Marketing in Malta

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Investing in a web designer can limit your vision and be a waste of money

06.23.09 Posted in Commissioning a Website by Karl Camenzuli

As many of you that read this blog or know me personally know, I used to design websites and like most freelances operated as a one man band. I still do when the mood takes me although these days it’s more for my own side projects. My client work is more concentrated on the strategy that goes into making websites work. What surprises me is how so many people I come into contact within this industry manage to convince clients how to ‘successfully’ market a site without understanding the basics of what’s underneath the hood.

You can’t deny the fact that aesthetics play a very important role but with more and more companies turning online as a more tractable, accountable and effective use of their marketing budget it really is about much more then a pretty frontend.

Designers need a toolset of knowledge to produce something that’s going to work, and work well otherwise you are better off employing the services of someone that can manage the design process before the designer gets carried away with something that looks amazing but might not be that practical for your client base.

The old proverb ‘if you build it, they will come’ no longer rings true. Even if look fancy, blitz the market with advertising and offer me a discount.

Mistakes I’ve made and learnt from along the way

Expect a client to grasp what can be a steep learning curve with a content management systems
Not explaining the findings in analytics from a monetisation perspective
Not challenging the clients views along the development process with hard evidence to backup decisions
Not encouraging the use of an online copywriter before development
Committing to the design stage early
Not conducting usability tests at each stage
Thinking I could write copy for every website.. I cant

A good web designer has a role to play and will certainly have a full plate dealing with producing the most optimised code possible with time being taken up ensuring that the following is taken into account:

Accessibility
HTML validation
JavaScript validation
CSS validation
Image optimization

While a copywriter will be looking at:

Incorrect punctuation marks, particularly apostrophes, quotation marks and hyphens.
Headings
Widow/orphan terms in important paragraphs
Consistency
Keywords within content
Capitalization (especially of main headings)
Tense/Style of writing
Recurring/common phrases
Variations in words (e.g. UK vs US spelling)
And much more

My suggestion is to use your budget wisely, divide the roles into the areas that people specialize in and you will start off on the good foot in getting the most out of your venture.

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Breaking out of the browser

06.21.09 Posted in Marketing Strategy by Karl Camenzuli

People seem to be obsessed with driving traffic and counting visitors while paying little attention to engaging people with content. Anyone that comes to your site comes for a reason, you have a moment to tell your story and keep them coming back for more. In today’s age with so much information how do you successfully do this?

Traditionally we develop a website and expect the visitor to log on via a computer, open the browser and view. Truly successful websites understand that this approach is very limiting and fully embrace that it’s the content that matters not the site.

That is why each company provides numerous ways of accessing their content beyond their websites. YouTube’s embed feature is a great example of this and allows it the ability to reach audiences who may never go to their websites.

Twitter is probably the best example of all. If you use Twitter then ask yourself what percentage of the time do you read tweets (or post them) via the twitter website? If you are like me, then the answer is very rarely.

The lesson here is obvious – as website owners you need to start thinking in terms of a broader web strategy and releasing content from your websites. How then do we do this? Well, lets explore some of the possibilities.

1. Embrace mobile.

Yeah I know we have been saying it for years but it really is increasing. Devices such as the iPhone have seen phenomenal sales and account for the rapid growth in this area. It allows full rendering of HTML websites however for ease of viewing, its not that difficult to produce a mobile version of your website. If you have a mobile device try it out on marketinginmalta.com to see how it renders the content in a fast easy to access way.

2. Start a newsletter.

If you don’t already have one then this is an excellent way to keep visitors updated with your offerings. You also know that people have opted into receive content on what you are offering. Make sure when you sent this up you strike a balance in collecting enough information to segment your audience without putting them off the registration process, this way you can deliver more targeted information. Having a newsletter breaks out of the browser and delivers your content in the users email client. Why we are on the subject, why not join mine.

3. Get blogging.

Blogging allows you give your company a human element, share ideas, keep people updated and interact with your client base. It’s also fantastic for SEO, RSS feeds connected with blogs allow users to subscribe via a number of channels as well as allowing other sites to syndicate your content.

4. Don’t resist Facebook and those other sort of sites.

Don’t dismiss it as something aimed at the younger market, it might surprise you is that over the last year the number of users between 35-54 has jumped by 276% to over 6 million and growing. This demographic also applies to users in Malta.

Facebook groups – These are ideal for building a dialogue, you can easily invite people to participate and those people in turn can invite others. This makes groups ideally suited for viral marketing. A very good example of a Facebook group is the one for Inspire “Life Coach and NLP”.

Facebook fan pages – Fan pages are basically public profiles for organisations rather than individuals. Unlike groups, pages are public facing. This means non-facebook users can see them and they are indexed by search engines.

Hire an application developer – Facebook allows third parties to build ‘applications’ that can be add to user profiles. The possibility of users embedding your content into their profiles makes this an attractive proposition if you have appropriate content.

5. Syndicate your content.

As I mentioned before, You Tube do this in an excellent way, however you don’t need to get into video or anything of the sort, you can just as easily write for other websites, magazines and blogs with a reference back to yours. Twitter also allows you to do this perfectly and with a wider reach, you will see that each tweet logs as a comment on this site.

It’s also becoming increasingly unnecessary to limit your content to the written word. Creating audio or video content has become trivial although creating popular content is harder than it first appears. Don’t believe that simply uploading a clip to You Tube will generate millions of views. You need to be work on something that will get people talking, the strategy for this I’ll cover in another post as its something that I’m working on more with a recent client.

Let us know how you are breaking out of the browser and how its helping your company by commenting to this article.

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Conversations and monetisation is the name of the game

06.18.09 Posted in Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Relationship Marketing by Karl Camenzuli

Most companies that want to retain a client base are interested in lead generation, the upcoming Trade Fair in Malta is geared towards this very thing. Companies setup fancy stands with demos, and pretty girls handing out information, leaving the visitor walking away with an array of material to browse through at leisure. Personally, this year I will be looking at investing in alternative energy and I’ve got my eye on some large panels to capture those hot Maltese sun rays.

My typical approach will be as follows:

Attend the fair, totally clueless on what I want other then the end solution, that’s saving money
Browse the stalls and talk to everyone about my needs, maybe rant on about the 90% surcharge
Collect lots of information, avoid the sales reps at this stage that try to push products onto me without asking my requirements.
Go home and research it online, getting a better understanding on what’s on offer and the level of support I can expect.
Select a few companies and see who is most willing to offer me a service

Please note, at this stage cost is not a factor due to the fact that I would much rather invest in a good quality product that gives me a better long term investment.

I’m a good customer to have, no fixed budget and looking to make a long term commitment.

My main concern now is investing in a company that shares my vision in offering a long term commitment.

I’m now browsing websites in order to buy or request information online. I find YOUR website, it offers me the following options:

Contact forms
Newsletter sign ups
Registration to download products and information (include product info and e-books)
Referrals to partner sites
Landing pages on social networking websites

I spend some time looking through your offerings, join your newsletter sign up and register for more information. You have created a lead, but then I’m done with you I move onto a few of your competitor’s sites and do the same, how now do you impress me to and convert me to a sale?

When you’re constructing lead-generation sites you need to take into account a number of important metrics that can help you understand the behaviours that drive success.

Overall Conversion: This is a calculation that divides leads by site visits. No matter what changes you make to your site, you should always pay close attention to this metric.

Conversion by campaigns: This metric tracks how visitors from different campaigns or visitor segments convert to leads. By comparing them, an analyst can fine-tune messages for different audience segments. This is vital to delivering targeting information especially in newsletter campaigns.

Drivers to the registration process including step-by step: This metric examines the effectiveness of content in driving visitors to the registration process, where they will (you hope) register and become customers. Good analytics programmes will allow you to track at what stage the user drops out of the process. This metric is especially important for the longer registration process and works and in hand in hand with the next one.

Analysis of registration-process dropouts: When people drop out of the registration process, you should find out where they go next. That will tell you what other information people are looking for in the registration process. By presenting that information in context, you can optimize the process.

Conversion of leads to actual customers: In addition to knowing what types of lead-generation option drive that most visitors to register on your site, you should also understand if and how visitors ultimately convert into customers.

Examine and refine your users drop rate and you will see this flourish.

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How much should you pay for a website?

06.11.09 Posted in Commissioning a Website, Revamping your Site by Karl Camenzuli

I’m amazed not only with the choice but at the ease of installing content management systems these days. This site runs on WordPress one of the many free applications that allow non developers to setup websites within a matter of clicks. It’s also available as a hosted version as is Squarespace that allows you even greater control.

Thousands of developers are writing all sorts of stuff to make these platforms as flexible as possible all with plug and play interfaces. For the large majority of SMB’s now is the time to stop using those limited bespoke systems and trusting those companies that want to charge you for reinventing the wheel. YOU OWN your business, MAKE SURE you own your website.

Shovel your money into design, usability testing, content and analytics

Aesthetics, aesthetics created out of testing, usability and analytics. Make the site pretty make it usable and make sure you deliver information. Design your website and its content with the ‘I busting to use the toilet perspective. Make your clients act and make them act quick, this really is the key.

Shovel your time into marketing

Content might be king but marketing is the queen and the wise know who’s boss, ask yourself, are you really making a commitment to your community? Are you responding to ALL your clients requests, type your company into search.twitter or any search engine and find out if people are talking about your company, and your brand.

The internet has so many free tools that help you create exposure use them and use them all. Any company that tells me that its product wont suit these tools, go look at the growth rate and usage and then think again.

Last week in Malta, I gave a workshop and asked one simple question. Who noticed the balloons on the way to work? Everyone responded ‘Norman Lowel’ I then asked them to name one bus shelter advertising poster…..nothing but blank faces. You might not agree with his politics but you have to respect his innovative approach.

The game has changed, engage, create good quality content and be the best at what you do.

3 Comments

Adobe CS4 Masterclass in Malta and the price is sooooo goood.

06.04.09 Posted in The Designers Plate by Karl Camenzuli

The good people behind digitalartsexpo.com have introduced a great opportunity in the form of three fantastically priced Adobe Masterclass workshops.

Personally I’d like to attend the video master class and I’ve got a feeling this is Giovanni’s strength, Not sure if you can bring your own laptop to the event, might be worth asking.

So, the menu is as follows:

Course 1: Digital Workflow for photographers

3 days – 7 h/day (8-9-10 July)
Level: Intermediate
Tutor: Lorenzo Colloreta
Price: € 250

Course 2: Production techniques for designers with Adobe Creative Suite 4 tools

3 days – 7 h/day (13-14-15 July) – (16-18 July)
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Incl: Workflow and Integration, Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4, InDesign CS4, PDF workflow
Tutor: Lorenzo Colloreta
Price: € 350

Course 3: Video Master Classes

3 days – 7h/day (13-14-15 July)
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Flash for Video Encoding
Tutor: Giovanni Antico
Price: €350

Venue: Computer Domain Mosta, Constitution street.
Time: 9.00 to 17.00
Two coffee brakes are included in the price.

After completion of the course you will receive an internationally recognized Adobe certificate for mastering the specific course.

For more information, contact Dayena Petrova on:

t: +356 2142 2314
m: +356 9942 2314

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The value of a mistake is to respond.

06.02.09 Posted in Marketing by Karl Camenzuli

A while back a local IT training company sent out a newsletter to a rather large list of people it had gathered from ‘collecting’ email addresses. The approach the company took was to use Outlook send this out with all the contacts in carbon copy (Cc).

The result of this was quite impressive, email clogged up the server resulting in being caught in a loop sending out to each person repeatedly over two days. Each user received this email continuously resulting in well over 1000 times.

People begin to complain by replying to all, this led to even more emails and with no way to unsubscribe we were all left waiting for this issue to be resolved by the ISP.

The result, two days of business hindered sifting through the mess finding emails clients had sent me. Keeping up with the constant flow of this receptive spam was imposable.

Seeing no solution I called the company to ask for the person responsible only to find out she had left the office and did not want to be disturbed due to the pressure of the situation….humm. I called the ISP and was caught in a customer service loop…I’m sure you have all been in that situation.

So this company had now ruined its repetition and shut the door on anyone that wanted an explanation or apology.

Now, after this experience, I think you could safely assume that introducing an e-campaign system to them was definitely NOT a good idea, although it did not stop some companies from stupidly trying to sell the service by adding to the email spam.

After two years I still mention this situation and the company to people, this is my lasting impression. I have this impression as the company failed to respond and follow up on the mistake.

Now let’s break this down with an example of the situation:

The company sent out to a list of 1000, 5% (50 people) of these complain directly, multiplied by the silent voices the same voices that tell others about your company, you now have a couple of hundred that are going to spread the word and multiply. I don’t have to remind you it’s a small island.

Is this how you want your company to be remembered? Or are you prepared to clean it up and leave a good impression? What I’m really getting at is how important is the integrity of your brand?

Act now, clean up the mess and don’t worry about anything else apart from saving your business.

Marketing in Malta

Blog

Investing in a web designer can limit your vision and be a waste of money

Breaking out of the browser

Conversations and monetisation is the name of the game

How much should you pay for a website?

Adobe CS4 Masterclass in Malta and the price is sooooo goood.

The value of a mistake is to respond.

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