4HIM's Marty Magehee

Christian music super group 4HIM sold more than 4 million CDs over a career that has stretched beyond two decades. Marty Magehee, one of the four, recently struck out on his own to record his very first solo recording. After six months of planning, design and development, Marty's first ever custom web site was launched.

Design

Marty's first site carries a tremendous strategic responsibility. First, the site needed to project Marty's edgier image without alienating 4HIM's adult contemporary image. After all, the first wave of Marty's new fan base would all come from the 4HIM fan base. To meet this need, we directed two new photo shoots that projected Marty's solo brand image.

We also selected a modern retro color palette that dramatically associated him with newer music styles without "going too dark." We used a plain black background for the site, that fills the entire web browser and keeps the site centered in the browser window. That ensures that every visitor will get the same user experience regardless of the size of their monitor. It also made the critical sidebar content areas stand out in dramatic fashion.

Typography was a crucial part of our design plan. Marty worked with us to discover a very new typeface called Birdman that served as the main font for the site's headings.

Finally, the header for the site featured a Flash logo animation that adds motion to the site, and helps us brand Marty as a cutting edge, web savvy musician.

Email and email lists

Marty needed a proven system to collect, store, sort, and email to his fans. This was especially critical for Marty because he had never developed his own email list before, and had a considerable collection of email lists that had been gathered via his 4HIM friends, partnerships and associations. That's why we added an email subscription signup box to every page of his site.

Of course, once you have a good email list you need a system that can email them. Through Generator's on-site Mass Mail service, Marty sends regular emails to his fans without the help of a web designer or code programmer.

Streaming media

Marty needed the ability to stream his music live from his site. After all, who would buy music they couldn't listen to?

Ecommerce

Marty needed a store that could effectively market and sell not only his own branded items, but a variety of products from the 4HIM catalog. This included books, T-shirts, and of course music. And, Marty didn't want to have to hassle with managing administrative data, merchant accounts, inventory, warehousing and fulfillment.

Site membership

Over time, Marty knew he would need to expand his site into a paid membership direction. Generator's powerful but simple site membership forms and databases gave him the flexibility to build his fan base over time, and then begin to convert that fan base over to a for-pay system when his career growth made that possible.

Flexibility

A static web brochure was out of the question here. Marty is a heavy web user, and he needed a site that he could directly interact with 24/7. He needed a system that would allow him to add pages at his discretion on the fly, including photo galleries, video, news stories, concert info and a huge variety of eternal site links.

For a live view of Marty's new site, click here.