It often sounds like a lot of hot air and hype. But when content is spread virally it can boost brand awareness, fill your database and turn people into internet superstars, sometimes overnight.

Viral marketing has the potential to reach more people than multimillion pound branding campaigns. It’s not easy to do though.

Being able to intentionally create content that people happily share with their friends and colleagues is a challenge, particularly if you’re a marketing agency.

Word-of-mouse marketing

Viral is the evolution of word-of-mouth for the digital age, bigger and better than before.

Whereas in simpler times you’d be happy if your customers told their friends and family about how helpful your customer service is, now you want them to share it with their entire online network.

The ability to easily share content on the web, with a lot of people in a short space of time, means messages can spread rapidly and exponentially. Word-of-mouth buzz, however, tends to fizzle out, going in one ear and out the other without leaving a lasting impression.

Creating a virus people want to spread

Viral content can take a range of forms: free eBooks, software, video clips, Flash games, images or text messages.

What they all have in common is that people think the benefit they’ll gain from sharing the content is greater than the effort required to pass it along.

So to create content with a likelihood of going viral, you need to offer humour, entertainment or information that’s so valuable people feel compelled to tell everyone how great it is.

Many software developers create demand for their products by giving away limited versions for free, whilst more authors are starting to give away free chapters and excerpts to generate buzz for their new books.

Unpleasant symptoms you’ll want to avoid

Whatever its format, if you’re intentionally creating content to spread virally then there are a number of unspoken rules to obey:

Don’t advertise – web users resent all attempts of blatantly being sold to. So keep logo shots to a minimum, and don’t even think about pushing your brand message. Viral is about offering valuable content in exchange for engaging people’s time, not trying to ambush their attention.

Be authentic – everyone knows that you can’t be cool if you’re trying to be, so leave the hip hop soundtrack for MTV. Even worse is to pretend a mock user generated video featuring your product is nothing to do with you. People hate to think they’ve been deceived or manipulated into watching a branding exercise. So be authentic, and when in doubt give full disclosure.

Treat it as an experiment – creating a viral message that spreads amongst hundreds, let alone millions, of people is difficult. Very difficult. So treat viral as an experiment, rather than pinning your hopes on it getting you onto the national news. If you hit the jackpot, allow yourselves to bask in your creative genius. But don’t tear your hair out if your cheeky video clip fails to get any votes. Learn from each experiment and adjust your formula for the next attempt.

Virals that infected millions

So let’s be clear: incubating a viral message potent enough to infect millions of monitors is very difficult to do.

However, if you’re able to create content people value so highly that they fall over themselves to email, blog and Facebook about it then it can potentially gain more exposure than any other strategy.

Here are a few exceptionally contagious cases of viral content:

Threshers 40% off voucher – this gift to suppliers ‘leaked’ onto the web just before Xmas two years ago. The offer to stock up on cheap booze spread like wildfire. 800,000 downloads later and Threshers rang in the New Year with a bumper 60% extra in their tills.

Cadburys’ drumming gorilla – part of £6.2 million campaign covering TV, print and billboards, the 90 second commercial found its way onto YouTube, receiving 500,000 views in the first week. The TV ad was only broadcast in the UK, but the clip spread onto other video sharing sites generating 6 million views and national news coverage throughout the globe. The idea of using a drumming gorilla to sell chocolate bars helped turn around the brand’s slide and pushed sales up nearly 10%.

Hotmail –when Hotmail was launched in 1996 the internet was still only crawling its way into people’s homes. Spotting an opportunity to let their users do the legwork, Hotmail’s founders added a small advert to the footer of every message inviting the reader to signup for their free service. Within a year Hotmail had 8.5 million registered users, earning a $400 million cheque from Microsoft in the process.

Nike’s Ronaldinho clip - this ‘shaky’ video of the Brazilian casually hitting the crossbar four times from outside the box provoked a flurry of debate on whether it was real or fake. 26 million views later and we’re still none the wiser. But the clip generated more internet buzz than you’d get from a conventional corporate vanity ad, and costing several million less to create as well.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Internet marketing used to be simple: you’d dump your brochure online and pray a small percentage of visitors would click buy. Well, this approach is generally flawed, because it’s like having a shop window display to attract customers and then not talking to them when they arrive.

The internet might be a cold, robotic medium, but people still have human needs and behave in a similar way to how they do in the real world, something smart marketers are starting to capitalise on.

Whether it’s teenagers arguing about bands on MySpace, internet marketers sharing advice on E-consultancy or any of the thousands of forums sprouting on every topic under the sun, people are grouping together based on shared passions and interests.

In essence, people are displaying the same behavioural instincts we’re had since cavemen times, and forming digital tribes with those we feel a connection to.

Consequently, smart marketers are realising that if they can build the same sense of kinship around their products and services they can tap into other positive tribal mannerisms, such as dedication, loyalty and the desire to invite friends and family to join the tribe as well.

Rather than just building static websites, marketers are creating web presences, with blogs, video, social media and other tools, to develop a sense of engagement and tribal loyalty to their brand.

Here are two examples of businesses thriving from using their websites to create a tribe, rather than merely as a shop window display:

Pampers.co.uk

Procter & Gamble have always been a leading innovator when it comes to engaging with consumers in deeper ways than conventional advertising. Now they’re applying the same philosophy they used in soap operas to the internet: offering valuable content to foster a closer affinity to their brand.

The Pampers website doesn’t have an obvious sales pitch or shopping cart in sight. Instead what you have is a website packed with information for expectant and young mothers, offering help rather than trying to sell them nappies.

There are many ways in which visitors can engage with the website, such as register for their popular newsletter (customised with relevant information for their child’s age) check a map for family friendly restaurants and start their own blog.

And due to the positive associations they feel from the experience, mothers are more likely to pledge their allegiance to the Pampers tribe and pay tribute the next time they’re in the supermarket.

The Pampers website demonstrates how major brands are leading the way in tribal web marketing and developing a closer affinity with their products through the provision of valuable content, rather than static sales pitches.

Whilst you might not have P & G’s marketing budget, there’s no reason why any business can’t adopt the same tribal tactics due to the relative low cost of using the web to engage with prospects, as demonstrated in this next rubbish case study:

Topskips.co.uk

A husband and wife team launched Topskips.co.uk in 2003 with a mere £5000 budget. As the internet’s first skip hire website they were able to quickly corner the market, growing by nearly 700% within two years.

They attribute their continuing success to their website and marketing strategy. Rather than mere brochureware, their website is a treasure trove of information. They provide a blog, free eBook, newsletter and videos with advice on topics such as hiring the right skip size spliced with refuse related humour.

Since Topskips.co.uk was launched the search listings have become flooded with rival skip hire firms hoping to take away some of their business.

However, the level of engagement Topskips.co.uk offers, compared to the static brochures of their competitors, means visitors will feel a closer connection and sense of loyalty to their brand.

Topskips.co.uk is an example of how to use the web’s tools for closer engagement with customers and how to create a tribe Stig of the Dump would be proud of.

Tribal marketing is also about cooperation

Selling products and services is a complex psychological process, and taping into the nature of human behaviour is certainly the way to go.

Regular readers will know we’re big fans of marketing superbrain Seth Godin, and Seth has recently preached on the power of tapping into the principles of groups and leadership in his new book ‘Tribes’, which is certain to be on most marketers’ reading lists.

Here at BDA we’re in the process of developing tribes of our own, in which we connect together our clients, partners, suppliers and other contacts to share ideas and make business connections. Because we believe cooperation is the business model of the future, and another of the central binding principles of every great tribe.

_______________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

All Wordpress installations start out the same; what makes them unique is their skin, or ‘theme’. A theme is a set of files (or ‘templates’) which control how your content is pulled from your database and displayed to your visitors. The bare minimum that a theme requires to work is an index.php file and a style.css.

Index.php is the main ‘template’ that Wordpress relies on - there are numerous files that can take importance over this file, but in the absence of extra files, Wordpress will default back to the main index.php to display your site.

Style.css contains the basic information about your theme (name, author, version, etc.) but also contains all the CSS for your theme as well.

If you’re familiar with CSS already, creating your theme’s stylesheet will be a fairly straightforward process. What will be slightly trickier is the index.php file, as this doesn’t just contain HTML - it needs to be told where and which information to pull from your database, and this happens via the use of ‘template tags’. The best place to learn about template tags is the Wordpress codex.

Unless your site has a minimal amount of content or your theme is very basic, you’ll find that you’ll soon have more requirements than index.php can cope with. If you want certain content to only be displayed on certain pages, or if you want your posts to look different to your pages, etc., then for the sake of file size and readability, it will be a good idea to start adding extra files to your themes.

Common files are as follows:

• header.php; this contains everything found at the ‘top’ of each page, such as navigation, title, etc.
• footer.php; this contains everything found at the ‘bottom’ of each page, such as the copyright statement, etc/
• sidebar.php; your sidebar can contain anything and everything from your archives to your wishlist.
• single.php; this controls how individual blog entries are displayed.
• page.php; this controls how your pages are displayed.
• comments.php; this is perhaps the most common file after header.php, footer.php, and sidebar.php. It controls how comments on your blog are displayed.

Wordpress is an extremely versatile CMS, in that once you have the basic index.php and style.css sorted, your options are then pretty much limitless. Your Wordpress theme can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.

Further reading

• Theme development (WP codex)
• Stepping into templates (WP codex)
• Template heirarchy (WP codex)

Marketing is often seen as a business’ glamorous side. Glossy brochures, flashy advertising and fancy product launches can seem like a lot of fun compared to telesales and bean counting. Building brand awareness and luring customers away from the competition is an important duty to perform. However, marketing also has a defensive role to play.

Along with customer services and sales teams, marketing has a duty to actively engage customers, keep them happy and retain their loyalty, particularly when times are tough.

Retention offers the best return

With the economy continuing to nosedive, in a recent survey of 100 European businesses 34% said that retention was their primary concern. A plucky 8% said that chasing new customers was still the first thing on their mind, which is a big drop from 40% last year.

Although not carved into stone or approved by the office of statistics, the consensus is that it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. When you also add their lifetime value into the equation it doesn’t take Carol Vorderman to tell you that ensuring your customers feel loved is the smartest way of spending your marketing cash.

Active customers are happy customers

Studies show that during a recession you should market more rather than less. Although the temptation is to guillotine budgets and bunker down, if you maintain a presence and engage with customers during turbulent times you position yourself to prosper once the storm has passed.

Active customers are happy customers, and running campaigns that reinforce the sense that buying your products is the smart thing to do is the best way of provoking them into retail therapy. Whether it’s rewarding their loyalty with discounts, sending them a newsletter or just a simple thank you card, actively engaging customers lets them know that you care about them, and stops them looking elsewhere for affection.

Knowing what to say and when to say it

Retention marketing isn’t a strategy led blindly by the heart. You know when your customers want you to talk to them simply by watching your database.

If you track your customers’ buying behaviour you’ll be able to see the warning lights when something is wrong. Then it’s time to send out the surveys to find out what you can do to make things right.

Ask your customers when they plan to buy again. If not, why not? And what can you do to change their minds. A customer survey can be a marketing campaign in itself, so remember to find a way to reward those giving you honest feedback.

Retention reminds customers you’re there

When you consider that your existing customers contribute 80% to your revenue, engaging with them and keeping them happy should always be on your mind. And with digital media, it’s easier than ever to run one-to-one retention campaigns targeted to appeal to the preferences, hopes and desires of every customer.

So whilst times are tough, don’t sit in silence praying for easier times, but continue to remind your customers you’re still around and that you love them because it’s what they’ll want to hear.

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

The desire to feel special is a natural human emotion, and people want to be treated as individuals, rather than merely another target on a mass marketing bombing campaign. The problem with a lot of marketing is that it fails to make people feel special, but simply dumps the same message as wide as possible to hit as many targets as it can.

Simply pouring money into unrefined email blasts and bulk mailings is a clumsy and expensive approach, because we now have the technology to engage prospects in a one-to-one marketing dialogue that’s more relevant and personalised for each individual.

With a recession looming, the competition for customers is only going to increase.

So, to engage people’s attention your marketing needs to appeal more closely to their interests than the rest. And the evidence shows that integrating direct mail with digital is the best tactic for getting more personal with prospects.

Direct mail makes the introduction

Despite what some internet fanboys (might) think, print isn’t dead and will be the touch point of choice with most prospects for many years to come. In fact, a Pitney Bowes survey found that 73% still prefer to receive product announcements in the mail compared to reading them on a screen.

With this in mind, direct mail is the best medium for introducing prospects to online promotions. It’s effectiveness in launching a one-to-one campaign extends beyond merely the name on the label, because the website address it sends people to is personalised too.

People love to see their name in print, and few can ignore the curiosity of visiting a website featuring their name in the URL.

Personalised URLs look after the conversation

It’s when prospects visit their own personalised URL that the conversation really begins.

Not only does each mini site greet them by name, but also features products and services carefully arranged to match their interests. This customised approach already helps improve your chances of generating leads.

However, where a PURL’s power really lies is in its ability to listen as well as talk. Every mouse click and interaction is recorded and added to the feast of information stored on your database, ripe for future targeted marketing activity.

Cost effective, quick and a high response

In a recent BDA campaign for Siemens we experienced first hand how effective an integrated, personalised campaign can be.

A letter was sent to prospects promoting Siemens’ ‘A Meeting of Open Minds’ breakfast seminar along with their own personalised URL. On each individually addressed website, prospects could interact with a ‘cost calculator’, to see what savings they could make, and then book their place on the seminar.

Recording the interests of prospects, by how they interacted with the site, was estimated to save two weeks of telemarketing and generate leads at half the cost of conventional marketing activity.

The personalised one-to-one approach was also so effective in attracting interest that Siemens had to run two additional seminars to cope with demand.

Personalised campaigns get you closer to your target

The tracking provided by personalised websites enables you to get progressively closer to every prospect. From initial acquisition through to retention, with each subsequent campaign you can fine tune your offer to appeal to the interests of each individual.

Numerous case studies have shown that integrating direct mail with digital campaigns is the way to go. Recent research by the Royal Mail found that over half of consumers prefer a combination of the two, and that integrated campaigns could increase customer spend by 25%.

The technology is now available to deliver one-to-one campaigns that are relevant, targeted and provide a much better response from consumers.

So are you going to continue bombing your prospects with mass untargeted messages? Or are you ready to get closer with personalised URLs?

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Some marketers are beginning to worry, because people are ignoring them. People have been bombarded with so much irrelevant marketing for so long that they’re switching off the moment they hear the hint of a sales message.

So how are marketers going to persuade people to listen to them again? They have to be able to offer messages that are relevant and valuable to barter for people’s attention. The one size fits all style of mass marketing is dying and has to evolve.

Many claim that personalised, one-to-one marketing is the answer, in which your offer is moulded to match the preferences of each customer. Some believe that one-to-one could be marketing’s holy grail: the ability to pitch messages that resonate with the hopes and desires of each individual.

Or is one-to-one merely hype being peddled by digital marketers hoping it can save their budget from the guillotine?

Making smarter use of your database

Using a database to segment your customers is nothing new. However, with the dark clouds of recession gathering, pressure to make more effective use of customer data, and provide a better return on shrinking budgets, is building.

More marketers are realising that carpet bombing the same message to your whole database is dated, clumsy and costly. The smarter ones already know that you need to be able to deliver the right message to the right person in the right format.

Using your database to target messages at specific segments can improve your response rate, reduce the risk of losing customers and reward you with a much healthier ROI. Your database is your goldmine, and knowing how to drill and exploit it can determine what riches you’ll find.

We now have the technology to build it

The rise of digital means we now have the technology to partner the philosophy of one-to-one marketing, which marketers have been preaching for some time.

One-to-one’s philosophy is that of engaging consumers in a two way dialogue on their passions, interests and desires, rather than pelting them with one way messages. Consumers are now in more control of what content they want to receive and when. They’re no longer a captive audience happy to consume whatever information you choose to feed them.

If you’re not providing them with content that interests them then they can easily find it on websites and forums elsewhere. So marketing has to be relevant and offer valuable insight if you want it to be heard.

Digital provides the tools to be relevant

Digital provides the technology for dialogue: online surveys, interactive websites and email can all be used to learn more about your customers and fill your database with valuable nuggets of information.  What’s their budget? How many settings should your widget have? When will they next be shopping for an upgrade? Knowing about your customers’ interests, preferences and behaviours can then enable you gauge which offers to pitch and to whom.

Whether its email, a personalised web page (PURL) or good old direct mail, marketing activity can then be personalised and targeted at those who fit the profile of your ideal customer.

Amazon is the current poster child of one-to-one marketing. Users are given recommendations on books, CDs and anything else matching their buying behaviour. To the casual user Amazon is simply being helpful, but to the marketing mind Amazon’s website is database driven customer engagement at its best.

One-to-one marketing is simply smarter

On the web you’ll hear plenty of hype on the potential of one-to-one marketing to create lifelong loyalty and ‘turn customers into evangelists for your brand’. However, making smarter use of your database and harnessing digital to deliver personalised, relevant messages is just common sense.

The days of pouring money into hit and hope marketing are drawing to a close. The future is about being smart with your budget and delivering marketing that’s relevant, offers value and a personalised one-to-one dialogue with your customers.

Holy grail’s are allusive. But improving how you engage your customers with marketing that they’re happy to receive is a prize worthy of exploration.

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

With the dark clouds of a recession looming, marketing budgets are being slashed as businesses get ready to ride out the turbulent storm ahead. Whilst reducing spend wherever possible helps boost quarterly figures, when sales are becoming scarce quietening your voice in the marketplace makes little sense.

In fact, all the evidence suggests that you should be marketing more, rather than less, during a recession. Or as Proctor and Gamble CEO A. G. Lafley put it, “We have a philosophy and a strategy. When times are tough, you build share.”

Why you should be marketing more

Over the years research has shown that increasing your marketing during a recession puts you in a much stronger position after it has passed.

When comparing the figures of those who continue to invest with those who haven’t, it’s the businesses who continue to spend that gain market share from their competitors during tough periods and position themselves to prosper afterwards.

Some of the reasons why you should market more:

•    If your competitors reduce their marketing then there’s less noise to compete with, and your campaigns will gain a louder, clearer voice
•    Customers will be looking for those businesses who are still actively engaging with them, and delivering messages that are relevant to their changing needs
•    Lowering brand awareness loses market share that’s hard to win back
•    With customers spending less, every sale will be harder to win. Therefore it makes sense to market more rather than less

The problem is that some business decision makers see marketing as a variable cost that can be cut without immediately harming sales. However, the evidence shows that this is a short sighted view.

So how do you convince those too worried about their bottom line to invest in marketing?

You have to change its perception to that of a revenue generator, and an essential activity for survival and future growth.

Marketing is a revenue generator

Last month Experian (data services provider) released their report ‘Marketing success in a slowdown’ (report is free after registering on their website), which provides 12 steps for moving marketing from a cost to a revenue generator.

The report outlines how digital media is integral for marketing smarter than simply carpet bombing messages onto your customers in the hope of hitting a sale.

Marketing is at its most effective when it understands and responds to people’s individual needs and aspirations. You can achieve this by using digital media to deliver campaigns that more closely reflect your customer’s mindset and are more compelling than your competitors.

Digital media makes targeted marketing more cost effective than ever

When investment is tight you need to ensure you’re making the best use of your budget. With digital you can launch targeted, personalised campaigns that are more cost effective than traditional advertising and measurable to every click.

Websites and email campaigns can be tracked and data captured on your prospects’ needs, preferences and desires to help you understand what messages to deliver and to whom. You can then segment and profile your customers so that you’re able to deliver true one-to-one marketing that’s more relevant and precisely targeted to trigger a response.

The effectiveness of ‘one size fits all’ mass marketing is starting to wane. Customers now expect your messages to be relevant and personalised if they’re going to reward you with their time. And digital makes it easier and more cost effective than ever to run campaigns tailored to each individual.

Market smarter, rather than less

Based on the evidence and just pure common sense, a recession presents an opportunity to gain market share from your competitors if they have given in to the fear factor. And with digital you can now deliver campaigns that are more cost effective, measurable and targeted than ever before.

So before your budget gets guillotined, present the case for marketing as a revenue generator rather than a cost, and how you can use a downturn to gain customers from your competitors and a head start when the storm clouds pass.

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Last month, Google added another title to its bulging trophy cabinet after being voted the ‘UK’s top consumer brand’. This follows on from it being hailed as the world’s most powerful brand in April, and sees them leapfrog Microsoft as the ‘brand that people value at work and in their daily lives’. 

Google’s whirlwind love affair with the World shows how the nature of branding is changing in the 21st century, and teaches even the smallest enterprise a few tricks on winning customer loyalty.

What defines a superbrand?

The survey to find the UK’s top superbrand was conducted by the Superbrands Council (a group of marketing, advertising and media experts), who define superbrands as:

‘A superbrand has established the finest reputation in its field. It offers customers significant emotional and tangible advantages over other brands, which (consciously or subconsciously) customers want and recognise. All superbrands must represent quality, reliability and distinction.’

This definition goes a long way towards explaining why Microsoft has been usurped from its throne, and why (as discussed in my previous article) it needs to fear for its future.

Both Microsoft and Google provide products and services people use everyday. But whereas Microsoft’s reputation was won through shear domination, Google won praise because of its popularity and the perception of its superiority.

Why are Google the #1 brand?

Google’s recognition as the UK’s (and World’s) biggest brand is arguably the fastest rise of a brand in history. Barely past its tenth birthday, Google has overtaken seasoned thoroughbreds, such as the BBC, British Airways and Mercedes Benz, as a name synonymous with quality, distinction and a service that’s superior to the rest. 

To be fair, Yahoo and MSN have been fighting an uphill battle ever since their competition’s name became a verb. With around 80% of web users ‘Googling’ to find the answers to their questions, Google is now synonymous with search.

As with any successful marketing strategy, perhaps Google’s dominance is as much to do with the ‘perception’ of product superiority as it is to do with reality. 

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when Google started chomping into Yahoo and MSN’s market share. But its expansion into a plethora of high quality, free products (e.g. Google Earth, Maps, Gmail and Googledocs) is arguably the catalyst that generated its huge popularity in such a short space of time. 

Perception can be as important as your product

The best marketing talk in the world isn’t going to turn you into a superbrand if you don’t have the products to back it up with. However, the perception of superiority can be as important as the quality of your wares in making people lust for your label. 

Building the perception of superiority is an increasingly complex puzzle for marketing and advertising agencies. Because people are looking for brands that engage with their interests and passions, rather than merely bombard them with one way advertising messages. 

This changing consumer mindset is being shaped by both an ad averse culture and the fact that people now have control over what content they want to receive.

Google’s rise comes from feeding a modern consumer need

Last May, BT released their 21^st Century Life Index Report, which estimated that most Brits now spend over six hours per week surfing the web. With one in five visiting more than 20 sites a week, the TV is now being left switched off whilst people ‘Facebook’ their friends, shop and feed their thirst for knowledge. 

The spread of broadband and explosion in online content is changing the consumer mindset from that of waiting to be fed to that of feeding itself. Today’s consumer now actively devours content that offers valuable insight and helps them make smarter buying decisions. 

So what does a global superbrand’s success have to do with me?

Google’s rise as the world’s biggest brand occurs not only from providing a better product, but also the perception of being superior to their rivals. Through the provision of additional services it was able to foster a positive association to its brand and encourage people to adopt it as their search engine of choice.

Google’s success demonstrates that you have to look beyond just your core product in raising perceptions on your brand’s value. Whilst you might not have the billions to spend on giving away free internet applications on a global scale, there are many ways in which you can enhance your brand’s image. After sales support, your customer service record and content that offers value to customers can all be utilised to foster positive associations with your logo. 

When you consider that brand perceptions are being formed online more than ever, a good place to start in boosting your profile would be your website. Are you providing merely a branded message in the form of an online brochure? Or are you providing insightful, useful content to customers that enhance the quality, reliability and distinction of your brand?   

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

So was Cuil’s launch the biggest PR disaster of all time? Judging by the barrages of criticism and negative coverage you’d certainly think so. With hindsight, comparing yourself to the world’s most popular search engine before you’ve even gone live probably wasn’t the best idea.

For anybody not in the loop, Cuil is a new search engine created by a team of ex-engineers from Google, Alta Vista, IBM and eBay. This dream team was supposed to deliver a new standard in search, and loosen Google’s tyrannical grip on the search advertising market.

Cuil was launched to the fanfare of indexing three times as many websites as Google, and ten times that of Microsoft. Whilst the tactic of using a bold claim to attract attention certainly won it exposure, it backfired when the product failed to live up to the hype.

Peddling hype will backfire

Rarely does a news story on Cuil pass without a flood of negative feedback pouring into the comments section. People are furious at having their attention diverted on a product launch that’s fallen short of expectation, with many eager to share their own experiences of Cuil’s irrelevant links compared to Google. The pasting of images from one website onto another’s search result also hasn’t gone down well, appearing like yet more cracks in the beleaguered search engine’s algorithm.

With hindsight, Cuil should have been launched with ‘Beta’ pasted all over it in big, bold letters. Then it would have had a get out clause for early hiccups, and an excuse for why it went down repeatedly on launch day.

More importantly, the Cuil team should have stayed clear of using bold claims to push their product, particularly to an internet audience who aren’t just sceptical but furious if someone tries to peddle them hype.

Why Microsoft’s future is at risk

Cuil’s attempt to break into the lucrative search market occurs on the backdrop of Google’s online dominance posing a risk to Microsoft’s long-term future. Because Microsoft’s reign as the king of office software is under threat now that online applications are on the verge of competing directly with those on your desktop.

Along with email, word processing and data storage, PC applications are starting to emigrate online, offering remote access to documents and software from any internet connection.

Google has been investing heavily in creating online applications for the last few years, with Gmail, Google Docs and Google Earth now used by millions all over the world. There can be little doubt that Google has ambitions of usurping Microsoft as the software King, and adding it to their existing title as conqueror of the search market.

Microsoft aren’t just buying Yahoo for their search traffic

Microsoft’s protracted takeover of Yahoo is as much about buying an online presence as it is about gaining its search traffic. Whilst Yahoo’s 3.45% share of the UK search market pales into insignificance compared to Google’s 87%, Yahoo remains a popular portal because of its news, finance and other services, which provide the online consumer experience Microsoft craves.

Last month, Microsoft was given another poke in the eye on the urgent need to change their business model when Google replaced them as the UK’s # 1 brand (showing just how much searching on the internet has become a part of people’s everyday lives).

So will buying Yahoo give Microsoft the muscle needed to challenge Google’s online dominance? Time will tell. But becoming a popular brand is about providing services and products that people value. It’s not something you can buy or gain with barrages of publicity, but has to be earned. Just ask Cuil.

[Here’s an insightful BBC news clip discussing in more detail the pros and cons of Microsoft buying Yahoo]

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

So you’ve just built a spanking new website with your company brochure recreated in pixel form. Now you’ve just got to wait for visitors to arrive before the sales start rolling in, right? Wrong. Selling your products and services online presents unique hurdles compared to the bricks and mortar world. Your website has to be able to build trust and confidence with visitors before they’re going to buy.

Make your website ‘sticky’

People search the web for information. Not advertising. And using the marketing language and sales spiel from your corporate brochure isn’t going to cut it online. Web users have the attention spans of goldfish, and will swim away in fright at the first sign of a sales message. 

The average website visitor will leave within the first minute. They might have a browse around if you’ve got an attractive landing page. But they’ll quickly leave and look elsewhere if they can’t find the answers they’re looking for. 

So for your website to be an effective sales generating machine it has to be ‘sticky’ and keep hold of visitors for as long as possible. Because the longer they’re in your store the more time you’ve got to prove why you’re the answer to their problem.

Provide ‘social proof’

The best way to engage attention is with content of value, rather than marketing messages. Before a visitor is going to place an order or pick up the phone you have to be able to answer any questions blocking a sale and earn their trust. You can achieve this through your content.

Providing case studies, customer reviews and testimonials will help to demonstrate the ‘social proof’ of your product or service. The social proof is the real world evidence that your product does what it says on the tin. 

People are increasingly sceptical of marketing, but they do listen to each other. So make sure you’re providing plenty of content from third parties to give concrete to the claims on your landing page.

Build rapport with valuable content

The old adage ‘people like to do business with those they like and trust’ has never been truer than online. Until we’ve developed virtual salesmen to talk to prospects one-to-one, you can use your content to build rapport with prospects. A popular vehicle for doing this is to use a blog, which is in essence a content management system with added bells.

Rather than posting rants on who never gets the tea, provide useful articles commenting on industry news, offering advice on how to use your product or giving examples of how you’ve solved a customer’s problem. 

If you’re providing information of value then prospects will either subscribe to your blog or keep returning for updates. Few people are ready to buy the first time they visit your site. 

However, if you’re providing ongoing content of value then you can build trust and confidence in your expertise over time. And with the right strategy in place you can even try and position yourself as a knowledge leader in your industry.

Google loves regularly updated websites

If it’s regularly updated, Google and other search engines will love your blog as much as your readers. The search engines rate sites based on the frequency with which they’re updated and the links pointing to them from other sites. 

If you’re content offers value, rather than shallow sales messages, then other websites will naturally link to you over time and boost your natural search engine ranking. 

Valuable content is a competitive advantage

With broadband now in most UK homes and businesses, an effective sales generating website has never been more crucial. 

So whilst your competitors struggle with their static online brochures, turn your web presence into a channel for engaging prospects with valuable content, and convert more browsers into buyers.  

___________________________

BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.