UK first in Europe for e-commerce spending

It is no seceret that British people love to shop but recent research by e-commerce specialists FACT-Finder indicate that the U.K, Germany and France account for almost three-quarters of on-line sales in Europe.

As reported in a recent article on Internet Retailing, FACT-Finder has released figures that show the majority, 70%, of on-line sales originate from just three countries:

U.K: $64.1bn German: $52.4bn France: $33.4bn

These figures prove that, despite their geographical closeness, their cultural differences and diversities mean that Europe cannot be viewed as a single entity from an e-commerce point of view. This means cross-border trading can be a challenge and many retailers choose to focus on trading locally. Even ad campaigns don't translate, culturally or literally, across multiple countries because brands, and stores, differ from country to country. Think of perennial TV favorite Lynx, commonly known on the Continent as Axe.

While the infrastructure may be in place to support international e-commerce in Europe, it can still take a considerable investment in time and money to understand the intricacies of trading abroad. In many cases this leads to companies not taking advantage of these expanded markets and solely focussing on local trade.

Ofcom research indicates that British Internet users made more than double the number of on-line purchases in the past six months than Internet users in any other European country, except Poland (19 and 14 on-line purchases respectively). The next country was Germany with nine purchases.

In addition, the total value of online purchases Internet users said they made in the past six months was highest in the U.K. with $1,624. This was nearly double the amount spent by Internet users in the next-placed country, Germany, with $938.

Mathias Duda, head of UK operations at FACT-Finder, said: “The growth of ecommerce has made it much easier for even small brands and retailers to trade outside their domestic markets."

He added: “We hope others will find this report enlightening and perhaps start a conversation about how retailers see themselves in the European market and consider how cross-border trading might be improved.”

How to feel the love on the Internet.

Fridays are good days for most people and I am no different. I find myself feeling quite irrepressible most Fridays. Every other week I attend a Friday morning breakfast networking group at the Ramada Hotel in Christleton. I hasten to add that Friday is the only day of the week I can see myself cheerfully getting up and out of the house for the 6:45 am meeting. Friday is also the day I get my graze.com box and is is a costly but very much enjoyed mid morning treat at the end of the week. graze.com's business model is perfect for an internet business. Following in the footsteps of web businesses trailblazer LOVEFILM, the subscription model is great for keeping your customers engaged.

There are a few sneaky tricks that both graze.com and LOVEFILM use to keep their customers even if they have been inclined to wander. In a very cosseting and friendly way, both have a number of steps to their unsubscribe process. Unlike so many obstructive services that make it complicated and clumsy to unsubscribe, these two warmly ask you if you are sure you want to leave, would you not rather take a cheaper price plan or perhaps a one month holiday. These phases of the process are done with care and a level of customer service (being provided virtually) that many a high street retailer would envy.

Lets have a look at the customer interaction model and see what makes it tick and why it makes customers like us stick.

The rating and suggestions functionality. This is a very powerful part of a user experience. If done well, it makes the customer feel like a loved member of the family and their favourite uncle has selected a movie that he is sure you would love to watch or your grandmother has carefully selected a box of health yet delicious treats just for you. Conversly if its done badly, it is alienating and foreign and a damning reflection of the company as a cheesy supermarket check out flashing KitKats and Mars bars at you and everyone else in the vague hope that you give in to cheap temptation.

By being able to rate, recommend or slate a product, the customer is also empowered to engage with the host. The host then uses the customers activity to further refine their preferences and enhance the customer experience. As a result I have now seen all of the movies that Clint Eastwood has ever made as was my original intention but I was also introduced to a non Eastwood movie that somehow I had overlooked, "Once Apon a Time in the West". An epic movie that is now my absolute favourite thanks to a LOVE FILM referral.

Making good use of customer data is vital to the continued success of these companies and doubtless they pour over website statistics and visitor tracking to continually improve the customer journey and visitor conversion rate. Making good use of visitor statistics should not be left to the ground breaking internet entrepreneurial businesses. Any company that has a website can and should use visitor tracking. Google analytics is free and very powerful! I have no hesitation in encouraging any one responsible for their companies marketing activity to get conversant with it and unleash the power of the internet.

Getting a feel for visitor behaviour will enable you to establish which part's of your website are performing well and where you may need to freshen up your message. It is also a good way to track the effectiveness of your direct marketing messages. Tracking your performance month by month will enable you to identify long term trends that if used with a suitable marketing spend matrix could help you to save money on marketing or even better use it where and when it is most productive. Most of these point apply equally to on-line advertising through Pay Per Click but that is another matter.

Returning to the good example of LOVEFILM in recent months they have introduced the facility for members to view entire film online. To a subscriber, this feel like free content. To a movie lover its just heaven. Most of the movies that are available to "watch now" are older more quirky movies that have a cult following. Generally the type of movie that my wife gets annoyed if I try to make her sit through if I want to watch them in the living room with her.

This concept of free content took me back to something I read a few years ago in a Jeffrey Gitomer sales book. Jeffrey says that instead of trying to sell to your customers and prospects every time you see them, rather try and give them something of value. Or something that you have to give and they would value. The underlying truth here is that no one likes to be sold to but everyone like to buy things. If you can arrange things so that your customers come to you for free information, guidance and advice, the likelihood is that they will come to you to buy too. What is more there is a strong possibility they will feel good about it as you are now a vendor they can trust rather than a slick salesman that has liberated a few thousand of their precious pounds. Start thinking about what you can give away for free!

As an example, I would like to highlight the financial comparison websites such as moneysupermarket.com or comparethemeercat.com financial products are a very competitive market and brokers can be a bit dog eat dog and a little sly with their sales tactics. But with these heroes of on-line finance give you their expertise for free, not only do they regularly blog very sound consumer advices, they host financial forums and supply real answers to their customers needs free of charge, added to that they give people the freedom to choose the best solution for their needs and pockets. I never buy my insurance or arrange a credit card anywhere else

This has been my something free and I hope it has been informative. What is more, I hope it has been a special Friday treat for my lovely family of contacts, followers, colleagues and lastly but most importantly me customers.

To find out more about the work that I do visit www.recklessnewmedia.com or connect to me on LinkedIn.

Happy Friday Everybody

What is SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is about driving more visitors to your website through organic search results. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing send out search bots into the vastness of the internet, to scan the billions of pages of content therein.

The first and most important element of SEO is to ensure that your website is build to W3C standards and as such is inviting and accommodating to the search bots. All of our websites are built to these standards so that they are the perfect basis to begin an SEO campaign.

SEO is not a mystery; there are no secrets and dark arts involved. SEO is all about getting good relevant content onto the internet and securing quality back links. This said, it is a time-consuming task and the more competitive the search terms related to your product, the more man-hours of SEO will be required to bring about results.

As effective as SEO is, it is not the quickest way to boost your visitor count. It takes 3 to 6 months of effort for an SEO campaign to start to show results and you would expect your campaign to pay for itself after one year. The good thing about SEO is that once your website has risen in the search listings, it takes a concerted effort by a competitor to remove it.

SEO is an investment in marketing your brand just as much as print or AV advertising and is most successful as part of a concerted campaign. The most attractive element of online marketing however is that fact that all visits are trackable through Google analytics so you can easily monitor the effectiveness of the campaign asses the quality of the new hits your campaign brings.

Some companies are offering SEO services at very low rates and they can indeed increase the number of visits your website gets. The difference is however the quality of those links. When one of our experienced SEO personnel takes on a project, we ensure that we deliver quality results by ensuring that all our blogging, back links and social media work is contextual and relevant. This means that the people who do visit your website are more likely to be interested in what is on your website than someone who was lead there by a low cost SEO company.

Beware too of companies that offer quick results through SEO. Using legitimate White Hat SEO techniques, there is just no way that you can move a new website rapidly up the search rankings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you SEO using Black Hat tactics that are dangerous, unethical and can get your website penalized and even ignored by the major search engines.

We strongly suggest to most of our clients that they engage in an SEO campaign. Even though it can seem expensive, it really is the best way to grow an online business. Think of it like this; a website sitting on its own on the internet is like a warehouse languishing in an industrial estate with no customers. There are two ways to increase traffic to the warehouse.

1. Advertise.

There is always a case to be made for advertising. If you have a product that people want to buy and you can give them a good reason to buy it from you then advertising will bring you some results. Similarly online advertising can drive people to your site.

However, much like that warehouse, you are likely going to have to use price as a compelling reason to get people to visit. Budget pricing is a tried and tested method of increasing sales. It is however better, especially for an SME to sell your service/products for the maximum the market will bear. Slashing your prices to catch people’s attention can also mean slashing your profit margins.

Advertising too is expensive and is difficult to measure. What if there was a way to use a very similar budget to increase footfall but also enable you to keep your pricing and your margins intact?

2. Optimise

If you wanted to get thousands of people to view your store or your products, you wouldn’t ask them all to come and visit you (advertising) you would go to them. This is the equivalent of opening a high street store as the outlet for your warehouse. It costs you a regular rent on your store but you get thousands upon thousands of visitors every day seeing your brand and visiting your store. Optimising your website is just like moving your website from an industrial estate onto the high street, where all the people are and want to be.

With years of experience in optimising websites for a host of industries, Reckless New Media should be your first port of call for online marketing. As part of a comprehensive marketing strategy, SEO is an invaluable tool and its value should not be underestimated.

And above all things, be considerate!

Whenever I go to public consultations or attend a workshop hosted by a local Council, Business Link, RDA or even the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) I get told that the public sector is prepared and eager to do business with SMEs and local business. I have read numerous articles and releases encouraging people like me to look for work with the nation’s biggest spender. As evidence of their munificence they (the various public sector bodies) provide us with some invitingly named web portals. Enter The Chest , Supply2Gov , Compete For.
Aside for the obviously unfriendly design and layout of all three, both supply2 and Compete For work pretty well although as an operation funded by our taxes, I find it staggering how often the Supply2 bunch try to get money off of me. Supply2 will give me free access to all opportunities in my sector within my local authority area. To date, not a single opportunity has arisen. A number however have presented themselves in neighbouring boroughs however I have to take out a rather costly subscription to get access to these. Also the councils maintain their heavy purchasing bureaucracy where I am sure they employ people whose only task is to obfuscate tender documentation so that only former public sector buyers can become successful public sector bid writers. This must be a result of some union decision to ensure the allocation of well paid bid writer positions in the private sector and healthy consultative opportunities for retiring buyers.
Rant over! The real reason for me bringing this up was one of the portals in particular got to me in a big way. To put it short it’s a pig to use! The Chest this is the worst case of over engineered non function that I have seen in my life, it reminds me of a Russian WW2 submarine, unattractive, unfriendly, robust and ineffective. Reigning this discussion in further; on the subject of design, most of us should be familiar with the concept of form following function. Many lazy designers or in some cases bad designers have used this as an excuse for creating a less than elegant product that does its job admirably. I can think of some business software I have used in the past as a fine example of this. In some cases this is viewed as sensible austerity, passing the savings in design time in to the consumer.
The concept of sensible austerity is a complete nonsense and I don’t think anyone is fooled. There are examples of this all around us. Take for example brown brick council houses, high-rise estates and some other relics of socialist Britain. These solutions offered comfortable living solutions to the destitute and those less well off but wrapped it all up in such an appealing facade that they literally exude waves of depression, squalor, debasement and various antisocial pathoses.
There do exist some very up market items that could be and sometimes are called Haute Couture that are in fact triumphs of form over function. In some cases these items are barely able to fulfil the function for which they were intended (I hesitate to use the word designed). In other instances the elaborate design does little or nothing to enhance the product and can in some cases hinder its most efficient utilisation in this case I reference the Lamborghini Reventon which is in no way more capable than the standard Murciélago on which it is based. These are rare items and usually have very little impact on the lives of anyone other than the select few who can afford to buy them.
What most people prefer is balance. Balance indicates thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness gives people a sense of being important. If people think that corporations/institutions have given real consideration to their needs and desires that will impress them and generate brand loyalty, the type of brand loyalty that people like Apple, M&S and possibly your local butcher enjoy because of their customer first attitude. Good, not expensive or extravagant design is how you demonstrate that you care about your customers.
At Reckless New Media we always strive to give our customers a sense of wellbeing and the notion that their brand, their corporate identity and their future web sales are in good hands. The tool that we use to do this is consideration. We pay a lot of attention to our customers business; we look into the needs of their clients, their selling style and corporate culture so that we can understand their requirements. This we feel has enabled us to create a host of very effective websites that enable our customers to generate new business from the internet and to foster lasting relationships with their web based customers.
Can you think of any examples of good customer first branding and design? I would welcome your suggestions in the comments box.

Fish, Chips and Exceptional Curry

I took some well deserved rest last week and went out to Abersoch and Pwelli on the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales. It was a beautiful sunny day and my wife my friends and I spent much of it on the beach soaking up the sun. In town (Pwelli) as is typical of most British seaside towns there were a plethora of fish and chip take-aways. The thing that struck me about all of these organisations was the fact that they all have really clear and compelling branding. All of these shops do what they say on the tin, customers know instantly and from far away what they do and once they get a whiff of them , they realise that they want it.

The entire fast food industry provide excellent examples of clear and efficient branding - Think McDonald's, Subway, Dominoes, Starbucks and even your corner Chinese. They all have the same components, clear charismatic visuals that work hand in hand with sensory stimulation.

For a small company, it is really important to create a compelling visual, that tells people (prospective clients) what your business is all about. This is something that can easily be overlooked. It is important that the branding is compelling to it's target market but also iconic. All of the best brands are iconic, even the local chippy has the fish symbol, for McDonald's its the golden arches and for KFC it's the Colonel. Can you create an icon?

What about the sensory/emotional response? With fast food, the most powerful form of ambush marketing is the smell, it permeates the high-street and reaches punters at a subconscious level. How can you reach your customers subconscious? That is the challenge for brand builders in the 21st century. In a saturated market full of competent competition, how can you protect your customers from the budget priced come latelys and the competitor who moves in next door?

We cannot all use smell or even one of the other 4 senses. We can all however use the 6th sense, the sense of satisfaction. I know how cheesy that sounds but if you think of yourself as a consumer, what is your single largest reason for not taking up a budget priced product or service?

Usually it is fear of product failure or inferiority. Other times a concern about hidden costs may also be a factor. Many premium brands get a lot of mileage from lifestyle advertising promoting the satisfaction they bring their clients. satisfaction can come from the quality of the product but it also comes from quality of service.

Incorporate satisfaction into your brand. Make your staff's smiley faces and impeccable manners a brand attribute. Train anyone who answers the telephone to do so professionally and in a friendly engaging manner. If you are able to do this, the sense of satisfaction will work for your brand the same way as the sense of smell does for the chippy.

I was inspired by an excellent dining experience at an Indian Restaurant in Matlock, the service was exceptional and the food was delightful. I spent much more than I planed to and that to me is an example of good marketing!

The First Rule of Logo Design & Branding, The Parable of the Fruit Picker.

This week I have been working with a new client, a marketing company with a pretty impressive portfolio. For the purposes of this discussion I will call them Company A.

Company A came to us with a very impressive design brief for a new product that they were launching. They needed a web agency to develop a website for them to use primarily as a sales tool to sell the concept to their clients. In their proposal they had I feel correctly identified their target market and designed a brand and corporate identity that played directly to the aspirations of that market, an example of very good targeted branding.

However, a committee came in and looked at the website we had developed for them and decided that the design was too target market specific and they wanted us to broaden the general appeal of the website. After spending thousands of pounds on a new website, the company seriously wanted us to look at their core design and make it "More commercial", This was a delicately designed very pretty website; full of lifestyle, aspirational imagery and perfect for its original target market. Making it more commercial in this case was like plastering sponsorship decals on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Where did it all go wrong?

The first step in branding is to identify your target market. Do your research in phase one. If you have a product idea, establish who is most likely to buy it and focus your branding and marketing effort on them.

This is where mistake one is usually made.

The temptation is to try and design your brand with as broad appeal as possible. This is common sense the more people who like your brand and are attracted by it, the more potential customers you have.

But this is flawed thinking.

The best way to grow a customer base is to have a strong identity that really speaks to your desired audience. People however are all different, even the most popular and powerful mass market brands like Coca Cola and Google have detractors. To reach the mass market, a design or marketing message has to be so severely watered down that it looses the ability to compel it's primary market.

This situation is all too common and it can really slow the progress of a new brand. A good way to illustrate this scenario is to imagine that you in an orchard full of (insert favourite fruit here). If you look at one tree you will notice that it is full of fruit and if you have an hour you can pick it bare of 100 lovely juicy (your favourite fruit).

So you commence picking, within five minutes you will have picked all the fruit within arms reach, lets say 20 fruit.

At this point you will start to struggle reaching the fruit on the top half of the tree. They are tantalisingly close so you exert more and more effort in the struggle to reach each fruit.

Sure, morally this feels great. Each freshly picked fruit is a small victory and no doubt will be all the sweeter for it. In the end you may reach the last fruit on the tree. Feeling very content you climb down from the ladder pleased and fulfilled with your hard days work and your just rewards. It may have taken 3 times as long as you originally thought but you are probably most pleased with the few surprise fruit that you hadn't even seen. 120 fruit for 3 hours work, well done.

Compare that to the targeted picker. He knows that he has 1 hour to pick as many fruit as he can. Realising that each tree has about 20 low hanging fruit it will take 5 minutes to pick those low hanging fruit he can hit 12 trees in his hour delivering 240 fruit and plenty of time to enjoy them.

Our targeted picker did not work as hard but gut better results because he knew how to target his low hanging fruit.

A growing brand will benefit massively from the same approach. Identify your low hanging fruit, there should be enough of them out there to keep you busy.

Watch this space as the saga continues with the second reason a brand goes wrong.

For some examples of good branding visit our website here.

Micro Business and Web Cowboys

Yesterday I had an interesting experience, a distraught woman called me up and begged me to look at her website. I was a little taken aback as, although it is a fairly reasonable request seeing as I work for a web agency, this person's emotional intensity made me feel uncomfortable.

When I typed in her URL Google Chrome sent me a warning message indicating that this website my be harmful to my computer. The lady on the telephone assured me that this was indeed a legitimate commercial website and I needed to have a look at it. With some degree of trepidation, I twice informed Chrome that I was indeed bonkers and I would like to proceed to view this website.

I was relieved at first to discover that rather than contraband naughty-stuff and black market pharmaceuticals, the website was simply for a horse trader. The poor thing! She has owned the URL for 5 years and recently paid very little for a new website that while not doing anything for her brand or offering any SEO compatible architecture had managed to upset Google terribly. When the world's most popular search engine rejects you, that's not good for business.

I told her how it was, she needed a new website on a new domain and quoted her on our bare bones CMS system. She gulped, my very reasonable £1500 for a basic but well built and user friendly website was way above her budget. I felt sorry for her, I didn't want her going back to one of the budget website companies, this was after all her livelihood.

The long and the short of it is I was able to cut out some functionality and use an off the shelf CMS system to get the price down to £1000 and she was able to stretch to that. I was happy that I was going to get another small business a quality web presence that helps them to promote their brand and grow their business.

She came in with her partner this morning and we discussed some layout options and design concepts. Happily this job is moving forward and we should have another very satisfied customer in a few days.

This got me thinking, why are people happy to entrust a major business purchase to an amateur or alternatively why are owners of Micro business so unwilling to invest in a decent web presence? Many micro business spend massive percentages of turnover on print advertising but if there is any one thing that can uplift your brand and convince potential customers to choose you over the competition it is a good professional website.

Instead what I see is hundreds or even thousands of DIY websites or build by numbers template sites that do very little for the company or the brand.

The Company I work for, Reckless New Media is a full service web agency. We have helped dozens of companies most of the SMEs to make the most of their presence on the web. One of the most powerful things the internet can do for you is capture data of people and business that are interested in your products or services. We always encourage our clients to include some form of data capture on their websites, used with an email marketing program, this can be the basis of a very effective, very economical digital marketing campaign.

If you are interested in any assistance or guidance in getting your brand on-line why not have a look at our Wild Wild Web campaign, aimed at getting micro business on line.