or product launch. Because the pitch process is a vastly different experience for many people it…

How Sites Are Designed When Working with a Web Design Agency

Are you on the verge of working with a web design agency or shopping around for a digital firm that can do the job? If so, you should understand how a web design agency works when such an organization is given a project. Getting this knowledge will help you work better with the agency and give you an idea of what to look for if you are still trying to find the right agency. Here is a brief process of how sites are designed by a digital agency. Creating Goals and Doing the Necessary Research Every client has a unique vision in mind when it comes to what they want from their website. To accomplish the vision, there are several goals that need to be met. The goals will vary and be broken down into small milestones throughout the project. Some clients have a general idea of what they want…

How to Choose the Right Marketing Channel for Your Budget

One of the biggest challenges as a marketer is to use a limited budget to create a profitable marketing campaign. If there is no clear focus, it can be even harder due to the fact you have many different channels to choose from. To help you make a decision, here are a set of different scenarios of what channel best suits the situation. Best Channel to Focus On If You Have a Small Budget But Have an Established List of Customers: Email Marketing is still one of the best ways to convert prospects into customers. If you already have a list of customers that you haven’t been utilizing, you can quickly build with an email campaign with a great offer and expect some sales. However, email marketing isn’t that straightforward most of the time. You’ll need to focus on building a relationship with your subscribers and customers which can be…

Design as a Key Element in Successful Branding

There are many parts of branding from the strategy, positioning, culture, to the brand statement. However, design is obviously the most recognizable aspect of branding. Design and branding are inseparable but business owners often confuse the relationship between the two. For instance, many business owners associate the logo as the brand when it is more of an avatar for the company. With that said, how exactly does design impact a brand? Since the topic of the logo was brought up, you can say that the logo design is meant to support or conceptualize your brand statement and identity rather than represent the brand together. Take the financial company ING for example. Their logo has the symbol of a lion next to their company name. The purpose here is to represent a pedigree that commands respect, is authoritative, and is a leader. These are all qualities that people want to associate…

A Culture of Collaboration

In branding and marketing strategy – as with many other industries – collaborative efforts typically have far better results than projects handled by only one person. Though collaboration has turned into a service based cultural buzzword seen all over the place (a little like innovation), its an elusive achievement that many don’t fully understand. When most companies need branding work, the first thing they think about is finding the right designer for the job. A great designer is definitely capable of creating a solid design but cannot do all the heavy lifting with regard to strategy and planning. Creating an award winning design or campaign is a team effort. There are many parts of developing a brand that most people aren’t aware of, especially if the goal is to create an outstanding final product. This is where the benefit of working with a creative agency comes in. #1: Be Agile The agency or team…

Agile Design for Startups – A Fresh Approach to Creating

In a competitive environment, the ability to adapt is a essential quality for a company. For that reason, many companies have started to embrace the agile approach for designing their websites and apps. The traditional approach of getting a product perfect or nearly perfect before launching a website or a product does have its place. After all, a well designed website or app that runs as perfectly as can be will probably be met with acclaim, creating a momentum that sets itself for success in the marketplace. But the traditional approach to creating is not ideal for many companies, especially for companies with small budgets and a lack of resources for figuring out what their audience wants to the tee. The agile approach is perfect for these types of companies as they don’t have to commit everything to creating a perfect final product. They can adapt as they go until…

Creative Agency: Important Facts When Looking for a New Creative Agency

If you’ve been trying to find the right creative agency to work with, you’re probably inundated with all the choices that are available to you. There are many great agencies but it’s more about working with an agency that can deliver on your needs and match the way your company works. Some of the few things to look into include the culture of the company, their capabilities, and the types of designs they focus on. The first thing you need to look at is what kind of creative agency you’re dealing with. Some agencies only focus on the digital arena, some only focus on offline and some only work with multimedia. Ideally, you want to go with an agency that has the expertise to deliver on multiple marketing channels and media types. You also want to look at how big a company is. Small agencies may not be handle bigger…

White Paper Design Makes All the Difference

Your white paper can be one of the most powerful selling tools for your products and services. But nothing can kill sales faster than a poorly designed white paper. It doesn’t matter how valuable the information and message is. If people are put off by the design or have a hard time reading the content, your white paper will end up in the recycling bin. There are many elements of white paper design that contribute to its effectiveness. The most obvious one you’ll notice right away is the cover. You want to convey value right from the beginning with a great title, cover image, and a message that conveys there’s more to the white paper than the title. The visual presentation is the first thing that the reader will see, so you want to make sure you create the right first impression. Then there’s the layout. Many companies understand that…

Web Development for Magento

Magento is an open source eCommerce platform that ideal for companies looking for custom solutions. It solves the problem of having to deal with the limitations of third party platforms and sacrificing your data to be shared to eCommerce SAAS companies. While Magento comes with a lot of advantages over third party platforms, it requires a good amount of development. We at ArtVersion offer Magento web development services for companies looking to have a large amount of their site or the entire site custom built. We understand what companies and business owners are looking for when using Magento. We help companies whether they are looking for features like a shopping cart that is intuitive and involves less checkout steps or a customer loyalty program on the backend that syncs with their CRM software. While the publicly available add-on modules, extensions and themes can maximize the capabilities of your eCommerce site,…

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