Tag Archive for 'website'

Scheduling & Discipline

Published on June 13, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I’ve not managed a post in 4 weeks, which is really terrible. So I started writing about why scheduling your content really is a much more sensible way to things, than my current spur-of-the-moment-inspired-posts mechanism. That’s when I got Chris’s latest Kitchen Table newsletter and felt motivated, and a little envious… I’d like a few new toys myself :-)

The fact is there’s an abundance of tools that allow you to schedule your social media content, so many in fact, that it’s getting hard to track. There’s plenty of tools for twitter and facebook (see here , here & here). WordPress & Blogger let you do this natively.

But Chris is right, more than tools and cool gadgets, you need to have the discipline to schedule your content. It’s genuinely worth building. Simply put, scheduling helps you achieve a few key things:

1. Continuity; regularity is important,. You’ve got readers because you’ve got content, make sure you keep your content fresh and keep your readers coming. It’s very hard to get them back if you lose them.
2. Quality; most readers come to you for your quality content, which usually improves when you’ve got a little extra time to work on your posts thanks to the one’s you’ve got pre-scheduled.
3. Structure; you can better orchestrate the overall direction and structure of your blog when you’re not working under pressure to write the next post (on anything even vaguely relevant).

Saying no gracefully

Published on May 12, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

When you get a message that doesn’t make the grade (seriousness, dollar value, time frame), it’s very tempting to ignore it. After all you get so many messages, and you’re very busy. It’s only reasonable, right? You have to prioritize how you spend your time… right?

What we often forget is that someone, a potential customer or maybe just a window shopper, said “Hello!”. If you’re not careful, by ignoring them, you’re leaving them with a negative image. Think about their perspective! By not replying, you’re sending a message that they’re not worth your time, you can’t be bothered replying, or worse, that your pre-sales is so poor they shouldn’t bother buying (imagine the post sales experience!?).

You need to treat every inquiry, whether it’s a web form inquiry, email, direct message, forum post or tweet, critical or not, with as much importance as a walk in customer. These are your customers, and your response (or lack thereof) if going to determine what they think of you, and what they communicate onwards.

A well received negative response can be worth more in positive brand image than an actual low value customer.

Beta Marketing

Published on May 7, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

One of the speakers at the Gaming Conference India 2011 this morning, mentioned as an aside that it was important to have high quality products when you launch, because not unlike the case of WarHammer, bad press can destroy your product. This is something that has never been more true! News travels quickly on social media, and bad news always travels faster than good.

What does this have to do with my beta release? Today a lot of software gets released as beta, with developers believing that users will help refine the bugs and contribute to the development. Whilst this is still true, today your beta needs to be really well finished.

A polished, easy to use beta, that evolves quickly in response to users concerns and comments may earn positive reviews, more beta users and hopefully customers. A poorly finished beta, may very quickly earn the opposite – bad reviews, user drop off and worse a strong negative sentiment before the actual release!

You can’t hide behind the beta tag anymore. Today a software beta release is akin to the pre-launch of a new restaurant, an enormously powerful marketing tool if done right, and nothing less than a catastrophe if it goes wrong.

Are you listening?

Published on May 3, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Businesses spend a lot of money on polls, customer surveys, satisfaction reports and other forms of market research. Which is why it’s surprising that so few invest (a comparatively small amount) to use social media tools to analyze customer feedback. Listening & understanding client opinions should be the first stage of any marketing campaign, and with social media, it’s possibly one of the easiest campaigns to implement. Unlike other mediums it’ll also get you real-time feedback.

I’m not going to go into the details of how to listen, Chris Brogan, and many others, do a good job of providing tips on which tools to use – whatever your budgets are.

Be warned though, the old rule of garbage in – garbage out still applies! You still need to know where to look, whom to ask your proverbial questions to (prospective clients, dell evangelists vs the dell-hell group), what questions to ask and most importantly you’ll need to be able to interpret your findings into meaningful information, which can be harder than it looks.

The skills you’ve developed from traditional marketing still apply, and you’ll need to use them regularly. Social Media is just a medium, not a substitue for analysis, interpretation and applied intelligence.

Are you milking your enquiries ?

Published on April 28, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I was interested in buying a product on eBay but needed more information, so I sent a request to the seller. Within minutes of having sent it, he’d replied! In the next few minutes we exchanged a few notes and I bought it.

This is something that retailers have understood for a long time, but that we often forget about when online. The speed & quality of your response to an inquiry, make the difference between a new customer and a window shopper.

This Harvard Business Review article provides a really good overview as to how quickly companies are currently responding.

After putting all that effort into getting people to call you, remember to answer the phone and sell them something! Put a little effort into pre-preparing your responses so that you can respond faster, but don’t send out automated emails or responses that feel too much like a template.

Video Advertising on Steroids

Published on April 22, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I followed a random link through to the HearSaySocial website, at first I was confused, really confused. I couldn’t find a straight answer to the simple question: “What does HearSaySocial do?” Except for a video link there was nothing really meaningful, I’ve since filed the website, into my list of websites-not-to-use-as-reference-material.

The video link on the other hand, was exceptional. No, that’s under selling it. It was more awesome than any promotional web video I’ve ever seen. It very effectively communicated what the company does, but by that point I wasn’t interested. I wanted to know what creative geniuses developed the video, and the answer is EpipheoStudios (Their website is also a bit cryptic about what they do till you watch the video or click on the About Us button). I won’t rant about how good they are, go see for yourself.

I will however point out the fact that users accessing websites from low bandwidth connections (or mobiles) will struggle to download video content. So after you’ve spent your marketing dollars on a great video, remember to add a bit of old fashioned text for the people that can’t watch it*.

*This may not apply if you sell video content creation and really need people to watch your stuff to understand why they should buy your services.

(Don’t) Contact Me

Published on April 21, 2011 in Uncategorized. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

For most businesses the key purpose of their website is to help drive sales. Yes it’ll have a variety of other purposes such as customer support, reviews, media information, etc. but the most important, overwhelming objective is to fill the sales funnel. Which is why it surprises me that many companies still don’t pay any attention to one of the most important pages on their website, the “Contact Me” page.

Web users are lazy, they don’t want to waste time wading through your website looking for a way to reach you. Your Feedback form simply isn’t enough, people need the satisfaction of actually having sent an email or called someone. If you’ve got a telephone number or email address please list it!

Depending on the nature of your business of course, you should have everything from
your telephone number, email, physical address, GPS co-ordinates, a (google) maps link, your twitter/facebook links, and if you’re lucky enough to have one, a live chat link. I’ve even seen a company that has a skype ID just for their reception! Just remember that the easier it is for your customer to reach you, the easier it is for you to generate leads.