Tag: customer

Stand Up NY Launches New Website: A Sleek and Modern Revolution

February 20, 2013
NEW YORK, NY — Since 1986, Stand Up NY has paved its way through warming the hearts of its audience through performances and laughter. With its open doors to the Upper West Side, it stands as one of the oldest comedy clubs in Manhattan.

“Stand Up NY as a comedy club and brand is looking forward to transitioning into the next stage of our evolution by embracing new media by giving comedy fans access and easy ways to share funny and original content. Van West Media was able to translate my vision into a beautiful deisgn and user-friendly interface.”
— Dani Zoldan 

Van West Media has created a new and improved look for Stand Up NY to represent the different aspects of the company. As we turn away from the old-fashioned gold and black palette as well as the dated typeface, we characterize Stand Up NY as refined through our new modern and clean-cut look. Through this change, we steered towards a new red and black color palette, as these colors are bold and stand out in a crowd. These colors represent the performers at Stand Up NY and how the company strives to find upcoming talent. A great feature we included that correlates with this idea is the “Open Mic” page, which allows performers to get noticed easily as they express their talents.
Not only is this look and feel of the site aesthetically pleasing, but the navigational aspects are also more user friendly. The simplified menu allows for easy navigation with self-explanatory links and pages. By placing the calendar on its own page rather than the home screen, the company is able to highlight specific acts, giving more attention to those that are presenting soon. The slideshow feature for the upcoming acts also allows users to understand that there are more artists. Users can also easily find out about acts and purchase tickets through Laughstub. Through this integration, comedians can get noticed through personal profile pages as well as show lists with tickets for audiences to purchase on the site.
Another prominent improvement we made involves social media. By integrating social media through the site, we allow the audience to feel more connected to the performers at Stand Up NY. These widgets give quick blurbs of the performers’ thoughts and ideas as well as teasers to give an idea of what’s to come for their shows. By engaging with their audience, both Stand Up NY and its performers can hear feedback from the people they wish to positively entertain. Visit the new Stand Up NY website and follow Stand Up NY on Instagram and Twitter to see for yourself!
For more information, contact Shad Mohammad at 1-718-288-2463 or info@vanwestmedia.com.

E-mail Segmentation

February 18, 2013

Customers like feeling special, like they are getting something different and better than everyone else in the world. It’s because of this that companies have steered towards personalized email, using customer names within their newsletters. E-mail segmentation appeals to clients as well as the industry itself as it sends certain information to the direct market it’s made for. By using segmentation, the customer retention rates grow as the sender understands the interests and needs of the consumer. These are some examples of e-mail segmentation companies can use to their advantage.

Source segmentation is the most straight-forward track as it tracks where and how you met your customer. By analyzing location, interests and analytics, you can check what information to send them through e-mail. If the client went to a page about web design on your site, you can send him offers you have or articles about web-design that your company comes across. This method brings consumers and marketeers closer as they show a shared interest, which makes customers feel closer to the business.

Geographic segmentation relates to the sales and trends of an area. If you are advertising heavy coats, you can weed out an audience in a hot area such as California or Las Vegas as they won’t have a need for your product. Send them e-mails about bathing suits or shorts instead and the customer retention will significantly grow. When people receive e-mails that do not pertain to them at all, they feel like another number in the world that you are trying to advertise to. Don’t make people feel that way and only send things that matter to them.

Role-based segmentation is great for B2B marketing. By sending e-mails to customers of a specific role such as sending new Photoshop information to the designer of a company will be more successful than sending it to the technician. This method is effective because more views and downloads will occur if what you have to offer will affect them, especially in regards to their jobs.

Content-interest segmentation separates existing customers from new ones. Existing recipients have more knowledge and information about your product and offers beforehand wouldn’t need a “starter guide” and would enjoy having “exclusive member access” to parts of your website. By differentiating these types of consumers, that “special” appeal is preserved and “click-through rates” will increase and lead to more conversions.

By building up several e-mail lists, each customer will receive e-mails that are relevant to their lives. Though there is no “correct” way to segment your e-mail list, each of these ways have an advantage in their own way. Just like all marketing techniques, e-mail segmentation requires testing. By experimenting through these different segmentations, your business will find the most ideal way to reach out to your audience.

 

Brand Marketing Through Storytelling

February 6, 2013

Regardless of age, storytelling captures the hearts and minds of an audience. Whether it’s real or fictional, the concept of brand marketing through storytelling creates room for opportunities. This approach correlates to the booming growth of social media over the past few years. Storytelling is a method that has been used for years in the marketing field but what makes the difference is the art of “writing” it. Creating a story is challenging but here are some key points to help you along the way.

Be truthful about your product. Although the storyline may be fictional, what your business can accomplish must play out the way it does in reality as it did in the story. Many marketeers use the “opportunity” approach in this method to avoid this problem while telling a creative story. They show how a consumer may use their product but don’t necessarily expect them to use it in such a manner. However, what’s expected of the business should stay consistent so consumers can expect to be pleased with the product or service offered. No one should be confused about what you have to offer.

Integrate personality into your story. Brand stories are not meant to be written as advertisements or sales pitches. They should be written in a sense that can relate to customers through experience, emotion or, in the best cases, both. A certain persona should be presented to narrate the story. If customers can’t relate to the story, it will appear boring. By incorporating a character in the story that people can root for and relate to, people will place themselves in the character’s shoes and experience what you have to offer vicariously.

Leave some mystery to the audience. By using the method of perpetual marketing, each piece of the story will feed off its previous part, leaving the audience wanting more to come. Leaving call to action at the end of the stories will instigate customers to go to the website or social media network, leading them to landing pages that may produce more sales.

Brand stories create new experiences for your consumers. It gives them a chance to participate through observation and hopefully, leave them wanting more so they purchase what you have to offer. Several stories gives consumers different ways to experience your product or service. By surrounding yourself with customers, you create several paths for them to come in contact and acknowledge your business.

Web Design Trends of 2013

January 23, 2013

wireframes2013 comes with a new year and new technology that our industry needs to adapt to. With this in mind, everything from touch screens to retina display makes a critical difference to how customers view our designs. Here are several things to be aware of:

1. Responsive Design isn’t only for mobile devices anymore. There are now tablets and touch-screen laptops that are included in this fluid design technique. In 2012, responsive design flourished and expanded as THE way to design. Mashable‘s website redesign has taken advantage of this technique to neatly distribute its content throughout a vast array of devices.

2. Retina Display causes sites with heavy images to have a “grainy” effect. It’s important to have clear high-resolution images to make sure the high-definition display doesn’t hinder the site. For coding, web developers and designers have also adapted with retina.js and pixel query solutions. Retina.js checks images on the page when a user visits to see if there is a high-resolution version of that image on your server. If a high-resolution variant exists, the script will swap in that image in-place. Pixel query solutions involve multiplying standard pixels by 4 to show more pixels on the same surface area, making the image clearer.

3. Fluid Yet Definitive Framework such as Bootstrap is necessary for the future of your designs as its is sleek and minimal with great navigational design. It is the perfect framework for any device as it can adjust to any dimensions. It has simple yet advanced javascript and customizable components. These features make up the crucial parts of a site in the modern world that can easily adapt to the new technology of 2013.

4. Traffic depends on content quality over quantity. This is a major change and people always embed keywords and a lot of text to take up a page. Minimalism in the layout is similar to the minimalist sense of writing as well. People enjoy going to a site and finding exactly what they came for rather than having to search between all the useless information. Only valuable, useful and helpful content should be included. Everything else is unnecessary. 

With these ideas in mind, a site can achieve success or at least keep up with the top sites in this economy and state of technology. The world of technology and the minds of customers adapt over time and without analyzing the changes, a business can move from the top to the bottom easily. It is important for one to understand that knowing and keeping up with customers is how a business can run and stay successful.

Customer Retention

December 26, 2012

Achieving customer satisfaction entails many aspects, especially with those on the web who can be manipulated in a myriad of ways. The advantage of the web is the strong relationship that can be made without a constant physical meeting. However, with the lack of effort, online retention can be harmful to a business-client relationship.

Client feedback is crucial to a business’ success. It’s important to know what customers think about your products and services in order to move forward or make improvements. By correlating your business to clients’ responses, it shows that you care about their thoughts and take it into consideration. This positive relationship makes customers feel connected to the company and enhances customer retention.

Effort is necessary in connecting with clients, especially on the web, but one must hold back from being too overwhelming. By reminding your customers that you’re there for them, people are more inclined to participate in your offers. It is important to keep in touch when there is relevant news available. However, businesses shouldn’t send e-mails, texts and other reminders so constantly as it may annoy customers. This may lead to adding your messages to junk mail, spam or just deleted. Balance is what can keep your business in the game in this situation. One must show effort to keep a relationship but mustn’t be too attached to keep it from moving forward.

A way to keep the effort balance in check is by tracking customers and their purchases. By tracking sale trends, it’s easier to understand the customer better and to plan the customer retention strategies. Presence also plays a role in this case as being there to answer customers’ concerns 24/7 is critical in this generation. With mobile devices, people are expected to be constantly available to assist others.

The success of a business depends on the successful customer experience. By knowing what customers want, connecting without overwhelming and keeping up with customers’s needs and concerns, a business can thrive. To analyze these processes, place yourself in your client’s position. By auditing the customer experience, it is easier to understand what they need, Catering to your clients will make their lives easier and your job more gratifying, leaving you with a successful business with happy customers.