When a Marketing Pro Has to Face the Music: New Website for Grotto

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients, Website Design, Web Management

new website design

How many times can we make that joke about the cobbler’s kids never getting new loafers? Lots more times because the metaphor is still true. Well, this marketing gal and web spinner finally got around to giving the Grotto Communications website an much needed makeover. How to Decide What to Keep and What to Toss in a Website Redesign Reworking … Read More

When Disaster Strikes: Tibet Earthquake Relief

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients

Our priorities sometimes seem as sure and solid as the ground. We wash the dishes. We pay the bills. We go to work, school. Then something happens to really shake things up. On the morning of April 14, 2010, an earthquake struck a remote area of Tibet. The damage was catastrophic. Some kids didn’t make it to school. Some who … Read More

Evanston Bike Race Speeds into Town July 19th

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients

Pro cycling with a full-on family festival fills Downtown Evanston, Illinois, as it hosts the NorthShore University HealthSystem Grand Prix (the bike race formerly known as the “ENH Grand Prix of Cycling”). Mark your calendars for Sunday, July 19, 2009. A circuit through the main streets of town will be closed to cars as elite amateur and Olympic-level pro cyclists … Read More

BirthLink.com Welcomes New Arrival

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients, Marketing

Redesigning the web site for Chicago’s premier birth and wellness resource provider, BirthLink.com, actually took…wait for it… nine months. Grotto partnered with founder Jo Anne Lindberg to rethink how the site was structured and design a robust new portal with easy access to the provider directory and birthing and health info, as well as Jo Anne’s own health-related business, Life … Read More

Sometimes You Just Need to Ask for Help

Kim PierceallCommunicating and Writing, Grotto: Company & Clients, Running a Business

By nature, small business owners have a real DIY attitude. You have to when you wear that many hats: ceo, marketing director, receptionist, coffee maker/fetcher/cleaner-upper. It’s a great, and probably necessary trait. But successful entrepreneurs also need to know when they need help. Maybe it is high time you hired an intern for some marketing assistance or a bookkeeper to … Read More

Grotto Communications Celebrates 10 Years!

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients

ten

We are delighted to commemorate 10 years of providing our brand of marketing communications services to SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses). The path has been sometimes up and sometimes down (and sometimes it was hard to tell which was which!). But reaching this milestone is a testament to the success of our methods and to the quality of our clients’ … Read More

Redefining a Web Presence for Chicago HD

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients

Congratulations to Chicago HD as we launch the redesign of their web site this week. Founder and principal Steve Panning asked Grotto Communications to bring the site for their high-def video editing studio up to now. First, we tackled the information architecture to help visitors navigate to what they wanted to know more efficiently. Then, the design began to take shape … Read More

Watch for Ways the World Will Market FOR You

Kim PierceallGrotto: Company & Clients, Marketing

I’m not sure how it happens. I truly don’t give the Olympics a second thought as they approach. Then. Suddenly. I spend night after night watching remarkably fit and focussed youngsters (mostly) performing their feats. Funny, the things you begin to notice. Just as I wondered aloud if the spike-tastic beach volleyball stars, Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, were sporting … Read More