How to choose the right web design company

How to choose the right web design company

by | Apr 11, 2022 | Web Design

You don’t want to hire someone who is just happy to have you as a customer, and you don’t want to hire someone who is just happy to make your site look good. You want to hire someone who will understand your vision, and work closely with you on that vision.

There are plenty of companies out there offering web design services. But which one should you trust? Which one will ultimately help you achieve your goals? Which one will be able to help you with your goals more successfully than the competition? Which one is willing to take the risk and give it a shot?

Well, that’s where we come in. We at Web Premium have been working with dozens of clients over the past few years and we can tell you how we came up this far

What to look for in a web design company

Finding an awesome web design company is no easy task, but it is critical. The design industry is littered with thousands of companies that all claim to be the “best”, but which are all in the same boat: they are either a little better than the next, or a lot worse. 

In order to help you find the right web design company, let me help you out by giving you some pointers on what you should be looking for in one of those “best-in-the-business” companies:

1) Design expertise: 

A good designer will know how to make your site look great. They should also be able to tell clients which type of content works best on their site (which can help prevent them from wasting time). They can also tell you whether your site looks good or not (while writing code), which can save time and money later.

2) Good reputation: 

You don’t want someone who knows way too much about your business but also doesn’t know a thing about yours, because they might just make ridiculous assumptions about what’s “good” and “bad”. If they don’t know your business well enough to avoid making silly assumptions then they probably won’t do anything at all for you at all 

3) Open communication: 

There are always going to be trade-offs when it comes to communication, but these aren’t trade-offs that matter if you get everything right the first time around. Your designers should be able to talk openly about what’s going on without being afraid of criticism or causing offense. Furthermore, if there’s any project where open communication is really important then it’s when communicating with other internal teams. The worst-case scenario here is that your designers don’t understand how some product feature works (or doesn’t work very well), so if the team needs extra help then there may be issues between you and the designer (and not just because he/she doesn’t understand).

4) Feedback loops: 

This is probably the most important factor here, more people working on your site means more feedback loops between yourself and the designers working on your project. Getting realistic feedback about your product/service and then working on the loopholes to constantly get towards its improvement is what every company should long for in order to sustain in the industry

The need of identifying the right website design company

Here is a list of some of the things you should do before you hire a professional to design your company’s website:

Examine your past experiences with web design. Ask yourself, where have you made mistakes? How did they look? What were the problems? Who was involved in the project? Was it done well or poorly?

Check out the costs. Are there any hidden fees (website hosting, domain registration, etc.) that could be hidden in plain sight?

Find out if your company is using a “developer” or “designer” agency. Your company may have as many as three different people working on its website, one for each phase of development. That will matter for solving problems in different ways and getting results faster.

Check out their experience level. You want someone who knows what they are doing and can get results quickly; someone who will be able to learn on the job and make mistakes (that aren’t costly) instead of trying to fix them. High-level experts tend to try to solve problems quickly, but don’t know what they are doing well enough to do it well intact; low-level folks tend to do the hard work but don’t understand enough about what they are doing well enough to do it right.

Ask yourself if your company really needs a professional website at all, and if so, how much time and money would be saved by avoiding having to go through this process again in the future (and spending less money).

Finally, check out their references: Have they worked with other companies before? Do they have solid reputations for work (or bad ones)? We don’t think anyone should ever hire someone solely based on their references, so make sure you check those out too. 

Importance of the right web design company

In light of the recent recession, we believe that web design is an absolutely critical skill for any startup, particularly for one that is growing. Here are a few reasons:

  1. There is no startup without a website and there’s no website without a web designer. So when you’re talking about scaling up your business and you’re looking for someone to help build your brand, you need a professional who can create a website that speaks to your audience, conveys what you want to say, and serves as a guide to where they should go if they want more information or ask questions about your product. You need someone who can tell the stories behind your product and show how it will solve problems for people (and not just through technical solutions). You might be able to find this person by searching the internet or even getting referrals from friends, but chances are you won’t find exactly what you want because many companies put their marketing dollars into advertising rather than actually creating an amazing product or service (or both).
  2. If you aren’t creating content (either online or offline), then your website will be one of the first places people go when making decisions about whether or not to use your product, especially if there are competing options (especially if those competing options come from random sources such as blogs and press releases). This goes double if there isn’t much content yet; it really puts an emphasis on how well-written and compelling it is, because how else would people find out more about it?
  3. You need at least some way of measuring performance and monitoring demand; something that makes it easier to judge whether things are going well or not. There are many tools available that will do this already: A/B testing; analytics tools; tags; tools like Google Analytics which allow you to track traffic for specific keywords/phrases/etc.; etc.. These things don’t have to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars! And some of them are free too! Here are three free tools I recommend:
  4. Whether we like it or not, web design companies have become integral parts of our communities in recent years, so much so that we feel compelled (if only subconsciously) to refer our friends here who might be interested in hiring us.

How to find the right web design company for your business

There’s a lot of debate around how to scale your web design business, and it’s not always clear who is right and who is wrong. In the end, it’s all about finding the right fit with the right amount of support and resources.

It is a fact that what matters most for web design business success is not the competition, marketers are all about metrics and revenue, but rather making sure you are working on an “opportunity-driven market,” meaning that you have an aligned financial model with a clear focus on customer value. If you don’t have that kind of alignment, then you will struggle to efficiently manage your team and grow your business.

The best way to find the right fit is through doing market research. You can use tools like Quora or Reddit as well as traditional methods like surveying customers (think of it as a qualitative first step to find out what kind of people you want to work with). But I think the most important thing is simply finding out what people are saying about the products they use in the marketplace. That process should be accompanied by more engaging marketing: email outreach, blog posts, content marketing, etc.

What you should do while hiring the right web design company

The first question to ask when thinking about hiring a web design company is: “Who is your customer?” That’s right, you can’t go wrong by looking at the people who are using your website today. For example, if you’re building an e-commerce site for yourself, you certainly want to start with the people who are buying off your site. 

If you’re building a venture-backed startup, you want to get your eyes on the customers who are choosing to use the product or service you provide. But it goes much deeper than that because when it comes to choosing someone to work on your website, there isn’t just one customer in mind, there are many like-minded individuals (and perhaps even competitors). 

You need a Web Design company that has experience working with all these groups (and maybe more), or else it will be easy for them to charge more per project than they really should.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but everyone can benefit from doing their homework before they make the final choice. We often get to hear companies saying they don’t know what they need, or that they have no idea what kind of web design company they should hire.

The internet is full of websites that do exactly what we’re describing above – helping businesses streamline their sales process and enable their customers and prospects to buy more products or services, all from one screen! These sites are called “eCommerce” sites, which clearly tells us how powerful this technology platform is, and most of them are built by small companies with very small budgets; usually less than $1k for development costs.. These guys make dozens of these websites every day; this means that there’s plenty of competition out there for any job opening, even if it’s just one page! It also means that if someone wants something done differently from others in the market, like being able to create multiple eCommerce sites without having programming skills, then they’ll generally have the chops needed to pull it off.

Conclusion

Choosing the right web design company can be a tricky decision. There are so many things to consider! The first step to choosing the right company is to make a list of what you want your website to do. For example, do you want a blog? Do you want to sell products? Do you want a mobile-friendly site? Are you looking for a full-service agency or just someone to build a website for you? 

Once you have a list of what you want, you can begin to shop around for companies that can fulfill your needs. Don’t be afraid to ask for references or a portfolio from potential companies. When you have a few potential companies in mind, the next step is to meet with them to see if they are a good fit. Many companies offer free consultations that can answer all of your questions. The final step is to choose the right company! Choosing the right web design company is an important decision, so take your time and make sure to choose the

If there is anything thing we can help you with your website design need, you’re most welcome to ask for a free consultation session with us

Difference between digital marketing agency and advertising agency

Difference between digital marketing agency and advertising agency

by | Apr 3, 2022 | Marketing

We are all digital marketers whether we like to admit it or not. We all believe we can do things differently when it comes to marketing and advertising. On the one hand, we have people who are great at understanding what works and what doesn’t work and we have people who have a strong understanding of where the market is and how to position ourselves in the marketplace.

On the other hand, there are those who just don’t give a damn about these things and would rather sit around their desk scowling at their screen than actually think about what they might be doing better next time. For them, this is all meaningless “data analysis” that doesn’t really help them solve real problems.

Or, perhaps they are just plain bad at it and think nothing of wasting money.

That seems like an extreme example but it really can be true: some digital marketers just spend more time on this kind of thing than they do actually doing their jobs. They waste money by throwing money down the drain without getting any return on it, which is probably why most advertising agencies don’t bother with SEO anymore!

So, what do you need to know is What makes a good digital marketing agency? What does a good marketing agency do? And how should you choose one?

The Evolution of Marketing

There are several aspects of marketing that bear thinking about in order to move forward.

The first and most obvious is the difference between an advertising agency and a digital marketing agency.

A digital marketing agency is not an advertising agency, but an “advertising agency” in the sense that they are a company with a business model based on selling services to companies who want to use their products and services. They provide or attempt to provide, a wide range of services; from product design to PR, from testing to social media.

An advertising agency does not do this. They sell advertising products directly to companies (or at least do so for part of their business). This can be something like print ads or video spots. 

Digital Marketing and Traditional Advertising side by side

Can we have both Digital Marketing and Traditional Advertising aligned together? Of course, you can have both types in one company, for example, Adobe could have both its traditional ad agencies and its digital agencies. For many startups, however, this is not what matters most, that is what makes it a startup: the fact that you are trying to get customers without having established relationships with them (or at least without any relationship with them presently).

The next aspect of marketing that bears thinking about is how data affects every aspect of your business (which includes both content and people). A lot has been written recently about how data can be used as a weapon against companies. Sometimes it is used as such; other times it isn’t, take Facebook’s automation tools or Google’s auto-suggestions for instance, but certainly, there are advantages in being able to use data as a tool for either side of your business.

In the case of advertising, there isn’t much need for data because your product already functions far too well as it is. What you need data for is understanding people better than you do now so you can communicate more effectively with them so they will be more likely to tell others about it (proactively communicating value) and ultimately become repeat customers who will buy more from you in the future (retention).

The third major topic here is less tangible than the others but still important nonetheless: ROI (return on investment). This means going through every dollar spent on your product and determining if using it was worth it compared with similar options available at cheaper prices; if so then you should increase your ROI by adding more modes of investment.

The Digital Marketing Turnaround

Last week I had a chance to catch up with some friends of mine from the digital marketing industry. We discussed a range of topics from digital marketing agency vs. advertising agency to the importance of having an exit strategy for your startup.

Although digital marketing agencies exist, it is harder to manage one than it is for an advertising agency. Unlike agencies, which often have multiple divisions and departments, the core competencies at digital marketing agencies are usually understated. This means that they can be more strategic in terms of their approach to business development and product development (and therefore more valuable) than an advertising agency can be (which can be very tactical).

The most obvious reason for this difference is that an ad agency regards itself as a business that exists primarily to advertise products: but the main focus is on delivering those ads through traditional media channels (TV, radio, print). The role of the digital marketing agency is different and has more to do with developing relationships with brands and building long-term business relationships with clients through various channels such as social and mobile.

One way that differences between a digital marketing agency and an advertising agency are seen most clearly in their approaches to achieving ROI is through two different types of metrics:

  • Return on investment: how much money your company has made since you started your campaign
  • Return on sales: how much money your clients have made since they started using your product or service

Now both these metrics are important, but there are differences in how they should be measured and improved upon. Digital marketers often want their companies to achieve “retention”, meaning that as usage increases, usage stays constant or increases, even when things change around them (e.g., when you switch social networks on Facebook or Instagram).

This creates a situation where the ROI measures not just how much money you make from campaigns rolled out over time but also how often people come back after a campaign has run its course (which typically only happens if things remain stable). Return on sales should reflect that relationship between product usage and revenue; not just one-off revenue generated from campaigns rolled out over time. Ideally, this relationship would be smooth so that there was no volatility in any particular period; otherwise, it would be hard for marketers to measure what they were doing right next time around or identify areas where they could do better (e.g. email opt-ins vs brand mentions)

Social Media Marketing: Why It Matters

So you’ve heard about all the great success stories out there and about the people who are ahead of the curve. But what about the ones who are not? There are obviously a lot of reasons why people aren’t doing well, but in my experience, one of the most common is that they don’t understand how digital marketing works. So let me give you some context:

There are two fundamental pillars to marketing: 

1) Your product and 2) Your value proposition. 

In other words, we have to sell your product and convince our user why they should buy it. And that means you need to understand why your user is interested in your product and how it can help them (or value-add to their lives).

And that starts with understanding their needs and wants.

But unless you understand these needs, you don’t know what to offer them or how to communicate it effectively. It’s like a blind man walking down a hallway: he doesn’t know which way is up so he turns left instead of right. If you ask them what they want from your company, most of them will say something along the lines of “I want a better camera for my camera phone”, “I want a better design for my laptop” or “I want an app store for my tablet that lets me browse apps by category from anywhere I am in the world”. That’s perfectly fine and perfectly understandable, but none of those things can help us determine whether our users actually need those things or not.

In short: digital marketing doesn’t work like advertising because digital marketing, is only as effective as your understanding of the user’s needs, wants and desires; not as much as advertising because advertising works with everything else we do in life, so when we have that understanding, we can have it work with any number of different products/services.

How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Reach Consumers

Social media has changed the way marketers reach consumers and understand the customer. A few years ago, Facebook was the future and Google was an old friend; now, there are more than 300 million active users on Facebook and over 400 million on Google+ and Twitter.

But social media is still new to most companies, with a few exceptions. In order to understand how social media is changing the marketing landscape, it is important to understand how different digital marketing agencies (DMA) and advertising agencies (AA) market differently. They have different goals that lead to different strategies for social media because they use it at different rates:

If you are like most companies and you don’t know which approach to take or even why one would be better than another based on your own business goals, I will try to paint a picture of why each approach works in order to help you determine your strategy for yourself. 

For example: if you want to grow sales through organic search traffic or dynamic content creation or increase user engagement through community engagement with an influencer campaign or get more brand mentions through YouTube views or drive more user growth through email marketing, etc., then you should study some of the differences between DMA & AA approaches in order for you to choose one that suits your needs best. 

Advantages and Challenges of Digital Marketing Strategy

The digital marketing world has evolved in the past few years, and the term “digital marketing agency” has become more and more inclusive. In a nutshell, a digital marketing agency is a company that provides an end-to-end digital marketing strategy: not just Internet advertising but also search engine optimization, social media management, PR, email campaigns and so on. They do this in-house rather than using third-party agencies to do it for them.

The key difference between an advertising agency and a digital marketing agency is that the latter tends to be much more nimble and flexible than an advertising agency. An advertising agency is usually good for only one or two things at a particular time, when it comes to promoting their products or services, whereas with digital marketing agencies you can do many things at once (such as search engine optimization or social media promotion). In other words, you can make your product more accessible or promote it on different platforms at once.

“If you want to run your own business without having to worry about hiring additional staff or paying rent in a competitive market, I think that’s definitely worth looking into.”

David Thaler

Here are some specific points about starting up your own business:

  • You can choose what strategies work best for you (same as choosing what products to sell), instead of trying to figure out how well they sell by trying different strategies on different platforms (i.e., many approaches don’t work) 
  • You don’t have any employees 
  • You don’t have any expenses 
  • You don’t need agreements with employees 
  • The cost of running your business is low 
  • You are motivated by results 

The Differences Between Digital Marketing Agencies and Advertising Agencies

What is an ad agency?

An advertising agency is a company that is responsible for creating, managing and distributing advertisements in the media. Advertising agencies are often large, multi-division businesses with large budgets (and therefore high fixed costs) or they can be small, boutique-based shops that specialize in a single type of advertising (such as digital marketing agencies or social media agencies). In either case, their work generally involves using the media to promote products or services.

When it comes to digital marketing agencies vs. advertising agencies, there are some important distinctions. One difference between the two is how they use their budget: an ad agency will spend a fixed amount of money on each campaign (and therefore will only be able to create and manage one campaign per month), whereas a digital marketing agency will have more flexibility in its budget and can create different campaigns each month depending on the results it hopes to achieve from them. 

Another key difference is whether the work is delivered through direct mail or other forms of traditional advertising; digital marketing agencies tend to deliver more complex, highly targeted campaigns (which are much more effective) through web-based means, whereas traditional advertising agencies prefer direct mail and other forms of mass-market communication.

The general approach for all brands is essentially the same: put your message out there, communicate with your target audience and optimize for success with as little effort as possible by seeing who your audience really wants and understanding who they are (because what they want you to do will differ from what you want them to do). 

In many cases, this means figuring out how people respond when you give them certain kinds of messages, but in some cases it means figuring out how people respond when you don’t give them as per their expectations.

Advantages of Digital Marketing Agencies for Businesses

The opinion of this post is that there are four major advantages to having a digital marketing agency for your business.

1) They are cheaper than traditional advertising. 

You can use these agencies to reach out to customers without spending the time and money it would take you to do a traditional advertising campaign (and you can do this as many times as you want).

2) They are much more efficient. 

A digital marketing agency will target different users on different platforms at different times and in different ways (for example, they might send out an email of one type to the people who are reading the blog but not buying shoes but send out an email of another type on a more important day when they’re more likely to be reading the blog.) This means your ads will be far more targeted, far better targeted and far less expensive than ones that fall flat.

3) They get results faster. 

For example, a fraction of an ad spend can make or break your business in terms of sales or customer loyalty. Digital marketing agencies will deliver results much faster than traditional advertising agencies because they manage all data from start to finish with real-time analytics and reporting solutions like Google Analytics or Chartbeat. 

4) They facilitate lead generation for your business 

They help you grow your business by assisting in finding leads, acquiring new customers and building relationships with existing ones. You could be using the same digital marketing agency for both types of work (marketing and sales), but we’ll often recommend that you hire them just for marketing because they’re so much cheaper than traditional advertising. Where traditional agencies might cost $10 on average per lead, digital agencies might charge under $1 per lead ($7/lead if you pay them daily).

A digital marketing agency usually handles things like social media, video and email (and sometimes even email autoresponders). This allows them to target an audience with a specific interest or problem. Often this is done through a variety of channels, including but not limited to search and other online platforms such as Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising.

Difference between digital marketing agency and advertising agency – Conclusion

This post has discussed in good detail, the difference between a digital media agency and an advertising agency

A traditional advertising agency represents the advertiser who is trying to sell something, such as a product or service, to an audience. They do this by creating advertising that tells people what it is about the product or service and how people will be able to use it. For example, they might create TV commercials with actors talking about what the product does, how great it is, and how people can get one.

Digital media agencies represent the advertiser’s digital marketing team (the agencies themselves are called “digital media agencies” because they deal with digital). They do this by creating ads that tell people things like the brand’s history of innovation, what other brands do well in their industry, etc., and how people can use that brand. For example, they might create TV commercials with celebrities talking about what the brand does and how to use it.