Warning - self promotional content!

One of our simplest, but nicest looking, little sites for a while has just gone live, check it out at DearDoula.com A simple white, grey and purple colour scheme works really well, giving a very clean look which will appeal to the market Lexie is looking for. In terms of code, there is nothing clever going on, but the visually the site works very well.

Just to be clear as to what a Doula is….

To be sure you you get the kind of help you need in labour, consider having a Doula. A doula is with you continuously through labour. She’s trained and experienced in providing emotional support, physical comfort and non-clinical advice. She usually meets with you before labour and discusses your preferences and concerns. She learns the role you both want your partner to play. For example, some partners prefer to be the primary support person or “coach” - with the doula as advisor, errand-runner (for beverages, ice chips, hot packs, warm blankets, partner’s food) and stand-in (if the partner needs a break). Other partners want to focus on providing love, affection and comfort to the mother and leave the role of coach to the doula.

Lexie looked after us when my second child was born, and she was perfect for us. If you are preggers, or your missus is, then well worth a call.

There is an interesting Harvard Business Review article called
New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets
which has some interesting findings about the latest must have social media networking site. As we know, there is a huge amount of coverage of Twitter in the media at the moment, but a straw poll around the office shows that Facebook is still the networking site of choice for the serious networking kids.

Interestingly, the study found that “the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets.” This is compared to “a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.”  In other words, messages are being pushed by a very small amount of users, with most of the audience observing passively. If you look at it like that, and consider the very high penetration of twitter by celebrity and other well known figures, is Twitter any more than advertising?

The public nature of Twitter - ok, you have to approve followers, but do we honestly think that Stephen Fry personally knows his 546,405 followers - its seems to be more of a fansite than a social network. This is backed up by some extent by the Harvard study. “Twitter’s usage patterns are also very different from a typical on-line social network. A typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days.”

Average of one post? So either people don’t know how to use it - unlikely as it’s so simple - or the vast majority of people are just watching. Given that more women use Twitter than men - 55% to 45% - and women buy more celebrity magazines this is perhaps not surprising. It looks as if this is less of a true network, and really more of a way of getting your messaging out, even if it is often pretty inane. (Ashton Kutcher, please stand up).

Nothing wrong with that, but if it’s advertising, not networking, surely our business approach has to be different as well, treating it as a communication tool, rather than another form of network? Looking at the list of companies using Twitter (short sample list here) it would seem that many companies have come to the same conclusion, using rapid tweets to get information out quickly and painlessly to a captive and interested market. What will be interesting is how this develops over the next year. How will they make money? Will we still be twittering in a years time, or will it go the way of Friends Reunited?

One of our recent projects, the news website for Nantong, China, went live this week. Based on Wordpress, this site is rapidly becoming the news source of choice for the English speaking community in the city. The next step will be to make the site bi-lingual.

Even if you are not interested in the quality of bars of the city (!) it’s worth a look to see what can be achieved by using an adaption of the Wordpress as the CMS to run a news site, without the huge cost that a custom content management system lead to.

The website can be found at Nantonglife.com. Worth a look.

After answering a question about this recently on LinkedIn it was obvious that there is some confusion about what a client side (marketing assistant / manager / director) should do, and what the role of the agency / graphic designer / web-developer should do. As this is fundamental to to the success of the relationship, it’s worth exploring this in more detail.

So - you want a new brochure?

Say you are a marketing manager, looking for a new brochure or website. What does the agency need from you to help make the project work well? First, a clear idea of your objectives. Your job is to define the objective of the campaign and how it fits with your overall marketing plan. Who is the target market, what do you want them to do, and when? Then you need to provide a brief that covers these key points cleanly and succinctly.

The message.

What the agency or designer needs to know is the one thing that you want to tell your prospect. This needs to be a single sentence, but summarises the entire campaign. If you can’t give this, then your campaign will be fuzzy and poorly defined, and the chances of you getting exactly what you are looking for is dramatically reduced. By all means give secondary information to support this, but if you can’t define your primary message, then you are not ready to launch the campaign.

The brief.

A brief for a marketing project doesn’t need to be long. It should cover all of the elements that you think your agency needs to know, but usually can be done in a single page. The brief form that we issue to clients from 1503 covers the following topics:

• Background to Project
• Project Description
• Purpose of Project
• Target Audience
• Single Minded Proposition - the big idea
• Secondary Proposition - Is there anything else you want them to know?
• Call to Action - What do you want the customer to do?
• Tone of Voice - What sort of tone are you looking for? E.G. Professional, Fun, Quirky, Dull
• Specification - Is there a particular specification that you are looking to meet?
• Time scales
• Ongoing development - Is there anything that you will be doing in the future that we should know about before we start?

Next steps

If you cover those off, then your agency should be able to deliver exactly what you are looking for. In the next post in this series we will look at things from the agencies point of view - what should they be doing?

If you have a look at http://mysocialbuttons.com/ you can find a wide range of image and buttons for all of the sites, twitter, facebook et all, and best of all, they be free! I especially liked the Facebook and Reggit ones, but there is something there for everyone I think.

Also worth looking at is this guide for using twitter for business. It’s not our work at all, so no credit claimed whatsoever, but it’s well worth a read as an intro to this strange new world of small blue birds.

Marketing as a winter sport?

Bobsledding; the winter sport in which teams of two or four steer a sled down an ice-covered track, reaching super fast speeds, where the fastest sled wins, often by a mere hundredth of a second.

But what can we learn about marketing from bobsledding?

Just like in bobsledding the most critical part of marketing is at the start…

In bobsleigh the focus is on a strong highly effective sprinting start.

In marketing the focus is on a strong highly effective marketing plan.

In bobsleigh the team needs to leap into the sled just before the first turn, assuming streamlined positions for the remainder of the run.

In marketing the team needs to leap into a strong market position as effectively as possible, streamlining their positioning for the future.

In bobsleigh if you get off to a good start you can save time on the run as a whole.

In marketing if you get off to a good start you can save time and money in the long run.

The Bobsleigh driver occupies the front position and steers the sled.

The Marketing director occupies the front position and steers the business.

The basic techniques used in two-man and four-man bobsledding are the same, but because four-man sleds have two extra sledders, they are faster. They gain power from the extra push provided by the middle sledders at the start, the sledders’ additional weight, and the increased weight of a larger sled.

The size of a marketing team can have an impact on the effectiveness of the overall marketing strategies, by gaining additional knowledge and support from team members to push their business further in the market place by its size and weight of the growing business against competitors.

On the course, the driver tries to steer through the turns smoothly and to prevent the sled from skidding into the walls.

During any marketing campaign the Marketing Director tries to steer the team smoothly to prevent the campaign skidding off track.

For bobsleigh the greatest challenge is to maintain a tight line on the banked curves, not allowing the sled to drift high up the turn.

For marketing the greatest challenge is to maintain a tight reign on the campaign, not allowing the campaign to drift high out of budget.

The aim of the bobsleigh team is to achieve the best time and beat their competition to gold.

The aim of the marketing team is to achieve the best result for their client and beat their competition to the top in their market sector.

As with most goals there is always a second or even third place, if this is your aim then this is where you will finish.

Is your online business Marketing the Bobsleigh way, or is your current marketing more like sledding on a plastic tray on a slightly elevated slope?

About the author: Kasumi DeMarco - Sexy SEO and Online Marketing including Brand Awareness. More at  http:www.kasumiseo.co.uk

A lot of our work at 1503 is done in China, though contacts we have developed over the years. Things we have done include rugby kit designs, bar websites, shipyard materials and now, art gallery sign design! Just to show how quickly things can be done, I designed this last logo week while the gallery was just a concept, and now it’s up and running. Just to show off, here’s a shot of it, and as soon as the website is finished off, I’ll post the link here too.

studio 18 - 8 nantong, china

1. It’s near as makes no difference free

2. It’s easy to do.

3. You can do it right now, no creatives, no printing, no delays.

But you are also in danger of harassing people who are not interested in your business, damaging your brand, losing sales and losing revenue. It’s called spamming for a reason, and people don’t like it.

So Why Bother?

The best reason to be undertaking an email based marketing campaign is personalisation, effectiveness and measurability. With results easily tracked, and almost instant results, you can quickly reach an audience for your product. It’s generally accepted that you’ll have 80% of the results in 3 days, which is much faster than you will ever get from a standard direct mail campaign, and without the postage costs. And you can reach Dave with an email addressed to Dave related to Dave’s business in Dave’s favourite colour, should you wish to, for no extra cost.

So How Do We Get Started?

Permissions at all costs.

The first rule of email marketing as apposed to spamming is to ask for permission. This can take many forms, you can build your list from permission sign ups on your website, or if you have a bought in list send a ‘reminder’ email asking for permission to email your user. People who use the internet a lot often forget what they have signed up for, and this can be a nicer way to get in touch with new contacts. If they don’t want to hear from you, they will unsubscribe straight away, saving both you and them time.

Ideally, go for a double opt in, where you ask for permission, they sign up for your messages and then receive an email asking them to confirm their interest by responding to that email. If they do not respond, they are not added to the list. But be aware that you may lose a fair few people though the process, as it is a little tedious for the user. But although you might end up with a smaller list, the people on it are more likely to be interested, and so more likely to read your material, increasing the success of the campaign.

Decide on your objectives

As with any marketing activity, your material needs to be clear about what you are looking to achieve. An email building awareness or branding is likely to look very different from one that is pushing a special offer. Work on your content and style of presentation appropriately. Keep the message short and sweet, getting to the point quickly.

Format the email

Just because it’s quick and easy there is no excuse for crappy work. There are lots of templates you can use to make your email attractive, so do some work on it to make it pretty as well as interesting. Some thoughts on how to present the email:

1. From: send email from a person, even if you are using a mailing company like mailchimp or dotmailer to do the send. If I see mail come in with a company in the from box it usually goes in the bin, I am sure I am not alone.

2. Subject: Grab attention, but be targeted in what you say. Avoid spammy FREE! capitalised style rubbish, or you won’t even get through Hotmail’s spam filters.

3. To: Use a person’s own email address, sales@ / info@ / admin@ are a waste of time and credits. They will be spammed to death on a daily basis and you will get lost in there.

4. Body: If you are using HTML don’t go any wider than 600px. If sending text only, limit your line length to 60 characters, so it will appear in the preview window of most email software. As a rule, short and snappy is best, you don’t have long before the reader bins you. As with the subject line, avoid excessive puctuation (!!!) as it makes you look like an idiot.

Make your call to action / next step clear and obvious. Always type in the http:// bit of the URL so that the link will work. If you have the time set up personalised landing pages for each offer, it looks a lot slicker and will help with that ‘big company’ image.

Always, always, be clear about how they can unsubscribe and put in all your contact information so people can get in touch if there is an issue.

5. Attachments: Don’t bother.

Outsource The Sending?

Unless cost is a real issue, sending from your own email account is not a good idea. For one thing, it only takes a low % of people to classify your mail as junk to give you real issues with your regular correspondence. But for another using services like Mailchimp et al gives you huge flexibility and reporting that you will struggle to replicate in house. If you are sending high volumes of mail monthly, then a subscription service such as Dotmailer may be more suitable. There are more intelligent systems allowing for personalised landing pages, on demand print fulfillment and other goodies, which are worth looking at. Our friends at Keepa have a nice system, Safekeepa, which is worth a look.

Testing

As with any marketing material you produce, test, test and then test. But in the case of email this must be looked at practically - what does it look like in the myriad of email programs and web based email systems - and also in terms of content.

Split your list up so you have samples of your market place and test different messages with them. When you have found the right message, then you can contact the rest of the list with some degree of assurance that you will get the right response.

Tracking

As mentioned above in the outsourcing section, the advantage of using more professional email systems is that you can see who opened your email, which ones bounced, who classed you as spam and who clicked on to your website from the email. All vital information for following up leads and planning your next campaign. All of the email sending companies provide reporting to some degree, usually the more expensive the service, the better quality the reports are. As with most things, you get what you pay for, but the investment is always worthwhile if it makes your work more efficient.

Finally

Email is ideal for brand reinforcement, product testing, promotional offers and customer surveys. Your message should be compelling, interesting and hopefully valuable. Above all, it should be targeted and personalised, getting to the right message to the right person quickly (and cheaply).

But email marketing should not be  about renting a list and sending out email “blasts” to people who have never heard of you.  It’s counterproductive and annoying to users. However, when used for lead nurturing, regular communication and customer retention, email is an efficient tool that needs to be part of your marketing mix.

Need some help?

Through the day job we do a lot of work with email marketing, and have some serious tools to help you. If you wanted some help, please feel free to get in touch. Good luck!

Shows the power of social networking these days, and how a bit of a laugh can make you some serious cash. Off to the garage!

And thought for a bit.

The key thing with an blog is that it is your personal interpretation of your subject, so the reason that you want to start one is equally personal. So here are mine:

1. I am arrogant enough to think that I have some ideas to offer on my subject - marketing / sales / creative working - that might help smaller companies out.

2. I spend a lot of my working time on the internet, so find lots of interesting stuff to share. See above.

3. I want to build up my businesses, and blogs can be a good way of helping to support your messaging, and your SEO.

4. I just fancied trying it for a bit, seeing what happened. Would I be disaplined enough to keep at it? We’ll see.

Please note that none of this is directly about money. If you want to make money directly from blogging, forget it. Not going to happen. When you get 1 million page views a month, then you can make some money from advertising. But lets face it, that’s about as likely as me getting a decent night’s sleep at the moment.