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the enyanga family grows...

enyanga, part of the bezier group is pleased to announced the appointment of Jane Illman as Client Service Director and Lawrence Alexander as Client Solutions Manager.

Jane joins the bezier group from Leeds based digital agency Twenty Six. In this role Jane was Account Director for P&G, working across brands including Hugo Boss, Lacoste, and Wella.

In his new role as Client Solutions Manager, Lawrence will provide innovative digital solutions to clients. With ten years experience in his field Lawrence has been instrumental in many high profile projects working with clients including Mars, wagamama, and Land Rover.

Lawrence commented on his new role “The bezier group has always been an industry leader when it comes to staying in touch with consumers. I’m really looking forward to working with the team to create some totally unique cross channel brand experiences.”

Glenn Batty, Group Managing Director added “The success of enyanga is based on our ability to provide innovative bespoke solutions to our clients. The expertise and experience that Jane and Lawrence have brought to the agency will further enable us to provide our clients with inspiring and creative solutions.”

Labels: Jane Illman, Lawrence Alexander

enyanga shortlisted for Retail System Awards

The hard working boys and girls here at enyanga (part of the bezier group) have been shortlisted for two Retail System Awards under the categories of ‘best use of technology in the hospitality & leisure sector’ and ‘back office solution of the year’.

enyanga’s ground breaking project with InterContinental Hotels delivered a complete Online Asset Management Solution named Genesys. Genesys is a central system that allows individual hotels, franchisees and owners to search for important brand asset information as well as providing the tools to create personalised marketing collateral relevant to each hotel’s specific commercial requirements.

Tamara Strauss, director of leisure marketing for InterContinental Hotels Group said “Our brands are some of the best known and most popular in the world. This new system will help control and manage each brand’s look and send our customers the same message no matter where they are in the UK, which for such a large and diverse group is imperative.”

Glenn Batty, Group Managing Director said “We are delighted to be finalists for the third year running for this prestigious award. It is a testament to the cutting edge solutions that we have the capability to provide to our clients”.

Labels: bezier, enyanga, InterContinental Hotels Group, Retail System Awards

Social media CAN be measured

After reading a few posts about measuring social media marketing recently, I’ve become slightly irritated with comments that suggest social media is difficult to measure. We have carried out a few social media campaigns for our clients over the last 6 months, and we have found ways to measure these so we can make a judgement on whether it has been effective or not. The trick; SET AN OBJECTIVE/TARGET!

I can’t believe some marketing professionals are so short sighted that they don’t do this prior to every campaign. Its massively important for you to set goals for a campaign, then you can measure how it has performed. We have done this on all occasions when carrying out social media campaigns, and the results have always exceed the goals. The results you get back may not always be 100% accurate, but if the end result is an increase in traffic, increase in sign ups or purchases, surely that shows how effective it is?

I think the issue with social media is people think that it will just spread and spread and sit back and expect it to massively over deliver. This isn’t always the case, and has been said many a time, the message is more important than the media. Get the message right and people will happily follow.

For example in our social media campaigns, we look at the target market and define which social media channels will perform best given the message, target market and previous experience. Then we set a target number of people to be driven to a web page or service. This is a campaign specific landing page, so we can definitively say how many people have visited the page from that social media network. There may be an element of leakage, some forwarding on a web page link via email to friends, but this all adds to the number of people engaging with the campaign, the message and the brand.

Social media is all too often seen as a form of viral promotion, and because its a bit crazy we should just let it go crazy. Well all too often it doesn’t. A well thought out social media campaign can really add value to a brand and help reach audiences that may have never been targeted. The commentary that the brand receives from the audiences reached is critical information, and should be acted upon to allow it to inform future brand efforts.

So to make your next social media campaign effective, follow these rules:

• Make it focused – don’t offer something massively broad, focus the campaign on something you want specific information on, or a particular success in
• Set a target – this allows you to have some form of measurability to judge the campaign against
• Be realistic – don’t go bonkers, set a target you are comfortable with and stick to it
• Define a time period – ensure that you set a time limit on the communications – some commentary may only last a few days until it dies away and becomes tomorrows virtual chip paper

Common sense should prevail here. There are much more complicated (and costly) ways of tracking and tracing cross platform social media, but until you’re ready for the out cost of this, stick to these simple practices and judge your campaigns effectively.

Labels: social media, social media marketing, social networking, tracking, viral marketing

Fact: SEO is the most cost effective method for generating leads online

A recent study carried out by e-consultancy and Clash Media, has highlighted the most cost effective methods of generating leads online. Unsurprisingly, SEO, PPC and email marketing ranked amongst the highest in effectiveness.

Highlights from the report’s findings include:

• Natural search (79%), email marketing - in-house lists (75%) and paid search (71%) are the most commonly used online methods for lead generation.

• PPC is getting a bigger proportion of online lead generation budgets (33%), even though natural search is perceived to be better value for money.

• SEO now only gets 15% of the budget compared to 18% last year.

Now anyone who knows me, knows I have been saying this for years; SEO should be attracting budgets on a par with PPC. But this still doesn't seem to be happening. Even when we explain to clients that natural rankings equate for around 70% of clicks comapred to the 30% PPC generates, the penny still doesn't seem to drop that SEO is where the money should go.

This news is great for us web marketing peeps; our advice is finally being backed up. SEO and email are the most effective methods of promoting a brand online, way ahead of PPC and the dreaded banner ad. So with all this research in place, should we expect an influx of SEO business? Well, no...

Lets face it, SEO to the unfamiliar is a hard sell. Your selling a solution, a formula, that you cant see in action for a while, but should procude results. Its like planting a seed; it needs to take time to form some roots before it can grow. Most clients I have dealt with want to see results instantly (its the internet, we should see a growth in 10 minutes). But SEO doesn't work like this. Bear in mind that you can never predict what a search engine will do, so its not like we can guarantee a client that their site will appear high in the results.

My advice for clients who are unconvinced on SEO and are sceptical about its impact, is to try it on a few areas or a few key phrases for your site. Try it and see how it fairs. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. But make sure you get advice from someone that knows what they are doing, as SEO done wrong can be more harmful than helpful.

The sooner you start work on some SEO for your site, the sooner you will see the benefits. Long term effects of SEO can go on for months and months, and continuous improvement helps you stay ahead of the competition. And the more you do, the more you will trust it, believe in it and help it to become a core marketing strategy to your business.

If you are sick of me banging on by now, take one thought only from this post. People searching on a search engine for services/products you provide are pro-actively asking for information. Its not reactive, like a tv ad or billboard. This person is asking for this information. Do you want to be one of the first in line to give it and get the business?

Labels: email marketing, lead generation, natural search, ppc, sem, seo, web marketing

Reading meets social networking

I stumbled upon a website today http://www.bookrabbit.com/ . Book Rabbit intends to meet the needs of book lovers by recommending books and allowing site users to see what others are reading. Users can also buy online and add books they would like to a wishlist.

A really useful feature of this site is the tagging of people's personal bookshelves that the site supports. Users upload photos of their bookshelves at home, and it then allows books to be tagged. Site users can then see what books a certain user owns and they can then read reviews about these books and buy them online.

Book Rabbit is also good for other reasons. Its layout is simple and easy to follow, allowing users to find what they want with ease. The site offers payment by PayPal, something we have been working on over the last few weeks also. In my opinion, this is a masterstroke - who doesn't have a PayPal account these days?

If the comments above don't show how user focused the site is, then you can add your own book category to the site, so you are not restricted to what the site owner sets. It's completely flexible.

Kieron Smith, who has previosuly worked at Waterstone's and Ottakar's has done a fantastic job here. Well done Book Rabbit.

For those of you who still aren't sure - it's cheaper than Amazon, and offers free delivery on all items. Nuff said...

Labels: e-commerce, social networking, UGC, usability, user experience, web design

How do brands deal with conversational marketing?

I read a blog post today and paused for thought. Long thought. The author of this post suggests the following:

“The biggest problem with conversational marketing today is that brands are being led to believe that a conversation is more important than action”

My initial thought was that I agreed with this. Brands do all too often focus on the fact they have created the opportunity for consumers to begin conversation rather than acting on the result of the conversation. But then I thought that this can’t be entirely right. If brands didn’t encourage conversation, then they wouldn’t get such feedback, which wouldn’t allow them to act. So which is the most important? In my opinion... neither.

Each of the points made above are totally valid. The conversation has to be encouraged for brands to learn, so they can act accordingly. There have been many occasions however, where I have seen brands steer conversation, to ensure they are getting the maximum feedback possible out of these threads. Some brands prefer not to steer the communication, and let it flow freely. They believe this to be the best way to get the most accurate feedback. But that’s not the most important area either...

The honest answer (no matter how cheesy it sounds) is that they are all as important as each other. If a brand chooses to steer a conversation however, it should be to get the conversation back on track, rather than to force it down a route they want it to go. If ScreenCat89 and PartyAnimal are having a ding dong battle about who is their favourite South Park character, when the conversation is about consumers feelings on a new product, the brand managers should step in to try and get the commentary back on course. After all its important the brand gets something out of the conversation, and it’s not just a platform for users to abuse.

Labels: brands, conversational marketing, marketing

Google’s new trademark policy – what do we do now?

With one fell swoop, Google made a massive announcement last week in reference to its trademark policy on Adwords, its PPC advertising platform. The new policy means that advertisers are no longer restricted from bidding on trademark terms. This could mean companies could face a lot of competition for terms they previously had sole control of, such as their company name.

So for instance, I run “123 Limos” and I have been bidding on PPC on this keyphrase for years. My local rival “ABC Limos” hasn’t been allowed to bid on my name, until now. He can now do so and steal traffic that is meant for my site. Sneaky…

Clients and colleagues alike have asked me “Should I bid on my competitors brand name?” My response has generally been that it is the client’s decision as to whether they should look to bid on competitor’s keyphrases to attract more traffic.

I did however offer these points to be considered:

1. Is there a lot of traffic under the keyphrase you are considering bidding on?
If the answer is no, whats the point? Spending time looking for phrases that might bring you the odd gem is not always the best use of time. I’d rather be analysing what you have done, and where you can be making improvements overall.

2. Will it bring relevant traffic?
Not necessarily. If you’re B&Q and you start bidding on Homebase, you may well get the right genre of people to the site. But if they are expecting the Homebase website and get something else, won’t this confuse the user? So it has cost you money to bring them to the site only for them to close the window and go elsewhere.

It’s the same as an ecommerce site bidding on a product that they don’t have in stock – the user ends up disappointed as there is an incongruence between what they have requested, and what they have been displayed.

A client once asked me if he should optimise his site to rank on David Beckham and Kylie Minogue. He repaired washing machines… its the same thing really!

3. Are you prepared to put your competitors name all over your site?
When Google introduced Quality Score a while back, it was an attempt to make all PPC ads as relevant as possible to the content of the web page they were pointing to. So the higher your Quality Score, the higher your ad position and the lower the bid.

With this in mind, in order to achieve a decent ad position and achieve a decent click through rate (CTR), you would need to make sure that you had content on your site that related to your ad. Do B&Q want to put Homebase’s name all over their website…? I think not.

4. Is your natural search in order?
If you have to bid high on PPC to get a position on your company name, it’s usually a sign that your natural search isn’t effective enough. You should rank in the top 3 for your company name irrespective of your competition. If you don’t, you could be spending that PPC ad revenue better elsewhere…

5. Focus on what you are doing right
Rather than trying to steal traffic from the competition, focus on where you have made gains on your online marketing strategy over the last year or so. Where else can you improve what you’re doing? Are there areas you haven’t looked at for a while that should be improved?

6. Can you get better traffic elsewhere?
The answer to this is probably yes. There are many other keyphrases you could be targeting that would bring you better quality, more relevant traffic. And if you think you have exhausted what you have done with PPC, look at other online marketing areas like viral, email and SEO.

There are a lot of comments out there at the moment that are based around “the end of Google” and “the abolishment of trademarking”. Over the last few years, CPC prices have increased without knowledge of this. If you optimise your ads effectively and continue look at improving the overall path a customer takes through your website, you will still see a very good ROI from Google.

It could well affect people using Google as they may not be able to find what they are after, but for savvy advertisers, it could mean further increased effectiveness elsewhere within a PPC campaign. It will force people to become better at ad text writing, and ad building in general, which can only be good for the PPC campaign owner.

My own opinion is that it is the opening of the door for CPA, which Google has been trailing for a while. After all why wouldn’t you want to convert to a medium where you only pay for an action you set? Affiliates have been running this way for years and successfully so.

Sit tight and see what happens, but I wouldn’t expect to see the massive fallout that some so called “experts” are predicting. People will still use Google for PPC as long as it continues to be an effective way of searching for content. When that starts dropping, then it could get interesting...

Labels: cpa, ctr, Google, ppc, quality score, search engines, search marketing