Son of Shoemaker Gets New Shoes!

Well, it's official - Francomedia launched its new web site September 15th. You may think that this was easy, after all, Francomedia launches web sites all the time.

It wasn't.

Version 1 of the Francomedia site, which was launched in October of 2003 was pulled down in October of 2007 by yours truly. I was embarrassed of the content, specifically, the portfolio was about 5 - 6 years out of date. Leaving just the opening page and the contact page didn't do a lot for our credibility but I had no idea it would be almost a year before a new site would take its place.

In March, we took down old site completely leaving a talking fish and a dead PEZ dispenser, it was very amusing, but was up waaaay too long. This new look was to mark our transition to our new branding.

The design of the site was completed rather quickly, the development and content took forever (often the case for unorganized clients, such as ourselves). We contracted out the CMS for our backend in hopes that it would speed up the project, it didn't. Gathering samples of work is an arduous task and requires time, and time is one of the commodities that we are short on - our customers work always comes first.

So, version 2 of our site is up, it's clean, it's fun and demonstrates our abilities as a first rate creative shop. Our new look focuses on the fish, representing the idea - not too abstract, not too 'out there', but that's the point of good marketing, non? Get people to understand our offering - we help clients capture the right idea.

If there is anything to be learned about this internal project it's that you need to put someone in charge of it - make it their responsibility to complete it and give them the authority to make it happen. For several months the project just limped along and slowly progressed, but after putting an intern onto the content and giving her the direction and tools to make it happen, it quickly took shape. It meant taking her off of client work for 2 weeks and treating ourselves as a client which sounds selfish, but if our clients want us to be around in the future, we need to do our marketing right, and it must be a priority.

A simple look at what our clients pay for can be summed into two services;
1. For us to provide immediate help in their marketing.
2. For us to be around in the future to help in their marketing.

Without a continued focus on internal marketing efforts, we can only satisfy the first service and that can only last so long. By also putting attention on the second service, it ensures we will be around for many years to help our clients.

In my opinion, we have done a pretty good job of marketing ourselves and have built a solid reputation in the marketplace over the past 5 years. Until recently, we have slid under the radar, however, our cover will be blown this fall with the launch of some high profile projects, some media coverage and the launch of our new site.

If you haven't already, I urge you to visit our web site, you'll like it.