Creativity and Its Role in Your Business

How important would you say creativity is when it comes to developing your business? Would you say it is the most important aspect of all, the tool that enables you to stand out among the crowd of competitors who are jostling you at every opportunity? Or would you say it doesn’t really have much bearing on what you do from day to day?

In truth, creativity is very important. Without it your business will eventually become stagnant. Just imagine what many websites would look like if they were still using the same design they started out with. In the case of some of the oldest online properties, they’d look very antiquated indeed.

Hence there is a real need to move ahead and be creative with every single day that passes. Think about creativity in all its forms and consider whether you are applying it to your own business. How long have you had that same old business card? Does your business look as if it is stuck in the past? Is your website due for an overhaul to make it look better, more modern and more dynamic?

Creativity doesn’t just keep your business looking and feeling fresh. It can spark a whole new direction to go in. Many of the businesses that go under and disappear completely are those that fail to move with the times. This can be avoidable in many cases, which is another reason why you should embrace creativity as much as you can.

Of course you don’t need to do all this on your own. Sometimes you might feel you need assistance from experts in the field to get the job done. You don’t need to be able to create a new website from scratch. Providing you have an idea of where you want to go with it, you can hire someone else to do it on your behalf. Sometimes it is a combination of ideas from you and skills from someone else that get the best results, so don’t be afraid to seek out help and advice from elsewhere.

Old and Tired Web Designs Hinder Your Business Progress

If you have stuck with the same website design through thick and thin, the chances are pretty good that you might be getting tired with it. And if you are getting tired of it you can be sure your web visitors will be as well.

The trick is to know when it is time to change and renew things for the better. Things change and advance quickly online and this means you could end up with an old web design sooner than you might think. If you have had the same design for a while now, it might be worth consulting a professional designer to see if you could revamp your website. You may well find you can revamp your whole business as well.

Of course you may not be sure if you have reached the point where your old design is old enough to get rid of. But if you consult with a professional designer you can get some input as to whether you are able to produce something new, modern and dynamic to better represent your business in the future.

The truth is that old and tired designs will harm your business more than anything else. If someone comes across your website and it looks very basic and old, they might be forgiven for wondering whether anyone is still running it, or whether it has been forgotten about and consigned to the scrapheap. This is not the kind of opinion you want people to form, so if you are ready to make the most of your website it might be time to give it a makeover.

Now some people immediately think of the cost of doing this and how it might affect them. But normally you will bring in more business as a result of having a fresh new website and design – especially if you promote the changes ahead of time and when they take place. So remember what you are getting here and how much it might be worth to you in the future. This is the most convincing reason there is to get a new web design.

Ensuring Your Website Visitors Meet Your Desires

Some people think all they need to do is to whack up a website and wait for the customers to come rolling in. Of course in reality things are very different. You might get some if you apply a casual approach to creating a website, but you won’t get as many as you would from a more targeted approach.

The best websites are dynamic, subtle and formulaic (in the nicest possible way). They have a purpose. It could be to get people to sign up for a free newsletter, so they can be marketed to at a later date. It could be to sell a particular product or line of products. But if the website doesn’t have a specific goal in mind it is more than likely that the results the webmaster gets won’t be what they would like.

This is why professional web design is so important. Few webmasters who design their own sites will start by asking themselves these questions: “What do I want to achieve with this site? What is my goal?” Professional web designers must have the answers to these questions if they are going to create a site that will achieve its purpose – one that will have a purpose in the first place.

For instance you may not want to sell anything directly through your website. You may simply want to provide information on a specific niche topic and to get people to sign up for a free newsletter to receive more information on a regular basis. Many marketers and webmasters will testify that the money really can be in the list if the list is big enough to generate the income they need.

The point is that any old website just won’t do. This is the face of your business and if you don’t know how it should look, you can’t expect to get the results you really want. Many people rush into getting their websites up and running. But in truth if you spend a little longer making sure you know your focus you’ll reap better rewards in the end.

Magna Carta Branding & Website

Over the last few months we have been working on the branding & website in the build up to the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary in 2015 on behalf of HCL.

Work included: branding, logo development, website design & development, interactive elements and copywriting.

View our portfolio to see the results.

Is Your Website Embracing the Future?

There was a time – a good few years ago now – when all you had to do to get online was to whack up a very simple website with a very basic design.

Nowadays of course all this has changed. It’s not enough to have a website anymore – you have to have a site that looks good, feels good and works just as your customer wants it to. If it doesn’t, you’ll lose customers. It’s that simple. This is why many businesses are enlisting the services of experts in web design – like the team at Ratio7 – to create a strong and dynamic website design to impress their customers and visitors.

But there is more to consider here as well. For instance more and more people are looking at websites on their smartphones and iPads and other similar devices. How user friendly is your site when it is called up on one of these devices? If you don’t have a mobile version of your site, now would be an excellent time to get one. This makes it much easier for anyone on a mobile phone to view your site. If you have ever tried viewing a normal website on such a small screen you will know how frustrating it can be. Even if you decide to check the website later when you have access to a proper computer, you might forget to do so, or decide to go elsewhere instead.

You can see then how important it is to have a website that is capable of embracing the future in this way. It’s not enough to have a good website anymore. You have to have one that is able to be viewed properly no matter how your customers decide to access it. That’s why it pays to get the experts in, so you know exactly what you will be offering your customers.

You might consider teaching yourself how to do all this. But where does that leave the rest of your business? Your target should be to create the best website for all platforms as quickly as possible – and to hire the pros to do it for you.

Magna Carta Website

Working on behalf of HCL, we have spent the last few months producing a website for the build up to the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary in 2015. We utilised our full spectrum of our services and created everything from the concepts and branding right through to the design & build, copywriting and interactive elements.

The difference between good and great

Yesterday I took a much needed day off and headed into London to do some photography and to generally recharge my design batteries.

Now I’m a creature of habit so I started off my day as I always do by visiting one of my favorite coffee shops in Shaftsbury Avenue. I discovered this place a few years ago with a friend and is no normal coffee shop. They served the most amazing organic muffins (warmed to order, I must add), fantastic coffee served in a small trendy soup bowl and even little sachets of hand cleaners which is great if you’ve just come of the tube, topped off with a prompt and friendly service.

However sadly today’s experience was different. The service was terrible, the coffee was served in a standard mug, they were out of hand cleaners and the muffin was served cold. All the things that had made this place stand out from the other thousands of coffee shops had gone.

And how much had it cost this coffee shop to stand out from the others? 20p to heat the muffin? 10p for the hand cleaner and maybe 70p for a trendy soup bowl? No expensive marketing campaign, trendy branding or marketing materials… just £1 – the difference between good and great.

Why Don’t You Have an E-Newsletter?

More and more businesses are realising that e-newsletters are a wise way to build their business. Not only do they keep your business name in the forefront of your customers’ minds, they also generate more sales over the short and long term.

It’s understandable that you might feel nervous about committing to a regular newsletter. After all every single one has to be filled with content. But don’t get too nervous about this – you shouldn’t make them too long otherwise people won’t be motivated to read them.

Don’t feel you have to send out an e-newsletter every ten minutes either. Many companies stick to once a month and this frequency seems to work well. Weekly can be too much for many people, because it feels like you’re constantly trying to sell to them. Remember to add value and not just sales promotions and you’ll do better at getting the balance right.

Of course style and design count for a lot too. If you send out a hastily cobbled together newsletter it won’t catch the eye anywhere near as much as a professionally designed e-newsletter template will. It’s tempting to just get by and send out whatever you can. But generally speaking you can get far better results from your e-newsletter when you invest in it to begin with. Think about the benefits you’ll get from a professional design – a better business image, more respect and more trust from your customers and would be customers. Wouldn’t you want to take advantage of all that?

It’s understandable that some businesses will be wary of investing in their business at a time when the economy is so unsteady. But if you don’t get out there and tell people who you are, they won’t buy from you – simply because they don’t know you exist. You have to give them a reason to remember you and buy from you, and an e-newsletter is just the ticket for doing that.

Think about your business and what you could achieve with it. Isn’t it time you thought about adding an e-newsletter into the mix?

What Does Your Personal Blog Say About You?

A blog is, by definition, all about you. At least it is if it’s a personal blog. But that doesn’t mean you should put any less work or effort into it than you should with a blog designed to promote your company or business.

A lot of people want to earn money from their blog, and why not? If you could earn an income stream from writing about something you love, wouldn’t you want to do it?

The problem is that your personal blog represents you. This means that if you opt for a free design or template to build your blog around, you might not give the right impression to people who find you online. Designing your own blog is far from easy, and if you want to make money with it you need a design that will tell people you’re serious and you believe in quality.

Using a free blogging service tells people you’re not interested in investing in your blog for the benefit of yourself and others. Let’s face it, which blog are you going to like the most – the free one or the one that has clearly been designed to appeal to its visitors?

It’s always going to be the latter. So even if you want to make money from your blog in the future and not necessarily straightaway, it’s still worth thinking about getting a proper and unique design done on your behalf. Your blog should be as individual as you are, so it makes sense to get an individual and unique design doesn’t it?

Blogs are definitely taken more seriously now than they used to be in the past. They provide a window onto your life that other people are allowed to look through. If you’re going to allow people into your life in this way, make sure they get the best possible view. You never know what it might lead to in the future, so it makes sense to make a great start. Your blog is all about you, so make the right impression from the off.

How can you tell if your logo is good enough?

Hop on the internet and it won’t take you long to find reams of information about logos. What makes a good one? When is it time to change an old logo and revamp it into something new and more modern? How do you know if you’ve got a real stinker?

Logos are one of the things we do here at Ratio7. We’ve got years of experience in knowing just how to create the best logo for any business. A logo is one of those strange and wonderful things that are hard to describe – you know a bad one when you see it, and you know a good one too. But putting each type of logo into words is incredibly difficult, which is why it’s always best to get the experts in to design a new one.

A good logo is something that instantly brands your business. A bad logo will brand it too, but not in a good way. The worst kind of logo is arguably one that you look at for five minutes, and you’re still not sure what on earth it is or what it represents.

If you’ve got a good logo it will get positive responses from your clients. It will also be recognisable, even if they see the logo outside of its usual placement. For example if a client happens upon your social media pages and sees the logo before reading any text, will they be able to recognise it as yours? Furthermore will it give them a positive image they like? Positivity is a major aspect to remember here, as the logo has a major job to do to represent your business.

Great logos look good whatever size they are as well. If your logo looks great in large format but practically disappears when it has to be shrunk to fit a magazine ad, it’s time to get a new one.

In short, if you’re not sure how well your current logo is performing for you, you can always contact us here at Ratio7 to find out more about getting a brand new logo designed with just you in mind.