Today is one of those days when you find yourself grasping for every minute. One moment you glance at the clock and it’s 9am, the next it’s 3pm and your left pondering where did the time go? These days happen more often than not here at Dynamic Digital Advertising. As a full-service advertising agency that handles all things digital, a single staffer may be juggling multiple projects, client correspondences, and a plethora of other tasks at a single time. To an outside observer, the magnitude of work may seem overwhelming, but to a DDA staffer, the careful balance of projects and the workload comes second nature.

Effective organization is key. Each day we compile our Daily Task list, ensuring no projects have fallen to the way-side and all client concerns have been resolved. To further ensure productivity and thoroughness, a Project Coordinator oversees each project.  With this system of checks and balances we do our best to carry out every project in a timely an efficient manner. 

The programmers, graphic designers, creative and online copywriters, videogrpahers, and Project Coordinators are extremely time conscious. In fact, we track every minute of every day with our very own programming application. This way clients know how time was spent and where it was spent. When you are dealing with tight deadlines and budgets, efficiency is paramount and we continually work to improve our already streamlined production process.

Working with clients from project inception to completion as a Project Coordinator helps me establish an overall understanding of the needs of particular clients, their direction, and their intentions for the outcome of the projects at hand and those of the future. It is my hope that every project ends on a positive note for the client and DDA. I work closely with staff members, such as programmers, search engine optimization (SEO) specialists, graphic designers, copywriters, photographers, videographers, animators, and the AR/AP department to ensure that every “i” gets dotted and “t” crossed. Working in this manner also helps me to understand the intricacies, responsibilities, and tasts involved with every DDA employee.

In the past few weeks, we’ve managed to complete and close a variety of different projects from copywriting services to logo design, and much more. I’m pleased to say that we were able to meet each project’s deadline and every client was satisfied with a job well done. But with the completion of one project means the inception of another and the same goal… to meet and exceed client expectations so that he or she returns to our full-service advertising agency for any and all of their advertising and marketing needs.

ROI (return on investment) is a phrase used very often in business circles, essentially referring to the bottom line:  was this direct mail piece effective, or this product launch a success, or this marketing campaign profitable? However, from the perspective of a good business owner, ROI should mean are the employees and the company in sync? Does the whole team have similar goals? Is each and everyone happy to work at the company in spite of the long hours, intense days, price of gas? Compensation after all should be more than about money.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we all need to have enough in our bank accounts to pay rent or a mortgage and have full gas tanks, with a little left over for fun things like going out to eat and vacations, and we should be able to depend on the weekly check, so money is necessary. But, earning a salary should include the realization that “I matter,” my ideas and skills and work ethic contribute to the greater good.  I work here because I can stretch my creative muscles, I work here because management empowers me, and I in turn produce. 

At Dynamic Digital Advertising, it is a business philosophy David and I constantly strive to maintain. An example would be the wonderful team in the video department, but it took several years to fill those chairs, and I am sure Laurence who is our Director of Multimedia Arts probably had his doubts about ever seeing his department become real.  If you walk into the new video and photography studios and see all the camera and video equipment, the sophisticated dolly system, the new sound booth, the special lights, the green screen on tracks, the double or triple monitors on desks, it is hard not to be impressed. And Laurence is still shopping for stuff! 

From my CFO position, I know there will be GREAT ROI from DDA VIDEO.  And our business development team, led by David and Toni will fill that pipeline to overflowing. The main conference room is constantly booked with scheduled calls from new inquiries. Our production team is very busy doing build out for projects, Vinnie and Rob have their hands full with flash and animation projects, so clients are finding Dynamic Digital Advertising, listening to our proposals and signing on. As a financial officer, can I ask for more? Yes. Let’s celebrate our busy days, and not get complacent. Have a great weekend all.

I color-code the projects in my task list depending on their status and the green projects are those that need my attention. Tasks are piling up today and turning green. The project that is on my mind the most is the DDA Poster Designs I wrote about earlier this week. This is the perfect example of a graphic designer acting as problem solver.

The problem: Design 7 posters that are timeless, informative, all encompassing, and (dare I say) sexy. They need to visually scream that we are (pardon the overuse of these phrases) “A one-stop shop,” with “everything-under-one-roof,” or a “full-service” advertising agency. We are talented beyond belief, customer-service oriented (no voice mail here, thank you), motivated, intelligent, and professional. Our services range from 3d animation to 2d illustration, corporate and medical training tools to photographs of garden tools, and much more! There are a handful of talented copywriters just upstairs and an entire video studio equipped with a sound booth and video/audio editing services. Need a custom logo design?… no problem. Want your logo animated?… again, no problem. The posters need to share a common design theme, work together, and be able to stand alone.

The solution: stay tuned!

Developing a search engine optimized website takes careful planning and conceptualization, outlines and organization, content generation and graphic design, and much more. With so many strategic processes involved, one must expend time, maintain patience, and sustain dedication to see it through to frutition. At our full-service advertising agency, we are in the throws of developing a new division called DDA Corporate and Medical Training.

We’re proud to say that this is the third official division of DDA; others include DDA Video and DDA Medical. When finished, the DDA Corporate and Medical Training website will feature search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting for lead generation, engaging graphic design for appeal and easy navigation, an Intelligent Spokesperson™ video for interactive guideance, and a comprehensive portfolio for examples of our capabilities in advanced training solutions.

It’s very exciting to see, first hand, all the pieces of the site come together seamlessly. It’s my hope that after the site is launched, it will prove to be a valuable tool as we take our business to new heights. Stay tuned as we introduce this new division and further evolve the full-service offering of DDA.

Life is full of unexpected “surprises” - some good, some bad. I’ve learned that it is your perspective and attitude that helps shape the outcome. Even with foresight, all possible precautions, and extensive organizational structure, every day at our full-service advertising agency, DDA, something unexpected occurs. Whether it is receiving a phone call from a prospect we spoke to months before who is now ready to proceed with a video production project or a series of new website design updates for a long-term client, every day has something new to offer.

Surprises - good and bad - keep one on one’s toes so as not to stagnate in life, get too comfortable, or be too predictable. Regardless of the type of surprise, it is this constant state of flux that keeps me enthralled with the type of fast-paced advertising and marketing work we do here at DDA. It can be difficult to find the silver lining in every surprise, but it exists to be found.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Although I enjoy writing search engine optimized copy, doing nothing but this 10 hours a day, 4 times a week can get monotonous. But luckily, the tasks of a creative and online copywriter are varied here at DDA. Our time is divided by Project Coordination duties, new business development, and writing. Plus, as we are a full-service advertising agency that specializes in all things digital, our writing responsibilities vary greatly. We do it all, from custom script development to creative brochure writing, the monotony never sets in here at DDA.

Next week for instance, I’ll be working on a training video script, optimized pages of content for DDA Corporate and Medical Training and an acrylics coating company, as well as proposal development and project coordination responsibilities. With so much variety, bored is never an adjective to describe one’s mood while at work.

I loved being a college student. In those days, there was no Internet, and by extension no Google. So as an English major, I spent hours in the library and checked out enough books that carrying them from dorm to class and back to the library, and repeating this semester after semester had the added benefit of providing arm exercises! But I digress. Today’s students depend heavily on information gleaned through the web.  Instead of books, most carry laptops. Information is instantaneous and as I am discovering so is the urge to pilfer, copy, and violate copyrights.

Professors now have software to help them weed out the offenders. And in the business world, this is becoming a serious problem for companies that are on the leading edge of innovation, and who like Dynamic Digital Advertising showcase a lot of their work. Anyone can put up a website and call himself or herself a web master, but to make the site viable when that person has few skills, tempts the wannabe to troll and see “what’s out there” and then copy/paste images and content and pretend like it is theirs. Appalling, and Paul, who monitors our site for such thievery, finds that trollers come from as far as the Middle East and as close as Maryland. 

At DDA, we work to give the clients who select us, the best design be it for a trifold brochure or a trade show graphic. If the new client comes to us for a website, that company has the complete assurance that we start with a blank slate and build from there. The proof is in the looking. Check out our portfolio, where numerous samples of websites, trade show graphics, medical illustrations, video presentations for anything from a medical device to jewelry bolster my claim. If you study our website carefully, you’ll see we fit the classic Aristotle observation, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”  

This weekend I  spent time trying to control the many patches of enthusiastic weeds everywhere I looked in our yard. The magical thing about weeds is that they mimic the perennials they share space with effortlessly. It always amazes me that even with my practiced eye I can  yank out some prized plant. And so it goes, a pretty newcomer that is really a noxious weed, wild grasses competing with wilting daffodils for attention. You have to take the time to root out only the invasive newcomer and then the weedy grasses, and leave the daffodils to slowly return to their dormant state until next Spring. 

I learn a lot about business and people and working with potential clients from our yard. One recurring lesson is that things are never as they seem. As a full-service advertising agency, we have to work in layers. Our business development people have to distinguish between the “weedy” prospects and the serious searchers looking for the right agency to do their marketing and promotional projects, our writers have to know the specs of a project so they can budget their time accordingly and not eat into graphic design or programming time. Crystal, who wears a production coordinator hat among other hats, has to watch closely so we make deadlines.

We go through these steps over and over again throughout the week, in every DDA department and it never becomes routine. WHY? Probably because there are too many variables. There is the Dynamic Digital team and the client’s team. There are financial considerations, there are real and artificially imposed deadlines, there are days when one project coordinator has to do double duty. Many a Tuesday it feels like we just get started,  look up at a clock and realize lunch hour has passed unnoticed there is that much on our To Do list. The crucial observation in all this is that not a day goes by that we don’t meet the challenges before us with energy and enthusiasm. A well run company with its unique culture is very much like a well tended garden, healthy, thriving and  forward bound in spite of the weeds.     

This past weekend, I went into the city (Philadelphia) for my mom’s birthday one day and for lunch with my girlfriends another. When first in center city and then in the Northeast, I realized what a convenience it is to be able to travel to and from the city in about 45 minutes to an hour from my home. I thoroughly enjoy being able to be a part of all the hustle and bustle of the city just as much as I love the quiet, but unique festivities of the Bucks County suburbs.

Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA) is located between my home and the city in Southampton. This location lends itself well to easy travelling for clients in the city limits and clients in more suburban and rural environments. Our full-service advertising agency serves clients in large corporations and small business, as well as those from all industry segments. With services that run the gamut from copywriting, graphic design, and website design to search marketing, video production, and animation, DDA not only has an ideal location, but a complete service offering for all advertising and marketing needs.

In 2008, we’ve come a long way from when my grandfather was an advertising executive and had to travel to the city every day because that was the heart of where businesses thrived. Today, businesses large and small are found on urban blocks and suburban street corners. DDA’s location enables us to reach them all.