From the category archives:

Door2

A Pioneering Approach to College Admissions

January 20, 2012

This post was written by Marianne Amoss, Fastspot’s content strategist and resident writer.
What is the next generation of admissions marketing? And how can we integrate Web marketing and print marketing? These are questions that plague universities and colleges across the country, as they struggle with the cost and manpower required to keep materials updated and [...]

Read the full article →

Why Documentation Is Important

January 11, 2012

When documentation is a recording of a strategic and creative process focused on clearly outlining issues, goals, recommendations and guidelines, and created in a way that empowers collaboration and revisions in the future, it is one of the most important phases of any project.

Read the full article →

What makes a good Content Management System (and why we built our own)

November 2, 2011

Re-posting this article due to lots of discussion lately – let us know what you think!
Before clients see BigTree CMS, Fastspot’s proprietary content management system, they often ask us why we built our own when there are so many out there that we could have simply used. When they ask me, I usually picture this. I [...]

Read the full article →

8 Ways to Know if an Interactive Agency is a Fraud

September 20, 2011

I’m writing this post because I run into so many businesses and organizations who feel they were “burned” by a past Web vendor. They have negative feelings about the experience and often have been left with the impression that “the wool was pulled over their eyes.” I can relate to the frustration. In a technical [...]

Read the full article →

What Makes a Good Main Navigation?

August 30, 2011

Your website’s main navigation, the primary navigation presented to users who first arrive on your website, should do several things, and do them well.
The main nav should be simple. The language, the organization, the placement, the size of the font—everything—should be simple. This is the most useful element of your site, and much like a [...]

Read the full article →

When Asking for Online Donations, Think Like a Pizza Shop

August 8, 2011

Seriously, have you seen Pizza Hut’s site lately? Or their apps? They make ordering a pizza about as easy as sitting down on the couch. They make it so easy you’d be crazy not to order a pizza from them, or get distracted halfway through and never complete your order, or decide it’s a pain [...]

Read the full article →

Your Website is a Party! Who is on Your Guest List?

July 12, 2011

The other day, as I was sitting in a presentation where major project findings were being shared, the subject of Website visitors came up. One of the members of the client side team stated that it would be almost impossible to implement the findings and recommendations into anything cohesive, because that would mean setting a [...]

Read the full article →

Why Different Isn’t Always Better – Thoughts on Drake University and Stamat’s “D+” Campaign

October 1, 2010

I was going to write a post about the recent campaign Stamats created for Drake University, but most relevant points have already been made in the media. It’s an interesting discussion with no clear cut lines, and it brings up the question of how in touch we are with our teenage target audiences? Stamats makes [...]

Read the full article →

Being Vague on Facebook – An Admission Department’s Biggest Mistake

December 1, 2009

I am going to make a simple recommendation which I suspect will have a radically positive transformation on any higher ed’s Facebook fan page that is Admissions-oriented. If your Facebook page is specifically for Admissions—SAY SO!
To really set the mood, ask a few friends or students to post some questions, typical “prospective student” questions. After [...]

Read the full article →

Don’t Let Technology Lead Your Interactive Marketing

September 2, 2009

In this post I am questioning the rationale behind online marketing or communications initiatives being directed or controlled by technology oriented guidelines.
Face it, today technology can do whatever we want or need it to do. And one of it’s primary roles is to act as a facilitator for a message. So why would we [...]

Read the full article →