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 21st 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?
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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.
Cuil demonstrates the risk of peddling hype and why Microsoft is already fighting for its future
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.
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.
Mad inventor meets internet finds peace, presents an online op art tool for your screen or to project at dances and on bands. Give it a go and see how many patterns resemble stuff projected onto the walls in the old Top of the Pops television show! Just run Opartica and click on shapes to add them to projects and you can spin them, move them, overlap them, and set colours.
How to Sell More Products to More Visitors Through Your Website
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.
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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.
A great website that allows you to be anybody or be doing anything. Much like the seaside novelties where you put your face in a hole - but updated for the web. Very versatile and great results. You could spend hours on here.
Earlier today Andy phoned in to say that the blog visual/HTML editor on our website wasn’t working properly for him. After unsuccessfully trying many different options that didn’t work we found the solution on this page, specifically the reply from ’selfobliged’ about TinyMCE Advanced plugin.
Thank you ’selfobliged’ - whoever you may be!
Mobile Marketing - Do You Want to be a Temporary Intruder or a Trusted Friend?
It’s easy to get excited about mobile marketing. The UK’s 43 million handsets offer an immediate, always on route to consumers. However, people have a different relationship with their mobiles compared to that with their PC. A mobile is a much more personal device, and permission to contact them on it is tightly guarded.
Unless you think users are eager to receive floods of texts and banner ads clogging up their shrunken screens, smart thinking is needed on how you gain permission to deliver your messages.
Mobile marketing is still in its infancy, and has a lot of growing up to do before it reaches maturity. And that applies to marketing tactics as much as it does to the technology.
Mobiles are more personal, which is what mobile marketing needs to be
Since Mr Jobs reeled off the iPhone’s features to rapturous whoops, manufacturers have been rushing to build the ultimate multi-functional mobile device. More than just a phone with added bells, mobiles will be appearing that provide access to the same services as on a home PC. Whether it’s paying bills, online shopping or finding a local restaurant, mobiles will soon be an integral tool for how people manage their lives. It’s when the next gen mobile becomes the essential lifestyle device that we’ll see them emerging from pockets other than than those of the business or tech savvy user.
A mobile phone will become the ultimate, personalised lifestyle device for accessing the things people care about. Consequently, people’s relationship with their mobile will be even more personal than they are already. Permission to use them as a marketing channel will therefore be even more tightly guarded.
Whilst the personal relationship a prospect has with their mobile poses a challenge, it also offers marketers an opportunity.
Mobile marketing should be about relationship building
We’re already living in an age where strategies need to be smarter than just to ’spray and pray’ messages. Consumers are taking control of the content they want to receive. If you’re not offering them value then you’ll soon find your path blocked. This is the mobile marketer’s challenge: to build trust with ad weary prospects.
However, mobile also presents an enormous opportunity. It has the potential to be the superior relationship building medium (barring meeting every prospect one-to-one). It’s a platform for coaxing trust and loyalty by being of value to the consumer. The quickest way to ruin these feelings is to bombard them with messages as soon as they switch on their mobile.
The future lies in a mobile CRM strategy: building loyalty and dialogue through engaging with relevant, targeted offers and desirable, downloadable content. A mobile is a personal device. And as such users will reward loyalty to those who treat it with respect.
The success of mobile marketing is not just a case of waiting for better data plans, coverage and handsets. But also for the right marketing mindset to mature.
Mass delivery of irrelevant messages is the quickest way to lose trust
The personal and immediate nature of mobile offers enormous potential for relationship building with valuable content. And as with the relationship between print and digital, your mobile strategy should be integrated into your wider campaign, with calls to action to initiate mobile included in your brochures and website.
So whilst some advertisers prepare to pepper mobile users with banner ads and text messages, remember that the quickest way to lose trust is with undesired, irrelevant content.
Start thinking about customised messages, downloadable videos and GPS targeted offers. Because to be successful in mobile marketing you’ll want to be a user’s valued and trusted friend, rather than a temporary intruder.
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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.
First Apple brought us the Ipod, then came the Ipod Nano, followed by the Ipod Shuffle.
Each time the product got smaller. Now, Apple bring you something even smaller…
Print dead in ten years? Only if we run out of trees
With eyeballs and attention focused on the web, rarely a day passes without someone heralding the death of print. It’s just the fashionable thing to say.
In a recent interview, it was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s turn to hammer a nail into print’s coffin. He gave paper and ink a life expectancy of ten years before it gets binned forever, envisioning a world where all content is consumed on a Windows run machine. Whilst his prediction is music to the ears of Microsoft shareholders, we can’t see print fading away anytime soon.
It’s easy to jump on the ‘print is dead’ bandwagon based on the falling readership of newspapers and magazines. But in reality, print is merely evolving to accommodate digital and the changes in how content is consumed.
Whilst the mass market, one size fits all style of print publishing is slowly being ushered aside, new models are emerging that keep print firmly centre stage.
The debate is about change, not conflict
Readership of print has fallen dramatically in recent years, with ad revenues haemorrhaging as people switch to digital. Readers can now find breaking stories and articles of interest in a few mouse clicks. A daily newspaper or monthly magazine simply can’t compete with the immediacy of surfing the web.
However, people still like the physicality of browsing a printed publication. So there’s still a future for print if it can differentiate itself as a provider of comment, discussion and in depth analysis. If publishers want their print titles to stay profitable, they have to give readers something they can’t easily find online.
Printed newspapers and magazines need to evolve into a different type of beast altogether, one that can live in harmony, rather than conflict, with digital. Otherwise it risks becoming too costly for its masters to keep alive, and dying out altogether.
People still prefer print
When it comes to the marketing arena, if managed properly, print can continue to perform a starring role. The fact is that people still like to receive something they can touch and read at their leisure. A Pitney Bowes study found that 73% prefer to receive product announcements and offers in the mail, rather than read them on a monitor.
So with print still popular with prospects, the future lies in learning how to make best use of each medium. Every touch point needs to be integrated to deliver consistent branding, a unified message and a clearly directed sales path.
Print provides the ignition
Considering that people prefer to receive messages in print, well targeted direct mail can provide the ignition to an integrated campaign. Print’s role is to hook prospects and capture their interest before reeling them in to your branded website.
You can then use online tools to develop your message, such as video, background articles and interactive features. Once you’ve proven your credibility and won their email address, you can deliver further targeted messages and push them all the way to the end of the sales funnel.
From our Siemens campaign we experienced first hand how effective integrated campaigns can be, when both print and digital are working together to deliver a unified message.
Print’s survival depends on one factor
Whether print, in all its forms, is able to remain profitable and effective will rely on its ability to deliver the content people want in a way that’s relevant and useful.
The growth of digital is changing when people consume content, as well as how. Consumers are now in control of what messages they want to receive and when. As a result, websites are sprouting all over the web to discuss all manner of topics and to share information.
Markets are fragmenting into niches, in which people only want to receive messages that are relevant and match their interests. And that’s why the survival of print will be decided by a single factor: what people want.
Boxes full of literature piled high in your office?
Wasting marketing collateral because it’s full of old products and services?
Just think what that has cost you and the size of the footprint you are leaving…
Recycling may ease your green conscience, but why the need to recycle in the first place? - there is an alternative…
Print-on-demand (POD) solutions have been around since the late 90s and enable the production of exactly the right quantity of items, at exactly the right time, with no storage requirements and personalised (if required) to the recipient. Email and web (as we know it) have also been around since the late 90s and have dramatically changed how we communicate; so why oh why when the technology and capabilities are available, do we still do things the old way when it comes to printing documents?
Is it just because its the way we have always done it, are we just too scared to embrace the technology available, or is it still cost which is stopping us?
In the same way we can’t now do without the speed of digital print to hit fast approaching deadlines, I believe in a few years time we will also wonder how we managed our marketing collateral efficiently before POD. As production processes improve, technology speeds up, environmental pressures increase further and costs reduce even more this will become the norm, not the exception.
So go on get recognised as a innovator, POD is the future, get yourself involved in the action now!
This was the first time our boys (8 and 4 yrs old) have been to see a major band - and then they get to see six in one go. They’ve seen live bands before at motorcycle events, and while they’ve been impressed with the acts before nothing could prepare them for the performance from the Levellers et al.
The rain held off - we even had bouts of sunshine.
Here is a short run-down of the acts:
3 Daft Monkeys - a three-piece acoustic band that played, amongst other instruments, the fiddle, and guitars. Their set was very good and they impressed the crowd enough to ask for an encore (or two). Chumbawamba - you may remember their ‘TubThumping’ single from a few years ago but they’ve been around a lot longer than that and they’ve played at a quite number of events since then. Their act was thought provoking and funny, even though they had a semi-political agenda. Nathan & Quinn were, apparently, brought in at short notice - but you’d have never guessed it from the performance they gave. There set can best be explained as a brilliant acoustic folk guitar playing duo. Seth Lakeman & his band. Mr Lakeman is an accomplished musician: he played the guitar and violin, and he sang well. They were good songs, delivered well, but he didn’t spark me off as the other acts did. Dreadzone - Awesome, electric, brilliant, fun, cool (man). This group brought the event to it’s feet. Nearly everyone danced to the sound generated by this band - a mixture of dub, reggae, techno, and trance. I was so impressed I’ve now bought their second album ‘Second Light’. The Levellers - after a short interval, while they prepared the stage after Dreadzone, the Levellers appeared and the headline act got the crowd back on their feet. For those that haven’t heard of them they are a folk rock band that play tunes that you can’t help singing (and dancing along to). During their encore they were rejoined back on stage by 3 Daft Monkeys to perform the final number.
This was all followed by a spectacular fireworks display.
All-in-all a brilliant days entertainment -
definitely ‘A Beautiful Day Out’.
So, call me a big kid (and many do) but watching cartoons and animations still ranks high on my enjoyment list.
So imagine my eyes, the size of the moon, as the trailer for Pixar’s new film Wall.e appeared.
The basis for the story is about a lonely robot on earth, cleaning up all the mess humans had left behind after migrating to a new planet.
What makes this interesting (apart from the gorgeous animation) is the fact that for first 45mins of the film, there is no dialogue. The creators tried to capture human emotions and transfer that to Wall.e through sounds and gestures.
Did they manage to accomplish this, I hear you ask? Well, why not take a peek at the trailer below and judge for yourself.
One of natures funniest off shoots & proves that Darwin wasn’t always right. Survival of the funniest not the fittest.
“Besides the myotonia, other distinguishing features of the fainting goat are prominently set eyes, where the eye protrudes from the eye socket, as opposed to recessed eyes seen in other breeds. The profile is straight as opposed to convex or “roman” profile.
In the past they were used for protecting livestock such as sheep by involuntarily “sacrificing themselves” to predators, allowing the sheep to escape.“
…Having had a series of meetings today and devouring numerous biscuits of all shapes and sizes. I was just wondering if there was a survey as to the most popular meeting biscuits, what assortment would win?
Congratulations to our latest recruitRuthon her phenominal achievement.
Ruth recently completed the London Marathon, all 26.3 miles in 4Hrs 22minutes. Coming from someone who failed at their first atempt to run such a distance, believe me this is a great achievement.
If this was not enough, Ruth also was snapped by a photographer and found here picture spread over the front cover of the Monday’s Daily Mail.
Had I known I would have doubled her sponsorship money and painted a bda logo on her forhead.
When we are given a blank canvass to design HTML emails we take into consideration the following:
Preview Pane
We optimise the HTML template design for the top 2-4 inches as there is only this much space to tell the story and persuade the viewers to open our email instead of just previewing it.
75% of users use a vertical preview pane, 25% use a horizontal preview pane. To accommodate both sets of users we design the HTML email template messages so that it displays the most important call to actions and key content in the top left of the message.
Images
We do not use more than 30% ratio of images to text as most ISP and spam filter emails with will block emails with a higher ratio of images.
Up to 45% of viewers may have images turned off or blocked in their email client so we design the layout to focus the readers eyes on the key content of the message and also include image tags with full descriptions to encourage readers to download the images.
Width
We keep our HTML email width under 600 pixels to avoid users having to scroll to read the message.
Fonts
We use only universally supported fonts as non-standard fonts not supported by the reader’s computer may seriously affect the design layout.
Content
There are two distinct audiences, skimmers and readers. Readers are not a problem but skimmers will look at the top of the message, headlines and subheads and key bold phases throughout the message. We design the message, making proper use of bold face type style, so we can pull the reader down through the message and still deliver relevant content quickly.
Where possible we design the email to cover the main bullet points and use links to drive the viewer to your website. We encourage clients to include as many links as possible. Emails with many links will get a higher click rate than those with less links.
We include a text version of the email within the HTML so that it can be read by non-HTML email packages.
Scripts
We do not use scripts such as JavaScript as some applications view it as a security risk and will block messages. Instead we drive readers to a webpage where dynamic components are easily rendered.
HTML Code
We make sure our HTML code always conforms to W3C Standards. HTML code not conforming to WC3 can cause delivery and rendering issues.
bda speak out at an “Understanding Digital Conference” held by Williams Lea the print management giants.
As a result of some of bda’s ground breaking case studies we were asked by the Print Sourcing Director of Williams Lea to present our opinions and experiences in all aspects of digital technology.
The focus of our presentation was the utilisation of digital print to deliver one-to-one DM campaigns, and print-on-demand solutions (hence ‘now, now, now, now, now!’).
All clients want to add value, improve ROI, provide better response rates, better utilise their data and reduce wastage, but many don’t know how; we were there to illustrate how this is being delivering today!
We presented examples of; one-to-one direct mail where response rates hit 37%; an asset portal allowing personalised marketing collateral to be created online; and e-collateral, our print on demand solution delivering targeted, bespoke brochures minimising waste, eradicating bulk print and storage.
The 65 strong audience of account managers and directors posed questions on; the financial model; the effect of increased unit costs and how we are providing real ROI; deployment timescales and pitfalls in delivering such solutions; as well as where we see the print industry in the future.
To accompany our presentation we produced a personalised digital guide, swatch book and PURL allowing all delegates to download their own copy of the presentation and access additional information… So we got and idea of exactly how interested the audience was!
The end of another busy week for us here & we’re all about to head down to the pub to celebrate the start of what’s looking to a lovely sunny weekend. For those of you interested in the web & javascript trickery enjoy the link below.
As you can tell with the rush of excitement this has been on hold to be posted for a few days. Then again they do say the best things come to those who wait…
When it comes to selling or marketing, everyone needs an ‘in’. A means of distinguishing yourself from competitors.
These days, you face much competition in business so you have to get your benefits over quickly and succinctly - your ‘elevator pitch’ if you like - to be noticed at all.
Never before have customers had such a range of products and services to choose from. And with the web all pervasive, it’s incredibly easy to compare everything from price to quality.
So, how do you get the customer to choose you?
Much has been said about the need for businesses to have a USP (unique selling point) or ESP (emotional selling point).
The major problem with a USP is that it can be fairly easily copied, (how many truly original business ideas have you seen recently?) and psychologists latest thinking is that ESPs are not valid because people are incredibly complex, with both rational and emotional motivators mixed together within any decision to buy.
So what are we left with?
The Engaging Selling Point - EnSP
This latest school of thought can be defined as the engagement, interaction and INVOLVEMENT of the customer.
The Point of Engagement is the point when a message is no longer ignored but rather triggers a sense of interaction and involvement. This occurs where speaker and listener are completely and utterly connecting on the same wavelength.
The most successful products or services in today’s B2B/C marketplaces often rely on their EnSP.
Your EnSP: Create an experience to get customer buy-in
When we go to sell our houses, why do we ensure the kitchen smells of coffee or have the smell of freshly baked bread wafting around? It’s more than likely because we want to evoke a feeling of homeliness and comfort that everyone relates to. We’re trying to trigger a number of senses in the brain.
The engaging selling point works in a similar way; no longer are you selling AT, or marketing TO a customer, you are striking a chord to involve them and most importantly to elicit an action from them.
Viral marketing and the EnSP
Instead of traditional ads where the product or service is front and centre, viral ads are stories or narratives, sometimes told in episodes which are distributed over the internet, via email or other digital means. They’re often movies, games, or Flash animations whose aim is to engage and entertain as a precursor to selling.
If they’re funny or engaging, they’re passed on from one consumer to another - and so the legwork of promotional effort is done for the advertiser. Very clever and very cost-effective. Good examples have been produced by IKEA, Virgin Money, Mini and Trojan condoms, which were all very engaging and entertaining.
Viral ads use the Engaging Selling Point to great effect. They can be relatively cheap to produce, and are often more credible and believable than standard forms of advertising in the eyes of the public, as they are not forced on the individual but passed to them by friends, family or colleagues.
Applying your EnSP
You don’t have to invest in an online marketing campaign to start using your EnSP. The first step in discovering your business’ EnSP is to apply some lateral creative thinking to your product or service.
Then find an entertaining and memorable story to engage or involve your customers.
Choose your media - you can use your EnSP across all levels of marketing, in adverts, direct mail, print, viral campaigns, websites and e-marketing.
Your EnSP can be rational or emotional, or a mix of the two - but above all - it doesn’t talk at the customer - it INVOLVES them.
Back in mid-2007, Siemens Enterprise Communications made the decision to get away from mass-produced print; a decision that’s now helped them to engage customers one-to-one but also one that’s helping them to dramatically reduce their environmental impact.
Siemens Enterprise Communications wanted to provide printed collateral that spoke to customer’s needs and prompted dialogue, rather than pump out generalised product brochures in response to enquiries. Stockpiling brochures was also creating storage and logistical issues as well as creating huge waste.
Siemens Enterprise Communications appointed bda, specialists in the development of integrated campaigns for the telecoms/IT industry, to come up with a practical solution. Having seen the success of previous one-to-one campaigns developed by the agency, Siemens Enterprise Communications adopted the idea of personalised solution brochures with variable content as created by bda.
Siemens Enterprise Communications was keen not to “sell at” its decision maker target audience, but rather to identify business concerns faced by decision makers before presenting them with product solutions.
bda invented e-collateral, a method for Siemens Enterprise Communications to generate bespoke solution brochures on demand, available in either PDF or printed form.
Siemens Enterprise Communications drives enquiries to a website ecollateralfromsiemens.co.uk where they can access areas that relate directly to one of four operational issues: Grow Your Business, Reduce Operational Cost, Manage your Assets More Effectively, and Achieve Corporate Excellence. The user simply clicks on their area of interest, to then be guided through a short series of tick box enquiries that relate to more specific interests; this in turn drives the content choice for inclusion in the brochure.
The system, developed by bda and piloted in October 2007 in three languages, UK, US Englisha and German, fulfils the broad objective of providing bespoke content, but also offers a customer-friendly way to gather data which turn feeds Siemens Enterprise Communications’ own CRM. Depending on the areas of interested earmarked by the customer, brochure content can vary between everything from case studies to illustrations, with paragraphs of solution-oriented text tactically inserted to blend with the overall message.
“Both parties had a baptism of fire mostly due to the complexity of the variable solution sets available,” says Sharon Scott Global Marketing Manager at Siemens. “But we needed a way to present our portfolio in way that makes sense to the customer. E-collateral meets that objective perfectly.”
Going a step further to engage Siemens Enterprise Communications’ broad customer base, bda plan to implement programming which allows the tone of language used to vary subtly, according to the level of contact making the enquiry, industry sector or company size.
As for output - Siemens Enterprise Communications own research indicates that despite the demand for instant, downloadable information, many senior C-level contacts make decisions on choice of supplier based on receipt of a printed brochure. Enquirers from the e-collateral site are therefore given a choice of receiving a PDF version of their personalised brochure via email, or ordering a printed version online.
Delivery of the pdf version is instant with a printed copy taking just days to arrive.
As bda is affiliated to a well-equipped communications group which includes a print production arm, it has huge access to fulfillment options. An online request triggers the generation of high quality digitally printed items that are despatched immediately.
The environmental angle? Less waste, the eradication of bulk print, less space needed for storage, less lorries on the road.
“Looking around our industry there’s nothing like e-collateral in B2B areas,” says Sharon. “It’s early days yet, but working with bda, we will certainly increase knowledge of customer needs and product demand. Better still, it helps Siemens meet its commitment to minimise our impact on the environment.”
Having just returned from the Autosport press day at the NEC, it is clear to see that the Kumho Tyres Stand is going to take the show by storm.
With stunning graphics and audio, real rally cars and of course the Kumho girls the stand is not only very good looking but interactive to boot.
The girls are signing and distributing posters designed and produced by us with over two thirds distributed the first day alone.
Performance car, 4×4 and road car tyre range brochures combine with posters, coasters, tyre gauges, pens and a competition to win Manchester United tickets, make for some great collateral and merchandise on the stand.
The construction of the actual shell is of the highest standard and features 2 elevated meeting rooms to create a real sense of presence. The graphics, for which we are responsible make the whole stand, collateral and merchandise come together.
Having walked round the show, which in all honesty was more like a hike in the yorkshire mores, Kumho’s stand is certainly up there as one of the best.
With all the buzz around Web 2.0, is a user-generated internet really the way forward in forming customer connections, or is it simply too fraught with risk?
Where marketers jump up and down at its potential for reaching new customers via weblogs, social networking, podcasts, RSS feeds etc., some technology experts question whether the term ‘Web 2.0′ can be used in any meaningful way since many of the technological aspects of Web 2.0 have existed since the earliest days of the web.
Wikipedia defines it as “a social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterised by open communication, decentralisation of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and ‘the market as a conversation’.” More simply - genuine interactivity, because people can upload as well as download.
Even if it’s not a fully realised phenomenon, there can be no doubt that Web 2.0 has entered everyday web usage:
71% of office workers aged 18 to 29 access social networking and content sharing websites “several times a week” according to new research from Clearswift. Two out of five of these employees access social networking sites several times a day.
Businesses are getting behind Web 2.0 fast, because of the its interactive nature.
Marketers are making use of customer input to drive the provision of more relevant content, while increasing the value of customer relationships and revenue.
Blogs and bulletin boards cost little to set up, and even if the link between the traffic increase and any new revenue generated is unclear, the content itself provides valuable insights. For some, it’s a double edged sword; when Dell launched its blog in July 2006, almost half the comments made were negative; on the other hand, Dell could be seen to be addressing issues head on as a result of a good web 2.0 strategy that was considered.
Certainly, web content requires policing and quality control. How can you tell if information posted is always accurate, trustworthy and up to date? Set alongside the fact that content can be enormously influential just because it’s increasingly user generated.
While business struggle with how to create competitive advantage from customer input, they must also wrestle with the fact that the everyday consumer can have has much influence over a buying decision as a multi-million pound advertising campaign.Some argue that the success of Web 2.0 is dependent upon its remaining within the confines of non-commercial arenas such as social networking sites - where engagement is not coloured by an attempt to sell something to the user. And that both the security and negative postings aspects create too many issues for those trying to gain a commercial foothold.
The lack of control over postings has already led to many security breaches, with pages of legitimate websites being hacked every day, and malicious software implanted. With the risk of employees routinely adding confidential data about their employer, companies are at risk. With social networking sites now rich in valuable personal information, individuals are now exposed for personalised attacks.
It’s a conundrum for business; on the one hand, Web 2.0 can’t be ignored because of its potential to get closer to customers and develop relationships. On the other, the security risk and potential for negative blogging create headaches until greater control is exercised over access.
While web-based interaction has become crucial in understanding customer behaviour, it seems over-enthusiastic early adopters of Web 2.0 can get their fingers burnt. Handle with care. I think it is a case of consideration. A well considered, thought out web 2.0 strategy can provide businesses with great opportunities and new ways to engage customers, add value and brand loyalty. Just take a look at DELL ideastorm.
Well we’ve managed to do it, bda’s new website is now live, yet still not complete and likely to always be a work in progress. But, then that is a good summary of most of today’s sites.
I hope you like what we have put together. We feel it gives you a better view of us, our work, our personalities and our inspiration.
We’ve been making lots of changes at bda to improve every facet of the business both internally and externally, we hope you like what we’ve done.
Have a look at our portfolio, our news, blogs, moodboard, profiles and do let us know what you think, and make sure you keep coming back!
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