Get your mind out of the gutter.  I’m talking about persistent navigation.  But of course (wink)!

At Bluetext, we are designing and producing websites for the most exciting brands of all sizes across a multitude of industries.  We live in the cross section of trends. We see things happening cross markets, and that can be essential when looking at user behaviors and preferences when needing to grab their attention and entice them to engage with a brand. And that means when we see a trend that is becoming more prevalent across platforms, we take notice.

The biggest new user-interface trend we are seeing today is navigation on the left side of the screen. Clients are calling this:

• Unique
• Different
• Fresh
• Smart

For us, this is going full-cycle, back to first-generation sites that were left dominant. But this isn’t your father’s left nav. These left navigation paradigms lock. They personalize.  They respond to resolution and device and browser. They have many ways to expand and drill into the subpages structure of the site map with ease.

We see great brands like Qualcomm, VW, and Riverbed, all moving to left navigation systems.

Are you thinking about going left vs top for an upcoming site redesign?  Here are five things to consider in making this decision:

1. Is desktop a heavy user-base? If yes, then investing in slick navigation can pay off handsomely. If no, then it may not be worth the effort to do an adaptive responsive navigation module.
2. Is your sitemap narrow and deep? If you answer yes, then you’re a strong candidate for a left nav.If you answer no and you have a bloated tier one navigation, then best to leave it alone.
3. Does your brand logo work in the narrow navigation plate system? Many brand systems don’t contemplate this web application possibility.  They also don’t have rules about stacking text about the logo mark. Or they show no name at all, just the logo icon.
4. When you look at sites like Riverbed’s, you see the logo move over on scroll down. And when you look sites like ATT’s, you see they are throwing out the word all together.  Just like Starbucks is doing everywhere.
5. Is your target demographic a savvy web user audience? If you answer no, then consider a small user focus group to ensure they learn and adapt to the new navigation system paradigm with ease.  If not, plan on going top navigation.

Here are some more sites that go left nav (or quasi left nav):

• www.gcpat.com
• www.riverbed.com
• www.vw.com
• www.qualcomm.com
• www.belr.com

Thinking about redesigning your website.  Contact Bluetext

It’s no secret that a first-class mobile app experience is essential for any brand seeking to build customer loyalty and engagement. The mobile app user experience needs to recognize not only the way audiences ingest information as they consider their options, but also how they interact with the app itself. In a previous post we offered a number of top tips for delivering the best mobile app experience. In this post we offer additional top tips to keep your customers engaged on their mobile devices.

Keep the Design Simple. A customer’s attention span is a precious resource that is often in short supply. A cluttered user-interface that gives numerous options for information or services may check all the boxes for the brand, but it runs the risk of overloading the user with too much information. Every added button, text, image or call-to-action complicates the screen and challenges the focus they need on the essential content you want them to see.

Design with the Platform in Mind. Trying to shoe-horn in features and elements from all of the various operating systems in order to mimic all of their specific behaviors brings us back to clutter. Stick to features native to the platform you are building in so that users know how to navigate and use the native components they are already familiar with.

Design for Channel-Switching. Most users don’t complete an engagement in a single session, so design for the entire process, not just a single setting. That means a seamless experience across devices that allows users to switch channels as needed to meet the way they interact with the app. A useful cross-device experience will enable customers to engage at their own pace.

Animation is Good, as Long as it is subtle. It’s the little things on the screen that give a warm feeling about your brand, so feel free to leverage that emotional connection. Small details such as animated feedback, in-app sounds, and even animated micro-interactions imbed a personality to your app, and go a long way towards building loyalty. Just keep it subtle.

Respect the Small Screen. Trying to fit a lot of information into a mobile user-interface is challenging at best. Don’t make the mistake of trying to cram too much content into the screen. It has to be readable. At least 11-point font is highly recommended. Increase the line height or spacing if that helps to get the content presented most effectively. A heaping portion of white space makes the screen inviting and uncluttered.

Testing is Your Friend. Most designers have large monitors on which they design. But something designed on a big screen may not work as well when shrunk down to a mobile app. Engage real users for their feedback, and make sure you have a cross-selection on a variety of mobile devices. Every design is bound to have an unseen flaw until it’s in the user’s hands.

Need help designing a mobile app with a great user experience? Bluetext can help.

The lunch options surrounding our offices are, shall we say, limited. Perhaps this is one reason the line for Sweetgreen during peak lunch hours can run a solid twenty-minute wait. Diners, myself included, wait until we are ready to eat lunch to get the salad, hence the long line. Now what prevents me, or anyone else for that matter, from running out to get my salad at 11am, when the place is completely empty?

It’s a salad after all. I can stick it in the fridge and eat it whenever I want. One could ask the same question about how we purchase clothes at stores (which old-timers like myself still do). Around this time of year when stores are pushing summer clothes, the sale racks are filled with heavily discounted fall and winter wear – probably the same winter clothes you paid double or triple for just a few months ago. But no matter how enticing the sale, we often bypass the out-of-season sale items in favor of what we will wear in the here and now.

Both of these examples came to mind as I started thinking about how businesses market their products and services to – whether its b2b, b2g or b2c. You not only have to hit prospective new customers you want to convert and existing customers you want to upsell with the right message, but it has to be the right message at the right time. The right time, as is the case with winter clothes on sale as summer begins, often comes down to when prospects and customers are in the frame of mind to be thinking about your product or service. Catch them too early and they will get distracted and move on; catch them too late and, well, that’s self-explanatory I suppose.

This challenge becomes more difficult for marketers trying to blanket a large number of customers and prospects. The ability to personalize the message and the timing is why more marketers are increasingly intrigued by Account-based marketing (ABM). With ABM you concentrate efforts on a very defined set of target accounts within a market, and then utilize campaigns personalized down to the single account level.

Marketing automation leaders are also looking at ABM to round out their services portfolio. Recently inbound marketing and sales leader HubSpot invested in ABM startup Terminus as part of a $10.3 million Series B round. In its blog explaining motivation for the investment, HubSpot talks about the fact that while inbound marketing is valuable for targeting an individual throughout the purchase process and beyond, ABM is useful when there is a need to build a relationship with multiple stakeholders at once. When done right HubSpot notes, ABM is about “precision and personalization not brute force.”

If you are a CMO thinking holistically about marketing to b2b, b2c and b2g customers, Account- based marketing has earned some mindshare. Altera Group research finds that 97% of marketers surveyed said that ABM has a somewhat higher or much higher ROI than other marketing initiatives. And in its 2016 State of ABM study, market research firm SiriusDecisions found 70% of B2B companies are beginning to build ABM programs, while 87% of participants said ABM is extremely or very important to their marketing efforts.

Marketo recently highlighted five key benefits of ABM, and I think they’ve hit the nail on the head:

1. Clear ROI – Effective ABM drives clear business results. In fact, compared to other marketing initiatives, the 2014 ITSMA Account-Based Marketing Survey found that “ABM delivers the highest Return on Investment of any B2B marketing strategy or tactic.”
2. Reduced Resource Waste – Because ABM is so targeted, it allows marketers to focus their resources efficiently and run marketing programs that are specifically optimized for target accounts.
3. It’s Personal and Optimized – ABM entails personalizing your messaging and communications to specific accounts so that your campaigns resonate with these target audiences. Targeted customers are more likely to engage with content that is geared specifically to them, and is relevant to their business and stage in the buyer journey.
4. Tracking Goals & Measurement is Clear – When you’re analyzing the effectiveness of campaigns, whether email, ads, web, or events, it’s easier to draw clear conclusions, because you look at a smaller set of target accounts instead of a vast set of metrics.
5. Sales Alignment is Easier – ABM is perhaps one of the most efficient ways to align sales and marketing. This is primarily due to the fact that the marketer running an ABM program operates with a mindset very similar to sales—thinking in terms of accounts and how to target them, bring them to the table, and generate revenue from them.

Account-based marketing can help you reach the right prospect and customer with the right message at the right time. It’s 10am, so I’d love to tell you that I’m off to go buy my salad while no one is in line but…

Have a marketing or communications challenge?  Contact us.  We can help!

Looking for an effective approach for your social media strategy?
Give us a call and see how we can help.

Google has done it again, quietly making a significant change to the way its algorithms process Google AdWords that could be significant challenge for digital marketing if not understood and managed.  At Bluetext, we closely monitor all of updates to how the Google’s search engines returns query results, and we have posted a number of blogs to let our clients know about these changes and how to address them.

This time, it’s a little different because this change, which Google announced on March 17, addresses AdWords, the tool companies use to implement their keyword purchasing strategies, rather than a revision of its organic search functionality. With this change, marketers may need to adjust their spending programs for purchasing the keywords that drive traffic to their sites.

In the past with AdWords, marketers would select a set of short-tail search terms that would be part of their search advertising mix. For example, a hotel chain might include simple key phrases like “best hotels in Nashville,” mirroring the way customers search for a list of places to stay. Up until the latest change, that exact phrase would drive the Adwords results. But Google has decided that people don’t always type their searches as that exact phrase, dropping the “in” by mistake or even misspelling it as “on.” As a result, Google has decided to expand its close variant matching capabilities to include additional rewording and reordering for exact match keywords.

What does that mean? In layman’s terms, Google will now view what it calls “function words” – that is, prepositions (in, to), conjunctions (for, but), articles (a, the) and similar “connectors” as terms that do not actually impact the “intent” behind the query. Instead, it will ignore these function words in Adwords exact match campaigns so that that the intent of the query will be more important that the precise use of these words.

Sounds like a good move, because if you search for “best hotels in Nashville” or “Nashville best hotels,” the result will be the same in AdWords.

But what if the search is for “flights to Nashville,” which isn’t the same as “flights from Nashville”? Ignoring the function words “to” or “from” would change the purpose of the query. Google says not to worry, its algorithm will recognize the difference and not ignore those words since they do impact the intent.

Hopefully, Google will make good on that promise. But advertisers who have been briefed on this revision aren’t too certain. Their carefully constructed AdWords investments might take a hit if the function words are not managed precisely to meet this new approach.

We like the old adage of “Trust but verify.” While we take Google at its word, we know there are always growing pains with these types of revisions. For our clients, we are recommending that they carefully review the terms they are including in their AdWords mix. Our advice: Be as precise as you can and factor in how these functions words might be perceived before pulling the trigger. Losing traffic to your site because of placement of a simple word should be a real concern.

Want to think more about your adWords, search and SEO strategies. Bluetext can help.

It’s the beginning of a new year, and that means that industry experts will pull out their magic eight balls, clean their Google glasses, and attempt to see into the future. But as a marketer, it’s going to be tricky to understand what trends are real, and which ones aren’t worth spending time or resources chasing. Here’s what we can confidently predict: When technology experts take a stab at projecting into the future, they both overestimate the rate of consumer adoption and underestimate the resistance from political regulation. We all love the idea of Amazon’s warehouses in the sky delivering our packages by remote-controlled drones, and we may well be able to manufacture self-driving cars that are safe and efficient. But saying yes to UAVs circling our neighborhoods and giving the green light to driverless vehicles, that’s a different story altogether.

Digital marketing is evolving by the hour, but we can make some predictions on what’s going to be important to markets this year. Most important is how to survive these changes. So what should we expect in 2017 that may be more down to earth and actually come to pass, and how should you plan your strategy?

To find out, download our 2017 Digital Marketing Survivor Guide.

Last week it was announced that software company Synopys would acquire Cigital, a leading provider of software security services to help software developers build security into their application development process.

Here is the news:
http://www.darkreading.com/perimeter/synopsys-expands-software-security-with-cigital-codiscope-acquisitions/d/d-id/1327434

In 2015, following an exhaustive search Cigital selected Bluetext for a full scale rebranding effort, including logo, corporate identity, and fully responsive website.

At the time, Cigital’s challenge was a common one we hear from many of our prospects. To paraphrase, “our services and people are so far superior to our main competition, but our brand is holding us back and we are getting out marketed.”

This assignment was directly in our sweet spot.

We worked with the Cigital team to create a powerful brand that was differentiated and visually appealing to send a message to the market that things are different at Cigital and now is the time to take notice. The rebrand created a swagger for the company that clearly led to success as judged by last week’s news.

We were not specifically hired with the assignment of positioning the company for sale. But this is another instance in a long line of rebrand efforts, including Acentia, Altimeter, Force3 and several others, where the company successfully sold shortly after our rebranding effort.

Every client has a unique challenge.

Rarely does a client call saying that they want to sell and need to rebrand now. But when engaging with a client, it is always in the back of our minds. Our goal is to take a seat at the table with our clients, understand their unique challenges and ultimate goals, and help them execute a campaign to achieve this goals in the most efficient manner possible.

Kudos to Cigital, Jim Ivers and the entire team. We could not be more proud of the work we did to help successfully position you for this exciting news. To read more about our solution check out our Cigital case study. To learn more about the importance of a strong brand, read our latest:

Planning for the New Year? Is Your Branding Up to Snuff?

With a new year comes new expectations. More qualified leads. Better content. More PR coverage…just some of the areas that b2b marketers are measured against.

The New Year marks a great time to unveil a new brand identity to the market. Usually in January there is the company wide sales kickoff meeting where the team is hungry for something new. Out with the old and in with the new. A new look is always a smart way for b2b marketers to kick off the year in style.

A lot goes into creating and launching a new brand. Determining the new brand identity, then doing all the steps to launch it are critical for success. How well you handle the transition process from the old to the new and how that plays out can go a long way toward determining the success of your launch. As you only have one chance at a first impression, every step you take in in the process must be executed flawlessly.

So let’s think about audiences. First and foremost is the internal audience. They say that more than 50% of the success of a rebranding effort is determined by how well it is received by your internal champions. These are the people that will be the first line of defense when presenting the new brand to their customers and partners. They should love it. They should feel inspired. They should be prepared to scream about why you did it and what it means to the market from the mountaintop.

To best do this, they need key messages delivered on a silver platter. And they need to be easy to communicate. Having a consistent story to tell is critical. Think of it like a game of telephone. Once you tell them why you did this you have no idea where the message will go. By the time it reaches a hot prospect it may lose its impact. And remember, you only have one chance at a first impression.

Once key constituents understand why you did it, the next critical question for b2b marketers to answer is how will the news and message get communicated, and when can people talk about it. From the smallest requests (when will by new business cards arrive) to the most critical brand story telling channels (when will the website get updated), no detail should be overlooked. A detailed rollout plan is critical for success.

Say it Loud and Say It Proud
Many brand marketers don’t get the respect they are due. Their efforts are reduced to simple questions from others such as “what hours do I need to be working at the tradeshow booth?”

A new brand identity is the time to make a splash, and what better time than the New Year when we are done celebrating past years’ success and are now ready to move forward with the new branding. If you are like most b2b companies you have a big sales kickoff where everyone is hungry to see what is new for the near year. If you coordinate efforts well, all materials are ready, all messages are crisp, and you have the perfectly captive audience of internal influencers to get behind your efforts. Leverage the promotional opportunity the kickoff presents to make it memorable.

You Made the Splash, Now What?
Let’s face it. Launching the new brand is just the top of the iceberg. There are a million things to do and pieces of communication to coordinate. People have questions, and you should have answers. Now is the time to move back into your measured marketing roll and create a perfect spreadsheet to show the team how things will roll out. Use the rebrand as an opportunity to create a cadence of messages for partners, prospects, and customers. This is your new brand platform to deliver a new message for 2017. The market should experience it in everything you do, from your tradeshow booth to your website to your lead generation campaigns. A coordinated effort will enable you to get rewarded for your efforts while successfully launching the new brand identity to the market.

Don’t forget What Got You Here
If you are thinking about rebranding for 2017, you have been successful in your job in 2016. That means that you had something valuable for the market and did a good job delivering it. Now is a good time to meet with your core audiences to get their feedback. What is resonating about the new branding and message? Have you and your team done a good enough job clearly explaining why you did this? Does the identity fit the company you want to be? Does the market understand the meaning behind the new brand?

Ready to Get Started?
At Bluetext branding is in our DNA. We work with organizations across many industries to help them create and launch new brands to the market. From logo development to corporate visual identity to responsive web design to trade show booths and new collateral, we have the resources and expertise ready to tackle whatever challenge you are facing with your brand. Now is the time – the New Year is just around the corner. Do you have the platform to deliver a powerful message to the market? Reach out today to find out how Bluetext can elevate your brand.

If you are a CMO or executive at a DC-area organization seeking to hire a digital marketing firm, do you Google search for “Top DC digital marketing firms” or “Top digital marketing firms?” Maybe you don’t use a search engine at all, but that’s a conversation for another day.

The point is that for many organizations, there is significant perceived value in having a marketing agency that is “local” – whether it’s a b2b marketing agency, b2g marketing agency or b2c marketing agency. The true value of engaging with the best “local” marketing firm as opposed to just the best marketing firm period is a more nuanced consideration that depends on the specific needs of your organization. To help with that decision, I’ve assembled five key questions to ask yourself before deciding if your marketing partner should be local:

How much value do you place on face time?

CMOs must be honest with themselves upfront about how important it is to have your marketing agency team available for in-person meetings. This should be a factor in the pre-hire evaluation phase – how big a factor is up to the CMO. It can be practically and economically unreasonable to expect a non-local marketing agency to show up on short notice, but it is also true that getting together in-person can foster improved team chemistry and allow for easier oversight.

How specialized are your marketing requirements?

As is the case with any product or service, the laws of supply and demand apply. If your organization is based in Cleveland, there will certainly be sufficient marketing agencies to choose from. But how niche is your product/service or vertical market you serve? Perhaps you need an agency with experience marketing consumer-facing ride-sharing startups, or software for the healthcare industry. All of the sudden, the list of credible b2b marketing agencies or b2c marketing agencies with this type of experience in Cleveland shrinks. It is a tradeoff for CMOs, and based on your specialized your needs are, a non-local marketing agency may be necessary to provide the expertise your organization requires.

Does your marketing agency need knowledge of the local market?

Your local market, for various reasons, may be critical to initial or long-term growth. One of the reasons that leading technology brands turn to Bluetext for b2g marketing and b2g public relations is that we’ve developed unique expertise understanding what makes this market tic and the messages required to reach and influence decision makers.

That’s just one example though; it could be that your local market is a critical early engine for customer growth, or that you need an agency that has strong relationships with local broadcast, print and online media. Even the most skilled national marketing and pr agencies will require time to ramp up in better understanding some local markets.

Do you have the right technology to manage virtual teams?

If you already work with other vendors that are virtual, then you may have the necessary technologies, tools and processes in place to effectively communicate and mange a virtual marketing agency. These tools range from conferencing and collaboration to messaging, presence, video and project management, and it is important to lock in on a set of tools that can be used across all vendors – rather than continuing to add a patchwork of standalone apps that end up complicating rather than aiding vendor communication.

There is evidence that technology vendors recognize the need for more integration. Our own client BroadSoft delivers truly integrated business communications in response to the avalanche of apps and tools that marketing departments can now choose from.

Consider these factors when deciding if a local digital marketing and public relations agency is the best move for your organization. And to learn more about Bluetext, click here:

When people ask me about Bluetext, I often find myself calling us of the region’s top B2B marketing firms. We work with world class global enterprises. We are on the cutting edge of branding trends and focused on leveraging emerging marketing channels. And we have a world class team of people focused on delivering great results for our clients. So here is my take on what makes us one of the top B2B marketing firms:

1. A top B2B marketing firm works across a wide variety of industries. In my view, focusing on just a few industries can be limiting and lead to tired tactics. Instead, taking the learnings from some industries and applying them into adjacent markets can be valuable to clients.
2. A top B2B marketing firm can tackle a wide variety of marketing assignments, delivering integrated solutions for clients. Clients like integrated service offerings. They like to work with clients who create a strategy then are able to roll it out via many channels.
3. A top B2B marketing firm is working at the forefront of emerging delivery channels. See our recent work for Varonis at bluetext.com/varonis
4. A top B2B marketing firm gives guidance versus simply taking orders. Challenging assumptions, doing things differently, and looking at ideas through different lenses can be incredibly valuable.
5. A top B2B marketing firm starts with goals versus focusing on channels. Understanding where a client wants to go before deciding how to get there can be quite valuable.
6. A top B2B marketing firm should have a seat at the table with you during key strategic meetings.
7. A top B2B marketing firm should push your internal team to think beyond traditional channels and programs to reach prospects in new and unique ways.
8. A top B2B marketing firm is part of the community and recognized for its great work
9. A top B2B marketing firm is able to adjust strategies mid-course.
10. A top B2B marketing has a client roster that you immediately recognize.

So that is my list. That is how I define a top B2B marketing firm. What did I miss? Please share other ideas and I can update the post in the future. And for more insights on B2B marketing, reach out to Bluetext today: