Welcome to the Escape Blog

Post here from David Sifry’s Blog about the growth of the Blososhpere through Technorati’s eyes.

In summary:

• Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs
• The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
• It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
• On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
• 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
• Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour

We are currently working with Blogs integrating them in as news feeds into web sites. This example over at Clarke & Son shows how the news is fed straight from their blog. The visitor is non the wiser, and Clarke & Son have a news feed which is easy to update. Want to know more?

No, don’t start smooching your home page (unless you want to)!

Keep It Simple Stupid!

That’s the advice from this article over at Teen Webmasters:

Many sites today are focusing on high end graphics, advanced java
scripts, catchy logos, and other trivial factors. What they don’t
realize is that it’s a win win game if you keep it simple.

1. Content sells!
2. Avoid distracting graphics and crowded ads!
3. Stick to the basics!

Didn’t mean to call you stupid (their words not mine). But, if you are looking for a simple (but highly clever) web site - give us a quick buzz and we’ll give you some FREE advice on how it could be better.

The question is - do you want free advice or would you feel stupid asking? Maybe not when you see the results.

Nick Usborne over at Marketing Experiments has an interesting article about dial up users.

This year broadband users as a proportion of all Internet
users increased an impressive 13 percentage points over the previous
February, as 68% of all US Internet users reportedly connected via
broadband.

Yes, 68% is a big figure. And broadband is great when you have big
page files, want to show large images and have some streaming videos to
share.

But if you subtract 68 from 100, you get 32.

That’s 32%. Just a hair’s width away of one third of all Internet users.

We take it as a given that everyone surely must be using broadband by now. Maybe not…

Obviously most businesses in the UK must be with entry level cost so small and it’s still a bit of an assumption on my part), but that’s no reason to forget about optimisation and choice. We must ensure we give our users the choice in how they view our web sites.

We know for instance (and admittedly the numbers are small) that we have had 5 visits this year to our web site from mobile communicators, including Sony PSP and Pocket Explorer. These numbers will grow - no doubt about it.

Big chunky graphics are great - but does the viewer care when he’s connecting on a slow connection. Me thinks not.

Over on The Escapee Blog, Chris Pearson from Channel Advantage laid down a bit of a challenge:

"I suggest ‘the Escape’ you show us your skills and list out 10 areas
the post office went wrong and maybe a few ideas to get them started."

We like a challenge so here goes (please bear in mind I don’t know about the regulations that surround Royal Mail so these may not be implementable in the real world). Also, I always like to look forward, not back, so won’t dwell on where they may have gone wrong.

1. Rural Deliveries: It seems that one of the bug bears of RM is that they have to deliver to the less profitable rural ares. Why not also introduce deliveries of different items, not just post. If this is not feasible, why not partner with a third party who could do this. Also, why not offer a collection service as well for Free? Groceries, dry cleaning, banking, etc.
2. Advertising: People love freebies and don’t mind if advertising is involved. Why not reduce the cost of some postage by introducing a second service (advertising class), against allowing advertising on the envelope. This would obviously only work with personal mail but there is still a market. You also know that all local post ends up going through a local sorting office - so the advertising could be localised.
3. Free Business Collections: £500 per year to collect my business post - no thanks, I’d rather send an email.
4. Scrap 2nd class post: It’s all second class these days and it confuses people.
5. Flexible Stamp Prices: You buy one first class stamp, it costs 32p. You buy 100, they cost 32p each. Why no discount?
6. Free Postage For the over 65’s: (not sure how you’d manage it though)
7. Two-Way Stamps: Two-part device for stamps to encourage a reply. Like a return ticket on a train.
8. Online Postage: On the same lines as Chris’s idea - there must be massive scope for an online community. They also have the idea vehicle to advertise - on the envelopes of the millions of bits of post every day. This could also include ISP services.
9. Online e-mail marketing services seems like a good extension to their current services offering - extendable to text messaging also.
10. Hire a better PR firm. They always seem to be taking a battering in the press - they need to sort it.

Probably could come up with some other better ones but it’s Good Friday and it’s me in my kitchen on my own (saddo). So much better in a team- At The Escape we love nothing like a good brain storm - it’s how we come up with our best ideas.

If you are a company, small or large, that are looking for some creative solutions - why not challenge us with your business. Some of the ideas may take you outside a comfort zone but these are challenging times for business. And long may it continue…

Other reading:

• Funky Business
• All Marketers Are Liars
• Tipping Point
• Purple Cow

Inspired by a discussion on our Escapee Blog about Royal Mail, I thought I’d do some digging on Direct Mail (DM) statistics in relation to postal services.

You’d think the industry would be dying with e-mail and blogging - not so according to this report by the DMIS (Direct Mail Information Service).

You can also download the report as a PDF

Key Facts:

• 5,418 million items were mailed in 2004. This was split between 78% (4,221 million items) consumer mailings and 22% (1,197 million items) business mailings.
• £2,468.63 million was spent on Direct Mail advertising in 2004.
• The overall volume of Direct Mail has increased by 87% in the last 10 years while expenditure on Direct Mail has increased by 118% over the same period.
• For every £1 spent on consumer Direct Mail £14 is generated.
• It is estimated that Consumer Direct Mail generates nearly £27 billion worth of business every year.
• The average British household receives 13.9 items of Direct Mail every four weeks and spends approximately
• £590 through Direct Mail per annum.
• Business managers open 66% of their Direct Mail, 9% is re-directed to a colleague and 20% is filed
• or responded to.
• An average of 60% of consumer Direct Mail is opened and 40% is read.

For the average business trying to protect and enhance its reputation, the prospect of having its actions scrutinised by an army of online commentators can feel like a threat.

Small wonder, then, that more and more firms are paying greater attention to what blogs are saying about them - and even trying to meet the bloggers halfway.

"The web is out there for anyone to see. But the best companies are seeing that as an opportunity, not a threat"

BBC Business Article in full

What is blogging and how does it work?

If you use Firefox (and all good web broswers should), why not try this great little plug-in called Coolris that previews the link before you click.

Most people using a search engine expect to find what they are looking for on the first page of results, says a US study as reported by the BBC.

At most, people will go through three pages of results before giving up, found the survey by Jupiter Research and marketing firm iProspect.

Robert Murray, president of iProspect, said the study
shows the "increased importance of being found in the first top search
results".

He added as search engine efficacy has improved, along with the searching skills of users, so have expectations.

"They [users] know what they want, and they want to find it immediately, and the majority want to find it on page one," he said.

"It should be clear that to be effective, marketers need
to take action to ensure that their company is found in the top search
results on a broad range of search terms and not just single word
generic terms."

"It’s time that companies that are refreshing,
re-designing, or launching a new website start with the end in mind. If
no one can find it, no one will use it."

asks Nick Usborne at Marketing Experiments.

One of the problems with Google’s results-found figure is that it includes a vast number of trash content sites.

It now appears that Google may be on its way to addressing this
problem through its purchase of a new search algorithm, Orion.
According to a recent article in Haaretz Daily, Orion can identify the quality of content on a site.

If that’s true, it’s good news for legitimate online marketers and
very bad news for all those people making money from trash content.

Copy is important. Not just the use of words, but the story behind them.

Like the story about the blind beggar from Kim Klaver (via Seth Godin):

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building
with a hat by his feet and a sign that read:

The new sign read: "Today is Spring and I cannot see it."