Archive for May, 2009

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The Social Media Diaries

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Overall our adventures into the Twitterdom have been fairly succesful, we’ve Tweeted with some nice folk, bagged invites to a Vivienne Westwood sale (thanks @anniebeee), bored ourselves of stalking Ashton & Demi, watched hundreds of people Tweet about their anger at ScotRail and been put in touch with some very useful links and articles.

Why the name change?? One major thing we have noticed about Twitter is that it goes hand in hand with all the other social networks, and we love all the other social networks just as much as we love Twitter and being an equal opportunities office we thought it was only best and fair to open the ‘diaries’ to one and all.

But before I do, I feel we should round up the Twitter experiment and say what we have learned- a lot that is what! But in terms of Twitter for business we have identified the various opportunities for both B2B and B2C brands. I could waffle on about the pro’s and con’s of Twitter for both B2B and B2C businesses but instead I thought it would be better to condense it into bulletpoints (everyone loves bullet points).

Business 2 Business

  • There are 700,000 sme’s on Twitter
  • Getting a lead directly off the back of Twitter is unlikely but it is an excellent brand awareness tool
  • You can connect and engage with like minded business individuals
  • Involve employees and get them talking about your brand
  • Put up links to your website and blog (see @digitalcribs)
  • You can keep an eye on anyone talking about your brand and join the conversation
  • Use Tweets to inform followers of any promotions or events (see @ibmevents)
  • Use Tweets to provide advice and guidance to other Twitterers in need of help in your industry
  • It is an excellent forum to share industry related information
  • You can ‘follow’ existing clients, although, depending on your own preference, it may be more beneficial to pick up the phone than rely upon Twitter to resolve customer service issues but see below for an example of how Twitter has been used as a customer service tool.

Business 2 Consumer

  • You can see who is talking about your brand and join the conversation
  • Put up a link to your website and blog
  • Tell potential customers of new products, special offers etc (see @asos & @iamboutique for example)
  • Follow potential and existing customers, create an opportunity for them to Tweet something positive about your product or service
  • Go a little further with product/service info, get employees online and talking on a more human level about what products they like or what is so good about a specific service
  • Post Twitpics of staff nights out (sensible ones), products and the premises to give customers a feel for the brand
  • You can turn Twitter into a customer service tool, Hyatt hotels did by inviting patrons to contact their concierge service via Twitter (see @hyattconcierge)
  • Use it as a recruitment tool, posting whenever any exciting or major positions arise (see @newlook_careers)

The list of things Twitter can achieve for your business is endless, can you think of anymore?

Overall how Twitter will work for your business depends on what your business is and the industry it operates within. It will be more successful if it is integrated into a full social media campaign and is supported on your company website; ensure there are suitable links to all your social media profiles and keep these profiles active, updating them on a regular basis.

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Two new websites launched

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

New Promising Winners Website

Promising Winners is an exciting life coach and trainer that aims to help people enhance their lives.

They approached 360innovate with a desire to create an online presence for the company. 360innovate designed and built a content managed website that compliments the new logo and branding.

“360innovate have provided me with a website that is creative, unique, attractive, informative, client focused and easy for users to find their way around quickly. Excellent training enabled me to be able to add pages, content and images, create links and to begin to understand some of the complex issues involved in website design. I really do feel that I have total control of my website and can add and/or make changes as necessary. I am extremely proud of my site and have received many positive comments from my family, friends and other web designers!”

Pat Wakefield, Owner of Promising Winners

Visit the Promising Winners here: www.promisingwinners.co.uk

New DCS Payroll Website

DCS Payroll is a full bureau and payroll outsourcing service.

They approached 360innovate looking for a website that would allow clients to access information and login into a client resources area.

360innovate built a content managed website for DCS Payroll that allowed clients to log into a secure area.

Visit the DCS Payroll website here: www.dcspayroll.co.uk

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Design Crush – edition 8

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Web design can be inspired from almost anything, which is what makes designing for the web so diverse. However, an area of inspiration for many web design layouts is from the traditional print, mainly magazine design.

Many elements of web design have be derived from traditional magazine print from using headers, and margins to employing columns to layout and organise content and body text. The main reason that using magazine layout for web design works is that it allows you to cram as much information as needed into a relatively small space. By using magazine layouts, you can optimise the space on the page and make the presentation of information that little bit more user friendly.

A good example of using this method of magazine design elements in web design is the Cannes Film Festival website. Here they have cleverly used a grid structure layout to neatly show images and videos of the entire goings on in Cannes throughout the festival. With updates every day, this site had the potential to become busy and crowded, but by using a 3 column grid like structure, they have successfully pulled the information together in an attractive and user friendly way.

Another example of a website mimicking magazine design is The Loop website, an online arts and culture magazine. This site is clearly inspired by traditional print with the use of columns, margins, headers, footers and white space, creating a light, easy to follow design that is not only pleasing on the eye, but functional and efficient.

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It’s fizzy, It’s ginger… It’s phenomenal.

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

No we’re not talking about project manager Gerry, we’re talking about the office’s (and the nations) favourite soda pop – Irn Bru.

Scotland’s bond with Irn Bru has been going on for over 100 years now, it was first produced in 1901, and the nation has now developed a certain love affair with the orange fizzy blighter. Not only are we captivated by the fluorescent bubbles and its hangover curing properties, we also feel a certain national pride in the fact that it is ‘brewed’ and bottled in Scotland. Not only this but we are pretty happy to say that we are the only country in the world that does not have Coke as its number one fizzy beverage- yup Irn Bru takes first place. We love it so much we even campaigned to have McDonalds sell it in its restaurants.

As a company we all love Irn Bru; it is our helping hand when we are dying on a Sunday morning, it is guilty of staining our top lips on numerous occasions, and we love to reminisce of chewing (endlessly chewing) on Irn Bru bars as children.  However, our greatest affection when it comes to all things Irn Bru related has to be its advertising.

The latest campaign television advert ‘It’s Phenomenal’ makes a playful dig at the current trend for high school musical films putting a bit of a Scottish slant to the American ‘sweet as pie’ portrayal of secondary education. This advert like so many before it, is again, to be another sure fire hit for the drinks manufacturer, how do they keep getting it right over and over? In our opinion it is because they have created a brand that a nation is proud of, in every Irn Bru campaign you cannot help but feel a teeny bit proud to be Scottish. The advertising and the brand are loud, brash, eccentric and very tongue in cheek, much like Scotland and all its inhabitants.

Aside from all the hilarious ads that we have all seen over the years there are two in particular that stand out in our opinion: the snowman Christmas advert and the If advert, see below to refresh your memory.

Both are brilliant in our opinion, and as sad as this may sound they invoke a certain swelling of national pride… national pride is a strong emotion and not something that is easy to conjure up in 30 – 60 seconds worth of television advertising time, yet Irn Bru do it time and time again.

They may have got us hook line and sinker with their hilarious and patriotic marketing and unique drink, but it is fair to say that there is a danger we Scots are wearing rose tinted glasses (or should that be blue tinted?!), how well will Irn Bru cope when it takes on the whole of the UK?

The company has just revealed plans to increase its marketing spend by 20% to roll out initiatives across England, in February they signed up to become the official soft drink sponsor of the Rugby Football League and they are now the broadcast sponsor of Sky Sports’ RFL coverage. This is the first nation wide campaign the company has done, looking at the Rugby league official Irn Bru website, Irn Bru Rugby, you can see certain elements of the brand repositioning itself to appeal to the sporting audience, there is still the same Irn Bru charm.  On the rugby pitch Irn Bru will stand out as an unique and individual brand that still encapsulates the Scottish charm, and it is no secret that the rest of the world have a certain soft spot for all things Scottish, lets hope this love includes Irn Bru.

Official Irn Bru Website

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Heard it through the grapevine…

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

The internet is a mysterious and complex beast. For any business operating online it is worth keeping a sharp eye on what the internet is and isn’t saying about you, after all you can work so hard to make your company an online success then without you knowing it could all come crashing down- why? Because you didn’t pick up on the negative vibes circulating the net or the complaints being posted on various blogs. On the other hand, however, you may be gaining some very valuable reviews but no one knows about it… well in both cases reputation management can help.

Reputation management is essentially a form of public relations and can be used by anyone, business or not, to:

Why is it important?

Word of mouth is one of the most influential methods of marketing and on the internet it can spread like wildfire. Using reputation management techniques you can bolster your online presence, minimise any negative press from catching on and allow for a quick response to anything bad that does pop up.

Monitoring your company online.

The list of places to monitor your brand is endless really. The first place to start is of course the search engines. A company name search in the main search engines (Google, Yahoo! & MSN) quite obviously allows you to see what and who is being ranked for your company name; you don’t want any undesirables being listed now do you?

Directories, such as DMoz & Thomson,  can date very quickly so keeping an eye on your company profile within these databases will ensure that customers are seeing completely up to date information about you.

There could very well be a conversation about your company happening this very minute on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. You need to monitor these conversations and join in if necessary.

Bloggers can be your best friend or worst enemy, keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand by monitoring the blogosphere. Keeping an eye on blog search engines such as Technorati, Zuula Blog Search and Blog Pulse will help you see if any bloggers are talking about your company.

A helpful tool for companies looking to monitor their company online is Google Alerts, it is a service that will alert you every time your chosen keyword (in this case it would be your company name perhaps) is mentioned, alerts can be emailed or appear in a Google Reader. Backtype is another free service which will alert you of any comments made on a blog post which mention your company name. YackTrack is another excellent tool that will track ‘chatter’ about your company.

Building your online reputation

The above sum says it all, if you are going out of your way to share unbiased and honest information and provide advice that is of benefit to others, which is not completely self promotional, then people will respond in a positive way.

Although it seems like common sense stuff, putting it into action can be tricky business. Referring back to the aforementioned social networking sites, these can be an excellent place to get started. Use them to talk about how good your product or service is, they are an excellent way to communicate with your market. Be warned though, don’t talk sales or jargon to them, create a conversation with them that they want to have- perhaps tell them about new products, offer advice when needed, respond to any comments posted and try to create a personality for your company.

Creating a blog is another excellent way to talk to your market about your products and services, use it as a place to talk about any exciting news going on in the company and to shout about the good work the company and employees have been doing. Bring personality to the blog by getting employees involved in writing posts and commenting, when people start engaging with your blog it really turns into a social media tool in itself.

Has your company been mentioned in an online article or has a member of staff wrote an outstanding blog or article? Then spread it around the internet with the use of bookmarking sites and social news websites. On these websites you can bookmark, or refer to a specific article you enjoy and share it with other users of the website, DoshDosh provide an excellent list of social news websites that will do the trick.

User generated content is king, customers believe and rely on reviews from customers and blog, seek out niche industry review sites, put together a profile and encourage your customers to write reviews, however, as we will discuss in the next part of the post these review sites can also be abused and require monitoring.

Protecting your company online

All this company and brand monitoring may eventually lead to the discovery of some negative press, hopefully not but sometimes you can’t avoid someone somewhere who has a chip in their shoulder and wants to tell everyone about it. 360innovate have been the subject of such negativity and we know its not nice.

The best way to handle negative press is to utilise all the social media tools you used to promote your reputation. In some cases an apology may be required in others a public statement- no matter what has been said some form of response is required.

Act fast by responding to the person, company or website that is the source of the negative comments or actions, if necessary post a statement on your blog or website. Be honest and open in any reponse that you post, and if the negativity relates to any aspect of your product or customer service then any worried customers to contact you. Following up this statement with a courtesy call or email will also help clear the air and demonstrate to your existing customers that they are the priority.

As a rule of thumb it takes three good pieces of publicity to combat one piece, so get working on generating three positive stories or actions that your company can do to bury any harmful stories.

Above all ensure you run a honest company with integrity, look after your customers and they will look after you… the rest should be easy!

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How to prepare for a design meeting.

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Okay so you have a design meeting with the web designers coming up… you’ve got a few ideas floating around but not quite sure what exactly you want- so how do you get the most out of your meeting? Preparation!

1. Know exactly what you want your website to achieve. What is its aim: Brand awareness? Increase sales? Customer Service?

2. Look at your current company image and branding, establish whether you want to continue with this or not. Developing a new website is the perfect opportunity to have a brand overhaul, many web design companies now offer branding consultancy and can assist in the development of brand guidelines.

3. Create a detailed description of what you want the website to do. Have a list of the various things you want users to be able to achieve and do on the website.

4. Provide the design company with as much information about your company as possible; who your stakeholders are, what your mission statement is, what your future goals are etc. Your website should form part of your overall marketing mix, it is a business tool in itself therefore to make the most of it you need to ensure that it fits in with your current and future plans for the company.

5. Who are your main competitors and what sort of online profile have they achieved so far?

6. Have a specific image of how you want the website to look? Create a mood board with all various design elements and inspirations that you have for your new website.

7. Put together some of your favourite website, scour the web for websites you like and which inspire you. See any functionality or features that you like then take a note and tell your web designer about it, it may be something you have seen on a random website that has no relation to the industry you currently work in but elements of it could still be adapted for your website.

8. How much do you really know about web design? How much do you want to know? Compile a list of all the different questions you want to ask your designer, once you get into the crux of the meeting you may become bamboozled by all the chat and forget all the points you wished to raise. A design meeting is not only about the design team getting information from you it is about you getting information from the design team.

9. Bring along any corporate literature; pamphlets, brochures and flyers all form part of your offline marketing and your online marketing should reflect this.

10. Have a good look at what your design company have already produced, perhaps contact them prior to the meeting to request further information on any specific website so you can gauge what they did and how they did it.

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Why am I not getting any sales??

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Your getting plenty of traffic onto your website but very little sales…. so what’s going on?

Various factors can influence a users commitment to purchasing, a report published by Econsultancy revealed that one in three online users do not shop online, 30% cited a lack of trust being the main reason, 20% cited concerns over personal security and 15% said they did not trust the company selling online.

Safety First

Gaining the trust of the customer and ensuring complete security of their personal details are two main factor which can lead to higher conversion rates.

Some best practise methods to employ that can help gain the trust of the consumer are as follows:

Clearly display your terms and conditions, 55% of shoppers now refer to the T&C’s before making a purchase. (Econsultancy)

Provide accurate and up to date information on the company returns policy.

Always provide adequate contact details including a customer service hot line.

Having some form of customer feedback facility adds credibility to your company and its products or services.

Always use a reliable and secure Payment Gateway service and ensure that this means of payment is clearly communicated to the customer.

The design and layout of the website can also have an influential impact on how trustworthy a company is perceived.

Usability Factors

As usability guru Jakob Nielsen says; “On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave.”

So what potential usability issues could deter a customer from making a purchase?

Bad site navigation, very easily a customer will get irritated and leave a website due to their inability to move easily through a website and find the product they are looking for. If a site is difficult to use people will leave and find another that is easy to use, simple as.

50% of searchers land on the homepage of an ecommerce website (DoubleClick), make sure that the homepage does not take an eternity to load and avoid splash landing pages.

Poor search facilities can not only irritate users but could potentially direct users to the wrong products. Ensure your search facility is in tip top condition, it is a vital tool for many customers and if the search process is lengthened by a lousy search form or bad results then the customer will go elsewhere.

Content

Content can be another tricky area which again requires a level of simplicity. Keep it simple and include only information the user needs.

When it comes to selling your product if you are retail then remember that ordinarily a person would be in the high street buying this product- they can pick the product up, touch it, feel its texture and see its dimensions, selling on the internet has the disadvantage of not being able to offer this. The best way to overcome this is to offer as much information about the product as possible, provide various images at a variety of angles and provide sizing.

This principle applies to business ecommerce websites even more so, in general business transaction tend to be higher in value therefore the risk for the customer is greater and the purchase process will be longer and more calculated. Providing as much detail and support information as possible will help the decision making process, in your favour preferably!

Avoid using too much jargon! Obviously if your business nature requires the use of technical terminology and the customer will be accustomed to such language then it is a different story. However, at all costs it is best to avoid using complex language and if you cannot avoid it try to include some form of glossary to help shoppers to understand what you are talking about.

Access for all

Accessible web design is a must for any website, by not making your website accessible to all you could be excluding many customers from using and buying from your website.

See our blog post Access All Areas for more detail on web accessibility.

The main transaction

During the actual shopping transaction it is not only security concerns that deter many shoppers, 67% of web shoppers click out of shopping carts before completing purchase (Net Effect) and one of the main reasons is often due to the filling out of forms.

Having to constantly fill in details forms each time a user returns to a website can be very off putting, to encourage loyal and returning customer use a log in functionality that remembers customers details.

A form error is one of the main reasons a person will exit a transaction without finishing it, not only does it lack credibility, it is time consuming and it can be very annoying for users; if any problems occur with a form on your website contact your web administrator immediately and have it rectified asap.

Further to this transactions are being abandoned left, right and centre because of the type of checkout process being used on site, using a traditional checkout process where access to all the other website pages are still available makes it very easy for the customer to stray back to product searching within the website. Having an enclosed checkout has proven to increase transactions, it takes customers to a separate checkout facility where all distractions (menu bar, search facilities etc) have been removed, reducing the likelihood of the customer changing their mind. Having such a checkout facility also reinforces the security aspect of the transactions and makes it easier to communicate the payment methods and terms and conditions to the customer.

Finally, you and your product!

Lastly, and most importantly, your company, the product/service and customer experience being offered must be worthy of purchase. No matter how much you improve your website if your product quality and customer service isn’t up to scratch then its unlikely any customers will return, and loyal customers are the most profitable kind. They will return to your company time after time, refer others to you, and spread good words about you, and word of mouth is the best kind of marketing a company could ever get.

 

 

 

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Reduce carbon emissions with the new Piper website

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Piper: Community Action on Climate Change and Sustainability has gone live this week.

Piper (Parents in Partnership Eco Representatives) is a community campaign aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The project focuses on 3 main communities; Balerno, Currie and Juniper Green, within each community two schools will be involved. The purpose of the project is to encourage parents and children within schools to take action to reduce carbon emissions.

Piper approached 360innovate looking to have a website developed for the project, the website needed to allow for future expansion of the project and had to be designed in a manner to encourage user interaction.

To fill this remit 360innovate designed and built one central website stemming out into the individual school sections. A forum, blog and providing interactive links to eco games and competitions encourage users of all ages to interact with the project and website.

If you are a charity or non profit organisation (or you just quite like this website) and would like a website similar to this one then please get in touch.

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Infatuated with ‘above the fold’ web design? by John Ellis

Monday, May 11th, 2009

One myth used to explain web layouts

Many people (not least those working in the industry) are well aware that being a web designer / developer is often not an easy job.

There are many factors to consider – some technical but for designers many of them human, where person meets web interface (or so to speak). As a designer I’m still surprised at the amount of myths sold to clients as fact and best practice when designing for the web. In turn this often perpetuates misconceptions that are then thought to be well founded and fact based by website viewers.

One such notion is the ‘above the fold’ principle, a layout principle appropriated originally from print media. Now I’m not saying that many print techniques haven’t been fundamental in enabling designers to produce great layouts for the web (one example being the use of rational/irrational grids) – however there are some ideas that should definitely be challenged and given the growing amount of evidence to the contrary, one design question perhaps we should be asking “is using the above the fold’ design principle relevant in 2009?”.

Often we are asked as designers to “cram as much information in above the fold as possible”, usually followed by “surely we don’t need all that white space, it needs a picture in there”….and “what about using these three bright colours together”.

Well for those of you who might be scratching your heads at the talk of a fold in a webpage here is the basic principle – In web terms the word ‘fold’ means the on-screen line beyond which a user must scroll down to see further information on a page.

The term was coined in reference to broadsheet newspaper layout / design and historically due to the dimensions of the newspaper the ‘big scoops’ would be placed in the most prominent place possible on the front page to achieve the greatest impact. This area is of course above where the newspaper would be folded in half and the lesser ‘news worthy’ stories would then be placed lower down the page ‘below the fold’, as the reader would have to turn the paper over to continue reading.

If we build it will they scroll?

Well yes they will. In 1997 Jakob Nielson wrote about a growing understanding and use by internet users of scroll bars when viewing websites – Now over twelve years later surely web users have moved on further in their understanding of scrolling?

Other more recent webpage performance studies (ClickTale Scrolling Research Study,  2006) have shown that 91% of web pages use vertical scrolling and over 76% of web users scroll to some extent when visiting a page.

Other viewer behavioural studies conducted by AOL, W3C and other smaller sample group tests present similar evidence, showing that we as web designers had perhaps not given web users enough credit for being able to use scroll bars in the browser.

Not only do these studies suggest that web users in principle scroll when viewing a webpage, but other anecdotal evidence perhaps also support this;

The vast majority of modern mice (Logitech state up to 91%) have a ‘scroll wheel’ – this promotes a greater ease and use of scrolling within pages and there is again evidence to support that a high percentage of web users are not only comfortable but understand and use the mouse wheel on page visits to some extent.

We perhaps should also trust the viewer to locate the information they need –now that’s not to say we should as designers make it harder, that’s clearly counterproductive, but by using certain design techniques we can give clear indications where and how content can be found and used. Many HCI design principles i.e. Simplicity, Visibility, Affordance, Consistency, Structure and Feedback should all be considered in an effort to enhance and deliver good user experience.

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Is the recession going to stop summer holidaying?

Friday, May 8th, 2009

With the rain pouring down outside and all hope of a sunny Glasgow summer fading rapidly it is no surprise that our daydreams are turning to thoughts of a lovely summer holiday in the sun. But of course as with everything these days our optimism for a nice wee vacation are blighted by recession chat.

We are told that 81% of the population is already feeling the pinch of the recession, and if it isn’t a pinch in purse it will be a pinch in the brain as we hear yet another tedious news report on how broke and unemployed we all are. You would maybe make the assumption  that the travel industry would suffer from our apparent recession but apparently around 70% of the population still intend to holiday abroad- and who can blame them for wanting to escape the doom and gloom of the recession.

Consumer habits

55% of holidays are booked online while only seven percent are booked using the High Street (Nielsen//NetRating)

62% of Britons use the search engines to find a holiday (Nielsen//NetRating)

Consumers trust user generated content sites, such as Trip Advisor, for reviews and feedback, referring to such websites when booking their holiday, further to this 33% of frequent travellers regard review websites as the most reliable source of information. (Nielsen//NetRating)

Will holiday seekers spending habits be affected by the current economic climate?

Current economic factors which will have an effect on the holiday industry are the recession, people have less money to spend, and the current exchange rates, both Stateside and in the EU. Therefore consumers will be more hasty booking, spending time researching companies and the specifics of a holiday- referring in more detail to the customer generated reviews. Above all they will be looking for a bargain.

The poor exchange rate will lead to many choosing to holiday a bit closer to home in the British Isles.

Opportunities for the travel sector

Consumers are still out there looking for a holiday, they may be a bit thriftier than they were a few years ago; but they are still willing to part with their cash. Economic and competition pressure means that travel companies need to be smarter with their marketing.

Online marketing in the form of some search engine optimisation will help raise your profile in the search engine rankings, however, competition is fierce and to really make a different it may be necessary to focus on specific keyword phrases, focusing on geographic location for instance. Social media can also be an excellent tool to increase your company profile, engage with holiday makers, advertise your holiday services or product, and to encourage consumer feedback.

Increase customer service; with daily mobile internet access up by 107% it is no surprise 74% of travel companies see “Mobile” becoming an increasingly important element of their online/digital strategies(EyeforTravel).  Mobile technology is an excellent customer service tool that can be used to allow bookings, changes and amendments to existing bookings and recieve destination information including maps and places of interest info.

Further enhance customer satisfaction with some online tools, such as online booking applications and personal payment accounts, allowing customers to log in and make payment on their holidays when desired.

Source

Marketing Week

Econsultancy

Creative Match

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