Welcome to the Escape Blog

We all have aspirations for our businesses and some of them are actually unrealistic.

For instance, many people ask me to create a website for them that gives “The Amazon Experience”, all for under £1,000. Sorry, but it can’t be done.

Also, in terms of branding, these companies aren’t Amazon and logistically they can’t offer the Amazon experience anyway - so why kid themselves? They wouldn’t live up to their ‘brand’ promises.

A Large Glass Of Realism

How a small business owner sees their company and how their customers and the market in general does, is often way off. The owner thinks he’s Armani, his customer think he’s Primark.

Pitching a brand appropriately often feels like lowering standards, but, more often than not, it’s actually a case of reigning in the perception with the realism. You could also argue that there is often more money to be made at the lower end of many markets anyway.

A good example of this was a conversation I had recently with an owner of a chain of Hairdressers in Basingstoke. On one hand he wanted to take his salons upmarket, but would it really work in Basingstoke? Probably not. London maybe, but not Basingstoke.

He would be in danger of alienating his customers by moving out of touch with the local market.

Brand Basingstoke

A town like Basingstoke has the very same problem. It wants to be cool and ‘happening’ but:

1. It’s not big enough to carry it off
2. It’s too close to London

Taking a step back, it’s simply about creating the appropriate brand that people can buy into. It may be lowering some sort of [unrealistic] standard, but like Cuprinol, at least it “does what it says on the tin”.

Via Searchengineland came this news that the paid search market in the UK is getting very big:

• Online advertising spend in Britain grew 41 percent in the first half of 2007
• Market share is now 15 percent, more than direct mail at 11.8 percent
• Online ad spend could reach 2.75 billion pounds by the end of the year

Paid search is up 44 percent which basically that prices are going to continue to rise. Why?

As more and more people try paid for search, their level of expertise makes them head for the low hanging fruit. So, rather than optimise their adverts, they think it’s all in the auction. So they bid high on loose keywords.

Many advertisers also try to grab business by using irrelevant keywords. ie. Do a search for web designers in Basingstoke and click on some of the adverts… how many of them are in Basingstoke?

I have spoken to a number of people who have built their strategy just around paid search. It works for them but it’s getting harder.

My advice, split your budget and invest in content, or at least a search engine friendly website. Sooner rather than later as well. Natural listings take time, unlike paid-for advertising which is instant. But, the natural stuff is so much more sustainable over the medium to long term.

Quick link of a some handy references for designers recently found:

• Dezinerfolio - nice resource of designers work - tips and other stuff
• Design Meltdown - another great resource of good online design work
• Bittbox - Some handy tips and free downloads (including free vectors)