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Why Your Web Agency Should Be Committed to Creating Less E-Waste

Author: Eleanor Hecks

Old electronics — such as computers, televisions and cell phones — are considered e-waste. How you get rid of these items can impact the environment. Focusing on green production helps companies protect the environment for future generations, be good stewards of their local resources and reach like-minded consumers wanting to embrace an eco-cause.

Committing to reduced carbon output and preserving resources is easier than you might think. You will gain a lot of traction with those wanting to do business with eco-friendly companies. Here are some things you could do and why you should be doing them.

1. Recycle and Reuse

The Environmental Protection Agency mentions recycling electronics reduces pollution by lessening the amount of new materials necessary to produce new items. It also keeps old devices out of landfills. Some e-waste leaches into the soil and contaminates groundwater, impacting everything from local wildlife to human drinking water.

Upgrading a computer system rather than completely replacing it might also save your agency money. Electronics are a considerable expense, so stretching them further is sensible.

2. Sell Old Devices

Small businesses often need upgrades to keep software up to date or keep up with a growing enterprise. If you are scaling up by buying new electronics, consider how well the old ones work. Are they in a condition where you could reset them to factory settings, trade them in or sell them to make a few bucks?

You can even offset the cost of purchasing new electronics by selling your current equipment. You will reduce e-waste and get paid to do it.

3. Keep Devices Out of Landfills

It might be tempting to pitch that smartphone that no longer works and send it out with the trash. However, this is not the best way to dispose of electronic devices.

Experts estimate people around the globe contributed about 33.8 million metric tons of e-waste in 2010, but the number keeps rising as new phone models, computer hard drives and other modern electronics advance rapidly. Make it a policy to recycle responsibly if you must trade your old devices in for new ones.

4. Know the Laws in Your State

Regulations surrounding e-waste vary from state to state and even from one town to the next, so learn the rules where you run your business so you do not rack up any fines. Some laws are more stringent than others. If you are not sure you comply, talk with an expert on local regulations and ensure you change policies as necessary to meet expectations.

5. Pay Attention to Partnerships

Who does your web agency partner with and how do they handle e-waste? Look at all your service providers as well as suppliers. For example, if you work with a hosting company for your website, be aware of its ongoing impact on the environment and whether it throws old servers into landfills.

Web hosting is a $90.42 billion industry with steady growth. You can find an organization with similar policies to yours regarding reducing carbon footprint. Ask the tough questions to verify you are doing your part and any company you support is, too.

6. Be Aware of Toxic Substances

As electronic parts break down, they seep back into the environment, and can poison local land and water. Some items are worse than others. Do your due diligence and research how to reduce the toxic waste your enterprise produces. Also, take the time to look for ways to ensure your old electronics do not turn into a problem for future generations.

7. Fund Research

Taking items to dedicated recycling centers is sometimes the only option. However, scientists are researching how you can recycle different components and reuse them instead of just throwing them away.

For example, one European project called CROCODILE considers cobalt recycling and how old batteries can take on new life. Look for cutting-edge solutions to a growing problem and invest in them to improve the impact of e-waste in the future.

How Worried Should Your Brand Be About E-Waste?

It might seem like a small contribution to delay buying new machines or recycling responsibly. After all, giant corporations may not be overly concerned about doing the same and they have much more of an impact. It is crucial to remember that if smaller brands come together and do their part, they can set an example for the rest of the world and safeguard the environment.

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.

Why Ongoing Learning Programs Should Be Offered at All Design Agencies

Author: Eleanor Hecks

Like every other business, design constantly evolves and most designers seek continuing education courses to remain sharp and competitive.

However, learning in design can have various meanings — from improving technical skills and grasping new concepts to staying on top of the industry’s directions.

Continued learning is crucial in the development of expertise. Therefore, all design agencies should offer ongoing learning opportunities to present outstanding work to their clients.

Here’s a closer look at why your design agency needs ongoing learning programs for success.

1. New Skills Can Enhance Your Business

One of the most promising benefits of ongoing learning is that your employees can learn and leverage new design skills.

It could be something that offers training in their current position or enhances a certain skill they already possess. Or, it could be cross-departmental that diversifies your employees’ skill set and breaks down knowledge silos.

Either way, you could offer various types of training that fall into a few main categories:

  • Design-specific skills: Subject areas are unique to your agency’s needs and the design industry. For example, a design agency could offer specialized training in branding or coding.
  • Tech skills: Every business requires some type of software or program. In the case of a design agency, you could consider creating a refresher course on best practices with your current programs like Adobe. Or, you could teach a new skill in web development and streamlined processes for web maintenance.
  • Soft skills: Some of the essential skills that designers need are creativity, communication, problem-solving, strategy and ideation. If you have a newer workforce in the design industry, they may benefit from learning these soft skills to gain more experience interacting with people.

Whether you’re filling in knowledge gaps or exposing them to a new topic, reskilling can positively impact your agency. Once they move past the initial learning curve, your team will be more prepared for their current roles.

2. Helps Stay Up to Date on Your Industry’s Trends

In the world of design and business, industry best practices are constantly changing because of new technology and innovations.

Therefore, the onboarding training you provided a few years ago could already be outdated, leaving you in the dust of your competition.

While it’s best not to jump on every trend, you also won’t want to have a reputation for being out of touch. That’s part of why your design agency should be helping all employees stay updated.

You might not be able to tell the future. However, you can still use education to predict industry trends and stay abreast.

A robust ongoing learning program enables your agency to do just that. You can identify innovations and learn to adapt them within your operations.

3. Increases Employee Engagement

Ongoing learning programs help your employees to stay connected to your agency and engaged with their work.

Once you prioritize education and development, your team becomes a workplace of focus. Essentially, you create this culture where everyone feels motivated to perform and keep improving. In turn, your agency opens itself up to greater opportunities for advancement for your employees.

Many say professional development is one of the most important aspects of their job. Creating a continuous learning program can be a great way to attract and retain top talented employees.

The job market is extremely competitive and not just for candidates. Companies are having a hard time finding skilled employees.

Therefore, offering learning programs and training resources can help your company stay on top of the employment market.

To engage your employees effectively, ensure you design a continuous learning program with employees’ needs and goals in mind. Use surveys and interviews to determine the most common objectives or needs among your team members. That way, the program’s content feels relevant, and the information is useful.

The First Steps to Developing an Ongoing Learning Agenda

Use these steps to design and execute an effective training program in your agency.

1. Conduct a Training Needs Assessment

Before designing your program, you’ll need to define a goal or multiple objectives supporting your team. Consider taking time to determine your business’s outcomes and how you’ll align your employee initiatives with your agency’s goals.

Designing your program around your employees’ needs allows them to stay proactive in achieving their aspirations. Additionally, it prepares your program for success and your employees for future promotion.

2. Create Learning Objectives

Once you conduct a needs assessment, it’s time to create a list of learning objectives. Learning objectives are a list of new skills you want your employees to accomplish after completing the training.

3. Design the Training Materials

Create content that helps your employees reach their learning objectives. The training materials could be case study reviews, quizzes, questionnaires or hands-on exercises.

Remember, it’s important to focus on the learning needs of your employees. You don’t want to make it too challenging for them that they won’t comprehend the material. However, materials that are too easy won’t be engaging enough.

4. Develop the Training Materials

Once you’ve designed your training materials, it’s time to create them using various tools. You could consider using an e-learning tool for building modules. Other ways include PowerPoint presentations, webinars and instructional videos.

While these are just some examples, you have various ways to create and implement the materials in the process.

5. Implement Training

Now it’s time to inform your staff about attending the training. Ensure you give them plenty of time in advance to prepare their schedules. They may also need time to complete any pre-training preparation before they begin.

Many businesses also use a learning management software to deliver, track and review training. If you use something like this, your employees will have a login and see the training materials you’ve assigned to them.

6. Evaluate the Training

How do you know if your program was successful? You’ll have to confirm it was effective by evaluating training at three different levels:

  • Did your employees like the training? Ask their opinions through a survey.
  • Did they learn anything? Use tests, job simulations and exercises to evaluate their learning of the objectives.
  • What is their behavior like post-training? Do they have new knowledge, skills and attitudes? Use their performance-based metrics and observe their behavior to determine this.

Invest in an Ongoing Learning Program Today

Investing in continuous learning is an investment in your design agency’s growth. Providing learning opportunities can offer exciting benefits for you and your employees. Plus, it fosters a stronger workplace culture and can enhance your business’s outcomes.

Follow these steps to ensure you implement a program successfully and be sure it involves the needs of your employees.

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.

Why is Mobile App Development Important for Business Growth In 2022?

Author: Lisa Gomes

Nowadays, having a web presence is not sufficient. It would help if you had some more aspects to look after to get brand recognition in the world of technology. There are varied benefits of apps. Some of them are apps used to create more engagement with the customers.

What to look into before hiring a mobile development agency?

For any size of the market, customers play the most pivotal role. Hence you should first analyze the market and then decide what to do. Once you know who your potential customers are, you can look to hire a mobile development agency to handle your project.

The first criteria that one needs to check is experience. It is believed that an experienced company will be able to understand the real-time requisite in a better way. Thus, it is ideal for cracking the experience of a company you are planning to hire for your project.

The next step is to study the company’s portfolio. Once you go through the company details, you can rely upon your choice. The portfolio will give you an idea of what work it has done. In addition, you can sketch an idea about UI/UX skills and several domains.

Before giving your final call on your choice of the app development agency, the next thing that you must consider is how good the company is in providing maintenance to its customers. Hence app development companies offer such services that should be preferred.

Pick an app development company that is certified

Picking an app development company is not that easy. But experienced app developers make it look easy for all clients. From the initial stage of research and right to the end when review proposals are to be submitted, there are indeed a lot of tasks to do and operate.

Remember, picking the best agency will always help you achieve your business goals and connect with the audience. But, if you somehow make a bad choice, things will not be in your favor. And it will take a toll on your pocket. Thus, in return, it will hamper your dreams.

When it is about picking the right company, always choose an experienced and certified company to handle your project. Hiring the best app development companies with a flexible and positive approach to deliver is a great option.

It is best to take feedback from happy clients and customers who have availed the company’s service before you. They will give you a complete record and offer good references before making your final choice.

App developers help you in your business needs

If you are looking for app developer, there is nothing to worry about. The expert developers are masters in their trade. The team can welcome new ideas and bring out the best possible output on easy notes.

An app development company is not any simple thing to choose, but it is something that you need to choose very carefully. Through a work portfolio, you can understand whether the chosen company is perfect or not. It is best to check the working links and the URLs to make sure that your choice is absolutely fine.

Final thoughts

App developers in Australia will help you with your requirements that will never take a toll on your pocket. Hence, it is best to be very specific before putting up your business requirements to the experts.

However, if you are interested in developing an app for your business, contact the experts through the ‘Get in touch’ form and talk to the industry experts.

Clear Reasons Why You Need Digital Marketing

Author: Hamza Abbasi

Your company is more than likely already aware of the various benefits of having a strong online presence. Digital Marketing seems to be the process that encompasses this entire concept, ensuring that you are able to catch your target audience’s attention through many different means. Clear reasons why you need digital marketing are all over the web, but it doesn’t hurt to have a list of reasons to make it easier for you when time is short and deadlines are looming.

There are many benefits to hiring an agency for digital marketing services, including the fact that agencies have tools and resources which you don’t. If you’re not sure about whether or not to hire an agency, here are reasons why you need one:

Agencies Have Experience

An agency has been working with different types of businesses, new and established, for many years. They’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work. You can take advantage of their experience by leaning on them for advice and guidance. Agencies know the market and won’t make mistakes that could end up hurting your online brand.

Agencies Are Creative and Innovative

Agencies have a lot of creative talent in-house, and they’re constantly striving to be at the cutting edge of online marketing strategies. They know how to create appealing, engaging adverts that will really get your brand noticed. If you want to increase your website traffic and leads, hiring an agency that specializes in digital marketing is the best way to go.

Agencies Know the Latest and Greatest Techniques

Digital marketing agencies don’t just know more about digital marketing strategies, they also have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t. Agencies are constantly up to date on the latest trends in the industry, meaning that they’re able to give you advice as well as implement new ideas for your company.

Again, agencies are always striving to be at the cutting edge of digital marketing. They know all about popular online strategies and what has worked in the past. You can take advantage of their knowledge by asking them how to improve your online marketing strategy.

Agencies Have the Right Tools and Resources

Agencies have access to the latest software, including social media apps and website analytics plugins. They can track your progress at all times, which will make it easier for you to see what’s working and what isn’t. This is especially important if you’re paying an agency per project or by the hour – it’s in their best interest that you get the right results.

When you hire an advertising agency in Egypt, you get access to a range of different tools and services which make your life easier. For instance, an agency will have specialist software that allows you to track the effectiveness of every single action that takes place on your website. This allows you to measure the effectiveness of each digital marketing strategy that you employ so that you can be sure that every dollar is well spent.

Agencies Help you to Scale Your Marketing Efforts

When you hire an agency, you’re hiring experts who know how to handle marketing for your business. If there is a demand for your product or service then agencies will be able to ramp up your marketing efforts without any extra input on your end. They’ll handle the whole process from start to finish and you’ll get more people visiting your website. If you’re spending time writing content for your blog or creating ads, then it can be tough to keep up with the demand for this content. Hiring an agency allows you to scale your marketing efforts so that greater quantities of high-quality content can be created quickly and easily.

Agencies are a Team of Highly Talented Individuals

Digital Marketing Agency in Egypt is a team effort, and individual employees need to have a variety of talents. Digital marketers need to be creative and artistic as well as highly intelligent and analytical. They also need to know about SEO, content marketing, online advertising, and much more besides. This can be a tall order for one person, so hiring an agency allows you to take advantage of the talents of a team. An agency solves all of its clients’ digital marketing needs under one roof, so there are no problems with communication. You get to work with a dedicated team of professionals who are experts in every area of digital marketing, including social media, SEO, and paid advertising.

You need Digital marketing agency in Cairo and advertising agency in Egypt because it is an effective way to reach new customers, grow your business, and compete with other businesses. It can also help you better understand your customers so that you can create content and products they will love. If you’re not sure if digital marketing is right for your business, contact us and we would be happy to discuss your specific needs.

Author Bio: Hamza Abbasi is a keynote speaker on social media strategy, LinkedIn marketing & social media marketing trainer, MediaHicon digital marketing author, and MediaHicon SEO consultant for global organizations.

How to Design the Perfect Portfolio Page to Best Represent Your Brand’s Quality

Author: Eleanor Hecks

One of the best ways to attract new clients is showing them your top projects. Your website portfolio page is your chance to highlight your expertise in specific areas. You can use it to stand out from the competition and make a strong impression so they remember you when they are ready to hire someone.

According to Internet Live Stats, there are approximately 1.86 billion websites online. However, not all are active and some park on top of other domains. Still, you’re competing with a lot of noise to get your portfolio page noticed. People have many options on where to spend their time. Make your page interesting enough that they want to devote some of their day there.

What is the secret ingredient that makes one portfolio page stand out from another? You must grab attention, showcase the wide scope of your work and instill the idea your brand is high quality all with a few photos and text. Here are the steps to achieving the perfect online presence.

1. Choose Your Best Work

Selecting only the photos highlighting the top quality work you do might seem like a no-brainer. However, it’s easy to hone in on the project you completed and not realize the photos don’t truly do it justice. Your portfolio is about more than just great projects. It must encompass great pictures to highlight your abilities.

Make sure any photos you use clearly show the before and after of your work. Take the time to invest in photo editing and excellent equipment so your images aren’t filled with shadows and poor lighting. Select only the best images.

Ronald L. Receveur, DDS offers dental implants. They showcase their best work in their “Smile Gallery.” You can scroll through the different images to see the beautiful smiles they’ve created.

Something they add to their portfolio page that works particularly well is a link to patient testimonials. Click on any video to hear more about what their service did for the person and get a glimpse of what their smile looks like in real life.

2. Add Trust Factors

When people land on your page, they have no reason to trust you. Even if a friend or family member referred them, they’ve not done business with you before. You must show them you can be trusted. You can add several trust factors to your portfolio page to show you’re honest.

In addition to reviews and testimonials, make your contact information easy to find. People want to know they can get in touch if something goes wrong after their purchase. Add any organizations you belong to, such as professional trade associations or the Better Business Bureau.

3. Utilize Case Studies

There may be times when you have a particularly challenging task to complete. Highlighting how you were able to overcome difficulties shows clients you don’t stop until you find the right solution. Case studies give you an opportunity to share photos of the finished project, but also dig deeper into the story behind the job.

Illuminated Integration shares the details of a job they did for Otterbein Church. The task was to convert a gymnasium into a church sanctuary. They had to figure out how to create a welcoming atmosphere that suited the needs of a large, modern church. The company worked on lighting, acoustics, audio, video, curtains and atmospheric controls.

4. Tell Them Who You Are

In the midst of sharing stories about your projects, make sure you show potential clients who you are. While telling customer stories, tell your own story. What do you stand for? What is at the core of why you do the work you do?

At a minimum, include a short about section and a link to more details. Your portfolio page is an excellent location to share a video about your brand story.

5. Share the Details

Your portfolio is about more than just the finished product of your hard work. People want to know you understand the steps involved in getting from Point A to Point B. You must tell a story as you share examples of your work. What was particularly challenging about the job? How is it unique from other projects of a similar nature? Show off your expertise.

Walnut Ridge Landscape Design shares their three-dimensional plan for the space next to a photograph of the finished project. By showing site visitors their concept, they prove they can come up with a plan and bring it to life.

6. Include a Call to Action (CTA)

You might not naturally place a CTA button on your portfolio page, but the goal of the page is to seek new leads. When someone views your images, the ideal result will be they want to hire you.

Make your CTA easy to find. Ideally, you’ll include a link near the top of the page offering a free consultation or quote. Some people will click the button right away and others will spend time perusing your portfolio, so you may want to add a second button under your gallery or to the side.

Try different placements until you find the one your users respond best to. Conduct split testing, adjust the wording, try different colors and keep tweaking until you’re satisfied with your conversion rates.

Quality Over Quantity

Your photos are the face of your brand online. It’s better to have a few high-quality images taken by a professional photographer than a ton of pictures with fuzzy focus or dark shadows. Ideally, you’ll choose a wide range of projects so you can showcase your abilities, but don’t be afraid to limit yourself until you have the right ones to prove your worth as a business.

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.