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AgencyCritique is Eric Holter’s web strategy consultancy for creative services firms. As web strategy races forward many advertising agencies have remained on the sidelines. AgencyCritique helps them catch up. The first step is to build an awesome agency website.
The Talstone Group is heading in the right direction with their website. They’ve already done the hard part, choosing a bold and narrow positioning statement (they specialize in healthcare marketing). They also have a site platform that includes a news section and blog so they have the means to employ a solid content strategy.
Every week advertising agency publications like Advertising Age include articles that highlight the changing world of marketing in the digital age. This is the first post in an ongoing series. I’ll review Advertising Age and point out articles that address issues related to web strategy and digital marketing.
This month’s HOW magazine (October self-promotion issue) includes an article by Lisa Hazen called, “Rock Your Website.” Lisa interviewed me for the article and quotes me generously throughout (thanks Lisa!). The article also includes a side-bar I wrote called “8 Steps to Make Your Site Sing.”
Lee Lefever creates these wonderful videos that take what can be complicated tools and concepts, turning them into easy to understand primers. His first (or least first massively popular) video was RSS in Plain English. So this video on Google Reader is a great companion.
It’s 2008 and sadly I still need to write about splash pages–an unfortunate stronghold of advertising agency websites. The use of the “splash page” has a long history (long in Internet years anyway). Back in 1999 I wrote an article for Web Techniques about the appropriate and inappropriate uses of website splash pages. Today that article is moot. There are no appropriate uses for a splash page.
This week I consulted on web strategy with Forma Design in Raleigh. We worked through all of the concepts that ultimately lead to the conclusion that an effective web strategy depends on a robust content strategy. Most agencies when they get to this point begin to feel the weight of impossibility at the thought of regularly creating compelling content for their website. Where will they possibly find the time to do that?
Thanks