Category Archives: Never Stop Learning
10th Anniversary Part V: There’s No Substitute for Good Back-end Web Development
First and foremost Rapport is a design firm – we want everything to look great and communicate how it’s intended to. There are tools that let designers build websites, but when you want to do something complicated, you really need great back-end web development so it’s stable, well tested, thought out, a progressive solution and lasts a few years. Continue reading
10th Anniversary: Top Ten Things Learned, Part IV
I know from our own experience that nothing beats people talking about you and telling people who trust them they should consider hiring you. However, the referred prospects need to see for themselves that you live up to the positive words of your referral source. They need to see a website and perhaps other marketing tools that confirm your legitimacy, professionalism and provide a bit
more information – understand what you can do for them. Continue reading
10th Anniversary Part III: Always Make Time for Proofing and Testing
Always Make Time for Proofing and Testing. When a client needs something in a rush from us we always manage to make it work. It’s not a regular habit, but things get forgotten or come up last minute. It can be a little stressful as both sides drop other things and rush to get it done. But, no matter how rushed, you must make time for proofing and testing. Continue reading
10th Anniversary Part II: Big, Complex Projects
We Can Do Big, Complex Projects Really Well
Every time Lisa here hands me a back-up DVD of completed projects for my home collection, I’m amazed at the variety, volume and quality of work we’ve done. Over the past two-three years we’ve had the honour of doing some much more complex projects, with multiple pieces and deadlines. Continue reading
Website Videos: A New Way to be Found Online
Ignore DAO marketing at your peril! When properly set up, search engines pick up your web content in all forms that isn’t text-file based: videos, animation, podcasts, message boards, maps, images. Putting a video on your website, for example, can seriously increase your search visibility and ranking position. Continue reading
Great Design & Communication Is All About the People
The 80/20 Factor: in a nutshell, it states that at any given time in our industry, 80% of design and communications will not be as strategically correct or well executed as the smaller 20% of work that is truly relevant and appealing to its target audience. The communications people who are able to achieve and help clients benefit from high calibre communications are a rare breed. Continue reading
Make Your Tradeshow a Sales Success!
Lots of companies make what I would call half-hearted attempts at tradeshows thinking they’ll just test the waters. They get a not-so-great response and feel it’s not worth it, they’ll never do it again. They may be missing out on some great opportunities. If you’re going to try it, follow these five steps. Do so as professionally as possible, it’ll make the pay-off on the overall investment much higher. Continue reading
Getting Your Team Onboard With Your Brand
We hear many people express frustration that their employees, particularly their salespeople don’t utilize the brand properly. This often happens because they haven’t bought into it, it’s too difficult or they simply don’t know enough about it. Continue reading
How do you know you’re doing enough marketing?
Having a plan allows you to not only reassure yourself you are doing enough, but also support the sales team by making sure they have what they need and they are using their tools effectively. Continue reading
What Are Proprietary Websites?
Proprietary websites are built with closed-source technology that the developer owns and controls. You essentially license it and often continually pay for access to it, and that access is very limited. Continue reading