What Marketers Need to Know About The End Of Cookies on Google

In August of 2019 Google first announced their plan to rid Google Chrome of third-party cookies, the digital file advertisers use to target and track ads across the web. The announcement came as users and government regulators demanded more privacy from web giants, and signals a time of change for digital marketers who depend on the data cookies provide. 

The unease about web privacy isn’t new, and many web browsers, including Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari have already done away with third party cookies. Google Chrome might not be the first browser to take this step, but it certainly is the largest–with 46% of internet users in the U.S. choosing Chrome as their browser. Not only is Google the largest web browser, it also the largest digital ad platform, accounting for 29% of digital media spend. 

This means that advertisers who use the largest ad platform to target users on the most-used web browser may have to change the way they track and deliver ads to their audiences. 

Cookies Explained

Internet cookies, much like the tasty treat, are best in moderation. And even though the term “cookies” is used broadly to describe any type of web-tracking code, Google’s initiative will only affect third party cookies, instead of the first-party cookie. 

First party cookies are pieces of tracking code owned by individual websites that track user activity only on the site itself. Have you ever wondered how Pinterest remembers your login information or Nike keeps items in your cart even after you left their site? That’s the work of a first-party cookie. 

They help the site owner learn about the behavior of users on their site, including which pages they visited and for how long. Better yet, the information about the users’ behavior stays between the user and the site owner, meaning that no outside party can access the data and use it for marketing purposes. 

Third party cookies, the kind now being phased out by Google, are any type of cookie created by another site outside one that you’re visiting. Instead of tracking users on a specific site, they track users as they navigate across many sites. Advertisers use the data from third-party cookies to retarget individuals with ads based on their past browsing activity. For example, getting an ad for running shoes on a baking website after visiting a sporting goods website. 

Will digital marketing be affected?

Some marketers will experience little, if any, disruption in the way they advertise. Most marketers, however, will see much more significant changes. 

Like we mentioned earlier, Google isn’t doing away with all cookies– just the ones that track users across the web. Fortunately (depending where you stand on data privacy) many of the largest web enterprises, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, still collect first-party user data that they can use. 

This means if you rely on Google properties, like Search or Youtube advertising, you should be relatively unaffected since the data used for those properties is all first-party and owned by Google.

But even if you use Google platforms to buy ads on sites not owned by Google or to target people using the Chrome web browser, the short-term implications will still be minor. Most third-party audiences will diminish in size as cookies expire, which will require many marketers to adapt the way that they target users and find ways to reach audiences. 

Giving consumers control over the data they share will create long-term advantages for both consumers and advertisers.  The consumer will benefit from greater control and informed choice over their online experience, inspiring more trust between the consumer and the advertiser and increasing the likelihood that the consumer will be receptive to the marketing message. 

What do we do next?

As with any large shift in online policy, the industry as a whole is buzzing in search of a better solution. Considering Safari and Firefox have both already eliminated the third-party cookie, it should give marketers some optimism that maybe the cookie wasn’t all that necessary to begin with. 

Google’s Privacy Sandbox

In August of 2020, Google announced the creation of a “Privacy Sandbox,” which is meant to keep the efficiency of ad delivery intact after third-party cookies go to the wayside. Google created the Privacy Sandbox to preserve the anonymity of users while still allowing behavior-based targeting to marketers. The project is still in its infancy, so it’s tough to come by details, but based on the information we have thus far, the Sandbox will use a suite of API’s, not cookies, to gather information and group users into what Google is calling FLoCs (Federated Learning of Cohorts). 

A FLoC is just grouping of web users based on interests and browsing habits. To preserve the privacy of users, Google will analyze first party browsing data from Chrome users and group these users into relevant cohorts. This means that ads are served to the whole cohort, instead of to an individual user. 

This is similar to the way that Facebook handles advertising on its platform. Facebook puts users into interest-based groups using first party data then allows advertisers to target the groups as a whole. 

Contextual Advertising

Before there were cookies or big data, advertisers used elaborate syndicated focus group data to inform where to place ads based on the expected habits of their audience. 

Contextual advertising requires marketers to think strategically about their audience’s habits in order to reach them. A company selling guitars may place its ads on a website dedicated to music journalism or a camping supply company will choose to place a PPC ad on an outdoors-oriented website to reach its expected audience. 

This type of advertising is old-school and low-tech, but eliminates the need for cookies or user data. 

Leverage First-Party Data

Remember, first-party cookies aren’t going anywhere, and they basically behave the same way as third-party ones except they are contained to your business’s website. These cookies can still be used to gather data about your users and retarget them later. 

• Now is a good time to audit your CRM (customer relationship management) lists and make sure that they collect valuable data for your business. 
• Building your first-party data arsenal is important because those lists can be integrated with other platforms, and it’s like building your own focus group.

User ID Aggregation

Several data partners are coming up with different approaches to how to identify users across devices, and recapture the ability to set frequency caps as well as retarget: two major features affected by the deprecation of third party cookies.

This would be a combined effort between first part data and machine learning where the user themselves are kept anonymous, but we could still track the activity of this anonymized user.

It starts with an opt-in or first party data.  These integrations would figure out everything attached to this users: email address, phone number, physical address, and aggregate all that under one anonymous user identifier.  

The Trade Desk’s Unified ID (which is now an open sourced feature) and LiveRamp Identity Link are two of the major players in this space that perform this function.

Categorical Cohorts

Without cookies to rely on, marketers will no longer be able to achieve the hyper-personal digital ads of old. Instead, many marketers will have to adapt to a group-based targeting strategy that groups users into cohorts rather than the typical one-to-one targeting approach. Google, Apple, and Facebook all still have their own first party data. They just won’t allow your cookies onto their sites to mine it. They are still willing to sell their audiences, however. 

• The one-to-many cohorts are probabilistic based, and still rooted in the same statistical information and machine learning the individual information was. 
• Think in terms of categories rather than personas; similar to how you might think of cable networks.
• This might include going direct-to-publisher to tap into their walled garden first party set up.

Testing, Testing

While understandable, many fall into a trap of looking for a silver bullet that will have their ad dollars only targeting their hottest leads and ripest prospects. 

Marketers should expect to run test campaigns regularly to see who your target is, and if new optimizations would affect their engagement. Prioritizing your optimizations is key in finding efficiencies and isolating your target.

Brace for Impact

Marketers have known for a long time that the cookie would soon go away, but that doesn’t make it any less challenging to overcome. The good news is that all of the data once gathered by cookies still exists somewhere, just not in the one-to-one, turnkey systems we’re used to. 

Digital advertising has seen some upheavals in its relatively short tenure. Authentication of data disrupted the industry and left a trust void among advertisers which is still being restored through third-party auditors. 

Data is once again the center of attention, but this time among users, as digital advertising continues to seek a balanced place in the advertising ecosystem. it certainly will not be the last. If you need a partner who can help you navigate choppy waters and keep your brand moving without missing a beat, we think you should give us a call. 

Why People Despise Company Rebrands According to Designers

While the purpose behind corporate rebrands is many, the one thing they all have in common is that they take a ton of work to complete. Teams of designers, researchers, and planners can spend hundreds of hours over numerous months (or years, even) to guide a company through a rebrand. And what reward do they receive for all of their hard work?  Ruthless, widespread ridicule. 

Most people hate rebrands. Even small tweaks to brands ignite derision from both fans of the brand and general internet haters alike. From harmless internet memes to downright revolt from consumers, the public reaction to rebrands can make you wonder why any company does it in the first place.

So what is it about these seemingly benign changes to a company’s visual identity that sparks outrage from the public? And what can marketers learn from the internet’s wrath? 

No Hard Feelings

“Many people are uncomfortable with change, and that is especially true when it comes to familiar and relied upon brands.” 

Sarah Fisch is a Senior Visual Designer at Happy Medium and has witnessed the public backlash against a rebranding campaign first hand. 

“Many people make snap judgments about a rebrand without taking the time to let it sink in a bit.”

In some cases, “snap judgment” may be putting it lightly, but even when reactions to a rebrand are overwhelmingly negative, and people care enough about your brand to voice their disapproval about a new color or logo, chances are that you’re doing something right. 

One logo redesign study illustrates that the stronger a consumer is associated with a brand, the more negatively they react when the brand changes. People choose to associate with brands that they believe represent themselves in some way, and the most visible parts of a brand, like colors and logos, come to symbolize the relationship between the person and the brand. Even if nothing else about the company changes, a new logo or color scheme threatens the relationship that a person has with the company, leaving the most loyal fans feeling left out or forgotten. 

Doug Choi, Happy Medium’s Creative Director explains, ”People develop relationships with brands. (Brands) can be inspiring, exciting, and oftentimes, comforting. I think when a brand changes without an indication of what that change means to a person, it can be really upsetting.”

When it comes to the brands that people love, nobody likes surprises. Your fans might not dislike your new logo itself as much as they dislike the fact that you pulled the rug out from under them. 

Choi adds, “I think if rebrands paid more attention to communicating what it actually means to (your customers) then you’ll upset fewer people. Of course, some people will be upset no matter what.”

Bridge The Gap

Change is never easy, but keeping fans in the loop about why the brand changed and what it means for them is one way to maintain the relationship between a brand and its fans. While the changes that occur during a rebrand may seem trivial, Choi and Fisch want to remind people that these changes are just a small glimpse of all the work that rebrands involve. 

“I think what most people don’t see is how much work goes into researching good rebrands,” says Choi. 

Most rebrands take months to complete, with some extreme examples taking years of research, strategy, and development before reaching the public. All of this time isn’t just spent arguing color systems or font choices– it’s a lot of work done to ensure that the new brand has as much longevity as possible. 

Fisch adds, “As a designer, I know the vast amount of work, conversations, and problem-solving that goes into a rebrand, and unfortunately, it seems that those who have never worked in the marketing field do not take that into account when making a judgment.”

So what’s the easiest way to help audiences take that work into account? Let them in on the process. 

Many rebrands go wrong by not explaining well enough what the new brand means for customers. When companies rebrand it’s usually to reflect a change in direction for the businesses. If all fans see is the new brand without any explanation about what will change in their experience as a customer, it may result in fans taking out their frustration on the new visual identity. 

“I like to try and put myself in the creative team’s shoes and think to myself what decisions and goals the designers went through that led them to the final look,” Fisch says explaining how to better judge the outcome of a rebrand. 

There are a ton of decisions that go into the new identity. Letting your audience know how those decisions benefit them should make the medicine go down easier. 

Take It In Stride

Seeing the outrage online can make any company reconsider its decision to start a rebranding effort, but Fisch and Choi encourage brands to look past initial reactions and think long term about the value a rebrand would bring.

“The people who are vocal online are not always fully representative of the people who care for the brand,” said Choi, reiterating a truism about any marketing project. “While I won’t say I think it’s completely random, trying to predict how people will react to a rebrand is certainly complex.” 

Rebrands, like all marketing, are intended to reach a specific audience. Internet backlash, no matter how loud, is rarely an accurate representation of what your audience and fans actually think. 

Choi adds, “I think in most cases it won’t matter. People will most likely get used to it and forget how they felt about it or come to understand how the new branding fits better with their evolving offerings. Whether a rebrand is successful or not is usually determined well after launch.”

One survey looked at some of the most controversial rebrands of 2019 then asked 1,000 people one year later to judge which version of the brand they liked more. In some instances, nearly 80% of survey respondents said they preferred the new logo compared to the previous one, while respondents were neutral or undecided on others. 

The lesson here is that the immediate reactions of a rebrand rarely reflect the opinions of the audiences that matter most, and even if the target audience is initially resistant, some time spent with the new brand can be enough to help them change their tune. 

Fisch offers some advice to fans feeling scorned, “It is ok to be uncomfortable with change, but it’s also important to embrace the change, and not let your very first reaction determine how you feel about something in the long run.”

Take The First Step

Don’t all this talk about rebrand backlash scare you. A good rebrand can set your business up for years of success, delighting business decision-makers and fans alike.

If your company is looking to refresh any aspect of your brand, like a website, social media, or marketing strategy, give us a call. 

Introducing: EatDrinkSwipe.com

The Happy Medium holiday party is one of the favorite annual events hosted by the company. In a usual year, it’s an evening of quality time with each other spent celebrating our accomplishments of the previous year, while looking ahead and getting excited about the year ahead. 

But in this year, which has been anything but typical, we knew that trying to replicate the experience of the holiday party without the ability to be together in person would be difficult. The idea of a Zoom holiday party sounded stale, and any other alternative to our normal holiday party fell flat when it came to creating a space where our team can celebrate and reflect. 

This called for a complete rethinking of the purpose of our holiday party and what we can accomplish together as a team, even if we can’t be together in the way that we’re used to. 

Order Up!

After a year like 2020, we knew the best way that we could come together as a team for the holidays was to give back to our community. And as a web design agency based in Des Moines, Iowa, we saw the need for our talented team to put our heads together for the betterment of the small, local businesses hit the hardest — restaurants and bars. 

Restaurants and bars have been hit especially hard during this pandemic. Government and public health restrictions have forced them to limit or shut down in-person service, requiring them to lean on delivery and carry-out to stay afloat. This challenge is made even more difficult by the fact that most food delivery apps, such as Doordash or Postmates, can take up to 30% of a businesses’ revenue when they complete an order through the app. 

That’s where we saw our opportunity for impact. In lieu of a typical holiday party, our team participated in a full-day “hackathon” to develop a website that connects customers with restaurants and bars in Des Moines. We wanted to highlight establishments that offer their own delivery or carryout, encouraging direct support, rather than ordering through costly third-party apps. 

Prep Work

The hackathon started at 8 am sharp, with the goal of having a mostly finished product by 5 pm the same day– with plenty of breaks throughout to celebrate like a normal holiday party. 

Each HM team member was assigned to a specific team, from PR and marketing to design and development, to help get the project off the ground. We were encouraged to collaborate with our own assigned team, as well as jumping across zoom meetings to connect with other teams to keep everybody on the page as the project progressed. 

What started as a frenzied brainstorming quickly coalesced into a streamlined product that we named Eat, Drink, Swipe– a website where users can browse a list of Des Moines restaurants and bars offering delivery or carry-out or choose a “Surprise Me” option if they are feeling indecisive. 

Serving It To Our Community

Our hackathon gave us a great opportunity to work and have fun with each other, but we knew the success of the project hinged on the community embracing the idea and local bars and restaurants feeling an impact. 

We used our experience in strategic social media to connect with local influencers to spread the word about Eat, Drink Swipe and encourage others in the community to show some love to bars and restaurants in Des Moines with customizable Instagram story graphics. 

This organic social media effort combined with a press release to local news organizations and a social media giveaway to bring awareness to the site and share the importance of supporting local in this tumultuous time. 

Our current site features 244 Des Moines restaurants and bars, making it easier than ever before for hungry Des Moines residents to find something new to support in their community. 

Proof Is In The Pudding

Numbers and analytics are still rolling in, but Eat, Drink, Swipe brought in over 1,800 unique users in the first two days after launch, with over 25,000 distinct “events” on the site (clicks, swipes, scrolls, etc.) 

We saw widespread support of Eat, Drink, Swipe in the community, with several news organizations choosing to highlight the site and far-reaching support from individuals across social media. 

Our team felt a great sense of accomplishment in the work we were able to accomplish in just one workday, and we felt an even greater sense of pride seeing our work embraced by the community. Of course, the greatest gratification we can experience is knowing that our work is helping support local businesses through this pandemic. 

If you need a new website or a team to help promote your products and services, give Happy Medium a call. 

How to Make User Experience Work For SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is not a pretty endeavor. And as much as we want to believe that a few magic touches are all it takes, no amount of wand waving can bring your website to the top of search results if you don’t understand how search engines rank web pages. 

We at Happy Medium know that there are no quick fixes when it comes to SEO. The promise of greater search visibility as the result of a few minor changes might be tantalizing, but we believe that the core principles of SEO go beyond headlines and metadata. Real SEO takes work– a lot of it– to get the results you want. 

The secret? Focus on giving your users the best digital experience they can possibly have on your site. Google and other search engines take your entire site experience into account when ranking search results. This includes obvious things, like helpful headlines and meaningful content, but also less apparent qualities, such as site speed and accessibility. Sounds like a tall task, right? We get it. Here’s a few ways you can merge your SEO efforts into the general user experience (UX) of your digital product. 

Jump to Section:

Copy, or words written for your website and branding materials, can blend beautifully with SEO. Content is (and always has been) king when it comes to SEO. The easiest way that copy can contribute to SEO is to make sure that content on your site applies specifically to the needs of your users. If somebody searches “Used guitars for sale” and your web page copy says “Buy used stringed instruments” you’re not specifically answering meeting the user’s needs, giving them a bad experience on the site. 

Try to put yourself in the shoes of the web user searching for your product or services. You can use a keyword planner to help you find relevant search terms, or you can intuitively guess the search terms that people use to find products or services like yours. Use these keywords prominently in your website content so that search engines and web users can easily understand what your page is about.

Titles and Metadata

Another way to help guide users and search engines is being thoughtful about the titles and metadata on your site. If copy includes the words that users read, metadata and titles are the words search engines read about your webpage. Search engines can always scan the content on your page, but they can’t discern the important stuff from the filler. That’s where metadata, such as SEO titles, SEO descriptions, and metatags, come into play. 

Metadata is not visible on the web page itself, instead it’s encoded using HTML directly into the page for search engines to read. We won’t break down all the specifics of all SEO metadata, but we do recommend downloading the Yoast SEO plugin for your website and reading more about how to craft excellent SEO titles from Yoast, one of the industry leaders in SEO software. 

You’ll be hard-pressed to find anybody who enjoys the tedious task of entering meta tags or SEO titles. At this point, title tags and meta description tags are just remnants of a time where you could easily manipulate a little html to rank first, second, and third pretty quickly. 

Nowadays, a good title and meta description is like tipping your cap to Google and saying, “Here’s what I’d like people to read on the search engine result pages (SERP). It’s up to you whether or not you use it, and I know that.” It might not do you a ton of good, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. 

Length & Amount of Content

Keyword stuffing is the act of packing your website with unnecessary or irrelevant keywords to try and achieve better search engine results. Believe it or not, people still do this outdated tom-foolery. Not only does this practice make your content worse, but Google and other search engines can also sniff it out from miles away. They’re not afraid to punish web pages that purposely try to subvert their rules. 

Rather than SEO shortcuts like keyword stuffing, a much better practice to please users and search engines alike is building up a wealth of relevant content over time. Curating good content is what we call a “white hat” practice, which basically means playing by the rules. Keyword stuffing is the opposite of a white hat practice and is actually much closer to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Coded. And of course, be sure to utilize titles and metadata on every page you post to maximize SEO value!

Becoming an Authority

The goal of any website is to become an authority on area(s) in which they operate. There’s no secret formula to achieving domain authority, but the easiest way to get there is making your content valuable to your audience. If people like your content and share it, your search engine ranking will improve. 

Information Architecture

Information Architecture (IA) is all about organizing your site in a way that is easy to navigate. Users should be able to find the information that they need, even if they’ve never been to your site before. But good IA doesn’t just help users find information, a logical site structure also helps search engines find their way around too. A poorly organized site also runs the risk of turning away new users, which increases bounce rates and decreases the perceived quality of the website by search engines. 

If you’re not sure how to make your site logical to users, try doing a card sorting exercise with some sample users. It’s always a good idea to include your users in the process of building your website– they are the ones who are going to be using it, after all.

Accessibility

Accessibility isn’t just about making sites for the visually impaired, and Happy Medium has already spent plenty of time breaking down web accessibility in our past blogs. You can check those out here:

Inclusive Personas for the Web

Three Ways To Design A More Visually Accessible Web

The (Not So) Secret Code to Web Accessibility

How to Write Accessible Web Content

In the eyes of Google, focusing on site accessibility makes the site more inclusive, which is a  known recent initiative of theirs.

Site Speed and Performance

Speed is incredibly important when it comes to providing the best experience for your users. The young whippersnappers of tomorrow will think your site is broken if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. I’m not kidding– pages that load in 2 seconds have a 10% bounce rate, while pages that load in just 5 seconds have a 40% bounce rate. 79% of web shoppers also say that if they have trouble with web performance, they will not come back. 

Make sure your site is in good working order and Google will rank it higher in search results. It’s that simple. 

Sitespeed can be tough to improve if you’re not a coding wizard. You can, however, check the health of your site by using GTmetrix.com, or even better, Google Pagespeed Insights. They give a pretty detailed list of things you need to change in order to get your site into tip-top shape.

Analytics

Digging through data isn’t sexy until you find a shiny nugget. Hopefully, that nugget provides some insight as to where you can improve the experience on your site. If you’re having trouble trying to make sense of a datum nugget, get an extra set of eyes to try to provide context and reasoning to the issue. 

Being able to rattle off a random percentage is pretty impressive at house parties, (“My website has an average session duration 2 minutes and 38 seconds!”) but like all things shiny, metrics without context can lose their luster. 

Your web analytics are where you start; your overall experience is where you end. The SEO comes in between. 

The Holistic Approach to UX and SEO

In order to create an all encompassing white hat experience, webmasters will need to treat UX and SEO as one. Is SEO dead? In a sense, yes. The days of keyword stuffing and backlink farms are over. Does the holistic approach to a better web experience include some aspects of SEO? Absolutely. To learn more about the intersection of the two, feel free to reach out.

2021 Marketing Planning: Get Started Now

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our 2020. 

For better or worse, this whirlwind of a year is finally coming to a close, bringing along all of the optimism and promise of the new year ahead. But while optimism may be enough to get us out of bed in the morning, the unfortunate truth is that 2021 is likely to hold as much volatility and uncertainty as its predecessor. 

Many marketers had the unfortunate task of tossing out their existing 2020 strategies in favor of reactionary and ad-hoc tactics to keep their businesses afloat. With such rapid and sudden changes reaching nearly every corner of the economy this year, who can blame a business for being hesitant about the idea of trying to plan long term for 2021. 

The bad news might be that uncertainty is here to stay, but the good news is that the last few months have given marketers tons of insights about consumer behavior and business trends that we can use to plan for next year. 

Let’s get started planning for what will certainly be another banner year in business. 

Spend or Save? 

The hardest question facing business leaders when planning for 2021 is trying to project their spending. There are no one-size-fits-all spending formulas, but generally, when consumers stop spending, businesses tend to do the same. 

As economic conditions destabilize, consumers will set stricter priorities that reduce their spending overall. When sales start to decline, businesses usually react by cutting their marketing expenses across the board—but such indiscriminate cost-cutting is usually a mistake according to this analysis by the Harvard Business Review (HBR). 

Market research firm Gartner released their annual survey on CMO spending in late June of 2020. The survey found that 44% of surveyed CMO’s faced midyear budget cuts in 2020 as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 11% expecting “significant” cuts.

The logic behind the decision to cut spending on marketing usually checks out. In the case of 2020’s budget cuts, businesses were optimistic that the economic impacts of COVID-19 would be short-lived, so they cut spending where they could in order to weather the storm. 

HBR suggests taking a “scalpel rather than a cleaver” to your marketing budget. It is clearly wise to contain costs for now, but failing to support your brand or adapt to customer’s changing needs can jeopardize your business in the long run. Maintaining your marketing spending, taking special care to prioritize high-ROI activities, is the most effective way to help your business succeed during and after economic uncertainty. 

Let’s Get Digital 

As we wrote in our blog from March 2020, the best way you can set your business up for success in today’s economy is by having a rock-solid digital foundation. This was especially true earlier this year when nearly all retail spaces were closed and shelter-in-place orders took hold of the global economy. 

Most businesses that adopted a digital-first strategy in 2020 did so reactively without much planning or consideration. 2021 is an opportunity for businesses to undergo a complete strategic digital transformation in order to meet the needs of modern customers. 

According to the market research firm Mckinsey and Company, 73% of consumers are still hesitant to resume regular activities outside the home, which is causing consumer shopping online to increase significantly. The study goes on to say that these habits seem like they’re going to stick around as US consumers report an intent to shop online even after the COVID-19 crisis. Building an e-commerce website is the best way to meet consumers where they are already shopping. 

As we say at Happy Medium, a digital presence isn’t just part of your business anymore—it is your business. 2021 is an excellent opportunity to invest in a robust digital strategy to help your business thrive now and into the future. 

Think Long Term

The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic also forced many businesses to reconsider their marketing goals. As spending declined across the board, many key performance indicators (KPIs) fell along with it. Things like new leads or sales dipped dramatically as all businesses thought to curb costs or delay unnecessary expenses. 

It’s uncertain whether this trend will continue into 2021, but when it comes to planning your marketing goals for the coming year, keep in mind that it may be futile trying to reach the same goals you set in the previous year.

Businesses and people both reduced their spending significantly during the peak of the pandemic. For businesses that focus their marketing on building sales pipelines or accruing new customers, this can mean that their old strategies and tactics are no longer producing results. 

2021 is a great opportunity for businesses to avert their attention away from short-term goals and instead invest in marketing activities that build their brand long term. Tactics like strategic social media and online marketing will help your brand stay visible to consumers through search engines and social media. These efforts can build your social audience and brand footprint, which is a good long-term investment to keep your business top of mind with your customers, putting you in an advantageous position as the economy recovers. 

But Not Too Long 

While 2021 may be a good opportunity to build some long-term brand value for your business, it’s best to avoid getting too comfortable with a marketing strategy. 

As we noted in our past blog about how to update your post-COVID social strategy, any plan created for 2021 needs room for adaptation and iteration. Businesses may be hesitant to engage in any long-term planning given the uncertain circumstances, but annual planning is still necessary to identify your long term objectives. 

One way to avoid getting stuck with an effective marketing strategy is to increase the speed of your planning cycle. Your annual marketing strategy should identify high-level targets for your marketing budget, but frequently revisiting this plan is a good way to make sure it is delivering the results that you need. 

Quarterly, or even monthly, reviews can identify underperforming tactics early before they overstay their welcome. This gives you an opportunity to adjust your tactical plan and successfully navigate unexpected change.

To the Drawing BoardAnnual planning is hard enough, but the uncertainty that lies ahead makes it even more difficult now. If you need a partner to help navigate you through the murky waters of 2021, give us a call.

A Small Business Owner’s Guide to Social Media During COVID

Liz Lidgett is the founder and CEO of Liz Lidgett Gallery and Design, a Des Moines-based art gallery that offers art sales and consultation services to local and national clients. Liz’s work can be seen on the walls of homes, businesses, and buildings throughout Des Moines, as well as in nationally-recognized design publications.

After years of working as an art consultant, I finally achieved a major dream of mine and opened an art gallery in 2019. I had a business plan, a set of goals with strategies to execute them and I had done all that I could to mitigate the inherent risks that come with opening a retail location. Like so many other things, all of that went out the window when a pandemic hit months after opening. As a small business owner, my focus shifted immediately to finding ways to make up the business that I lost when my gallery shut down. While the rest of my business has been disrupted, I have been able to find a new market for my business thanks to strategic social media during COVID. Instagram, in particular, has been a major driver of sales over these past uncertain months.

Reflect Your In-Person Experience Online 

Within two weeks of the pandemic beginning, and our gallery being shut down (along with all nonessential retail spaces in Iowa), we made the switch to a full e-commerce website. 

Our business is heavily reliant on relationships with our clients, so my main concern being able to provide the same service online that our clients expect in our retail space. I had a gut feeling that an e-commerce site was going to be important, but I had no idea just how important it would become. Our e-commerce site allowed us to keep making sales online, but we had to pivot even harder to social media and our blog to maintain relationships with our clients.

Our main efforts included interviews with artists through IGTV to introduce them to our audience, Instagram stories with videos of artwork each day, and the creation of a shop through Facebook and Instagram. Although our artwork can range from $100 to $10,000, we were still having large sales come through the website and our Instagram direct messages because the relationship aspect of our business didn’t change–it just moved online. 

Make a Connection

Tina, our director of operations, or I appear on our social media frequently. We talk to the camera, giving our personal thoughts and feelings about an artwork, expressing our genuine excitement about an upcoming show, or just showing our immense gratitude for our customers. 

When someone in New York makes a $2,000 purchase from a gallery in Iowa they’ve never been to, trust is an important factor. Because we show our faces and share our thoughts frequently there is a connection with our followers. People can’t come into the gallery in the same way they could before COVID, but I can still build trust with them. 

Our clients trust that we will package their purchases with care, or answer their questions in a timely manner because we show ourselves doing that on Instagram stories. They know they can pick up the phone and be familiar with the voice on the other end. 

The pandemic has accelerated and digitized something I believed in at the founding of my business. I put my name on the gallery, not out of ego, but because I want people to know who they are buying art from. Social media helps me do that.

Getting Started is Easy

Ultimately, I believe that social media has been a major factor in our survival throughout the pandemic. If you are a business owner, or you help run an account, I have a few pieces of advice for you. 

1. Talk to the camera
   It may feel uncomfortable at first, but practice makes perfect. Pro tip: no one will know if you have to restart the video 72 times until you get it right–but it also doesn’t have to be perfect. Your clients and customers want your videos to feel real, so share your passion and let your true personality shine.
2. Frequency is important
   I create a quick video whenever I’m in the gallery. I spend 5-10 minutes creating videos for Instagram each day and it has resulted in thousands of dollars of sales during the pandemic.
3. Ask questions and create engagement
   If you have questions about which items to stock or sales that you might run, ask your audience in a poll. Ask your audience for questions they may have about your business for potential content ideas. Instagram and Facebook give you this amazing direct connection with people who follow you and are interested in your business—all for free—so use that to your advantage.

Strategic social media marketing during COVID has carried us through uncertain times with little to no addition to our budget. Any business has the ability to make true and authentic connections with your clients through social media and online marketing and I encourage you to start today.

Can AI Save the Digital Marketing Industry?

Digital ad spend in the US totaled $145.3 billion in 2019, up 19.1% over 2018. There are a few reasons why advertisers are choosing to shift their budgets towards digital, but one of the main reasons is that digital ad tech is getting better.

Advertisers have more data about consumers now than ever in the past, which means they can target audiences with more specificity than ever before.

The result is digital advertising tailored specifically for each individual based on their past internet activity. Every internet user has experience encountering a digital ad that is almost too specific to the point of being eerie, and some users find these ads to be downright creepy.

Regardless of how creeped out they feel, 71% of consumers still prefer personalized ads. And if we expect the current trend the continue, personalized ads are about to get a lot more personal with the help of one of SciFi’s favorites subjects: artificial intelligence (AI).

The Brains Behind AI

The vast field of AI has been around longer than most people realize. Research into AI started in the 1950s and was originally focused on using the limited power of computers to solve simple problems and identify basic patterns. The broadest modern definition of AI is the study of teaching high-powered computers to take in huge amounts of data and make sense of the data in a meaningful way.

While the initial research into AI sought to replicate the human-reasoning process in computers, as technology improved, researchers saw more opportunity in matching the power of AI to unique tasks, like training a computer to specifically analyze volatile financial trends.

Despite its mostly mundane uses now, AI has still captured the imagination of the public, with a few high-profile pop-culture appearances like IBM’s Watson supercomputer winning a round of the television quiz show Jeopardy.

As the power of AI filtered through different industries, marketers soon found ways to make the technology useful, which means what was once a SciFi fascination will soon be on the home page of computers across the world.

Why Digital Advertising Needs AI

Hyper-targeted digital ads are built on cookies, which are small pieces of data that a website records about users as they visit the site. Cookies, while less delicious than the name implies, allow websites to track your activity and record the data in your web browser, which is how marketers get access to your internet usage history.

There are tons of helpful uses of cookies that benefit web users, like a website saving items in your shopping cart or remembering your location. But cookies are also the primary mechanism behind “creepy” digital ads.

The bad news for marketers, but good news for consumers, is that the use of cookies is coming to an end. The movement toward transparency and accountability in user data calls for the end of cookies, meaning that internet browsers will soon have much more difficulty tracking users.

The user now has control over how their data is being used, which is proper and necessary but forces advertisers to reckon with a new decreased access to user data.

That’s where AI and digital media experts converge.

The greatest benefit of AI in digital marketing is that AI does not rely on specific identifiers of individual users. As opposed to using specific data about your shopping habits to target an ad, AI uses huge amounts of data to identify trends and make highly educated assumptions about the ads that would interest you.

Digital media currently takes each web user and builds a profile using the cookies from their online activity. The data that AI uses is both anonymous and unstructured, so it doesn’t use specific personal information to target ads. This makes AI the perfect privacy-first approach to digital advertising.

How Digital Media Experts Will Use It

The capabilities of AI in digital marketing are vast, and there are already plenty of examples of digital media experts using this technology to their benefit. But when it comes specifically to digital marketing, advertisers will use AI to creatively target consumers without the use of intrusive data, like cookies.
The greatest strength of AI is the ability to convert large amounts of disparate data into trends and patterns that marketers can use. A simple example of this ability is AI that accounts for consumer purchasing trends and weather patterns.

The greatest strength of AI is the ability to convert large amounts of disparate data into trends and patterns that marketers can use. A simple example of this ability is AI that accounts for consumer purchasing trends and weather patterns.

Suppose that an AI machine discovered that sales for chicken noodle soup rise when the temperature drops below 40º. A marketer can use this information to target soup ads to geographic locations experiencing colder temperatures without knowing anything else about the consumers other than where they live.

Another recent application of AI in digital marketing emerged at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we discussed in a past blog, consumers were resistant to “normal” marketing in the midst of the pandemic. AI can analyze COVID-19 trends across the country and tell advertisers where they should pull back or increase their marketing depending on the number of active cases in certain areas.

These are both excellent examples of the predictive powers of AI to deliver relevant and targeted ads.

The Future Is Now

If science fiction is any indication, humanity is supposed to fear the growing power of AI. But the reality of AI is much less sensational and much more practical than the super-human cyborgs of science fiction.

From mundane applications like predicting the weather or suggesting something to buy on Amazon, to more cutting-edge uses like in the emerging field of natural language processing, the power of AI is becoming increasingly present in modern life. But even if you can’t see the mechanisms of AI in action, we will all encounter the results of AI in marketing sooner than later.

If you’re a cutting-edge brand in need of cutting-edge digital advertising, give Happy Medium a call.

Dark UX and UI Patterns in 2020 Politics

Recently, I was at an apartment pool with a small group of friends, when one of them admitted that she committed a cardinal, digital sin. She accidentally clicked on a political ad. To make matters worse, it was an ad for the party that we, and herself, are against.

You could hear us groan from blocks away.

We immediately had a handful of follow-ups:

Whose computer were you on?
Was it on social media?
What browser were you using?
How did it happen?

The story goes…she was watching YouTube on her personal iPad when an ad popped up for a candidate’s re-election site that covered a portion of what she was watching. When she tried to tap the X to close out, she realized, too late, that the X was actually a part of the image and not an actual link—a deliberate trick. A familiar storm of dread and despair washed over her.

She has since been exposed to one piece of direct mail marketing, two to three social media ads, no fewer than one banner ad on YouTube per day, and display ads all over the websites she frequents.

A “dark pattern” is the intentional misuse of digital elements to force a user into performing a certain action. I realize that this sounds like a page right out of Star Wars, but as we’ve seen from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, dark-side data practices can carry some strong influence.

No UX textbook or credible UX professional will promote using dark patterns, so why do we keep seeing them? The unfortunate truth is that dark patterns can be effective in producing short-term results, but what you risk is user trust and brand credibility. In the long term, users will eventually make the switch to more ethical products and services.

Nevertheless, politics, an arena well- versed in achieving short- term gains at the expense of long-term benefits, still willingly employs dark patterns. So as long as these patterns still appear, the best we can do is educate ourselves and be aware of how both sides of the aisle employ bad-faith UX to their own benefit.

Quick Review: UI Patterns vs. UX Patterns

User Interface Patterns are a piece or a section of a website (or software) that users interact with. These sections have common elements like text, colors, icons, graphics, and buttons. These are considered hard assets, e.g., you could buy three patterns from a designer if you wanted to.

User Experience Patterns are a collection of interactions a user has with the multiple interfaces, people, or culture of a company. For example, when you buy yourself a pair of Nikes online, you interact with many different UIs, on top of shipping times, and customer support (if need be).

What to Look For (From Both Sides of the Aisle)

Deliberate Misdirection (UI)

You may have seen this on retail websites where the more expensive option of a very similar item is highlighted. This is used to divert your focus. One political candidate has their $500 button do an animated “jiggle” (cringe) on their online donation form with a label that says “Join the President’s Club.” The whole time, the $100 donation button is already selected in a dark blue. Keep in mind there are two other donation amounts to choose from that are lower than $100.

These digital ads are designed to intentionally distract users and make decisions for them instead of letting users decide on their own. As Qui-Gon Jin once said, “Your focus determines your reality.” Try to be aware of where political ads divert your intention.

Forced Continuity (UX)

Individual donations are not only important to fund a political campaign, they also serve as a metric for how much momentum a campaign carries into election day. The importance of these donations incentivizes campaigns to engage in some tricky UX to keep them rolling in.

Another type of dark UX pattern that’s pervasive in political campaigns is forced continuity. Forced continuity works by automatically opting users into unintended repeated actions after they take a single, intentional action.

If you’ve ever subscribed to something and swore up and down that there was no mention of payments recurring, you’ve been a victim of forced continuity. When donating to a political cause, it’s common for the campaign to make donations recurring by default while obscuring the ways to opt-out of recurring donations.

Growth Hacking via Spamming (UX)

Remember the example at the beginning? My friend clicked the ad, and now her social networks are being exposed to political ads. If you ever like, subscribe, or react to something on the internet—by accident or not—your friends will probably see that you’ve interacted with it and you may receive a bombardment of retargeted ads.

This is an instance where UX and marketing clash. A marketer will correctly say that repetition is an effective strategy to increase conversions, while a UX designer will also correctly say that excessive repetition over time will result in a negative view of the advertiser.

Just another example of prioritizing short-term gain over long-term results.

Accessibility Nonobservance & Abuse (UI)

The companies in charge of designing political donation forms, websites, and ads know all too well that senior citizens love to vote—and they’re not just getting their information from CSPAN anymore.

The rate of older adults using technology is climbing. And even though television advertising still dominates political spending, the amount spent on digital ads in the 2020 election is expected to top $1 billion—three times the total of the 2016 presidential election.

This means that older adults are more likely to find political information online than ever before, which makes it even more important to design ads and websites that are accessible to all users. When designers unwittingly make an ad or website inaccessible to all users it’s called accessibility nonobservance, and when they do it intentionally to hide information from certain audiences, it’s called accessibility abuse.

Accessibility abuse is one of the most insidious tactics that bad-faith UX designers use. It can include anything from making important text super small and difficult to read to omitting alt-text on images. The result is unequal access to information for all users, and that is something all UX or UI designers should frown upon.

Roach Motel (UX)

Named for a brand of cockroach trap, a roach motel in UX refers to any decision that is easy for a user to make but difficult to reverse (i.e. it’s easy easy to enter the trap, but difficult to leave).

Most people have encountered a roach motel through email subscriptions. You may buy a product online and be opted into receiving regular emails from the company. In this example, entering your email to buy the product is analogous to a cockroach being coaxed into the trap with bait. Once in the trap, the roach motel takes shape by making it difficult for the user to unsubscribe from the emails.

The roach motel has a lot in common with forced continuity, but forced continuity usually refers only to recurring payments or free subscriptions that turn into paid subscriptions without the user’s permission. The roach motel tends to appear mostly in email, direct mail, and phone calls.

The Expanding Basket (UX/UI)

The expanding basket occurs whenever you need to uncheck a selection to avoid paying for it. Airline websites are notorious for adding baggage insurance and other sneaky fees that slide under the radar. These are often hidden within something we call “accordions,” an element that expands upon clicking or tapping.

When it comes to political websites, this may appear in the form of an already checked box on donation forms. One example I saw on a donation form was an already checked box saying, “Defend Mitch McConnell’s Money Bomb,” but when you take a closer look, it states in smaller font, “Donate an additional $___ automatically on 9/30.”

This tactic is manipulative because it automatically opts users into an additional option and requires them to take action to opt-out. Opting a user into spending more money without their permission is not only bad UX, it’s bad business, too.

White Hat UX

White hat UX, a term borrowed from the heydays of SEO (and also the title of a great UX book), has now become a digital way of life.

The term refers to a commitment from UX and UI designers to abandon dark-side tactics. The internet has long been a place where sneaky designers can trick users into taking actions that are against their best interests. White hat designers recognize the harm these tricks can do and advocate for an approach that puts users in control.

White hat UX and UI designers are much more valuable than designers that use these dark patterns. Regardless of the results that a dark-side approach can achieve, all UX and UI designers should share the burden of maintaining the integrity of our field.

We’re in an age where most everyone understands that there was a designer behind something digital. So if you’re really stuck between any political candidate in the future, take a look at their websites, ads, and social content and look for dark UX/UI patterns. You may end up learning more about the candidate from how their ads are designed than what they actually say.

To all you Lukes and Leias who are starting to design, just remember that, “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” And for any businesses trying to leave the dark side, Happy Medium is happy to help.

Sources

Dark Patterns, by Krisztina Szerovay

Falbe, Trine, et al. White Hat UX: The Next Generation in User Experience. 2017.

4 Ways to Plan Your Social Strategy Post-COVID

As the changes in commerce first started taking hold as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the marketing industry had a collective “What are we supposed to do now?” moment. 

Ads halted, campaigns were delayed, and messaging was shifted to replace existing marketing strategies that COVID made irrelevant at best (or irresponsible at worst). And when it came to making the most immediate and relevant updates to their marketing, businesses turned to social media first. 

In a time when news moved quickly, businesses used social media as the primary medium to communicate with their customers. Updates about business hours, changes in products or services, and other options to support the business online became the most important information to share, as opposed to the lifestyle and brand-oriented content audiences are used to seeing online. 

And now, many marketers are realizing that their Band-Aid measures are sticking around longer than expected. Whether your business is operating like “normal” or not, the social content that customers need is still very different from our pre-COVID landscape. Further, important conversations regarding race and inequality in society add another layer of gravity to the world we live in, which leaves marketers in an unrecognizable social media environment from six months ago. 

So where has your social media strategy gone during this time? Out the window? You’re not alone. But don’t despair. If your overarching marketing strategy is strong and your brand is well-defined, nothing about the strategic foundation of your social media has to change. But you do need to take a step back and reassess how your social media efforts fit in with your business goals and contemporary society. 

Adjust Your Goals

No matter the industry, it’s very likely that your KPIs and social metrics have been affected by the current crisis. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, American consumer spending dropped a record 12.6% in April. A decrease that significant is bound to reach every corner of the economy, affecting sales pipelines and many key marketing metrics.

This leaves a lot of room for businesses to reconsider their social media approach. According to Facebook, the average time a user spent on their platform went up, while spending from advertisers went down. This means that reaching your audience organically might be easier now than in the past. With greater access to your audience, it’s important to identify how you will measure your social media performance if sales or new leads are no longer reliable. 

Pushing for sales might be futile right now, so maybe focusing on brand awareness or increasing audience size is a more achievable goal. No matter how you shift your goals, just make sure you have a reliable way to measure them. 

Avoid the Urge to Go Back to Normal

Like anything in a post-COVID world, it’s best to proceed cautiously on social media. While your business might be open and customers are enjoying a relatively normal experience, it’s a good idea to resist the urge to your pre-pandemic content. 

Brands may be tempted to do their part to combat the emerging trend of “COVID fatigue”—collective exhaustion that has resulted from prolonged caution and stress—by trying to inject a bit of normalcy into social media feeds. Unfortunately, proceeding to post as if nothing has happened may do more harm than good for your brand. 

Sprout Social is a social media technology company that also studies social media and audience trends. They studied how approving audiences are to different types of content during this crisis, which helps marketing teams understand how to shift their content for the future. 

According to their study, only 52% of the audience approved of brands running “normal” advertising campaigns that aren’t related to coronavirus, compared to 89% of the audience that approved of brands providing practical tips and advice to help deal with the situation. 

“Mission-based” marketing has also increased by 42% since March, which illustrates further that pre-pandemic content doesn’t carry the same weight in a post-pandemic environment. 

Set Time for Regular Review

The calendar year 2020 has taught us that we’re all going to have to get accustomed to rapid change. A good social media strategy sets regular intervals for review to ensure the strategy in place is still effective. At Happy Medium, we analyze social performance monthly, but we perform a high-level strategy review every quarter. 

When things change rapidly, these regularly scheduled reviews fall to the wayside. When your only focus is treading water, there isn’t much energy left to take a step back to see if your strategy is still performing. The new unpredictability of our social media landscape makes it even more important to maintain a regular review schedule. 

Make sure that any regular social strategy review also involves input from other leaders in the business. As business operations and goals change, social media strategy also needs to change. Remember, a social media strategy is only successful if it supports larger company objectives. 

Think Ahead

We can’t predict the future, but we can at least plan for it. 

Every industry faces unique challenges, so there aren’t any one-size-fits-all solutions. But one thing that all brands can do to improve their social strategy is planning for future possibilities. Use the lessons that you learned during this crisis to build out an “in case of emergencies” social plan that will help ease the burden in the future. 

Brands have had to do a lot of work adjusting in an unprecedented time, and whether their efforts were successful or not, we shouldn’t let the lessons go to waste. Even if you never have to put the crisis plan into action, you’ll never regret making one. And now is the best time to make one as the experience is still fresh in your mind. Of course, building out a refreshed social strategy takes a lot of work. Happy Medium has plenty of experience helping brands create social strategies that deliver results, so if you’re looking for some expert advice to set you up for future success, give us a shout.

Is There an App for That? Why Your Business May Need a Custom Web Application

From email to e-commerce, every business that exists today relies on a number of different applications to stay afloat. Even as I’m writing this, I’m using at least seven different applications to get work done. 

You might feel like you already have the applications you need to succeed, but if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “There’s gotta be a better way” or “I wish this software could…” you’re already at step #1 of the custom app development process. 

Custom vs. Commercial

Before we get into how custom apps benefit your business, let’s start talking about exactly what constitutes a web app. Broadly speaking, all apps—both web and mobile– are software programs that help users perform tasks. 

Most people’s initial idea of an app is something they use on their smartphone, like Instagram or a weather app—these are appropriately called mobile apps for their use on mobile smartphones. Users download this software onto their devices and use it to help perform tasks, like sharing pictures of sourdough or checking the weather. 

The other type of apps are web apps, which provide the same functionality as mobile apps, but without the need to download any software. Users access web apps online through a browser instead of downloading it straight to a device. Google Docs, for example, is a web app because you use it over an internet browser, unlike Microsoft Word, which you have to download to your device to use. 

The vast majority of apps you use are publicly available, off-the-shelf applications developed to be used by a wide audience. But these aren’t your only app options. Web developers, like Happy Medium, can build you an application to specifically help your business function. 

Let’s start talking about why that might be a good idea. 

Are the Tools You Have the Right Ones? 

Think of every app, both mobile and web, as tools in a toolbox for your business. The apps in use vary widely by business, but the most commonly used apps or software for small businesses are: 

• Document creation, spreadsheet, and presentation
• HR and payroll applications
• Inventory management
• Accounting
• Invoicing and payment applications
• Email marketing services
• Project management apps
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Like tools in a toolbox, each application is designed to accomplish a specific task in a specific circumstance. A flathead screwdriver is excellent for installing or removing flathead screws, but is absolutely useless at cutting wire—the same way your project management application is great at creating Gantt charts but less effective at tracking payroll. 

The problem lies in the fact that many businesses have hyper-specific application needs, but they only use off-the-shelf software to get the job done. You can technically use a wrench to hammer a nail, but it’s not the best tool for the job. 

A custom web application is an application that is designed to meet your specific needs. Like a custom suit tailored to your body, a custom web app is tailored to your business and your operations. You might be getting the job done now, but few businesses can thrive with cookie-cutter solutions. Here are some reasons why a custom web app is a good solution for your business. 

Custom Application Capabilities

The clear benefit of custom web app development is having an app built specifically for your business operations. Every business is different, which means every business operates differently. Our team can work with your business to understand your needs and build a truly custom solution. 

Exactly what your business needs depends on a lot of factors, but here are some of the biggest advancements a custom application can provide. 

Dashboarding and Reporting
For better or worse, many businesses are flooded with more information and data than they can handle. Sales numbers, social media metrics, and POS reports all play important roles in business operations. The problem isn’t accessing the information– what most businesses struggle with is sifting through it all and separating the useful data from the junk. 

Happy Medium can work with businesses to build a custom application that prioritizes, interprets, and displays all of the most important data in one place. With a web application built from scratch, the days of juggling charts and spreadsheets are in the past. 

Automation
Automation can mean anything for your business. If you’ve ever been stuck in a mind-numbing task thinking “there has to be an easier way,” you’ll be pleased to hear that you’re probably right. Custom web apps that automate tasks let employees focus on more important matters instead. 

Integration with Other Apps
One of the most common responses to the idea of custom web apps is, “We’ve already put enough time and money into onboarding with existing software. We don’t want that work to go to waste.”

The goal of custom web applications isn’t always to completely replace existing applications. Sometimes a client just needs their current applications to interact nicely together. With some clever coding, Happy Medium can create a custom application that integrates all of the software and applications that you want to consolidate. 

Cost

I know what you’re thinking. “Custom” is almost always synonymous with “expensive.” True, the upfront cost of building a custom web application will likely cost more than the monthly or annual fee you would pay for off-the-shelf software. That’s only looking at cost short-term. 

Once you pay the initial cost to develop the custom app, you won’t pay any regular fees besides rare, ad-hoc maintenance. But that’s not the only way a custom app could save you money.

A common issue our clients face is being stuck paying for more features than they regularly use. The pricing model of many applications makes users choose different tiers of membership. They offer a low cost to access the application, but it also comes with fewer features. To access “premium” features (read: more useful), users have to fork over some more money. 

With a custom app, you choose the features you need, which means you only pay for the features you need. 

Access to a Dedicated Team

When you have a team develop a custom app, they know the ins and outs of the software itself. Not because they were trained on the application, but because they built it from scratch. Most publicly available applications have support staff available, but they do only that: support. 

When it comes to resolving major issues or walking you through your new app, there’s no team more qualified than the team that built it. Your web development team knows the application from back to front and can provide much more comprehensive support compared to a support staff from an off-the-shelf app. You won’t have to deal with frustrating chatbots to get help, either. 

Happy Medium has plenty of experience guiding clients through the app development process. From conceptualization to launch, we can build a product that’s custom fit for your business to make life easier. So if you’re feeling like a custom web application is what your business needs, we’re free to chat.