How We Work

Our mission is to work with you to communicate your goals to your audience, to expand your audience, and to keep your audience happy and loyal. This includes everything associated with your organization's image, products and services.

The best way I can think of to communicate our procedure is to give you an example, so here goes.

A Case Study: Tom Powers, Tim Jochner and the Vineyard Planting Business

Diablo Vineyard - The Website
www.DiabloVineyard.com

• Tom Powers and Tim Jochner asked me to design a website for their already successful Diablo Vineyard Planting & Maintenance operation.
• We agreed that the goal was to better saturate the target area and audience.
• We came up with the domain name and registered it.
• I collected the photos and text, designed a logo and posted a home page at a secure location.
• Tom made various suggestions and I continued to edit and re-post the site until he was satisfied.
• When we were ready, I loaded the site to its true URL and did a thorough search engine listing.
• This resulted in sufficient response that we decided to add interactive forms. This made it easier for the prospective client to get an estimate. Since the customer did the work of filling out the forms, it had the added advantage of reducing time spent and eliminating errors in transcription.

Diablo Vineyard - The Brochure

I designed and arranged the printing for an 11" x 17" two-sided full color brochure to complement his ads and site. This was a quick and easy job since I already had all the text and photos.  I sent Tom a proof, he approved it with minor changes and I then sent the files via FTP to the printer.

So many of the requests for vineyard installation came from outside his service area that Tom decided to write a book on Vineyard Planting and Maintenance for a wider audience.

Vineyard Simple - The Book

• Tom emailed me the outline of the book as a Word™ attachment.
• I edited it and organized it into front matter, chapters and appendices and emailed it back.
• We repeated this process and after a few edits, we felt the writing was close enough to begin the process of designing the book.
• We took photographs and I did over 100 drawings to illustrate Tom's text.
• I helped Tom navigate the thorny world of ISBN, Library of Congress and Bowker's.
• I printed and we both proofed the book - these steps were repeated till both of us were satisfied.
• I checked with my short list of printers and made my suggestion for the best shop for the job.
• I saved the Quark™ files in Adobe.PDF™ format and sent the entire book, including the fonts off to the printer via FTP.

In order to promote the book, Tom asked me to create a companion website.

Vineyard Simple - The Website
VineyardSimple.com

• The text and images were already on my computer so I was able to expedite the website.
• It was determined that ordering the book would be easier if this were an e-commerce site.
• Following the same basic system we had earlier established, we co-developed the site.
• Tom decided to do a hands-on class so I modified the website to allow viewers to enroll online.
• The internet marketing campaign, including reciprocal links, was launched.

Diablo Vineyards - The Magazine Ads and more

Tom continued to advertise in Diablo Magazine and elsewhere and I designed new ads promoting the book and class and continued to update his Diablo Vineyard Planting & Management website.

Tom now needed class notes and a PowerPoint™ presentation as visual aids for teaching the class. Since I already had all the necessary materials this went very smoothly.

To further promote his burgeoning empire, Tom was now ready to email an automatic hot linked .html page which I programmed and he sent out to his list of likely prospects.

I normally suggest the sparest of prose when writing copy for websites.  It's a little too late for this page though.