This is a reposting of our email sent out on April 17, 2012 to subscribers of our email list. It’s easy enough to get get more stories like this delivered to your inbox on an occasional basis: just enter your email address in the field to the right!

A New Web Site For Authentic Designs
Lives Up to Its Name.

In nearby Rupert, Vermont, you can find one of the most amazing companies you’re likely to see anywhere nowadays: Authentic Designs, a workshop and showroom dedicated to recreating authentic lighting designs from 18th and 19th century America. We’re talking hand-built, one-at-a-time, made-to-order craftsmanship — solid brass chandeliers, lanterns and sconces, all cleverly reconfigured to exceed UL safety standards.

We’ve been working with the folks at Authentic Designs for a while now, and are pleased to have redesigned and relaunched AuthenticDesigns.com, a fresh site that offers stories and videos about the company, newly enhanced product information, and a secure single-page online shopping cart.

It’s a great company, with a cool story, run by nice people who are producing real, quality products. And now, they have a web site to match.

Visit our website to learn more about what went into making this new ecommerce site fully functional and very affordable. While you’re there, check out the link to view Authentic Designs’ engaging, home-grown and cost-effective “About Us” video.

Targeting for Engagement
on Facebook

Once we’d completed the promotional site for his new how-to book on shooting home video Ready Steady Shoot! New York filmmaker Roger Sherman wanted to generate some buzz in social media.

We created a campaign using Facebook Ads targeted at three niche audiences, and built a custom FB landing page complete with video, shooting tips, and links to more great content.

The results? The message is on the move. As weekly reach has doubled from four weeks ago, the brand has over 1600 new fans, and Facebook now ranks #3 for driving highly engaged traffic to the site.

If you’re interested in ways to generate awareness and engagement, get in touch. We’re always happy to chat, learn about your business, and offer some insights.

image courtesy of Jane Davies

Head down Mill Street to a converted toothpick mill on the banks of the Indian River, the home of Authentic Designs. The polished wood showrooms in front display over 300 styles of traditional period and colonial lamps, chandeliers, lanterns and sconces. Virtually every piece is a faithful reproduction of originals found in early American homes, farms, museums, and historical institutions.

Each fixture is crafted right here, built by hand one at a time in the workshop out back. Skilled fabricators work with sheet metal, brass tubing, and custom lighting components to produce works that will last for generations, adding character to any room or entryway, brightening the spirit a well as the space.

We’ve been working with the folks at Authentic Designs for a while, and are pleased to have recently launched the redesigned AuthenticDesigns.com, a fresh site that offers stories and videos about the company, newly enhanced product information, and a secure single-page online shopping cart.

It’s a great company, with a cool story (make sure you check out their About Us video), run by nice people who are producing really wonderful products. And now, they have a web site to match.

The new site is up and running on MagentoGo, an affordable eCommerce platform which offers a broad selection of marketing integrations right out of the box, and allows for a huge degree of customization. We added a number of new SEO-friendly elements and strategies, as well as Google Analytics, MailChimp, Facebook and other data integrations to the back end.

We also redesigned the user interface to better represent the brand’s commitment to quality, and to highlight the distinct visual qualities of their product line. Take a look and let us know what you think.

And along the way, he’s seen more than his fair share of amateur videos that were, well, hard to sit through — regardless of the good intentions of the people who shot the footage.

Now he’s sharing his wisdom and experience in a way that can help anyone shoot better home video. The director and cinematographer has just published his first book, Ready Steady Shoot: The Guide to Great Home Video.

This little book is packed with easy tips and techniques that make home video more fun to make and to watch. Unlike the other home video titles, Ready Steady Shoot doesn’t dwell on technical aspects like which camera to use; instead, it’s all about how to approach your subject and put together a series of visually interesting shots that tell a whole story.

The new web site, ReadySteadyShoot.com, offers an introduction to Roger’s techniques featuring “Ten-Shot” video samples and “How-To” blog posts, along with a basic Paypal option for buying the book. We’ve also helped position and market the title via a Facebook Page, using Facebook Ads and a custom landing page to identify and build an online community quickly. You can also buy the book directly on Facebook: we set up a simple Payvment storefront that lets users make a secure and easy purchase within the familiar context of the FB page.

And there’s more to come. The new site went from discussion to deployment in just a month; now that it’s live we’re moving on to redesign FlorentineFilms.com

Google requires prospective partners to pass a series of specialized tests that cover fundamental Adwords topics (including campaign development, effective PPC campaign architecture, bid management and quality score), as well as more advanced strategies like effective video advertising, display banner & interactive ad campaigns, and advanced conversion tracking. In addition to passing the tests, a successful company must have managed at least $10,000 in advertising over the past 90 days.

We’ve been using Adwords since them good ol’ days of 25¢ keyword bids, and now manage Display and Search campaigns for clients using Google, Facebook and Bing. It was great to brush up on the latest Adwords tools and techniques as we prepped for the tests — the advertising ecosystem is changing faster than ever, and we’re dedicated to ensuring our clients have quick access to expert advice and assistance.

The new site, HummelGifts.com, offers a wide range of gifts and collectible items from coffee mugs and holiday plates to calendars and housewares, each featuring a reproduction of the original M.I. Hummel artwork.

The emphasis is on the original artwork; you won’t find any porcelain figurines here (they’re on eBay, which currently lists over 6,000 Hummel figurines). The initial licensed product offering on HummelGifts.com will soon be growing substantially, as the site steps into product personalization later this year.

We built this niche-tageted ecommerce site web site on the new Magento Go hosted platform, providing customized brand development, theme design, product and catalog management, SEO and third-party integrations. We’re also working with some personalization software people to integrate a seamless online experience. As that goes live, we’ll provide updates here.

This week, we’ve launched the brand new web site for the Long Trail School in Dorset, Vermont.

With less than 200 students from grades 6-12, this school offers an academically robust curriculum on 14 acres nestled in the foothills of the Taconics. Long Trail is the first school in the state to receive accreditation by the respected International Baccalaureate program. Its academic strengths are focused, the results are impressive. This from Wikipedia:

Class sizes currently average 8-12 students, though classes with only a single student are not unheard of at Long Trail. Academic standards are high by comparison to other local schools, with test scores consistently above state and local averages. Even after offering IB courses, Long Trail continues to offer some Advanced Placement classes, many independent study opportunities and student-demanded classes.

The new site is a dramatic shift from the previous site. A visual focus on the campus serves as a metaphor for the educational community — expansive and intimate at the same time — and serves as an environment for the beautiful new collection of community portraits we commissioned from award-winning photographer Les Jorgensen. (Les’ work will be featured in an upcoming limited edition book that tells the stories of a diverse group of Long Trail students, staff and faculty.) The site’s full-screen campus imagery will change throughout the year, to reflect the natural beauty of the school throughout Vermont’s four seasons.

We’ve also included a streamlined navigation, new and improved search, and updated content in many areas. This completes the first phase in a comprehensive approach to enhance the school’s online existence; additional integrations and site improvements will be added over the coming months.

The new site was built on Long Trail’s existing WordPress platform, which allows the school to reuse a number of still-relevant digital assets and leverages the staff’s expertise in operating the back end. We customized a theme from Elegant Themes — we were impressed with their solid code base and knowledgable support team — and worked closely with the LTS team to identify user personas, streamline content, update branding and improve user experience.

As is often the case in projects of this scope, the quality of the team had a tremendous influence on the positive outcome of the new site. Their shared vision and commitment to quality helped make the design and development process as enjoyable as the end result.

There’s a light-hearted quality to the simple illustrations that highlight a wide range of life’s “crappier” moments, from painful (mountain bike face plant) to annoying (broken high heels, your golf game, poorly trained pets…), with a touch of wryness on the side (“Out of Merlot. Life is Crap.”).

Keeping wth the brand’s tagline — “Life is Crap, and Laughter is the Cure!” — every piece is designed to provoke a smile, and reminds us keep it all in perspective.

And the message resonates. Throughout the current slow economic period, the brand’s relevance and popularity has been on the rise. After a couple years of consistent growth in online and retail sales, the company knew it had outgrown its existing ecommerce web site — an old WordPress-powered front end tied to a separate third-party cart.

We redesigned the site and launched this spring on a new platform. The new site, built on the BigCommerce platform, sports an updated interface, streamlined taxonomy, support for multiple brands, fully integrated ecommerce and enhanced email capabilities. With a number of new features designed to improve user experience and make shopping easier, it’s no surprise to see user engagement take a dramatic jump:

• average time on site is up over 50%,
• average pageviews have doubled,
• and the bounce rate is down by half.

The way I see it, this has gotta be our crappiest project yet. And I couldn’t be happier.

The company is well named. Over the years, they’ve developed an immense collection of sconces, lamps, lanterns and chandeliers, drawn from originals in private collections, historic buildings, antique dealers and museums. From design to construction, every fixture has been invested with exacting attention to detail.

Their latest print ad campaign is now running in lifestyle and housing magazines, including Vermont Magazine, Old House Interiors, and New England Home. You can view the new advertising design here or on Flickr, and see their entire product selection online.

]]> http://davelindberg.com/in-print-early-american-lighting-from-authentic-designs/feed/ 0 http://davelindberg.com/optimize-adwords-for-instant-savings/ http://davelindberg.com/optimize-adwords-for-instant-savings/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:04:23 +0000 Dave http://davelindberg.com/word/?p=261 It’s easy enough to find good information on how to improve the Quality Score of your paid search keywords. Optimizing your account according to industry best practices can improve your click rates, traffic, and conversions. But most dramatic is the speed and impact a higher QS will have on decreasing your ad costs.

The changes we recently made to a client’s Adwords campaign illustrates just how big the difference can be. Once we identified the high-value products and which keywords best expressed an intent to purchase, it was pretty straight forward to make sure that related keywords, optimized ads and relevant landing pages were all organized into easily managed ad groups.

Watch the Prices Drop

The fun part was seeing the immediate effect that improving Quality Score had on the first-page bid costs. Even though there was nothing earth-shattering in the approach, average QS for high-value broad match keywords jumped from 1/10 (lowest rating) to 7/10 (way better); while click prices dropped by 87% across the campaign.

While there’s still some room for improvement, much of that relates to landing page quality. We’ll work on that next, but won’t enjoy the immediate positive feedback we got from reorganizing the account. Google’s admission that they’re not nearly as robust when it comes to updating landing page quality falls within the standard caveat of SEO:

“Significant changes improving the relevance and quality of your landing pages should impact your keywords Quality Score over the next several months. You probably won’t see an impact within the first few days.”

Obviously, not every marketing effort provides such immediate gratification. But if it’s been a while since you’ve taken a close look at your Quality Scores, here’s an opportunity to instill some fast change.

Official Support for Broader Broadband

The politicians and executives at the front of the room spoke about broadband’s vital role in economic growth: without access, education reform is crippled, growth in tourism stumbles, and businesses simply won’t consider relocating to an area that’s lacking basic digital infrastructure.

We heard that 17 countries worldwide provide faster overall broadband speed than the US, and Vermont trails 34 states that provide greater broadband access to their citizens.

They laid out VTEL’s 4-part plan to scale reliable service throughout the state.

1. increasing the fiber network directly to tens of thousands of businesses and homes within the current VTEL service network area
2. providing direct fiber access to core educational, municipal and civic institutions throughout the state
3. building a wireless 4G/LTE network to cover all areas of the state whose current access is spotty or nonexistent
4. developing a community outreach program at the grass roots level to help communities leverage the new opportunities

Touting the unmatched level of federal investment in the state, a commitment to affordability, and the vision that Vermont will become the first rural state to connect all its citizens, all officials were unified in their support of the new program that’ll provide “full broadband to all homes in three years.”

A Different Type of Customer

But once the speeches were done and the time came for audience Q&A, another view emerged strong and clear.

One after another, questions came from Vermonters who are frustrated by being denied the opportunity to engage in our current online social transformation. Individuals, small business owners, educators and more – all united by the restricted access to the web – stood up and spoke out.

VTEL has an impressive record of customer satisfaction, but now finds itself with a large segment of its customer base who (a) didn’t make the personal choice to move their business to the company, (b) are receiving incomplete or inaccurate information from various online sources, and (c) don’t have a long-term history with the company and its historic level of customer service. Since these people are in “unserved or underserved” areas, many are slated to receive wireless network over the next 3 years.

Again and again, we heard the same basic questions:

• Will the 4G/LTE network be robust enough to handle the traffic and demand?
• How well will wireless work in Vermont’s mountainous topography?
• Where is my town on the list, and when can we expect to see service?

There’s even greater concern that the 4G solution won’t provide sufficient bandwidth to handle online video for network subscribers. This is definitely a point of friction, since 90 percent of consumer traffic will be video by 2013.

With a two-tiered solution to providing statewide broadband access, VTEL and the US Rural Utilities Service have come up with a plan which, while improving the situation for all, still has the potential to leave a large percentage of the state underserved at the project’s end.

Even though as VTEL CEO Michel Guite pointed out, “LTE stands for Long Term Evolution” and has the strongest potential for growing over time to meet the increasing network demands, the perception of those in underserved areas of Vermont seems to be one of unreliable and insufficient access for years to come.

An Unmatched Opportunity to Engage

This is much more than a technical project; without an effective effort to involve every stakeholder in a constructive and informative discussion, the company may risk seeing its long-term strategy weakened. How VTEL decides to engage with its increasingly diverse customer base will be a critical component of success.

Bernie Sanders made it clear at the meeting’s outset that a focus on transparency and accountability will be a key component throughout the life of the project. VTEL has been given an immense opportunity to create a fundamental difference in the state’s infrastructure and economy. Let’s hope their commitment to providing open online communications is up to the job.