Website development and design is part art and part science. Let me explain.

A website must be built not only for human consumption but also machine consumption. It needs to read one way to humans (i.e. be aesthetically pleasing, easy to read, accessible) but also needs to read another way to computers (i.e. properly structured, easy to navigate, good technical framework). Nowadays, not only does your website need to work on a computer but it actually needs to work on different types of operating systems, browsers, mobile devices, etc., depending on your target audience’s reach.

Unfortunately, to most small business owners’ chagrin, a comprehensive marketing plan doesn’t stop at hastily posting a website on the internet and leaving the core of content up to someone up to pen together. How does a small business owner overcome some the hurdles of a new website build without breaking the bank?

• Make sure that you get to know the person who is working on your new site. Do they understand basic design principles as well as the technical build itself? Be weary of commissioning someone who is a specialist in one and farms out the other aspect elsewhere. If you can find someone to integrate the process (ideally, one person or at least a two-person team) that would be ideal.
• Is your developer pulling their WAIT or pulling their WEIGHT? Sticking to the original proposed budget (both in money as well as timeline) will save you both headaches. If your designer/developer works odd hours (most do), make sure you give them all of the information they need beforehand so that they don’t have excuses!
• Never assume that the designer/developer is working on just one project at a time. Most of them juggle at least five or six simultaneously. If you expect exclusivity you will have to pay for it.
• Try not to get too involved. I know, I know, you’re paying for it and deserve to have your say. However, you have to understand that you have commissioned the help of an expert. So, let your expert do their work! If you have a question or concern, ASK. Designers/developers generally left to do the good work they are commissioned to do will naturally gravitate towards the projects that lack “helicopter” clients. If you give them room to breathe, they will generally do amazing work!
• Don’t assume that your designer/developer can read your mind. If you already getting a sense that they are not a good fit for either your aesthetic or work style, ask what the severance terms. Some may be happy to release the work for the price of a down payment, whereas others will try to keep working with you until you’re happy with your product.
• Send the shortest emails you can. If you can send your revision requests in a short, bulleted emails there will be less room for interpretation and more time for working! If designers/developers see an incredibly long email they generally shelve it until they finish their myriad of little tasks first so that they can focus their energy. Unless you want to be LAST in their priority list, I advise against sending epic emails.
• Unless you’ve enlisted the help of a communications or marketing agency, don’t assume that your designer/developer can do it all. Although Unicorn Press specializes in the design, marketing, and branding process, not every freelancer or company does. Screen their references and scrutinize their portfolio before asking.

The website design process can be tenuous. Hopefully these tips will help it be a little less stressful!

Success has always been a bit of an iffy subject. Not only is it difficult to define, it is definitely a personal subject.

Can one person’s definition of success be completely off from another?

What about in business?

For Unicorn Press, I always had one simple idea in mind: if we can help other small businesses and non-profit organizations reach their marketing and outreach goals, then we will have been successful.

I have had the privilege of personally working with some amazing organizations and businesses. All of the entrepreneurs I’ve worked with — from Lisa Gache, the CEO of Beverly Hills Manners, to Greg McKewen, CEO of Infinity Schools, Craig Huxford, the Executive Director for Hope4MentalHealth.org, and Heather Lounsbury, an amazing healer and licensed acupuncturist, among dozens of others — share an equal passion for what they do. Unicorn Press has been fortunate enough to help their process in packaging their public image for consumption and can only hope to further the continued success of many more clients in the future. With our two year anniversary on the horizon, I can only hope to welcome more people to our family of clientele and to lend the varied skills and talents of our staff members to their projects.

With this two-year anniversary, we will be be unleashing an upgraded range of services: integrated marketing strategies, social media and digital communications strategies, traditional graphic and web design, mobile website design, mobile app design, public relations support, and brand development. These services are available at a number of price ranges to ensure that cost is no barrier to entry for small businesses, solopreneurs, and non-profits. We are here to help them sustain success and achieve their goals, whatever it may be!

On that note, Social Media Day LA was a great success. To sustain its wide reception Unicorn Press will be hosting monthly Mashable/Social Media Day LA meetups all around Los Angeles in the coming months. We are also busily preparing a statewide Social Media Day college campus tour for the Fall semester. Sustaining success does not mean resting on your laurels but looking for ways to improve operations and ideas everyday. We are definitely practicing what we preach!

Web savvy local businesses will use social networking event to explore solutions for replacing programs lost to budget cutbacks.

When Mashable recently designated June 30^th to be Social Media Day, two LA business owners decided to seize it as a chance to “walk the talk”, making social media more than just a daily distraction but a chance to promote social responsibility.

With the thousands of young Angelenos struggling for education, career training, and to keep a roof over their head, The Rainmaker Network, which helps students prepare for life after school, and Unicorn Press, a boutique communications studio, are putting on a live event where businesses and individual social media butterflies can put their networks and media skills to good use by helping tackle these issues.

“This is a great opportunity to put the social tools of the web to work helping LA’s youth receive the support they need despite budget cuts and slashed programs.  We promote giving back through collaborative solutions that better prepare young adults for their transition into the workforce.” says Lance Stacy, CEO of The Rainmaker Network.

“I was fortunate to have been able to take advantage of the public school and university system here in California,” says Amara Poolswasdi, Studio Principal of Unicorn Press. “Starting from K-12 then eventually getting a BA through the CSU system, the state of California has been incredibly supportive of my creative endeavors. I want to pay that opportunity forward by drawing attention to the issues facing our youth today.”

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About Social Media Day 2010 Los Angeles

Social Media Day LA 2010 celebrates the integration of social media, education, and business in Los Angeles. The live event will take place on Wednesday June 30, 2010 at Choppe Choppe in Culver City. For more info go to:  http://www.socialmediadayla.com.

I came across a great Facebook wall post today while managing some Facebook ads. In 22 minutes they got the attention of at least 200 people…just by being simple and appealing to a basic interest.

We can all learn something from this minor success. How will you build the appeal of simple everyday pleasures into your social media campaigns?

It doesn’t matter if you have the best product on the planet, a sizzling marketing & PR plan, or something that will change the course of [fill in extraordinary unfulfilled need here].

If you don’t have great customer service, you won’t get very far.

While you don’t have to spend your time mollycoddling your consumers or patrons, you do need to listen to them when they have something to say. Some people are expressive by nature. However, have you ever considered that your unhappiest customers don’t have to say anything at all — they just have to leave? How could you ever learn to improve your product or service offering if you never took the time to listen, let alone ask them?

Customer service is part of the user experience. It should be built in, designed, planned around, executed, and managed. It is as important as balancing the books and generating new business. When you plan for growth, also plan to maintain your service relationships! They’ll count on your reliability to get them to their next step.

More than a few times the topic of social media trends have come up in discussions with my clients. A common concern is the rapid turnover of social media technologies. Will Twitter or Facebook really matter in five years? What about ten?

Whether or not it exists in even one year doesn’t really matter. What does matter is its root concept.

Let’s take, for example, Twitter. Twitter not only forced us to pare down our messaging but to convey its essence. It forces us to be more concise and to communicate the message clearly and effectively. You only get 140 characters to make or break your message. You have to learn to use your words carefully and wisely!

Another example is Facebook. It serves as an escape and connector for many of its millions of users today. Does your content provide as an informative escape? What type of voice do you use to communicate with your audience? A popular marketing study noted that people are more likely to listen to their friends than they are commercial marketing and advertising messaging. Are you positioning your social media voice for success?

It is not so much the individual technologies you should learn in-depth but instead their driving forces and the way they shape your marketing communications. Learn to hone these skills and your message will transcend even the most fickle of Web 2.0!

Say what? “Vlog?”

In a sea of tweets, email newsletters and banner ads, you may need something a little more dynamic to set you apart from the rest. Vlogs are great for quick updates, short informational pieces or interviews with industry leaders.

For those of you who need that broken down, a vlog is simply a video blog. It is simple to execute for recently purchased computers equipped with webcams and decent microphones. There are tutorials on how to record video with a PC and with a Mac in case you need to get familiar with the hardware first.

We’ve got a few suggestions for anyone considering taking the vlog route:

• Be confident on camera
• Try not to wear white or other bright colors
• Find natural lighting if possible
• Choose your backdrop wisely. Find an interesting location and mix it up!
• Look into the camera, not into the screen
• Upload it to a video sharing website and cross-post to your Twitter, Facebook, email newsletter, Stumble, Digg etc
• Don’t forget to tag and properly identify your video online
• Keep it between 45 seconds (announcements) and 5 minutes (interviews).

Here is my 7th logged vlog. I break a few of my rules, but hey–I’m still learning too. Enjoy!

The vendor-client relationship can be difficult and tumultuous, especially if the client does not understand the design process. It can be even more difficult and frustrating if they outright refuse to understand it or refuse to work in a linear fashion to complete projects.

I recently had the unfortunate duty to terminate a client relationship based on that problem. When I began the project it seemed like a great opportunity to work with this client. However, my great intentions were met with contention, waffling and an insatiable desire for change. There were multiple deviations from the originally agreed upon terms: from deadlines to CMS systems to back-end functionality. The continued delays were caused by a lack of commitment by my client to a design that was built, from scratch, per their specifications. It was not the work of Unicorn Press they were unhappy with, but rather the translations of their requests and the manifestations of the designs they requested. Now after 137 emails and 80+ hours worth of work, and one attempt to salvage the working relationship, I have had no choice but to terminate this project and forfeit my losses.

Here are a few things I have learned from horror stories and experiences like these:

1. Design your estimates and agreements from a “worse case” scenario perspective
2. Be open and honest every step of the way
3. Stay in regular communication with the client
4. Be strict in documenting all emails, phone calls, and hours worked
5. Be willing to walk away

Here is a smart video tidbit of what I’ve been experiencing with this client. If it weren’t so true it’d actually be funny.

They been expanding the meaning of their brands by positioning themselves within the lifestyles of their consumers. Instead of just selling singular products, they provide resources and products that make a difference in the daily lives of their customers. Their family of brands are stewards of comfortable living and aim to help people all around the world achieve that through their various product lines.

They have expanded the meaning of their brands and have in turn achieved massive growth in the global economy: their brands are recognized worldwide and illicit a sense of comfort and home. By expanding their brands in such a holistic fashion, they have essentially built themselves into the lifestyles of their customers. And, by doing that, they necessarily become inextricable with their customers’ daily lives, which builds a sense of indispensability. By targeting lifestyles and not specific demographics per se, they are able to build a following that is monumental, recurring, and loyal.

Their company employs a number of strategies that help them expand the meaning of their brands. They are involved in the global community (via sponsorships, donations and activism); they are committed to outreach in education, animal rights, food and nutrition…and even the natural disaster in Haiti. By showing active involvement, they demonstrate that they do indeed care about their customers and consumers well beyond the point of purchase. They believe that by improving the human condition, they are helping the world, and that is evident by the work they do. There are obvious benefits of targeting a new consumer segment this way: they not only increase market share but increase their customer-based brand equity in doing so.

Some of the ways in which this company gains understanding of consumers’ needs and to create better products, as well as building long-term relationships with customers include:

-Community involvement (brand building in PR and marketing outreach for worldwide causes and disasters)

-Focus groups and highly targeted and personal research (market research, demographic research, working with individual families to track their daily lives)

-Permission marketing/advertising (if you know your customer intimately, you will be able to customize marketing tools, communications and outreach so that the company-consumer connection is interesting, compelling, fun, and informative…and that customers will ask for more.)

-Holistic marketing: looking at the brand from the user’s perspective (as in the case with one of their products and (BIG HINT) “looking at the world through a baby’s eyes”)

-Better measurement: Although perfect metrics are difficult to construct, they learning to use their market research data to the benefit of the company and consumer as much as possible (tracking barcode scans, surveys, etc)

-Experimentation (Try new products, brand extensions and upgrades…listen to market feedback and take it seriously, as in the case of Tampax)

-PR/Media (product placement, mobile advertising)

If you guessed P&G, you were right!

How well does your brand build long term customer relationships and follow market trends?

Remember: Your brand may not have the same budget as P&G to extend your reach and market penetration in the same fashion…but you can definitely implement some of these strategies at little to no cost!

Photo credit: http://blog.lib.umn.edu

Most problems in the design and development space revolve around communication…or lack thereof. Great communication is absolutely necessary to ensure the success of any project — online or off. It is difficult to get lost in the sea of emails, tweets, Facebook posts, text messages and voice mails. What will ensure that a finished project eventually sees the light of day is open and honest communication.

Here are some things I’ve learned along the way. I’ve either learned it the hard way or I’ve been lucky enough to have a mentor to help me pick up the pieces.

1. Document everything. Keep records of all requests, questions and even file versions. It is always a best practice to resolve conflicts BEFORE they arise, but keep in mind that if the conflict gets out of hand, the statute of limitations for businesses are six years. If you use a third-party contracting site like Elance.com, there are sometimes mandatory arbitration agreements built in. That will save a lot of headache.

2. Get as much in writing as possible. If you take meetings in person, telephone, or Skype like we do, it is important to reiterate any verbal agreements in writing to ensure parity. If there are revisions being requested on a project, have a client submit a work order to ensure that you have it in writing.

3. Make yourself available. I’ve made myself available via telephone, VOIP, Skype, Twitter, email, and through my Web site. When you make yourself available to open and honest communication it generally finds its way back to you. Giving your clients many options helps them feel in control and more willing to work with you. You don’t have to be available 24/7 or on weekends, but do be available during your normal business hours to follow up.

4. Be realistic about deadlines. If you are eager to truly help your clients achieve their goals you need to make sure that you have the time to dedicate to their project. Despite the inclination to overbook, be realistic about how many projects you can complete in a month and stick to that.

5. Highlight all roadblocks to success. If excessive revisions or repeated adjustments have thrown the project off the targeted launch date, make sure to communicate that as soon as possible. Better yet, let your client know if a revision or adjustment will extend the project or incur extra fees.

6. For clients: If you notice something wrong, bring attention to it immediately. Are there horizontal scrollbars creeping up where you least enjoy them? Don’t quite like that shade of gray on your business cards? Does the design stink and you’d prefer to go elsewhere? Air your grievances early on to avoid the snowball effect. (If you don’t you may be held liable for additional fees, an extended project deadline or even *gasp* get fired.)

Let me hear your thoughts: What are your tips for honest and open communication?