Tarfoot Consulting

Ride-sharing Takes Flight!

Bradley Pirman — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:38:32 +0000

We’ve been quietly working on a pretty exciting, under-the-radar project with Santa Barbara Aviation and the Goleta Entrepreneurial Magnet (GEM) called FlyAirshare.

Traveling to and from the Santa Barbara area by plane can be a real challenge. Trying to get to San Francisco will usually have a you routed through Los Angeles or even Las Vegas. On rare occasions, you may actually get to visit Seattle before you arrive in San Francisco. The cost for a trip to San Francisco can be $1,000+. And the travel times are absurd…it can take 6 hours to fly plus the hour at the airport for check-in, security delays, and transfers. Did we forget to mention parking and baggage fees? Commercial airlines just can’t generate enough lift out of the area with prices that make sense to the airlines AND to travelers.

There’s finally a solution! Santa Barbara Aviation has just announced a new service called FlyAirshare.com. It’s like ride-sharing for charter, air travel. In addition to the regularly scheduled flights up to the Bay Area (A day round-trip is as low as $780/seat!), FlyAirshare allows anyone to post a trip and then invite other people to get on board! Then they all split the cost of the charter. Whether they knew each other or not before the flight departs. It’s collaborative consumption meets charter air travel.

So let’s say you and two colleagues want to go from Santa Barbara to Austin Texas.

You start by posting the trip on FlyAirshare.com with the dates you want to go and come back.
FlyAirshare.com will post the trip to its “Tripboard” so that others can join the flights. You’ll also be able to share the trip on LinkedIn, Facebook, and anywhere else using the trip’s shareable link.
The more people that get on board, the less-expensive your seat price. Genius!!

We’re so excited to see a service like this come to our area and we’re thrilled to be a part of the application design, the marketing, the website development, and the business strategy!

Check out FlyAirshare.com for more details!

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

Creating an Environment for Exploration

Bradley Pirman — Fri, 11 May 2012 18:47:19 +0000

Britt Jewett at Studio 7 is one of Santa Barbara’s premier architects and allied design artists. He has a long history of work both on the central coast and across the nation that should be appreciated in person whenever possible.

Britt’s vision was to create an evironment of exploration for his website visitors. He wanted people to have fun on the site while they browsed his extensive portfolio. One of our guiding principles in designing this website was, “Less is more.”

Website visitors are greeted with a gallery of 28 gorgeous photos of his work and only a few words. His work speaks for itself and cluttering the experience with too much text would only detract from the experience. For that reason, most of the pages on the site have very little text. We wanted his work to be the focus so we chose a dark background to really allow the photos of his work to stand out.

As we do with every website design project, we started by chatting with Britt to understand his vision and his work. We collaborated over sketchbooks to align our design concepts with what he had in his mind. From there, the sketches were translated into digital wireframes and mockups. Once wireframes were tweaked and approved, we began development of the new Studio 7 website.

We checked in with Britt and his team often to be sure that we were on schedule and that his vision was translating properly into the website.

It was our pleasure to work with the Studio 7 team and to create an experience for prospective and existing clients. Take a moment to visit the Studio 7 website yourself so you can experience his work.

Be sure to check back often for updates to S7Arc.com.

Cheers!

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

Spice Up Your Desktop!

Bradley Pirman — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:27:00 +0000

I don’t know about you but I spend hours a day in front of a screen (most of the time it’s two or more) working on projects. And honestly, it’s a bit difficult to keep my nose to the grindstone and work inside as the weather improves and Señor Sol shines his light outside.

It’s true that the ubiquity of WiFi hotspots affords me the opportunity to work at outside cafés, restaurant patios, even winery tasting rooms from time to time. But more often than not, I’m working in my studio.

One way that I’ve found to bring a little variety and beauty on to my screens is with the calendar wallpapers from SmashingMagazine.com. Every month they offer a plethora of well-designed wallpapers with calendars for my viewing pleasure. I find the calendar versions of the wallpapers particularly useful. When I need to look up a date, I just show my desktop on my Mac (Windows 7 Users) and view the calendar on my desktop. I’m sure this is nothing new to you. But, take a moment to look at SmashingMagazine.com’s Calendar Posts and pick out something you like. It will make your time in front of your screen much more enjoyable.

Try downloading more than one and set your desktop to switch between them randomly!

Cheers!
/Bradley

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

Building a better way

Bradley Pirman — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:59:55 +0000

One pretty cool project we recently completed was for MindClick SGM (Sustainable Growth Management).

MindClick had an interesting challenge, they needed to help connect charitable organizations like Good360.com and Habitat for Humanity with a large hotel chain to facilitate the removal of recyclable and reusable products from the hotels during remodels.

They were managing this daunting project through a series of Excel spreadsheets. The process was quickly becoming overwhelming to those working on the project.

What we designed and built was a marketplace for the reclamation of furniture, fixtures, and equipment from hotels that are remodeling. It’s crazy to think that all of this used to end up in landfills! The hotels can sign in to their accounts, post pictures of items, attach descriptions, associate contact information to their hotels for the General Contractors and the Owner’s Representatives. The hotels can even schedule construction dates and pickup dates for each half-floor.

The Reclaimers (e.g. Habitat for Humanity) can browse the site and search by hotel name or zip code. They add different items to a cart, sometimes from multiple hotels. Then they check out and an order is sent to the project administrators. MindClick then picks up the phone and schedules the rest of the details by phone.

It’s exciting to think that our work has helped reduce the amount of waste that is shipped to landfills and that we’re alleviating stress on the environment by reducing the need for new products to be made. Hats off to MindClick SGM and their HSP Index for all they do to help save our planet.

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

MindClick SGM Chooses Tarfoot Consulting

Bradley Pirman — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:31:48 +0000

We’re excited to announce that MindClick SGM has chosen the Tarfoot technology consulting team to help them in their efforts to further the success of the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Consortium.

Tarfoot will be consulting in various aspects of technology including customer-facing websites like MindClickSGM.com and HSPIConsortium.com, Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM), social media marketing, and technology strategies for the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Index itself.
Stay tuned for great things from this Los Angeles based company, MindClick SGM. The company has a laser focus on helping hotels and other hospitality agencies to find sustainable solutions to help make the world a better place.

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

Just Launched—The Recovery Ranch in Santa Ynez

Bradley Pirman — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:36:40 +0000

A huge congratulations to our friends at The Recovery Ranch in Santa Ynez—a sober-living ranch nestled in the beautiful Central Coast area of California. We’re very happy to see your efforts come to fruition in the opening of your facility.

Tarfoot Consulting was chosen to help The Recovery Ranch build their website from the ground up and we worked closely with the Ranch’s Founder, Daniel Ross to turn his vision into a reality. We’re very happy to see TheRecoveryRanch.com take flight.

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

The Branding Design Process — Re-invented

Bradley Pirman — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:44:52 +0000

I recently had a conversation with a friend who was starting her own company and needed a few assets to help build her brand—logo, business cards, etc. I showed her a few websites to help her get started with her branding efforts by utilizing the talents of designers and artists from around the world.

I can remember visiting the local print shop with my parents when I was a kid so they could have business cards made. The process was pretty involved and required a lot of telephone calls and visits to the printer to approve designs. My parents and other business at the time were limited to the resources that were available in their town. They were at the mercy of the vendors’ pricing and schedules, too.

Crowdsourcing

Those times are gone because now there is a new option for people who are building their brands. It’s called crowdsourcing. Think of it as outsourcing to a crowd. Crowdsourcing is a fantastic way to find talent out on the internet. By opening the task up to a crowd of people, you’re able to find the best talent out there and reward them for their work. It’s a win-win for you and the talent!

My friend visited LogoTournament and for about $300 started a logo design contest that was open to the designers registered with LogoTournament.com. Over fifty designers worked on her logo and through a pretty intuitive rating and feedback system, she was able to communicate her likes and dislikes to the designers working on her project. She ended up with a logo that she was very happy with for a nominal fee and never once had to get into her car and waste time driving to and from her local design studio or print shop.

At Tarfoot, we use a combination of trusted designers and crowdsourcing to realize our customers’ visions. Not everyone can afford dedicated design time and that’s okay. Just because you don’t have a endless budget doesn’t mean you can’t have an effective, compelling design. Be warned, however, for novices, crowdsourcing does require a bit of patience and managing the process can sometimes consume more time than you anticipate but it’s a great way to accomplish small tasks on a budget.

The next time you have a need for something like logo design or business cards, and you want to handle it on your own, check out some crowdsourcing options rather than doing things the “old” way. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Resources:

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California

Opinion vs. Quantitative Analysis

Bradley Pirman — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:55:28 +0000

A Matter of Opinion

At a recent meetup, I had the chance to discuss a web project with a web marketeer. She lamented that her CEO had recently attended an SEO seminar and favored keyword-saturated language for the corporate website. Her option was human-friendly copy because she was sure that would produce more conversions.

But they were at an impasse.

Without quantifiable data on which style would convert visitors better, it boiled down to a matter of opinion.

We see opinion guiding many websites. Not just in the language but in the layout, design, typography, calls to action, etc. This leads to high bounce rates, low conversions, and ultimately frustration for the site owner because the website doesn’t deliver the business they desire.

Quantify Users

One of the tricks we use at Tarfoot Consulting is A/B experimentation. Basically, two versions of a page are used in conjunction with conversion goals to determine which version of the page performs better. The experiment runs for a period of time or until results are statistically significant. The results then speak for themselves and the content or design that performs better is put into place as the default page.

Here’s an example, let’s say our web marketeer ran an experiment to determine which language style led to more conversions on her website. Two versions of the home page could have two distinct styles: keyword-focused and human-focused. Each time a visitor lands on the home page of the site, they’re shown a random version. Half the visitors will get version “A” and the other half will get version “B”. Then a call to action, let’s say this is completing a sales contact form, is put in place as a conversion goal. If more people to version “B” of the home page fill out the sales contact form, then version “B” has been statistically proven to perform better than version “A”.

What else can I do?

A/B experimentation isn’t the only way to quantifiably gauge performance on a page. Heat maps are also a very useful way to see where users click on a page. Various link styles and positions leading to the same link can be placed on a page and data is then gathered on how many clicks come through each link. Heat maps are very useful visual representations of the data that make it easy to see what users are doing.

Many times, we like to sit with users and do focused, user testing to learn more about how users interact with a website. We record the users eye movements, facial expressions, and voice as they navigate a set list of tasks within an web application or website. We also record everything that happens on the screen. then we review this information with our visionaries and project managers to determine what changes and/or enhancements need to happen in order to create a better experience for the user.

Web strategy doesn’t work when it’s based on opinion alone. While it’s true that years of experience with the web and user interaction is very useful in the initial stages of development, continual user feedback creates a compelling website that converts visitors to customers or users and ultimately brings in revenue.

Some Helpful Resources:

Google Website Optimizer

Google Analytics

CrazyEgg.com

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Tarfoot Consulting - Online Strategies, Website Design, & CRM Implementation - Santa Barbara, California