Everyone at Trio Solutions Inc. is looking forward to helping out our 2009 Createathon Winners: Charleston Area Children’s Garden Project, Good Neighbor Center, Charleston Community Sailing, Palmetto Medical Initiative and Liza’s Lifeline! It was very difficult to narrow our selection to these five. Every organization that applied should be commended for the work they are doing in our community. We would love to be able to help them all. Createathon will begin on Thursday, Sept. 18. Be sure to follow our progress on Twitter.

Trio Solutions is proud to be kicking off our annual CreateAthon project to benefit some of the Lowcountry’s most important nonprofits. We will be offering free marketing services to five local organizations who have little or no marketing budgets during a 24-hour, work around-the-clock creative blitz. This year’s projects include two Web sites, one logo, one communications plan and the design of a fundraising coupon book. All hands are on deck and we’re ready roll!

Check us out on ABC News 4!

Congratulations to the 2008 CreateAthon beneficiaries:

Camp Good Times
Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy
Family Resource Center for Disabilities and Special Needs
Fields to Families
Lowcountry Environmental Education Programs (LEEP)

And many thanks to the 2008 CreateAthon team:

Brad Caricofe
Jennifer Cherock
Brian Dadin
Jordan Freeman
Roxanne Hicks
Nancy Lyons
Jessica Munday
The Cultigraphic Girls!

The Trio team is thrilled be supporting such worthwhile causes and we can’t wait to see what we come up with throughout the day and night!

Everyone at Trio is very excited to announce that this week we are gearing up for CreateAthon. In anticipation of the event we wanted to make everyone aware that Trio Solutions Inc. will be closed on Thursday and Friday, September 18 & 19 for CreateAthon 2008. During this time we will be providing free marketing services to five area nonprofits as part of our annual CreateAthon, 24-hour, work-around-the-clock creative blitz. This year’s recipients include Camp Good Times, Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy, Family Resource Center for Disabilities and Special Needs, Fields to Families and Lowcountry Environmental Education Programs (LEEP). If you have an urgent need during this time, please feel free to let us know, however if you have a non-urgent matter we will be available on Monday, September 22. Be sure to follow our creative blitz progress on our blog. We would also like to give special thanks to our creative partners, who have graciously agreed to donate their services to our CreateAthon recipients - Kristen and Catherine at Cultigraphics, Brian Dadin and Brad Caricofe.
 

Trio recently joined the world of Twitter. With Facebook updates, and now Twitter, it appears that society really wants to know our business. Gone are the days of being private and keeping to yourself. I’m very interested to watch how Twitter transforms the marketing communication industry. For those of you still wondering what the buzz is all about, I recommend you check out my friend, Lee Lefever’s video about Twitter. He and his lovely wife do a great job of producing educational video about things that are oftentimes complex and difficult to understand. Their specialty? They explain it in plain English.

I am used to finding my entertainment on the Web through my favorite pop culture (or basically online tabloid) Web sites- www.perezhilton.com, www.tmz.com and of course, www.people.com. However recently I discovered an entertaining site that does not report on Lindsay Lohan stealing a fur coat or Britney Spears still trying to get custody back of those sweet, innocent little boys. No, this Web site is actually useful AND it is entertaining at the same time. The site is called WuFoo, www.wufoo.com. It is named for the founders two favorite groups, Wu Tang Clan and Foo Fighters. Anyone that can be as creative as Wufoo, well as Renee Zellweger said, has me at hello! The Web site offers free software to build surveys, order forms, registration forms, etc. for your Web site. I have used it a few times and on top of being user-friendly, it is just a really fun Web site. For example, when you are finished and logging out of the site, you are prompted with the famous line, “parting is such sweet sorrow”. Yes, it is very silly but in a work environment where we tend to take ourselves too seriously, it is nice to chuckle every once in a while. Using a Web site like Wufoo has challenged me to find ways in which Trio and the Nonprofit Nook Web sites can showcase our personalities. Ultimately that is what Wufoo does, it brings the personalities of the founders into their site and that is what makes the Web site so unique and fun. Check ‘em out.

This past Thursday, Trio Solutions Inc. launched our latest service to the nonprofit world at the 11th annual SCANPO conference - The Nonprofit Nook. We signed up an enthusiastic group of nonprofit professionals to help serve as our launch focus group. We look forward to receiving their feedback and making this site the best resource it can be. Our goal is that The Nonprofit Nook will offer a special section on the World Wide Web for nonprofits to gather free information, resources and support for their marketing needs. A place for nonprofits to make the most of their marketing, event and Web efforts. We have lofty plans for The Nonprofit Nook and look forward to providing quality, useful and innovative services for our nonprofit members. Check it out!

I read an interesting article on editorialemergency.com that really hit home. I’ve seen this type of behavior on many Web site development projects that I have been involved with:

http://www.editorialemergency.com/content/view/181/51

The premise of the article is that people often come to marketers (print, Web, whatever) and say that they want to stand out, do something different, and capture people’s attention. So the creative team goes off and produces a design or copy that is edgy, unique, or different in some way, and often when presented with it, the client will shy away from moving forward and wants to revert back to what they see everyone else in their industry doing.

When organizations do something different, there is often the fear that they will turn someone off, or perhaps that they will not appeal to a broad enough audience. It’s that fear that produces bland designs and jargon-laden copy. If you are using the same style as everyone else, why would a customer choose you over your competitors? If you are willing to stake your business on luck, then go with that approach.

I believe the key is to first identify your target audience (everyone is not a target audience) and then find out what makes them tick. What do they respond to? Once you know that, don’t be afraid to get creative. There are too many other voices out there, and you can’t afford for yours not to stand out.

On Wednesday we launched a new Web site for Creative Worksite Solutions. A couple months ago they put up a temporary site for a trade show at the end of January, but this is their first professionally produced Web site. They wanted to start off small to get their presence established on the Internet, but they now have a solid foundation to build an online identity and utilize the Web to promote their business.

As most people know about me, I hate it when the phrase “click here” is used as a hyperlink. As a matter of fact, it made #6 on my top 10 list of dos and don’ts for Web sites. Well, I finally found the perfect example of why “click here” links are a bad idea. Take a look at this screen shot from the Consumer Reports Web site. Notice on this page there are three, yes THREE, uses of “click here.”

This totally threw me off and took me at least 10 to 20 seconds to get my bearings and figure out what to do. Instead of having three links labeled “Sign up,” “Log in,” and “Customer Service” so that I could quickly scan the page and in less than a second know exactly where I needed to go, I was forced to read the entire page.

Now, you might say that I am being whiny and impatient about a small amount of time, but in the words of Vito Corleone, “This was completely unnecessary.” There are enough challenges to overcome on the Web, don’t make irritating your users one of them. Avoid “click here!”

I’ve always said that good karma keeps us employed! As we struggle to collect overdue invoices and make ends meet so we can continue to do what we all love, it amazes me that the big dog marketing firm in town can get $650K to develop a Web site and promote a green initiative for a local energy provider. I’m sure the $650K campaign included more than just the Web site. That price tag reminds me of the early-90s dot com pricing days. But regardless, some guys really do have all the luck.