The marketing world never stands still and the past 12 months have been no exception. The fast rate of development and customer uptake in the fields of social media and mobile have kept us all on our toes in 2011 and, as always, have provided new and exciting ways to engage customers.

But let’s not focus too much on what has happened in 2011 and look ahead to see what developments we think 2012 will bring.

This time we sat down with the whole Brinn team to pull together our list of marketing predictions for 2012. We came up with a huge list, which included everything from the sublime to the irrelevant right thought to the completely ridiculous! Instead of exposing you to all of these, and in the interests of brevity, we have instead carefully chosen our top 5 marketing predictions for 2012.

As always please contribute your own predictions in the comments section.

Here they are:

1. Huge Growth in Mobile Commerce and Marketing

Predicted by: Ally

In January this year I made my top five marketing predictions for 2011. I promised I would come back and review these towards the end of the year and, amazingly, we are now pretty much there. So will I feel all powerful with my fantastic ability to predict the future. Or will I be left feeling rather embarrassed like the leader of a religious cult who has wrongly predicted the end of the world? Let’s find out!

1. Price and value will be key communication messages

“Brands and retailers will be keen to communicate good value in 2011”

This prediction was bang on (if I do say so myself!). As high inflation and sluggish growth in the economy continued to bite, brands focussed on value as a key communication message. Organisations that were already perceived to be value brands hit the message home even harder (with the strapline ‘beat the VAT rise’ being used it seemed by almost everyone in January and February).

But even the more premium brands and retailers focused on value as a key marketing message. John Lewis continued to create powerful advertising campaigns centered round their ‘never knowingly undersold’ proposition.

The already price competitive supermarket chains also tried even harder to promote themselves as the best value with a range of ‘Price Promise’ initiatives. New Tesco Chief Executive Philip Clarke was also keen to focus on promoting value in new ways.

Verdict = Bang On!

2. Social and mCommerce will Become More Prominent

“As the uptake of smart phones and social networking continues to grow exponentially, expect to see both of these provide new ways for us to consume products”

I was making two points here – that ecommerce will spread and merge into the areas of social media and also mobile. I would say I was right with mobile but it’s still too early to tell with social media.

On the mobile front, the growth of web content consumption via mobile devices has been huge. For all of our clients’ websites we’re seeing around 10% of traffic coming in on mobile devices now (up from about 3% this time last year). This will no doubt continue to rise and it has already had huge implications on the ecommerce marketplace. Almost all of the large online retailers now have mobile stores or apps that allow consumers to browse and buy much more easily on a mobile device. This will continue to grow exponentially and if you run an online store without a mobile store format then I’m afraid to say it won’t be long before you get left behind.

On the social media front things have been much more underwhelming. Sure, a few online retailers have launched online store offerings directly through Facebook, but it’s yet to become commonplace or take off in any real way. I would also argue that there is no real sign of this imminent movem towards social commerce is either. Integration with social media sites on ecommerce websites is becoming not only commonplace but also pretty much vital… but as for purchasing directly through Facebook, results have been pretty poor.

Verdict = Right AND Wrong

3. Smaller Groups and Smaller Networks are the Way Forward

“Although social networking platforms such as Facebook continue to grow their user base, consumers will begin to split their networks into smaller groups or use a selection of new, niche social networking platforms to engage with different groups they’re involved with”

On a personal level, this year I’ve noticed more and more the difficulty and frustration of using Facebook when many different social groups are all in the one place. I have close friends, acquaintances, work colleagues and family on Facebook but I don’t want to share the same information with all of them. Despite making a number of changes to how this is managed in Facebook, it’s still cumbersome and difficult to implement and there’s been no real progress on this front.

Google + was launched in the summer, which focuses on making the separation of different social networks much easier by allowing users to separate groups into different social ‘circles’. The launch of this platform was much anticipated and there is already a staggering 50 million users on Google +. However usage levels of the new platform by users still appear to be low as we all try to work out quite how it actually works!

This idea of separating social networks is still an extremely pertinent subject and one I believe will happen and will have big marketing implications in the future. Progress in 2011 has been slow and it’s still too early to tell what shape this will take.

Verdict = Not yet Clear

4. Online Search will Change (Nothing New There Then!)

“Online search is continually changing and when it comes to optimising websites for search engines this means the goal posts are always moving”

When I read this prediction back I though to myself ‘Duh! Of course online search will change – it’s always changing’. Maybe I just put this in to make sure I was right with at least one of my predictions!

And I was right – online search has continued to change and evolve with Google, as always, leading the way. Twitter updates were included in search results (before being removed again), ‘official’ sites were given more prominence at the top of the rankings and Google’s Panda 2.5 algorithm update appears to have reduced the benefit of link building from low quality directory and article sites. This all has implications on the way we effectively optimize our websites for search and look out for more changes, and more changes, and more changes to come.

Verdict = Bang On!

5. TV Advertising will make a Comeback?

“With online streaming, digital TV streaming and the new advertising model for sites such as YouTube, there is now once again space for the traditional TV advertising format”

We’ve all talked for so long about the death of TV advertising but I predicted that 2011 would be a year we began to realise that there’s still great benefit to be had from the 30-second TV ad format. I think it’s fair to say this prediction was correct. Firstly, with the growth of on demand and online television as well as the advertising now used on sites such as YouTube, the 30-second TV ad format has seen resurgence in popularity over online banner advertising and other forms of online advertising. Secondly, I feel advertisers have begun to fall in love with the TV ad format all over again. Firms like British Airways and John Lewis have put a lot of budget into creating adverts that really resonate with consumers and highlight the value of the brand. I think John Lewis have been much more successful than British Airways at actually achieving this but that’s a story for another day. One thing I clear though – the TV advert is here to stay.

Verdict = Bang On!

Just like Nostradamus himself I can’t be 100% correct all of the time! Overall though I’m pleased that the majority of my 2011 predictions were on the ball.

There’s always a lot of talk about the latest marketing methods and how they will completely rewrite the way we promote our businesses. For the past couple of years that talk has centered round social media and this was reflected in my top marketing predictions for 2011. Interestingly though, important a marketing tool as it is, it hasn’t completely re-written the rulebook. Yes social media is important but the fundamental principles of marketing are still the same and a lot of the other tools we’ve used for 50 years plus are still equally important in running a successful marketing campaign.

The lesson to take from this is that in a fast-moving discipline like marketing it’s important to stay up to date with the latest tools available - but just make sure you don’t forget about the old ones, they can be just as effective.

What will my predictions be for 2012? Well you don’t have to wait too long too find out - I’ll follow this post up with my 2012 predictions before the end of the year.

I had a really interesting conversation today. It started with this question:

“Is your online shop empty?”

My immediate answer was no; we have lots of traffic visiting our website and it’s growing every month. What the person asking the question actually meant was empty of staff rather than empty of potential customers, which is a much more interesting question.

In today’s world we all spend so much of our marketing budget driving traffic to our website. Whether it be SEO, Google Adwords, Social Media, traditional Advertising or the many other methods of marketing communication available, most of us now understand that it’s important to drive traffic to our website.

That’s all very well, and, as an online marketing company, it’s nice to see more and more organisations utilising online marketing in this way. But what’s just as important is what happens when a potential customer arrives at your website. How do engage with them? If you have a sales team how do they know who is visiting your site so they can get in touch with them? How do you turn a browser into an enquirer or buying customer? What happens once a potential customer leaves your site? Will you ever hear from them again or are they off to browse (and buy) elsewhere?

It all comes down to the fact that we are so concerned with driving traffic to our websites that we often forget that we also need to turn traffic into solid business. So many websites, even really well designed websites with great content, aren’t geared towards actually generating enquiries.

Think of your website as a physical shop, showroom or office. Driving lots of traffic to your website is great but it’s like buying a prime retail space on Oxford Street and forgetting to staff the shop. If there are no sales staff there to assist, no cashiers to put the sale through and no customer service advisors to help with any queries, then the chance of that potential customer actually buying something is pretty slim.

A website is a great opportunity to generate qualified sales leads for your business, and your sales team should be focused on dealing with the potential customers that have already visited your website.

But how do I know who’s visited my website?

There are lots of online software systems available that let you better track the potential customers that have visited your website, but there’s actually a much easier way to engage customers online:

Do something more than ‘Contact Us’

It never ceases to amaze me how many websites have no other means of capturing enquiries than the age-old ‘contact us’ form. Think how uninspiring a ‘contact us’ form is. Consider the effort a customer needs to put in to explain their enquiry, fill out their details and press send. It might not sound like much effort but it’s enough of a barrier to stop many people making an enquiry.

Now begin to think of much easier and more inspiring ways you can capture prospects visiting your website. Here are some examples of great ways to do this:

- Have a live chat feature on your website. Many potential customers have questions they’d like answered and a live chat feature provides a simple and easy way to get their questions answered.

 - Post additional literature and information on your website that customers need to download. Before they can download it ask them to fill in a short form with basic details. Then you have a way to know that person was on your website, and that they are potentially interested in your product or services.
- Be more inspiring with your web forms by thinking about what your customers actually want. We have a ‘free SEO health check request’ form on our website. 10 times more customers get in touch with us through this form than they do through our contact us page. What’s even better is that the SEO health-check review actually gives us something to talk to the potential customer about when we call them. It’s a much greater ice breaker than “Hi this is Ryan from Brinn Marketing and I wanted to tell you about some of our great SEO services’

Whatever you do, it’s all about being that bit more engaging and captivating. You’ve spent all that money getting people to your website, now think about how you can take them to that next stage.

What do you do on your website to increase enquiries and conversions? As always, any new tips and ideas are welcome.

Websites Like Groupon and It Is On can be Fantastic Marketing Tools...

(If you remember the golden rule!) 

The rise of group buying/deal-based websites such as Groupon and Itison has been meteoric. So much so that no one appears to have coined a term for this specific type of marketing yet. Maybe this could be my big chance to create one before anyone else. I would… if the constant barrage of newly coined marketing terms didn’t frustrate me so much (I mean, is someone paid to sit in a room and think up these terms on a full-time basis?)!

Anyway, it’s no surprise that deal-based websites have become so popular – they’re great for consumers and, at the same time, a fantastic marketing tool for businesses – especially those with a limited marketing budget.

Because these websites work on a regionalised basis, they provide a great way for local businesses to entice new customers through the door with a unique one-off offer. At the same time, if you do have a limited marketing budget, these websites usually don’t charge directly to run a campaign with them - they actually charge a proportion of the payment taken from each deal claimed. So if you don’t have the marketing budget to invest in an advertising or online campaign this is an interesting results-based way to pay for marketing.

But remember, you are still paying for the campaign – the offer in the first place will reduce your margins and the commission you give back to the website per deal will reduce this even further. Purely judging by the jaw-dropping deals I have seen on Groupon and Itison recently, it appears that many companies will barely break-even or may run a loss for their promotions. This is fine as long as they remember the core reason for running a promotion – to let new customers sample their product or service at a low rate so that they can give them a great experience and make them come back again and again.

Generating customer loyalty is what this is all about, which is why I’ve been surprised over the past couple of months to directly witness and hear reports of negative deal-based experiences. My direct experience happened last week when I purchased a deal on Today’s Great Deal for a restaurant I had wanted to go to for a while. This deal came up and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to sample the place. When we turned up though it seemed like we were treated like second-class citizens. We had purchased the deal so the onus seemed to be on getting us in and out of the restaurant as fast as possible. From the time we sat down we were out of there within 20 minutes and the staff paid us little attention in comparison to others in the restaurant – hardly a memorable experience.

I’ve been hearing reports of similar, and worse, experiences for other deal-based promotions as well. One friend was directly told because she purchased the deal she would have to leave and come back in 30 minutes – despite booking an appointment in advance. When she did come back she found that deal had been over exaggerated and didn’t include everything that was mentioned in the promotion before she purchased. It doesn’t matter how cheap something is, if you don’t get what’s been advertised you won’t be coming back.

It really seems like many businesses are completely missing the point with this potentially very effective marketing tool. The point is not just to get a lot people through the door once – I’ve already highlighted that there is no money to be made in doing this. The point is to turn those who participate in the deal into loyal fans of your business – people that will talk about their experience to others and come back to you again and again. A big part of this is ensuring that all customer-facing staff are well aware of the purpose of this campaign – make sure they give the same service you would expect them to give to any customer.

An example of a company doing it extremely well is Papa John’s (the takeaway pizza chain). I participated in a promotion they ran last week and we ended up getting 4 Extra Large Pizza’s that would have cost £14.99 each for £1.75 each! But even better, when we (yes WE – I didn’t eat all 4 pizzas on my own!) ordered the pizzas the service we received was great and the pizzas were fantastic. A company like Papa John's will be running this campaign to raise awareness and to encourage new customers to start ordering from them instead of the bigger chains such as Pizza Hut and Dominos – and trust me it worked!

So try and emulate Papa Johns and don’t make the easy Groupon mistake – ensure you get value from your deal-based campaign by treating every customer to an experience they’ll want to have again (and rave to others about). Otherwise its money down the drain I’m afraid!

What's your experience of group buying/deal-based websites been like? Let us know

Corporate brand design and identity is the starting point for everything in business. It is the first thing a company needs to create before... well, anything! Without a brand... without a logo... without an identity you are nothing!

Brand identity is one of the most important parts of a good business – it helps people get to know you, it communicates so much more than just a name, and, if your branding looks disorganised, dull, frantic or indeed anything negative then this will be reflected on your company the second a potential customer sets eyes on your brand.

When you consider that a website has 3 seconds to capture the interest of an average visitor before they go elsewhere, branding can be said to be even more important for an online business! So when it came to creating the brand for VanLeasingQuotes.com we knew we had to get it right.

Where to start?

When creating a brand we start off by doing 4 things – reviewing the initial brief, speaking to the client, reviewing the competition and reviewing the ‘non-competition'.

The initial brief is a document we refer back to throughout the process. In this case it reminded us that VanLeasingQuotes.com want to create some new and different – this will have a bearing on the brand identity concept.

The client is also a great place to start because, not only do we want to create something that they buy into, but they also have good knowledge of their marketplace and any things to definitely avoid. In this case the team at VanLeasingQuotes.com were really keen to let us take the reigns and they were keen we didn’t get tied down by their perception of what might work and what might not (it’s great to get a client like this who really just wants us to flex our creative muscle!)

Reviewing the competition is a key part in the initial process because it lets us see what our brand will be up against. When we reviewed the competition in this case, we found that there wasn’t much out there that was particularly strong.  Most competitor websites made the mistake of trying to draw attention and say too many things at once (the end result looking a bit messy).

Reviewing the non-competition is a great way of finding inspiration from other industry sectors and using it in a new place. In the case of VanLeasingQuotes.com we found that their competition wasn’t strong so we knew we wanted to create a brand that stood out a represented something completely new.  We wanted to create a brand that represented a clean, fresh, approachable and easy-to-use website. One of the major industry sectors we looked at was price comparison websites – these sites are really easy-to-use and the best of these companies have great brand identities – we took inspiration from this.

Brand Concepting

This is where I start to get down some ideas. I’ll work with Ryan initially to think about the kind of look we want to create and we’ll sketch down some shapes and general sketches. After that I go away and spend a lot of time trying lots of different things (some I quickly abandon!) before coming back with 3 or 4 solid concepts for discussion. We all review this internally and there’s usually a couple of days of reviewing and tweaking each concept before we present 2 or 3 to the client. In this case we went back to the client with 2 concepts – both we felt were really strong.

It’s not just the logo we create at this stage, we also think about use of colour, font and language and how this would be used across the whole site.  

Client Approval

Presenting a new brand identity concept to a client is always a bit nerve racking – after spending a lot of time and energy going down a certain route with a brand that you really like, you just hope to god that they like it too! In this case they quickly chose one of our concepts and the process was fairly painless from here – just a couple of minor tweaks.

The Final Brand Concept:

Well this is the logo, what do you think? Hopefully you agree that we’ve created exactly what we set out to – a clean, fresh and approachable brand identity. Although we can’t show you the full brand manual we created for VanLeasingQuotes.com, the new logo is just one part of the overall look. We’ve also chosen corporate colours and fonts as well as developing how we will use language and tone across the new website. So this initial branding stage will really inform everything else we do when creating an online business for VanLeasingQuotes.com – it will give us a clear guideline on where to go with the look and feel of the website and the marketing material to follow after that.

It’s Ryan next week on keyword analysis and website planning.

Speak to you soon!

Truth be told, Search Engine Optimisation is a bit of a black art. It’s easy to see the results but its often not clear what work actually goes in to making your website rank highly in the search engines.

There’s actually a very good reason for that though – it’s a vast mix of different tasks and ongoing work that go in to improving your ranking over time. If you buy a book on SEO (there are many) you will quickly see just how many factors effect your search engine results and the thousands of different things you can do to make a difference.

I want to demystify SEO in this post and, although I don’t have the time or energy to list absolutely everything you can be doing to improve your ranking, I can provide you with the top 10 factors that affect SEO. This will hopefully give you a better idea of what’s involved and also give you a few things you can do to improve your own search engine ranking.

Here goes:

1. Have a Keyword Strategy

Like anything you do in business, having a clear strategy will make for better results. It never ceases to amaze me how many people optimise their website for search terms just because they presume people are searching for them. There are a number of methods to be able to analyse what people are searching for and how many other businesses are optimising their sites for these terms. Plan carefully and you can optimise your website for great search terms that your competitors have missed.

2. It’s All About Clean Code

It’s difficult to explain to clients why a well coded website is so important. This is no surprise because often to the untrained eye the actual design of a well coded website will look exactly the same as a badly coded version. The reason it’s so important is that Google wants to promote high web standards and therefore will rank a site higher if it’s well coded and much lower if it’s badly coded.  This means you want to make sure you take on a reputable company or freelancer to design your website, which is easy if you ask the right questions. 

3. Content is King

Content is King – simple as that. Search Engines want to return search results for users that match exactly what they’ve searched for. So the more relevant text content you have on your website about your product and services then the better chance you have of ranking highly.

4. Keep it Fresh

Update your site on a regular basis. Another thing search engines want to provide users with is up to date content and the more you update your site then the more you are seen as a current, relevant business. The more you update, the higher you go!

5. Keep it Simple

The best websites are simple, clean and easy-to-understand so keep it simple. Also, using Flash elements on your website has a negative effect on SEO so avoid using it. This should be easy because today you can create many of the same effects using Java Script and CSS.

6. Build Links

Search Engines will rank you higher if you have other reputable websites linking to your site. Lots of companies claim to be able to create lots of links to your site in a very short period of time, but it’s actually getting links from quality websites that takes the time and will make the difference. Link building is a blog post in its own right but there are many ways of encouraging others to link to your site. 

7. Don’t Keep ‘Em Waiting!

Google now also rank search results according to ‘page weight’. This means a focus on keeping down file sizes and page loading times will help you in the Search Engines.

8. Sell With Your URL

Naming the URL extension for each of your pages according to its search term will increase SEO results. So for instance, we’re building a new web page on Web Copywriting at the moment. The identified search term we are using is ‘Search Engine Copywriting’ so our URL will be: brinnmarketing.com/search-engine copywriting*

* Always separate each word after the / with a – because it allows the search engine robots to recognise each individual word’

9. Give Google a Map

Generating a sitemap for your website will provide Google and other search engines with an easier way to find their way around your site and this will help SEO. If you haven’t heard of a sitemap there are a number of software applications out there that allow you to automatically generate one for your site.

10. Meta Description (whatever the hell that means!)

This is the text you see under the page title for every search result on Google. Many don’t understand how important this is in getting people to click on your website.  Keep it short and use it as an opportunity to sell your business and make people click!

WHY SEO KEYWORD ANALYSIS IS THE PERFECT MARKETING TOOL

Undertaking keyword analysis at the start of any online project is one of the key factors that will determine its success or failure but you’d be surprised how many people either just leave this stage out or do it too late in the process to have the most positive effect.

 

When you think about it, keyword analysis is the perfect marketing tool. Marketing is all about identifying the needs and wants of consumers and then meeting them with your product or service - effective keyword analysis lets you do exactly that.

 

Keyword Analysis lets you research and identify what consumers are searching for online and, in relative terms, how many companies are out there already optimising their online offers to cater for these ‘searchers’. So, if you spend the time identifying the best search terms related to your product and service at the start, you can then build an online offer around these search terms therefore meeting exactly what consumers are searching for (their wants and needs) and in turn ensuring better online results for your business.

 

DOES IT NEED TO BE DONE RIGHT AT THE START?

 

Absolutely! Keyword analysis should be the first major step in the process when you’re looking to develop a new website. It should be done before you even start thinking about what content you might want to put on the site, how you might want to organise the different product and services you offer and before you start thinking about a layout for the website.

 

The reason for this is that if you do the keyword analysis a bit further on in the process, you already have pre-conceived ideas about what you want to say on the site and how you want to organise the information. Remember, marketing is about meeting the needs and wants of consumers so you should actually be building and structuring your new site around what they’re searching for so that you can best provide a solution to their problem. The findings of your keyword research should inform all the decisions you make in every key stage of the development process.

 

So for instance, if you run an online business selling speciality tea and you had not completed the keyword analysis at the start when building your website, you might decide that the Ginger and Lime variety of your tea would just sit within the Fruit tea section within the site. You’ve already mapped out the structure and the product fits in nicely within this section. You have mapped out your site structure based on what you feel makes the most sense – so teas are split up into logical product groupings such as Green Tea, Fruit Tea, Specialty Tea and Herbal Tea. You think this will make the most sense to the user when they come onto your site.

 

However, if you had completed Keyword Analysis right at the start, you may find that the way you decide to structure your site is completely different. You actually find that Ginger and Lime tea is quite a strong search term – there are lots of people searching for it and there’s not a lot of competition. However, when you look at the term ‘fruit tea’ you find that it’s too general, there’s too much competition and not as many people searching for it as you might think. So, this would completely change your way of thinking when it comes to structuring the site and, when it comes to building the actual pages, you are now in a position to better match your offering to what potential customers are searching for.

 

So, as you can see, if you complete keyword analysis at the start of the process, your results will be better.

 

A FUTURE EXPERIMENT

 

We’re so confident in the power of effective SEO and Keyword Analysis as a marketing tool that last week we came up with an experiment that we’d really like to undertake at some point in the New Year. The idea is that, if we weren’t restricted at all by the services we have the ability to offer here at Brinn Marketing, what search terms could we identify (related to any product or service at all) and could we build an effective successful business around these terms? So we would have no pre-conceived ideas at all about what kind of online business we would create - it’s all about finding the effective search terms first (identifying customers’ wants and needs) and then building an online business around it – so marketing in its absolute purest form.

 

Unfortunately we really don’t have the time to do this at the moment but if we do manage to make time to do this in the New Year we’ll keep you posted.  

Why sector-specific experience doesn’t matter in marketing

 

“How much experience do you have in the pharmaceutical industry?”

“How many other Thai Fusion restaurants have you worked with?”

“What other online candle retailers do you have on your client list?”

 

How many times have you heard or asked these kinds of questions? They’re incredibly common for any marketing, web design or online marketing business – we get it all the time. It’s also a very common line of questioning when interviewing someone for a new position.

 

But here’s another question – hove you ever stopped to think whether this sector-specific experience actually matters? In fact, have you ever thought that it may actually be better to work with someone or a company with no prior experience in your industry?

 

We work with a wide and varying number of different clients from online retailers to technology and financial services businesses right through to more traditional manufacturing businesses. In fact, I would go as far to say that all of our clients are completely different - they all work in completely different industries and no two clients are the same. They do however all have a requirement for marketing support and we build and deliver ongoing marketing plans for all of them.

 

So how do we manage to create marketing ideas and strategies for businesses that work in industries that we often have absolutely no prior knowledge of? The truth is, it doesn’t matter – it’s actually completely irrelevant.

 

Marketing is built on a set of principles, processes and practices and if you combine these with the real creative ability that comes with working with a good marketing firm then they will be able to create and deliver a marketing strategy that gets results – regardless of the industry your company is in.

 

Actually, I would argue that not having experience can actually be better because if you already have experience in a specific sector you have a set of pre-conceived ideas about how the industry works. Your creative ability is actually tainted by your knowledge of the industry and previous experience – you know what’s been done before and the chances are (although not intentional) you will end up with marketing ideas and a strategy that is pretty similar to others in the industry. Throw us in the deep end in an industry we’ve never worked in and we have no pre-conceived conceptions - we throw a number of creative ideas at the problem. Some of them may not be right but you can be sure that we’ll get an idea and solution that is.

 

But don’t you need to have SOME knowledge of an industry? The answer is yes you do but again, any good marketing company will make a point of learning what they can from you about your industry, your customers and work closely with you to create a detailed brief about what you’re looking to achieve. So I’m not talking about going in completely cold here, just not having the vast experience you thought you were looking for.

 

So next time your taking on a new marketing employee or marketing services company maybe you should still be asking the same question but looking for a different answer… “No we don’t have any experience in your industry” – perfect!

Before I even post this I already fear the backlash from all you talented web designers out there. Give me a chance to explain though before you arrive at our offices with pitchforks!

I’m not challenging the great work of web designers here – especially not the ones that work at Brinn Marketing!

What I’m more challenging is the steps that many businesses take when it comes to building a new website. That is usually just one step – ‘best call a web designer’

9 times out of 10 what do you get when you ask a web designer to build you a website? A website… sounds obvious right? You get a website and if you pick the right web designer you’ll also get a website that looks great. It’s more what you don’t get that makes all the difference between success online and failure though.

It is the job of the web designer you take on to design and, usually build, your website. If you run a small-to-medium sized business that doesn’t have the luxury of your own marketing department to create your online offering, the chances are you’ll be telling the designer what you want the site to look like and do. You’ll then get a website very much inline with what you had in mind…

WHAT”S THE PROBLEM THEN?!

The problem is that what you had in mind wasn’t necessarily an online presence that would do anything more than be a nice brochure for your company. Sure, it will tell potential customers about your business but it won’t do much else and will they even find it?

Firstly, if you’re looking to just create the kind of site described above then you don’t need to pay a web designer to do it. The technology is there to be able to do-it-yourself. With the 30-day free trial of our Framework platform we will let you create your site on your own selecting from over 100 templates for completely free and only a very small ongoing monthly charge for hosting.  That’s not really the point though.

Today, a website is not enough – websites are dead! It’s a given that any business has a website but it’s the ones that invest the time and effort in creating something great that reap the benefits.

What you need to create is an online business. Your online presence should sit at the very centre of your businesses marketing efforts regardless of what line of work you’re in. Remember, the first thing 99% of people do when looking for products or services is search online first – so you need to be well represented.

HERE’S SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

You have your new website but how are potential customers going to find it? Is your site built with SEO in mind and do you have other planned marketing activity to drive traffic to your website?

Once you get potential customers to your website how are you engaging them, does your site have interactive elements and do you have effective calls-to-action to make them take that next step?

What happens once a customer takes that first step on your website? Do you have a plan in place to continue the process seamlessly?

A website needs to be dynamic and constantly changing. Do you have the ability to add to and improve on your website on an ongoing basis? Do you have a software system to allow you to manage your site easily and cost-effectively?

Is your site a side thought or is it an intrinsic part of everything else you do to market your business?

CAN’T A WEB DESIGNER DO ALL THIS?

If you find one that can then let me know his details so I can employ him/her to replace our whole team (including myself)! A web designer’s job is to design your site - create a look and feel and build it into a functioning site. Hopefully what I have demonstrated is that really that is only one, all be it vital part, of a much bigger jigsaw puzzle. By just employing a freelance web designer what you will get is a website – not an online business.

There are actually a vast amount of skills required to create a worthwhile, revenue generating online presence. Actually, a lot of it is about marketing expertise, planning and effective ongoing management.

This all sounds expensive but it doesn’t have to be. There are many companies, including ourselves, that offer this full marketing service at a fixed monthly cost and it needn’t cost the world.

Really this is about starting thinking about your online presence as an ongoing, constantly evolving asset and finding the right partner company to work with to achieve this.

I’ll leave you to get searching to find one then– hopefully you’ll end up back here in the end though…

WANT MORE INFO?
Watch the Framework video:

This is a question I not only often get asked but also ask myself from time-to-time!

 

Blogging is one of those things that people suggest you should be doing but they never usually tell you why or what the benefits are. It may be a low-cost method of marketing but it’s also very time consuming so it requires a commitment from you to keep it up-to-date with relevant, interesting information for your customers on a regular basis.

 

So what’s the point and what are the actual benefits to your business?

 

The truth is there are many benefits but I think it actually boils down to 3 major reasons that make it all worthwhile:

 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

All website design, web development and internet marketing experts will tell you that search engines such as Google like to see lots of text content, dynamic (constantly changing and updated) content and quality websites linking to you on your website.

 

A blog achieves all 3 of these things:

 

If you regularly update your blog then it’s an easy way of constantly changing and adding to your site, which will push you up the rankings.

 

Also, by regularly updating your blog you are adding to the text content that is on your website and, because you are providing users with interesting and relevant information relating to your line of work, it will increase the visibility of your website when people are searching for key terms relating to your industry. In addition, because of the nature of your articles and the rich text content included within each of your posts, you are actually optimising your site for ‘the longtail’ meaning you are more likely to be found for a huge amount of differing search terms (see article here for more info). For example, if you are an IT services company, think of how many different terms relating to IT you will contain in just one post. This will all help you be found when people are searching for these terms online.

 

Good blogging is all about providing interesting information and insight into your area of expertise (your line of business). By providing truly insightful information, you are increasing the amount of other websites that link to you. Think about what you do when you read an interesting article. Many share it online and if people share your article then they will link to you, therefore increasing your search rankings.

 

Brand Building/Positioning

Good blogging is actually a great way of positioning yourself and your company as an expert in the field. At Brinn Marketing our expert field is marketing (obviously!) and we use our blog to provide interesting tips, insight and information to our readers. Does that mean you’re all going to become a new client tomorrow? No it doesn’t but if we’re providing useful insight for your business I’d be willing to bet you’ll engage with us next time you’re looking to work with an outsourced marketing company or provide a recommendation if you know someone that is.  So in that sense blogging is a great public relations tool.

 

Also, there’s nothing better than when you go onto a company’s website to find that they have loads of free tips and information for you to use without any obligation. It’s a great way of demonstrating the expertise and knowledge within your business that could be of benefit to the user if they were to work with you. So it actually has a big effect on brand positioning and perception as well.

 

Word-of-Mouth/Viral Marketing

Why did I choose to title this article 'What’s the Point of Blogging?'

 

The reason is because it’s a question that I’ve been asked many times so I know lots of people are interested in the topic and I know the title will engage interest enough to make people want to click on it and read more. Blogs that provide information that people want to know about tend to spread both virally through online social networks and through word-of mouth.

 

Wordtracker (an SEO software company) are a great example of this - they blog a huge amount about all the elements of SEO, providing tips on how to make SEO work to your advantage.  I have seen countless people on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn sharing links to the Wordtracker blog and they are now seen as THE  experts in SEO.

 

So if you provide the right kind of information on your blog you’ll actually find that others will pass the information on for you.

 

Get blogging then!

 

P.S. Hitting the right tone and knowing what to blog about and what not to blog about are whole topics in their own right – so you know what my next blog post will be about then!