Friday, October 28, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Competitions: the secret to online success!
The concept of running a competition to drive footfall and sales is tried and tested in the retail and consumer markets. For a few years now, forward thinking internet marketers have been using competitions to drive website traffic and build marketing databases. The added benefit of competitions is that they tend to spread socially rather quickly, creating lots of word of mouth and social chatter about your brand.
There are a few risks, however, that must be considered when planning a campaign that includes prize giveaways but these are easily balanced by the excitement and fun factor competitions can bring to customers as they interact with your campaigns.
Here are five ideas you may wish to implement in your next prize giveaway campaign:
Set Clear Goals
It is important to have the marketing objectives of your campaign clear in your mind. Do you want to drive brand awareness? Collect a database of potential customers? Increase the take up of you business’ social media channels? There are many valid motivators for running an online giveaway but it is vital to know ahead of time what you are trying to accomplish. This will help you design, plan, monitor and manage your campaign.
Be Creative
You will not be the only company out there running a giveaway and it pays to be innovative. There are lots of so called competitions online which require the customer to complete page after page of tedious data capture and market research. The best online savvy customers will be weary of this type of activity so you would do well to ensure that your campaign cannot be confused with any of these.
Here are a few ideas of the types of competitions that have had good results for marketers.
· video competition inviting users to create a new commercial for one of your products
· user – brand experience completion that awards the best “experience stories” or photographs.
· guess the answer competition
· product invention competition with a cash prize
Leverage Social Channels
The best part about online giveaways is how easy it is to take them viral, encourage participation, and link them into your social media presence. Promote your giveaway via Facebook, Twitter, your company blog, and all other social channels, as well as via traditional marketing channels such as print, e-mail, and in-store signage.
A quick search for the term “competition” on Twitter shows hundreds of giveaway campaigns being delivered right now. The best competitions are intensely social by nature because people like to play games and contests together, and most people love to share the chance to win a cool prize with friends and family. It is vital then that your competition is easily sharable by embedding “share this” links on the site, on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and everywhere else people will come across it.
Facilitate and encourage viral activity by encouraging easy “copy/paste” sharing using the Bit.ly URL shortener for the links to your location online. Most importantly, allow participants to vote to choose the winner, which keeps the audience interacting with one another and engaged with your brand after they have submitted their entry.
End with a Bang!
People will lose interest and your competition will fizz out if it drags on for too long. Online consumers have learned to expect instant gratification so make sure that your competition is just long enough to accomplish your objectives. A typical social competition runs for about four weeks –- longer, of course, if it includes user content creation. When the winner is identified, run a PR campaign to publicise the winner. This creates a great buzz about the competition, enshrines its validity and, of course, creates more brand awareness.
Measure the Results
As mentioned in the first point, launching a competition wasn’t just for fun; it was to achieve a specific marketing goal. Once the dust has settled, you need to measure the impact it had on brand engagement, clickthrough to your site, conversion, and bottom-line sales. You can use a social media tracking tool and Google Analytics to measure all of these parameters. Compare these to your original objectives to create success metrics and find out whether your campaign drove as much traffic to your site as you had hoped, and whether this traffic resulted in conversion.
So the cat is out of the bag; there is big money to be made by marketing your company online and competitions are one good way to do it. For more ideas on how to successfully market your business online, please get in touch with us at Reckless New Media. We will look at your marketing and sales objectives and work with you to develop online strategies to help you achieve them.
There are a few risks, however, that must be considered when planning a campaign that includes prize giveaways but these are easily balanced by the excitement and fun factor competitions can bring to customers as they interact with your campaigns.
Here are five ideas you may wish to implement in your next prize giveaway campaign:
Set Clear Goals
It is important to have the marketing objectives of your campaign clear in your mind. Do you want to drive brand awareness? Collect a database of potential customers? Increase the take up of you business’ social media channels? There are many valid motivators for running an online giveaway but it is vital to know ahead of time what you are trying to accomplish. This will help you design, plan, monitor and manage your campaign.
Be Creative
You will not be the only company out there running a giveaway and it pays to be innovative. There are lots of so called competitions online which require the customer to complete page after page of tedious data capture and market research. The best online savvy customers will be weary of this type of activity so you would do well to ensure that your campaign cannot be confused with any of these.
Here are a few ideas of the types of competitions that have had good results for marketers.
· video competition inviting users to create a new commercial for one of your products
· user – brand experience completion that awards the best “experience stories” or photographs.
· guess the answer competition
· product invention competition with a cash prize
Leverage Social Channels
The best part about online giveaways is how easy it is to take them viral, encourage participation, and link them into your social media presence. Promote your giveaway via Facebook, Twitter, your company blog, and all other social channels, as well as via traditional marketing channels such as print, e-mail, and in-store signage.
A quick search for the term “competition” on Twitter shows hundreds of giveaway campaigns being delivered right now. The best competitions are intensely social by nature because people like to play games and contests together, and most people love to share the chance to win a cool prize with friends and family. It is vital then that your competition is easily sharable by embedding “share this” links on the site, on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and everywhere else people will come across it.
Facilitate and encourage viral activity by encouraging easy “copy/paste” sharing using the Bit.ly URL shortener for the links to your location online. Most importantly, allow participants to vote to choose the winner, which keeps the audience interacting with one another and engaged with your brand after they have submitted their entry.
End with a Bang!
People will lose interest and your competition will fizz out if it drags on for too long. Online consumers have learned to expect instant gratification so make sure that your competition is just long enough to accomplish your objectives. A typical social competition runs for about four weeks –- longer, of course, if it includes user content creation. When the winner is identified, run a PR campaign to publicise the winner. This creates a great buzz about the competition, enshrines its validity and, of course, creates more brand awareness.
Measure the Results
As mentioned in the first point, launching a competition wasn’t just for fun; it was to achieve a specific marketing goal. Once the dust has settled, you need to measure the impact it had on brand engagement, clickthrough to your site, conversion, and bottom-line sales. You can use a social media tracking tool and Google Analytics to measure all of these parameters. Compare these to your original objectives to create success metrics and find out whether your campaign drove as much traffic to your site as you had hoped, and whether this traffic resulted in conversion.
So the cat is out of the bag; there is big money to be made by marketing your company online and competitions are one good way to do it. For more ideas on how to successfully market your business online, please get in touch with us at Reckless New Media. We will look at your marketing and sales objectives and work with you to develop online strategies to help you achieve them.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Now is the time to implement QR codes
A few months back I posted an article on a few forums about QR codes. I was somewhat surprised to see how much activity it caused. What astounded me most of all was the resistance I got from colleagues at other agencies. A number of them were decrying QR as being old-tech, passed it's best. As it turns out it was an interesting debate, with most people taking away the notion that QR are a powerful tool and ready to be exploited right now.
I regularly receive updates from a number of sources in order to keep up to date with the latest digital news. I was quite excited and rather vindicated when I saw this headline today: 4549% YoY rise in QR code scanning.
Surely a stat like that is going to get attention. It may well be that QR has had a long gestation and that even today, many thousands of smartphone users still do not know what they are however people are learning fast and they are willing to embrace this massively engaging technology.
Another driver involved in the success of QR is the fact that big brands have adopted it and are making it work hard for them as the street level presence on massive campaigns. The research also indicates a curiosity factor, code scanning is fun! Scanning a code and therefore interacting with a campaign is no longer seen as a chore or interruptive but part an parcel of the urban leisure experience.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Digital Media tips for 2011
As we move into the new decade, the line between design and development gets ever more blurry. Drawing beautiful front end designs in Photoshop is no longer sufficient, today internet users require more than beauty without substance. Faster broadband has made design more abundant online but also mundane. In 2011 it is no longer enough just to provide the “wow factor” you also need to engage with visitors on new levels.
How will your website stay relevant in 2011? The supreme web designs this year will create an environment which charms and captivates the user to the point where they are actively promoting the content themselves through like buttons, tweet shares etcetera. Several elements come together to forge such an environment: harmonious colour scheme, intuitive design, easily accessible information and fast response.
Never forget the value of simplicity. Simplicity is going to become an ever more valuable part of the web design mix in 2011 as more and more new devices come into the market. Today your design must contend with the requirements of Mac/PC monitors, web enabled flat screen TVs, various smartphones and a host of new tablets coming onto the market.
Here are some tips for commissioning websites in 2011 that work across all platforms.
1. Move Away From Flash: There is an ongoing issue with mobile devices and compatibility with Flash. While the use of flash on websites for PC is already of questionable merit, the mobile world really does not react kindly to the use of Flash. Whereas Android mobiles and tablets can display and interact with Flash on a basic level, IOS (Apple) devices shrug indifferently and pretend it doesn’t exist. Aftermarket browsers are available to play flash on these devices, Skyfire is a good one but this is not a long term answer. Positive solutions in the form of CSS3 and HTML 5 are the way to go and there will be a lot of development in the capability of HTML 5 through 2011 however Flash will still maintain the edge for some truly extraordinary designs.
2. More Dynamic use of Colour: For too long commercial websites have relied on a very simple spectrum of colours, largely blues and greys for their commercially traditional values. Brave designers will start to make bolder use of company colours with backgrounds or green red and yellow, to create a unique feel and to better tie the website in with the branding. Be careful with contrast though, some readers struggle with high contrast light on dark so consider your target market. The Correct use of colours can also affect the mood of visitors and reflect values of a company or product range.
3. Think Mobile: Something else that should be factored into the usability of new websites in 2011 is the touch screen mobile interface. Gone is the mouse as the primary interface with web content. Touch Screens do not with a number of popular website elements. Things like hovering hyperlinks and drop down menus are a problem but some really cool functionality like horizontal scrolling works better on touch screen devices. Consider using liquid layouts as part of your commitment toward responsive design. In 2011, you are no longer dealing with screen resolution size. Visitors can change their viewing orientation from vertical to horizontal. Creating a mobile ready website is not simply removing the bells and whistles from your design. This can create a vacant and impersonal design. Although not impossible, distilling the magic from your original design into a pure representation of your brand is a challenge.
4. Dimension and depth: A couple of years ago it became popular to create websites that were representing a literal workspace, this became faddy and passé very quickly however it did make an argument for creating the illusion of depth and a rich 3 dimensional browsing experience. Today we want to move the game a long a bit, no one really was that impressed by CSS coffee stains but truly creative designers are creating fascinating environments, rich in depth and charming 3d elements. Think of experience and charm as means of generating customer loyalty and encouraging visitors to spend more time on site.
5. QR Codes: QR or quick response codes are those square blotches you may have noticed on movie posters, adverts, magazines and some websites in 2010. This is set to become more popular through 2011 as the smart phone craze strengthens. This is a fantastic call to action tool, simply take a photo of the code with your camera phone and hey presto like magic you are visiting the website associated with the barcode. Think of using QR codes when you comment on blogs or using them on your products to direct mobile traffic back to your site.
We hope that these ideas provide inspiration to you as you consider your web projects for the following financial year. Reckless New Media is a cutting edge web and digital agency in Chester working with progressive companies anywhere to build rich, productive and memorable websites. If you are looking to do something special with your online marketing this year, look no further than Reckless New Media.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Mobile Friendly websites
A few weeks ago, I posted a graphic that represented email clients in order of popularity. I will re post a similar graphic again from a campaign we sent last week.
This chart evidences the point I would like to make regarding the importance of ensuring that a website is designed to be mobile friendly. So much direct marketing is carried out by email today and the evidence is that much of it is being accessed by mobile email clients. For email marketing to be successful, it is important that there are clear and compelling calls to action present. But if fulfilment of these marketing campaigns is to take place on an iPhone or an Android device then it is just as important that the destination website be mobile compatible.
It is possible to have a mobile application creates, with an RSS feed that your mobile users may access your news etc. however it is unlikely that unless you are a very big consumer brand that you are going to get many subscribers who regularly check that application and even less likely to get them to download it in the first place.
One area that is seeing rapid growth is streaming video. There are many websites that supply streaming content that I can access with my HTC. Sadly, they do not offer 100% usability. The thing is I am most likely to access this type of content from my mobile when I have a few minutes to spare and I am not at my desk or in my house.
Most of these systems do use flash and the problems with accessing rich flash content from a mobile device are well documented. No doubt we will see more websites developed to offer a better streaming experience to mobile users but I cant help but feel that some big players in this market are missing a trick.
Once again I have to say that if you are running direct email marketing campaigns, ensure that the landing page does not have flash. This will ruin the impact of the campaign on pretty much any mobile device. Another thing to be wary of is screen width. Make sure that the different elements of your homepage are able to exist next to each other without blocking important text, links or functions.
Th important point to remember is that New Media is all about giving customers choice. If customers are choosing to use mobile devices as web browsers, it would be a fool who fails to react to that basic market force.
It is possible to have a mobile application creates, with an RSS feed that your mobile users may access your news etc. however it is unlikely that unless you are a very big consumer brand that you are going to get many subscribers who regularly check that application and even less likely to get them to download it in the first place.
Most of these systems do use flash and the problems with accessing rich flash content from a mobile device are well documented. No doubt we will see more websites developed to offer a better streaming experience to mobile users but I cant help but feel that some big players in this market are missing a trick.
Once again I have to say that if you are running direct email marketing campaigns, ensure that the landing page does not have flash. This will ruin the impact of the campaign on pretty much any mobile device. Another thing to be wary of is screen width. Make sure that the different elements of your homepage are able to exist next to each other without blocking important text, links or functions.
Th important point to remember is that New Media is all about giving customers choice. If customers are choosing to use mobile devices as web browsers, it would be a fool who fails to react to that basic market force.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Websites for the Blind
Travelocity, has undertaken make its website fully accessible to the blind, will see each web page used for searching flights, accommodation, packages, last-minute deals etcetera to blind Internet users by summer 2011.
From a technical point of view, there are two different types of visual impairment that affect a person’s ability to engage with a website. Each has its own considerations and solutions.
Partially-sighted - Many partially-sighted people need to enlarge text on websites. Some use screen magnifiers. Website designers need to be aware of how enlarging the text effects legibility and the effect it has on text embedded in graphics.
Blind - Screen readers are used by those with blindness or extremely poor sight. The technology sifts through HTML code and deciphers what needs to be read aloud. Some blind users, particularly those that are deaf/blind, might use a refreshable Braille display machine which allows users to read the content.
To develop a website that is disability friendly it is important to realise how the technology blind users employ affects website design and then rework site components such as image and link tags, form formats and even colour schemes. Much of this is covered but the W3C guidelines which disciplined web designers should adhere to, however there is also legislation in the UK in the form of the Disability and Discrimination which pertains to the design and implementation of disabled friendly web design.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)