Yet, here we are and the mobile phenomenon is changing the landscape of advertising, marketing, web development, video production, etc. Businesses and creatives are having to change the way they do things. It’s an exciting time. It’s also a competitive and challenging time. Traditional mediums are decreasing in effectiveness and now, more than ever, content is king. Content, your message, and the way you deliver your message are of significant importance and here’s why…

It’s a well known fact that it’s important to think about your message and communicate it in a creative and memorable way… a way that’s tailored and targeted to your audience. And everybody knows that attention spans in the Internet world are short. You’ve got to be on your game. That’s not news. But when you add mobile to the equation, you’re presented with a new dynamic. People are consuming your content from more places and in a much different way than before. It’s becoming the norm—wait, it IS the norm—and users are finding that the mobile experience fits their lifestyle. They want more of it and they expect more.

eMarketer estimates that by 2016, more than 110 million Americans—or one-third of the total US population—will watch video content on a mobile phone at least once per month. This year, just under 20% of the population, or 25.2% of US mobile phone users, are expected to watch mobile video monthly.

To compete in this realm, you’ve really got to think about your content and how you’re delivering it. Websites need more sophisticated navigation systems and your website must be responsive. And clearly, you need video content. It’s what people want.

The content you’re putting out there must be engaging and relevant and custom video production for mobile devices can be the best way to go.

A recent study by MediaMind indicated that “rich media and video boost metrics on both the direct response and branding sides. Rich media and video made users significantly more likely to click directly on display ads—in the case of video, the likelihood of clicking on an ad went up more than ninefold.” This research demonstrates the powerful effect video can have in the online world.

Other forms of content marketing, such as blogging, are an important part of a successful marketing strategy. However, including video as part of online ad placement and as good content on your website is quickly becoming the most effective way to communicate.

Successfully getting more website visits with online video can be achieved by carefully considering your business and the message you want to communicate. Once you have a firm understanding of what you want to say, then it’s time to get to work.

Online videos can take on many forms. Sometimes the best approach is to choose a representative to get on camera and talk about your organization and sometimes you may need a series of animated videos that describe a product or service. In this exciting time of ever-changing and advancing technologies, the possibilities are endless.

In most cases, it’s best to talk with a online video expert to help ensure you move in the right direction. By getting into the routine of consistently producing video content for your website, you can be sure to captivate and communicate to your audience in an effective manner.

Here’s an example. Recently, we produced a short promotional video for the progressive city of Bridgeport, West Virginia. The video was part of a campaign to promote the brand new online city newspaper. The website will be the primary source for news for the city.

Our philosophy is that any successful media outlet, business, organization, etc. starts with a great brand identity and message. And so, the project began with a new logo and style guide to complement an existing identity already being used by the Bridgeport CVB.

We carefully considered all the various aspects and applications of such an organization and developed an identity that would set the online resource apart from other news websites. We then carried the brand through to other promotional materials such as flags, t-shirts, and more. We also designed the user interface for the website… A complete package with personality, style, and a unique identity. And so, Connect Bridgeport was born.

To introduce this website brand to the world, we produced a promotional video. The video was meant to generate interest, describe the purpose of the new website, and convey the unique qualities of Connect Bridgeport to prospective users.

The promotional video was used on social media and on a website landing page. The new website launches on April 16, 2012, and the promotional video has served as an excellent way to jump start this new website adventure and help ensure its future success.

Please watch the video and then contact us to find out if a promotional video can help you.

One of the problems with living in our new global world is that it’s now easier to find out what’s happening on another continent than what’s happening down the street.

Global is nice, but lets face it – deep down – what we all really care about is our own world… where WE play, eat, shop, work, and just plain live.

Unfortunately, it keeps getting harder to really tune into what’s happening in our community.

What if there was one place where you could directly connect to the heart of the city of Bridgeport? A place where you would know – in real-time – exactly what’s happening at City Hall, in our schools, and local businesses. A place where you could search job openings and get news from the field, diamond, and courts. A place you could find stories, scores, videos and more… the content you care about.

A dynamic source of Bridgeport information – that never stops coming to you.

Beginning April 15th…

Bridgeport will be connected like never before.

Connect Community
Connect Commerce
Connect Bridgeport

Pikewood Creative had the pleasure of working with Stonewall Group and the West Virginia Department of Commerce in the summer of 2011 to complete a business development video and :30 commercial to use in their business recruiting efforts, showcasing why West Virginia is best positioned to serve as home for a variety of business operations.

For two weeks in June, we traveled all over the state filming executives from several companies, large and small, to interview them about why they enjoy doing business and having their operation in West Virginia. We interviewed staff from Coldwater Creek and DuPont Washington Works in the Parkersburg area; the team at BrooAlexa in Charleston, and the team at Renick Millworks in Renick; executives at STaSIS, Quad Graphics, and the Macy’s Distribution Center, all in the Eastern Panhandle; and we came closer to our home in Morgantown to film the President & CEO of Azimuth in Fairmont. Those who are new to the state talked about how proactive West Virginia was in helping them decide to bring their businesses to the state, and how much help the Development Office and Small Business Administration have been as their businesses grow and expand.

West Virginia Development Office – Department of Commerce Film and :30 Commercial

Pikewood Creative had the pleasure of working with Stonewall Group and the West Virginia Department of Commerce in the summer of 2011 to complete a business development video and :30 commercial to use in their business recruiting efforts, showcasing why West Virginia is best positioned to serve as home for a variety of business operations.

For two weeks in June, we traveled all over the state filming executives from several companies, large and small, to interview them about why they enjoy doing business and having their operation in West Virginia. We interviewed staff from Coldwater Creek and DuPont Washington Works in the Parkersburg area; the team at BrooAlexa in Charleston, and the team at Renick Millworks in Renick; executives at STaSIS, Quad Graphics, and the Macy’s Distribution Center, all in the Eastern Panhandle; and we came closer to our home in Morgantown to film the President & CEO of Azimuth in Fairmont. Those who are new to the state talked about how proactive West Virginia was in helping them decide to bring their businesses to the state, and how much help the Development Office and Small Business Administration have been as their businesses grow and expand.

They also spoke in great detail about the proximity of West Virginia to the east coast markets: the ease of travel for both business meetings and events as well as for shipping their product. Jay Petre from Renick Millworks even refers to West Virginia as “the hub” of the east coast!

Not only did we conduct interviews at each of these companies, but we also captured their workers in action through days of b-roll footage filming – everything from race tracks to construction sites to chemical plants to distribution centers to high end word working. It was exciting to see how much business activity happens on a daily basis in West Virginia!

We also filmed lifestyle and family shots all over the state. We captured farmers markets, scenic historical streets, a train station, a race track and casino, lots of dining and shopping, an outdoor concert and scenery at Coopers Rock and the campus of WVU to name a few. For a business considering a move or a start up in West Virginia, the staff at those companies will never want for activities outside of work.

The :30 commercial debuted to a national audience during the 2011 Greenbrier Classic. The video and the :30 commercial both won Addy and Telly Awards for 2011.

This video was used as an intro video for the 2012 FIRST Robotics competition season. Robotics teams from the US, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, Chile, Spain, Taiwan, and more come together to compete for the chance to qualify for the championship competition in St. Louis Missouri.

Teamwork and professionalism are important themes in the FIRST community. Therefore, the concept for this video was to portray robot arms, from different teams (Red & Blue), working together to create lines that eventually draw an image of an actual FIRST robotics team. The animation and imagery are editing to a fast, driving music track.

We produced this promotional video for the Downline Ministries.

The Downline Builder is an interactive discipleship tool that will allow you to create a customized discipleship curriculum for one-on-one relationships or small groups. In contrast to the typical one-size-fits-all approach, the Builder will give you the opportunity to customize and personalize discipleship curriculum as many times as you want with as many different people or groups as you want for whatever period of time you want, all while providing built-in accountability for real, life-on-life relationships so that discipleship doesn’t become a mere academic exercise.

www.downlineministries.com

Lohmann has been the Executive Producer at Pikewood Creative for the last eight years, creating videos and commercials for a wide range of clients.  Earlier this year, Lohmann was awarded an Emmy^® for his work on United Bank’s “Anticipation” television commercial, centered around the lead-up to the Mountaineer football season.   In addition to his regular production work with Pikewood Creative, Dan has worked for the Olympics host broadcaster for every Olympics event in the past seven years.

Aside from his work at Pikewood, Dan has been active on the board of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for the last five years and coaches youth soccer and basketball. He also devotes time to support Chestnut Mountain Ranch, a home for troubled teen boys, where he has produced videos to help tell the ranch’s story. He finds himself fortunate to be able to use his creative gifts for the good of the community by producing the annual United Way fundraising video each year.

The Young Guns awards were created in 1999 by West Virginia Executive.  Each year, a new class of Young Guns is selected.  Nominations for this prestigious honor are accepted throughout the year, and new members are selected each September.

WordPress is easy to use
It’s often said that if you can edit a Microsoft Word document, you can edit a WordPress website. You don’t have to be a web designer to update your content. Updating a post or page is effortless thanks to the built-in visual editor in the WordPress dashboard. The interface is easy to navigate and everything is organized in a way that makes it easy to find.

WordPress is flexible
Wordpress is completely open source which means there is a worldwide community of programmers and designers working together to add more features and functionality to WordPress. Add-ons, or plugins, can be easily installed in the WordPress dashboard area to further enhance your website.

WordPress will save you money
Another advantage of being open source is that there are no setup or installation fees. WordPress is free of charge and basically serves as a blank canvas for creating professional website designs. Many advanced features can be added to your website by installing free plugins that were coded by professional programmers – which also include frequent security updates.

WordPress is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly
WordPress is the most SEO friendly among all content management systems and allows full optimization through its features and SEO plugins. Matt Cutts from Google says, “Wordpress takes care of 80-90% of (the mechanics of) Search Engine Optimization”. With much of your website being optimized automatically you can spend more time developing better content for your users.

WordPress is here to stay
In August 2011 WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg announced that 22% of new active websites in the U.S. are powered by WordPress, and 14.7% of the top million websites in the world are taking advantage of what it has to offer. As the number of WordPress-powered sites continues to grow, so does the number of developers who are making it a better and more robust content management system.

That’s a shocking number when you consider the importance of using your website to promote your business or organization and generate more leads. You must work to be up-to-date, relevant, and produce great content. Simply having a static website out there isn’t going to work anymore and other methods for updating your site can be cumbersome at best.

Why do you need content management for your website? Here’s two good reasons…

1) Content Marketing is the Best Marketing

In a recent article, Mikal E. Belicove talks about the increasing investment that companies are making in the area of content marketing and content curation. Mikal writes, “So what exactly is content marketing? It’s the creation and publication of original content — including blog posts, case studies, white papers, videos and photos — for the purpose of generating leads, enhancing a brand’s visibility, and putting the company’s subject matter expertise on display.”

Content marketing has become the most important tool for branding and promoting your business. Mikal goes on to say that “twice as many B2B marketers now employ content marketing as they do print, TV and radio advertising.” That means that a great website is more important that ever. It also means that your website isn’t just an online brochure with 10-15 pages and that’s it. Your website needs to be put to work. It must be a scalable and adaptable tool that gives you the ability compete in the Content Marketing game.

A website built with a content management system (or CMS) is the best way to accomplish your communication and marketing goals.

2) Content Management Makes it Easy

To be successful at all this it has to be easy. You need to focus on creating good content for your website and implementing that content needs to be hassle-free.

Having a website built on a CMS provides you with the ability to produce this content and keep your website current and fresh. It’s gives you the flexibility to you need. Imagine sitting at an airport and being able to log in to your CMS to add a new blog post to your website, change a phone number, or remove a former employee from the staff page.

Other methods for updating your website can be complicated. For example, Dreamweaver is a good software application for web development and can be used as a way to update your website. However, it often requires knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. and doesn’t even come close to providing the same level of speed and flexibility found in a dynamic website built with a CMS.

Hiring staff or companies to support you with web editing and development is a good option, but this could be expensive. It most cases, the best strategy is to get your website up-to-speed with professional design and a content management system.

Websites with content management systems are the best tool for promoting your business or organization online and will give you the ability to focus on creating the great content needed to make your company a success.

For more information on how a website with a content management system can help your business, contact us…

How can you use a QR Code?
A QR code can enhance your printed material with an interactive media response, or an immediate call to action at the moment of the engagement with your marketing piece. They work as links to online (rather than fixed) content, and provide the flexibility to support campaigns for almost any product or service being offered.

What are the PROS and CONS of using a QR code on printed material?
There are several things to consider when deciding if a QR Code is a fit for your project.

PROS:
Ease of Use
Range of Users
QR codes are trackable
Easy way to direct users to online content
Appeal to curiosity of users
Cost effective

CONS:
Lack of awareness
Requires user to have smartphone
Users need to download QR code reader
Scanning can be a long process
What if the novelty wears off?

So, are QR Codes evolving in the print industry or just a current trend destined to fade away?
This is a subjective question and depending on who you ask you may get various answers.  It all depends on how each business is implementing QR Code and the intended use. Considering everything, QR Code is still doing a great job for many. As for how long it will serve the purpose; I guess no one knows for sure. Personally, I think relevant material is the key to the success of QR Codes. Too many QR Codes link the user to irrelevant URLS, or non- optimized web pages. Unfortunately in those situations, the QR Code is seen to be at fault, when in fact it is the marketer.

When used in a creative and clever way to engage the user for a meaningful true experience, the QR Code can make a huge impact on printed material and connect the user to traditional design and digital technology. So in these terms, yes it is evolving and changing the way printed material engages the user/viewer.

A great example of this is an ad from setjapan.com:

In conclusion, I think when considering using a QR Code on a project, weighing the pros and cons is a great place to start, but also think about the potential QR Codes have to be great marketing and advertising tools when this technology is embraced.