For my special projects assignment, I have chosen to work on branding and marketing for a start up company. It is a unique situation. A friend knows a naturopath who has written a book on health and wellness, and needs a WordPress.org site to promote the book. The client will need a typographic logo, overall look and feel, site map, wireframes and a WordPress site. The client has already purchased a domain and provided a theme, to use in the event that we do not have time to do a complete responsive WordPress redesign. Partial wireframes have been provided by the client for structure purposes.
Content is limited at this point. I suspect some marketing copywriting may be required, as well as weekly content for blog entries. The largest challenge I can anticipate with this project will be restructuring the content for the web. The client has indicated that he wants the website to act mainly as a squeeze page, but has also indicated that there is potential for a lot of content and his wireframes include a lot of header tabs.
Wikipedia, on squeeze pages:
A squeeze page is a single web page with the sole purpose of capturing information for follow-up marketing; that means NO exit hyperlinks. Quality squeeze pages use success stories that the prospect would relate to when making a buying decision. They also use things like color psychology, catchy sales copy and keyword rich text placed with SEO. Some advanced marketers even use audio and video on their squeeze page.
Internet marketers borrow copywriting techniques from offline direct response marketing. This includes the use of a headline, bullets, teaser copy, deadlines, testimonials, scarcity, and the like. Aggressive marketers will present visitors with multiple incentives in exchange for their contact information.
As a general rule, Internet marketers try to keep the content on their squeeze pages to a minimum. The goal of the page is to obtain the visitor’s email address; additional information could distract the user or cause them to “click away” to a different website. Navigation and hyperlinks are almost always absent from typical squeeze pages. The absence of links is used to focus visitors’ attention on one choice: register for the email list or leave the site. Savvy internet marketers have discovered that convincing a visitor to sign up for an email list provides an opportunity to present that visitor with multiple sales messages over time, develop a relationship, and even cross-sell other related products.
Squeeze pages are often used in conjunction with an email autoresponder to begin delivering information as soon as the visitor confirms their email address. The autoresponder may be utilized to send a series of follow-up emails or to provide an immediate download link to get information. Promising information upon completion of confirming their email address has proven to be an effective method of increasing opt-ins using squeeze pages.
New technology has also led to adding voice or video to squeeze pages in an effort to capture the visitor’s attention.
A contract has been prepared and sent to the client for review and completion.
I have completed the initial version of the style tile and am awaiting feedback from the client. The next step will be completing a site map and beginning the wire-framing process.
The research process has been the major focus of the first two weeks of the project, as I needed to read the first 10 chapters of the book and do research on internet marketing.
Version 1 of the style tile, using ideas sourced during first client meeting.
Leanne Padgett 