CMA Adopts a Family

CMA once again partnered with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s Community Health Promotion Program to aid a local family in need for the holidays.

From December 1 to December 18, CMA adopted a six-person family for the holiday season. Employees donated a variety of gifts for children ages 14, 8, 5 and 2 years old, as well as gifts for their parents, providing a total of 16 gifts to the family.

The Community Health Promotion Program, a nationally recognized program of outreach into the Greater New Brunswick, New Jersey area, provides educational programs, health screenings and social services to the community. For more information, please visit http://www.rwjuhfdn.org/funds/special.html.

Designing a Website Built to Last

If a website refresh is what your company needs to start anew in 2010, it’s imperative that you work with your designer to create something that is built to last. Using outdated techniques can force a prospective customer to click the “x” in the corner and cross you off the list of potential business partners as quick as the click of a mouse.

We’ve seen so many website trends come and go. Consider these points while you’re in the planning stage.

Put yourself in the website visitors’ shoes. Your website is now almost the equivalent of the first greeting, handshake and business card exchange in the early stages of a real, live meeting. Within the first few seconds, the visitor needs to feel engaged but also in control. While the organization of your website is important to share information, the design elements must make them feel comfortable enough to want to stay.

A website should accurately represent your brand. Since your website might be the first place a customer is introduced to your brand, make sure visitors are able to immediately understand who the business is and what you do. A cluttered homepage with disorganized photos and clickables can be confusing, so keep it simple.

Utilize white space for a more professional feel. Dated websites are easy to spot—they have bright colors, perhaps a patterned background and lots of text to scroll through. According to Business Week, 62% of those online are researching products and services. Maintaining a good ratio of white space to images and text allows the visitor to concentrate better on the information they are seeking.

Websites are an essential piece of a company’s full brand. Before you decide to launch a website project, spend some time shopping around to other websites to browse for ideas and accurately gauge the trends in your own industry. Let CMA apply our expertise to deliver a website that truly represents you.

Diane Webster,
Associate Creative Director
Dwebster@cmasolutions.com

A Web Presence is a Terrible Thing to Waste

It’s important for a company not to lose sight of how important their website is, especially since these days, it can serve as the main introduction to their brand presence and value proposition.

A company’s website should evolve and be refreshed as a business grows, refines or alters strategic direction, branding and positioning, makes an acquisition, enters a new market or introduces new products and services.

A website that is little more than a digital version of the company brochure just doesn’t cut it anymore. A makeover or even an entirely new site may be advisable, if not essential. If you decide on a website refresh or a bulldoze to rebuild from the ground up, do your site visitors a favor and bring in a web designer to do it right―particularly if your current site was built by a friend or someone who’s simply “interested in computers.”

These lamentable scenarios often result in some of the most arcanely programmed, navigationally convoluted, frustratingly slow and ineffective websites out there. I know, because our company has had to modify and improve some of them over the years.

To help you on your journey, I recommend a few do’s and don’ts for keeping your website current:

Tone down “bells and whistles.” Animation and Flash are like seasoning—used with relevance and purpose, they enhance the user experience, but when applied excessively for their own sake, they frustrate a user trying to gather information.

Rethink “Skip Intro.” They may set off a “Skip Website” alarm in the visitors’ minds.

Use colors intelligently. Bright colors used to prevail. Now white space, brevity and readability are paramount.

Break up the copy for greater readability. Dynamic headlines and sub-heads should be developed around key messages to communicate them prominently and pique click-throughs.

These are just some elements to consider. Is a website refresh what your company needs to start anew in 2010? We’ll be exploring website trends all month, so check back for more tips and trend insights.

Erin Higgins
Manager, Client Services
ehiggins@cmasolutions.com