A small business site for a recruitment business looking to expand into the Suffolk region from Hampshire. They wanted a crisp, clean design, with bright images that was very focussed and to the point. They also needed the ability to edit the vacancy section - we used a hosted content management system that was simple for their (non-technical) staff to use. In case you're wondering, the use of fishes was due to how they could be used for future marketing campaigns.. “Feeling like a fish out of water?” etc.
I’m not a film critic who claims to have “seen them all” or plays “hard to impress”. I was, however, astounded recently by something that in many films is usually an overlooked detail.
Subtitles. Oh yes, those slightly annoying words for those of us forced to read them when we don’t speaka-da-lingo. We spend hours with our eyes flicking between the action / drama / suspense / romance visuals and the written dialogue kindly transcribed into our mother-tongue for our reading pleasure. We need them, yet it’s a chore to read them.
Until recently. I spotted a film on TV that ticked enough boxes to suggest it might be worth watching. The nagging worry was that it was Russian! And with the greatest of respect to our Russian comrades, Russia has hardly been the epicentre of cinematic genius to rival Hollywood, Elstree, Ealing, New York and of course BBC Television Centre. But hey, in for a penny in for a Rouble…
Within minutes my wife and I had to rewind the film back a few seconds to check what we saw wasn’t the result of some bizarre collective hallucination. Yes, we DID see the man’s hand move in front of the words. There look, he’s done it again!
Anyhow, for the next two hours we were REALLY watching the subtitles (sad actually!), in awe of the ideas. I’m telling you, the production meetings for subtitling this film must have taken almost as long as shooting the footage.
Subtitles rippling to mimic watery scenes. Subtitles blowing away like smoke or autumnal leaves. Capitalised key words when they were SHOUTED LOUDLY!!!!! N**ghty words in RED from time to time. And many more simple effects, that genuinely added something to the whole film experience. They didn’t distract. It wasn’t a chore to read them. They “leveraged additional value” in finance-speak!
So… what mundane, chore-like, overlooked detail in your business can you change so radically that not only does it add value, it sets you apart and makes your entire business more memorable?
Answers in the comments box please..Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.
Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.
Or follow BizVits on Twitter? Or Like us on Facebook?Or +1 us on Google+?Or see the Business Vitamins channel on YouTube?
Last night I battled through the sleet and snow to attend one of my usual networking meetings. It’s a great group and the attendees have huge amounts of energy and enthusiasm for their work. It’s the kind of meeting that feels more like a night out with friends than a formal environment where I can build professional relationships.
Our presenter was a chap called Euan Semple. Some of you may have heard of him. He worked as the Director of Knowledge Management at the BBC for many years. And his topic for the night was ‘Working in a Wired World’ which as a Marketer, really appealed to me. The subject matter covered all manner of things from how easy it has become to publish on the internet, to the benefits of Twitter for business.
But the main thing I took away from the night, was how well Mr Semple communicated. I don’t just mean his natural ability for public speaking. I mean how he effectively uses so many tools that are available to all of us, to get his message ‘out there’.
In my professional capacity, I talk to numerous businesses of varying sizes. And what still amazes me, is how many of them are afraid of Social Media and the internet. The common feeling seems to be that they want to blog or tweet or have a fan page but they don’t know where to start or what to say. So they do nothing.
If you fall into this category, now is the time for action. Things are only going to develop further and you could feel even more left behind. Social Media is here to stay so now is the time to jump right in. Spend some time online researching the various options that are out there. Choose one or two sites that you think might work for you and/or your business. Then just watch what other people are doing.
I can guarantee that you will soon get the hang of things and one day, you will feel compelled to offer your opinion on someone’s blog, or respond to a tweet. And before you know it, you’ll be engaging with people online and building all manner of relationships that you can call on for help, advice or a good old argument. You might even look back and regret not getting involved sooner.
After all, in its most simplistic terms, social media is just a new name for an old pastime: Communication.
Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.
Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.
Or follow BizVits on Twitter? Or Like us on Facebook?Or +1 us on Google+?Or see the Business Vitamins channel on YouTube?
Holovis are a VERY specialist technology company, based in Leicestershire. They were looking for a site which closely matched their existing corporate ID (very black, with dashes of yellow & blue). They build hardware for virtual 3D worlds, so wanted certain elements of the site to have a strong sense of depth. Check out the portfolio page as well as the partner page!
Also, Holovis had a very text heavy site before, which they didn’t necessarily want to lose. To sharpen up the design we created a ‘tabbed browsing’ system for the solution pages allowing the user to view more information as required, rather than be presented with long (boring) pages of text.
Business Vitamins is on Twitter. Yay. And?
Well, we rather like it actually. Let me divulge our Twitter strategy, which, by the way, is no great secret and you’re quite welcome to copy it, refer it on and claim it as your own or simply ignore it.
Here it is…
Ready?
We use Twitter to engage with people who we think might either become clients or might be in a position to refer us to new potential clients.
That’s it. Good eh? Not what you were expecting? No great mysterious cloak & daggeresque dark art? Nothing complicated or overly computery-utery? Nope, not here.
So how do we do this? Very simple really:
1. We signed up (free); we created our background (free); we downloaded Tweetdeck (also free).
2. We searched for local businesses and started following them.
3. We “tweeted” a few snippets of news and local interest information.
4. In doing so we acquired some followers , who, no doubt were searching on some of the keywords in our Tweets – ahhaaa…, did we choose our Tweets carefully?? ;-)
5. We followed people we met through local networking groups and Twittered with them directly.
6. We were ourselves - tough going, with only 140 characters!!
7. We Re-Tweet interesting Tweets that we see.
8. We suggest other Tweeters to our followers.
9. We allow about an hour and a half a week for all of this. Give or take.
So there you go, in less than 9 steps, and in four months we have about 400, extremely well targetted followers.
Let me tell you what we don’t do:
1. Participate in Twitter because we feel we should.
2. Start Tweeting with no strategy.
3. Always Tweet about our business.
4. Always Tweet "special offers".
5. Always Tweet on the same subject.
6. Follow too many celebrities or massive corporations.
7. Allow countless instances of Britney Spears (or similar) to follow us and publicise hyperlinks to iffy websites promoting, well, I'm sure you can guess..
Of course this is just our strategy and it might not work for you or fit with your business objectives. But if your objective is to build a local presence and get your name out there amongst similarly sized businesses, then you could certainly do worse than following the above steps.Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.
Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.
Or follow BizVits on Twitter? Or Like us on Facebook?Or +1 us on Google+?Or see the Business Vitamins channel on YouTube?
Picture this…
You’re in Portugal. On the Algarve. You’re lazily exploring a traditional local market. There are a few bargains and a lot of “designer gear” of iffy provenance. You see daily essentials you might expect to find more readily in a supermarket (toe nail clippers anyone?), as well as a big slice of local colour. For all that, you might buy something, you might not. Who knows?
There’s a stall ahead manned by a somewhat squat, sweaty, moustachioed, swarthy looking gentlemen. He’s selling ladies underwear no less. There he is, thong in hand and held up high, calling “Tiny knickers – Tiny knickers! Buy them here!”, to the young ladies ahead of you.
Upon nearing the stall, the man notices you approaching. The thong is quickly discarded, and a revised undergarment is being paraded around, flaunted at full volume, “BIG knickers! – BIIIIIIIIG knickers! Buy them here!”. A thousand eyes look your way, most of which are accompanied by a rather large smirk. You scuttle off.
True story, and one my mother-in-law enjoys telling, despite the somewhat size-ist connotations! Oh how I laughed when she told me..
I don’t know if a purchase was made or not, doubtful I would think, given her obvious embarrassment at the time. But it did make me think that despite the rather clumsy execution it was a micro-level example of great marketing.
The aforementioned swarthy gent was simply adhering to one of the oldest marketing rules : identify your potential customers, choose the correct product/service for them, tailor the messaging, clear call to action.
I guess the part he missed off was ‘try not to offend anyone’!
Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.
Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.
Or follow BizVits on Twitter?
Or Like us on Facebook?
Or +1 us on Google+?
Or see the Business Vitamins channel on YouTube?
I love cookies. Particularly chunky ones with lumps of chocolate in them the size of icebergs. Naughty but very nice. I love bananas too. Residing at the opposite end of the healthy lifestyle spectrum, the humble banana is high in fibre, vitamins B6 and C, as well as iron and potassium. In fact, the banana is a veritable smorgasbord of healthy goodness.
Driving back from a long meeting recently, I topped up my energy levels with a gorgeous looking white chocolate cookie. Scrummy. But as I ate, I got a funny aftertaste. After initially writing this off due to tiredness, my second bite yielded the same taste. Bananas!
As intriguing a combination as this might sound, the cookie was not supposed to be laced with essence of banana. I even checked the packaging to make sure I hadn’t picked up a rogue bag by mistake!
On reflection, I thought I might like to try a banana-tinged white choc chip cookie in the future, but that moment’s eating experience was tainted beyond redemption. Simply put, my expectations were not met. No matter how nice my “Banookie” might have been, it wasn’t what I expected.
We all need to be aware of and manage expectations carefully. As a marketing business, we need to be fully aware of likely response rates to various types of marketing campaigns. We think our clients should be too.
Many businesses might be surprised to learn that according to the Institute of Direct Marketing, a normal response rate to a direct mail campaign is “only” 2.6%. Sounds awful doesn’t it? 97.4% of contacts don’t respond! So if your campaign managed a 2% response rate, is that a complete disaster? What if your campaign achieved a 5% response rate? The reality is that whilst a 5% positive response is great, most businesses would STILL feel disappointed that 95% of the letters/cards/postcards/flyers they had paid to be lovingly designed, printed and distributed were so quick to find the recipients recycling system.
Of course there are tactics we employ to ensure response rates are significantly higher, such as multi-touch campaigns or tightly integrating direct mail into other marketing activity. In this way Business Vitamins aim to ensure that at LEAST a 2.6% response rate is achieved.
And to ensure neither our clients or ourselves slip up, we'll also ensure we discuss what you can reasonably expect to achieve. You might be surprised how much!
Banana update:
Try peeling a banana from the bottom and you won't have to
pick the little 'stringy things' off of it. Apparently that's how monkeys do it. Also, take your bananas apart before placing them in your fruit bowl. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.
Do you need to outsmart your competitors? Contact us now on 0845 310 2457 to discuss what you want to achieve and how we can help you meet your goals.
Why not find out more about Business Vitamins, Strategic B2B marketing agency Suffolk.
Or follow BizVits on Twitter? Or Like us on Facebook?Or +1 us on Google+?Or see the Business Vitamins channel on YouTube?
