Planit and GBMC identified Primary Care Physicians that operate on the hospital's main Towson campus (as well as in satellite locations across the region) as a key component for feeding the “funnel” of the hospital’s various service lines. The more new patients get engaged in a healthcare relationship with GBMC-affiliated Primary Care doctors, the more they are referred to GBMC specialists and ancillary services. GBMC challenged Planit to go beyond the typical look of hospital advertising—a field cluttered with ads featuring images of doctors and hospital buildings—in order to raise awareness of physician offices throughout Baltimore County and increase new patient volumes.

When should I start thinking about SEO?

When clients come to us for a new web design, we are often asked about SEO. SEO, which stands for search engine optimization, has come a long way in the past few years. These days, a comprehensive SEO strategy is absolutely essential in order for your site to rank (or show up) in Google’s natural (unpaid) search results. Some marketers see natural search results as “low-hanging fruit.” While SEO may seem like an easy way to drive targeted traffic to your site, many factors need to be considered before you even start your design. 

The tricky part is how and when to actually incorporate SEO into the web design and development process. If not done properly, you can do some serious damage to your website and brand. So where do you start? And when should you start incorporating SEO into your web design/development process?

SEO needs to be integrated into your web design

Whether you are designing a new site or redesigning your existing site, it is extremely important that you begin to incorporate your SEO strategy from the very beginning. Here are the steps that I suggest for implementing a sound SEO strategy into your web design process:

1) Analytics and benchmark analysis

If you are redesigning your site, before you do anything you should assess your site’s analytics to see what is and isn’t working. Which keywords are your current customers using to get to your site? Which keywords are generating leads or sales? Which keywords have high bounce rates? If you don’t currently have an analytics program running on your site, I strongly recommend installing Google Analytics, which is a free analytics solution, and letting it run for a week or two before doing any heavy lifting on your new site.

It is also important to take a snapshot of where your site currently ranks in natural search. This will allow you to compare search rankings before and after launching your new site, and determine how effective you were.

2) Customer analysis

Using tools like Google Insights for Search, you can determine trends in your industry based on the search behavior of your customers.

In a recent blog post, Hal Varian, Google’s in-house economist, gave a few examples of how this tool can be used to “predict the present.” Put some of the buzz words of your industry into Google Insights for Search and it will come back with other related terms, as well as upcoming terms. These keyword phrases are terms that you could potentially target in your SEO as well as into your general marketing strategy/communications.

3) Competitive analysis

Oftentimes, when we ask our clients for a list of their competitors, they reply with a list of their top four or five most competitive industry rivals. What most people don’t realize is that their competitors online might be very different from their competitors offline. For example, there may be an industry-related blog that is stealing natural search traffic related to one of their product pages. 

The great thing about the internet is that it is very transparent. A professional trained in SEO can analyze your online competitors and figure out why they are out-performing you. 

4) Content strategy and IA

Remember those keywords we identified in steps 1 and 2? Now it’s time to put those to use. It is important to structure your site in such a way that the most important keywords are given the most prominence on your site. When designing your site, you not only need to take into account your site’s visitor experience, but also the Google crawler’s experience. It should be easy for both your visitors and Google to:

a) Navigate your site

b) Find what they’re looking for

c) Understand the purpose of each page

Think of SEO as a way of making it easy for Google to quickly determine what each page of your site is about.

5) Building your site using best practices

Once you have a great-looking web design and a strategy for targeting your most valuable keywords, it’s time to actually build and launch your site. As more and more people are using mobile devices to browse the web, it’s critical to ensure that your site loads quickly. Web development standards need to be taken into account so that your site’s code is optimized for fast loading. Failure to do so could result in a high bounce rate, which in turn could lead to lower natural search rankings.

SEO best practices should also be incorporated into your site. Placing your targeted keywords in your site’s Metadata and various on-page elements (headers, alt tags, etc.) is important, but you should not go overboard. Stuffing keywords where they shouldn’t be can get you in serious trouble with Google. Again, it’s important to strike a balance between SEO and usability. Each page of your site should be optimized for a specific keyword phrase, and the content of the page should be relevant to the page title and contain a minimum of about 300 words.

You’re not done yet.

SEO is not like the Showtime Rotisserie you see advertised on late-night infomercials. You can’t just “set it and forget it.” There are many other factors that determine where your site ranks, one of the most important being the inbound links you have coming into your site. And careful, continual analysis needs to be performed on a periodic basis to determine what’s working and what’s not.

A solid SEO strategy can take your online business to the next level. Just remember that designing your site for search engines and your customers’ experience are equally important. 

Does it really beat going to the store yourself? I guess it depends on how busy you are.  It's definitely progressive.

Will it work in the States? Maybe, but even NYC is only just beginning to have cell service underground. And it is limited at best.   

So what do you think? Is the next big thing underground shopping? 

Keep in mind, I was watching it in real time, so I had no idea who it was from. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I smiled when the Lowe’s logo was revealed at the end.

They’ve managed to make the DIY-big box experience aspirational.

Proof that storytelling (even without a spoken work) can work wonders.

Enjoy. Or debate.

"I prefer winter and fall, when you can feel the bone structure in the landscape—the loneliness of it—the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."

Describing the landscape as having bone structure is beautifully creative and concise. As a viewer, I was able to gain a deeper appreciation for the painting.

So, how does this apply to my life as an art director?

Reading the artist's thoughts next to each painting reminded me that visual artists need also be verbal artists. This especially holds true in advertising and design. The ability to describe and explain the motivation and reasoning behind an ad campaign or logo is a vital creative skill. It's not enough to say "It looks cool." The client needs to know how that cool factor will specifically support the objective. Or, maybe it's a conservative look that will accomplish the client's goals. Regardless of the stylistic approach, it needs to clearly be stated why that approach is appropriate. After all, advertising agencies and design shops are in the communication business, so it's important they themselves learn to communicate in all forms.

So, at this year's F8 conference which occurred yesterday, new features to Facebook make things a bit more challenging for marketers—like us!

First, here are some of the changes that will have us revisiting some of the old tried-and-true social tactics.

The Like Button:

You know the "like" button that appears on friend and page/application posts and pictures? Well, clicking "like" on them will no longer appear in your news feed. So, if I "like" a great Fila Toning post, it will not say "Ryan Smith likes XYZ post on Fila Toning." That's a lot of visibility lost. Sharing is the new "like" to get those impressions. But, this also requires your friends/fans within the Facebook platform to truly "LIKE" your post, and not just "like" your post. Facebook is trying to make an honest fan out of us, vs. just passive "likers." They are almost saying, we'll give you more visibility if your friends/fans take the extra effort to share. Note: "likes" can be found racing by in that annoying new ticker feature.

What's also changing about the like button/link, is that now it will have some company. Thanks to Facebook Gestures, more verbs will be introduced. Facebook saw how limiting just "liking" something could be. What about "watched," "listened," etc. I'm interested to see how this will play out for businesses. Will women be "wearing" Fila on Facebook in the near future?

———

From Involver's blog:
For the marketer, these new verbs enable brands to provide users with richer interactions and much more structured stream stories.

For example:

• Entertainment brands can post videos that create a stream story based on what a specific user just “watched”
• Retailers can display items corresponding to what users “want”
• Politicians can allow fans to declare their loyalty with “recommend” or “voted for” verbs

———

Recent News:

As you've already probably noticed, relevant news stories will now be given more weight. Relevant stories are judged by Facebook's algorithms that consider your relationship and activity with a specific friend or page. This of course pushes "page" content down that could presumably be less of a relationship to us. Makes you start to think if you are really "friends" with your fans.

Images:

Friends' new photos/albums have big real estate in your feed, whereas Page photo updates are still very small.

So, what do these Facebook changes mean for marketers?

In short, avoid the easy tactics you currently rely on.
It's assumed that people will still "like" your page on facebook. But, with your posts getting buried in the mix, and "like" no longer serving as impressions, it's not certain that your brand will get the face time it needs to get any sort of return. We need to start adding more substantial value for our customers. So…

Think of your fanpage more as a service, vs. a newsfeed.
Truth is, this has always been the case. But, Facebook is getting smarter. It knows that nobody likes spam. Think of it like email. We all have spam blockers. Because we hate spam. Facebook is essentially creating spam filters on content that you may not like. Or, at least highlighting the things you WILL like. To counteract this, offer your fans more than just updates. As it stands now, applications still serve as the gateway for fan participation with your brand. What's next for applications, though? We've all seen the contest platforms—the old submit and win strategy. I'd argue that people want applications that do more—say more.

As marketers, we need to evolve with Facebook. With new updates like Timeline, we could transform our fans' visits to our fanpages into immersive brand experiences. "What were the styles from 3 years ago? Can I still purchase that?" How will applications involve the Timeline feature? Truthfully, I have no idea—yet. Hopefully we can figure it out before someone else does (or Facebook disables the feature).

For more on these changes, and others, check out Mashable's seemingly real-time write ups.

Product placement was said to be the new form of advertising within shows and movies.

I don’t see any sign of how true this is. Product placement is nothing new to the entertainment business, and commercials seem to have made themselves at home within online content.

I do, however, think this idea is pretty fascinating. Where are the next places we’ll be putting client messaging? For example, will credit card companies start encouraging/incentivizing Farmville users with exclusive in-game rewards when they use their cards for fictitious Farmville purchases? 

At the risk of stating the obvious, my thought is that the efficacy of this new format walks the fine line between NOT being disruptive to the user’s experience while not being totally invisible—blending into the environment like a spoof or parody.

In regard to click-through rates for “traditional” banner advertising mentioned in this article—perhaps it’s time to up the ante on the creative product instead of bailing on it all together.

Your thoughts?

So often advertising is depicted as a cutthroat, competitive industry (especially within a market like Smalltimore) where agencies are consistently pitching against one another and employees float from one shop to another. As Dave Wassell, Associate Creative Director at MGH, pointed out, “the Addys are really the only occasion where everyone can unite to celebrate the innovative work that comes out of this town.” Even then, under the spell of cheese and wine, the event feels segregated; colleagues sit together, and return to the safety of their own pods the next day. Proud of their companies’ achievements? Definitely. Hungover? Possibly. Enlightened by new strategies and solutions shared by fellow associates? Unlikely. 

Each of the four creative directors agreed on one thing—agencies need to take more risks, be ballsy, and not be afraid to fail miserably if their initial pitch doesn’t hit the nail on the head. While Todd Harvey, Creative Director at Mission Media, feels spec work devalues the company’s work, MGH claims to have done spec work for every pitch they’ve made in the last six months. So how can we get CEOs of national brands to look beyond New York or Chicago and bring their business to Baltimore? And how do you view the indifference among agencies? Would advertising in our city be more successful as one big jovial group or should we carry on with a respectful hatred of our competitors? 

It’s been awhile since Monica Lewinski crossed my radar, not that I’ve missed her much, but I just got wind (via the Daily Mail, so take it with a grain of salt) that the former “friend” of Bill is looking to launch a new career in PR. Yes, you read that right, Capitol Hill’s Most Notorious Intern is toying with the idea of starting her own public relations company. I don’t know about you, but I’m not so sure I’d want to pay for Monica’s PR prowess seeing as how she got her fame for all the wrong reasons. Nearly 20 years later she’s still a walking punch line. But for argument’s sake, I could see the appeal one might see in hiring Miss Monica to dole out public image advice. I mean: It takes a PR disaster to know one, right?

Whatever the case, this little rumor got me thinking about who else I would add to my list of People I’d Never Take PR Advice From. I checked in with my fellow PR Planiteers and here’s who we came up with, in no particular order:

Balloon Boy’s dad
BP
Chris Brown
Lindsay Lohan (or her parents, Michael and Dina, for that matter)
Anthony Weiner
Jesse James
Charlie Sheen
Gary Busey
Mel Gibson
Jon and Kate, but we’d take it from their Plus 8
The Bachelor’s Vienna
Russell Edgington, former vampire king of Mississippi (for all you non-True Blood fans, he ripped out an anchorman’s spine on live, albeit fake, television)

(PRADA Advertisement from Vogue Magazine August 2011) 

“Oh hey! Here I am, just chillin’ with my ladies, uncomfortably wedged between the coffee table and the couch. Looks like you caught us in a real moment, didn’t you? Guess the only thing left to do is stare hauntingly at you.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love when magazines are filled with beautiful, compelling fashions and cutting-edge imagery. That’s half the reason I buy them. I even enjoy it when brands choose interesting ad layouts and photo shoots. I’m just asking the simple question: Has it gone too far? Are the high-end fashion designers taking themselves too seriously? 

Last week, I would have answered yes, but then I stumbled across this video campaign for Lanvin and I was pleasantly surprised. It pokes fun at itself and the industry. And yet the clothing still looks beautiful. 

Granted, no one is perfect. I was pretty disappointed when I looked into the Lanvin print ads and found that they weren’t as silly as the video. If only their team had utilized a QR code to link to the video. C’est la vie.

This video did get me thinking though. What’s next for high-fashion ads? Are the current and upcoming generations still enticed by these hoity-toity ads? I’m not sure. Let me know what you think when I get back from my contortionist couch-sitting class.