Vital takes pride in all of our clients, but there are a handful that inspire us on a daily basis.

Being a Web design company, we might not be able to change the world, but we can certainly help. In Paula Abdul’s words, “Our gift to you is the stage, what you do with it, is your gift to us.” (Yes, you did just read that – shout out to Paula for her wisdom this season on the X Factor.) We build the stage for many great organizations who spend their time and energy helping others.

To give back to our most giving clients during this holiday season, we’d like to share their stories. Be inspired, be moved. Heck, go ahead and donate even. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time again: the halls are decked, the cookies are baking and your Web design crew is busy with lots of festive eblasts.

But as soon as the wrapping paper is recycled and the last gallon of eggnog is chugged, it will be time to think about New Year’s resolutions.

Maybe you’re planning to hit the gym more, or you’re trying a new hobby. Or maybe you’re just carving out some time to breathe.

Along with your other personal resolutions, the new year is also a good time to take a look at your marketing strategy. It might need an overhaul, too. Here are three resolutions to make (and keep!) for your business marketing  in 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

An automatic email newsletter can be a great way to let your established customers and fans know about what’s going on at your business.

Once you’ve built an address book of contacts who have an interest in your business, an email newsletter is a perfect way to keep those contacts engaged. There are many services that you can pay to create and send email blasts to your contacts, but a favorite of ours is MailChimp, a service that is free up to 2,000 contacts and 12,000 emails a month. (If you need more contacts or monthly emails, MailChimp’s pricing is reasonable and has both monthly and pay-as-you-go options that will fit any budget).

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Caramel apple? Treat.
Snickers bar? Treat.
Blizzard before Halloween? Definitely a trick.

A pre-Halloween storm that dumped as much as 30 inches of snow on some areas of New England and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands was among Mother Nature’s most fearsome pranks. But there are things to learn from this fluke October storm if you’re considering a new or redesigned website for your business (yes, we’ve got Web design on the brain). Here are five things our fickle New Hampshire climate can teach us about Web design:

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We’ve mentioned before that a contest or promotion can be a great way to drive traffic to your site and get customers through your door–here’s a perfect example of that, courtesy of Portsmouth’s own New Hampshire Film Festival.

The NHFF recently announced the winners of their 2011 sweepstakes. The grand prize winner Dan Young received a night’s stay at the Ale House Inn on Bow Street and two VIP passes to the NH Film Festival, and 10 runners-up will get pairs of weekend passes to the festival. NHFF used a combination of on-site promotion, social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter and an email marketing campaign to promote the contest.

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Have you taken a look at your Facebook friends recently? Are they all people you’d call your friends in real life? If you’re an avid Facebook user, chances are you have a decent number of “friends” who aren’t, well, your friends.

Facebook recently rolled out several new features to help with this dilemma, some of which seem to borrow heavily from Google Plus’ tools. Arriving in the same week that Google Plus ditched the invites and opened up to all users, the Facebook changes seem to be the next step in the struggle for social networking superiority. Read the rest of this entry »