Take It Face To Face

A couple of colleagues around the office and I have been kicking around the idea of putting up “How To” articles. For the most part these will tackle small but important marketing and public relation steps you can implement quickly and easily. The majority of these will be short and easy to follow with a problem, a handful of steps, and the desired outcome.

This article is to help you generate better results from your website. If you built your website yourself, or if you’ve had an outside company (that wasn’t us) build it - this will provide a good litmus test as far as the ease of use on your website.

Step 1: Call or email a number of friends, and if possible, friends of friends - people unrelated to your business. Ask for their email addresses, and tell them you’ll be sending them a request for a small favor later in the day. Try to get at least 10 or 15 participants, but the more the better.

Step 2: Create a list of results you want from visitors to your site. Whether it be to gather information, buy a product, register for a newsletter or mailing list, etc. Try not to select generic results, no “call us for more information” and no simple task that don;t benefit your business. i.e. find our address, see our press release, etc.

Step 3: Select the most important 3 results your site can produce. Let’s assume your company sells tree saplings. The three most important steps may b (in order) 1. Buy a sapling, 2. Sign up for the ‘Plant A Tree’ Project newsletter, 3. Request more information on a sapling through an online form.

Step 4: Send an email to all those you collected before asking the following: Dear Friends, we would like to test some aspects of our website and hope you’ll take a few minutes to complete this favor. Please go to our website www.SaplingHut.com (just an example) and try to do the following; (Here list the top 3 results we went over in step 3.) Please let us know if any of the task are difficult to accomplish, or if you had to abandon any of them all together. We would also appreciate any feedback you can provide about how easy it was to accomplish each task.

Step 5: Await the responses. Not everyone will perform our little exercise, but you should get some valuable information from the responses that do come forth. If anyone had a hard time using the site, or accomplishing any of the task, then your website could probably use some work. If everyone accomplishes the task easily, then pat yourself on the back for a site well done.

Step 6 (If needed:) If there was trouble achieving the results you desire with your test subjects, then you’re going to want to tweak, or fully redesign your site because it isn’t working for you. The most important part of any site is the results it provides for you.

Bonus! Step 7: If you perform this test and get less-than-stellar results, let us know. We’re happy to provide some free pointers to help your site, and should you need it we’re able to redesign it in a way the gets results. We’ll guarantee that!

If you’d like more information on any of our services, feel free to email me, or any of the FaceTime Team.

Looking at the history of our great economy there are very predictable trends, however some trends should not be repeated. Prior to founding FaceTime Strategy I was in senior management positions for 20 years and in the position of deciding where, when, and how much to invest in advertising, marketing and public relations. I have always been a big proponent for advertising but when times of economic downturn occurred I must admit that like many of you I cut my advertising budgets.

Why do most companies cut their advertising and marketing budgets during times of economic challenges, when what we need most at these times are more sales? Why, when the economy starts to take-off, the first thing we do is invest in adverting and marketing? Clearly we would not make such an investment if we did not believe it helps our bottom line. Why do we reduce our investment when times are tight as opposed to invest more? I think it has been the lack of quantifiable results we have historically been able to obtain together with the large investment that stands out like a red herring on our P&L. When times are tight we can certainly quantify our reduction in sales and we can quantify when we reduce expenses, therefore we make cuts. When the economy starts growing we start investing in advertising and marketing again. That confirms we believe in advertising and marketing, however we are not sure what part of our advertising and marketing works. Since business has picked up we can afford a shotgun approach and hope we hit something.

It is clear we are once again at a place of economic challenge, but thanks to digital interactive technology we can get the all important quantifiable results we need, while also reducing our advertising and marketing budgets. By developing a digital interactive media campaign, supported with print and broadcast, you can reduce your overall investment, while increasing your effectiveness. Thus, this positively increases your bottom line… and that is the bottom line.

With the help of digital interactive media, our economy may rebound faster because companies will be advertising and marketing to their clients more effectively, while reducing costs and not eliminating the very thing that can drive what we need most…SALES!

The consumerist is reporting on the South Carolina school districts choice to place advertising inside of school buses. Brandweek also has some information on the recent decision.

I think off the bat a lot of people will think this is taking things too far, and that ads shouldn’t be placed on the buses. I disagree for a number of reasons (and none of the reasons are because I work in the industry!) The most important reason is that it allows the school system to create funding for themselves by selling underutilized space. Where once there was black white space, now there are posters with pretty pictures and words. It’s almost making something from nothing - like reaching into a pair of pants that went through the wash and finding a still-intact 20 dollar bill. “Free money, it’s going to be a good day!”

The secondary reason ties into the first closely. It allows companies to support the school system in a way that compensates the company for their investment. You’ve donated X amount of dollars to the school system, you get a full color plaque thanking you for your donation. This plaque just happens to be a marketing message, instead of a name and date. It gives the companies access to their target audiences, while simultaneously supporting their further education. Perhaps some of this extra income will end up in the oft considered underpaid teachers’ pockets? I don’t think anyone will say they are undeserving of it.

Of course if your company is looking for additional ways to reach it’s target audience, that’s why we’re here. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have a question, and we’ll discuss it.

Microsoft has continued to make moves to compete with Google in the world of online marketing. Their most recent acquisition is Rapt Inc. who makes software which manages a business’ online marketing, and helps track pricing, placement and results. This purchase my Microsoft has lead them into continued talks with Yahoo execs, who seem to be changing their mind about the offer of a Microsoft buyout.

Google on the other hand is not sitting idly by - Chief Exec Eric Schmidt spoke with the press and expressed Google’s hope that Microsoft would help contribute to the overall openness and accessibility of the web, but based on their previous actions, doesn’t believe they will.

Google has been against Microsoft’s move to acquire Yahoo since the beginning. If you remember when Microsoft initially made the offer to Yahoo, Google was one of the first ones on the phone with them, urging them not to accept the deal. Whether it is because they truly believe Microsoft will take away from the free flow of information online, or if they simply don’t want to deal with a larger competitor, or a combination of both is unknown.

As I’ve said before, it is going to be interesting seeing how this plays out. Microsoft is committed to cutting into Google’s market share in the online advertising world, as illustrated by Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer’s pledge to do so even if it takes his last breath.

Center Networks has a good report about AOL’s acquisition of Bebo - ranked the 3rd largest social network site. It’s another big move in the interactive media world.

AOL has had a very unpredictable run as a company, from their start providing dial up internet to their dominant instant messaging client, email, ad services, etc. While all of the social networks are battling to find a profitable revenue model, there is certainly an advantage to having access to millions of users who are actively involved in their networks. The secret lies in how to monetize them. AOL’s call announcing the acquisition said they would be focusing on non-intrusive engagement advertising among their users. Time will tell how it plays out, but Bebo has seen success with their open media platform.

I would assume that there will be some more big moves made by industry giants over the next couple of months. I will certainly be keeping an eye on MSN and Yahoo. If MSN doesn’t get to buy Yahoo, I would look for both companies to make some moves relatively quickly. (Yahoo already started making moves the day they declined the MSN offer.)