Smashing Magazine‘s recent post released a free Facebook GUI PSD Kit. It was designed by SurgeWorks and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The main idea behind the kit is to speed up the prototyping of Facebook application UIs and Facebook fan pages, thus sparing you from drawing all the comps and letting you customize all the texts, buttons and data as you need. As usual, the kit is free to use in all projects, without any restrictions.
There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Client
Ken Reynolds has put together a great article on client relations. Whether you are a freelancer, and in-house corporate creative or agency executive, I think everyone could learn a little something from this article. From my perspective, relationships are king in business. Face it, you can select any number of clients or vendors to work with, often times we select those whom we feel we can work best with. Why make things harder on yourself?
Solving Common Email Issues
While I am not an IT guy by trade, I often get asked by friends and family to troubleshoot problems with their email. Interactive design does not equal email diagnostician, but often I end up there. If you have email problems, or are the go-to-guy in your office I found an article that may help.
How To Fix Common Email Problems [MacRx]
Effectively Using Landing Pages
originally posted at Cornett IMS Blog
Today’s advertiser expends time and energy across multiple channels to drive viewers to their website. From traditional advertising such as billboards, trade magazines and radio – to digital solutions like flash banner ads or sophisticated SEM campaigns. This takes a considerable amount of time and money to do it properly. Focus your message, and make it easy for your viewers to find what they’re looking for.
Don’t make your viewers dig for the relevant content they were searching for. Direct viewers to a landing page or specific area of your website. In some instances, directing viewers to your home page can be a missed opportunity, if they were looking for a specific promotion or service. When directing viewers to your home page, it’s considered a best practice to create a banner or prominent link that cross-promotes your promotions/offers. Again, make it easy for them to find what they’re searching for.
To better engage your viewers, create a custom landing page with more information on your promotion, and a form to capture their name, phone and email. Here’s the most important part… respond to the inquiry within 24 hours.
Landing pages offer a chance to turn a lead into a prospect, volunteer or sale. Get the most of your advertising and marketing budget by properly converting viewers that you drive to your site. Wasn’t that the goal in the first place?