Take On More Projects

Prospect doesn’t have a large budget. Many business owners need a site re-design, but they don’t always have a large budget. The reasons for a low budget can vary, but the challenge remains the same; what offering can you provide to someone that can’t afford a custom project?

It can be done. Projects with small budgets are still within reach if you have a package that is easy to deploy with a faster turnaround. Template solutions are readily available by many online providers. However, some of the solutions are not pre-integrated into a CMS. The cost to complete the integration is where most profit and margins are consumed. TribeVita Templates are fully integrated into Business Catalyst, and that is the biggest difference.

Cashflow & Margins. Cashflow and margins are two very important considerations for any business. You need both to survive and grow your business. Many deal with the same strategic question, “what kind of business should we take on to make ends meet and grow our company?” We feel TribeVita Templates are one option for many BC Partners. It is an alternative offering where volume sales can make a difference.

Template Approach. Using a template model along with your other custom services is a way to diversify your offerings. You can save yourself a lot of time by considering all of the following:

1. You can sell simple template-packages to the right target audience
2. You can have proposals ready with pre-defined scope, turnaround, and prices in place
3. You don’t have to worry about the intricate details/setup for every website project

Optimization. This business model saves you time in both sales and production. The end result can be multiple sales and quick turnaround with less effort compared to other integrations and custom projects.

The Dreaded Cycle. Individuals or small agencies understand this situation really well. A major effort is placed on sales to get projects in the door. But due to limited resources, production tends to slow down, sometimes even to a halt. Once you have sold and setup some great business opportunities, you now have the responsibility to provide great services. This means your sales efforts now slow down and the rollercoaster effects begin. This cycle of sell then produce is a pain.

Limited Resources. In an ideal world, we’d have separate departments specializing in each area and working in parallel. An assembly-line approach is a great strategy. But limited resources, budgets and overhead prevent many of us the luxury of a perfect scenario. However, there are strategies that can assist you with the ups and downs of our industry. Create a product or package that you can easily sell, produce, and support.

Create a Package Offering. All website projects require some design, development, and integration components. We realize that not all projects are custom, and some have limited budgets. So, if you’ve ever thought about leveraging a template for a solution, here’s a new opportunity. TribeVita Templates already come prepared with all the necessary components to give you an amazing jumpstart.

Benefits of Consistency & Volume. Think about these “what if” scenarios... What if you could sell a couple of standard websites for $3000 and leverage Adobe BC as a great system? What if you only had to purchase two $750 TribeVita Templates as starting points? What if you could make some quick design modifications and enter content into the template to launch your client’s website in a couple of weeks? The end result is $1500 in expenses, a moderate amount of hours spent on modifications, content entry, and project management. The net result is a fast turnaround, a happy customer, and money earned without a lot of hassle.

Hundreds of Succesful Integrations Later. We have participated in enough projects with BC Partners all over the world and have created a quality standard for BC Integrations. We feel this experience enables our templates to be as flexible and manageable as possible for all end-users. This reduces support in the long-term and creates happy customers along the way.

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

960 Grid System. All of our designs are based on the 960 grid system in order to have perfect alignment across templates, have consistent layouts, and take advantage of quick prototyping development setup techniques. For more information on the 960 grid system, please visit 960.gs.

Core Architecture. All of our templates include consideration for the following minimum layouts: homepage, innerpage master, and blog. Additional layouts are provided across some of our templates that take into account added modules, such as e-commerce.

Navigation. We understand that templates need to have a very flexible and easy to use navigation system. That way the end-user can easily and effectively manage the navigation system. Therefore,  we carefully consider using web safe fonts, spacing, and alignment properties within a CMS environment.

Buttons, Links, States. All our templates are carefully organized when it comes to our buttons and links. We understand that these elements indicate interaction with end-users. Therefore, we carefully consider choices for hover states, active states, etc for all buttons and links throughout the template design.

Typography. Typography is a very important element within the design process. Web safe fonts are generally easier to use within a CMS setup and strongly recommended for navigations, body, links, and other highly editable areas. However, unique font faces can have a dramatic impact on the look and feel of any website. Font replacement technologies are set and ready-to-go where applicable.

General Styles. Our designers prepare the templates with careful consideration for general content entry. We always create an inner page of master styles with careful consideration for multiple header styles, bullets, numbered lists, form styles, links, buttons, paragraph and graphic elements. That way, when a user begins managing the website, certain style guidelines are preset by professionals.

DEVELOPMENT CONSIDERATIONS

Cuts. Preparing the foundation of HTML and CSS is critical to the success of any website. Particularly, when preparing a website for any CMS. TribeVita considers all of the following during the cut process of converting PSD files into interface templates:

1. Semantic markup / SEO Best Practice Setup for good search engine results
2. W3C Standards to keep up with universal best practices for HTML and CSS
3. Cross Browser Compliance to ensure the experience is great on major browsers
4. Considerations for Adobe BC for any customizations and extra add-ons

Popular Modules. All of our templates make use of some of the most popular modules and features that BC has to offer. Dynamic menus and drop downs are configured to easily manage navigations and sub navigations. Homepage carousels and sliders are setup as Web Apps or Ad rotators for efficient updates. Unique settings are configured with CSS for clean contemporary unique fonts via font replacement scripting. Web forms and marketing opt-in opportunities are all wired up and have workflows ready-to-go to keep track of inquiries within BC’s CRM. Templates have matching HTML Email newsletters that are ready for blasting promotions and keeping customers/prospects informed. The blog module is also setup and ready to display RSS feeds. Some templates even have all e-commerce configurations ready for content and product entry.

It’s taken us years to perfect the process, but now we are proud to share it with many BC Partners that could learn and gain from our hard work.