Marketing Archives - Page 52 of 54 - Creative Agency Secrets

Website design brief template

26 August, 2011/1 Comment/in Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

So,you want to brief an agency to redesign your website. What is the best way to write a brief so that all the areas you need designed are covered?

Helpfully, OneSourceGraphics have written out their detailed survey which sets of the principal questions to which an agency will need answers before pricing up a brief.

So you want to redesign your website

Here are the questions you should answer:

This form will answer the question of what the site’s supposed to do for your business and what the site will look like.

First Name (required)

Last Name (required)

Company (required)

Email (required)

Phone Number

Website URL: (if available)

Why do you want to have a new website, or have your current site redesigned?
What will happen if you don’t have a new website, or have your current site redesigned?
Please describe your organization in a few sentences.
What is there about you and your background that sets you apart for a special (niche) group of potential customers?
What problems do your prospects have that your business solves?
How can your particular work background help prospects, compared to others in your industry? What’s special about your work experience?
Why do you believe site visitors should do business with you rather than with a competitor?
Do you have a slogan or tagline that clearly describes what you offer in terms of benefits or features?
Please describe your potential customers. Pay special attention to their income, interests, gender, age, even type of computer they use, e.g., old with dialup account or newer with broadband. If your website is a business-to-business site, what sort of companies are you hoping to attract?
What is your budget for this project? (required)Very Small Project $75 – $300;Small Project $300 – $750; Medium Project $750 – $1,500;Large Project $1,500 – $3,000;Very Large Project > $3,000
Who are the decision makers on this project? What is the turnaround time for making a decision?
What staff will be involved? What are their roles? Is there a webmaster on your staff?
What is your deadline for completing the site?
Please list the names of five other sites that you like. Why are they attractive to you?
Have you researched your online competition so you have an idea of what you do and don’t want on your site?
What do you NOT want on your site in terms of text, content, etc.?
Where is the website content coming from? Who’s responsible for updating it? Is it ready for use on your website?
Do you have a logo?
Are you planning to do online sales? If so, what is the product, and how many items do you want to sell online?
If you’re planning to sell online, are you set up to accept credit cards?
How much time will you be able to spend online, responding to inquiries that come in via your website? Once a day? Several hours a day?
If you were using a search engine, what words or phrases would you use to find your site? Which of these words or phrases is most important? Second? Third?
Other than what search engines will produce, what methods do you have in mind to spread the word about your website?
Once your website is completed, how long do you think it will be before you begin bringing in significant business from the website?
How do you plan to encourage repeat visitors and referrals?

5 Tips On How To Beat A Video Conference Interview

13 May, 2011/8 Comments/in Conferences / Exhibitions /by Rob Lane

Interviews are always a nervous ordeal but more often than not a well-prepared candidate will always rise above the rest of the pack and successfully take the job. That said, many candidates make the mistake of preparing for a video conference interview in the same way as a face to face interview which can leave an interviewer unimpressed. Here are my top 5 tips to help you beat a video conferencing interview:

1. Remove all distractions

If your video conferencing interview is taking place at your home then make sure you deal with any possible interruptions before the interview. If Fido has a tendency to barge into the room every now and again, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind playing in the garage for a while until the interview is over. Similarly, if you have kids who tend to be quite loud, it will make you and your interviewer lose concentration as well as making you look much less professional. Get hold of a babysitter or have them spend the day at your parents or friends. Whatever you do, just try to be alone when the interview takes place.

2. Look at the camera

Just about every interview guru will tell you to make regular eye contact with your interview and a video conferencing interview is no different. This can catch out many interviewees since it is a common habit to look at the computer monitor instead of the actual camera. The camera is transmitting the picture and therefore if you don’t look at the camera it will look like you are looking away from the interviewer thus giving the impression that you are not interested in the interview. If you find this particularly difficult to do then try putting a picture behind your camera which will make it feel like you are talking to an actual person when you are looking at the camera.

3. Proper grooming

When doing a video conferencing interview it is easy to forget that you are being interviewed for a potential job offer. You may be at home but that does not mean that you can take part in the interview in your favorite carrot fit jeans with a T-shirt that has some a funny comment on it. Make sure you dress like you would if you were participating in a face to face interview as it will make you look more professional as well as making you feel more confident.

4. Set the scene

When carrying out a face to face interview, you go to the interviewer which means that the interviewer will make his decision based on you and you alone but on a video conferencing interview, the interviewer will be able to see you and your room, therefore, your room should also give a professional feel. I am not saying that you should completely redecorate but make sure all dirt has been cleaned and the room looks well organised. In addition to this, temporarily remove any posters which may embarrass you during the interview although sensible pictures and paintings can help create a more sophisticated atmosphere. This will help to give a positive first impression and will start the interview on a good note.

5. Practice makes perfect

Rehearsing your answers to popular interview questions as well as general interview techniques is essential for a successful interview but a video conferencing interview brings with it its own challenges and therefore more factors need to be added to the mix when rehearsing. You will need to get into the habit of talking out loud when nobody else is in the room so set up your own video conference system prior to the interview and ask your friend to interview you. After the interview ask your friend to give you some feedback.

Website holding page – how to use for marketing gain

14 January, 2011/2 Comments/in Branding /by Rebecca Caroe

Taking your website offline is rarely welcomed by the marcomms team. sometimes you have go do it.

Brand Glue did a great job of making a strong message come through their holding page.

In fact, since I took this screen shot, the timer doesn’t seem to have ‘counted down’ any more…. wonder if it’s really a permanent thing. Tho they have added an article below it about their newsfeed optimization service.

in any event, don’t allow a 404 redirect to show up if you can avoid it.

Plus, having a ‘timer’ on the page keeps the focus pressure on the team building the new website.

Which’ll probably be late.

That’s life.

Good practice: A website holding page

17 December, 2010/1 Comment/in Marketing ideas /by Rebecca Caroe

Following on from yesterday’s post about delays publishing a new company website – take a look at this one:

What I like about it is

it sets a deadline (the counter is clocking down all the time)
it still says what the company does – USP – so the holding page continues to sell the brand
contact details are still there
there’s an invitation to subscribe to notifications about the re-launch

Does your brand demand a launch date that can’t be changed?

Website holding page for BrandGlue

Marketing using Business Christmas Cards

4 December, 2010/2 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Direct Marketing /by rebecca

Corporate greeting cards can be used in many ways to promote your business and to show appreciation to supportive clients; some traditional and some a bit more creative. However, there are some rules and tips you should keep in mind to get the best return on your investment of sending out a Business Christmas card:

1. Procedure/mailing list

Make sure you keep your company contact information up-to-date on a regular basis and take your time to add new contacts you gain throughout the year.

A good way to control if your contact details are up to date is by including your return address so that the post office will return the card if the address is no longer valid. It will also serve a dual purpose by providing your contact information to your recipients.

2. Timing is everything

Don’t send your cards late, set yourself a deadline. December 15th is a convenient cut-off date for having your cards in the mail. If you’re sending business Christmas cards internationally, they’ll have to be in the mail much sooner. Here are some helpful links for recommended Christmas mailing deadlines: NZ Post, AUS Post, Royal Mail, USPS, Canada Post. If your Christmas card arrives after the holidays, you have just sent the wrong message to your customers. Read more

Cold email introduction – copy this campaign

17 November, 2010/28 Comments/in Direct Marketing, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca Caroe

Want to use cold emails as part of your customer acquisition? We get dozens of approaches by digital media agencies usually picked up by our clients’ spam filters.

Today we’re publishing one of the better ones as a crib for you to copy for your own use if you want to buy email lists and try to start working cold call emails for your B2B brand.

Here’s the copy

Subject: Oneupweb would like to work with you

Cold Email example text

What do you think?

A short, neat message. Starts with reassurance – do what you’ve always done. But we all know how that sentence ends…. “and you’ll get what you’ve always got.”

Nice use of the word “earn” in the second sentence – they are going to work for you to gain trust. I like that.

The words for the services list are all hotlinks with custom tracking codes – good practice to see where your campaign is working. I clicked on the link and it took me to a standard page… no special landing site after the page had rendered using the tracking code.

Bullet points

A neat filtering tool is used here. By quoting fees or likely media costs for services, they filter out any brands who can’t afford to pay $2,000 per month for Search Marketing or $15k for social media campaigns.

Be attracted by the big names they’ve worked for but be put off by the fees = you are not my target customer.

Interesting that it came in to my private email address. It’s a dot com so maybe the list buyer figured I must be in USA and it’s a long-registered domain (2001 approx) and short so again, it maybe didn’t filter me out for being a person not a business.

Call to action

A question as a call to action is a subtle approach. Do I think next week is a good time to talk?

Enough time to get into my diary and a question that can be easily answered. Interestingly, no easy-call buttons for direct line phone numbers added here. Wonder why?

Footer has company contact information and the usual range of social media links plus an unsubscribe.

What happens next?

We sent a reply – will let you know what happens next.

Top 3 things for Writing a good brief for an agency pitch

26 October, 2010/1 Comment/in Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

‎We did a quick survey yesterday among brand managers to answer the question “What are the top three things you need to do to write a good brief for an agency pitch?”

Move the sales needle, Information integration, Content marketing (Josh Stailey)

What’s the problem, why is there a problem and media neutral so the idea leads the solution. (Mark Watkin)

Understanding, belief and passionate solution. (David Noble)

A fee for the pitch would be a good start. (Gabbi Cahane)

Twitter competition ideas

22 June, 2010/2 Comments/in Social Media /by Rebecca Caroe

There have been a few good quesitons around recently with Public Relations agencies in particular seeking ideas for competitions that can run on Twitter.

Running a competition is a good way of building new followers for social media communication channels – it also helps for brand awareness. A contest doesn’t need to be expensive, or complex but the prize must fit the audience and be desirable.

Here are a few suggestions for Twitter contests:

Short story – include an opening, middle and end in 140 characters
Announce a photo theme and get uploaded photos on the theme
Trivia question – allow funny, serious and absurd answers
Buy a product and announce the invoice number on Twitter to enter a contest for a free prize
Threadless tweet submisssion for printing on a t-shirt
Collaborative songwriting / include your phrase or name in a song
Joke sharing like the #bandfoodpuns on May 17th
Munich beer contest to promote an expo – visit site and when the beer glass is empty the last person to RT the URL wins

Some marketing management suggestions

Hashtag# the contest so you can track entrants
Unique phrase with retweeting gets topics trending
Contest entry added to follower request builds a following/community
Use the contest to relaunch your twitter identity
Frequent $100 prizes beat a big $500 prize
Short deadline contests create urgency

Twitter competition prize ideas

money
music album downloads
free product from your company
a digital gadget – camera, phone, MP3 etc
gift card from a recognised store
a free service from your company
a trip
pay for a service for them from the winner’s favourite supplier (massage, haircut, car wash, online data backup, membership of a group / team fanclub)
Music prizes – albums, concert tickets,

An example of a current twitter competition

Take a look a the Social Media Experiment at Glastonbury 2010 running now which I learnt about from the Chinwag group on LinkedIn.

The Social Media Experiment will take place on Friday the 25th June between 1pm & Midnight, and will feature a number of comedians, musicians, performance artists and live shows incorporating social media and interactive web technologies. the prize is the chance to perform live on stage at Glastonbury

In order to win, visitors to the site are asked to join the competition group on Facebook and post a link to prove that they are a in a band, an artists etc. The winning act will then be chosen from the group at random in this ‘flash mob’ style competition.

Thanks to these people for providing me with ideas for the list above Trey Ratcliff, Alexandra Samuel, Internet marketing, Bob Baker, James Norris

Writing an innovative pitch to a brand

18 June, 2010/2 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

: Image via Wikipedia

We are often asked about how to pitch a brand in order to win their busienss.

Now a pitch is usually the end of a long process that starts with a chemistry meeting or a credentials presentation.

Here is an example from Razorfish who pitched for the jewellery retailer, Tiffany’s business.

This is an early stage document. It has high level proposals, few detailed strategy recommendations and a free offer. Razorfish Tiffany New-business-pitch-creative

The good points are:

clear alignment with the Tiffany brand promise
aligning online and offline customer experience
data sharing online and offline (really hard to do well IMO)
a sharp offering to drive the future relationship
it’s short
the offer is risk-free

If they delivered the free workshop and used that to develop ideas for Tiffany – how strong would their offering be if Tiffany decided to make it into a public pitch? They would have the inside track becasue all the ideas were developed jointly with Tiffany.

Can you do this?

How do you approach new prospects – what can you offer them that makes it easy to buy and shows off your ideas without giving away your intellectural property?

Thanks to MZ Kagan and Scribd for the idea for this article.