Insights from “Underground:” New Digs, New Site, New Focus!

I’ve reached the conclusion of, what I think of as, the first full week of 2016. A lot has happened in the past days. We launched our new website on January 13th. We signed a new lease with The American Underground (Jan 11th). So, big things and a lot of excitement.

American Underground

This decision is quickly turning out to be our best one yet. AU, as we affectionately call it, is a startup and Google tech hub co-working space. There are three in Durham , NC and one in Raleigh. I’m at AU @Main, which I believe is the second one to come into existence. What I love about it is the vibe. It’s chock full of entrepreneurs that are all passionate about their ideas and willing to sacrifice for it. There are also more established companies, like Shoeboxed, that appreciate the vibe as well and call it home.

This would have been a great place to work when I started in my early consulting days. I can only imagine the connections I could add to my growing network. Now, as an established company, I still appreciate the “spirit” that surrounds us. Plus, the space is really cool with nooks and crannies to work, a slide from the 1st floor to the basement and beautifully decorated, sometimes “geeky” spaces. Not to mention, free coffee.

Looking ahead, I see this as a great place to meet new folks, take advantage of the many programs and resources they offer. It’s a real opportunity to grow and a cool space for the Mixed Digital team to continue our great work. Hats off to the folks at AU for conceiving, what I believe to be, the most effective co-working space in existence. I’ve worked in another and kept tabs on others. Google obviously thinks they are special as they give $100k in development credits to members. Amazon also provides $5,000 in store credits. Big things come from Durham and we’re just humbled to be allowed to take part.

Our New Website

Our last website was built in 2011. It was great! At the time. How quickly things changed. Back then, sites need only be mobile-friendly. Responsive design was an unknown topic. We followed the convention of using sliders, keeping content light to get visitors to ask questions and contact us. Yeah. It was interesting and not the best representation of our work. It’s funny that the sites we designed for clients were always so much better than our own. In part, it’s because we’ve been really good about getting referrals from satisfied clients that we didn’t need the site. Mistake, yes. Big mistake? Debatable…it wasn’t the worst!

Fast forward to 2015 and the realization that enough was enough. It was time to get with the times and build and modern, responsive website that accurately reflected the level and quality of work we deliver to clients like Tivo – FAll Tv 2015 Landing page Tivo Pranks A Theater Full Of Moviegoers. We wanted to make sure we addressed a few major points:

1. The site must be responsive, providing a high-level mobile user experience and well-positioned for Google to take notice
2. The site needed to be visually appealing to capture attention quickly
3. The site need to make better use of content media providing a useful and engaging experience
4. The site needed to showcase our design and development skills with fancy CSS and creative use of HTML5
5. The site needed to be fully integrated with our marketing automation platform – Infusionsoft

In true form, we put together a slideshare deck to show the transformation. take a look-see:

New Focus?

As we re-developed the site and exchanged great ideas, we realized that we were not properly telling our story. We realized that we were focused too much on the tactics and not the strategy.

Let me explain.

We have positioned ourselves as Search, Social, Analytics experts. Which is true. However, it doesn’t tell the full story. EVERY time we kickoff a new client, we go into strategy. It doesn’t matter if they had a search or social strategy. It didn’t matter if they had a digital marketing and measurement plan for their analytics. We discussed it anyway. We get to know our clients business, who they serve and the problems they solve. It’s essential. So we did it.

We discussed their sales systems, their operations, their technology. Even though, in most cases, we were not hired to do so. It just seemed obvious  to us that we needed to know what happens after we drive traffic, leads or even sales. the end result is that it  made our job of “delivering tactics” more impactful and effective. It also gives us brownie points.

However, when marketing ourselves, we realized that we highlighted the tactics, not the strategy. It made since that since we always talk strategy as a precursor to executing the tactics, we need to say that! The natural next step was to create more content around inbound marketing strategy, lead generation, lifecycle marketing and content strategy. This also impacted the site’s user experience as the navigation was updated to account for the new content.

Wow. Why didn’t we think of this before. I mean, tactic shouldn’t exist blindly without strategy driving it. We never just execute without strategy, so it made sense to let the world know. New focus? Not really. Newly articulated yes, but we’ve been doing this for years and it’s why our clients have such nice things to say :-).

New Offerings

I’d be remiss to mention that we now offer video. It’s something we worked with our clients before. Mainly, using their already produced video. Now, we get to help control the narrative and add in our creative ideas. Not to mention, shooting captivating aerial video from a Phantom drone is pretty darn cool! We expect this to become very popular are business want to take advantage of the power of video to tell their story, capture client testimonials and offer product demos, reviews and more. 2016 is going to be a HUGE year for video. Now, we can be a part of that for our client.

The Wrap Up

2016 is going to be a big year for us. We’re really excited about the new space and new people we’ve started meeting. We’re proud of our new site, that has already been met with extremely positive feedback – but we’ll continue to improve. We’re also excited about the articulation of our “new focus.” It’s going to be busy for us, but this is what it’s all about. Going forward, the plan is continue to provide posts like this that give insight into what it’s like at Mixed Digital, working with Mixed Digital or working for Mixed Digital. We aim to create something unique – a digital lifestyle. I think we’re well on that path.

Yours in success,

MFS

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We’d love to hear your stories, feedback, comments and just to meet you in general. Please feel free to share this post or comment below. Hope you had as great a week as we did!

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