MARKETING

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had my fingers burnt in the world of new media.  And it’s taught me a couple of valuable lessons about accessing the right skills for the job and taking the high ground on the quality of your marketing communications, regardless of media.

In the heady world of web 2.0, it seems that almost anything is possible.  As you cruise around sites, large and small you are tantalised by slick graphics and engaging animation.  But none of this happens by accident and if you’ve tried to achieve any of these things on your own web site, you’ll know that it can be a rocky road to success.

That’s because such a broad spectrum of skills and expertise has to be combined to create excellence in web design.  You’ve got the quality of the actual content, the quality of the visual execution and design.  You’ve got to understand the cognitive processes of the audience, if you want to create structure and experience that is intuitive.  You’ve got technical skill sets in animation and code and you’ve got the SEO stuff to consider - which I’m cautiously happy to admit, I understand very little about. . .

The point (and the challenge) is this. . . . very, very rarely do these skill sets come in handy packages.  If an individual can do two or more of these things effectively, then BINGO, you’ve got a head start. But I doubt if many people in the whole world can do them all.  Hence why there are so many sites out there that fall short of excellence, and why companies that can and do deliver s**t hot websites can charge hefty rates for your pleasure.

So here’s the nub of the issue.  Pulling together a really great on-line experience requires real collaboration and project management.  It also requires a clear vision of what you want the user experience to be. . . because it’s also very easy to get seduced by the possibilities of web design and end up with a spangly product that fails to connect.

For anyone looking to produce an advanced web presence, my advice is this:  Make sure your partner can demonstrate creativity and technical excellence in equal measure.  Check their credentials and look at live examples of their work, making sure that they’ve delivered the whole thing and not part, thereof.  And make sure that they’ve got the breadth of skill base to be able to deliver what you ask (which means there’s probably going to have to be at least 2, 3 or more people with complementary skill sets working together as a fairly tight unit to get your job done and done well).

Oh and one final thing. . . be prepared to wait.  Guys (or girls) who have the skill sets you are after are likely to be in demand.  Which means you may have to wait a little while before you get to take your turbo-charged web site for a spin.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, well written, relevant case studies can help you win business.

Why?  Because they give your potential customer proof that you can do what you say you do.  And a bit like PR, case studies have some of the kudos that comes from a third party endorsement.  After all, you wouldn’t go bandying about a case study without approval from the customer you’re name dropping.  (Would you?)

So we get straight to the nub of the case study issue.  Unless your existing customer is prepared to be named, your case study really isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  After all, any unscrupulous business could invent a whole host of ‘generic’ and anonymous case studies extolling their virtues. . . but without at least a solid nod to customer reference or endorsement the whole thing falls a bit flat.

For me there’s a clever way to short-circuit such a problem ever arising.  But it takes some marketing savvy and smart planning to execute.  The key is building in an expectation amongst your existing customers that you will want to ‘case study’ or showcase their successes, early on in your relationship.  And the key to making this palatable is to make sure your case studies glorify your client (i.e. have some use and purpose to them - even if it’s only for your key contact to show to his boss come appraisal time to prove how smart he/she has been in finding you and buying from you).

Sure this approach may throw up a few issues if you’re in some kind of turnaround or ‘embarrassing problem curing’ type of business.  Your customer may never want to admit to needing your help.  But in most other cases, writing a shared success story that your customer will be proud enough of to let you share, is a creative challenge just like any other. . . .there’s an angle to be found, you’ve just got to find it!  If you’re a super smart cookie, the way you write the case study may form the bones of a bit of  PR for your existing client as well.  Afterall, a lot of trade publications are on the look out for smart thinking and good new stories. Bingo - you’ve got a win-win with your customer and a credible case study in you bag to impress your prospects!

The rise of blogging culture has got loads of corporate types in a tizzy.  They are worried that their beautiful (and expensive) brands will be bought crashing to their knees by armies of bloggers on smear campaigns triggered either by poor product experiences - or simply for the hell of it (apparently a lot of bloggers are bitter and twisted and have nothing better to do than complain and rubbish innocent companies. . . )

I’m not sure how many small business reputations are either built or broken through  blogging alone. . . but whether it’s in the virtual or real world, one thing’s for sure.  Bad news sure travels quicker than good news.  And a real horror story about any kind of consumer experience is somehow much more interesting and hence ‘viral’ or ’sticky’ than a piece of good news.

To read deeper insight on this phenomenon, I’d like to point you at a site I discovered just last week, thanks to a commenter on this very blog.  (Sheesh, that’s how those crazy networks become self fulfilling. . .)  This site is obviously put together by some seriously marketing savvy cookies and lots of the content is really ‘out there’ thinking.  But the blog is well structured, so if you have a particular topic in mind, you’ll probably find some interesting food for thought.

Do you have to make presentations as part of your marketing and sales process? Do you, like the vast majority of businesses out there, lean on technology to help you?

If you do, BEWARE. We’ve got an epidemic on our hands and it’s causing Death By Powerpoint all across the nation!

Once you’ve developed a powerpoint habit (often involving rashes of bullet points), your demise can be slow and painful. Your customers may develop rigor mortice more quickly.

If you think you’ve been infected, take radical action. Try to wean yourself off powerpoint. (Patches are not available from your pharmacy). But if putting down the evil application is simply too much to bear and the threat of cold turkey brings you out in a cold sweat, try the following homeopathic approach:

Limit your slides to 12. People will remember what you say - if you invest the effort usually sunk into firing out a lengthy slide deck, in refining your performance and delivery instead. (More to the point they might remember you - THE PERSON. The person they want to do business with, rather than a dreary half hour of screen gazing).

And when creating your presentation and the associated visual aid that you’ll undoubtedly cling to like a vital prosthetic remember that people of all ages respond to stories. Tell your audience a compelling story. Make it relevant, connect with your audience. Rather than seeing the colour drain from your audience’s faces as they lose the will to live, you may give then a much needed tonic, (entertainment - I swear it’s vastly under-rated in today’s business context), and give your own business a healthy bottom-line boost in the process!

I suppose this is a post for people who are just thinking about or embarking on setting up their own business. Thinking of a name is the ultimate head scratcher.

You want your business name to speak volumes about who you are or what you do (or both!!!).

If you’ve done your marketing homework, you want your name and your logo to be reflective of the personality (or values) at the heart of your business and brand.

The more you think about it the harder it gets. Share your ideas with people and you’ll find everyone has an opinion and before you know it, you’re drowning in a sea of subjectivity.

Having just gone through this process myself, I want to give you just three pieces of very practical advice when choosing your business’ name.

1 - Check that the url is available - there are thousands of domain name checkers on line, just google the topic and find a site where the search set up makes sense to you. I’m not a great fan of .net names, or convoluted spellings that use numbers for words, so be creative and patient in equal measure and you will eventually get a name that gives you that elusive .co.uk or .com

2 - Say the name out loud. Will people be able to spell it - or are you going to spend your life repeating the letters to people over the phone and receiving ill addressed post?? If you are the kind of person that gets up tight about this kind of stuff, steer clear of names that are tricky to spell.

3 - Go with you gut instinct. If the name feels right to you, and is something you feel you can talk about with confidence to your customers, it’s probably a good name. After all a name is just a word or group of words - it only truly becomes imbued with meaning when it becomes an integral part of what your business is and does. It’s then that you begin to build a brand. . .