Month: January 2013

Cleverly shot, concise and professionally produced video will be one of the most powerful marketing tools used over the next 12 months. Whether these are uploaded to Youtube or hosted on other social media platforms, that appetite for this type of communication will only get stronger and develop further as technologies grow.

It all started as I understand it in 2010 when there was a quick news grab, ‘News in 90 Seconds’ service played on one of the many iPhone apps. Every day I religiously turned to this app to get a quick glimpse of what was happening in the world in just 90 seconds. For me, that was enough. It was quick, efficient, I knew what I had to know and felt happy that a new war or major crisis had not broken out. Simply put, my time is very limited and I need to get as much information; whether its the news or not, in the shortest period of time possible. I have been so overwhelmed with online content over the pervious couple of years that this short 90 second brief was all I was prepared to invest time in.

Over the last say 24 months I have seen the uptake of this type of video streaming become more and more popular. In fact I cannot go to an online newspaper, without some kind of video pop up coming right at me. Whether it’s selling cars, holidays, travel sites or internet dating, the use of video content has exploded and in an exponential manner.

In fact my social media feeds seem to be around 50% video and 50% text. This is way up form the year before and if you are a marketing manager you should be starting to think about how all this will effect your marketing mix, moving forward. I have been so accustomed to video feeds now, that if I do not see one I start to think that somethings gone wrong.

If you look at the current trends and read all those statistics you will see that online video watching is growing at an even, steady pace, but the interesting point to note here is that mobile device browsing of videos is exploding at a quicker rate than ever. If you take a second to absorb this and think about it, just think about your own mobile video watching habits and you kind of get the general drift of where I am coming from. For me, I love to watch YouTube clips on my iphone and I know that my partner absolutely loves to watch her dogs play around on live mobile video streaming from their day care. In fact, even overseas we can keep tabs on what they are up to. It’s pretty amazing stuff and the possibilities for marketing your product, business or service are unlimited. What about the power of Facebook and uploading a product video on there for all your followers to see. If they like what you’ve got they will share it with friends and even Like it. It is not uncommon for a video to receive hundreds of thousands of hits a day. Never before in the history of the marketing landscape has a medium been so over powering. You can safely say that online video content will be the next big trend. One point to note however, if you are planning an online video content campaign then make sure it’s well thought out. You do not want it falling flat on it’s face and destroying your image. An image broken by bad PR is very hard to fix especially if people post comments on other review websites.

It is important to note that roughly 10% of SME’s which opens up all kinds of interesting opportunities for those internet savvy marketing people looking for another medium or channel to sell their products or services in to. And the absolute beauty of this is that any one can do it on any type of budget. Start ups with little or no money can create video content using their phone and upload it to YouTube or Vimeo.
Following a a few small pointers to help you out if you are thinking about creating a video.

Make Sure the Video is Planned: Have some kind of script or cheat notes prepared. It is harder than you think coming up with dialogue that looks half decent, and is not embarrassing to watch. Perhaps you may need to look at getting a copywriter on board to help you draft something that will sound like you know what you are talking about. If you feel that this is not necessary and you feel like you are in total control of the dialogue then perhaps just make a few notes to keep you on subject.
Sound is very important. People are very visual and if they have spent the time downloading your video then they want to hear what you have to say. Speak clearly and directly into the microphone and never talk from a distance. If you want to add music, watch out for copyright issues or intellectual property infringements. What may seem like a good idea to you, might at some point down the track, cost you money.

Keep it entertaining. By this, I don’t mean that it as to be a comedy where people are laughing, but it has to keep them interested enough to stay to the end. You are the only person that can determine what this will be, so be careful not to offend or deter watchers. Being inspirational is a great way to go. Again, it’s your call but if you are going to all this effort and are wanting your mobile video content to gain traction then you will need to seek the services of a team of content experts like us at Hopping Mad Designs. We have the the whole packages for you so you don’t have to worry about anything. In our team we have copywriters, video producers, graphic designs, web experts plus an all round business + marketing advisor who can take a good hard look at what you are trying to achieve and come up with some great advice and input. All we need is a brief, and you can sit back and leave the rest to us.

Short n Sweet: Keep it under say 1 minute – no one wants to view a full length feature film. So the mantra here is keep it simple and quick. If you have a product that you want to video then a quick shot is fine with some basic voice over. If it is a service then a full 60 seconds outlining exactly what you do and why you are different it sufficient at this stage. Make it a teaser style video and leave them wanting more information from you.

Just remember, if you can have a little fun whilst producing your mobile video content then in most cases it will be well received by mobile phone users.

If you think that you would like to know a little bit more about all your video content options then please contact us here at Hopping Mad Designs on 02 9360 8514 or email us at info@hoppingmad.com.au

Look at you main business objectives and target these.

Just because you are getting a website, this does not mean that you have to throw every new bit of new whizz bang technology at the designer. Try to work out:

– what you are trying to achieve from the website; that is, is it to drive sales, increase brand awareness, inform the users about a product or service or even to just have a basic online presence.

Once you have this one goal in mind you can then work out a clear website brief based on this information. For example, if your goal is to drive sales and traffic through to the site, then an important note to remember in the brief is to keep large amounts of heavy text to a minimum and use strong grab statements, like ‘ see why we are Sydney’s number 1 hotel’ or ‘ buy now and receive a 2 for 1 offer’. It is these kind of strong statements that will attract potential clients and funnel them right through to the end buying process.

Do you know your online audience?

The most successful web sites will do more than look great, they will also satisfy users expectations and requirements. Great briefing documents should clearly outline who your target audience is, their demographics plus as much information as possible about your market and what you believe they want to see online. Be very careful at this stage. There will be the temptation to over design for a wider audience, but this may just have the impact of turning people off. If you are a builder for example, you should know that your target audience is going to want to see a strong portfolio of past building projects as well as a list ( including names) of testimonials. If you are a bit unclear about what your target audience is going to want to see online then a good idea is to look at your competition and see what they have done online. Don’t ever copy them but just keep an idea of their websites style as well as look and feel. This should point you in the right direction.

Your budget guidelines as well as timeline/deadlines should be noted

It’s always a good idea to make note of your budget expectations or limitations in the brief. If you a scared to put in your budget for fear of insulting the agency or that you may miss out on an important part of the website if you go in too low, then this is a mistake. Be honest an open about your funds and have open lines of communication here. You never know what is now available online, that wasn’t for the last project. You may just be surprised with what you are able to get for your money. Technology is moving at such a rapid rate, and the unit costs are coming down so much that budgets can now often be met. So, basically be very clear about what you want and what you are willing to spend. Being cagey or tight lipped may end up costing you more money.
Website timings, if critical, need to be told to your web designer. If you have a PR campaign or need the site for a new product launch, let them know well in advance so the necessary steps and preparations can be put in order. There is no advantage to you as the client to hold off on this information as this may lead to issues later on when the pressure mounts up as the site gets closer to completion. Transparency is the key to web success here and you should treat your designers like partners not as just a basic service provider. Never be scared of what they will think or say and articulate all your thoughts, timings, expectations in the website briefing document.

Try to include some examples of websites you like.

Web designers are visual people and if you are able to provide some examples of sites that you like and give the reasoning behind this, then that is a great part of the briefing process. Look at as many sites as you can and cherry pick the components or parts of the sites you like. Look at colours, navigation, add-ons such as newsletter sign up area, blogs, horizontal versus vertical scrolling etc.

Last word on the subject

Most people when you mention the words, briefing documents, start to become glazed over. If they have never done something like this before then they may fear the unexpected. This does not have to be the case. Most decent web agencies will have a web briefing document that they use time and time again. All you need to do is follow the questions and if unclear about any part, the best thing to do is pick up the phone and make a call. Remember, its your business, your money and your website, so don’t try to cut corners or leave things out just because they may seem like a hassle. The more you can provide upfront the better will be the end result. Designers will work to a brief and if they have to improvise because you are not clear in your brief, then chances are that the initial designs presented may be some what off brief.
 

The graph is developed with the ability to answer to very detailed questions regarding:
 – your friends
 – you personal data

as well as a whole range of other available free data and information floating around on the Facebook site; which I might add is enormous. Just think about all those exciting bits of information that is currently online throughout the Facebook platform.
For example you can search for: ‘ football teams my friends like’ and it will give you a list of all the teams your friends or family have been following throughout the year or a list of clubs or football associations that are are affiliated with or belong to, which are aligned with Facebook.

This might completely turn the whole search industry on its head.

Look at the progression over lets say the past 15 years. To begin with, people used the old yellow pages to search for businesses or services. This was great and helped many businesses grow and this was largely in part to the size of their ad as well as their advertising budget; the more you spent, the more ads you could have etc etc. The next phase was Google. People invested in large sums of money in what is termed search engine optimisation or SEO to get their website to the first page of Google for a variety of keywords and or phrases. And finally, we are at the next stage of Facebooks graph where users can search for lets say an ‘accountant in Sydney’ that their friends are using and get a whole list of accountants based on their experience and rating. No longer will you be given results based on what Google deems to be the best but now it will be based on what your Facebook friends have liked.

Businesses, companies and organisations worldwide could possible even search within their followers and target these followers based on their certain interest and likes.

This really is going to put a cat amongst the pigeons in the search world. People love Facebook and if businesses are able to capitalise on this Facebook graph search by incorporating tit into their marketing mix then this could have huge ramifications for the other major search engines.

Businesses are looking for an alternative to what Google can offer and perhaps another avenue by which to get their name out there and be found. If Facebook Graph can refine their process just a bit more to make it resonate with the business community then there may be some hope for it. But remember, Google is the mammoth search engine giant and changing users search patterns may not be as easy as it looks or seems. The public are just so used to relying on Google, that dislodging their prior search habits for the past 10 years may be too hard a task. If you look at Facebook trying to get into the pay per click market similar to Google, you will see the absolute failure of this. Businesses have not warmed to this and in turn Google has continued to dominate the paid search market hands down.

I guess only time will tell and we shall see the fate to the Facebook Graph unfold over the next couple of months. So watch this space carefully.
 

With this apparent movement away from the desktop environment it is vital for the success of any business relying on ecommerce online sales to be aware of this and design a site with mobile technology in mind.

If you look at the home page on a mobile phone, you will see that it is very different from the desktop homepage. In fact they are really worlds apart. On the mobile phone it is more about users being able to find what they are looking for in a quick, easy to find manner, where as on a desktop it is more about content and users using the navigation to get around the site. It is more of an experience, rather than a quick 1 step journey.

Following are a few easy to understand tips for mobile ecommerce sales.

Having a keyword search easily visible helps those who know exactly what they’re looking. Having large full screen buttons helps those users who want to browse a bit before making a purchase.

Since the screen is much smaller and fiddley on a mobile device, users would love all the pre-empted help they can get so a suggestive keyword search is so important. When a user starts typing within a search box a drop down should appear showing them suggested search terms. This decreases the time a shopper needs to type out a product name and increases convenience and usability of the mobile website.

Once a user has found the product they are looking for, it should be obvious how to purchase it. Designing a large bright button above the fold will make it easier for users to add the item to their cart. Information about the product can be displayed in an accordion style to better utilise the space available as well as minimise page load time as not all information needs to be visible at once.

Also, there obviously should be an image of the product visible. If there was a gallery of images to be shown, using the smart phones intuitive way of swiping through them should be used (i.e. if you are on an iPhone users should be able to swipe across to see more images).

The checkout process on a mobile site needs to be as streamline and simple as possible. The pages need to load fast and the form needs to be easy to use. Giving users the option whether to checkout using an existing customer account or just a guest account is a good way to speed up the process.

Users who are already members will have all their details already pre filled. The size of the form boxes are very important, users will need to touch each box and type within them.

If they are too small, a user might miss and click the wrong box causing frustration. Remember that this is the make or break point, a user is about to purchase your product, making this process harder than it should be might result in losing them.
Also only the bare minimum form fields needed to complete the purchase should be displayed on a mobile device, it is difficult enough to fill them out without having to do it many times over.

Mobile e-commerce sites are an increasing source of revenue for companies. Keeping the above tips in mind while designing your mobile e-commerce website will surely result in increased sales and happy customers.