CAPABILITIES
Brand Design & Development
We Connect Your Brand with Customers
Great branding is about giving customers a reason to believe. Selling your products and services takes more than low prices and great features. In this competitive marketplace connecting with customers is a priority. If you want them to care about your brand you need to do two things; make an emotional connection and create a meaningful experience.
Using a process we call the Brand Discovery Workshop, we focus key stakeholders from a variety of disciplines on your organization, its products and services, mission and public perception in order to reach consensus on critical brand issues. We facilitate the discussions, adding insight as well as act as the “sounding board” and mediators.
Once we’ve gained the required knowledge we can help you:
- Launch a new brand or product
- Create brand messaging
- Rebrand your organization
- Ensure brand consistency
Brand or Product Launch
Ready to introduce your brand or a new product to the world? Our insight can bring your brand to life. Together, we’ll develop the voice, visual identity and story for the outside world (and your internal organization too). We’ll design a strategy to position your brand and define the marketing tactics you will need to engage your customers.
Brand Messaging & Positioning
In marketplaces cluttered with similar offerings, brands struggle to connect with customers. Our process uncovers customer pain points while identifying what makes you unique. With this information, we develop messaging that communicates your value proposition to your audience.
Revitalizing Your Branding
Sometimes your visual identity or logo can make your organization seem “behind the times,” or maybe it’s just too similar to your competition. Our branding strategists can help to make your brand unique, meaningful and relevant.
Another key aspect of this process is to ensure that everyone in your organization (from sales to customer service to management) speaks about the company in the same way. To do this, we develop brand guidelines so you can effectively manage your brand moving forward.
Ensuring Brand Consistency
A key aspect post branding is ensuring the brand’s consistency in its tone, message and visual representation. To do this, we develop brand guidelines so you can effectively manage your brand moving forward.
Digital Marketing
We Help Plan, Build & Execute Digital Marketing
D2 can support your team’s digital marketing at any level, from strategic planning services through day-to-day publishing. Our experts will help you create and implement your programs. After they launch, we’ll monitor their performance and provide ongoing reporting and analysis to your team. No more wondering if your efforts ‘worked’ or if you need to modify your approach.
From a strategic standpoint we help you:
- Understand the digital landscape and terminology
- Establish goals and objectives
- Evaluate your competitors
- Determine the most effective tactics for your market
- Develop and implement an achievable plan
- Measure & analyze the results
We have no proprietary approach or software platform to sell. D2 Creative just sticks with proven, best-practice tactics that get you results.
Content Marketing, Simplified
Search engine algorithms are becoming more and more sophisticated, but one thing hasn’t changed: Content is still king.
Data shows us that the most fruitful source of traffic and leads for your business will arrive from search engines. The problem is your competitors’ products and services may appear to be just as good as yours. They probably have websites and send emails to potential customers just like you do.
How do you stand out? You can start by producing content that helps customers throughout the buying process, whether they are just learning about your products and services or have narrowed their selection down to three suppliers. If you create content that educates and helps people make decisions, you’ll be rewarded for it. This is content marketing.
Combine your great content with a solid search engine optimization strategy and you will soon see more traffic and more leads.
A partnership with an experienced digital agency like D2 Creative will ensure you have a content marketing strategy that is both realistic and effective. Working with you we’ll:
- Ensure that your objectives and expectations are aligned
- Determine what information customers need
- Review existing content and materials
- Identify content gaps and opportunities
- Assess internal resource availability
- Create initial content
- Publish and measure performance
Content Creation & Publishing
Like most marketers, you probably aren’t short on ideas – just short on time. To make matters worse, there is no such thing as “finished” in the digital world. Constant improvement and enhancement is the norm. Updating the content on your site every 4-6 months is not an effective approach.
While our clients universally understand the value and importance continuing to create content they often struggle to consistently produce and publish it.
D2 can help. We work with your team to identify and generate content for your website, blog or social media presence on an ongoing basis. First we’ll review the materials you have and learn about your business and customers, and we’ll recommend content and a publishing schedule to keep you ahead of the competition.
Common content we produce includes:
- Webpages
- Marketing emails
- Ad copy / ad creative
- Newsletters
- Site graphics
- Infographics
- Presentations
- White papers
- Videos
- How-to’s
- Calculators
- Manuals
- Reviews
Ongoing Support
If you already have an Web presence, or a campaign up and running that you haven’t been able to give the attention it needs, talk to us. D2 provides day-to-day content publishing services to all of our clients.
Our publishing services include:
- Webpages
- Marketing emails
- Ad copy / ad creative
- Newsletters
- Site graphics
- Infographics
- Presentations
- White papers
- Videos
- How-to’s
- Calculators
- Manuals
- Reviews
Lead Generation & Landing Pages
Even though our clients come from across a wide spectrum of industries, they all have one thing in common: they all need leads. Leads for their sales people, leads for potential members or employees, and even leads for financial supporters and donors.
Over the years, we’ve implemented numerous lead generation programs for our clients, from planning outreach efforts to building custom landing pages. In order to build a successful program, we start by meeting with our client to define goals and objectives. From there, we develop a customized lead generation program, which can include:
- Campaign development
- Defining KPIs to measure performance
- Copywriting and content creation
- Landing page build out
- Outreach (Email, direct mail, print)
- Measurement and reporting
Digital Traffic & Audience Growth
Grow Your Traffic and Audience
You cannot expect to grow your business by simply building a website, putting a few videos on YouTube, or creating a company profile on LinkedIn. To grow your traffic and audience you’ll need a strategy using digital marketing tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), paid search and email marketing to reach more people. Customers won’t just show up and buy because your website looks pretty, or because you have a clever campaign.
Target Customers, Wherever They Are
To find the right target audience segment, we’ll start off our engagement by learning from you about who your customers are and what you offer that they need. Using this information we’ll develop a program that will put your message in front of your target customers. It won’t matter where they are or how they use the Web.
We can reach your customers at work, at home and on the go.
Information we can use to target your audience:
- Industry
- Job title (e.g., VP of Sales)
- Profession (e.g., Endocrinologist, Engineer)
- Interests
- Street address
- Geo-location (e.g., Madison Square Garden)
- Event attendance (e.g., CES)
- Favorite websites & mobile apps
Organic and Paid Search Strategies
There are essentially two kinds of website traffic: organic and paid. If our clients have the budget we usually recommend employing a strategy generates a mix of both. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward.
Paid tactics like display advertising (i.e., banner ads) and pay-per-click advertising generally show immediate boosts in traffic. However, over time they can be expensive to maintain. Another thing to consider is that in order to bring in “qualified traffic” they need to be well executed. It is wise to spend the time developing a well thought out campaign.
Organic tactics like search engine optimization are very effective and offer significant long-term advantages. SEO may require more upfront work but in time it will pay for itself by delivering consistent and highly qualified traffic to your site. With our clients we regularly see that visitors arriving from search engines view more pages, stay longer, and convert more than those arriving from other channels.
A key factor in successful organic and paid search strategies is developing a manageable and affordable combination of both. We’d like to help you define that mix.
SEO Audits & Site Updates
Fact: Buyers use search engines to find products and services. You need them to find your company, not the competition. Sounds simple enough… so how do you make that happen?
D2 consultants will work with you evaluate your products, services and target customers to determine what kind of content you need to influence buying decisions. This strategy, known as content marketing, might take form of webpage copy, infographics & images, video, or more likely, some combination of all of these.
After new content is nailed down, we’ll review your website to determine if there are any technical issues that need to be addressed. Factors like page load speed and mobile-friendliness can have a real impact on your pages’ ability to rank in search engines.
Finally, before putting everything in place, we’ll prepare a baseline analysis report to ensure that going forward performance can be effectively measured.
Higher search rankings aren’t immediate, but SEO works. Most clients see double-digit improvements in key metrics within 3-4 months.
PPC, Display, Mobile & Retargeting Campaigns
For the client looking for a paid-search vendor, we are a certified Google AdWords Partner offering pay-per-click, display advertising and retargeting programs using the AdWords advertising network. In addition, we use a number of cutting edge technologies to pinpoint your customers and deliver meaningful messages to them. Our services include:
- Impact projections
- Budget planning
- Media placement
- Copy writing
- Ad creative design & production
- Campaign configuration & launch
D2 will manage your daily advertising spend, make ongoing improvements and provide you and your team with reporting and analysis.
Web Analytics & Measurement
Website Measurement and Reporting
If you manage the digital presence for your company, you’re probably tasked with providing analytics and measurement reports too. Unfortunately, the amount of data points to measure can be overwhelming. Too often we end up producing spreadsheets with row after row of raw data that’s hard to explain to colleagues. On top of this, it’s not only tedious to prepare them, spreadsheets aren’t an engaging way to demonstrate site performance.
That’s where D2 can help. We’ll help you interpret the data, articulate what should be ignored or addressed, and deliver a turn-key report that you easily present and distribute to colleagues.
Make Analytics Actionable
Many digital marketing managers are stuck with hand-me-down, legacy reports that have too much data. Others don’t look at their reporting at all. The first thing we do when working with you is to define your key business objectives and determine the KPI’s for your site. Since this information is key to gauging success we establish benchmarks for ongoing monthly comparisons.
After nailing down the goals and objectives, our team prepares a monthly report that outlines visitor demographics, sources of traffic, content performance and user engagement. Where necessary we take deeper dives into the data and provide explanation for notable changes. Whenever we identify opportunities for improvement we include those in the report each month as well.
Monthly Report Review
Need a little help understanding your analytics and all the information in your reports? We offer clients monthly calls to walk them through the reports and field any questions. We’d be happy to do the same for your team.
Website Design & App Development
Best-Practice Web Design
Website design should start with thinking about your audience, their objectives and how you can help them find the information they need quickly. Users need to be able to easily and efficiently complete tasks, whether they use a mobile phone or a laptop.
A Focus on Your Users
We develop the UI through iteration—rapidly designing and testing prototypes, collecting feedback, and intelligently modifying our layouts. The benefits of this approach are two-fold. First, it ensures that customer needs drive design. Second, marketers can make more informed decisions based on data.
This agile methodology is facilitated through the development of fully functional HTML wireframe prototypes. This allows us to test and validate your designs before graphic design and coding begins. The result is:
- Reduced design time
- A decrease in project delays
- No more budget overruns
Mobile Users Are the Priority
You’ve heard the mantra mobile-first. It requires you to think carefully about how users perform tasks using only the small amount of screen space available to them. Do your customers come to your site to register for events? Are they looking at pictures, just there for research? These tasks are often very different on a phone, unlike on a laptop or desktop. For example, phone users are quite willing to scroll. this is a big change from the days when we lived in fear of placing important content “below the fold”. At D2 we employ responsive web design to ensure that every user has a great experience regardless of the device they use.
Website Development Approach
Websites are an essential tool for virtually every organization. To complicate matters both customers and search engines like Google prefer sites that load quickly, are easy to use, and optimized to work on their device of choice. At D2 the foundation of our web development approach is to use best practices and proven technology platforms to address these needs. This includes technologies like:
- Reduced design time
- A decrease in project delays
- No more budget overruns
From basic template development to completely custom sites, our development team has the skill and experience to build tools you need to conduct business online.
App Development for iOS and Android
A website will fit your customers’ needs most of the time, but sometimes highly specialized tools work best as native mobile apps. Maybe your customers need a calculator or frequent data updates. We can help you take your idea from concept to a finished iOS or Android app. We’ll work with you to prototype, design and build the app. When it’s ready to launch, we’ll help you deploy it in iTunes and Google Play.
Custom Application Development
Finding a technology partner with the expertise to develop on a variety of platforms can be a challenge. Most firms specialize in one technology or another. We’ve made it a priority to support custom applications development using a variety of the leading enterprise technologies, or if need be we can customize your off-the-shelf or open source platform.
Our developers can deliver solutions using:
- Software development technologies including Microsoft ASP .NET, .Net Core, Java EE, PHP, Apple iOS and Android
- Front-end development expertise including responsive sites and technical optimization for search
- JavaScript libraries/frameworks including Vue.js & ReactJS
- Content management systems including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla! and Umbraco
- Databases including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL
- Integrations with third-party platforms/services including Veeva, Salesforce, Google Tag Manager, SCORM Cloud and Symantec-CWP
- Cloud-based solutions such as Amazon Cloud (S3 and AWS), Microsoft Azure and Rackspace
Video Production & Digital Storytelling
Video Creative Concepts to Post-Production
Video production is a core part of D2’s heritage. We absolutely believe in the power of video to reach, inform, and influence your customers. We can help you take your story and share it in a way that’s both right on target and makes you say “Wow!” Take a look below for some amazing facts about the power of video, in a video of course.
Video Capabilities In House
Very little of the video production and editing work in our projects gets outsourced. Here’s what on-site capabilities we have in our offices in Central NJ:
- Production studio with green screen
- Three digital editing studios
- Motion graphics, 2D and 3D animation design
- Concept treatments, script writing, storyboarding
- Sound design
Like all video production companies, we also have an extensive network of talent (actors, models, voiceover, etc.), camera crews, casting agencies and other production personnel with whom we work with for large and complex productions.
If you don’t see the style of video you’re looking for, let us know! We have plenty more to show. We’re happy to guide you to an example that suits your needs and objectives. Contact us for more information.
Video Production Process: From Creative Concept to Distribution
Often our clients want something that’s never been done before – especially when it comes to video. Luckily, even the craziest new ideas have a similar process – though occasionally we may have to add a few new steps to the project!
Concept Development
To start the process we’ll want you to tell us 3 things:
- What you want, when you want it, and how much is budgeted.
That’s a great start, but we’ll want to know more:
- What outcome are you looking for?
- Who’s your audience?
- What channels will you use to distribute the video, now and in the future? For example:
- Projected at a meeting?
- Watched from a computer on Youtube or your own website?
- How long will your video(s) be?
- Are there any brand or design guidelines that we’ll be following? Previous video we should match?
- Who are the stakeholders? What will the review process be?
We’ll write up what we hear, and we may even develop an initial creative treatment and run it by you. When we’re in general agreement, we’ll shake hands with a contract or statement of work.
Pre-Production
Before shooting, we nail down as many details as we can. This is when we’ll do:
- Script writing (for documentary-style videos, this might be a list of interview subjects and questions, locations to shoot, shots to get, etc.)
- Storyboarding (if needed)
- Casting talent, or scheduling interview subjects
- Booking camera crews, locations, travel
- Set rental, wardrobe purchase
- Testing (i.e. testing special effects makeup on-screen; live action lighting vs. CG; new shooting methods/cameras)
- Fine tuning budgets and timelines
- Working out final specifications for output format, distribution channels, etc.
Video Production
Your shoot may happen in the studio with sets or against a green screen, or on location as interviews or documentary-style footage. We may use one camera crew or several, or multiple switched cameras at a live event. Shooting can take place over days, weeks, or in a single afternoon. It may involve actors, key opinion leaders (KOLs), a crew of 20 or just a two-person crew with a producer. No matter what, when the shooting’s done, we’ve got the files, backed up and ready to edit.
Post-Production
Some people call this “editing,” but post-production is way more than editing. Here’s some of the things that happen in “post”:
- Screening/logging footage
- Developing “paper” cut: editing notes for editor to work from
- Loading footage into non-linear editing system
- Editing rough cut (simple transitions, rough audio mix with “scratch” voiceover)
- Graphic design
- Video retouching
- Selecting music
- Motion graphics – 2D and 3D animation for transition, backgrounds, or any element that will be computer generated
- Auditioning voiceover talent and recording voiceovers
- Color correction
- Fine cut (more complex transitions, final voiceover)
- Sound design – adding sound effects, music, mixing
- Encoding versions for different display format as well as archival versions
- Final QA