Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Winning Through Innovation Event

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Scottish Enterprise held a Winning Through Innovation yesterday at the Odeon Cinema Springfield Quay Glasgow.

Speakers at the event included former global CEO of Burger King Barry Gibbons, Brian Williamson of Tiger Eye and Helen Battersby. The main theme for the event was Developing a Culture of Innovation with each speaker providing an insight into their own experiences of innovation and passing on their own words of wisdom as to how we can all motivate and innovate within our workplaces.

Overall the event was a great success with it almost nearly being a full house. A particular highlight was hearing Helen Battersby provide an indepth look at how she helped the Gleneagles Hotel increase profits from £700K to £5 million through innovation and people development. She provided several excellent examples of how the hotel managed to motivate staff, lower costs and target new markets, one example being to give staff the opportunity to offer and suggest innovative ideas to solve issues within the organisation the best being rewarded with a pay increase.

Each speaker provided the audience with 5 Top Tips related to Winning Through Innovation, here is the best from each;

Barry Gibbons:

In difficult financial times there is a tendancy and temptation to ‘nickle and dime’ your stakeholders (emplyees, suppliers, partners, customers and clients). Don’t.

Brian Williamson:

In meetings rotate the Chair to different team members to get a different perspective.

Helen Battersby:

Grow your people and your business will grow itself.

The Winning Through Innovation event forms part of the Scottish Enterprise Strengthen Your Business campaign designed to help, innovate and inspire Scottish Businesses. A downloadable Innovation Guide is available from the Strengthen Your Business website.

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There’s no ‘we’ in social media

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

When it comes to social media are your employees getting as involved as they could be?

A report published by TechCrunch revealed that research conducted by ÜBERCEO on the worlds largest companys has uncovered that:

- Only two CEOs have Twitter accounts.
- 13 CEOs have LinkedIn profiles, and of those only three have more than 10 connections.
- 81% of CEOs don’t have a personal Facebook page.
- Three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information.
- Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog.

Some people may consider these CEO staying well away from social media is for the best but I would have to disagree, yes social media is not for everyone but the company CEO should be setting an example for the rest of the company and making themselves available online is the new digital equivalent of the open door policy, non? Well its an idea…

Anyway, its not just the responsibility of the CEO, or the marketing department, to get involved with the social media marketing. Employees across the board should be getting involved, not only to bolster the success of a campaign but to put across a strong front. There is nothing more impressive to potential buyers or customers than seeing employees demonstrating an involvement and it can really communicate a solid and reliable image.

One company that has really used their employees enthusiasm to boost their image and reputation is American airline Southwest Airlines, whose impressive social media campaigns are devoutly supported by the employees. From employees posting their own Southwest related videos, responding to customer comments to CEO Gary Kelly openly discussing plans to abandon assigned seating on the company blog (plans which were then quickly dropped after a barrage of comments from customers), the involvement of employees from every department has done nothing but benefit the company.

How Southwest Airlines manages to get employees involved in the online activities of the company in the first place I’m not too sure, the company would like us to believe it is because they have such a close relationship with all employees and the employees really do feel pride in their employers, and I kinda believe them- the social media and marketing is obviously working!

But in all seriousness getting employees involved in your online social activity has to start with them being happy in the first place. From there incentives and even some training, showing them how to use all the various bits and bobs online, could get the ball rolling.

Here are some small ways employees & coworkers can get involved with your company social media:

Contribute to the company blog by writing a post relevant to their specific department and commenting on existing blog posts.

Connect with the company on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, although remember that potential clients will be on the company profile pages so no naughty comments or office gossip, and it is worth remembering that these clients may then go onto employees profiles, seeing pictures of the post boy fat necking a bottle of Buckfast at T in the Park may be somewhat offputting.

Respond to any comments or queries that customers are posting online, again keeping it clean and professional.

Talk about your brand, don’t be scared to say nice things about work on Twitter or Facebook.

Send any offers and exciting news to friends and family, viral marketing on even the smallest scale can have an effect.

Many people may believe that social media is only for the experts which I believe is untrue, it is the experts job to plan and to put it into motion, when you get the full support of the employees then a social media campaign can really come to life.

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Price or Reputation…

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

What are consumers looking for? A new survey conducted by Webcredible, a user experience consultancy, has brought up some interesting findings. While for many years, consumer habits of online shoppers where largely driven by price, it has now been identified that reputation may be the biggest driving factor.

Apparently 28 per cent of the 1,300 people who were polled between April and June said that they are more likely to be persuaded to make a purchase online by the reputation of the site , not it’s prices. This indicates that consumers are largely concerned with the security of a site when making purchases.

Even with the credit crunch, price came second to reputation in what persuades consumers to buy online with a total of 26 per cent. This shows that people want a brand they can trust who will be more likely to offer better customer care. So with online fraud being at the forefront of many online buyers minds, having a safe and reliable site is what they are wanting over the best prices.

The design of a site (16 per cent) and ease of use of the site (15 per cent) were up next in persuading users to buy online. The last result of 4 per cent shows that consumers are least likely to be persuaded to purchase online with special offers.

Overall, if you are wanting to get the most out on your online retail site take some tips from Mrudula Kodali, Senior Consultant at Webcredible who states:

“Given that so many online shoppers are affected by all these factors, persuasion needs to be a key focus for ecommerce sites. Retailers must ensure that their websites are well designed, easy to use and well-optimised for search and combine this with competitive pricing and a well-built reputation. Only then will they be able to really maximise revenues by making the most of these online shoppers that are open to persuasion.”

But what are you driven by when making online purchases, price or reputation?

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Design Crush – edition 5

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

For our 5th installment of all things nice in the world of design, we wanted to talk about how a website can use design to promote more usability and to actually convert visitors into sales or lead generation. Many people get so caught up in design, they forget the basic function of the website. The primary purpose of a site is to try to create custom for the business. However, there is a fine line between the design of a site and the call to action.

A call to action is a simple marketing tool in which design is implemented to direct visitors to a specific or desired action. With web design this can be often seen where people are directed to form fill-ins and contact pages. With many online retail websites using call to action to attract customers to buy their products it can be the difference between more sales or less. A clear and eye catching call to action in an optimal part of the web page can make all the difference.

Good examples of successful call to actions can often be seen from charity websites. These website heavily rely on call to actions to promote donations from their visitors. Most have very striking call to actions that are well deigned to entice people to donate. An example of this can be seen from the Scottish SPCA website. Here there is a donation button that is obvious and clear to users while not being too in your face which can be off putting.

However, getting the call to action just right can be easier said than done. Another example of a charity website that could have a slightly improved call to action is Children 1st. Here, the donations button is at the top of the page where many people may glance over. Also the size and colour could be changed to make it stand out. So this site could benefit from re-thinking the position, size and colour of their call to action to attract more visitors to the sites desired function.

If you need help with your websites call to action, then get in touch!

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An insight into the 360innovate sales team

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Where would we be without our trusty sales team? Their witty sales chat and smooth one-liners keep us all entertained for hours on end, and lucky for us they keep a constant stream of new clients and work coming our way.

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