Friday, December 1, 2017

Content Marketing and Why Is It Important.....


`Content is king’ is an oft-repeated phrase but in the present scenario, it is the king, queen, and in fact the whole army. Those days, when one could rely on advertising to connect with the customers, are well behind us. Today, content marketing is transforming the communication of brands with their consumers. A marketing agency in Bangalore, a tech loving city, needs to be aware that the popularity of social media has changed how consumers get information and has forced the companies to get close to their customers and create a sense of bonding. They need to keep churning out stories and information at regular intervals that can interest and facilitate a clearly defined audience and pursue it to invest time and money in the brand.

A company that creates relevant and valuable content for people and markets it well is rated higher and has a better brand image than the one that does not. The former is considered as voice of authority and thus, has more following. Also since the communication is two-way with customers giving their feedback, the relationship helps in identifying the needs of consumer better, reducing the amount of complaints, and making tailor-made marketing strategies according to those needs and suggestions.   

Good quality, creative and unique articles and not just keyword-heavy copies are preferred by both customers and search engines. A vast population of internet subscribers, especially in metropolitan cities visit websites and social media accounts because there is something to engage and entertain them like short films, pictures, memes, articles, podcasts etc. A point that should be thoroughly noted by a marketing agency in Bangalore and other megacities. With more businesses going online, brilliant content backed by a well-targeted and customized content marketing strategy will bring in rich dividends, both in terms of generating more sales and developing a loyal customer base by reaching out to individuals who didn’t even know that your brand existed.

Also, content marketing is cost-effective compared to many other marketing tools, but it demands time and patience more than big investments. Profits flow in once you are able to establish a special association with the prospects. Another advantage of content marketing is that the owner doesn’t need to have any prior experience of traditional marketing. It’s a new ball game and a level playing field with a lot of scope of making mistakes and learning, a win-win situation for a marketing agency in Bangalore, a city with a population open to fresh ideas. Strategies may not hit the bull’s eye in the first attempt but one can easily revamp the strategy once the faults have been identified. 


However, remember, the core of content marketing lies in caring for the customer and convincing them of that in way possible. 

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Web Design Trends to Look out in 2017



Web design is a dynamic industry. Trends keep changing and nobody can claim that they are in sync with the latest technology practices.
Coding is not changed since the inception of HTML and CSS. There are additions to the structure and new queries are added up every now and then.
Design industry is an open arena where anybody and everybody can experiment with their imagination. The key to success here is to provide the user with better UI and UX.
One has to be proficient in basic design structure. Once that is achieved, concentrate on how to stand out from the crowd.
Let’s have a look at the predictions on what’s in store for us come 2017.

Mobile-First Design

Basically, websites are designed with desktops as primary devices. For some time now, there’s a trend going on where the websites are designed with a mobile-first approach.
Mobile-First design restricts the amount of content that goes into a page. This is a boon to the companies in disguise. Instead of stuffing in more content for the web spiders to crawl, this method actually pressurize companies to get rid of unwanted content and focus on key messages that goes into the page.
So, what goes into the desktop version then?
Simple. The images, visuals, animations and icons are bigger and scaled up as and when the device type is changed. 






Device Specific Design



Now, in 2016, Apple has come up with technologies such as fingerprint authentication, 3D Touch and much more hardware related improvements to their device lineup. Implementing these to work with your application/website can help create new UX types to visitors. This keeps them engaging.
Other device manufacturers are also heating up the race in market by providing user friendly and time saving features time and again.
Improvisation is always the best thing in design industry. Make sure to keep up the pace and research more on technologies that has potential to change the way we browse web pages.





Design Itself







Gone are the days of flamboyant 3D type designs and animations. Each passing day, organizations are concentrating more on clutter free, flat designs that convey information straight forward.












Prototyping



Prototyping helps any UI/UX designers to test their application usability with minimum man hours without coding.
Adopting this method saves hours of work that are wasted in coding and then scrapping the whole thing.

These tools are self-explanatory. The need for providing mockups and explaining the functionality to the client are long gone. The client gets to see the exact application interface and this eliminates any crucial setbacks in the project.






The Rise Of Illustrations



Forget the days where one had to research and find relevant stock images to convey a product functionality or service explanation.
Now comes the illustrations that can be used in any device types that never pixelates. These little, easy to load “SVG” graphics are on the rise.
Infographics, vertical scrolling, icons, animated elements, and the list goes on and on. There are unlimited possibilities with these little illustrations.







Typography



Now, with the rise of web font library, typography is not consigned to Helvetica anymore!
Big and visually appealing fonts are used everywhere to shout out the message. It’s short, sweet and to the point.
Typography has to be easy on the eyes. The audience must feel like reading more and more. Choose the fonts wisely and write only what is required.








Photography




Bombard the site with too much of illustrations? Not good!
This is where photography comes into picture. For instance, where an “about us” page has to be designed, illustrations does not fit well for a banner in all the cases. Instead of procuring a stock image for that, it is highly recommended that the actual office, employees, work area and other elements can be photographed. This acts as a virtual tour to the visitor and also creates a sense of belonging.







Animations



Gone are the animations where rockets popped up on the page and asked the users to subscribe!
The animations used in the best websites create an environment of storytelling, micro interactions with the users, the navigation in and between the pages are clutter-free. Feels like home!
Use animations where necessary and also decide what is important and come up with relevant animations. Animations must not annoy the visitors. Animations must help the UI/UX of the page.







Videos


When there is video, everything else fall like a house of cards. Videos conveys the message directly. No need to read, scroll, search for the information. This medium captures the user’s concentration. Rest is left to the creativity of the storyboard and narrative. This can make or break any website’s user base.












Colors





What is the common color for websites? Red, Orange, Purple, Blue, Green, Brown…
That is not the end. In web design, 16,777,216 colors can be used!!!
Now is the time to use colors that are vivid, bold and courageous everywhere ranging from logo design to video overlay.









Parallax




Parallax is not just vertical and horizontal. This is a strategic approach. Content delivery plays a crucial role in engaging the users. This varies on what is being showcased.  Make sure to use parallax on web design as this brings a world of good to the whole website.











Conclusion

At the time of writing this article, there might be a swarm of trends getting recognized in the web world. Not the one can master everything. The key points discussed above is a good place to start with. Getting the design right takes a lot of time, research and resources.
There’s a famous saying, “It takes 13 hours to build a Toyota and 6 months to build a Rolls Royce”.