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.

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.

With DDA’s four, 10-hour day (Monday-Thursday) work schedule, today is our “Friday.” As I sit here drinking my usual morning tea and writing my blog, I’m thinking about all the projects that I will work on today as well as all the options that are available for this weekend’s fun. At our advertising company, I will need to work on search engine optimized content for a medical website design we are developing and for a new division of DDA called DDA Corporate and Medical Training. I’ll also need to proof different materials before they go to the client for review and oversee the development of about 17 different projects that I’m responsible for coordinating at the moment. At home, I plan to celebrate my mom’s birthday this weekend, go to a dinner party with friends, clean my house, do laundry, take my dog to the park, go shopping for a few household items that we are in tire need of, and take a little time to relax.

With my long work and home “to do” lists, I’ll need to prioritize myself. Today, within 10 hours, although I’ll strive to get everything accomplished, I’ll need to figure out what it most important to address so I can leave for the weekend knowing that nothing has slipped through the cracks or has been stalled or delayed. This weekend, although I’ll have high hopes to utilize every possible moment for fun, I’ll need to make sure that the chores that help our house run smoothly are handled (by myself and my husband) so we don’t have extra work around the house next week. Establishing priorities is important in and out of the workplace. But, enough for now… I’ve got much to do

When I write copy that is incorporated into a brochure design, website design, newsletter, direct mail piece, trade show display, or even when I create a script for a corporate video or voice over for a medical animation, I try to first think about the organization I am to represent, the product or service, and the target audience, and then develop the linguistic strategy that captures people’s interest at initial glance.

To promote an active response from the target audience, I might use strong verbs that convey the right “call-to-action” message. To encourage readers to reflect on what is being presented, I might ask questions that appeal to their wants and needs. To improve their memory retention, I might play on well-recognized words, phrases, sayings, idioms, and expressions that have evolved over time through regional dialect and colloquial vocabulary.

“Discover!” “What?” “Keep tabs on…” Each of these “strategies” works to the benefit of selling the given product or service. Words and they way in which they are used have an impact that can be negative or positive, subtle or obvious.

When I was in college, I struggled to find my niche with regard to a career. I started as an accounting major and then filtered my way through marketing, psychology, sociology, and secondary education to end up with a rare degree in Professional Writing. My hobbies as a child ran the gamut from photography, violin, and sewing to softball, poetry, and singing. I tried almost everything at least once, and for the most part I loved it all. I even liked ballet, although I pirouetted into the wall in a dance recital and rollerblading, although I fell and scarred myself for life.

Today, as an advertising copywriter for DDA, I’m able to enjoy the many different aspects of the career options and hobbies that held my interest when I was younger. I can express my creativity as I did in photography, poetry, and sewing through copywriting services for brochures and websites. I can utilize what I learned in psychology and sociology classes to maintain a good repore with clients, and the organizational skills gained through accounting for overseeing projects from start to finish. For that which I did not necessarily succeed, I’ve learned to pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on to the next venture.

The lessons learned in school and fun as a child I carry with me every day and try to build upon them with practical application. It sometimes amazes me to step back and think about how one’s experiences truly do shape the ethics and capabilities displayed in the workplace.

As a professional advertising copywriter at DDA, I am responsible for developing creative and effective copy for website designs, brochure designs, and direct mail pieces, scripts for video and animation production, and much more. I must be flexible enough to switch topic, industry, and media format from one minute to the next. In my experience, I’ve found that clients either “get” your work or they don’t quite understand why something was worded a certain way.

Typically, I submit my content to clients for their review with little to no commentary because I truly want to gauge if it worked to convey the right message. Most of the time, clients follow the intention, but sometimes clients are at a loss, which happens most often when working with international clients who rely on us to develop copy on their behalf that sells in the U.S. or when working with clients on a search engine optimized website where there are a million and one intricacies involved in developing first-page ranking copy.

Because it happens so infrequently that I need to explain why I wrote what I wrote in the fashion that I did, I almost welcome the opportunity to clarify things so clients know that there is a method to the madness that is advertising copywriting. Whether it’s for word structure, word play, high search engine rankings or any other strategy, my copy does have purpose. Once clients see all the thought that is involved in the development of their copy, they have a renewed sense of appreciation for the written word and a respect for the copywriting services of DDA.

Today, I ask you to challenge yourself to work harder, better, and faster than yesterday. When you allow yourself to be comfortable with the status quo, things tend to fall a apart, the bar has been lowered, and confidence in your abilities weakens.

At our full-service advertising agency, DDA, it’s important that all of our professional staff members push the envelope every day. Graphic designers need to be on the cutting edge in terms of style, graphics, layout, imagery, etc. Copywriters need to tune into the types of messages that are relevant to today’s and tomorrow’s demographics. Animation artists and programmers need to understand the latest technological advancements in software and programs to utilize them to their optimum level for our clients. Search engine optimization technicians need to be aware of the evolving algorithms of search  engines to ensure that we do our best to maximize rankings for as many relevant keywords as possible.

We are in a field where thinking one step ahead is commonplace. The only way to achieve this goal on a daily basis is to challenge yourself. So I ask of myself and my colleagues to look within and see how you can make today better than yesterday!

I just lost my blog from this morning because the Internet failed me at the (far to common) critical moment. Angry and not wanting to recap what I had previously written as it just wouldn’t be the same, I’m switching focus to the good and bad qualities of technology, specifically the World Wide Web. As a society we have become so reliant on this medium to communicate with others, to learn about a plethora of information, and to entertain ourselves in idle moments. When the Internet stops working, or in my case, fails for a brief period (enough to disrupt things), chaos - to varying degrees - ensures.

At the office, the IT person is called almost immediately and he/she scrambles to get everyone back online to continue productivity at the normal fast pace. At home, we call up our Internet provider and complain only to hear that everyone is out in the area and they are doing what they can to fix it. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. It’s almost like we feel that we’re cut off from the world. BUT… we’re not and we have plenty to do. It should not be that the Internet dictates our productivity at home or at work. It’s just one medium, one piece of technology.

As angry as I get with the Internet and with people succumbing to its “power”, I have to admit it does help our advertising agency to function at full capacity and me to present my work and that of my colleagues to clients around the nation and across the world. In no other “age” of our collective history have we been this connected as a human race. Online, the ugly guy can chat with a beautiful woman just as the small business owner can compete with the big wigs.

At DDA, with or without Internet, productivity, and more so creativity, goes on. From our custom programming department and video production studio to our copywriting department and graphic design area, work gets done to the highest quality at all times. The only problem we encounter if the Internet does go down is that an email to a client may not get out as promptly as one would hope.

In the fast-paced corporate and medical worlds, decisions are made and needs must be met effectively and efficiently. At Dynamic Digital Advertising (DDA), we are often contracted to work on deadline-oriented projects. We’re accustomed to working with clients that, at the drop of a hat, need a complete trade show booth designed, developed, and implemented once the decision is made to participate in a show. We’re also familiar with those that conceptualize an idea to enhance sales through a direct mail wave and want to distribute each piece before the summer slow-down, and we make it happen.

Although initially anxious about meeting tight deadlines while maintaining quality work, I’ve come to embrace this type of environment. When I’m given unlimited time to work on advertising copywriting for a brochure design or search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting for a website, I struggle (as many of my clients do) to commit to the written word. Eventually, I get in the writing zone and produce the creative copywriting that works to sell a company’s products or services. But, it is when I am pushed to work on a project and have it complete within a specified time frame that I find some of my best writing emerges.

Just as I know that I’m able to generate some of my better ideas at night once I’ve had time to reflect on the day and culminate all of the information gained, I know that I function best when encouraged by a deadline. Learning about oneself, recognizing good and bad qualities, and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly is, what I’ve found, to be the key to obtaining success in whatever measured terms one deems appropriate.