Education
Look out for our regular seminars on topics that are most relevant to you now. This year the focus has been on social media through our Social Media 101 seminar, where we have helped over 400 attendees from some of Australia’s largest organisations get a handle on the fundamentals of social media.
In addition to our public seminars, DDG has been engaged to provide private seminars for organisations and their executive management teams.
Strategy
While we wouldn’t go as far to say that there’s no point having a website if you don’t have an online strategy, we do think you really need to have a clear understanding around why you have a website, who you are targeting, what questions are they asking, where are they hanging out online, where are they coming from etc...? And, if you’ve already started to venture into the social media minefield with any degree of serious intent, you’ll know that the promised utopia of "free" marketing to a global audience seems to be taking up more and more time with little in the way of tangible results.
A strategy pulls it all together, answers the questions, presents a business case, justifies the investment, puts in place a plan for management and resourcing along with an approach for measuring success so you can continue to evolve and improve. Also we aren’t just talking about a website; it’s everything you do online - your online presence!
Over the years we’ve been doing strategy, we think we’ve developed a successful approach. Our strategic process has been distilled into "The DDG Way - online" designed to lead your organisation through 3 phases starting from DISCOVERY, to IDEAS (generation) then STRATEGY (development). DISCOVERY is heavily workshop focussed and methodical. IDEAS is iterative and creative, while STRATEGY delivers the precise outcomes and direction to steer your online initiatives and direction to maximise your return on investment (not just dollars, but time).
Of course, after delivering a strategy we can provide complete implementation services and ongoing management to help you deliver the strategic outcomes.
Solution Design
You can solve a problem in lots of ways, but if you want a solution that is simple, efficient, elegant and effective at getting the job done – well that takes skill, experience, insight and an awareness of what tools and solutions are already available, while balancing this against components that need to be custom built.
Bringing together the pieces of the puzzle is what we’ve been doing for over 10 years, and we’ve been doing it across almost every industry sector.
While we can custom build almost any part of the solution, continued investment into the discovery of new products on the market and understanding their benefits, fit in the marketplace and how they can be used to fit into broader solutions to provide strategic opportunities for our customers, is pivotal to creating the right solutions.
Information Architecture
When you publish information online, it’s there for a reason. There was an identified audience, and an intended outcome that was expected from making it available.
Information Architecture deals with the structure of the information – how it is segmented, where it is placed and how it is navigated and discovered.
A solid information architecture doesn’t happen by chance – it takes thoughtful design, creative thinking and a clear understanding of Who, Why, What and Where?
People think in terms of menus or hieraches, they don’t care how you’re structured they just want their problem solved or their question answered.
User centric architecture is the foundation of an effective website.
Interface Design
Working in hand with the Information Architecture, good interface design achieves usability and strategies for representing the information architecture.
Graphic Design
Your website is your virtual-shop front, your window to the world.
It’s how your audience sees your business and your brand... it can make (or break) that all-important first impression. If your website is not high impact in terms of visual presentation or functionality, then your visitors may be disappointed and never return.
Whether your business style is contemporary, visually exciting, product based or bold, our designers will deliver a completely innovative look.
Web Content Management
Being able to self manage content on your website is pretty much a given these days, but choosing the right solution is more of a challenge.
Content Management Systems (CMS) are not created equal - they each have different niche areas of core competency, good at one area of content management but not another.
The CMS solution should be a good fit with the direction and functionality of your site. That’s why DDG has selected 3 primary platforms for content management and we continue to review the range of solutions available and select the most appropriate platform for your needs.
WebCommand – Built by DDG is ideal for complex sites that require a fully customised solution. Web Command has a different approach to content management compared to most solutions available and is particularly suited to managing multiple sub-sites, sharing and reusing content through complex site structures.
Umbraco – Our recommended open source platform that powers over 85,000 websites around the world. It gets the job done for both small and large sites.
SiteFinity – A leading CMS platform with an emphasis on usability and flexibility and currently powers over 6,000 websites across 29 different industries.
eCommerce
Delivering an online store and doing business on the web is not necessarily the black art it used to be. There are plenty of out-of-the-box solutions to get a store up and running in no time at all. That’s OK if you don’t have special requirements, but if you want to maximise the effectiveness of your online store, chances are you’ll need to strategically arrange the store around your customers and product range.
By utilising DDG’s expertise in eCommerce, we can guide you through the process of designing and selecting a suitable platform that delivers an appropriate solution.
Do you have a large catalogue?
You need a solution that allows you to manage your products quickly and efficiently with the minimal fuss. Perhaps you need to integrate into a separate, pre-existing database of products and would like to automate the upload of products.
Do you have unique product structures or process requirements?
You need a solution that is easily customised to suit your business needs.
Do you need to integrate with other applications, such as order processing, warehousing and accounting systems?
You need a solution with an open platform to allow you to exchange data efficiently.
Is your online store part of a website with other heavy content demands?
You need a solution that integrates well with a content management platform.
DDG has a range of solutions available to cover each need.
Email Campaigns
Need help to design an effective email based campaign?
- Creation of templates that work effectively across major email platforms.
- Custom integration with email delivery systems such as Mailchimp and your CRM.
Blogs
We design and implement blog solutions using the WordPress platform.
- Design and implementation of custom WordPress themes.
- Setup and configuration of your WordPress blog.
- Integration of your WordPress blog with your website.
Custom Online Applications
Do you have an interesting idea for an application, a unique business need, or just need to streamline your business systems and processes? You may need to consider bespoke software development.
Sometimes we need to design and build an entire application, other times we will write software to connect separate systems so they work together.
Examples of our previous projects include enterprise document management systems, custom eCommerce and order processing, Insurance Quotation, Content Management and Events Management.
Our custom built solutions are today used in some of Australia’s largest organisations, delivering critical applications used by thousands of employees.
Social Media Platform Integration
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of what we now call "social media" is not that it’s new, (because it’s not and has been happening for a long time!) but rather it is expanding our perception about what it means to have an online presence. What we have learnt from the social media "revolution" is that to have an online presence means having much more than a website - we should also be extending our presence into other areas where our target market engages online.
Of course, we recommend this is approached strategically and if you are now at the point where you need to implement your presence in these platforms then DDG’s social media specialists can significantly help leverage the opportunities.
Our platform implementation services can provide specialised solutions around Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and WordPress.
- Facebook landing page development. First impressions count and when someone visits your Facebook page instead of them going straight to your Wall implement a proper welcome page as an extension of your website within Facebook.
- Facebook custom application development. Development of applications using the Facebook API and tightly integrated to the Facebook platform.
- Website / Facebook integration (Facebook Connect). Facebook enable your website by developing applications that allow your website to directly integrate into the Facebook.
- LinkedIn API development.
- Facebook and LinkedIn single sign on to your website. Development of solutions to enable users of these platforms to single sign on to your website.
We define measuring in terms of:
- Collecting quantitative data through analytics software,
- Comparing the data to establish trends,
- Interpreting the data into meaningful conclusions, aligned with strategic goals.
You may be collecting analytics for no other reason, than curiosity to see who is looking at your site and while the results may be interesting, unless they translate into measuring success or failure of your online presence, chances are it will stagnate.
For measuring to be useful it must drive change. Establishing what’s working online and what isn’t is fundamental to ensuring resources are utilised to maximum effect.
If you have a strategic online presence:
- Some strategies will work, others won’t (or at least not well enough to justify the effort).
- Those strategies that do work will likely benefit from fine tuning.
- New opportunities are going to emerge that can be explored and brought into the strategy.
Effective measuring requires a commitment to regular resourcing. It’s our firm belief that effective and regular measurement aligned with a clear strategy will ultimately drive the success of the online presence.
For this reason, DDG provides post-implementation services to work with you on an ongoing basis to oversee the direction and success of your online presence. We would typically deliver this in the form of an annual retainer, with a commitment to deliver the following services:
- A regular thorough review of how the strategy is working (we suggest every 4 months). This includes a review of analytics, measurement and strategic outcomes along with possible new opportunities.
- Interim report (suggested frequency is monthly) to provide an overview of the previous period’s analytic trends.