If people are spending most of their online time on social networking sites, is this where most of your digital budget should be going? Well, Coca Cola certainly seem to thing so. It recently announced it would be abandoning campaign websites, for future product launches, and focusing on social networking sites instead.

And they’re not the only big brand to do so. Kellogg’s and P & G have also announced similar moves in going to where their customers are, rather than trying to entice them to their branded sites.

So is this where online marketing is heading? Are social networks the future of online marketing? Or are Coke, Kellogg’s and P & G abandoning campaign websites too early?

Well, to work out the answers to these questions, let’s assess the benefits of both:

Benefits of Facebook

• It’s where your customers are spending the majority of their online time
• You’re only a mouse click away and don’t need to build a time consuming and expensive SEO and site awareness campaign to attract visitors
• Creating a Fan Page is free, quick and easy
• Did I mention that it’s free?
• People actively engage on Facebook commenting, uploading photos and sharing interesting links, helping them to feel like part of the campaign
• Awareness spreads virally when people joining Fan Pages appears in the news feed

Benefits of Campaign websites

• You have more freedom in the type of brand experience you can create. You’re not reliant on people clicking through the tabs or having to squeeze everything into their template
• You can capture email addresses and contact details for follow up marketing activity
• You have access to metrics on number of visitors, time on site and where people are clicking to gauge the success of your campaign

Based on the above, I think it’s a safe bet that Facebook will be offering marketing packages to brands, which give them access to metrics and user data, in the near future. Facebook is, after all, still struggling to make a profit and will want to take full advantage of its gargantuan (and active) user base.

Advice on campaign websites

When it comes to building a successful campaign site, our advice is to consider how you’re going to engage visitors’ interest and encourage repeat visits.

Are you hoping they’ll sit through your Flash presentation and then immediately want to buy your product?

Or do you want to build a place where likeminded people can congregate and interact over their shared passions and interests, and build an affinity for your product over time?

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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.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been offering suggestions on engaging with customers using social media. Now, giving advice is easy. Following through on it is the tricky part. So to prove we’re not just hot air at bda, here’s a rundown on our social media marketing strategy:

1. How we engage

As you might have guessed, our primary tool for engaging with social media, and the online marketing community, is through our blog. We publish a variety of posts to share our views, offer advice and give readers some insight into the thinking behind the work we do. The types of articles we write include:

• Discussing what’s happening in the fast paced marketing world
• Sharing the results of marketing surveys and commenting on their significance
• Advice on implementing modern marketing strategies, notably email, PURLs and integrated campaigns
• And the occasional post about who’s pulling the levers at our agency

As well as sending weekly posts to subscribers, we repackage our blog posts into an email newsletter which we send to existing clients. We also occasionally pull articles together to create a ‘Greatest Hits’ eBook, which people can download and share without a pesky email signup box getting in the way.

2. Contributing to our networks

With our blog the engine running our social media marketing campaign, we like to ensure our posts get spread around and shared with as many people as possible. So you’ll often find links to our latest articles featured on a variety of marketing websites, including:

Internet Marketing News Watch

Marketing Service Talk

Business Week’s Business Exchange

Junta42 Content Marketing

UTalk Marketing

You’ll also find the bda team active on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook as well as taking part in discussion in a variety of online marketing forums and websites.

3. Earning positive attention

When writing blog posts, we always aim to provide readers with practical advice they can actually use and apply to their own marketing. We also like to offer fresh opinions and to challenge hype (which, let’s face it, can be fairly common in the Web 2.0 marketing world). It’s through being useful and offering practical advice that we earn the positive attention that we do.

With Twitter being the yardstick for measuring interest these days, a couple of recent blog highlights include:

When Social Media Backfires - Tweeted 53 times

Conversational Marketing – Should You Believe the Hype? – 36 Tweets

What someone should tell Tiger Woods about marketing in a crisis – 27 Tweets

4. Gauging success

It’s no secret that blogs are great for improving website rankings and attracting links from other sites. In the month prior to starting to blog regularly our website received 360 visitors. Less than two years later and our visitor numbers have nearly quadrupled to over 1200 a month. We’ve also amassed 212 comments and links from other blogs sharing our posts with their readers.

How these figures translate into sales is a conundrum that’s still baffling social media experts. However, we like to approach its value in the same was as any type of marketing: does it boost our reputation for thought leadership, build credibility in our expertise and make our website a more useful resource to potential clients?

When choosing a marketing agency clients also want to know whether you’re switched on to what’s happening in the marketing world and plugged into the new ways of engaging with customers. We like to think that’s what our social media marketing strategy achieves for us, and helps spread the bda brand name at the same time.

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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.

Knowing what to do with social media has a lot of businesses scratching their heads: Should you be creating a Facebook fan page? Tweeting? Pasting links in forums? Or not bother with social media at all (because it’s all just hype)?

Well, as my recent experience of buying a tent shows, the fact is that people are sharing opinions on all sorts of products, services and brands online. Someone somewhere might be writing about your business right now, this very second. So you need to be able to engage with the online conversation if you want your voice to be heard.

Here are four steps for engaging with social media:

1. Join the conversation

Rather than go to the library or pick up the phone, the internet is now the first port of call for many people when hunting for information. They want answers to problems, not sales pitches; your marketing can feed this hunger for info. This is one of the reasons why you always hear marketers preaching all the time on why you should be blogging.

Instead of writing about what happened in the office, your blog should focus on providing customers with useful information. This can include product guides, industry insight, case studies and as a forum for answering the questions that regularly crop up when customers place an order.

Similarly, Twitter is another tool you can use for sharing relevant links, product tips and other useful titbits of information.

2. Find your networks

With a bigger population than Russia or Japan, you’d think Facebook was the only social site worth bothering with. But the fact is people are visiting all sorts of forums, review sites and social networks to discuss their shared interests and passions.

The internet is, after all, a vast place. If you imagine the internet is like the sky at night then constellations represent the different groups of websites where your customers might congregate. To track them down, setup Google alerts to notify you whenever your brand, product or service is mentioned. You can then plot a course and zoom into where the most relevant conversations are taking place.

3. Earn trust and positive attention

Once you’ve found your industry’s online community, you’ll need to make friends with the natives. So make sure you’re engaging in a helpful, useful way, rather than assaulting them with sales messages the moment you arrive.

Answering people’s questions, objectively responding to criticism and offering useful advice in an authentic, transparent manner is the only way you’ll become a valued member of the community. The key is to focus on being helpful and contributing to the conversation, rather than tiresome self promotion.

4. Finding success

Some marketers might fear what impact the spread of reviews and opinions will have on marketing when people can sidestep your sales pitch to find out a product’s true value. But there are benefits to engaging with social media.

Feedback, and even criticism, can be harnessed to improve product design and find out which areas your services are lacking. The other side of the coin is that superior products, which receive better reviews, will be easier to sell, with customers acting as (dare I say it) ‘evangelists’.

Offering useful content, whether it’s in your blog or commenting in forums, will build closer relationships with your brand. People are inherently inclined to repay generosity, and the brands and businesses offering value in the way they engage are more likely to be regarded as valued members within social media communities and rewarded with increased sales.

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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.

In this year’s marketing predictions (ours included) there’s no shortage of people preaching on how influence is being plucked away from the fingers of brands. No longer are people settling for what they’re fed in the sales pitch, but are now checking for reviews and real life experiences online. Well, I experienced this firsthand when shopping for a tent to take my kids away on holiday to the Lake District.

In previous years, buying a tent would have involved jumping in my car, heading to the nearest outdoor activities shop and then picking up whatever appeared most suitable. Whatever I chose would have been decided purely by the sales information I found in store.

Not so now. These days you can use the web to track down the opinions of other consumers in minutes, and find out all the nitty gritty details missing from the brochure.

Word of mouth is more trusted

Initially, I’d thought one of the cheaper tents would be adequate. Being relatively warm and, of course, waterproof seemed the only factors I needed to worry about. However, after reading a few negative reviews I discovered that whilst the cheaper tent was waterproof it was prone to leaking at the entrance. Not wanting to wake up with wet feet, I decided based on positive reviews to opt for the more expensive model.

What this brief example shows is just how important word of mouth is becoming in marketing. People are more cynical of marketing than ever; thanks to the web they can sidestep the sales pitch altogether to get the ‘real deal’ on a product’s true value.

This new age of transparency has some marketers worried. But it also presents an opportunity.

Harnessing word of mouth in your marketing

The ease with which people can share opinions means poor products and services can no longer be disguised behind clever copywriting and Photoshop. Complaints and criticism can spread in hours, undermining million pound marketing budgets in the process.

As my example shows, superior products (even if more expensive) will become easier to sell because of people’s trust in real life reviews. Customer feedback can also be incorporated into product design – no amount of testing is going to be as effective as the real life experiences of thousands.

So, as the transparent age approaches, marketers can choose to bury their heads in the sand, and ignore what’s being said about their products, or they can hail the rise of the consumer and incorporate the online conversation into delivering better products and more authentic marketing.

Next week: How to develop a social media marketing strategy

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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.

Is your marketing aimed at building closer bonds or telling people how wonderful you are? If it’s the latter you might want to head back to the whiteboard. The fact is that consumer mindsets are changing; the ability to share opinions globally, in mere hours, is irrevocably changing the nature of marketing.

No longer can we simply spoon feed people advertising whilst they’re slumped in front of the TV, or carpet bomb messages they’re now adept at sidestepping. People just aren’t listening anymore when there’s so much noise to contend with.

Added to this is the recession tightening purse strings and hardening people’s resolve not to be bullied into buying ‘stuff’.

So what we’ve now arrived at, in 2010, is the rise of the cynical, sceptical and often critical consumer, who’s not shy of sharing their opinions with friends, followers and the search engines. With consumers now less trusting, building more personal relationships will be the key to marketing in 2010.

Here’s a rundown of some of the trends to watch out for this year:

1. Driven by the proliferation of laptops, smartphones and internet enabled TVs, people will be going online more often and from more locations – positioning digital closer to the centre of marketing campaigns, rather than an offshoot

2. Despite what some digital fanboys might say, direct mail still has a role to play. Surveys show that people prefer to receive offers in print. But to help print survive it needs to be supported by email, personalised URLs and mobile to enhance its relevance and impact

3. Digital advertising will become more targeted as advertisers start using data on where visitors have been and what they’re doing. Expect a backlash when complaints on privacy lead to rushed government legislation. You can pre-empt this (and build trust) by making it clear what data you’re collecting and what visitors gain in return

4. Expect more cases of multi million pound marketing budgets being ruined by critical or mischievous consumer generated content

5. Brands will create their own media channels (and sidestep the traditional media) offering consumers valuable content, useful apps and branded live events

6. Search gets social –Tweets and status updates will start appearing in the search results, making customer service more integral to marketing

7. Crisis marketing – the ability to spread negative opinions globally in hours means you must have a plan in place for monitoring what’s being said, and have the tools to respond and be a part of the conversation

8. Social networking will fragment as teenagers abandon Facebook to escape snooping parents and as people form private networks amongst those whose opinions they actually care about. This will make the job of identifying where customers are congregating that little bit trickier – you won’t be able to just slap up a Facebook fan page and tick social media off the list

9. Mobile will come of age as people start buying more than just ring tones. Short code and coupon marketing will become more widespread, and smartphone apps will evolve from mere gimmicks into useful tools

10. 2010 is going to be an interesting year for marketers, and one in which you’ll need to significantly update your job description as marketing becomes integral to everything a company does

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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.

Tomorrow there will be people wondering whether their Christmas wishes will be granted this year. And marketers are no exception, many of whom will be hoping for some festive cheer after what has been a difficult year.

Here are five wishes we think many marketers will be hoping come true this Christmas:

1. Proliferation of smartphones

Smartphones are an exciting prospect, with their flashy touch screens, the explosion in the popularity of apps and because they’re such a personal device. There have certainly been some impressive marketing hits and misses this year. As we learn from those who got it right and avoid the mistakes of those who got it wrong, smartphones will become an integrated part of the marketing mix.

Even if millions of people don’t get smartphones in their stockings this year there’s no need to feel glum. There’s still plenty of fun to be had with short codes and coupons in the meantime.

2. More businesses realising the importance of the web

I could sprout off some stats about the millions who went shopping online this Xmas and the millions more searching for product information throughout the year. But I think a timely example is the recent race in the music charts. The X Factor marketing juggernaut had the power of TV, radio and in store advertising powering its campaign. Rage Against the Machine had Facebook.

Rage’s victory (on download sales alone) was a great demonstration of social media flexing its muscles to influence opinions and spread ideas. More businesses need to realise that online is where their customers are spending more and more of their time, and invest in their web presence accordingly.

3. More investment in PURL campaigns

We bang on about PURL campaigns a lot on this blog, and for a good reason –they’re just so darn effective.

Marketing needs to be targeted and personalised if it’s going to appeal to people weary of being carpet bombed messages of little relevance or value to them. PURL campaigns, whether integrated with print or email, enable you to deliver customised messages based on an individual’s preferences and capture data for future campaigns at the same time.

In 2010 you’ll need to be marketing smarter if you want people to listen, which is why many marketers will be hoping they get the funds they need to deliver targeted PURL campaigns next year.

4. Less spent on celebrity endorsements

The implosion of brand Tiger has had many brand strategists shaking their heads and saying we’ve already seen the first and the last one billion dollar brand.

Whether or not Tiger Woods seeks deliverance on Oprah, brands are now nervous of risking millions having their identity stapled to a fallible human being. Many marketers will be hoping the millions saved on celebrity endorsements can go on campaigns they can more easily predict and control.

5. Job security and rebuilt teams

2009 has certainly been a difficult year. Despite everyone agreeing that marketing more in a recession is the smart thing to do, most companies have guillotined budgets, leaving depleted teams scrambling around to deliver the same results on a shrunken budget, slowing momentum and dampening morale.

With signs of brighter times ahead, many marketers will be hoping the grip on the money hose is loosened, and they can start rehiring and jumpstarting campaigns that have been put on hold.

Here’s hoping that Santa makes some of these wishes come true and spreads some festive joy for all the overworked marketers out there this Christmas.

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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.

“As Tiger takes a break from the public eye, we will support his desire for privacy by limiting his role in our marketing programs.” – A Gillette statement as expertly spun as a Tiger Woods chip

Only two months ago Tiger Woods was being hailed as the world’s first billion dollar sportsman. Well, since then he certainly hasn’t been behaving like a billion dollar brand. As the criticism grew the more silent he became in what is a worsening PR disaster for the troubled golfer.

Going silent in a crisis might have worked in a time when you could control the messages being spun in the media. Not so now. The power of social media means people can spread rumours and opinions at a startling rate. Which is why speaking out in a crisis is vital, otherwise inaccurate claims go unchallenged and silence is equated to guilt.

Social media has sped up the need for crisis marketing

Whether it’s sharing opinions on Russell Brand, Jan Moir or BA’s cabin crews, it seems as though every week there’s another story being driven by what people are saying online. Nowadays people rush to comment, Tweet, join Facebook groups and angrily hammer out blog posts to fan the flames of that week’s raging debate.

Much of what’s written isn’t fact checked or balanced, with many false claims accepted as truth. So you must speak up and be part of the debate if you want to challenge inaccuracies and diffuse negativity.

But first you must have a marketing plan in place for when a crisis occurs.

How to market in a crisis

Listen – Before you can respond to criticism you have to be able to hear it. So you’ll need to set up listening posts in the form of RSS feeds for Google, Twitter, YouTube and anywhere else you think your brand name might be mentioned. You’ll then be able to listen to what’s being said so you can prepare your response.

Respond – Paralysing in a crisis isn’t going to win you friends. So you should aim to respond to an outbreak within 24 hours. In this era of transparency and sharing of information, denial will only backfire. Instead you should acknowledge the situation, explain why it has occurred and say what you’re doing to put it right.

When responding you could follow Dominos’ example and post a YouTube video (the most appropriate response in its case), start Tweeting or send out a press release. Publishing a statement on your website is a must.

Make sure you have a process for approving anything you publish and stick to a consistent message. Impulsive, off the cuff comments can live for a long time online, no matter how quickly you try to delete them after.

Prepare for a successful relaunch

In 1982 US painkiller brand Tylenol faced the disaster of a tampering scare. But through the way its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, handled the situation it emerged more trusted and with a larger market share. This reversal of fortune became known as a Tylenol 180, and is a legendary example of successfully turning a disaster into an opportunity.

When crisis occurs, holding your hands up and saying how you’re going to make things right can actually deepen your customer relationships. You can then start planning for a successful relaunch, because the story of redemption is a powerful one.

With sponsors abandoning him daily, Tiger Woods will need to make his tear filled appearance on Oprah soon, or find another way of relaying what the Tiger brand is now about. The longer he stays silent the more time (potentially) false claims will have to weaken his deteriorating marketing muscle.

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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.

This year the Fairtrade Foundation celebrated its 15^th birthday. Over the years it has helped improve the livelihoods of more than 7 million people throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. It’s a well respected organisation, fighting a noble cause. But as more shoppers opt for ethical brands, are companies going Fairtrade just for the marketing value?

This week Nestlé announced its Kit Kats (the four fingered variety anyway) are to be made from Fairtrade cocoa. It’s estimated the extra cash will benefit 8000 Ivory Coast farmers, with more funds being poured into education, healthcare and training.

But with Nestlé arguably the UK’s most boycotted company (thanks to their controversial marketing of baby milk), the news has hardly been greeted with universal praise. Nestlé’s critics have come out in force to question whether its gesture is genuine or just a cynical marketing ploy.

Nestlé aren’t the only company to be put under the ethical spotlight this year, with Starbucks, Cadbury and Tate & Lyle now all basking in a Fairtrade certified glow.

Going green is big business

These days you won’t just find ethical shoppers in Bodyshop and buying wicker baskets in specialist boutiques. The ethical market is now big business, with UK shoppers spending 40 billion green pounds last year. Many High St retailers now sell eco fashion ranges, whilst you can fill your home with sustainably made furniture and choose from 45oo Fairtade certified products.

In a recent survey 82% of consumers said they prefer to buy from companies that are socially and environmentally responsible; 23% will do so even if they’re products are more expensive. So it’s no wonder brands are eager to give their marketing an ethical stamp.

‘Green washed’ marketing risks a backlash

In 2007 the Advertising Standards Authority warned that the ‘green’ claims being made in many marketing campaigns might not be authentic. This followed action against a number of car manufacturers for their shaky claims on the ‘clean technology’ used in their cars.

The ASA’s warning seems timely, with so many brands now eager to paint themselves with a green tinted brush. But in the rush to go green many are forgetting the other values that are intrinsic to being seen as ethical: authenticity, honesty and trustworthiness.

As with all claims made in marketing, if brands are seen to be wearing green badges they don’t deserve they risk a backlash when their misdemeanours are exposed. This is why I don’t expect to see a rush of people lifting their embargo on Nestlé products anytime soon.

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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.

Christmas is fast approaching, and with it the rush to get to the shops. But with all the traffic and crowds, you’d be forgiven for staying away and buying your gifts online. Well, this year you can visit some of London’s top retailers from the comfort of home thanks to a new virtual world called NearLondon.

NearLondon offers laser scanned 3D recreations of Oxford St, Regent St and Bond St, with more streets to follow. Many top retailers have signed up to advertise their wares, although they’re currently limited to selling from a shop window. But as NearLondon evolves they’ll be able to house fashion shows, interactive games and virtual concerts in their branded stores.

Does this all sound familiar? Well, NearLondon’s creators have been at pains to point out it isn’t another Second Life, and for good reason too…

Second Life – Not dead, just evolving

It was only two years ago that Second Life was basking in the media spotlight as brands, businesses and even nations rushed to grab their piece of online real estate. In fact, the number of people joining jumped from 450,000 to 4 million in just one year.

But unfortunately Second Life just wasn’t accessible enough for most people, and failed to attract the numbers needed to make it a successful marketing platform. The branded shops and buildings became ghost towns when the crowds failed to materialise and the buzz fizzled out. In many brand managers’ eyes, Second Life is now dead.

However, the site still attracts a million regular users and is now being touted as a platform for online collaboration, virtual meetings and a teaching tool. But it remains to be seen whether Second Life will ever attract the numbers needed to tempt brands back to what was, for many, an expensive experiment.

Will NearLondon be different?

The fact that NearLondon’s creators are already talking about a NearNewYork and NearTokyo shows they’ve got big plans. But will they be able to attract enough shoppers to keep the brands happy?

Criticisms of Second Life have been its awkward controls and the cartoony graphics. In NearLondon, however, you just click around the screen to explore London’s streets which are rendered in detailed 3D graphics similar to the latest video games.

NearLondon is currently on limited release, with software disks to be handed out in London next Monday. Whether it can compete with the buzz and physicality of the real world shopping experience remains to be seen. But it’s certainly another step towards delivering more innovative branded experiences in the digital world.

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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.

In these cash strapped times, frugality has never been more fashionable. So it should come as no surprise that (according to a Juniper Research survey) 3 million people are now using mobile coupons in the UK. And with a redemption rate 6 times higher than paper, giving out mobile coupons is a marketing trend set to continue, even when we’re back to maxing out our credit cards.

Hunting around for discounts is already popular on the web. In fact, Hitwise estimated that searches for discount vouchers went up 47.5% in the past year. Coupons are great for email marketing too, with reports that open rates for emails with coupons average 25% compared to 16-18% for emails without.

So, as the figures show, coupons can be a great way of attracting people to your website and getting your emails opened. But when it comes to mobile, coupon marketing offers so much more…

Mobile – the ultimate personal marketing channel

Let’s just consider some of the benefits mobiles offer to marketers:

• Most people have one (many have two)
• They offer a direct route of contact
• They’re normally switched on and close to hand
• People can use them to respond impulsively to marketing
• The success of campaigns can be measured to the exact text message
• They have a built in payment mechanism

And all these benefits without the need of a touch screen!

When you consider the immediacy of mobile it’s no wonder coupon campaigns can be so effective. Here are two great examples:

Coca-Cola’s 200k giveaway

Coca-Cola recently ran a promotion (comprising of point-of-sale advertising, door posters and shelf blazers) letting people know they were only a text message away from a free drink. Participants simply had to text ‘YES’ and their date of birth to receive a promotion code for a free bottle of Fanta, Sprite or Dr Pepper.

The promotion helped distribute 200,000 free bottles to 100,000 people, without the need to fill in a form or cut out a coupon. The campaign had a very high redemption rate of 87%, and provided Coca-Cola with valuable data on coupon hotspots.

Planet Funk’s 377% campaign ROI

Uber trendy US clothing retailer Planet Funk is currently the poster child for mobile coupon marketing. In the run up to Christmas last year it sent 2000 coupons to text subscribers and people who’d texted in response to posters and ads on its website.

Planet Funk’s campaign received a 91% redemption rate – contributing 28% to their December sales and a 377% return on the cost of the campaign. As an added bonus, 15% of coupon redeemers (not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth) opted into future Planet Funk mobile campaigns.

As these two examples show, coupon marketing, whether by email or mobile, can be a very effective way of attracting a burst of sales and filling your database for future campaigns.

So, instead of Christmas cards, consider sending coupons to your favourite customers this year. It’s a gift many will be happy to receive.

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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.

Email services provider Campaigner recently surveyed 259 small businesses of which 46% said they used email marketing and 36% plan to start in the next year. So am I impressed by these findings? Does nearly half already using email sound a lot? Well, to be honest, it should be a lot more.

If only 36% plan on starting email marketing campaigns that leaves 18% who’ll continue to miss out on one of the best marketing tools around. Whether you’re a landscape gardener or an international retailer, email is a great tool for relationship building, attracting people to your website and notching up sales.

So for those 18% of small businesses who don’t see the need to use email (and anybody else’s who’d like some advice) here are a few tried and tested types of email marketing:

Informational

Arguably the most effective use of email (well, we certainly think so) is as a relationship building tool.

Sending out a newsletter packed with useful advice, product tips and industry insight is a great way of building rapport and trust in your brand, and, dare I say it, ‘thought leadership’. These typically receive high open rates and click throughs (but only if you’re providing great content, of course).

Newsletters can be quite time consuming to put together. But the beauty is that you can reuse the content in other marketing materials, such as your website’s blog (here at bda we do it the other way round).

Inspirational or entertaining

Consider sharing customer success stories and case studies of how your product/service has helped solve a problem. If you can write it in an interesting way (rather than like a backslapping press release) you can show off your expertise and reflect your business’ personality at the same time.

Promotion

Another popular way of using email is as a quick fire sales tool.

Whether it’s announcing a new product or offering a discount on an old one, email can be used to quickly spread awareness on your special offers. Email is also great for sending out coupons, which you can track to gauge the success of your campaign.

However, with many people weary of the amount of salesy emails they receive these days, response rates for promotional emails are typically low. You can, however, dramatically increase response if you can personalise your messages.

Personalisation power

Thanks to modern one-to-one marketing techniques, the days of carpet bombing the same message are over. Now it’s possible to personalise every email for each recipient.

And I don’t just mean changing the name. An email’s content can be customised based on all sorts of criteria, such as the recipient’s company’s size, their industry, purchase history and any other nugget of info stored in your database.

You can then create a flexible template in which you can drop customised content with a single mouse click. Personalising emails means you can cross-sell offers based on a customer’s purchase history, deliver case studies relevant to their industry and increase the value offering of each message.

With email fast becoming a mainstream marketing tool, it’s vital to ensure your messages are more relevant and valuable than your competitors. Personalisation (and great content) is what can make your emails ‘must reads’, rather than banished to the junk folder.

Offer a mixture of the above

So which type of email do you think is best? Well, they all certainly have their merits. But the best strategy is to mix all three.

Email marketing can take time to bear fruit. But one of its benefits is you can track every open, click through and sale. Watching how people respond to your messages helps you to identify what they’re interested in and which types of emails work best. You can then adjust your campaign accordingly.

Golden Rule = Get permission. Don’t spam

But before you run off to start penning your first email, whatever you do don’t buy a list of email addresses. Sending unsolicited email is akin to door-to-door selling in many people’s eyes. As well as being blocked or deleted, your message risks being flagged as spam, which will leave your credibility and campaign in tatters.

So do the honourable thing and start your own list by asking for email addresses at every opportunity. It might take longer to build your database. But you’ll have a list of permission based leads keen to hear what you have to say.

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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

With Christmas fast approaching, there will be plenty of people hoping for smartphones in stockings this year. Amongst them will be Google, who’ve just shelled out £449 million on Admob, a mobile advertising company. Dumping such a huge pot of cash on mobile has been seen as preparing for mass market adoption of smartphones. It’s expected that soon there will be millions more smartphone owners eagerly consuming content, and the ads to go with it. But in all this anticipation for smartphones, are some companies missing out on a mass market mobile marketing opportunity that already exists?

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m as excited as the next marketer about the opportunities offered by touchscreens, mobile apps and miniature web browsers. I just think that, in all the excitement, many companies are ignoring a way of engaging people on mobiles that’s popular, is already proven and offers one of the most immediate response mechanisms around.

What am I talking about? Why, the humble text message of course.

Marketing with short codes

Whilst some wait eagerly for the age of the smartphone, many smart marketers are already taking advantage of everyday, run of the mill text messaging technology.

You might by now be used to seeing five digit text numbers on TV shows, like X Factor, and on print ads (e.g. the Times’ 7am delivery ad on the London tube). These numbers are known as short codes, and they’re earmarked for massive growth (irrespective of what’s happening on smartphones).

These are just some of the benefits:

• More easily remembered than a telephone number or website address, particularly when the numbers spell out a word e.g. 62262 = OBAMA
• Virtually all mobiles can text
• People can take part in polls, receive coupons, register for news alerts and respond immediately to marketing messages
• All responses demonstrate interest
• Mobile numbers can be fed into a database for follow up activity
• Low deployment costs and fast delivery make short codes particularly suitable for time sensitive campaigns

But do people really want to receive floods of texted coupons, special offers and marketing messages I hear you ask? Well, according to research released by the Direct Marketing Association – yes, they do.

The DMA’s survey, of 270 people, found that 70% would be happy to receive messages from brands and 55% would welcome texts of sales and special offers. However, these findings shouldn’t be seen as an excuse to open the floodgates and start flooding people with text messages. Being useful and timely, rather than an annoyance, will be the key.

So whilst some companies sit watching the horizon for the dawn of the age of the smartphone, you can be engaging people with a simple technology that virtually everyone can already use.

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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.

Cynical, fickle and easily bored, these are just some of the reasons why teenagers are difficult to market to. In the past, marketers have struggled to reach this younger segment, but, thanks to the amount of time they’re spending online, the opportunities for engaging with teenagers are growing.

Persuading them to listen to you is tricky though because teenagers have grown up with marketing; they’re savvy enough to ignore anything that’s inauthentic, has nothing to offer them or tries too hard to be cool.

 So how can you deliver market that appeals to teenagers, rather than comes across as an embarrassing dad? These tips should help:

1. Teenagers get bored very quickly, so messages need to be short and simple

2. Be authentic because marketing savvy teens can quickly turn cynical ploys and shallow attempts at engagement into an online backlash

3. Despite how they’re often depicted in the media, teenagers are interested in serious social issues. So aligning your marketing with a campaign they care about can pull them in. Just make sure it’s a campaign you also believe in as well, otherwise you risk falling foul of tip 2

4. Teenagers change their clothes, hair styles and how they present themselves all the time. So you’re message needs to keep evolving along with them to avoid seeming dated and stale

5. Whatever you do, don’t try to be cool. Teenagers hate being patronised and will ridicule any clumsy attempts at teen speak. Trying to come across as cool is one of the main reasons why teen campaigns devised by 30+ year olds fail

6. So how should your campaign speak to teenagers? Well, one way is to consider who your audience’s role models are and then mirror their language and tone

7. Word of mouth is very important. Teenagers like to be seen as early adopters, but part of the crowd as well. So you need to get them talking about your product if it’s going to become a national craze

8. Consider marketing messages as pieces of entertainment and how you can create messages teenagers will want to share. Making them laugh, whilst tricky, can be a very effective way of making your product a topic of conversation during the school lunch break

9. When it comes to direct mail, your messages need to:

a) Be personalised to treat teenagers as individuals

b) Offer them something they can share or show off to their friends e.g. a badge or voucher

10. Social networking sites aren’t places for simply raining down your messages on teenage users. Instead you need to find a way of becoming a valued part of their online experience. This is why fan pages for products and brands are popping up all the time; the High School Musical and Hannah Montana Facebook pages are two great examples

11. Teens are content creators, whether it’s writing a blog, creating an avatar for a virtual world or uploading their mashups onto YouTube . You can harness this creativity, and build participation in your campaign, by asking them to contribute content

12. Teens have grown up with technology and can happily text, instant message and update Bebo all at the same time. They’re used to accessing content on demand, and will expect this from your campaign

13. As with all marketing, the best teen campaigns integrate TV, print and online. Aligning your campaign with a live event can also be a great way of building interest

14. If you’re not already using it, you should aim to include mobile in your teen marketing campaigns in the next year. Whilst teenagers are inseparable from their mobiles, the tone and style of content has to be pitched so it’s welcomed on such a personal device

15. Instant messenger is a popular tool amongst teenagers. But when communicating with the adult world they usually use email. So if you’re thinking of using IM in your campaign make sure you ask their permission first

16. Cyberbullying is rife, so brands have an ethical responsibility to protect members of their chat rooms and social networking groups. Monitor what’s being said and step in when necessary. Don’t leave teenagers to moderate themselves, unless you want your brand associated with an online version of Lord of the Flies

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 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.

With marketing so fragmented these days, even the biggest brands risk slipping up trying something new. And it’s been Pepsi left blushing after its iPhone app, ‘Amp Up Before You Score’, attracted the wrong sort of headlines for pigeonholing women (around half its customers). It’s certainly one experiment they won’t be in a rush to repeat.

Whilst most don’t backfire so spectacularly, there’s no shortage of poorly conceived iPhone apps created by brands. But there are also some great ones too, which reflect what the brand is about and extend the marketing experience onto the popular mobile device.

Here are 10 great branded iPhone apps Pepsi might want to take note of before releasing their next one:

1. myStarbucks – Users can create their own drinks, locate their nearest Starbucks and view nutritional info on different types of coffee bean. This is a good example of the type of apps retailers can create for directing people to their nearest store. Gap ‘Stylemixer’ is another notable example.

2. Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals – Currently the top grossing app in the UK iTunes store, with 50 recipes and step-by–step prep photos, perfect for when you’re at the supermarket and want to try something new for dinner.

3. Official Arsenal Football Club app – Another new and popular app in the UK iPhone store (well, with Gunners fans anyway) featuring info on fixtures, team news, video highlights and match photos. You can expect to see a flood of apps from sports teams enabling fans to stay connected to one of their life’s passions whenever and wherever they are.

4. Mercedes-Benz –C63 AMG – This is an excellent example of the mini site apps being created by luxury brands (e.g. Breitling, Christian Dior and Lacoste), which extend the marketing experience onto the iPhone. Mercedes’ app features videos of the new C63 AMG drag racing, engine sounds and, of course, directions to the nearest dealer.

5. Volkswagen Polo challenge – In an adrenaline fuelled alternative to Mercedes’ approach, this 3D racing game is designed to promote the launch of the new Polo. Race around seven courses before finding directions to the nearest showroom to test drive the real thing.

6. P!nk’s Funhouse – One of the first artist themed apps released, this promotional vehicle for the singer’s latest tour features pictures, video interviews and 30 second song clips to entice you into buying the full track. Expect to see similarly themed apps appearing for more artists and tours very soon.

7. Absolut Drinkspiration – If you ever want to impress your friends as a drinks connoisseur then this app can help. It offers drink suggestions based on criteria such as mood, the type of bar and shape of the glass. Maybe you’ll only use this app occasionally, but it fits in perfectly with what the brand is all about and promotes it’s logo at exactly the right time.

8. Virtual Zippo lighter – Currently the most popular branded app around with 5 million downloads of the imitation flame, which you’ve probably seen sparking up at concerts. Carling’s iPint is another popular example of virtual product marketing.

9. Oakley Surf Report – Access surf community news and weather reports for planning your next jaunt to the waves. Just be careful not to get your iPhone covered in sand when you go.

10. Last Minute’s Talking Phrasebook – More of a sponsored app this one, but perfectly relevant to the brand nevertheless. Rather than leave you struggling to pronounce phrases this app actually says them for you. This app is practical, useful and will certainly encourage you to visit Lastminute.com when planning your next trip abroad.

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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.

There was a time when the biggest surprise you’d find in a packet of Cornflakes was a plastic toy. But soon you could be finding logos floating in your bowl of cereal after Kelloggs announced plans to laser ‘brand’ individual flakes. Kelloggs hopes this rather extravagant measure will differentiate its cereal from cheaper imitations, highlighting the plight many luxury brands face in persuading customers to pay for the real thing.

Whilst counterfeiting is nothing new, the scale at which imitation products are being made and sold has grown to a whole new level in recent years. Many brands blame the recession and the internet for their piracy woes. But is the success of their marketing to blame as well?

Counterfeiters meet rising demand for luxury brands

In the chase for higher profits, many luxury brands have extended their product range and marketing from niche boutiques to high street retailers and the average shopper. What this means is that more and more people have been seduced with the allure and aspiration of owning a luxury brand. The problem is that many of these people can’t afford or don’t want to pay the price tag that goes along with it.

Luckily for those people, the internet has made it possible for counterfeit manufacturers in China to connect with Western shoppers in only a few mouse clicks. The quality of imitation products is often so good that even savvy shoppers can’t tell the difference. In fact, it’s rumoured that some counterfeit goods are churned out on the same machines that make the originals, with the only difference being that they were made without the brand’s approval or knowledge.

It could be argued that many luxury brands blundered when they moved the production of their handbags, clothes and perfumes into countries which are less regulated and harder to control. So what can they do to fight back?

The carrot and the stick

The war against cheap imitations is already being fought on two fronts: educating shoppers and chasing counterfeiters in the law courts.

A proportion of many brands’ marketing budgets are now being spent on persuading people why they should buy the real thing. Campaigns such as by the Federation of Swiss Watches and Fakes Are Never in Fashion are aimed at spreading awareness on all the evils associated with counterfeiting e.g. child labour, poverty level wages and even funding terrorism.

In terms of the legal war, eBay, until recently a treasure trove of fake handbags and perfume, has already felt the full brunt of the luxury brands’ rage. In June 2008 a Paris Court ordered eBay to pay £15 million to Louis Vuitton and £13 million to Christian Dior for selling fake imitations and causing ‘moral harm’. Louis Vuitton’s lawyers have been particularly busy, launching 24,000 lawsuits in 2007 and shutting down 750 counterfeiter websites.

The luxury brands will be hoping these efforts persuade people to pay a premium for the real thing. As otherwise they’ve created a hunger for their products which seemingly only the counterfeiters can satisfy.

Incidentally, sales of Kelloggs Cornflakes have actually gone up during the recession, as people opt for a reliable and reassuring brand on their breakfast table. Perhaps Kelloggs should worry less about lasers and promote this fact in their marketing instead.

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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.

Nearly two years after its release, it seems as though iPhones are becoming overloaded with gimmicky apps that get deleted after only two days. And this is particularly true when the app has been created as part of a marketing campaign.

Last year I commented on why iPhone apps were at the top of many brands’ Christmas wish list. Ever since Stanley Works released their virtual spirit level, brands have been pumping out mobile apps on an industrial scale.

To be fair, it’s easy to understand why. A recent Wireless Expertise study estimated the number of smartphones sold per year worldwide will rise from 165 million to 423 million by 2013. So finding a way of integrating mobile into the marketing mix is becoming essential, rather than an optional extra.

The market is saturated

The problem for marketers is that the smartphone market is already swamped with apps. In fact, there are already over 85,000 different apps just for the iPhone, following a gold rush of developers hoping to make their fortune.

With this level of competition, one of an app’s key aims should now be to stay on people’s mobiles and be something people will use regularly. So are brands going the right way about it? Or are they at risk of annoying people fed up with gimmicky mini games?

Well, according to research by Flurry, a mobile analytics company, the apps people use most frequently and for the longest period are those offering them useful information, rather than novelty mini games.

Mobile apps should give people what they want – useful info

In a study of user retention of 19 different types of apps over 90 days Flurry found that gimmicky apps (labelled as entertainment) and games ranked poorly for retention, as shown in this handy chart:

This study suggests that if brands want their apps to be used regularly and stay on people’s mobiles they need to be apps providing useful content.

There’s a growing consensus that brands need to become publishers if they want their marketing to appeal to consumers hungry for information and dismissive of advertising.

So as well as harnessing the ability to pump out news, industry insight and product advice on their website, brands need to start doing it through mobile apps too.

Gimmicky apps might get five minutes of fame. But according to Flurry’s study, it’s apps people find useful and use regularly that will stay on their mobiles and keep them engaged with a brand’s marketing.

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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.

Fernando Alonso's Gloves - they could be yours!

Last month a woman who works for the BCQ Group (which bda is part of) was in a major motorcycle accident and suffered serious injuries. On hearing the news, a team at BCQ whipped into action to organise a Quiz Night and Charity Auction to raise money to aid her rehabilitation.

The event’s on 13 October at the Buckingham Town Hall, and already over 30 teams have entered. But what’s been even more inspiring is the number of people not directly connected to BCQ who’ve come forward to donate to the cause.

We’re lucky enough to be located in the midst of Formula 1 team territory, with a number of team headquarters nearby, along with the Silverstone racetrack. Rachael Furn’s father, who works in the industry, told a number of F1 drivers about the auction at last week’s Japan Grand Prix, and the result was some astounding generosity.

Scuderia Toro Rosso held a spontaneous whip-around, resulting in a gift of 150 euro. We also have some great F1 memorabilia for the auction:

- Two Ferarri caps – one signed by Kimi Raïkkönen and the other signed by Felipé Massa; and
- Driving gloves – as worn on the day by Fernando Alonso, and also signed by him

Bid for this Ferrari Hat, signed by Felipé Massa

Or this Ferrari Hat, signed by Kimi Raïkkönen

If you or anyone you know is a Formula 1 fan, and you’d like to place a pre-auction bid for any of these items, please let us know, and we’ll make sure your bid is put forward on the night! And, needless to say, any further help or support for the cause will be greatly appreciated.

For more information, or to place a bid, please email anita.wise@bcqgroup.com. (Note that email bids must be received by Anita by 3pm on Tuesday 13 October to be eligible.)

Advertising agencies are notoriously male dominated, which is a problem when the majority of your customers are female. The fact is that rising female spending power is causing a shift in how products are designed and sold. And it will be those able to deliver marketing that’s appealing to women who’ll prosper. Those who continue to think we only live in a man’s world will fade away.

A few facts:

• 85% of US household purchase decisions are made by women (National Federation of Woman Business Owners)
• Women spend 10% more on the internet than men (Verdict Research)
• 91% of women say ‘advertisers don’t understand us’ (Martha Barletta, in ‘Marketing to Women’)

The web turns female

At ad:tech London, this week, a consultant from trend forecasters The Future Laboratory announced that the web turned female last year, meaning that there are now more female users than men.

So with female spending power, influence on buying decisions and prevalence on the web on the rise, marketers must consider whether their campaigns need to be adjusted.

How can marketing be made more appealing to women?

Does marketing need to be made more feminine?

Well, according to Martha Barletta, in ‘Marketing to Women’:

“Men and women don’t communicate the same way, and they don’t buy for the same reasons…He simply wants the transaction to take place.  She’s interested in creating a relationship.”

Other experts on feminine marketing have suggested that women take longer to reach buying decisions than men. They tend to research more and are less influenced by advertising. This means marketing needs to find subtler approaches.

Word of mouth marketing

When discussing feminine marketing, Tarek Mady (chair of the Marketing Department at the American University in Dubai) said:

“Women are the most powerful brand builders and the most dangerous brand killers due to their tendencies towards information sharing…In Dubai they are six times more likely to use word of mouth than men because by nature, people talk about products they are satisfied with.”

Perhaps the rise of the female shopper means it’s time to focus even more closely on subtle approaches, such as word of mouth and viral campaigns, rather than traditional advertising.

When it comes to feminine marketing the trap is falling into dated stereotypes, delivering marketing that’s patronising and treating all women as a single segment. So creating campaigns that are more appealing to women certainly poses a challenge, but it’s one marketers can’t afford to ignore.

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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.

According to a recent study many of the top brands struggle when it comes to being loved. In fact, none of them scored above 30% at the ‘love score’ amongst customers, based on criteria such as whether the brand ‘makes time to reward me’, ‘relates to me best’ or ‘cares about me more than just money’.

So what’s gone wrong with the top brands’ love lives? Why aren’t they creating the emotional connections that are supposed to come from millions spent on marketing?

Well, the low levels of affection for brands have been blamed on a lack of personalised engagement. After all, you need to make people feel special if you want them to love you back.

Internet dating is about relationship building

Internet dating is like marketing in many ways. There are two main approaches:

• You can send the same message to as many potential partners as possible
• Or pluck nuggets of info from their profile about their passions, hobbies and interests to drop into personalised messages

So which approach do you think works best? Yep, you guessed it – taking the time to show an interest in people as individuals is the best way to get a conversation going in the internet dating world.

Once you’ve started a dialogue you can then keep asking questions to make your messages more relevant before reaching a conversion in the form of a date. Where you go from there is the subject of a different blog entirely.

So what does internet dating teach brands?

If brands want to be loved they should try mirroring the tactics that work so well in internet dating, and deliver campaigns that are personalised to match the interests of individual prospects.

Thankfully, we now have the technology to build these campaigns.

With Purls (personalised URLs) we can create websites customised for each individual prospect, and then use variable data printing to send them personalised promotions based on every click and page view.

Boots, for example, could reward its customer better by sending them personalised print and online promotions based on their purchase history. Not only will this cut down on the printing costs of sending an entire catalogue, but will also deliver marketing that’s more relevant and better received.

Brands need to remember that people are individuals, with their own interests and preferences. So, as in the internet dating world, they need to treat customers as unique individuals if they want to be more loved in return.

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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.

Andy looking surprisingly good in lurid green

Big congratulations to Andy who completed his second Great North Run yesterday, raising £480 for Leukemia Research UK. Shaving five minutes off his 2008 time, Andy completed the half marathon in a highly respectable 1 hour 57 minutes.  He finished in 9,819th position, leaving 44,181 other runners behind him in the dust.

We’re impressed, despite the fact that he was overtaken by someone wearing a Scooby Doo costume on the home stretch!

Thanks to everyone who sponsored Andy  and don’t be surprised if he tries to hit you up for some sponsorship for next year’s London Marathon ….

How can you make money from a user base that hates advertising and doesn’t want to pay for content?

Well, that’s a puzzle all media companies seem to be struggling with at the moment. Whether it’s newspapers, commercial TV or Facebook, no one has yet worked out how to monetise content with advertising people are happy to receive.

But that doesn’t stop them trying…

ITV gets the law changed

Commercial TV has, at least, been thrown a lifeline (albeit a thin one).

Almost exactly a year ago we discussed on the bda blog ITV’s ill fated experiments with ad overlay technology, which could have had viewers spitting out their tea when ghostly slogans started appearing on walls and on people’s foreheads. Thankfully these experiments are unlikely to reach our screens now that product placement on TV has been given a tentative green light.

It’s predicted that product placement could earn UK commercial TV companies £125 million a year. Whilst mere pocket change compared to total TV ad revenue of nearly £3 bn, the decision to allow product placement reflects how advertising has to become more inventive if it’s going to survive in our anti-ads culture.

UK commercial broadcasters will have to tread carefully though. They don’t want to shoehorn too many mentions of Aston Martins and lingering shots of iPhones into the script. Any product placements will need to be done subtly, otherwise viewers will vote with their remotes.

Twitter changes its user agreement

Finding the right balance in how many times you mention brand names is something ITV and Twitter have in common following Twitter’s announcement of changes to its user agreement, which “leave the door open for advertising” to its 45 million users.

Grumbles of discontent at the news are already spreading on blogs, in forums and on Twitter itself. So Twitter, just like ITV, will have to be careful in how it introduces its new advertising model. It will need to find a way of delivering ads people are at least accepting of, in exchange for a service they value.

As with all marketing, the answer lies in delivering advertising in a way that’s useful, relevant and welcomed. But unfortunately this is a puzzle few, if any, have been able to solve.

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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.

A couple of weeks ago we offered a few tips on driving traffic to your website using pay-per click ads. Now, driving traffic is one thing, but you still need to know what you’re going to do with visitors when they arrive. So here are bda’s 8 vital website conversion tips for turning more clicks into sales:

1. Help people find what they’re looking for

People on the web have the concentration spans of goldfish. So if they don’t quickly find what they’re looking for they’ll be gone before you’ve had a chance to reel them.

• Provide a clearly labelled navigation bar using familiar section names
• Align elements so they flow in a Z pattern and mirror how people scan web pages
• Avoid too much clutter and space elements evenly
• Use arrows to direct visitors along a clear path around the site
• Break up long blocks of text into sections to aid skin reading and so they don’t appear too daunting to read

2. Use your ‘About’ page to build trust

As the old adage goes, ‘people like to trade with those they know and trust’, which is why the ‘About’ page can have a big impact on sales.

On the web you don’t have the luxury of introducing yourself in person, so the ‘About’ page is the next best thing. Use this page to tell visitors about your company’s history, what you’re passionate about and about your brand’s message.

The more people know about you the more reasons they have to trust you. It can also differentiate you from your competitors who stay anonymous.

3. Answer questions that might block a sale

In the bricks and mortar world people can ask questions to decide whether a product solves their problem and if it’s the best solution for them.

In the digital world you don’t shop assistants to respond to questions, and you can’t expect people to email or pickup the phone. So instead you have to answer queries through your content.

Write a list of the questions people might ask before they’re ready to buy. Then write blog posts or an faq section in which you answer them in an open format. Include links on the relevant product pages and you’ll be removing hurdles that might otherwise have tripped up a sale.

4. Invest in high quality images

Avoid clichéd, stale stock photography. Instead, invest in high quality shots of your people, products and your workplace. Give people the visual reassurance that you’re an established, professional company, and not a fly-by-night organisation that’ll vanish once they’ve placed an order.

If you’re selling software include screenshots. And if you’re feeling ambitious, you could record a video talking about your company and to show off your products. After all, isn’t video supposed to be the next big thing in online marketing? So get a head start on your rivals.

5. Choose your words carefully

A mistake a lot of business websites make is to complete the design stage first and then crowbar in the words (a.k.a. copy) wherever there’s space.

This is a mistake because it’s the words that do most of the selling. It’s your words that speak to your customers and will persuade them that buying your product is the smart thing to do.

As in the real world, people buy things based on two triggers: emotion and logic. Hard hitting copy using time proven copywriting techniques appeals to both these triggers and hammers home your USP.

In fact, your website’s copy is the most influential element when it comes to selling the benefits of your business. So don’t leave it as the last element to tick off the list.

6. Offer free content

Software companies often give away free limited versions of their products so that users invest time in them before buying the full upgrade.

Even if you don’t sell software, you can mirror this tactic by giving away free content, such as an eBook, newsletter or podcast. If you offer free gifts in exchange for an email address you can maintain contact with visitors and build a relationship long after they’ve left your website.

People are also more likely to reward you with their business because of the psychological impulse to reward generosity.

7. Remove nasty surprises that cause shopping cart abandonment

It can be agonising watching the number of people visiting your site, filling up their shopping basket and then abandoning it at the checkout till.

One way of minimising cart abandonment is to eliminate nasty surprises. Consider offering free postage, by including it in the original price, and reassuring customers they can get a refund due to your ‘no quibbles’ returns policy.

8. Test, adjust and test again

The beauty of the internet is you can endlessly test every element to improve clicks and conversions. So experiment with different font sizes, calls to action, images and copy.

If budget allows, invest in usability testing to see how easily people can find their way around your site and whether they’re persuaded to buy your products.

Use analytical software to track what pages your visitors are interested in and which send them fleeing. Continuous testing will highlight your site’s strengths and weaknesses, and, ultimately, show you how to convert more clicks into sales.

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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.

Facebook continues to be an untapped goldmine struggling to extract cash from its users. People love the service, but aren’t prepared to pay for it.

So advertising remains Facebook’s main source of income. But in its rush to deliver targeted, contextual ads using its members’ data, Facebook needs to be careful it doesn’t upset its users in the process.

And it’s not just its own advertising Facebook needs to be concerned about.

People consider personal data private

It’s no secret that whenever you take part in a quiz or download an app you’re handing over your personal information, and that of your friends, to Facebook’s third party developers.

What they then do with your info is anyone’s guess. But it’s unlikely they create quizzes and apps for your entertainment when there’s money to be made.

In fact, it’s predicted that Facebook’s developer community could soon be earning more than the site itself. It’s estimated this year they could pocket a combined $300-$500 million from sales of virtual goods (e.g. tommy guns in Mafia Wars and poker chips), branded sponsorship and, of course, advertising.

The problem is that some of these developers are misusing people’s personal information. And Facebook needs to step in before the abuse gets out of hand.

Misusing customer data will lose their trust

Facebook is already facing a spate of privacy lawsuits, cases of applications recording people’s login details and a man seeing his wife advertised as a ‘hot single’. And recently a number of applications had to be suspended for flouting Facebook’s user privacy policy.

So Facebook does, indeed, appear to be at a crossroads: it can either start doing more to protect how its members’ data is used or risk losing their trust and loyalty. You only have to look at the demise of Friends Reunited and falling popularity of MySpace to know how quickly fickle online crowds can move onto the next big thing.

Last week, Facebook announced it would be making some changes to give its users more control over their data. In the future, developers will have to specify what information their applications need to use and users will also be able to block applications from scraping their friends’ profiles.

But it will take at least a year before these changes come into effect. So Facebook will be hoping that, in the meantime, there aren’t more cases of people’s private data being misused. Or there might be a rush of its members logging out for good.

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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.

Google has been ruffling a few feathers recently after announcing on its Adwords blog that the position your ad appears in the search results doesn’t affect its conversion rate. Its research suggests that whether your ad appears at the top of the page or the bottom the likelihood of people taking action on your website remains the same.

This news has been greeted by a mixture of shrugged shoulders and furrowed brows. Some people wonder why this is even news, whilst others are annoyed at Google’s subtle marketing ploy. Because Google’s research could be interpreted as suggesting the only way to improve your website’s sales is to attract more traffic, which means getting sucked into a bidding war for the top positions.

So is Google correct and the conversion rate remains the same wherever your ad is placed? Or can its position and content be optimised to attract a higher proportion of buyers, rather than browsers?

Who cares about clicks? Send me customers!

Many big companies buy up the top positions for generic terms as part of a branding strategy. They want you to find their website as soon as possible so you can register and bookmark it, even if you’re not yet ready.

This strategy is fine if you’re happy to throw £1000s at Google Adwords everyday. But if you’ve a limited budget, chasing after the top position might not offer you the best return.

Most people initially search the web for information. So if your ad is in top position you’ll attract a lot of browsers at the early info gathering stage.

If your ad appears lower down you’re going to attract fewer clicks. But the clicks you do receive will be from people who’ve scrolled down the page, which suggests they’ve progressed further along the research stage and are closer to buying.

So an ad in 7^th or 8^th position might attract fewer clicks than those at the top. But, potentially, a higher proportion of those clicks will be from people who’ve picked out your ad for a specific reason. So managing your bids to appear further down the page could offer you a better return on your Adwords investment than fighting an expensive war for top position.

To increase your conversion rate it can also help if your ad is targeted at specific prospects, rather than as many people as possible.

How can my Google Ad be better targeted at buyers?

One of the world’s best known copywriters, Bob Bly, recently said that every great ad has four ingredients: urgent, useful, unique and ultra-specific. This is particularly appropriate to creating targeted Google ads.

Instead of focusing on generic keywords, consider how your ad can be made more unique and ultra-specific. If you sell a range of products, how can you create an ad targeted at customers for each one?

For example, if you sell industrial furniture you could create separate ads focused on ‘antistatic workbenches’ and ‘small parts storage cabinets’. You could also include the price to dissuade clicks from those on a limited budget. Your ads might attract fewer clicks. But a higher proportion of those clicks will be from targeted prospects more likely to buy.

The beauty of Adwords is you can split test different keywords and descriptions to discover which offers the best conversion rate for you. Just don’t listen to Google and settle for a 1% conversion rate when higher ones are possible.

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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.

Next month everyone will be able to start playing around with Google’s snazzy new app: Google Wave. It’s already being billed as the future of email and revolutionising the way we collaborate on the web, as the hype machine pumps out superlatives.

So is the hype justified? Does Google Wave truly offer marketers new opportunities for starting a real dialogue with customers? Or will it be another niche tool few will use outside the web savvy crowd?

What is Google Wave?

Imagine the love child of email and instant messaging and you’re not far away from picturing Google Wave.

Instead of emails you send ‘waves’, to which recipients can reply, edit your message or chat in real time just as you would on messenger. Members of the wave can also drag and drop photos, videos and links into the conversation, as well as go back and edit earlier posts.

The ability to build a group conversation in this way obviously offers great potential for collaborating on projects. But does Google Wave offer anything new to marketers?

Is Google Wave the future of email?

You’ll often hear email marketing being described as an ‘ongoing dialogue with customers’ or a ‘one-to-one conversation’. But marketing emails often seem more like infomercial broadcasts than a two way dialogue.

Well, Google Wave could change all that with its welding together of email and instant messaging. And it has the potential to offer email marketers the level of engagement they’ve been striving for.

If Google Wave becomes a success, instead of asking website visitors for an email address you’ll ask them to join your wave. As well as receiving your latest promotional offers, members of your wave will be able to ask questions in real time and interact with other members in an open format.

This level of interactivity means marketing messages will have to be about more than just encouraging clicks to buy your products. They will, in fact, be more like sitting around a table having a chat with your customers, than making a speech to a captive audience.

But how can you have 100s of conversations at once?

Google Wave offers great potential for greater customer engagement with your brand. But it also presents a challenge: how can you manage conversations with 100s or 1000s of your customers at once?

Well, if Google Wave does prove to be the success its creators hope, and starts to replace email, marketers will have to find a way of using what could be the ultimate conversational marketing tool.

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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.

Microsoft might have been named the UK’s most popular brand earlier this year, but it’s not going to be on many email marketers’ Christmas card list. Its decision to continue using Word to render emails in Outlook 2010 has had web developers and email marketers up in arms in recent months. Despite the best efforts of the Email Standards Project, fixoutlook.org, 100s of blog posts and 1000s of Tweets to rally support against its decision, Microsoft has refused to change its mind.

Why is using Word a problem?

Prior to Outlook 2007, Microsoft used Internet Explorer to render emails. This suited email marketers because they could create attractive newsletters in the same way as they’d create a web page. But in 2007 Microsoft decided to switch to using Word. This didn’t just put the brakes on email newsletter design but put it in reverse.

CSS is a popular coding language for creating web pages, and would be the language of choice for most newsletter developers. But the problem is that Word struggles to accurately render CSS code, leading to CSS emails appearing broken, with images ripped out, fonts changed and the layout messed up. So instead developers are forced to stick to the antiquated design methods Word allows.

Microsoft’s decision to use Word infuriated the web developer community in 2007, but many hoped Microsoft would listen to the complaints and reverse its decision for the 2010 edition. However, with the release of Outlook 2010 imminent, it looks as though email marketers are going to be stuck with Word for another five years at least.

Possible reasons

So is Microsoft’s decision to continue using Word due to laziness? To lock people into using its products? Or just pure arrogance in refusing to listen to web developers’ demands? After all, why is Microsoft going to pay attention to 16,000 complaints on Twitter when it has a subservient user base of over 300 million?

One of the reasons given by Microsoft has been security because Word won’t run the web scripts used by spammers. But Outlook has been plagued with security issues in the past and Microsoft has always been quick to praise the protection offered by Internet Explorer. So security is unlikely to be the real reason.

The most logical explanation is that Microsoft is simply trying to provide the most consistent experience for Outlook users.

Looking after its users

If Microsoft were to use Internet Explorer then when emails are first received they’ll be rendered accurately. But if the recipient then replies or forwards the email on, any changes they make will be done using Word. Using two different rendering engines in this way was leading to inconsistencies between what people created in Word and what was received.

So to ensure emails appeared consistently between Outlook users, Microsoft decided to just use Word for both rendering and creation to remove the possibility of these inconsistencies occurring.

So Microsoft might be the UK’s most popular brand. But their decision to continue using Word to render emails means there are plenty of web developers hoping Google and its new email application, Google Wave, knocks Microsoft off its perch next year.

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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.

Recent research by E-Consultancy has highlighted how valuable email continues to be for lead generation. In its study, E-Consultancy found that, along with natural search (SEO), email continues to be one of the most popular methods of generating sales on the web, with 74% of companies using it regularly.

Whilst other budgets are suffering in the recession (e.g. 12% drop in the use of paid search in the last year), email’s cost effectiveness has secured its position as the ever reliable workhorse of digital marketing.

To help you gain the maximum benefit from your email campaigns, here are 15 tips for creating emails that are opened, read and responded to:

1. Offer something for free to attract subscribers – A common tactic is to offer a free eBook, discount voucher or podcast to entice people to register their email address
2. Make it easy to subscribe – Have a clear subscription box on your website, with details of what they can gain from registering for your email newsletter
3. Use an eye catching subject line – When your email arrives you have half a second to catch your reader’s attention before they decide whether to ignore it or delete it altogether. So use an intriguing headline that offers a benefit and a promise of what they’ll gain from reading what you have to say
4. Feature interesting content ‘above the fold’ – Recipients will often glance at your email in the preview pane before deciding whether to open it or not. So position interesting content, such as an eye catching image or list of the featured topics, in the top visible part of your message
5. Make it personal – People’s inbox is a private place closely guarded against unwanted visitors. So make sure you come across as a welcomed, polite guest by using your database to address recipients by name. This can dramatically improve your open rate
6. Make it conversational – Your email should feel like a one-to-one conversation, rather than a single message broadcast to 1000s. So use an informal, conversational style of writing as though writing to a friend with some great information you want to share
7. Make it relevant – Use what you know about your customers to make your emails more relevant to their interests. So send them details of products related to what they’re bought before or expressed an interest in to help improve your response rate
8. Create a persona – A tactic used by many large organisations to make their messages more personable is to use an imaginary character as the email’s author. This can help their messages to come across as the viewpoint of another customer or independent commentator, rather than a drone towing the corporate line
9. Don’t try to overtly sell – Save the sales copy for your corporate brochure. People register to receive emails from you because they want useful information, not a sales pitch.
10. Offer to solve a problem – Sell through education, offer useful information that helps to solve a customer’s problem or offers them useful insight they won’t find elsewhere. Providing great content of value will build trust, demonstrate your expertise and increase the likelihood of the reader wanting to buy your product
11. Keep it short – Your emails should contain nuggets of information readers can quickly consume, rather than longwinded articles. If you do have a lot of information you want to share then offer a summary or snippet in your email with a link back to the full article on your website
12. Make it easy to unsubscribe – It’s good manners to make it easy for people to leave your email list, with a clear ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of your email. Otherwise you risk damaging the relationship if the recipient feels they’ve been tricked into an agreement they can’t get out of
13. Be timely – Send your emails at the same time, whether it’s weekly or monthly. Then people will have the expectation of receiving your messages and are more likely to be preconditioned to open them
14. Be consistent – Adopt a familiar layout, design and style of copy in every message. Then your readers will know which parts they like to read and will recognise the emails are from you. Being consistent also helps maintain your branding and the positive impression your building with every message
15. Use a clear call to action – Generally speaking, the aim of your email is to persuade the recipient to click through to your website and buy your product or service. So make sure you’re providing a clear call to action which tells your reader exactly what you want them to do
16. Test your messages – Send different versions of your email to different segments in your email list, with different titles, layouts and content, to see which generate the best response. Through testing what works best you can learn how to improve your emails’ effectiveness and increase the number taking action and buying your product at the end

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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.

Despite all the fuss over Twitter and Facebook, email continues to be the workhorse of internet marketing, and one of your most potent tools. It’s great for maintaining contact with prospects, building relationships and turning leads into customers.

But there’s more to email than just sending them out and waiting for the sales to roll in. First you have to get your messages delivered, which is why deliverability continues to be the email marketer’s top priority and challenge.

A recent study in the US found that 1 in 5 emails fail to make it into people’s inboxes, which is a large chunk of your budget wasted. So to help you improve the odds of your messages making it through, here are 15 tips for improving the deliverability of your emails:

1. Avoid spammy gimmicks – Emails are blocked or junked because they’re regarded as spam. So you should avoid the stylistic tactics used by spammers, such as all caps, big fonts and lots of exclamation points!!!
2. Avoid excessive use of hype words – Spam filters are constantly being updated to look out for the words and phrases used to sell dodgy pills and money making scams. So avoid using words and phrases like free, limited time offer, amazing and bonus
3. Screen with SpamAssassin – Give your emails a quick health check with this free tool. SpamAssassin will check your messages and then inform you what changes are needed to improve the chance of them being delivered
4. Use an email service provider – Specialist email marketing service providers maintain good working relationships with internet service providers to ensure a high percentage of their emails make it through. Popular services include Constant Contact, AWeber and iContact
5. Delete bounced emails from your list – If any emails are returned undelivered then delete the recipients address from your list straightaway. If your email campaigns start having a bounce rate of higher than 5% then you risk being flagged as a spammer and your messages blocked
6. Don’t send over 200 identical emails at once – If you do need to send high volumes, send them in batches and allow a few minute gap between each batch
7. Send marketing email through a different IP address to your corporate email – Using different IP addresses will ensure that if your marketing emails are blocked it wont affect your day to day business emails
8. Implement authentication protocols (e.g. Sender ID, DomainKeys and Sender Policy Framework) – Authentication counters the problem of anonymous phishing and spoof emails by identifying the sender
9. Use verified opt-in – When people first subscribe to your email newsletter they’ll be sent an introductory email with a unique link. When they click on the link it authenticates their email address and that they’ve given permission for you to send them messages
10. Ask to be added to their address book – This will get your sender address white listed and save your messages from falling into the junk folder
11. Provide HTML and text email formats – Although HTML emails often get a higher response rate, they can be easily mistaken for spam. So send ‘sandwich’ messages containing both formats to ensure at least one version gets delivered
12. Don’t use too many graphics – Graphics are often ripped out by corporate message filters, so don’t rely on graphics to carry the message. Use images sparingly and only when relevant to your offer as they can also slow down how quickly the email is downloaded, which can lead to recipients hovering dangerously over the delete key
13. Avoid using attachments – Attachments are often used to deliver viruses in the disguise of supposedly important documents, so people are wary of opening them. Attachments also increase the size of your email, so offer a link to the document hosted on your website instead
14. Send email at right time – The best time to send emails is around lunchtime Tuesday to Thursday. On Mondays people will be too busy to read it, whilst on Fridays they’re already thinking about the weekend
15. Segment emails for a better response – Offering content that’s relevant, timely and of valuable to your recipient is the key to email marketing. So for starters, you should send different emails to existing customers to those you send to prospects, and sending offers relevant to what they’ve bought before is also a good idea

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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.

With all the excitement over the internet in the marketing world, you’re often left thinking that if your marketing plan doesn’t include a Facebook group, a ‘viral’ YouTube video or a Twitter campaign you might as well not bother. Apparently, people aren’t interested in traditional marketing anymore, and printing off brochures and direct mail is a waste of trees.

So, is traditional marketing a waste of time? Are people so engrossed in looking up old school friends and online shopping that they don’t have time to read anything you print?

Well, you’d certainly think so based on recent Advertising Association research, which found that one in five marketing pounds are now being spent online, whilst traditional budgets appear to be in freefall.

Last year, spend on press advertising fell 11.8% and TV ad budgets fell 4.9%. But spending on the web grew 19.1% to £3.6 billion, which means it’s now snapping at the heels of the wheezing £4.4 billion TV ad market.

Nearly 60% of web budgets are spent on search

According to an eMarketer report, 59.3% of online budgets were spent on search marketing in 2008 – an increase of 4.9% on the previous year. Whilst growth has since stalled to 0.9%, the proportion of web budgets being spent on search shows that driving traffic is top priority.

But is this the smartest approach? Is investing in search the best use of your shrinking budget? Or are there other methods of driving traffic that marketers are missing out on?

60% are most likely to visit a website in response to print

Bastions of the print world, Pitney Bowes recently reported that it’s actually good old traditional direct mail that might be the most likely medium to trigger a visit to your website.

In fact, 60% in the survey said that addressed mail was the most likely to trigger an online purchase, whilst only 24% believed emails and sponsored links would send them to a website they hadn’t visited before.

This follows on from previous Pitney Bowes research in which 73% said they’d prefer to receive special offers and product announcements in the mail rather than in digital form.

Print can be the trigger for digital marketing

It’s easy to get carried away with all the excitement on the web’s potential: people are spending more and more time updating Facebook, looking up product info and shopping for the best services. So it’s easy to see why shifting your budget from print to search marketing seems to be the smart thing to do.

But as the Pitney Bowes research shows, print still has a vital role to play. It can act as the introduction to your digital marketing and trigger people into visiting your website.

Just remember that direct mail can be binned as junk as easily as an irrelevant email. So make sure your printed offers are relevant, personalised and delivered to the right person at the right time.

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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.

With the announcement of this year’s top ten Superbrands, there’s likely to be a few CEOs banging their desk demanding why they’re not in the list, and others taking their marketing team out to lunch. The results also offer us marketing bods some juicy tidbits on what people in the street are thinking.

With a recessionary thunderstorm still raging, the big climbers this year have been comfort and convenience foods. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are basking in the spotlight of being the highest new entry, whilst fast food retailers have leaped around 150 places up the table.

But the brand grabbing all the headlines is Microsoft, after marching to snatch back its crown as the top Superbrand, and smiting its rival, Google, into third place. Could Google’s fall from grace be a backlash against its controversial Street View? Or is Microsoft now the plucky underdog against Google’s plans for digital domination?

You can’t become a Superbrand overnight

Along with Apple, tech companies Microsoft and Google perform well because they’re seen as innovative, forward thinking and vibrant.

However, this technological sparkle has yet to start appearing on the younger online brands, such as Facebook, YouTube or Yahoo. They continue to languish outside the top 100 despite all the headlines they attract or their millions of users.

Perhaps this is a much needed reminder that not everybody spends all day on the web, and that there are plenty of everyday brands that continue to be more relevant in people’s lives (more on this next week).

What makes a Superbrand?

Many brands come and go in the list, but there are a few that are safe bets to make the top ten, whatever Daily Mail headlines they appear in.

British Airways, the BBC and Mercedes Benz are in the top ten virtually every year because they’ve spent decades developing positive associations with their brand. In the eyes of their customers, they offer tangible benefits in terms of quality, reliability and a sense of pride of ownership.

Having such a well entrenched brand perception is built by having an obsession to deliver excellence in everything they do. This includes customer service, the promise made in their marketing and, most importantly, the quality of their products. It’s this dedication that means they stand for something in the eyes of their customers, whatever else is happening in the marketplace.

So if you want to become a superbrand, whether you’re a solo enterprise or a global conglomerate, you should take some notes from those at the top and strive for excellence in everything you do.

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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.

If you haven’t heard, the impact crowds can have on the news, and society in general, is a hot topic at the moment. Recent examples include the use of Twitter in the Iranian elections and the Guardian newspaper inviting its readers to audit MPs’ expenses.

But is all the hype around crowdsourcing just an excuse for laziness on the part of those who present that content as their own ‘work’’? After all, the concept has been tarnished by being linked to cheap labour and ways for companies to cut costs by outsourcing to the lowest bidder.

As with everything, it all depends on context.

One of the more controversial current examples is Antony Gormley’s art project in Trafalgar Square, where 240 members of the public have the chance to stand on the Square’s famous plinth for one hour each over the course of 100 days.

Should he take all the credit for his ‘crowd’s’ ideas about what they will do once they’re on the plinth – such as the guy who stood there dressed as a poo?

Is Gormley an artistic genius or a lazy sod?

I’m a little out of my comfort zone when it comes to commenting on modern art, but I do know good online crowdsourcing when I see it.

You only have to consider the high quality of some open source software, to realise how effective mass collaboration on the web can be. Linux’s creator Linus Torvalds, can now only be responsible for 2% of its code, whilst Wikipedia and Wordpress wouldn’t be the globally popular services they are today without the input of thousands.

Is crowdsourcing the future of how brands evolve?

Crowdsourcing is now starting to impact branding decisions and product development. Major brands, such as P&G, Starbucks and Dell are now all using social networking tools to help engage customers and get feedback on what people want their products to do.

Some even think that crowdsourcing could dictate how brands and products evolve in the future, now that people are having more input into how decisions are made. Are such predictions correct?

Well, these eight examples of crowdsourcing should give you some indication of the potential crowdsourcing offers:

8 Examples or Crowdsourcing

1. Unilever – Why pay millions to an ad agency, when you can plug into the creativity of your customers? This leading consumer product brand is offering prizes of up to $60,000 to whoever can create the best commercial for Axe’s Hair Crisis.

2. Threadless – An excellent example of how a community can build a brand, Threadless relies on its members to submit T-shirt designs which are then voted on before cash prizes are dished out. After all, who knows better what T-shirts people want than those who’ll be wearing them?

3. We Are Hunted – Ever wondered what’s the most popular song on the web? Well, this website ranks the most popular music on blogs and social networks – certain to be popular with ageing commercial record execs, wanting to know what the kids are listening to.

4. James Patterson’s ‘Airborne’ – These days, with blogs and witty Facebook updates, everyone’s a writer. So it seems apt that earlier this year the world’s first ‘chain thriller’ was born. James Patterson gave 28 competition winners the chance to write a chapter before reaching in to pull all the strings together at the end.

5. Galaxy Zoo – When you’ve got a quarter of a million galaxies to classify, you’re looking at a lot of overtime for an army of temps. Thankfully, so far 200,000 eager stargazers have helped to complete an otherwise impossible task.

6. Brand Tags – Finding out what people really think of your logo can be scary. Has the millions spent on its design and marketing paid off? One way to find out is to ask your customers what they think on this logo tagging website.

7. Oxfam poster boys (and girls) – How can you inspire others to fight poverty? Well, this was the question Oxfam faced in designing new billboard posters. Who better to ask than your loyal members, by requesting suggestions on the Oxfam website.

8. The Game Cartel – With some video games now costing almost as much as Christiano Ronaldo, getting enough funds together can be tricky. So, The Game Cartel, is aiming to make history by offering 100,000 gamers the chance to choose how they’d like their game designed in exchange for $50. They estimate that the game should cost $3m to make, leaving them with a nice $2m profit (if their plan works of course).

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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.

NZ tennis players, like Brett Steven, know short = sweet!

As we turn up the radio coverage of Andy Murray playing Andy Roddick in today’s Wimbledon Semi-Final, I have a confession to make.

I have very mixed feelings about tennis. Basically, I find it inexorably dull. However, I can handle watching matches where one player absolutely whips the pants off another – like when Venus Williams beat Dinara Safina earlier in the week – because it means the games are really short (53 minutes).

What I cannot stand is a) actually caring whether one of the players wins (and therefore being emotionally involved) AND b) the game taking a long, long time to play. Andy Murray requiring five sets and four hours to win against Stanislas Wawrinka in the fourth round of Wimbledon would, therefore, have been an excruciatingly painful experience … had I been watching it. (I wasn’t.)

With cricket, you know you’re in for the long haul, and can gear up accordingly. You know it will take all day (or five days) to play so you don’t feel the need to stay glued to the radio or TV. You can go to the loo, or to the fridge for another beer, fairly safe in the knowledge that the game won’t be over by the time you get back.

But tennis. Well. The shortest Wimbledon match ever involved one of my Kiwi compatriots – Brett Steven – who put his back out in the first rally of a doubles match in 1995, thus ending the game after mere seconds. Compare this to the game Todd Perry and Simon Aspelin had against Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor in 2006, where they lost the Wimbledon doubles quarter final 5-7 6-3 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 23-21, after being on court for six hours and seven minutes. That’s just ridiculous.

And now I find myself tuning in to Murray and wanting him to win. If I hear the words ‘tie-break’, ‘7-6’ or ‘sixth set’ within the next one to six hours I shall scream.

People don’t like it when they feel they’ve been tricked, cheated or treated badly; the same applies to how people engage with brands. Whereas in the past, companies could choose to ignore letters and phone calls, now people with an axe to grind can make themselves heard. If they find other people online with similar grievances, brands can find themselves confronted with an army of angry customers. As the popular blogger Jeff Jarvis put it, “Now consumers do not just consume. We spit back. We have our own printing presses.”

In fact, failing to respond to criticism in social media can cause severe damage to a company’s reputation. Here are a few examples of what can happen when a brand’s involvement with social media backfires and what you can learn about running a word of mouth campaign:

Dominos

Earlier this year, two Dominos employees thought it wise to post a video on YouTube of them playing with customers’ food. A few million hits later and their employers failed to see the funny side. Dominos posted an apology on YouTube and starting Tweeting to try and limit the damage. However, they have still been criticised for being slow to respond, instead hoping the fuss would die down on its own.

Lesson: You can’t bury your head in the sand if you don’t want to listen to what people are saying about you. Criticism will simply go unchallenged if you don’t use social media tools to respond to it.

Squarespace

Last month, this web design software company ran a competition to win the latest 3GS iPhone in exchange for Tweeting the company name. Whilst the campaign attracted over 36,000 followers and 95,000 Tweets, some have complained at the amount of irrelevant messages and that the giveaway was actually a gift voucher, rather than for an actual iPhone.

Lesson: You should tread carefully when using Twitter. The success of your word of mouth campaign could be short lived if it annoys people with irrelevant, inauthentic messages they don’t want to receive.

Habitat

This minimalist style furniture chain should have applied the same approach to their marketing after they thought it wise to send out promotional Tweets featuring popular search terms such as Iran, Apple and iPhone to lure people to their tweets. With time and attention being so tightly guarded these days, the Twitter flock were none too pleased about Habitat’s blatant spamming. Habitat has since apologised (but not on Twitter, surprisingly).

Lesson: This is a perfect example of a brand jumping into social media without first taking swimming lessons. They didn’t understand how you should engage with people on social media. The internet isn’t the same as TV. You can’t just broadcast irrelevant messages at people and expect them to listen.

Ryanair

When a freelance developer blogged about usability problems on the Ryanair website he might have expected a polite message from Ryanair saying they’d look into it or to point out his inaccuracies. What he wouldn’t have expected was to receive anonymous, insulting messages from Ryanair’s staff (their ip address was tracked to Ryanair HQ).  This unfortunate, and easily avoided, incident made Ryanair look unprofessional and that it had little respect for its customers.

Lesson: Once you’ve published content in the social media world, it’s out there for good. So you should apply the same common sense and company policy to responding to criticism in social media as you would to customer emails or to journalists in the traditional media.

Here’s a great post on the patent design Michael Jackson submitted in 1993 for shoes which enabled him and his dance troop to lean forward 45 degrees during “Smooth Criminal”. Very cool!

Publishing customer stories on your website is a great way of building trust, credibility and persuading people that buying your product is the smart thing to do.

Here are a few websites which show how customer stories can be harnessed as a powerful part of your marketing:

http://www.acsysinteractive.com/ – eye catching visuals place customer stories centre stage on the website for this digital marketing agency

http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/product/casestudies.mspx – never one to shy away from publishing information on their website, Microsoft offers over 200 stories on how its dynamic software division has solved real life supply chain and business management problems

http://www.sun.com/customers/index.xml – Sun Microsystems actively request stories from its customers as part of its ‘customer reference program’. Its website also offers videos and podcasts for insight on how Sun helps customers overcome challenges in the IT world

http://www.sybase.co.uk/about_sybase/customer_success_stories – Sybase’s website is a great example of how you can harness video to enable your customers to share their stories on how you’ve helped them solve problems

http://www.nationalnumbers.co.uk/customer-stories.htm – the very nature of a personalised number plate means there’s often a story behind why people buy them. The stories on this website also provide inspiration for visitors on why they should buy one for themselves

http://www.colourfulcoffins.com/customer_stories.html – literally any product can be given emotional impact with a personal story. Many people prefer to treat funerals as a celebration of a person’s life, and you can’t get much more personal than the reasons why they’ve chosen to buy a custom designed coffin

http://www.stannahstairlifts.co.uk/en/customer-stories-transcripts-2.html – sharing the experiences of your customers can give a competitive advantage. If you’re shopping for a stair lift then you’re more likely to give Stannah a call after reading feedback from some of their customers

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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.

Have you heard of Delicious? It’s a great way of organising bookmarks and memorable sites so that you can easily access them no matter where you are, what computer you’re on or what browser you’re using. We’ve created a bda work account, which makes things more fun because we can discover sites that other people here have tagged which we might otherwise not have come across.

For example, I might find a site with a heap of free icons; I can then tag it with ‘icons / resources / whatever’ and then when someone else is looking for some icons, they will (hopefully) see the site I’ve tagged. Likewise if someone is reading a site about bullet proof rounded corner methods, they could tag it with ’roundedcorners / tutorial / whatever’ and when I’m feeling a little bit nuts, I can see the site and voila! Rounded corners! :

The easiest way to start using Delicious is with the firefox add on. Tagging / bookmarking a site is then as easy as either a) right-clicking and choosing ‘bookmark this page in delicious…’ or b) hitting the big ‘tag’ button next to the address bar.

If you think we’ll enjoy the site, tag it with for:thinkbda and it’ll show up in our suggested sites list.

If Firefox isn’t your thing, or if you don’t want to install the add-on, there are other tools you can use.

Happy bookmarking!

Our series on beautiful website design wouldn’t be complete unless we made a special mention on the most popular blogging platform around – Wordpress!

Downloaded millions of times and with a massive fan base of developers supporting it, Wordpress is an open source publishing platform that’s growing in popularity all the time.

Content management systems are designed to be easy to update with new content, and using Wordpress to build an entire website offers many advantages, including:

Ease of use – posts and pages can be added without any complicated coding language

Free plugins – Wordpress’ functionality can be extended with over 5000 free plugins. Popular plugins enable you to optimise your content for search engines, to add social bookmarking buttons and to record stats on what your visitors are looking at

RSS – visitors can subscribe to your site’s feed and keep up to date on your latest content without having to revisit the site, great for relationship and trust building

Interactivity – visitors can comment on your content, ask questions and interact in an open format

SEO – in basic terms, Google ranks websites based on how regularly they’re updated and the number of links from relevant sites. Regularly publishing useful articles people want to share can achieve both these aims

Easy to use and easy on the eye

Whether it’s powering an online portfolio, a news/magazine style site or an online shop, Wordpress can be used for a wide variety of purposes.

Here’s our top ten of beautiful sites built with Wordpress:

1. http://www.enroutefilm.com/ – an online showcase of Canadian short films which are also screened on Air Canada flights. So grab some popcorn, grab a notepad and decide which short firm is a worthy winner.

2. http://www.blup.fr/ – this smartly designed personal blog of web designer Dew illustrates its pop culture focus through its beautifully designed header. The blog design also provides an attractive frame for his photos and posts on what’s interesting in the world of Dew.

3. http://www.jrvelasco.com/ – this blog offers a ‘veritable panoply of literary, visual and aural diversions’, with an intro that’s as long as a post on its own. The unique, personalised header and navigation gives this website the impression of being an interesting place to spend some time, if you speak Spanish.

4. http://www.homedesignfind.com/ – if you’re fan of Grand Designs or Property Ladder you might want to have a read of this interior design online magazine. The authors provide a daily guide to the latest furnishings, trends and ideas that can give your home a unique look.

5. http://ecoki.com/ – if you aspire to live a greener lifestyle then this site offers organic recipes, eco-fashion and an online community sharing their passion for all things eco-friendly. The front page is divided into clear categories and the strong visual element makes it easy to find topics of interest.

6. http://icondock.com/ – if you’re a designer and would like some interesting new icons for your print or web projects then this site offers icons galore. You can buy icons in sets and subscribe to their blog for the latest in all things iconic.

7. http://www.45royale.com/ – this web design studio loves Wordpress so much they’ve used it to power their own website. An eye catching banner, prominent hero text and clear links to their latest projects and blog makes this a great showcase of their talents.

8. http://anidea.com/ – don’t like this website’s theme? Then change it simply by selecting a different one from the dropdown box. This digital advertising agency promotes their expertise by offering insight and smart thinking, rather than with a boring online brochure.

9. http://www.gomediazine.com/ – this art and graphic design magazine offers helpful tutorials and a range of resources for the digital artistic. You can easily wile away some time watching videos, entering polls and engaging with its enthusiastic community.

10. http://www.twiistup.com/ – this bright, vibrant website presents the online portal for an LA based Dragons’ Den for startups. You certainly get a feel for how Twiistup can be a bit livelier than traditional stuffy conferences. Let’s hope it makes its way to this side of the pond.

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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.

This week we’ve been welcoming Lee Williams, a design all-rounder, to the bda team. So we’ve been making sure he knows how everyone has their tea and when it’s his turn to buy the cakes. But on a serious note, Lee is a bit of a whiz with Flash. So you can expect to see plenty of snazzy Flash driven websites trundling out of the bda labs very soon.

Now, when I say Flash I know many of you think of sitting impatiently, twiddling your thumbs and debating whether to boil the kettle whilst waiting for a website to load. Well, Flash has grown up a lot since its misspent youth in the 90s, when it was misguidedly used to create firework displays of animation despite the wheezing data rate of dialup.

Ten years on and Flash is now a respected and versatile programming language. Rather than just for intro videos, Flash can be used to create interactive websites and the quality of applications you’d normally expect to be on your desktop. With people’s expectations of websites growing all the time, Flash is becoming the language of choice for many developers wanting to create richer online experiences.

So, to clear up some of the misunderstandings on Flash (and because it will please Lee) this week we’re focusing on beautiful Flash website design.

Google CAN now find Flash based websites

One of Flash’s Achilles’ heels used to be that Google had trouble reading it, which meant Flash sites struggled to be found in the search results. But as Flash has advanced so has the ability of the search engines to read it, and now Flash driven websites are becoming just as easy to find as their html cousins.

The advancement in Flash has freed developers to become ever more creative in the sites they can create. Flash can be used to graphically present complex concepts, and being able to create interactive animations means multiple layers of info can be easily navigated at the click of a mouse.

Here are 10 of our favourite beautifully designed Flash websites, which illustrate how Flash can be used to create interactive online experiences that enhance brand engagement:

1. www.m-prism.com/main.htm – navigating this site is like exploring a map of the cosmos. To delve deeper you simply click on the central planet before zooming in on its orbiting moons

2. http://www.samsungcamera.com/st50/ – they say every picture tells a story, and this website provides a series of narrated mini-stories displayed through pictures and videos captured on a digital camera

3. http://www.gtiproject.com/ – if you had a toy racing car track as a child then you might want to whiz over to this site. After gaining entry to a secret lab and taking a tour around the track you can have a go at setting your own fastest lap

4. http://www.mono-1.com/monoface/main.html – members of this advertising agency have all contributed their facial features so you can have fun mixing and matching to make your own creation

5. http://okaydave.com/ – this website makes a portfolio of pdfs as sophisticated as a cave painting. You can enjoy a pleasant journey trawling through Dave’s scrap book of past design projects accompanied by his narration and video diary

6. http://www.gettheglass.com/ – making sure the kids drink their milk can be a hassle for any parent. So send them to this website where they can play games and learn more about milk at the same time

7. http://www.subspecies.co.uk/ – what better way to sell T-shirts than using monkeys with machine guns? Opening to a hail of bullets and parasailing chimps, this website is certain to be a hit with those who take choosing their t-shirt brands seriously

8. http://www.sectionseven.com/ – websites are often designed to act as an online portfolio, and in this case it’s meant literally. Click to open their workbook as you would in the real world, and sift through their samples to see what this design agency is all about

9. http://www.goblincreative.com/en/ – dressed up as a trendy iPhone app, click around each room to discover more about this web marketing agency. Learn more about their services, sit down to watch a movie or play a game of darts if you want to

10. http://ff0000.com/ – why wait for people to find you in Second Life when you can create a virtual world of your own? On the Red Interactive you can create your own avatar, fly around and chat to other guests. Just remember to play nice

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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.

Spending hours on a blog post can be a waste of sweat and tears if visitors don’t stop for a read, which is why blog design is so important. Blogs should be functional, easy to navigate and easy on the eye. So you should think carefully about the elements you need to include and how your blog can reflect your personality.

Good blog design aids readability, and provides an elegant frame in which your carefully chosen words can shine.

Pulling readers into your content

Web visitors are a judgemental bunch, with the attention spans of gnats. So your blog design needs to tell them at a glance what you’re about and whether they might be interested in what you have to say.

Your blog’s header is the first element people will focus on when they arrive. So it should reflect your personality and appeal to your target audience if it’s going to pull them into your writing. Many aspects of a blog can be easily customised yourself. But if you really want your blog to pull in readers then paying for a professionally designed header can be a canny investment.

Your header can be used to display your logo, illustrate your topic or to feature a slogan telling people what you’re all about.

Other elements

You want to keep people engaged with and reading your blog for as long as possible. So deciding where to position elements that helps them navigate your content is worth some planning.

Elements could include an author bio, subscription options, links to recent posts and a search box so people can delve into your archives. The most important links should be kept above the fold, which means they should be visible to every visitor without the need to scroll down the screen.

Links to your Twitter and Facebook profiles are also popular, but you should be careful not to clutter up your blog’s sidebar. You don’t want visitors feeling overpowered by too much going on and clicking away in confusion. Sometimes simplicity is best.

Minimalist style or action packed collage?

In basic terms, minimalist blogs are carefully arranged to feature plenty of white space and evenly arranged images. Links and widgets are kept to a minimum so that visitors’ attention is focused on the blog’s actual content.

Alternately, you could take the approach adopted by many graphic designers and fill up the screen with graphics, logos and customised icons. There’s a fine line between creating an impression of organised chaos or a blog designed by a child left alone with the crayons. But when done well it’s certainly eye catching.

Top Ten Beautiful Blog Designs

Here’s a mixture of different blog styles, layouts and personalities. Whether minimalist, collage or retro, what these blogs all have in common is that they’re excellent examples of beautiful blog design:

That INDIE Dude

Loodo.com.br

Pays Sud Gatine

L’effet Créa

Objectified

Surfstation.com

No MILK Today

Meagan Fisher

Lynnterpretation

The Bond Makeover

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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.

You hear a lot of buzzwords and phrases in our fast paced marketing world. But one that’s continuing to gather pace and fans as it rolls into boardrooms is that of ‘conversational marketing’.

Everyday we form relationships through the things we say and the way we respond to those said by others. With it so important in the real world, it’s unsurprising that marketers are eager to adopt adopt a conversational approach to engaging with consumers.

The idea of marketing being a ‘conversation’ has been a hot topic for the last decade. But is there any real value in conversing with your customers? Or is it just evangelistic hype?

What is conversational marketing?

The idea of marketing becoming a conversation was first given legs by a set of theses in the ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ way back in 1999.

Its premise was that, in more innocent times, ‘markets’ were places where people met to talk about goods and services, as well as to buy them. But this dialogue has since been drowned out by advertising telling people what they should think and buy. The Cluetrain Manifesto’s big idea is that the arrival of the internet, and the ability for people to talk about goods and services online, means that companies can no longer dictate what their marketplace should think.

The conversations people have over the garden fence can now be broadcast to (theoretically) millions. So marketing now needs to engage with consumers in a two-way dialogue if it wants to remain relevant.

For the last decade The Cluetrain Manifesto’s big idea has been an almost cultish call to arms amongst legions of bloggers and internet marketers in heralding the internet as a new dawn in communication and the death knell for traditional advertising.

The Cluetrain now has fresh legs in the form of social media gurus, preaching on the influence wielded by people on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Now every company needs a community manager, or risks drowning in a flood of unchallenged negative commentary.

Taking a step back

Getting excited about the potential that social media offers for engaging with customers and boosting your profile is one thing. But thinking its created a revolution in how companies should communicate, and that all the old methods are now dead, is perhaps a step too far.

Dell is often held up as conversational marketing’s poster child. They’ve been very active in harnessing every tool to respond to criticism, engage with customers and to use feedback to implement improvements.

However, as an interesting debate between Dell and a critic in the comments of this E-Consultancy article highlight, conversational marketing is just another channel in the marketing mix. It’s not a replacement for methods that continue to be effective when used well.

Another channel, rather than a revolution

It’s certainly worth creating a Google alert for your brand, so you can listen out and respond to criticism in any far flung corner of the web. But you shouldn’t feel that you need to rush out and start creating fan pages on every social media site just to show that you ‘get it’.

The key, as always, is relevancy and value. So there’s no point creating Facebook groups and a Twitter campaign unless it’s something your customers will want to engage with.

Instead, your marketing should focus on delivering content that’s of value and relevant to your customers’ needs and interests. Email, for example, is still highly effective, and with modern database management one-to-one campaigns can be targeted to match individual preferences.

So, whilst it’s worth keeping an ear open and responding to what is being said about your brand, don’t think that conversational marketing is now the only way brands are built or that the old methods of marketing are now dead.

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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.

A mistake many companies make is to use their marketing as an opportunity to pat themselves on the back and praise their achievements. But nobody likes braggers, boasters and conversation hogs. People like those who take an interest in others, show empathy and offer solutions to problems.

So your marketing should be focused on being likeable because, as every salesman knows, people prefer to buy from those they like.

Being expressive helps you be more likeable

Internet psychologist Graham Jones this week blogged about a study on how people formed impressions of others based on their Facebook profiles. The study concluded that a person’s likeability was gauged by how well they expressed themselves through their words and photos. Those who came across as genuine, personable and open were preferred to those who were guarded about what they revealed.

The marketing lesson from this is that to be more likeable online you need to be authentic, real and transparent, and present a human face to your organisation. A photo of your head office and a blurb praising your sales figures won’t do. People buy from people, not concrete buildings.

How to be likeable

In his popular book ‘The Likeability Factor’ former Yahoo! customer insight executive Tim Sanders defines likeability as a combination of friendliness, relevance, empathy and realness. These characteristics are all as applicable to success in marketing as they are to general life:

Friendliness – what tone of your voice does your marketing use? Is it approachable, upbeat and engaging? Or has it fallen in the trap of using long words and clichés to try and sound impressive?

Relevance – people respond to marketing that’s about their problems, concerns and desires. Your editorial content should be about the shared passions with your customers and focused on their preferences and interests. It shouldn’t be about on yours.

Empathy – people buy products and services to help solve a problem or to improve their lives. So your marketing should show understanding and sympathy for your customer’s predicament and offer solutions.

Realness – authenticity helps you appear trustworthy. Employing fakery, exaggeration and manipulated figures will backfire. Customers will ignore your calls and delete you from their address book when they can’t believe anything you have to say.

The nature of modern marketing is that of an ongoing conversation with your customers. And being friendly, interested in others, empathetic and real are all characteristics expressed through conversation.

So you should approach your marketing in the same manner as how you’d approach a one-to-one chat with your customers. Because being likeable is often regarded as vital to success in life and this is equally true of your marketing.

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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.

Oh, poor old Gordon Brown. He tries to experiment with a new tool for engaging with voters and it gets attention for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps someone should have told him that YouTube isn’t just another platform for pushing your message (and not to rely on cue cards to be reminded when to smile).

In Gordon’s defence, he simply made the same mistake many brands are guilty of: using new tools, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, for shallow self promotion, rather than offering people content they actually want.

Authenticity is the key to social media marketing

Whilst most of the criticism has focused on Gordon’s awkward impression of a Cheshire cat, the underlying problem with his foray into YouTube is that the video offered nothing of real value to viewers, and he made the marketing sin of not understanding his audience. In the world of social media, authenticity is the key.

Instead of trying to genuinely engage with voters’ concerns, Gordon used YouTube as a virtual soapbox to try and boost his popularity with empty gestures. Even the comments were turned off, which is another social media faux pas.

How Gordon should have used YouTube

When used properly, YouTube can be an effective marketing tool. By providing useful videos that answer people’s questions, offer industry insight or show how your product solves a problem, you can build an affinity with your brand.

Or if you’re feeling brave, you could try creating branded entertainment in which your product is the star. Blendtec’s ‘Will it Blend’ channel is YouTube’s poster child of how this can be done.

So the key thing to remember is that you shouldn’t use YouTube to simply push your message. Creating TV style commercials in which you vainly praise your company isn’t how you’ll win friends and influence people in the world of social media.

Publish and promote

Once you’ve created your ‘How To’ clip or video offering industry insight, make sure you don’t just upload it, sit back and hope for exposure to grow on its own. With 150,000 videos uploaded everyday, it’s going to have a lot of competition.

Integrate your YouTube campaign with the rest of your marketing. Add a link in your email signatures, paste the video onto your home page and add it to your email marketing campaigns. If your video is interesting enough then it might even spread virally through the power of Twitter and other online networks.

So remember, when marketing on YouTube your video must offer content that’s of value to viewers for it to be effective. People like to do business with those they’ve got to know and trust, so be authentic and don’t use YouTube simply to push your message.

Shame nobody told that to Gordon.

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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.

In their 80s heyday TVs ad men ruled the break as their domain, and would marvel audiences with their creative brilliance and 30 second blockbusters. Budgets were generous, and top agency creatives were treated with the reverence of a Hollywood director (which one or two even became).

But times have changed. Now rarely a week passes without whispers of channels merging or collapsing because of the failure of the ad break to keep them alive.

If TV is a sinking ship then advertisers are now abandoning it in droves to chase after the audiences that left long ago.

People now prefer to spend their evenings on the web, where they can control what content they want to receive, which is the barrier every advertiser now faces in remaining relevant in today’s marketing mix.

Giving people what they want

In a recent post, marketing Einstein, Seth Godin commented on the challenges and opportunities advertisers face if they want to be successful online.

Without TV programmes to be paid for or limited slots to fill, the cost of running commercials on the web is low. This means companies who previously didn’t have the budget to compete with the big boys now can. Now anybody with a camera can start their own ad campaign.

Whilst Seth hails this as a great opportunity, it’s going to be difficult to create commercials people will watch when they have the attention spans of goldfish.

As with all modern marketing, the answer lies in being able to offer content people want to consume in exchange for their time.

More than likely, this will come in the form of entertainment, as shown by the popularity of the ‘Will it Blend’ commercials, featuring a sales message amongst the flying debris of iPhones and golf balls.

What about Susan Boyle?

Working out how to make commercials people will watch on the web is the puzzle facing every advertiser. And some are already missing out on millions whilst trying to figure it out.

You’d have thought ITV’s execs would have been rubbing their hands with glee over the Susan Boyle phenomena. But unfortunately they’ve been slow to take advantage of the 100+ million views of her YouTube clip, leaving them penniless.

It’s estimated that a brief ad slot before her clip could have netted £1.5 million revenue for the beleaguered channel.

So, advertisers can learn two things from Susan Boyle:

1. It’s often what the product does that people are interested in, rather than the presentation
2. If they can offer people content they want to consume then they might have a chance of delivering their commercials along with it

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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.

Your advertising has to compete with a lot of noise these days. With so many channels competing for attention, creating advertising that gets you noticed can be tricky. Not only do you need to engage the interest of ad weary consumers. But your ads also need to have the ‘wow’ factor that makes people sit up and think ‘I want one of those’.

Working out how to create ads that jump out and pull people in is a tricky puzzle. This is why so many brands are waving their cheque books at celebrities and signing them up to give their ads the ‘X’ factor.

Why are celebrity endorsements powerful?

Whenever they’re seen in ads, celebrities transfer their positive qualities, such as their reputation, talent and likeability, onto the product. They also act as the brand’s spokesperson, giving it credibility and the thumbs up in the eyes of their hero worshipping public.

Celebrity endorsements can raise awareness, increase a product’s appeal and influence the buying decisions of fans wanting to emulate their favourite stars, which is why so many brands are happy to pay millions for a brief share of a celebrity’s limelight.

However, as with all advertising, celebrity endorsements cannot build a brand on their own. It takes time, patience and delivering a consistent message through every channel to cement the positive thoughts and feelings people associate with your products.

But having a famous face appearing in your ads can give your brand that extra special ingredient that will help it stand out on supermarket shelves.

A few famous celebrity endorsements

Paul Merson – you’d be right to question the suitability of an ex gambling addict, who lost £7 million and went bankrupt, being the public face of a betting shop. However, the ex-Arsenal player is a well known face and is certainly someone Better Bet’s customers can relate to. Nobody can question his authenticity as a gambling man.

Girls Aloud – the band created by TV now make sure they stay on it at as much as possible. Endorsements for Samsung, Coke Zero, Ultimo lingerie and Sunsilk helps them maintain a high profile even when their music videos aren’t being played.

Johnny Rotten – the ex-anarchist and former Sex Pistol has given many the biggest shock of his career by being so successful at selling butter. Whilst an anti-capitalist in his heyday, he’s now being praised for helping to increase Dairy Crest’s business 85% in the last year.

Barack Obama – whilst the popularity of the new President continues to defy his critics and his halo remains intact, Brand Obama is regarded as the World’s #1 brand. With the image of an exceptional negotiator and communicator, his unofficial endorsement of Blackberry is estimated to be worth $30 million in marketing. And the best part is that he hasn’t been paid to do it.

Prunella Scales – the ex-onscreen squeeze of John Cleese is currently rated as the UK’s most successful celebrity endorser. Her series of humorous ads, with Jane Horrocks in tow, marching around Tesco is estimated to have generated sales of £2.2 billion for the supermarket giant.

Tiger Woods – perhaps the best example of a celebrity becoming synonymous with a brand, the successor to Michael Jordan as Nike’s brand spokesman has helped transform a ‘start up’ golf brand into the most popular clothing label on the fairways. With sales of $600 million a year, Nike Golf is also now competing to be the top brand for clubs and golf balls. No wonder Nike named a building after him.

The moment when the ball pauses after this putt at the 2005 Masters is probably worth millions in free advertising alone:

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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.

I came across a great site recently called datelance.com. In essence it’s a marketing site for a US design agency, dressed as an earnest attempt to find one of their employees – the eponymous Lance – a new girlfriend. Apparently he’s the only single person at Logoworks, and his colleagues are keen to get him hooked up. Within the FAQ section of the site you’ll find a very pertinent: “Is Lance desperate?” question, which is answered with “Lance is definitely not desperate”. Phew.

Anyway, the good news is that bda has its very own Lance. He may not have a Harvard MBA, but he does look good in a dinner suit. His name is Adam. We haven’t built him his own dating website, or created an advertising billboard, but if you are interesting in dating Adam, you can always drop us a line at ideas@thinkbda.com and we’ll make sure he gets your email.

In its Madison Avenue strutting heyday, advertising was the only way to sell. Back when people spent their evenings reading newspapers or glued to the TV, brands relied on ads to grow desire and plant jingles in people’s minds.

But unfortunately for the once cocksure ad man, people and times have changed.

The old adage of ‘advertise or die’ is now being replaced by ‘evolve or die’. People are binning newspapers permanently, and fast forwarding or switching off the TV altogether.

The problem with advertising

Advertising’s first aim has always been to grab attention. Then it implants an appealing collection of thoughts and feelings that spring to mind when people are trawling supermarket shelves.

The problem is that consumers have been dazzled with advertising for so long that they’ve started ignoring it. Over time, the unfulfilled dreams promised by ad men have created cynicism, and an attitude has grown towards avoiding ads altogether.

So, brands need to find new platforms for engaging with their ad weary public. For many, this has simply meant diverting their budget online.

But as studies are showing, people are forming buying decisions based on the quality of the content brands provide, and not just on their advertising.

Brand perceptions are being formed online

Last year brands spent nearly £3 billion chasing after the migration of eyeballs onto the internet. But simply raining down ads isn’t an adequate response to the way in which people use the web.

A survey of UK consumers, last year, found that 86% had researched a company online before deciding whether to buy their product. And 22% always conduct an online background check before parting with their cash. Whilst these stats sound promising, less than half (49%) found the information they were looking for.

So, brands should start providing useful content on their website if they want to engage people’s interest and influence their buying decisions. After all, people use the internet to find information, not advertising.

Brand perception is built at every touch point

Advertising can be expensive and makes less of an impact than it once did. There are also now too many other ways in which people can engage with your brand (and they’re looking for a conversation that isn’t one way).

So you need to consider how your business is engaging with customers at every touch point. Whether it’s via magazine ads, direct mail, email or customer service, every engagement influences how people perceive the quality of your products.

And as the survey shows, people are increasingly demanding informative, useful content that answers their questions and assists their buying decisions. Which is why advertising alone, ultimately, is no longer enough to satisfy the needs of today’s cynical, connected consumer.

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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.

For the last week people have been bookmarking, blogging and Tweeting like mad about a new report on social media marketing. Put together by popular blogger and white paper specialist Michael Stelzner, the report features responses from 700 marketers on how they’re using social media to boost their exposure.

The report indicates that whilst marketers are enthusiastically joining the ‘social media gold rush’, few know where to start looking or how to unearth its riches.

Here are a few of the report’s nuggets:

• Nearly 9 out of 10 marketers are using social media
• Most (72%) have only started using social media in the last few months
• Whilst time might be the main expense involved it doesn’t come cheaply. 64% are investing over five hours a week in their campaigns
• The most popular social media tools in order are: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook (only 41% are posting onto YouTube)
• Over half gained greater exposure, increased traffic and new business partnerships from social media

Social media → exposure + engagement

With 85% of small businesses reporting greater exposure, the report’s findings show why social media marketing is becoming so popular, and why it’s not just a passing fad.

Whilst we’re under gloomy recessionary clouds, many marketers can’t afford a new brochure, glossy ads or their own exhibition stand. So the low cost of social media makes it an enticing avenue to explore and play around with.

And a lot of playing around needs to be done because social media is still in its infancy with marketers still only taking their first hesitant steps. This was reflected in the survey’s most commonly asked questions:

• What are the best tactics?
• How can I increase the effectiveness of my campaigns?
• Where, on earth, do I start?

Whilst it’s tempting to sit back and watch whilst others struggle to get it working before attempting it yourself, it’s only through experimenting that you’ll discover how to use social media effectively.

New tactics are needed to get the most out of the new tools. Relentlessly pushing out sales messages isn’t going to work when your audience has the power to switch you off. People now want engaging experiences to go with the product. And to buy from those who’ve taken the time to build a relationship with them.

Social media provides the tools to engage with people and create these relationships.

So, if you haven’t already, open a Twitter account, start blogging and consider starting a Facebook group for your business. Nine out of ten marketers are already doing it, and they can’t all be wrong.

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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.

So you’ve built your website and ready to start greeting customers. But first you need to make sure your site can be found.

In follow up to last week’s post on Pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO), here are 10 free tools for boosting your search engine ranking, and welcoming more visitors to your virtual shop:

1. Google Adwords Keyword Tool – the first step in any SEO campaign is identifying your keywords. This handy tool will let you know which keywords to target, as well as offer suggestions on popular phrases you might not have thought of.

2. Wordpress – now you know which keywords to target you’ll need to boost the number of times they appear in your content. More than just blogging software, Wordpress offers an entire content management system for adding keyword packed articles. With 100s of customisable themes to choose from and a vibrant community of plugin developers, Wordpress can transform your website from a static brochure to a resource of industry news and info. Publishing great content will also work wonders for your search engine ranking.

3. XML Sitemap Generator – whenever you add new content to your site you’ll want to make sure Google knows about it. Sitemaps help the search engine’s spiders crawl around your site and understand what it’s about. This generator will create a search engine compliant sitemap that you can upload to your home directory every time your site is updated.

4. Google Webmaster Tools – after you’ve uploaded your sitemap you can use this handy utility to analyse its data. Google Webmaster Tools shows you how the search engine views your website, and, crucially, it will let you know if there are any problems to fix, such as broken links.

5. SEO Book’s Rank Checker – created by Aaron Wall, one of the SEO scene’s most respected bloggers, this Firefox plugin enables you to check where your site is ranking in keyword searches. You can save the details of every campaign and run reports from your browser in seconds.

6. Hubspot’s Website Grader – this award winning tool can run an SEO health check on your site before awarding it a grade and offering advice on how it could be improved. You can discover how effectively your site is described, its readability level and how often it has been bookmarked on social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg and Delicious). Should you wish to show off, the Website Grader provides you with code to paste into your site so you can display a badge featuring your search marketing quality score.

7. SEO Quake – this plugin for web browsers adds a toolbar displaying info on the SEO effectiveness of websites, as well as underscore entries on the search results page. You can check the number of your website pages that have been indexed by the different search engines at a glance, as well as spy on the success of your competitors’ campaigns.

8. Backlink Watch – along with regularly adding great content, you’ll want to build up the number of inbound links from relevant sites. If you’re posting useful content then you should start to attract links naturally. But it also helps to post comments in forums and on blogs to let people know you’re there. This handy tool will let you know who’s linking to your content, and track the success of your link building campaign.

9. StatCounter – once your visitors start arriving you’ll want to be able to know what they’re looking at and how long they’re engaging with your site. This free tool offers a wealth of valuable info, such as what links visitors are clicking on, how they’re finding you and in which country they’re based. Warning: checking your stats in the hope of seeing a flood of new visitors can be addictive.

10. Google Analytics – no list of SEO tools would be complete without mentioning Google’s free analytical software. It tells you everything you need to know about your visitors and the ‘stickiness’ of your website. The insight you gain into how visitors are interacting with your site can help you understand the journey they’re taking and what pages need improving to push more visitors to the contact page or checkout till.

Search marketing is a complicated beast. But at least with these tools you’ll have a fighting chance of understanding how it’s done.

As mentioned last week, getting onto page one can take weeks, months or even years for competitive terms. But the sooner you implement an SEO strategy the sooner you’ll be able to greet customers finding you through the search engines and buying your pixelated products.

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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 should be easy. You just cobble together a website and wait for the sales to roll in, right? Well, if it was that simple we’d all be internet millionaires by now, smugly sipping cocktails on a beach somewhere.

But unfortunately for us, there are a few barriers to remove before you can expect the enquiries to come flooding in. Firstly, people have to be able to find you. Otherwise your investment in a website is waste of pixels.

To get noticed, you have two main options: pay per click advertising or search engine optimisation.

Pay per click (PPC)

Launched in 2000, pay per click (PPC) is the system of sponsored ads that have amassed Google its fortune. PPC is a quick, easy method of generating traffic. You simply choose which keywords to target, work out a budget and wait for the visitors to arrive.

What makes PPC attractive is its measurability and ability to show its ROI in clear numerals. Campaigns are also simple to manage, with clear data on conversions and how your money has been spent.

What’s less appealing is the high cost of popular keywords (although a way around this is to target the less obvious but cheaper ‘long tail’ phrases).

Another problem is that PPC is only a short term solution. If you decide to cut spending then your website will simply disappear into the depths of the search listings, never to be seen again.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO, on the other hand, is the long term alternative to PPC for getting to the top of the natural listings (and attracts 72% of clicks).

Working how to optimise websites to appear in response to certain queries is a complex process, and has given birth to an entire industry. Legions of SEO bloggers and consultants diligently work away trying to guess what line of code will magically push their clients’ sites to the top of the rankings. The problem for them is that nobody really knows for sure (and Google isn’t telling).

What we do know is that SEO involves having the correct page structure, tags and back links that tell Google what your website is all about. But SEO isn’t just a job for the technically minded or IT department. It’s also the quality of your content that impacts your ranking, making SEO the responsibility of marketers as well.

Good quality content improves your ranking due to the nature of Google’s business. Their success relies on providing the most relevant results. Consequently, it’s the websites regularly updated, with articles, blog posts and other keyword rich content, that receive the thumbs up and get pulled to the front.

Useful, well written articles can also attract links from other relevant websites (aka blogs), which is another key figure in the mysterious equation for getting onto page one.

Content marketing

Being able to drive traffic to your website is one hurdle, working out how to convert that traffic into sales is another. Your website needs to be able to change how people think and feel about your company if it’s going to convert them into customers. You can achieve this through your content.
Well written articles that offer to solve a problem, provide useful info or valuable insight can build trust and confidence in your expertise. They can also make your website ‘sticky’, keeping visitors glued to your content and engaged with your website for longer. This gives you more time to encourage them to take action and leave their email address before they leave.

PPC or SEO?

Investing in a content driven SEO strategy offers long term benefits compared to PPC. Once your website starts ranking highly for your key terms it’s likely to stay there. The drawback is that reaching such lofty positions can take weeks, months or even a year for competitive search terms. This makes SEO difficult to justify if you want quick, quantifiable results.

Ultimately, deciding whether to rely on PPC or SEO to generate traffic depends on the nature of your business and structure of your website. A sensible approach is to treat PPC as a quick, easy way of attracting customers, and SEO your long term objective.

Either way, internet marketing is a complex, evolving puzzle. You can endlessly spend your time making tweaks and word changes to improve your website’s conversion rate. So any images of sipping cocktails on a beach will have to stay on your desktop’s background for now.

In follow up to last week’s brochure design tips, we thought we’d discuss why you should consider printing your brochures digitally, rather than rely on good old lithographic.

Digital is being hailed as a revolution for small business’ print marketing: compared to litho, digital is quick, often cheaper and can deliver messages personalised to your customers’ interests.

Why is digital printing different to lithographic?

Traditional litho ‘offset’ printing requires the creation of a plate for every print, which is then used to transfer the image via a rubber blanket onto the paper.

Litho is great for printing 1000s of catalogues, magazines and books at a relative low cost. But its cost is less attractive when you’re only after a few hundred brochures and flyers.

Digital printers, on the other hand, don’t require the creation of a plate. Instead they use software to render digital images directly onto the press, bypassing the need for an expensive plate altogether. This offers numerous benefits…

What are the benefits of digital printing?

Cheaper – without the need to create a plate for every image, small businesses can print small quantities of brochures, flyers and business cards cheaply. There are already a few web-to-print businesses (such as moonpig.com and lulu.com) that have sprung up to capitalise on the low cost of small, customised print runs.

Faster – each litho print run takes a long time to setup. Digital presses, however, can be setup quickly and are capable of enabling next day, or even same day delivery.

Greener – the elimination of a plate, and shorter make-ready, means you also don’t need all the other printing materials and waste that go along with them. So you no longer have chemicals, ink and paper filling up your bin; and because you only print what you need, less chance of obsolescence. Some digital printing machines are even designed with their own recyclability in mind.

Customisable – every print can be customised to include unique content, such as the customer’s name, personalised URL and relevant images. Personalising marketing helps improve the response rate because people are more likely to engage with content that’s relevant to their interests. Litho, on the other hand, only allows a static ‘one size fits all’ message per print run.

High quality – the quality of digital printers is rapidly improving, and is almost indistinguishable from traditional litho. Their reliability is also getting better, and eventually they’ll be just as consistent, and competitive, at long print runs too.

Digital printing puts one-to-one marketing into customers’ hands

Digital print has opened up print marketing to small businesses by making it cost effective to deliver timely, relevant and personalised messages. This is the type of marketing weary consumers are crying out for, so digital print technology has arrived at just the right time.

Here at bda we’ve experienced first hand the benefits digital print offers for one-to-one marketing. In a recent campaign for Siemens, digital printing enabled us to create individual brochures personalised to match the responses customers logged on their website. This enabled Siemens to not only deliver marketing finely tuned to their customers’ interests, but also saved cash because they only needed to print what was requested, rather than end up with a pile of unwanted brochures gathering dust.

Litho still has a role to play in printing mass produced materials. But for fast, cost effective and personalised one-to-one print marketing, you have to go digital.

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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.