Whether online or offline, website or brochure, logo or online video, the process of creating engaging media that conveys your message and communicates with your audience is not an "art form" – it's a refined process.

When The Interactive Dept. takes on a new project, we are not starting from scratch; we replicate the process that has continued to bring us success. This is not some secret recipe we keep hidden in a safe, or some brilliant concept we developed through hours of meetings and research. In fact, we read it in a book several years ago, found it worked perfectly and have kept with it ever since.

This is the exact route you can expect us to follow when we take on your project.

• 1. Discovery

• 2. Design

• 3. Development

• 4. Deployment

• The first, and most important phase (and most often overlooked) is the discovery phase. We need to know about your business, your audience, your competition, your goals and what is and isn't working with what you currently do. Our goal is to drive success, and that requires a well thought-out strategy and a clear understanding of your objectives.

  It starts with a series of important questions:

  • What does your brand convey about your business and how well do you stick to it?
  • How do your offline and online marketing efforts compliment each other?
  • Who are you trying to reach and where are you likely to make a connection?
  • How tech savvy is your audience?

   
  These and other questions create an audience profile and help define the goals of the project. Only after these concepts have been fully explored, we can then begin the design process.

• Once we know what we're getting into, the truly creative part starts. During the design phase we begin to explore the various ways of presenting your information and message.

  Design involves more than complimentary colors and engaging typography. It's about information and how best to get your message across to your audience. Once we determine what the content is going to be and in what format it should exist, we apply the appropriate look and feel for your market and your brand identity.

  We can take a singular design concept and apply that look to everything from your website or business cards, to trade-show booths and print collateral. Our experience in both the online and offline space, allows us to maintain your brand identity from the web, to point of purchase and everywhere in between

• Once the final vision has surfaced from our creative sessions and the strategy for success is in place, it’s time to boot-up our Adobe applications and start producing some work. The development phase is typically straightforward as a direct result of the work done in the preceding phases. Creative designs are converted to optimized code and forms and questionnaires are produced to collect information from your audience. Tracking and measurement capabilities are implemented and all the fun features that make a site engaging and interactive are produced.

  All of this is done in unison and comes together seamlessly in the final moments of production, creating a finished product that is not just creative and engaging but also relevant, visible and thus successful. How do we know? Because we defined the measure of success in phase one, and at every point and with every decision made we have asked ourselves, "does this support the goals of this project?"

• So now that your collateral has been produced and the website is designed and built, we're done right? NO! Just because a site is built, doesn't mean we say 'have a nice day' and move on to the next gig. We have to measure the success of the site over the next few months.

  • Have we increased your web traffic?
  • Have we helped promote sales?
  • Have we achieved the goals set-forth in our Discovery phase?

   
  Even if the answer is yes - The Interactive Dept.'s clients will tell you that we are always here to make improvements, expand successful items and work to help drive more traffic to your website and clients to your business.

  Our success is not possible without your success - and the final phase, like our relationship, never ends. Sure, we might not see each other as often - and months may pass without so much as a hello - but when an old link no longer works, or a new round of business cards need printing, The Interactive Dept. will be there for you to make the small or large updates that keep your brand up-to-date.