As more of your competitors venture onto the Web, you may be searching for ways to stand out from the crowd.  One way that companies are connecting with their audiences is through a “mascot”.

Your mascot may be a completely fictional character illustration that represents your product or service.  Many well known organizations from Jack-in-the-Box to sports teams, have used fictional characters to deliver their message to the customer.

Alternatively, you might use an actual company representative like your CEO to offer personal welcome messages, video intros, and other campaign messages.

Finally, there are a growing number of professional services offering interactive video features in which a hired model “walks” onto your web site to welcome you or to point you to a specific product.  This may be an affordable way to increase awareness about your site and interact with your customers without redesigning your entire business brand.

Our prospective clients often know they want a website, but don’t have any idea what they want in the site or where they should start. When telling them what to prepare for their initial meeting, we often say to just bring ideas. Often times, they actually need help generating what their ideas actually are.

Here are some quick questions to ask yourself to help bring direction to your ideas for what you want in a website.

• What is the primary purpose of my site, i.e. what is your goal that you hope the website accomplishes? (Remember, this does not necessarily need to be complicated, but you should know what you want to accomplish.)
• What is the most important piece of information I want to convey on my website?
• What are my primary products and services?
• What are my primary branding tools that can be transferred to the web?
• Are there any particular styles of design, or color choices, I prefer?
• What call to action do I want to have in my website?
• Are there any websites, design styles or color choices that I do not like?

You can also bring other marketing materials  (brochures, flyers, business cards, postcards, etc.) to the initial consultation to help illustrate your current branding to the designer, so they have a better idea of how to convey that in your new website design.

Use these questions to get your brain juices flowing and figure out what you want in your website design. The clearer the picture you have, the easier it will be for your designer to accomplish your goals.

When you write copy for marketing materials, you need to make it work. You only have one shot to grab your customers’ attention and to make them read what you’ve written. Not only does your copy need to catchy and informative, it needs to be error-free and the best possible writing you can produce. If there is a typo in your copy, or an incomplete sentence, your readers are likely going to dismiss what you have to say. These errors, while some may be minor, can damage your reputation. You certainly don’t want to hurt your reputation at the same time you are trying to sell readers on your business. It’s not smart and will likely effect the results you get.

The moral of today’s quick tip is to make sure you proofread, and proofread, and proofread, and then read it again. Be error free this Wednesday and make a lasting impression.