New Client Launched : Cristen & Co.

TYPE: Branding, Logo, Site & Blog CLIENT: Cristen & Co. Website: cristencandco.com Date: December, 2015

Cristen & Co. is a New England wedding design and planning company based in Massachusetts. Cristen approached us for marketing help and through the process we realized that a new brand was needed. Since we had already been working with her and her team, we had a good grasp on her work and ideal client.

Tide Creative came on board to provide 360° Marketing support in the fall. {Brand, Logo, Website, Blog} Tide rebranded Captivatinly Chic to Cristen Co. and designed a new logo, website, blog and marketing materials. {Ad Buy} Under Tide’s management Cristen & Co. will be launching with ad campaigns on Facebook and Adwords.

Cristen summed up the experience on a new blog post: We worked with Tide Creative on this fabulous project and they really captured exactly how I wanted to portray Cristen & Co.. The logo design was on-point and our new brand color palette is amazing, lots of grays, slate blues and just the perfect pop of coral! And, I am going to be completely honest, J from Tide Creative and his team created our new brand, logo and website in about 1 month! YES, 1 Month! We fast-tracked our process because engagement season was right around the corner!! When we first started the discussion of the possibility of changing our business name we wanted to make sure if we went through with it that it would be completed around Thanksgiving! And, Tide Creative made that happen, I’m so thankful because I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them!

New Client Launched - Beech Hill Barn

Hardy Farm Updated Site Launch

The last time we spoke about Hardy Farm on the blog we were just getting started with them Wedding Venue Marketing Success : Client Hardy Farm Books 20 Wedding In First 6 Weeks Since, they have continued to roll and get some amazing coverage on Martha Stuart, 100 Layer Cake, Maine Magazine, Rustic Weddings and numerous others! The owners, Greg and Deborah Link have done an amazing job of continuing to improve the grounds with a woodland chapel and addition of a 103 ft sail clothe tent. They have also been great ambassadors for the brand with every couple that has toured or been married there! You can see from their availability calendar that they are completely booked out for 2016 (have been for some time) and are now filling up for 2017!

The property and brand have come such a long way, we felt a brand refresh to just Hardy Farm and a new website was in order.

Make Sure 50% Of Your Website Traffic Is Seeing A Great Site

Google announced a couple of months ago that mobile search surpassed desktop search for the first time! We all know that our mobile devices are being used more and more, and now Google is ranking and promoting sites as "mobile friendly." This means that at the very least you need to have a website that is viewed as mobile friendly by Google and that at best you should have a site that employs "responsive design." According to Signal Fire, "Mobile friendly refers to a site that displays accurately between your desktop/laptop computer and a mobile device...While it will appear smaller on a phone and may not work perfectly on a touchscreen tablet, a mobile friendly website will be perfectly functional." Responsive design is very similar in that it means that when the site is viewed on different types of devices (think tablets, phone, different size desktop monitors) that it will appear tailored to that specific device's size.

The difference between mobile friendly and responsive is that mobile friendly is designed for specific sizes of devices, whereas responsive designs are created with the intent that they will automatically adjust to any screen size, making them more easily adapted to future technologies. As you can imagine, it takes a lot more work to create a mobile friendly and responsive website, but Google ranks them significantly higher than websites that are not designed responsively.

Need more convincing? The US average for mobile usage is 2 hours and 42 minutes per day! That equates to 41 days each year! This trend is only going to grow, so make sure your web presence is inline with the current reality.

Wondering if your wedding website is mobile friendly? Google has made a tool for us all: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

You can also Google your business name on your mobile device and you should see the "Mobile Friendly", see image below. Responsive design takes mobile friendly to the next level and allows for your website to be designed page by page for each specific device. The design for each takes into account the functionality of each specific platform. You can see below how the smaller versions of the site function differently on the homepage. Take particular notice of the mobile phone version, where users are able to email, get directions or phone directly from the homepage. This is super helpful for wedding guests that are traveling to a venue and just need to find out how to get there!

Desktop Version

iPad Version

iPhone Version

Tide Creative has been building mobile friendly and responsive websites(depending on your budget :) ) and would love to help yo update yours! Reach out here to schedule a consultation.

Any Place, Any Time and Any Device

  Today's couples are connecting to your business on all types of devices. How your website appears on a smart phone, tablet or desktop will determine if you get their attention - this can be a huge opportunity, or it can be where you lose business to a competitor.

Are your ideal clients finding you on a Galaxy Tablet, iPhone 6 Plus, or their work computer? A responsive website will reformat images and copy, making it easily accessible and viewable on different devices - regardless of screen size. Savvy web developers are even able to cater the experience to the specific device sizes (fine-tuning what is seen on a mobile vs. a tablet, for example), further driving a great user experience.

We've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating: Google favors responsive design! Responsive web design serves the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of the users’ device (desktop, tablet, mobile, non-visual browser), but can render the display differently (i.e., “respond”) based on the screen size. Responsive design is Google’s recommended design pattern.

Your potential clients should be able to look at your brand any time, any place and on any device. Allow us to create a web presence for you with a responsive site that will cater to each of those experiences and represent you the best! Booking that ideal wedding client takes more than just being good at what you do today - you must also present yourself in a manner that creates trust online...we can do that for you! Contact us for a free consultation.