Branding. It's not just for cows. Blog your way to successful brand recognition!

8 Jun, 2010 in General, Marketing Thoughts, Social media by kharlan

If these people were blogs, you'd want to be THAT guy.

Blogging. This phenomenon is for sure here to stay and we have advanced past the time of calling blogs just a trend. They are now essential tools in building brand awareness. Blogs provide opportunities to speak directly to audiences engaged in the brand already. Speaking to audiences in their own terms is one of the best ways to explain what your brand is all about.

So what’s the point of blogging?

Visiting a website can tell you lots about a brand. But not everything. And not a lot of the things you really want to know. If you want to KNOW the brand, the voices behind it and the issues that are important to it, a blog is where it’s at. You might find the beginning threads of what you want to know on an official website but digging deeper into a brand requires reading more.

Do us a favor: Just Keep it Simple

If you are blogging for your brand, you don’t want people to have to dig TOO deep. (Or else they probably won’t do any digging at all and move on to the next brand, next blog and not remember yours). It is important to also find ways to keep your old blogs memorable too. Remember that unbelievably awesome blog you wrote a month ago? Well there are a lot of ways to keep that work relevant and entice readers to check it out again. It also has to be easy to read. Establishing your blog and engaging people in what you have to say isn’t always easy though. If it was easy, then brand awareness would be simple and we would all know EVERYTHNG about ALL the brands we use and want.

Write TO your audience, not AT them…

In order for people to follow your blog, they have to have that basic interest in what you’re talking about. You have to know your audience too. Who is actually reading this stuff? Well, you have to know in order to write to them. Some of the best bloggers out there will tell you that branding is all about how you speak to your readers. Having a conversation with your reader is the best way to keep them engaged but also to keep YOU memorable. There are a lot of great articles out there, to help us figure out how to talk to potential clients.

Blogging allows you to literally write your own definition of what your brand represents. By showing people what you are interested in and what’s important to you, you build a personal relationship with them. Successful branding is not easy. This we know. But what we also know is how to create that brand dialogue and it starts with building a relationship.

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Making Your Customers hAPPy: The Do’s and Don’ts of Launching a Mobile App.

14 Apr, 2010 in Marketing Thoughts, Mobile Mktg by kharlan

It’s hard to know when the “Mobile App” obsession will end. Chances are, not anytime soon. There are now over 50,000 Apps available at the iPhone App Store. With so many Apps out there, it can be hard to know which ones are useful. There is even an App to decide which Apps to download called iDecide. For the 5 year-old in your life, there is an App out there called “Have2P.” What is this you ask? Well if you really gotta go then you can use this App to find the nearest restroom, rate the cleanliness and even find out if it has a changing table. It might just make your family road-trips a little more pleasant. Necessary? No. Funny? Yes. That’s what the majority of these apps are: fun. They are entertainment for your phone. This is the challenge of companies deciding what kind of App to launch…  Apps have to be practical, easy to integrate in to daily life, useful and entertaining.

Companies are benefiting from their Apps in big ways. Here are some important Do’s and Don’ts when deciding to launch an iPhone App…

1. Don’t launch an App for the sake of launching an App.

You want to keep up with your competitors right? Well with the popularity of iPhone Apps at an all time high, some companies are launching Apps with no clear direction. You might say to yourself…”Our competitors have an App so we must have an App… Right now!”  Nope, you would be wrong.  Sure, you definitely want to consider having one but that doesn’t mean you should produce Apps with zero relevancy to your target audience or business in general. Take your time and make it better than your competitor’s.

2. Do think it through.

Don’t jump on the bandwagon just yet. Consider your options and consider your potential users. Ask yourself what kind of App will ….

a) help my target audience.

b) make my business more accessible to my target audience.

c) successfully integrate my business in a beneficial way into my target audiences’ lives.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask your target audience what they think.

It’s not a bad idea to ask your users directly what they want. Pitch an App idea to your current clients and ask them if this is something they would like or find beneficial to their lives. Ask them what they would find useful in an App or what they would find entertaining. After all, they are the ones using it.

4.  Do make it fun!

Phones do so much more than just make calls these days. They do basically anything. They make our lives easier, more practical and bring us more news and entertainment at the touch of a screen. The App should be this way too. A very popular App right now called foursquare is changing the way companies interact with their clients.  With this App, users can “check in” at a particular place, whether that be their favorite pizza place, Starbucks or grocery store and earn rewards and statuses. It’s fun, useful, practical and easy to integrate into daily use.

Making a mobile App work for you is important. It’s highly individualized for every business but can be highly effective when utilized to its fullest potential!

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Web Metrics: The 6 Key Considersations Not to be Overlooked

30 Mar, 2010 in Marketing Thoughts, Web design by kharlan

Look how much these people love your website! Thank you web metrics!!

With so many web metrics tools out there, it’s not easy to understand or choose how to measure your web success. If you feel like you need a dictionary to even get started, you’re not alone. Plenty of bloggers and websites out there are saying the same thing.

Successful businesses know their markets and the people who interact with their brand. Learning exactly how people are interacting will better assist you in the marketing of your business.

When considering web metrics, here are 6 key important considerations that should not be overlooked.

1. Know the variety of metrics available to you.

If words like Web Counter, Hits, Browser Platform, Pageviews, Visits, or Operating Systems mean nothing to you, then the time has come for you to learn. Web metrics will help you to understand where your site visitors are coming from, how their search led them to your site and what they are engaging in on your site. There are lots of different ways in which to analyze this information so it is key to know about them all.

2. Choose your key words carefully.

Certain key words in a search will lead high numbers of visitors to your site. But are they the people you want? Most of the time, driving the right people to your site is more important than driving a completely diverse audience to your site.

3.  Get to your Audience to the Point.

Every website has a goal. Make your website easy to navigate. If you are selling a product, then sell the product right away. Don’t make your audience search the page too hard. Usability is key. The trick is to monitor how well your ad copy and website layout work together to make that sale. Web metrics will monitor what’s working and what’s not.

When you know what’s working and what’s not working on your site, you are then prepared to make the right changes to the site. Don’t be afraid to keep making changes until your site is a success.

4. Analyze Audience Behavior

So you are getting the right people to your site. Great. But nothing seems to be happening. It is very important to understand what your audience is doing on your website. If they completely miss the most important part of your website, then not only was their visit unsuccessful, but the odds of them returning to the site go down significantly.

Watch what is happening during their visit. Where do they spend the most time? Where are they not going at all? The answers to these questions are key.

5. If you don’t want to monitor EVERYTHING, make sure you monitor these 7 metrics…

There are a ton of metrics out there and it’s hard to make a website perfect. So make it as perfect as you can and use metrics that cater to what you care about knowing the most. If you want a quick summary of your website success, filter down what you need to know: Bounce Rate, Attention, Conversions, Spend, Errors, Online Search Terms, Bailout Rate.

These metrics will give you the best overall perception of your site.

6. If it aint broke, don’t fix it. But if it is broke, maybe just improve it a little.

So your metrics have told you that no one has clicked through to the most important part of your website. You have already spent lots of time making this particular section of your site perfect. Surely, you thought, this would be the key to boosting business. Well it wasn’t because no one has taken the time to click through to see it.

Now you are left with two options: develop or remove. If you decide this website feature needs to be improved, then brainstorm process begins again. Think about what is missing. Why are people not clicking through? What will it take to encourage click-throughs? Look around on other sites and pay close attention to how it draws you in. Where is your eye drawn to and why? Studying other sites and applying this knowledge to your site will other further enhance your own audiences’ experience on your site.

Or on second thought, maybe you are just thinking that you should delete this non-functioning feature all-together. If what is not working on your site is not worth the effort to fix, then delete it. This won’t necessarily hurt your website because it will only make it easier to navigate. A user-friendly, clean layout is always a good choice. Too much clutter hurts a website’s functionality. Whether the decision is to improve or delete, the important thing here is that a change has been made based on web metrics feedback.

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