Archive for September, 2008

Why digital marketing is fair to all

30 September 2008 · Filed under Search Engine Marketing · Tagged ,

Traditional marketing channels (print, tv, radio) offer very little opportunity to the SME businesses out there.  There is no way that smaller businesses can afford these ‘one size fits all’ marketing channels.

Take TV advertising – even if an SME could afford one or two ads, this medium has very little value since it is push advertising – you are hoping to reach the right audience based on timeslot & channel – but there are no guarantees – the advertiser has to achieve maximum brand exosure through repetitive ad delivery that develops brand recognition and hopefully incites some desire to buy.

Enter digital marketing, particularly SEM (Search Engine Marketing).  Any business can compete on search engine marketing platforms with the budget they have available.  Since the ads are delivered to users searching for relevant keywords there is a high probability of the person viewing your ad converting into a customer (if you are offering guttering installations you may target the keyphrase ‘gutter installation companies’ – your ad only appears when this keyphrase is searched for).

You can bid at a cost per click in line with bigger competitors who have deeper pockets, but limit your overally daily budget to remain within your affordable range.  Clients often ask me how much they need to spend online to promote their business.  The answer: you can often get results with $100! If you like the way it performs, spend more, if not, switch it off.

SEM offers advertisers the ability to manage costs within their appetite for spend, the ability to edit advertising instantly, and the fair playing field where little guys can still compete with the bigger spenders to some extent.

by Sean Riley

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FlySAA.com – misleading, irresponsible, and unregulated online

27 September 2008 · Filed under Regulatory · Tagged , , , , ,

The ECT Act of South Africa is a step in the right direction to provide some governance for E-Commerce websites, but many websites still enjoy a level of autonomy and abuse this lack of regulation with irresponsible or in some cases, fraudulent behaviour.

South African Airways is a force unto itself.  A recent experience of my own highlights the need for companies that embark on Internet self-service strategies to ensure that they get it right.  Furthermore, there is a pressing need for companies operating online to be more rigorously regulated within the various jurisdictions that they operate.

I recently booked a flight for my wife & myself from Cape Town to New York.

I chose the ‘Voyager Upgradeable’ option during the booking which:

(a) creates the impression that Voyager Upgradeable seats are available (when using SAA Voyager miles to upgrade to business class there are only a certain number of ‘upgradeable seats’ available on each flight)

and

(b) costs nearly R 2,000 more per passenger than a non-upgradeable seat!

I then phoned SAA to upgrade my seats with my air miles to business class & was told that no upgrades are available.  When enquiring why ‘upgradeable’ seats were still being sold, I was informed that I am supposed to call SAA in advance before booking!  How was I supposed to know this and why have I now paid more for two seats that are identical to cheaper seats?  In fact, since my air miles should provide me with the priviledge of upgrading a normal economy seat to business class, why am I even paying more for ‘upgradeable’ seats in the first place?

After I was told that no upgrades were available, FlySAA continued to sell ‘upgradeable’ seats on their website, at a higher cost!

Surely an organization that manages international flight bookings can handle the simple logistical challenge of showing a certain class of seat as ’sold out’ when it is sold out…?

SAA sells unavailable seats at higher cost

SAA sells unavailable seats at higher cost

What is more frustrating is that SAA respond with a simple ’sorry’?  When you’re paying for something based on a respresentation made on the website, I think ’sorry’ doesn’t cut it.  How about – ‘we’ll make a plan, leave it with us’, or ‘we will credit you the excess you paid for supposed upgradeable seats and make sure that our systems are fixed to avoid future dissapointments for other customers’?

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me.  Last year I planned a trip to Italy and when I phoned to use airmiles for the booking, I was told that I need an additional 20,000 miles per person.  I told SAA that their website was wrong, to which they responded: ‘we know’?  So, your customer incentive program is misrepresenting itself on your website, you know about it, and haven’t taken any measures to correct it?

When a customer makes a purchase online and is mislead during the buying process, it amounts to fraud and deception.  In this instance SAA have profited from their deception and failed to deliver on their air miles committment – many customers use a specific airline because of the air miles benefits.  When the airline makes it close to impossible to use those air miles one has to ask questions about the integrity and legitamacy behind the incentive program.

At the time of writing this article, business class seats remain available on FlySAA…

FlySAA today - Business Class Seats Available!

FlySAA today - Business Class Seats Available!

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How will customers find you online?

24 September 2008 · Filed under Marketing, Search Engine Marketing · Tagged ,

So you want to market your business online?  Where do you start?  How do you get your product in front of the right customer?

Search Engines

Search engines present the most cost effective and targeted method for getting your ads delivered to a very specific audience – an audience that searched for keywords that are related to your specific offering.  Pay per click presents a nice cost effective, track-able method for delivering advertising.  Some  industries find better ROI (Return on Investment) than others – depending on the number of online competitors within that sector.

Which search engines should you consider for your search marketing campaign?  All of them – spread the budget across the dominant search engines and identify which of them delivers customers at the best cost.  Search engines that need to be considered in any PPC marketing strategy include Microsoft’s Live, Google, and Yahoo.  There are inevitably also a few domestically focused search engines from country to country.

Relevant Content Partners

Place ads on websites that attract users who fit your target customer profile.  These websites can be targeted on an individual basis, but many websites participate in Google’s AdSense Program – which makes placement of ads on these sites available through Google’s AdWords – using the Placement option in your campaign (formerly known as a Site Targeted Campaign before Google made Site Targeted and Keyword Targeted campaigns available in a single campaign).

Ideally your content partners that display your ads should be charging you per click and not by impressions.  Impressions have value when developing brand awareness, but do not necessary translate to hard sales.

Viral Marketing

Word of mouth remains one of the most powerful forms of gaining free exposure. Get people talking about your product & before you know it you’ll have more awareness than you ever imagined.  Some platforms to launch your viral marketing campaign include:

  • Refer 3 friends & get x % off your own purchase
  • Social networking applications – get a couple of people to install your application & it starts to spread.  Read more about social network marketing here.
  • Blogging – contribute valuable insights & content & get people talking about your business

Putting it all together

Each business needs to develop an online marketing strategy that suits them.  Are you goals immediate or long term?  What is the profile of your customer?  Can your product be used by anyone or by a very specific segment of the market?  A good starting point is to cover all the bases: Search Engine Marketing, Content Marketing, and a good viral marketing campaign.  Measure, assess, and direct spend to the performing channels that work for your business.

by Sean Riley

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Beware Spammers

23 September 2008 · Filed under News · Tagged ,

Spamming has developed into a global plague.  Unwanted, unsolicited emails comprises more than half my inbox.  What does this do for the global economy?  it is clear that productivity is negatively impacted, and with spam filters having to be progressively more stringent, we often find legitimate emails being discarded as junk.  The bandwidth strain that spam contributes further distorts economic factors – businesses are having to buy excessive amounts of bandwidth in order to cope with spam.

ISPA recently accounced its war on spam.  Taking a lead in the international fight on spam, ISPA has disclosed its plans to introduce an online Wall of Shame that will regularly be updated to list known South African spammers.

Spam presents more direct risks to individuals than simply wasting time & money, specically the risk of being defrauded.  It amazes me how many ignorant users still exist (sorry Mom!) that actually believe that:

  • they’ve won a lottery they never entered
  • someone in Nigeria will release $ 10,000,000 if they pay the admin fee of $5,000 (419 scams)
  • HSBC has $ 300,000 in a account in their name, and simply require all of their personal details
  • forwarding an email to 10 people will save a life

Come on guys!  Preventing spam starts with a few simple guidelines, but it takes everyone’s cooperation:

  • when you receive email from someone you don’t know that is offering you something, it is usually spam;
  • an email that encourages you to forward itself to other people is usually spam;
  • an email that solicits any form of personal information from you is usually spam;
  • an email with a hyperlink to a known institution that is different to that institutions’ website is usually masquarading (e.g.: if ABSA sends you an email prompting you to enter details on their website, the website should be https://www.absa.co.za/…. NOT something different like http://193.45.3.1/absa…)

Be a part of the cure – stop forwarding emails form unknown recipients!

by Sean Riley

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Using technology to improve the customer experience

22 September 2008 · Filed under CRM · Tagged ,

When you consider how technology can be applied to enhance a customers experience, you immediately think of state-of-the-art CRM systems and other leading edge, often expensive systems.  The reality is that there are countless simple measures that can be taken to leverage existing or free technologies to improve your customers experience.

Don’t you hate it when…?

You call a bank, you are led through a series of instructions, you enter your credit card number… and when you finally speak to a real person their first sentence is: “Thanks for calling, can I have your card number?”.  It’s quite simple, if the institution has the technology to carry the card details through with the call then do it, if not then don’t waste the customers time.  One credit card company that does it right it Discovery Card – well done!

You call a company and receive the exact same call waiting music as every other company out there?  Did you know that most entry level PABX systems support a simple input from a computer to play your very own music?

You visit a company with a fantastic flatscreen TV in reception… and it’s switched off?  If you’ve invested in a TV such as this, keep it on & keep the content it shows interesting & relevant.

Ideas for enhancing the customer experience

Provide Choice. Let customers interact with your business in a way that suits them.  Does the customer prefer personal phone calls, email, text messages, or post?  Accommodate them!

Be Quick. When you have the customers attention, use it to maximum advantage.  If you are sending a marketing email, get the message across quickly & concisely.  Make the call to action easy and simple.  If your marketing email promotes a new product, make it clear to the customer how they can order it.  If you sent a promotional email, it doesn’t take much effort to personalize the email to the point where the call to action click (e.g.: Click Here to Order Yours Now) – doesn’t just take the customer to an order page, but it actually populates the order page with the Customers’ profile!

If you have technology – use it. As illustrated earlier – if you have a flatscreen TV, state-of-the-art PABX, or other enriching technologies in your business – use them!

Consider free/low cost technologies. Need a free CRM solution?  Try Sugar CRM.  Text Messaging presents an extremely low cost, non-intrusive method to interact in a personal manner with your customers.  Many self-service pay per use text messaging services are available online.

Simplify life for the customer

What defines good customer service?  Immediate, relevant responses to a customers’ requirements.  Make life simple for the customer and you have a winning recipe.  If the nature of your business allows you to provide online self-service functionality – do it.  Empower your customer to help themselves and drive your own back office costs down.  Embracing technology to deliver better customer service doesn’t equate to becoming inpersonal.  Maintain regular person to person interactions with key customers.  Log your interactions in your CRM system if you have one.  Make the customer feel special and identify their specific requirements.

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Putting Social Networks to work

19 September 2008 · Filed under Social Networking, Uncategorized · Tagged , , ,

Social networks have changed the web forever.  Anyone can express themselves, connect with old friends, keep in touch with distant friends, and maintain their own peice of the internet.  Debate continues about the value of this freedom to self publish our lives online – but irrespective of the real value within social networks, they do offer advertisers a great opportunity.

What are the big social networks advertisers should consider?

These are some of the biggest social networks:

www.facebook.com

www.myspace.com

www.bebo.com

www.friendster.com

Want the full picture of all the social networks available?  Try Visual representation of global social networking market share and http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=114 (this is old – FaceBook has definately won more market share)

Why are social networks a valuable advertising platform?

When you interact with users on social networks you interact with real people that have legitimate identities.  You are able to profile your audience very specifically – paying to display your advertising to a sub section of the entire social network user base that best represents your target customer.  For example, FaceBook will display the exact size of the audience you are targeting as you refine the profile and interests of your targeted customer (e.g.: males between 18 and 35 in South Africa who are interested in Rugby).

Besides pay pay click advertising on social networks, there is also the possiblity of creating free exposure for your business by introducing an application that is embedded within the social network.  If the application enriches the users experience, viral word of mouth marketing will take care of the rest.

Types of applications & integration with social networks

Google’s OpenSocial is a open standards set of tools that are supported by many of the large social networks, including LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster, and Plaxo.  OpenSocial allows developers to create seamless transtitions between their own applications and these social networks.  FaceBook uses its own set of standards, and developers can choose to build an application that can be embedded within a users FaceBook page or a completely independant website can be built that interacts remotely with FaceBook using FaceBook Connect.  FaceBook Connect offers the ability to leverage an existing FaceBook profile to serve as the user account on your own website.  Some of the benefits?  The name will be real and the user doesn’t have to go through a laborious registration process – by providing their FaceBook username and password your website can access all of their profile details.

Social network application guidelines

Some valuable social network application guidelines are provided here.  The bottom line is this: if your business wants to introduce a FaceBook (or other social media) application – it must enrich the user experience.  Users will not install an application because it’s there – it will need to offer a valuable utility to the user and make the entire FaceBook experience all the better.  Furthermore, the application should leverage the fact that it is embedded within a social network.  Applications should allow users to share, interact, and grow their digital relationship with each other.

by Sean Riley

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Planning a Search Engine Marketing Campaign

17 September 2008 · Filed under Search Engine Marketing · Tagged , ,

Need to plan a search engine marketing campaign?  Need to gather intelligence about the market place, search volumes for specific keywords, and develop your search engine marketing strategy?  This article covers a step by step approach towards developing your Pay Per Click advertising campaign.


Identify your target customer

What defines the audience that comprises your typical customer?  What websites would your customer typically be found on?  Is your customer a parent of children, a corporate decision maker, or a consultant?  Take the time to understand your targeted customer and their behaviour.

Identify with your target customer

What is your target customer looking for?  Does your marketing campaign address a key driver towards leading them to your website, and ultimately towards a sale?  What are the concerns of your targeted customers?  Do you address these?  Take Botox for example – most woman in their 30’s already know that Botox exists and that it’s used for wrinkles.  But take a look at most Botox marketing material – typically accompanied by a big needle inserted into a lovely lady’s forehead!  Is it painful?  Are there side effects?  What does it cost?  How long does the treatment take?  These are the questions you should be answering.

Determine your marketing budget

How much are you prepared to spend?  Determine the budget that you are prepared to allocate towards your marketing endeavours.

Set measures of success

How much does your product cost and what are the margines?  What is success?  A lead or a sale?  Using conversion tracking in conjunction with your marketing campaign can help ensure that you can accurately track the cost of acquisition per customer.  If you conversion costs per customer are higher than the cost of your product (or you margin), you may need to revise your marketing campaign!

Do you need to build awareness first?

Does the market know your product exists?  If not, you may need to begin with banner advertising that develops your brand awareness first.  As your product becomes accepted & known in the market place you can direct your advertising budget towards search engine marketing.

Choosing keywords

Need to understand what keywords are searched in your marketplace and how regularly?  Here are two useful tools to get you started:

Track keyword performance against conversions.  Some keywords may deliver high traffic to your website, but no sales.

One message

Are your ads performing (from a clicks & click through rate perspective) but not delivering sales?  Perhaps you need to refine your ad to only bring the right type of visitors to your website.  For example, an ad title that reads ‘.net Developer Jobs’ may perform well but if your business is based in Cape Town the following ad title may deliver less but more relevant traffic: ‘.net Developer Jobs CPT’.

It is important to ensure that your website reinforces the message your ads are sending.  A good rule of thumb to assist in this regard is to deep link your ads – do not direct the destination URL directly to your home page, rather, it should point to the page relevant to the product or service that your ad is promoting.

by Sean Riley

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Beyond Cool: Websites that will change your life…

15 September 2008 · Filed under Cool, Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , , ,

New, hip, cool websites are launching daily.  Many, unfortunately, add absolutely no value to our lives.  They offer a brief moment of entertainment & they are quickly forgotten.  However, some websites offer a truly enriching, emersive experience and will make their mark on us forever.  Here are some of the sites that have made their mark on me:

www.synthasite.com

WOW!  Build your own free website online.  As the MD of a company that offers web development, I have to admit that Synthasite offers a compelling service that appears to be aimed at the SME market.  Build your own website online through your web browser & Synthasite will host it free of charge – what’s the catch? None!  I was fortunate to meet Vinny Lingham, the founder of Synthasite recently.  Vinny’s energy & vision for Synthasite is contagious – and best of all – it’s a business born within South Africa!

www.innocentive.com

Think you’re good at solving problems?  Join InnoCentive’s online community & receive cash bounties from companies who post their challenges online.  Companies are harnessing the power of mass collaboration and are allowing anyone to participate in helping them innovate.

www.lulu.com

If you’ve ever explored the possibility of publishing a book you would have discovered how little the publishers share with their authors.  Lulu allows you to self publish your book online – you determine the price the book is sold at and the margin you want to make.  Lulu will automatically make the book available on Amazon and will assign you an ISBN number.  Another great service offered is the ability to generate custom printed photo albums – I recently generated a fully printed wedding album for my brother & sister in law using Lulu.  With a small amount of effort I was able to provide a uniquely personal, high quality gift.

www.elance.com

One of the longest existing B2B sites that I know of.  Elance matches contractors with contract jobs – bid for work online & perform freelance work.  You can access an international resource pool online – instantly.

www.tripadvisor.com

Plan your holiday based on other travellers actual experiences!  It doesn’t stop there – like what you see?  Go ahead & book your entire trip in one place!

www.flickr.com

Love photography? Share your photos online, view other peoples photos.

www.shutterstock.com

Really love photography? What to earn revenue from your hobby?  Signup at Shutterstock as a photographer and earn cash each time your photo is purchased.

www.wikipedia.com

Apologies for this cliche – but Wikipedia really is a site that has made an impact on my daily life.  The information is surprisingly thorough, accurate, and well constructed.  If you have to become an expert on any subject matter in 2 minutes – this is the ONLY place to start.

Are there some websites that have changed your life?  Please post a comment & let us know!

by Sean Riley

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Online Marketing – the Options Available

15 September 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

Online Marketing is a broad term.  What exactly does it mean & what forms of marketing can be considered ‘online marketing’?

Natural Rankings

The most cost effective form of exposure online is achieved through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  SEO is the science of structuring a website to achieve the highest possible rankings on search engines for keywords that your website has identified as being relevant to your business. SEO takes time & there are no guarantees – you may achieve a top 10- ranking today but tomorrow you could rank 15th (off Google’s first page).  SEO should be approached with a long term view.  Constant attention is required to achieve & maintain adequate rankings.  In the next few weeks I will cover strategies for improving the rankings of a website.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing presents the most cost effective form of paid advertising.  Google reports that search engine marketing offers the best Return On Investment (ROI) of any form of online marketing.  Search Engine Marketing refers to pay per click advertising on search engines that in include Google, Yahoo, MSN, and in South Africa – Search24.

An advertiser will effectively bid on keywords that are relevant to their business.  When a user searches on a search engine for the keyword, the advertisers ad is displayed.  Since ads displayed have contextual relevance to the user, the perofrmance of these ads is good.  Furthermore, the advertiser will only pay the search engine when the ad is actually clicked – hence a cost is only carried if the user identified with the ad & decided to visit the advertisers’ website.  Many ads can be displayed for a specific keyword, the order of the ads is determined by the value of the bid as well as the ‘Ad Quality’ – more on this in the near future!

Banner Advertising

Banners offer brand development value – a banner ad can be placed on various websites to promote your business.  Since banner ads are (a) not specifically targeted to a specific user profile and (b) suffer from users who have (as a result of years of excessive banner ads displayed), learnt to block them out – do not count on banners to deliver high traffic to your website.  However, they are valuable in delivering high exposure & increasing brand awareness.

The graph below highlights the appropriate use of banner advertising vs. search engine marketing:

Product Maturity Lifecycle - when to use search vs. banner advertising

Product Maturity Lifecycle - when to use search vs. banner advertising

Viral Marketing

Many low cost options exist to create viral marketing.  Online competitions, FaceBook Applications, YouTube videos, and many other forms of viral campaigns can deliver greate exposure at a low cost.  One of my favourite examples recently is Verisigns’ video on YouTube – search for “Cart Wisperer” & you will find an incredibly funny, low cost series of videos about a fictitious character that saves shopping carts & returns them to malls.  At the end you are directed to the Cart Wisperer’s website, where the message of safe online shopping is reinforced.  Taking a quick glance today, this low cost marketing initiative by Verisign has been viewed in excess of 2 Million times!

Direct Marketing

Email & SMS based marketing present a valuable form of marketing to customers.  Direct marketing can be effective if:

  • a customers’ privacy is respected – don’t market to customers who have not opted in to receive your messages
  • it’s direct marketing – make it personal – use the customers’ first name & communicate in a manner that is relevant to each customer.

by Sean Riley

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Wikinomics – The World has Changed

14 September 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , ,

A colleague recently recommended the book Wikinomics.  Written by Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams, Wikinomics will open your mind to the new era of business.  The sub title (selected through a process of open collaboration on the internet) reads: ‘HOW MASS COLLABORATION CHANGES EVERYTHING’.

The books covers the phenomena that have thrived from thinking differently – more importantly openly.  Traditional conventions are challenged & supported by thorough case studies.  Delve into the history of how a whole new operating system (Linux) was born from one individual (Linus Torvalds) who opened his work to others & collaborated to what is now an enterpise OS trusted by many.  In fact, Linux probably powers your BMW’s onboard computer!

The power of social networking, peer to peer computing, and internet-powered collaboration is explained in detail.  At first glance the book may sound like a communist business for dummies guide – but that’s not the case.  The authors are very pro profit & provide numerous examples of how firms have created a blend of openess & sharing with a level of private protection of key facets unique to their business.

One of Entelligence’s many interactions with open source includes our fantastic phone system (thanks to Clive!) which runs on Asterisk, an open source VOIP telephony system.  Asterisk wasn’t chosen by Entelligence because it was free (though that makes for a great pitch!).  In 2004 Entelligence purchased an expensive, state-of-the-art VOIP based PABX.  Within 2 months of operating the system (and having undergone huge disruption to our business), we realised our mistake.  Enter Asterisk.  In desperation we installed an entry-level PC with Asterisk, having purchased some really cheap voice cards, and quickly discovered that our R 15,000 solution was better than our R 340,000 solution.  We run Asterisk to this day & with great success.  We receive calls from London & New York numbers seamlessly & the system is incredibly stable.  Digium, the promoters of Asterisk, offer a high end commercial version at a cost as well as the voice cards which are Asterisk tested.  Digium entered a saturated market place & turned it upside down.  They were prepared to give away some key intellectual property in return for growing their brand & gaining a following.

Wikinomics doesn’t only cover IT related products.  Proctor & Gamble, GoldCorp, and General Motors are a few of the companies beginning to think unconventionally.

What empowers more than anything else? Knowledge.  In the new age of collaboration, knowledge is accessible to all.  Search any theme on Wikipedia & you’ll be amazed to find how accurate the subject matter is.  And if you think it’s not accurate, signup & change it!

Some of the social networking & sharing phenomena available to all now include:

www.facebook.com,www.myspace.com, www.flickr.com, www.youtube.com

Some of the amazing free products out there that have been born from Open Source:

IBM’s OmniFind – Yahoo Edition – install your own personal search engine that only searches websites you specify & any documents within your organization.

Asterisk – setup an enterprise PABX at a minimal cost – includes VOIP, Voice Mail, Call Waiting, Push to Screen Displays, and many options such as integration with the open source CRM system, Sugar.

Open Office – an alternative to Microsoft’s Office… and it’s free.

Order Wikinomics Here

Order Wikinomics Here

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