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Generate Content to Enagage your Market

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:53:02 +1100

Content Marketing

As “web presence” is rocketing to the top of priority lists of Marketing Managers everywhere, the question of how to generate leads from the internet gains focus.

Social Media, Search Engine Optimisation, Pay per Click all have the power to bring new people to your site, but once they have been there, how do you get them to come back or stay interested should they not purchase straight away. Subscribing to a newsletter is no longer going to automatically appeal to tech savvy consumers.

Keeping “Top of Mind” awareness is not a new concept to marketers, but the techniques used to achieve it are changing rapidly.

Developing “Content” is going to be vital for many marketing organisations over the next few years as companies and products battle to capture prospects imagination and loyalty. One downside of the wonderful world of the Internet is that loyalty is harder to build when changing brands is as easy as two or three mouse clicks.

Content can be defined as - Information or entertainment developed for specific targeted users or prospects that is:

genuinely of use and value
builds rappore and brand equity
and freely given and shared

If executed well, Content can generate leads as well as build rappore and brand equity.

In layman’s terms it can be described as “What we are prepared to give away to prospective customers when they are not buying from us.” In this light, the content of your Content will reflect how you value your customers. That is the value of what you give away tells prospects how much you value them and how well you understand their needs.

Content can take any form you like as long as it can be delivered via the digital realm. What content is best for your strategy depends upon three important factors:

Your Target Segment (and their relationship to the internet)
The nature of the product or service you provide (and the most common buying process)
Your organisation’s resources

Nimbler has developed a Content Matrix to help you choose where you might begin the process of developing a Content Strategy.

Content Matrix

NB: These cost indicators are a relative guide. Final costs will be determined by the brief. Depending on your organisation’s resources – all content may be able to be developed In-House or Outsourced.

Of course there are many more ways of delivering content and some of those listed above can be developed with a high degree of sophistication depending on the strategy.

One thing is almost certain however, if you’re organisation is not beginning to develop a Systemic Content Strategy it will almost certainly find itself losing Top of Mind awareness in the coming years.

Related Topics: landing Pages, Online Lead Conversion, Content Testing and Measurement.

Starting your Website Project

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:12:51 +1100

Starting your website project – Its all in the Brief.

Have you been put in charge of preparing the brief for the new company website? It can be very daunting. Everyone across different departments has their own opinion about the colours, the layout, websites they like – and even want to copy. How do you manage the expectations of these stakeholders, ensure the agency designing and developing the website understands the objectives and manage the project to completion without going around in circles?

We’ve put together a few simple steps to help you get started. It’s by no means a complete list, but we hope it helps!

For the purposes of this article we are going to assume that a good deal of knowledge is known about the product/services you offer, the benefits, problems solved by and other reasons customers buy from you.

What makes a Good Website?

What is it about a good website that makes you want to stay and continue reading/watching/posting/buying. What makes us fill in an enquiry form to "find out more" or buy a product that we can't physically touch and trust that it will arrive on our doorstep. It’s no accident. A great deal of thought, planning and time has gone into these websites. An experience has been crafted that, often subtly, conveys the message of a brand, and guides us to the answers we seek then helps us take action.

Step 1 – Create a list of High Level Objectives

Like all strategy, it starts with knowing what needs to be achieved. Having the goal “To create a new website that is better than our current one” isn’t very useful. Instead chat to the key stakeholders and discover the high level objectives each is hoping to achieve. Some examples include:

Sales Department - Generate enquiries via an online web form or phone calls
Marketing - Looking to build a database of email addresses to continue to send relevant campaigns to
Management – Would like to sell products online to expand our reach

Preparing a list of these objectives is the foundation the drives the project. It ensures everyone is on the same page and is aware of what is to be achieved.

Step 2 – Define your Target Audience

Start with the easy stuff – who are your customers now? Who would you like to be attracting.

Define by age and social groupings – demographics, then geographic trends and then behavioural habits and finally psychographic groups – attitudes they have in common.

A final and critical process is to look at all your groups and define “How they use the net”. For example older people may be less net savvy (don’t underestimate them however) than young people. Busy middle aged people may use their mobiles more than a computer, etc. Make sure you check your assumptions however.

Step 3 – Research Other Websites

Now that we know what we want to achieve and who we are targeting we can begin to collect ideas from the stakeholders of the aspects of other websites that they like/dislike. It’s important that we also get feedback from our target audience – this can be done through surveys, an online forum or direct discussion.

Some key aspects to look at are:

Layout – is the layout intuitive, can you easily find the navigation, read the content, see the logo, find the calls to action. What do people look for and is it easy to find.
Look & Feel – do the colours blend together nicely, are they appropriate for the industry
Navigation – Can we easily browse through multiple levels of pages, etc
Calls To Action – Is it easy or difficult to see what action a user should take (e.g “Enquire Now”, “Go to Checkout”, etc)
Content – Are there enough images, are they high quality. Is this copy engaging, do you want to keep reading or is it dry and stale, is it informative or a blatant sales pitch. There is a significant school of thought that online language should be kept simple enough for secondary students to comprehend and respond to – no matter how sophisticated your u=audience may be.

Step 4 – Prepare an Overview of Features

Make a mind-map of all the features you can think of from both a user’s point of view (e.g. subscribe to a newsletter) and your company’s point of view (e.g. a CMS (Content Management System) that multiple staff members can easily use)

Some examples include:

Content Management – multiple users, version history of changes made to pages, preview changes made to pages
Ecommerce – accept payments online, add products to cart, automatically calculate shipping based on weight
Blog/News – post new articles, automatically list news items, automatically create a news archive
Slideshow – edit banner images and call to action text, automatically transition between slides
Contact Form – editable fields to be managed by the site Admin, send form submissions to multiple recipients

Now brief the Agency

Following these 4 steps will hopefully give you a plan of attack and save you and your agency time when starting the website development project.

In Pursuit of 'Appiness

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:47:34 +1100

Fact: someone wants to visit your website – right now – but they’re not sitting at a desk.

Sales of smartphones and tablets now outnumber sales of desktop and laptops.

Is your site accessible to those on a small screen, with no Flash support and three bars of 3G coverage?

Once they’re on your site, is the right information easy to find?

The key to developing mobile accessible web material is in how well you can distil the information that is most important to your users and then how simply you can present it.

"More than ever, your readers are reading for facts – and answers – and they need them fast" http://buildmobile.com/mobile-first-content-strategy/

"Use mobile screen size & limited bandwidth to focus on what is essential in your site. Then build up from there." http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1430

For example:

If you have a web store – Can you present the categories of product is a simple way enabling the user to get to the product they want easily. On a large screen you can show many categories and even add pics but on a mobile device, you have to communicate with less imagery and more direction.

"Successful online businesses need to be experience enablers…” Michele Scarano – The North Face EMEA

Some Useful Info for Mobile Content.

The most successful companies in the online realm are those that listen to their users / readers / customers and respond to their needs.

Open up the conversation. Create the opportunity for your customers or would be customers to continually tell you what they want and how they want it.

Mobile website or App (application)

Mobile website

User doesn't need to install app, just visit URL in your phone's browser
Better cross-platform support
Easier to roll out updates and changes
Easier to integrate social sharing features

App

Platform-specific: need to build a separate version for iPhone, Android, BB , Windows phone etc
Distributed by app store – so you need to follow their rules
Better leveraging of device capabilities like multi-touch, accelerometer and graphics acceleration, notifications

Unless you have a concrete reason to build a platform-specific app, building a mobile site is easier and often cheaper.

Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. Think of your mobile site as the cover-all, providing at least the most essential information to anyone, on any device. A custom app can then be used to complement your mobile site, provided enhanced functionality to a subset of your users.

Distinction: “Small-screen" vs "Mobile"

While your website may open up on mobile devices – this doesn’t mean it’s working as it should in converting visitors to customers. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to read a “non-mobile” website on an Iphone when you are travelling.

Its far better to have a custom mobile site designed that appears only on mobile devices if for no other reason than it shows your customers that you respect and understand them. This doesn’t have to be a huge task. The most important step however is to expose features that your user wants when actually "mobile" as opposed to fitting existing content on to a smaller display.

Analytics

It is also worth pointing out that the redesigned Google Analytics makes it easier to check out your mobile visitors' browsing habits, and can easily compare the conversion rate of mobile to all visitors.

Going Mobile isn’t for everyone but if you have customers that look for information about your business when they are out and about – it’s a MUST.

Nimbler is happy to meet and discuss your needs any time and without obligation. Feel free to call or email us with your questions.

Online Marketing

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:07:44 +1000

The rise of the Online Strategic Agency has been in full swing for a few years now and there are several good ones about in Australia. But as former head of Tourism NSW and now Chairman of a Melbourne based online agency John O’Neil put it, there is a “Opaqueness” to the industry. Clients (particularly SME’s) still have a great deal of frustration comparing “apples with apples” as different agencies will offer not only different ideas but many will have their own software, preferred coding languages and hosting deals.

Businesses are forced make decisions about possible future problems, platform versatility and contract implications when they choose an online marketing supplier and this creates a minefield of invisible potholes.

Nimbler is a an Online Strategic Marketing firm that offers not only down-to-earth Online Strategy advice as well as the latest execution and creative services. When it comes to Online Marketing, we believe that it is now almost impossible to separate online strategy from the overall strategic planning of a business.

In fact, we hold a philosophy that all Strategic Planning and Marketing Plans that do not immediately utilise online opportunities face massive challenges to remaining relevant into the future. Beware the business that uses the internet for promotions and e-commerce alone however. Marketing plans today should have a balanced approach (including an execution plan) that includes the examination of all the following within a marketing mix:

Website Design and Implementation
Search Engine Optimisation and Marketing
Social Media Marketing
E-Commerce planning and execution
Email marketing
Mobile Marketing

Perhaps the most important strategic component however is the issue of “Content”. It sits behind all online executions and is often overlooked in the initial heady stages of online marketing planning. While attractive websites, social media set-ups and Search Engine Optimisation plans might feel like the critical factors in getting online marketing right, within 6-12 months, the only activity left worth focussing on – reinforcing all of the above components, is the regular and efficient development of “Content”.

Developing relevant, deep and attractive content on an ongoing basis is perhaps the greatest opportunity for your brand online.

Of course nothing will ever replace the value of a Great idea. It’s why advertising agencies around the planet continue to represent value for companies with the budgets to pay for ideas. But a great Online Strategic firm will know how to match the ideas’ value with online execution that maximises ROI.

If your business is not getting the most out of an online presence, feel free to contact Nimbler for an obligation free discussion.

Social Media - A Hearing Aid for Modern Marketers

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:15:39 +1000

But Social Media Marketing may perhaps be the most useful tool for marketers yet. So before you put Learning to Tweet in the "Too hard" basket, think about the benefits both direct and indirect to your business of putting in the effort. The opportunities available utilising the social media landscape (Facebook, Blogs, Twitter etc) lie not in the reaching of your audience (your web presence does that already), but in the ability to listen to your audience.

There are three general steps to take when moving to utilise Social Media as a marketing channel.

Research - Start by identifying social media neighbourhoods, identifying activists and opinion leaders within these groups.
Understand - Listen and monitor the tone of communications online. When you do start to communicate, you then adjust your "tone and style" to fit properly into the conversation.
Be a "Stand" - Make clear what your company or brand "stands for". Social media participants are there to share views and if you share yours they will likely gravitate to the brand.

When your target audience knows why you do what you do (which includes selling what you sell), they are free to align or not with your philosophy. Those that align are likely to begin checking you out. You will be referred and re-tweeted and should do the same with their tweets and posts.

In social media the worst mistake any company/brand can make is to invade the space of your targets with ads, sales and promos unless they have asked specifically for them.

Listening is actually the cornerstone of all good marketing and strategic business planning. Organisations that develop a good habit of doing so are invariably in a stronger strategic position. Social media is one of the most immediate, honest and dynamic mechanisms to Listen.

For more information on how your business can effectively use social media in its marketing mix, contact jonathan.poynter@nimbler.com.au