1. What’s the concept of picaholic in a nutshell?Picaholic is a web design service catering for the creative industry; Picaholic enables their members to establish a web presence on a subscription basis. Clients pay a low monthly fee then using their basic computer skills, they can edit the site themselves and immediately deploy sophisticated, configurable, state of the art, flash website.
2. Who is your concept aimed at specifically?Our target market is the creative industry, people from photographers, artists, models, stylists, musicians, actors, fashion designers, interior designers, architects, events, actors, film, writers plus more.
3. What makes Picaholic different to other web design agencies?Historically, people were required to hire a designer or design agency to build their website, despite exponentially high costs. Picaholic gives people an alternative. Our model is based on a shared infrastructure, which means we serve many customers with a single version of a product. We offer 5 distinct benefits:
a. Low upfront costs – Members only pay a low subscription fee. They don’t have to pay the hourly rate normally associated when hiring a designer.
b. Save time – The majority of our clients have their sites up and running within 24 hours. A custom built site can take weeks if not months to complete.
c. Constants upgrades and new innovations – We continuously update our technology to meet today’s standards and deploy them to our member’s site at no additional cost.
d. Common interest - Picaholic serves thousands of clients from around the globe who provide us with enormous amount of feedback and requirements. This common interest to enhance the product benefits all our members.
e. Focus on their business not technology – The reality is, most people have no idea what is required for a good website. At Picaholic we build all the technology including Search Engine Optimization, phone technology, hosting, etc, leaving our members to focus on the content and their business.
4. I noticed Picaholic spoke at Creative Sydney? How did that come about?Jess Scully who was the event organiser, posted some information on LinkedIn so I made contact with her and she asked me if I wanted to speak at one of the events. I of course said YES! The topic discussed was “Finding your fans: Audiences, Markets & Communities” and Picaholic was there to offer a solution to the audience of how to get yourself out there without spending an arm and a leg.
5. I saw on your site that you welcome blogging contributors? Explain…..Picaholic is looking for bloggers who want to share their opinions and experiences in their creative industries – from photography, fashion, art, music, design - anything cool that they can share with our customers. We are interested in hearing from anyone who has something that they want to say that could benefit them and our clients. Share your thoughts with Picaholic!
6. Who are some of your clients?Our clients are international which makes this business more exciting. Recent works from Picaholic include local players such as
Joe Gibara image consultant for the Sunday Telegraph, jewellery design label
Santos Wish, food and interiors stylist,
Geraldine Munoz, mobile spray tanner,
Amy Erbacher.
7. What kind of sites are the most common that you are building? Eg. Online boutiques, photographers, etc…The sites that are built are mainly online portfolios such as photographers, artists, stylists etc. However with the introduction of ecommerce, we have seen clients from fashion & jewellery designers to photographers selling their images online.
8. What trends are you seeing with the digital world in terms of branding, online and marketing?The trends I am seeing at present and that Picaholic also use are:
- With decreased budgets I see a
rise in search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). Advertisers will focus more attention on these, as it will increase search page placement and ranking.
- The
use of video in Internet marketing has grown sharply. Videos are incredibly powerful and it seems to be a big traffic generator for advertisers, especially in the search engine rankings.
-
Emphasis on customer engagement through the inclusion of blogs and social media. Marketers are engaging differently with the end customer by developing stronger communities and/or engaging with current standing communities. This in turn impacts their search results as search engines index them.
- A
n increase in Internet use of mobile phones, meaning advertisers can target customers 24/7, as people seem to spend more time on their mobile phones than on their computer. What we are seeing is great place for marketers to connect with savvy audiences and from an engagement perspective, brands will find this audience highly attentive.
9. What are some of your favourite sites for ideas, inspiration and learning?Wired Genart Paper Magid MagCoolhunting10. Plans for the future?Picaholic is not just popular with end users; it is also popular with Web designers alike. Many in the industry would rather use Picaholic as opposed to programming the sites from the ground up. We are now working on developing a White label solution that will allow design agencies to have their own branded version of Picaholic. Our vision is to have Picaholic as a base solution for all flash enabled sites, and allow programmers to add their personal touch or code to make it unique to them.
