We have just finished the first stage of a project for a new client - KONE.
Interesting, mixing media with a traditional and digital delivery. This seems to be an area we are getting more involved with recently - cross media delivery channels. More on the website with this new design case study.
Now that Team GB has arrived home laden with an unprecedented number of gold medals from the Olympic Games in Beijing, it’s perfectly natural for us Brits to be upbeat, not to mention proud, of the achievements of our athletes. Many have now realised their ambitions and are revelling in the adulation of both the media and the general public alike. And rightly so.
Determination along with highly qualified advice has seen many of our Olympians reach the very pinnacle of success and the realisation of their goals. They can each literally stand above the rest and gaze down at the also-rans. Not out of malice or in a self-satisfied way but out of a sense of sheer, overwhelming accomplishment. They’ve become the ‘kings’ of their respective ‘castles’ and can be assured that their efforts will be reap just rewards in more ways than one. And very well done too.
But behind the euphoria, the congratulations and even the relief of reaching the ultimate goal of a top ranking position, there lies a few stark truths behind every competitor’s success. Two such truths are that, firstly it’s definitely no accident they’ve got to where they are, and secondly, getting there was incredibly hard work.
And so it is with your Web presence.
Scaling the summits of the major search engines requires persistence, plenty of know-how and lots of hard work. There are a number of tried, tested and proven ways that can greatly help website owners in the ascent and these are well documented by The Escape and form a consistent part of any of our SEO and SEM strategies.
It’s entirely possible to reach the lofty heights of the search engines, to stand tall above the rest and harvest the benefits that such an advantageous position brings. But it’s a journey that starts with a vision. And to achieve the vision there needs to be an acceptance that every step, every stride, every stroke, every jump, every leap, every shot, kick, jab or manoeuvre is one step closer to getting there.
It’s about doing the little things right, doing them often and doing them well. Of course, getting there is one thing and staying there is another - but the same rules apply.
Without exception, each of our Olympian sportsmen and sportswomen have made significant personal investments along with an unswerving commitment to reaching their goals. Every athlete also knows that getting to the top takes time and involves a considerable amount of effort. But ultimately, the journey was always going to be worth it and the dividends will be there to be reaped.
But even with the next Olympics four years away, every competitor from every nation will now be assuming the same mindset, that when it comes to achieving the number one spot or ‘going for gold’ - the hard work starts now.
Search engine optimisation is not a dark art. It’s also not as powerful or as quick and easy as you may think. Those gold old days of quick link exchanges and directory submissions have gone. Good website marketing is about strategy.
Then, it takes forethought, time and effort into applying the basics to what you have, or a new site if you are re-developing. Then and only then should people think about the other stuff, like online marketing, directory submissions and pay-per-click and the like.
Time and time again, I come across websites that miss the basics while trying to do the supplementary marketing stuff. I think this article about making better web pages still stands now, more than ever, three years after it was written. This is obviously covered in more detail in our free SEO e-book for small business.
Sorry to get all arsey about it but I see companies spending money (or being encouraged to spend money) on the icing before the cake when it comes to content and search engine optimisation. Also (if you know me) you’ll know that I get quite grumpy about money wasting when it comes to marketing.
Rule number one of online marketing… are you seeing results? Sales, leads, enquiries, etc.? If not, have you covered those basics?
If you are in this situation, contact me through the website and I’ll take a look at your site as a bit of a freebie - work permitting.
Tony just pointed me to the fact that one of our viral videos from August 2007 is now up to 21,500 views…. The Aquivo:
It’s a project we arranged to promote the quality and sturdiness of the screen. You do get some silly comments but then you just reply to them, or delete the ones that are offensive.
Also did one for Mrs Killick’s business - Truly Scrumptious - on a treatment called threading - this is up to over 15,000 as well.
This is a question I have been asked on a number of occasions and I have always shied away from writing it down as an article. The main reason being that there are so many different techniques and they tend to be dependent firstly on a clients budgets and secondly on the type of website and industry.
But, there are quite a few general ideas that we follow and we finally got round to writing them down in this new article… Web Marketing Tips, Tools and Techniques
If you have any ideas you’d like to share, why not comment on this post. Any good ones, we’ll credit and stick on the main article.
We ran a direct mail piece last week. A five part postcard campaign to our mailing database. I’ve since had three comments from clients along the lines of… “why are you sending me these?”
Marketing to a database is an interesting approach and one that is hard to do without annoying at least someone. What do you do though?
No, honest, I am asking. Maybe, because like many small businesses our client relationships are personal, does that mean that when you send a mailer, it de-personalises the relationship?
I’d love everyone to love everything we do, and perhaps I am paranoid with questions from 1/2% of the recipients, but it does make me think. I know it’s about refining the data. I know it’s about specific messages for specific people.
But, there is also the other side of the coin. That time when you are with a customer who has just spent money with someone else to do something that you do and then they say…. “I never knew you did that”.
Robin Goad at Hitwise showed this week that Facebook is still in favour, becoming the second most visited website in the UK.
I personally don’t like the new interface, although there will no doubt be updates to make it slicker over time, but it’s obviously better from an advertising point of view, with much more ad space throughout.
We have run a few social advertising campaigns through Facebook and although the impressions are high, the click-through rates remain very low across the board. That said, the price is relative, so costs are low.
I’m sure that with the right message and the all important - something to offer someone right now - targeted (albeit interruption) advertising on Facebook can work, especially as the number of users continues to rise.
There are some great tools online for social interaction - Facebook, LinkdIn, Bebo, etc. depending on who you want to connect with. ie. Facebook for my friends and a bit of B2C, LinkedIn for my online contacts list, etc. What’s more, they are all free, or have small subscription fees if you want extras.
So, if you are thinking about adding social features to your site, and I have had a few conversations about this recently, here’s a thought. Why would anyone want (or need) your social features when they have all this avalailable to them already? What’s so special about you?
This comes into question even more when you are expecting buy-in from customers because, whether you like it or not, there is a business agenda in play. Facebook don’t want my money to use their website; they aren’t expecting me to buy anything - that’s not the deal. With LinkedIn, I pay my subs for the service. But yours?
If I said to you I was going to add some of these features to our website, really, what are the chances of you using them over an existing service which has better funding and is the pure focus of that business. What’s more, if you’re honest, wouldn’t you think there was an underlying agenda? We struggle pursuading people why we give so much stuff away free on our website.
It’s the same when people say to me that they want the BBC news on their home page. WHY? Your customers have the BBC for that!
Getting buy-in from your customer base is not easy and nor should it be. Seth Godin mentioned in one of his books that I read that if you think that your customers wake up in the morning thinking about you, you’re very wrong.
I advertise our company e-newsletter, Facebook Group, my Twitter account and my LinkedIn profile to customers at every opportunity (oops, I did it again) but I can’t make them sit up and care.
Why not focus on something that would really add value? Why not ask your customers what that would be?
Are you an e-Marketer? Got two minutes? Want a quick refresher?
“Yes, I know the e-mail marketing rules,” I hear you say. “I mean, I think I know them… well I definitely used to anyway.”
If this sounds familiar, you may not be alone.
A recent on-line survey conducted by The Escape Design Agency in Basingstoke, revealed that almost a third of respondents are unclear what their obligations are when conducting e-mail marketing campaigns. Legislation, in the form of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (2003), has been around for some time now, so if you’re unaware of the rules or just a bit ‘rusty’, here’s a handy guide that can be read in just a couple of minutes.
See the full article: ‘A busy person’s guide to the rules on e-mail marketing’.