Why care about information technology?
The modern era has opened countless possibilities for companies in terms of performance efficiency. While some companies benefit from an online presence others increase their profitability with various IT tools. Avant Interactive helps clients to go digital. From websites and viral campaigns to various IT solutions we help clients to stay competitive by helping them reap the benefits of technology.
Avant Interactive offers:
A) Online marketing and web development
B) IT solutions
B) Online marketing and web development
With 80% or more of consumers now going online for information, reviews, and procurement, it has become critical that everyone, regardless of product or service type, have an online presence. Moreover, it needs to be engaging, unique and user-friendly, because with millions of other sites on the internet, your competitor is just a click away.
Avant Interactive is a passionate group of strategic thinkers, creative minds and technical wizards who like to push the boundaries of online marketing and web
development. We refine and create online brand identities that sell. With proven knowledge and experience we have helped brands to compete successfully in the
digital space.
How is the internet different?
The internet can be one of your most effective sales tools if used correctly. The internet immediately makes your brand, product and service visible internationally and trumps typical advertising media that hits only a segment of the market or a confined region. This also makes a website one of the most cost effective ways to brand.
Why is a website profitable?
Compared to traditional media your website is cheap because it brings visibility to your brand 24/7 on any given day. It knows neither weekends nor holidays. Your business is also accessible to you when travelling. Simply access the admin panel and review all incoming orders.
Preparing your website requires an initial investment but compared to magazine ads that will be displayed for a week for instance, with no additional services like tracking or CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing) opportunities at all, your website is a most profitable and rewarding marketing and administration tool.
What does your website have to do with brand building?
Do not forget that your website is another crucial element in your brand building exercise. As explained in our section on brand building, your brand is a combination of feelings and perceptions about quality, image, lifestyle and status. It develops a clearly defined personality in the mind of your consumers. Thus it is important to see your website as an extension of your marketing and brand building strategy.
How can you build an online brand?
What you ultimately want is a sale. There are some helpful tactics, which you can implement to strengthen your brand personality and build trust with your customers, so as to find favour with them. Some tactics to build an online brand include:
1. Selection and speed – Online brands do not usually position themselves as cheap. A primary benefit is often speed, and in many cases a large selection.
2. Customisation – The web allows interactivity. Users are able to enter information into a registration form, which in turn gives you the opportunity to offer a customised solution or product recommendation.
3. Using Interactivity – The web allows customers to interact with your brand in a way that no other media allows. It gives you the chance to develop services that strengthen your brand by keeping it in front of people though increased contact.
– Newsletters
– Targeted emails
– Message boards
– Chat
– Advice columns
4. Build a community – Brands that have managed to develop a community around them have seen powerful results. To develop a successful community requires a brand category or product that is engaging and offers topics of discussion that people are excited about discussing.
Some other points to keep in mind when building an online community include:
– Establish a means for members to participate. This could take the form of a forum or chat group. How about getting them to join a mailing list or user group?
– Beyond sharing common interests, members should enjoy connecting with others. You can do this by personalising the user experience by way of interactivity or creating specific topics where users can share their passion to create a sense of territory and companionship.
– Also consider offering opportunities for members to take leadership. Encourage eager and steady contributors to develop loyalty.
5. Form Strategic Alliances – Setting up a strategic alliance between your online brand and that of another holds a number of virtues. When visitors to your site see that you have partnered with other people that they respect, they will trust you more. Moreover, it increases the reach of your online brand by enhancing visibility. This of course can translate into increased revenue. Good alliances on the internet allow traffic to flow between sites that have a common interest.
A banner ad on a compatible site is just one form a strategic partnership. An online store that sells shirts might decide to form a relationship with a store that sells ties. And the good news is that sites can usually exchange online ads without any money changing hands.
6. Building credibility In the online world – competition is only a few clicks away. For this reason the quality of customer support has to be much higher on the web than it is offline. It is critical that all requests are responded to quickly and efficiently.
Some of the basics that your website should include are:
– Personal Domain Name
– Contact Information
– Simple site design and navigation
– Easy to identify prices, if applicable
– Quick server response
7. Dedication to Service – Online customers have little opportunity to see the brand’s dedication to customers service. Having said that, if your service is not up to scratch, customers will most likely not return.
It is of course difficult to handle a flood of inquiries, but if you don’t respond quickly, customers will feel your website is not reliable. An easy solution is to respond to all inquiries with an automatic mail that acknowledges the receipt of a mail and also set out a time for how long you will take to respond.
To summarise
You can expect a considerable return on investment for your online efforts, provided that the website is following the criteria of a successful online presence:
It reflects your true brand image and personality
Offers the services your customers will appreciate
Takes a load off your administration, secretaries and the office in general
Provides real time information about your business status
What can you expect from the Avant Interactive division?
Avant Interactive has helped many clients across a broad spectrum of fields to harness the power of the internet. We offer a host of services to manage your entire online marketing programme:
1. Internet consultancy
2. Website design
3. Website development & programming
4. Online marketing
5. Search engine optimisation (SEO)
1. Internet Consultancy
Built on the promise of long-term commitment, Avant Interactive wishes to walk with you every step of the way to success. A website’s performance and functionality must be monitored on an on-going basis to ensure that it consistently ranks at the top and the marketing strategy stays relevant. So, instead of providing you with a one off optimisation service, we aim to continuously evaluate your situation to offer new solutions to problems that may occur during the lifespan of your site. Ultimately, we want to see increased and sustained traffic to your website that garners enquiries. This is the only way that you will generate significant leads that can translate into business later.
2. Website design
Graphic design
Your web design will start with the way it looks. This will be based on your existing brand identity or the brand identity that Avant Communication has developed for you in the event that you underwent our Corporate Identity Programme. We will supply you with layout options and tweak it based on your input.
Coding standards
Our programmers will define the coding standards and propose the programming/scripting languages that will achieve the functionality you desire and ensure that your website works flawlessly.
In technical terms, if the decision is made to use a content management system, Avant Interactive has to check which additional modules will have to be added and custom built in order to comply with your demands and the needs of the users. The necessary connections of the Graphical User Interface of the web site to the back end systems, such as the database to store user profiles or products of a shopping cart will be analysed and resolved. Which payment gateway will be used is decided in the design phase.
As you can see, many technical solutions are checked and decided upon in the web design phase and those technical aspects are actually carrying the site. You can have a great looking site but when it turns into a source of frustration for you and the users then it’s a flop.
The navigation
The navigation is set. Titles and file names of the pages are documented. A tree of all pages is built and the links from all pages to other pages are specified. It is advisable that content is provided at this point. This will allow the designers and programmers to double-check that all pages are included and that no links are missing.
Importance of web design phase
The design phase is crucial for a successful completion of an internet project. It is the time of decision-making. Decisions made during this phase and later changed can cause the project to be delayed or the budget to be insufficient.
Risks
All technical risks have to be identified and eliminated in this phase. Testing the elements and making sure they work together in harmony is absolutely necessary.
Security
Security issues have to be addressed and solutions are proposed.
3. Website development & programming
Coding and scripting
During this phase the graphical design of the website is brought to life through web programming languages into usable pages that a browser can actually display. All interactive elements in the pages are connected.
Templates
To ensure that data within the website follows a consistent layout, templates are produced.
To ensure that data within the website
CMS and Access Rights
As the owner of the website you will have different access rights to information on the website than a user would have. When a content management system is used we will configure the access values of different people. If, for instance, you have a blog integrated in your website, users might be able to add content, but you might be able edit. Or if users join as a member to your website, they might be able to view the content, but only you will get access to the database.
Content integration
Content is added to the website during the development phase. It is rather common for delivery of content to be delayed, which in turn delays the entire project. It is important for each party to follow up and provide materials at the agreed times.
Debugging
During the debugging phase, extensive testing is done to ensure that all bugs, spelling mistakes and design inconsistencies are corrected.
Search Engine Optimisation
Content is revisited to ensure that keywords that users might type into search engines are present in the website copy.
Website style guide
If you plan to move the maintenance of your website to another company, ask your current developer to supply your with the style guide. The style guide ensures consistency when any new parties work on your website.
4. Online marketing
Online marketing strategy
The online marketing work starts when a website is planned. The goal to have a successful website is achieved through applying the appropriate marketing strategy and concept when a site is built and then proceeding with adequate advertising and thorough website management.
How we execute the online marketing strategy
When a website is finally online, it needs to be managed. Continuous maintenance in combination with online and offline advertisement is required. Search engine optimisation, plus user research to keep track of the response of the audience to online campaigns, is the most important and powerful set of tools a successful marketer has to support and execute the online marketing strategy.
How to execute online marketing successfully
a) Content
Refresh content on a regular basis
Manage the display of news
Serve articles users are interested in
Engage them in games, quizzes or polls
b) Advertisements
Choose the best and most cost effective way to advertise online
Produce monthly or weekly online newsletters for the new products and news, and process them
Select the best websites to place your banners
Promote the website offline
5. Search engine optimisation (SEO)
80% of all the visitors on a site are coming through search engines and web directories. Thus, search engine optimisation (SEO) and submission is very important for your company and an essential part of your online marketing strategy and promotion. Better ranking in search engines will create more traffic and this will generate a higher number of potential clients. Our search engines optimisation team will help you to get your website better ranked in the search engines result pages.
Another factor is that a website without any other websites linking to it will not get high search engine rankings in search engines. Therefore submitting your site to the most important search engines will increase ranking for your web site. This is called “link building”.
Our search engine optimisation service includes:
Competition analysis and optimisation reports
Keyword research and analysis
Link building campaign to increase Page Rank
Link analysis reports for website and competition
Optimisation of titles, meta tags and keywords
Hand submissions to top search engines and directories
Detailed search engine, submission reports
Creation of new high optimized web pages
Monthly search engine ranking reports
