The Pop Labs Process: A Holistic Approach
Creating a successful Web site and marketing campaign is a complex undertaking that involves many moving parts. It requires designers, information architects, programmers and marketing specialists, as well as a creative process that can be repeated time and again with predictable results. At Pop Labs, we know that a project should always emphasize the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts, rather than relying too heavily on any one part. Holistic projects involve all disciplines, and in many cases require people to have multiple skills that span different job roles.
It’s easier said than done. Years of working with clients has taught us that while we and our clients may ultimately want the same thing – we speak different languages. Our creative process is designed to remove the complexities of a project, allowing us to communicate efficiently with our clients and deliver maximum results with minimum pain. This set of concepts, models, and best practices provides the blueprint for implementing designs and marketing campaigns properly. With it, we can deliver the following:
- An engaging experience. A visually appealing site that will engage visitors upon arrival.
- Managing & monitoring your web site. Support, updates and traffic reporting to keep your site up to date, optimized, and successful.
- Promoting your web site. We put your company in front of the people who are looking for your product or service on the search engines.
- Converting Traffic. We build your web site with clear calls to action and search engine friendly content thus engaging visitors and compelling them to buy.
Combining People and Process
The Pop Labs framework is a powerful system for delivering excellent web experiences based on our experiences dealing with a variety of different clients. It allows us to solve customer marketing needs with a series of activities that have been carefully selected based on their proven ability to produce the best outcome. It is extremely adaptable and works for companies in just about any industry. There are two parts to our framework:
- The Team Model. The team model defines the roles required to effectively plan, design, and launch an effective marketing campaign.
- The Process Model. The process model is the “how-to” of the framework. It tells us what tasks need to be performed and what deliverables each customer should receive.
Planning and Discovery
Each client’s marketing campaign starts with identifying the target audience. During the discovery and planning phase, we learn everything we can about you, your industry, and your desired audience. We use this information to create a campaign scope that outlines what will happen during the remainder of the project. This helps ensure that we all understand the same thing and have the same marketing goals.
Design and Composition
The design and composition phase actually has two sub-phases: information architecture and visual design. During the information architecture phase, the content and structure of your web site is organized into a useful and intuitive framework that will make the site more appealing to visitors. We then brainstorm and conceptualize a design that is most appropriate for your audience. Our team of designers are skilled at converting ideas into powerful visual designs that engage and inform your customer.
Production and Testing
The production phase is where everything comes together. The vision created during planning and design are turned into code. Your web site is created with careful attention to accessibility, usability and the latest web standards (e.g. XHTML/CSS).
Launch
During the launch phase, a final web site audit is completed and your campaign in launched. This includes site submission to search engines and directories, as well as initiation of pay-per-click and search optimization.
