Posted by rogerm on Nov 18, 2009 in
Email Marketing,
STAR Digital News There is a newly passed amendment to the UK Companies Act means that any UK company has now, by law, to include the following information in their email footers (this means general email not e-mail marketing although best practice would suggest inclusion):
Your company name
Your registration number and registered address (if registered)*
Your place of registration (e.g. England and Wales)
*it is not sufficient to just include a vaild address, it must be your registered address.
Posted by rogerm on Oct 26, 2009 in
Digital Marketing,
SEO This is an interesting development listed on the Google blog.
Could it be that Google are going to show Twitter posts in natural search lisitngs? If so it could make for a new battleground amongst search marketers… Check it out on the Google Blog
Posted by rogerm on Oct 15, 2009 in
Digital Marketing It’s interesting how a ‘credit crunch’ or ‘recession’ in the economy affects the way companies do business.
One frustrating symptom was the increased amount of cold calling that went on during Q2 and 3 as sales managers tried to achieve targets. What a pain, and how frustrating for the poor people who had to perform it.
Then there was the DIY Digital marketing wave…
A huge increase in badly put together, poorly executed email campaigns. the SaaS Email providers made some money, but the upshot is that a lot of companies became quickly dissillusioned with the concept and struck it off the list of marketing tactics.
And of course, the saviour of the credit crunch, Google Adwords.
Free money off vouchers have been flying around in virtually every publication that hits the doormat in a typical SME buisness in the UK. Business owners flocked to redeem their vouchers and let Google manage their online advertising. Oops, that was expensive, didn’t do much for me, better switch it off.
Again, badly executed. The only winner being Google.
Oh, and don’t forget the latest darling, social marketing, Twitter, Facebook and all that. Hmm, hard work to keep that up to date, so it soon falls away.
The result? Digital marketing has quickly found itself becoming as maligned as other marketing tactics by SME’s.
‘Marketing, that’s just a bloody expensive waste of money’
‘Analytics? Are you mad? I haven’t got time for that, theres a bloody recession on, we need to sell, discount, give it away!’
Corporates haven’t fared much better. Often finding that in-house departments don’t have the necessary expertise to plan good digital marketing campaigns. Even if they do they are often hindered by the IT crowd who always built the web site in the first place. So it becomes a protracted effort making any transformation in that direction. Costly, fraught with challenge and pain as the various silo’s within the business fight their corner believing that the strongest will win. What a waste of time, stuff digital marketing. It’s too difficult!
So what is the solution?
Well the majority of sensible digital marketing agencies, of which we believe we are one, are looking at overall marketing strategy or lack of it. What we’ve realised is that a lot of companies need to tear up their entire strategy, let alone their marketing plans. So now we are into a need to define and measure business transformation.
Business Transformation is something that matters in an economic cycle such as the one we are in now. Without planning, and a marketing calendar breaking out tactics, and budget, it becomes difficult to take advantage of any upturn efficiently.
Plus it evolves and changes with the changing climate. That’s where a forward thinking agency can add real value.
Agencies know that the beauty of digital marketing is that when set up and executed properly its completely measurable. So if tactics aren’t working you can tweak, change or discontinue quickly.
Digital marketing has matured during the recession with online advertising overtaking offline spend in areas such as TV, Radio and Press. Search marketing is a huge buisness, and an important discipline for any brand looking to generate increased sales or lead generation.
Local search is maturing as well, and SME’s need to leverage their local, geographic keywords to get in front of their target audience.
Buisness transformation - helped by digital marketing. What are you waiting for?
As an agency we receive a lot of speculative B2B email but the one below takes the biscuit.
The warning. Always check your data lists before sending as you can do yourself a lot of harm. As these guys have done. We won’t be recommending them to any of our clients!
How to annoy your prospects with incorrect targeting. They actually sent this out to agencies!
Posted by rogerm on Sep 11, 2009 in
Digital Marketing,
Web Design Interesting to see that Google have modified their search form enlarging the box and the font to about 130% of the original size.
At first glance it looks a bit odd if you are a regular user, and you instincively check to see if your browser has inadvertantly been set to a higher percentage view as everything below it remains as it was.
However, I guess it will be a usability and accessibility plus and help to reduce the number of typos, or will it?
http://www.google.com
Posted by rogerm on Jul 8, 2009 in
STAR Digital News Five pupils from Year 6 at Woodland View School in Northampton helped STAR Digital to design flyers to promote the Grange Park Business Club. They had all entered a competition to promote the business club and had been selected by the steering committee to attend a design session at STAR Digital’s Castle Ashby studios.
They worked with Andrew Matthews, one of our designers to work up the designs which will be presented to the school and the Business Club as brand boards.
Everyone had fun watching Andrew working in Photoshop and Illustrator, and the children didn’t leave too many crumbs after Andrea gave them all cakes from the Buttery!
Pupils from Year 6 at Woodland View with their design.
Posted by rogerm on Jun 16, 2009 in
Digital Marketing,
SEO Now this couldn’t be easier.
Use the pingback URL to make sure your sitemap.xml file is added to their directory.
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=[your_sitemap_url_here]
If successful you’ll get the following message in your browser window
Thanks for submitting your sitemap.
There you go, nice and easy!
Posted by airtimeandy on Jun 11, 2009 in
General Gripes,
SEO,
Web Design We had a prospect enquire about our small business web design service today, and as we were exchanging emails concerning his requirements he mentioned that a lot of companies had told him they would get him to show on the first page of Google as part of the package.
This kind of thing makes us cross, as we work hard to build everything to be as compliant as is practically possible and we use best practice SEO techniques during the build process. We know that for a new build to get indexed can take months, even with a sitemap.xml file and a robots.txt file in place.
These companies that make promises such as this need to be more transparent about what it is they are actually offering.
To be number one in say the search term plumbers is going to be impossible without a huge amount of post launch SEO trickery such as paid linking.
Some of these companies will look at phrases in the long tail and then optimise for that. They then tell you to search for something like specialist plumber in your town, and hey presto they you are. So you feel good about being at the top of Google. But hang on, where’s all the traffic, all the leads, the phone isn’t off the hook? Exactly! You are at the top of a mountain no one climbs, a desert for searchers.
To be featuring in relevant search you need to optimise for it. So if you are a Plumber in London you’ve got a dilemma. You could try and register a domain name like www.london-plumbers.co.uk but I doubt it will be available. maybe you could get something like SW6-plumbers.co.uk. Now a site on that domain could be optimised for searchers looking for plumbers in that postcode and you could show near the top of search. But in all honesty you’d probably find yell.com more cost effective.
Some other companies tell you that they will get you up there using Adwords and that it won’t cost you more than a small amount, say £50 a month. Again they will deliver on the promise, but usually in minor keywords, or they’ll get you showing on popular keywords for the first few days, and as soon as you stop looking they’ll discontinue your ads. When you contact them they tell you that your monthly spending cap had been reached and that you’ll start showing again next month!
Don’t be fooled by these guys, search engine marketing in popular keyphrases is very difficult. The top brands spend thousands trying to stay at the top.
Also don’t use search engine submission software as this could get you blackilisted by Google. Make sure you submit your sites to searche ngines, directories and reciprocal link directories yourself.
The best advice is to create a web site that works for your business and to promote it using local search with Adwords whilst you optimise on loaclised natural (free) search terms. Registering your site with the free index web sites is always a good idea as well and the list below is considered to be highly effective. Lastly attend networking meetings and hand out cards and flyers to promote the web site.
Just don’t whatever you do be fooled into thinking you can rank #1 on Google for a popular search term from a standing start.
Useful Directories to post your website to for free
www.lii.org
www.jayde.com
www.webworldindex.com
www.illumirate.com
www.turnpike.net
www.bizdirects.com
www.freeindex.com
Feel free to comment on this post…
The key differentiators between a poor email campaign and an effective one is the level of measurement you can apply.
Design and build requirements
It goes without saying that you need to be able to design and construct quality email in the first place, and that is hurdle number one for a lot of smaller companies using self service email packages - they don’t even get into the inbox.
Well crafted creative does cut through, and when combined with a policy of testing in different browsers, and scrutinising the soft bounce statistics we can build a reasonably clear picture of deliverability. We can even do on the fly split testing of creative and subject lines.
Good Data in Good Data out
But you should not overlook the importance of data. You get out what you put in, and with email marketing you would be well advised to have not just a name and email address but also a telephone number, mailing address, date of subscriber addition and a mailing address. This means that multiple marketing vehicles can be triggered from resultant data in your email lists such as DM and more qualified outbound phone calling.
Be Critical in interpreting email analytics
So what about the analytics you ask?
Well, most packages now give good data now on the following metrics;
- Hard bounces
- Soft bounces
- Emails opened
- Links clicked
- Email forwarded
- Date and Time of opening
- Unsubscribers
- SPAM reporters
Most packages give a good overall staistical view of what went on per send. But this dashboard is not enough, you need to get into the data and apply a propensity scoring model to drive subscribers through a logically sequenced sales funnel
In addition you can use appended URL’s within the email to track users that click through into the web site as an individual marketing campaign.
Some email marketing systems, ours included can even track individual users through to a thank you page on a lead generation or ecommerce web site.
URL Appending allows us to see how email traffic interacts with web assets. In this case the clickthroughs spent an average of 10 minutes 45 seconds viewing just over 22 pages of content. It's also worth noting the long tail as well, as users continue to clickthrough some days after the initial mailing.
However, most people aren’t using the email reports properly. They send the emails out and tick the box, thinking that enough has been done.
With email marketing you have to take the time and invest it in understanding what interests your audience. If all you do is continue to send out uninteresting content then that’s how the audience will remain, uninterested. They will gradually unsubscribe and over time your list will become depleted.
Apply the Propensity Scoring Model to your email broadcasts
For each broadcast you make, you should use a method known as propensity scoring to understand whether the content worked for the subscriber.
We suggest the following propensity scoring methodology where 0 is cold and 5 is hot
- 5 - Subscriber opens email and clicks on links
- 4 - Subscriber opens email and clicks on single link
- 3 - Subscriber opens email
- 2 - Subscriber receives email but does not open
- 1 - Soft Bounce
- 0 - Hard Bounce
Most email marketing systems will remove the hard bounces automatically, and in general they won’t be any use to you hence the 0 propensity rating. However, a hard bounce might have become a customer, so don’t completely write them off particularly in a B2B environment, and if you have other data on the subscriber such as a phone number, don’t be afraid to give them a call.
Soft bounces need further investigation, as they may be due to a firewall, a full inbox or seen as SPAM. They aren’t a priority though and therefore have a propensity score of 1. We recommend you segment them into a new list and resend your email a few days later.
When a subscriber receives an email but doesn’t open it, it could be due to a number of factors such as date and time being wrong for the user, or that they have viewed it an a preview pane, or in their inbox without images allowed which hasn’t activated the tracking images within the email. Don’t necessarily make a judgement that they didn’t read the content. Therefore we score thsi group as a 2, and segment them into a separate list to measure success of future broadcasts.
The next prospect is the opener. With HTML email most email readers ask the user to download images. The very fact that the user has allowed the images to download, resulting in you tracking them in your statistics suggest a propensity to engage with your content. These users have a propensity score of 3, and should be segmented into a list for more targeted follow up emails.
Your statistics will then tell you how many of your subscribers have actually clicked on a link which shows a real affinity with your messaging. Segment this list now and create a more focused message relating to the content they clicked on. Send this out and then follow up with a telephone call if you have details on your database. Their propensity score of 4 means they may well be in research or buyer mode.
Subscribers clicking on multiple links are the highest propensity scores, and we give them a 5. These subscribers are clearly engaged by your email content and are worthy of personal treatment. If they’ve purchased before they may be receptive to a personalised discount offer, or if they are a B2B prospect it would be worth going for a sales meeting. Multiple clickers should be added to a high performance list segmented from other lists, so that even when they receive the same creative as others you can report on their interaction separately.
In Conclusion
Being critical about data will make your email marketing campaigns more successful. Testing subject lines, personalisation vs non-personalisation. How do you continue the sales cycle to people who have engaged with your email?
Do you send some direct mail, make a phone call.?
Your email anlaytics will help you decide, but only if you take the time to analyse them.
About Roger Martin: Roger holds the Diploma in Digital Marketing from the IDM with credit, and has been working in digital marketing strategy for over 10 years across EMEA and the US.
Tags: Digital Marketing, Email Marketing
Posted by rogerm on May 31, 2009 in
Web Design We’ve been building a lot of client web sites recently and its prompted me to write this post to give some general advice as to what you should be thinking about before you start talking to an agency.
As the downturn kicks in we’ve had a number of enquiries where people have baulked at the cost of bespoke web design and build, comparing our prices with others, and I think its important that we make sure prospective clients look at things on a level playing field and understand what they will actually get for their money.
1. Filter out the part time and bedroom businesses
There are lots of agencies around that offer ridiculously low prices for so called professional web design.
Think about how much you would expect to charge a client for the build of something like a website, in terms of the time it would take. And if the costs seem too low, then they probably are.
Ask yourself questions like, will I be able to get hold of a real account manager when I need to?
There are some great small businesses around that operate from home, but they will still charge you a fair market rate for the work required. In our case we can build a simple web site in a day, and our low end pricing reflects this and the ongoing support that clients need once they launch their site.
2. Decide at the outset what your budget is for design and build - and the marketing…
It makes sense to set a budget for your web design project. This allows you to compare the investment against other forms of advertising such as printing of brochures, paper advertising , Yellow Pages, TV and Radio.
Key things to consider in the budgeting process are:
- Do you want to be able to edit your content once the site is built?
- Will your agency use SEO best practice in the build process?
- How will you drive traffic to the web site?
- Will the build be cross browser compatible and render correctly in older browsers?
- Do you want to have quality bespoke design work or will variations of a template suffice?
- Who will provide the copy for the web site, and will it be written in the right way, including testimonials and USP’s?
- Where will photography for the site come from? Will the agency provide photographic services?
- Do you need to sell products online? Will the checkout systems be secure for both you and your customers?
- Do you want to Blog or incorporate Social Networking tools such as RSS or Twitter Feeds in your site?
- Will you need bespoke database development work? Will it be guaranteed post launch, and will it be in a recognised format?
The design and build of the web site should be considered in the same way that you budget for the design and print of a brochure, and once you’ve got it built, you have the same costs of marketing it. ie; for a brochure the cost of putting it in an envelope and posting it to a prospect.
For a web site you may have the cost of online advertising such as Google Adwords which will typically cost a small business just under a pound per click or view of your web site, or email marketing out to a list of email addresses that you may have gained in the course of doing business or rented from a reputable (DMA Affiliated) provider.
When you ask your agency to pitch, make sure that their quotation is comprehensive, and fully mathces your brief, and that you know exactly what your getting for your money.
3. Make sure you have an Account Manager or Project Manager you can meet with
Don’t put up with form filling for the build of your web project, make sure you have a human account manager that you can scope and discuss your build with.
Make sure you know what deliverables are expected from yourself, and by when in order to meet your launch deadline. Make sure there is an online management system that allows you to input your copy directly onto a writeboard and tracks copy edits. Ensure that you have an online timeline for your build that shows the major milestones, showing tasks with their owners and transparent documentation of each process as it is completed. The system should be linked to email so that all communications on your project are contained in one place, and not lost amongst everything esle in your inbox.
At STAR Digital we use the online system Basecamp from forty seven signals to manage client builds, as do most of the major online agencies across the world.
As the internet matures as a marketing channel, your web site is often the first impression that people have of you and your business. You can’t afford to give a poor impression.
4. Ensure that Web Analytics are at the heart of your build
I can’t stress it enough, analytics is the most important part of the build. It tells you exactly whats going on, which pages work, which don’t, how well you are performing on the search engines, how long your prospects stay on your site, and how many pages they view. Your goals should be tracked and recorded so that you know how many people complete a marketing outcome such as filling in a lead form or making a purchase. We’ve worked with large clients who haven’t had analytics at the heart of their internet strategy, and once we’ve underpinned their sites with it its made a huge difference to the return on their online investment. (ROI)
The thing to remember is that all sites built by us have at the very least the free Google Analytics tool pre-configured with standard auto-reporting set up to email visual reports through to you every week.
5. Beware Hidden Extras - They’re everywhere
Most of the companies that we come up against have great offers on all of the time, with web sites starting at £499 or the like. One national printing franchise is famed for its hidden extras both on print and web services, that by the time you’ve placed your order, the £300 or so pounds you thought you’d be paying has quickly escalated into £1500!
Remember point 1, if it looks to good to be true, it generally is.
We believe that a personalised quotation is the only way to fully understand what you’ll get for your money. It needs to outline all of the deliverables, and how much iot will cost if you change things or require further work out of scope. Where prices are quoted per page, and this is fairly standard in brochureware, make sure you know what a page consists of. It certainly won’t include bespoke navigation or a Flash Banner, make sure you know what these little extras will cost.
6. Open Source or Licensed?
As the recession bites we are working with our clients differently. To explain, open source is basically free licensing on very robust software platforms. The main ones that we work with are WordPress, Joomla and Magento eCommerce.
Using these platforms doesn’t need to stifle creativity, this Blog was built in WordPress. Joomla is a very capable content management system and is used by thousands of corporates to build their web sites, Magento is a stunning eCommerce system that boasts a fully documented user guide over 200 pages long.
Using these open source platforms saves money, typical licence costs for a full blown content management system such as Activedition, the one we re-sell, is around £10K set up with hosting and support typically running into £3-400 per month. Now these are acceptable costs for larger SME’s that want total security, but you can have an open source solution in place for a fraction of that monthly cost, enabling you to devote more budget to a better quality build.
The same is true for eCommerce, we use ePages as a licensed solution, and for a single pro license it costs £4500 and hosting costs will be similar to those of Activedition. There are cheaper options at about £75 per month but there is a trade off between functionality and design. The Magento open source solution has no licence fee and hosting prices start out at £25 a month!
You do have to decide between open source and licensed based on a number of factors:
- Do you need someone to be responsible for security? If yes, you probably need licensed software, although quality hosting on open source should be as reliable
- Do you require a highly bespoke build? If yes, you probably need licensed software, although there are many plug-ins available for Open Source solutions
- Do you need a guaranteed upgrade path? If yes, you probably need licensed software but there are no gurantees that individual developers will continue to provide updates.
Find out more about the licensed solutions versus their open source cousins by reviewing the feature sets on their web sites.
Activedition is our professional content management system, versus Joomla! our open source solution. You decide which is best for you.
Epages is our professional ecommerce solution, versus Magento our open source version, and for Blogging we customise WordPress.
In Summary
There is quite a bit to consider before commissioning your web site design, we believe that our approach is thorough, and we can still offer attractive pricing and complete customer satisfaction.
Our marketing led approach looks at your web site not just from the perspective of design, but also from its abaility to achive your desired marketing outcomes, be it lead generation or sales.
If you want to know more just call us on +44 1604 696385 and we’d be happy to help you understand the nuances of scoping out your web build.
