green sheep summary image 22 May 2013

Where is the Green Sheep?

By: Jonathan
green sheep main image3

Where is the Green Sheep? (or how do you create your “Digital Brand”)

22 May 2013 | By: Jonathan

In the famous marketing commentary “The Purple Cow”, Seth Grodin talked sensibly about being “remarkable” as the best strategy for a marketing success. More recently  in “Where is the Green Sheep?” ( a childrens book no less) Mem Fox and Judy Horacek take us (me and any 4 year old that wants a book read to them) on a rollicking trip to locate the missing Green Sheep amidst an endless flock of wildly unique …um.. “other-sheep”.

“Here is the wind sheep.
And here is the wave sheep.
Here is the scared sheep,
and here is the brave sheep.
But where is the Green Sheep? “

It’s a great reflection (perfect in fact – given that Nimbler’s corporate colour is Mint Green) of the nature of the challenges that face marketers attempting to create effective brands in today’s digital marketplace that begs the question - Is being remarkable enough anymore?

In the last 10 years marketing technology has meant that “targeting homogenous groups with like-minded attitudes” is no longer enough.

Today there are three phenomena that collectively have brought about an age where every consumer (like every wildly different sheep in Mem’s book) wants, needs and expects to be treated as an individual.

Web Functionality – has reached such sophisticated levels that you not only read about your favourite product online, but you now research it online, talk to other users/customers, test it, ask questions of the seller and buy it without leaving your desk/tablet/phone. Marketing departments are expected to be able to individually deal with every customer’s precise needs in real time.

Fortunately, technology helps us satisfy most of these needs - but only the really creative marketers have started to use technology to take full advantage. A great example is Ford in the US with their new social campaign and website that invites customers to customise their new Mustangs before purchase.

Search – It used to be that a good Yellow Pages spend could secure half your yearly sales. Not any more. Marketers now must manage not only their own results in Search Engines but understand and manage (as best as they can) the prominence of reviews, blog comments and competitor comparisons that will be found in the same search for your brand or product.

Social Media – Marketing communications used to be simple. You put out a message and the market either responded or it didn’t. Today your brand has an opportunity to join the conversations of your would-be market on Social Media. But the rules are very different now. You can’t actually talk too much about yourself (brand) but rather you must be relevant in your would-be customer’s conversations and be a good listener.

All of these disciplines are important to marketing success today, as are several other new methods for engaging with your market. There are, however, two essential messages to learn.

You must engage with individuals within your target market using various new media - at once recognising that they are indeed the “Wind Sheep” or the “Brave Sheep”, while still presenting your brand as a good fit.

A Purple Cow won’t stand out any more. You need to be the Green Sheep – A stand out for sure but also a “missing” if you’re not there. And digital mediums may just be the answer.

If you would like us to help your organisation to find its inner “Green Sheep” (or Digital Brand Strengths), feel free to give Nimbler a call for an obligation free meeting.

PS. If you haven’t read Mem Fox and Judy Horacek’s childrens book “Where’s the Green Sheep?” – ask any four year old and they’ll tell you all about it. (If you’re desperate, call me and I’ll send you a copy.)


Jonathan Poynter is General Manager and Chief Marketing Strategist at Nimbler, a Digital Strategy and Communications firm in Newcastle.

Nimbler can review your Content Marketing plans, or collaborate with you to create and implement simple content plans to engage your market with your brand.

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Beer Diva

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Greatest Athlete

Working with our sister agency in Sydney, Nimbler created a new and compelling look for this successful Obstacle Race and corresponding reality TV project.

It not only had to engage a wide range of athletic enthusaists, it had to work across a wide range of platforms. Nimbler created the website, mobile site, an integrated "test your ability" app, social media skins, eDM templates and above the line Print ads.

www.greatestathlete.com

The Mobile Imperative

7 habits CMS main summary image 6 Feb 2013

7 Habits of an Effective CMS

By: Coby
7 habits CMS main image

The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective CMS

6 Feb 2013 | By: Coby

For most people, the mention of CMS conjures up connotations of poorly designed administration areas, inflexible content management, and awkward functionality.

You may have the best looking website in the world, but if your CMS is not working for you, then you won’t touch it, and the whole website is a failure. We’ve put together a list of seven features that your CMS should have, to ensure it is working it’s most effectively for your website.

1. User-friendly interface

It’s one thing to have a great website designed and built for you. It’s another thing entirely to ensure that it is maintained, relevant, and fresh. Whether it be through adding new articles, blog posts, downloadable resources, or even just interacting with your users through the use of comments, fresh content should be the number one priority of almost any website.

And therein lies the problem.

Every CMS available offers the ability to manage your content. The very name would be an inaccuracy if that wasn’t the case - Content Management System. However, different systems have varying levels of user-friendliness - and there is a vast gulf in ease-of-use between them.

Your website may already have a CMS, but if it’s not easy to use, it’ll dampen your enthusiasm to actually manage your content, and you’ll be much less likely to use it. Conversely, if your CMS is a breeze to use, and you can access it all in an intuitive way, you are much more likely to keep your content fresh.

2. Revision History

Even if your CMS is bulletproof and easy to use, people still make mistakes. Thankfully, your website doesn’t need to pay the price for an overzealous content manager inadvertently wiping all of the content from your page. And one of the worst feelings in the world is that drop of your stomach when you realise you’ve accidentally hit the wrong button.

If your CMS maintains a history of all edits to your pages, you can easily revert to a previous revision of the page, and effectively rollback any recent changes, thus setting your mind at ease, and probably saving a few hairs from being pulled out.

3. Roles and Permissions

As your site grows, the amount of content to be managed will obviously also increase. When this occurs it can be of benefit to segregate the duties of each content manager, both to reduce their area of responsibility within the site, and to make the content easier to manage.

As an example, one content manager may be responsible for managing the company blog, while another maintains control of the online shop. User roles (or user groups), when coupled with permissions, allow for this to occur. A site administrator has access to modify the user accounts of other content managers, and switch on and off control over specific sections of the site.

Also, when coupled with revision history, having individual user accounts allows responsibility and accountability over the content that is posted to your site. Every content change can be tracked to a specific user account, and a full history of modifications can be viewed.

4. Page Preview / Save to Stage

Another way of dealing with the uncertainty associated with publishing content on your site is through the use of page preview. Many systems offer the ability to get a visual overview of what your content will look like when it is published, usually through the use of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, where each change you make in the CMS is styled to look like it will on the actual website.

Taking this one step further, a great CMS will provide a Save to Stage or Draft Publishing option, coupled with a draft view of the website for content managers. This functionality allows you to make changes to your site content, save the content to stage, and then view this staged version of the website when browsing the website. This is the best way to catch those pesky formatting errors.

5. CMS Based Image Editing

First, let me clarify. No, I’m not talking about your CMS granting you the ability to Photoshop out a stray hair, or erase any unwanted photobombers.

What I’m talking about is the ability to manage the images you are placing on your site, to ensure they best suit the content. For example, you may need to crop an image to make it better fit a content area, or resize an already uploaded image to place inside a blog post. CMS based image editing makes your life infinitely easier, as it helps remove any requirement for desktop graphic editing programs in everyday content management.

Another useful feature of your CMS is automatic image resampling. In less technical terms, the ability to upload a massive image (say, directly from a digital camera), and have the CMS automatically resize it and scale it down to a (size) dimension that is more suitable for the web.

6. Search engine optimisation

While it’s not an exact science, there are some content management tips that can help you to improve your positioning within search engines. While meta tags are considered outdated by many, they are still an integral factor in your site’s performance in search engines. In addition, other seemingly small factors, such as adding alt (alternative text) tags to images can make a big difference.

If your CMS doesn’t facilitate easily updating each page’s meta tags, adding alt tags to images, or providing clean code from the WYSIWYG fields, then you are missing the boat on an important aspect of your sites SEO strategy.

7. Training

Last but not least, there is training. While strictly speaking not a CMS feature, quality training can be the difference between a functional CMS, and one that sits there and gathers dust.

Even if your CMS is intuitive, user friendly and straight forward, you are still going to need some training to ensure you are accomplishing your tasks in the most efficient way. Effective training will help break down the barrier of complicated terminology, help you understand how the features of your CMS can work for you, and most importantly, make your feel comfortable with the new system.


Coby Delaney is the Lead Developer at Nimbler, a Digital Strategy and Communications firm in Newcastle.

brand cohesion summary image 13 Mar 2013

5 tips for Brand cohesion

By: Iain
brand cohesion main image

5 tips for Brand cohesion

13 Mar 2013 | By: Iain

Our new digitally connected world has created a myriad of niche marketing opportunities whilst the traditional ones stubbornly remain. From traditional print marketing to the now very humble website, from apps to social media you will want to utilise these new delivery methods to the maximum whilst retaining your presence in traditional media.

No doubt an agency was hired to develop your company logo, then perhaps a few brochures and a website. A 'Style Guide' may even have been discussed. But the agency you hired isn't strong in web development... you hire the best development firm in town to build the website the agency designed. Some time later your marketing director recruited his niece, a freelance graphic designer, to design a landing page, and now you've been tasked with building the companies social media presence - but neither the design agency or web development firm provide social media services. Can you see where I'm going with this?

That first logo you saw from the agency was perfect, and the brochure, brilliant, exactly on brief. But now, down the track, after all the "specialists" have had their hands on your brand, offered their opinion and stretched your budget suddenly your brand looks a bit non-plussed.

So how can you keep brand cohesion across multiple media delivered by various providers?

The Code

A headache to produce but investing the time and budget into a style guide is a must for most organisations. It can be a simple 5 page document outlining the logo, how it can be used, brand colours and fonts and photography style. Or a more expansive manual covering everything from the basis of poster design to writing style. However, any style guide must do more than just describe the visual applications, it should instil the brands values and outline the "brand pillars". A style guide is the first and most important step to brand cohesion.

Executive decision

Beyond the style guide an experienced creative/marketing executive should have ultimate sway over brand decisions. They may be internal like your Marketing Director, or external such as a Creative Director at an agency. Whoever they are they must know the brand inside out and have complete creative control. It is their responsibility to ensure brand cohesion whilst pushing your marketing forward to achieve new goals.

Keep it together

Where possibly keep your service providers to a minimum. The more design agencies, SEO specialists, social marketers and media producers you hire, the more fragmented the results they deliver will be. Recently traditional design agencies struggled to adapt to the digital age, and digital providers tended to lack the marketing experience required, leaving you with little alternative but to seek multiple providers to deliver separate parts of one project. Thankfully those days have passed. The "full service digital agency" has come of age and all your marketing dreams can be completed by one firm.

Know where its used

From Facebook banners to email signatures, TVCs to billboards, vehicle livery to annual reports, if you know where your brand is being used you can keep track of where its fraying at the edges. Where possible keep a library and address any fragmentation with the source to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Easy access

Provide easy access to your primary brand resources and guides. Too often a new job is briefed to an agency without even supplying a decently formatted copy of the company's logo. Those materials should be readily accessible whether via your marketing department or even as downloads on your website. Most importantly - make sure everyone in your organisation knows where to find and provide access to the brand materials.

Passion

And finally, believe in your brand. You don't have to want to wear it on a t-shirt you don't even have to like it personally - but you should be passionate about keeping brand cohesion. Complement the relevant parties on successful on-brand pieces you like, and make the relevant parties aware of any fragmentation.


Iain Davidson is Senior Designer at Nimbler, a Digital Strategy and Communications firm in Newcastle.

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Jabawokki website design

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RAPID Weight Loss Challenge

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BWAA Child Sponsorship for Students

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Hervey Bay Boat Club

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BUSINESS STRATEGY

BUSINESS STRATEGY

No creative design, website or online initiative will achieve its potential unless it is part of an integrated strategic or marketing plan.

Today the internet is abetting the collapse of strategic planning with marketing and communications tools. Gone are the fire-and forget marketing activities. Today, the internet is your organisation's market research and communications tools all at once. Its even your shopfont and increasingly, the ONLY experience your customers will have with your brand.

The Nimbler team offers over 25 years experience in Marketing Planning and Business Strategy as well as cutting edge talent in today's technology and online tactics. With a deep understanding of consumer behaviour and marketing strategy, we develop Strategic Plans, Business Plans, Marketing Plans and Online strategies for clients all over Australia.

Our end-to-end service from strategy to execution, Planning to content development means we remain accountable for results and committed to long term relationships with clients.

CREATIVE COMMS.

CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS

Nimbler is a full service agency. Our clients enjoy end to end service that includes brand design, advertising, copywriting, print management.

Web Development

WEB DESIGN AND BUILD

Website Development, CMS, E-Commerce, Mobile Apps, Social Media, Content Management

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is your market content sum image 31 Jan 2013

Is your market Content?

By: Jonathan
is your market content main image2

Is your market Content?

31 Jan 2013 | By: Jonathan

Whether it’s called Content Marketing, Brand Journalism or Native Advertising, the goal of today’s marketers is now “engagement” and “Content” is key.

Consumers are more media (and marketing) savvy than ever before. They know a sponsored message when they see one and demand more from a company than a slick message about a brand or simple delivery of product information.

As a marketer I’m always asking clients “What can you give your customers’ when they aren’t purchasing your product?” and the question has never been more relevant. Today’s consumer is accustomed to much more than the simple exchange of goods/service for money. They expect back-up, support, context, value adds and … yes… entertainment!

To this end the biggest brands in the world like Coca Cola and New Balance are rapidly changing their techniques and even the structure of their marketing departments to meet these consumer needs. Sam Slaughter of Contently reported that “For Coke, the answer has been to follow in the footsteps of traditional publishers, re-structuring its digital communications team to look more like the editorial team at a long-lead magazine.”

Content Marketing isn’t new. For over a decade, custom magazines for owners of luxury cars and fashion brands have been used to retain customer loyalty and interest. But with growing web functionality and technology, the delivery of custom video programs, video games, apps and even simple images to keep prospects amused, interested and loyal is now a part of many a marketing strategists mix. And Marketers are being called to morph into Journalists.

For Marketing Professionals and Agencies, developing the skills to be content publishers often proves to be a bumpy ride.

Long accustomed to delivering a researched, tested and tightly controlled image and message, marketers are now having to get their heads around messy concepts like transparency, honesty and embracing the role customers want to play in telling their story. Not only do we have to be better “storytellers” but we have to plan for the market to actually play a part in making up the story.

Mercedes Benz and Nike are just two companies that have taken on “Content” development as a mainstay of their segment marketing going so far as to turn their advertising budgets into interactive budgets.

Nike ran their first ad in the expensive Superbowl Final TV broadcast with a request for consumers to take to social media voting on the direction they want following broadcast ads to go. In being able to interact and decide on how the story was going to end, their customers were allowed to play a role in creating the content they were watching.

Mercedes Benz recently ran a social media contest inviting followers on Facebook to write the headline for pre-designed Print Ads. Even crediting the authors on the fictitious ads at the end of the process.

If you think this is only relevant for big brands, think again. Organisations as small as three person Financial Planning firms or Hamburger shops can and do reap benefits from tapping into the topics of interest and the attitudes of their customer bases by publishing content on a weekly basis and on very small budgets. A weekly posted pic or “Funny” can keep you top of mind and related to your customers and is often viewed by them as a gift when a smile or conversation is the result.

Popular Hamburger franchise Grill’d is currently running an announcement on their Facebook page for the “limited time only” Australian Coat of Arms burger. Begging, of course, comment and interaction from their loyal or disgusted customers. The media automatically making every response a message narrowcast to the next follower’s followers.

While the technology, the descriptions and the scale of publishing/posting of “content” may have changed, ironically the fundamental cornerstone of “Marketing” remains unchanged. The cycle of exchange always begins and ends with “Listening” to your customers and delivering what they want. It’s just now they want more!!!


Jonathan Poynter is General Manager and Chief Marketing Strategist at Nimbler a Digital Strategy and Communications firm in Newcastle.

Nimbler can review your Content Marketing plans or collaborate with you to create and implement simple content plans to engage your market with your brand.

mobile or die summary image 8 Feb 2013

Mobilise or die!

By: Alistair
mobile or die main image

Mobilise or die!

8 Feb 2013 | By: Alistair

Mobile phones are now ubiquitous and with the unstoppable rise (and convergence) of the smartphone and the tablet, mobile devices have become the ‘screen of choice’ for the mobility empowered consumer.

We live in a multi-screen world where mobile links lives in the most personalised ways possible and businesses must seize the opportunity to place their brands in the hands of their current and future customers.

The Facts
  • 90% of Australians own and use a mobile phone
  • Australia has the 2nd highest per capita penetration of mobile phones worldwide
  • 68% of Australians own and use a smartphone
  • 39% of smartphone users also own a tablet
  • 40% of Australians use their phones to aid purchase decisions
  • Mobile has now overtaken the PC for accessing Facebook online
It’s all about the customer

Consumers are now tooled up with devices that liberate them from the shackles of the old retail model where the brand used to hold all the cards when it came to pricing, shopping hours, service experience. Technology has empowered society and given birth to the ‘Asymmetric Consumer’, who no longer follows a linear path to purchase. They decide where and when they want to go shopping and that very often means no store visits, no influence at physical point of sale and exposure to competitive market impacts.

So on the one hand, building a comprehensive mobile strategy equipped for the age of mobility is about mitigating risk, it is also about capitalizing on massive opportunities to step closer to the customer and to deliver what they want, how they want it and at a time and place of their choice.

Developing and executing a comprehensive mobile strategy is not about playing cute with technology, it is about recognizing that customer behaviour now demands that brands deliver information, engaging content and simple access to purchase from any device and platform that the customer so chooses.

The customer truly holds the power to determine when and how they shop, what price they are willing to pay and critically who they purchase from. If businesses are not equipped to meet this challenge they will quickly find themselves losing business to competitors that have grasped the societal changes that are now driving the consumer’s path to purchase. For those companies willing to take advantage of the mobility revolution and invest into the processes, the platforms and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly, they will surely reap significant returns and gear shift their value proposition to a position of competitive advantage.

5 key moves for gaining competitive advantage through mobility
  1. Champion mobile as a business imperative and drive it through the organization from the top
  2. Innovate the customer retail experience with mobile empowered processes and platforms
  3. Mobilise your customer touch-points, ensure your digital and physical assets are optimized for mobility
  4. Lead your marketing strategy from the perspective of the mobility empowered customer
  5. Create compelling experiences with mobile that surprise and delight your customer

Alistair Mcewan is Commercial & Strategy Head at Modaliti.

were moving summary 2 1 Feb 2013

We're moving!

(to 735 Hunter St Newcastle West)

We're moving!

1 Feb 2013 | By:

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Newcastle Pudding Lady

Shaw Gidley Website

Newcastle Jockey Club

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The Round Room

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Baptist World Aid Landing page

www.baptistworldaid.org.au/christmas-appeal

Creating immediacy, ease-of-response and clarity, Nimbler designed a landing Page for Baptist World Aid Australia's Be Hope Christmas Appeal.

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Baptist World Aid Australia

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Silverstripe CMS

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Nimbler uses and recommends SilverStripe CMS. SilverStripe CMS is an open source web content management system used by governments, businesses, and non-profit organisations around the world. It is a power tool for professional web development teams, and web content authors rave about how easy it is to use.

As a platform, SilverStripe CMS is used to build websites, intranets, and web applications. The modern architecture of SilverStripe CMS allows organisations to keep pace with innovation on the web. SilverStripe CMS enables websites and applications to contain stunning design, great content, and compelling interactive and social functions.

Besides a powerful and intuitive content authoring application, SilverStripe CMS contains a powerful PHP5-based programming framework. The SilverStripe Framework brings immense flexibility and ease in customising your site and provides fundamentals such as security models, workflow, caching, and multiple language and subsite support.

SilverStripe CMS is open source, underpinned by public documentation, free code, and a developer community. It is based on open standards and supports multiple technology platforms. SilverStripe CMS is built and commercially supported by SilverStripe Ltd., a software company responsible for ensuring innovation, focus, and quality in the software.

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AFRM 'What if' Campaign

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Bounce into 2012

ethoshealthbounce.com.au

Client: Ethos Health

Brief: Increase the Ethos Health profile and generate community engagement with the brand.

Strategy: Create an online tool to assist the community to get involved in the Sparke Helmore Triathlon

Implemented: A community Blog site and corresponding facebook page allowing:

  1. Participant Registration and workout logs
  2. Weekly Posts and Downloads
  3. Facebook conversation
  4. Log and chart participant progress (and offer rewards)

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Nimbler...

Nimbler combines high level strategic and marketing management experience with the latest technologies in digital communications to deliver business results for our clients all over Australia.

About Nimbler

With functionality and innovation as pillars of our company culture, our dedicated team develops solutions for clients from annual marketing plans, to advertising campaigns, online strategies to web sites and applications for total customer engagement.

A unique balance of experienced strategic planning, design and communication finesse and sophisticated web application development allows Nimbler to deliver end to end service to clients requiring professional program development and execution.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

We're looking for an experienced account director to join our team, is it you? For more info and to apply visit our new website or our seek ad

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Every company is now a media Company. Every company needs to publish to its various communities.

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Jungle Juice

Iain Davidson

Iain Davidson

Senior Designer
Completing his BA (Hons) Graphic Design in Scotland, Iain has worked for 10 years as graphic designer and is experienced in web design, user experience (UX) design and print design. Spending the first part of his career working for a Marketing Agency in Edinburgh, he has followed love to Australia.

Showcasing exceptional design and creative abilities Nimbler quickly snapped him up and he has continued growing his understanding of best practices in web design and front-end development.

Coby Delaney

Coby Delaney

Senior Developer
Since completing his Business and Information Technology degree at Charles Sturt University, Coby has worked on a number of large-scale website projects. During these projects he was responsible for improving the efficiency of existing websites, and ensuring ease of use for the client. He has obtained over 5 years of experience in both front and back-end development, as well as an ability to consider each project from a client’s perspective.

Prior to joining Nimbler, he operated his own small business, providing website solutions to a wide range of clients. This afforded him valuable insight into the website development process, not only from the viewpoint of a developer, but also with an understanding of each client’s individual requirements.

Jonathan Poynter

Jonathan Poynter

General Manager & Director of Strategy
Jonathan has a 25 year career in Sales/Marketing/Advertising. From co-owning a Sydney based Advertising Agency, a custom publishing company and 8 years consulting he has worked with many companies (including other advertising agencies) assisting them enhance their marketing outcomes.

A sought after presenter, Jonathan has gained a lot of experience with his own businesses. He doesn’t just talk and teach – he lives his strategies through his own small wine business and a touring theatre company he founded in 2010.

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