There is a new breed of small business on the boil and it is about to shine.
One of the developments to emerge from of the recent financial crisis is the birth of a new breed of SME. They are niche companies born out of a need to fill a void in an increasingly small global market. They work in a market of ever finer market segments that mass marketing and generic products can’t cater to.
Affordable ecommerce solutions, coupled with cheap outsourced manufacturing or product sourcing, are connecting with market segments identified through social media – and providing them the products and services that suit them. Social media is allowing consumers to congregate and be heard in a way that is revolutionary.
Australia is in a unique position to be launching pad for many of these ‘new SMEs’. It has come through the GFC better than any other developed country. That means as markets are still growing, funding is readily available and the Federal Government spending on the new broadband infrastructure will only make it easier for these new business to get off the ground. The cost of setting up and operating a business drops dramatically with online software services that provide accounting, project management, and a myriad of other management and business tools.
This is not something to be feared. These new businesses are not ’stealing’ market share. They are creating new market opportunities. And they need help – maybe from you.
There is a fundamental change coming to our economy and it’s going to be driven by the little guy – and everyone will want a piece of the action.
Best Buy may not always be thought of as trail-blazers but this video presented by their CMO shows how much they have embraced digital marketing and social media.
3 Wise Men – a successful New Zealand based business shirt label. Their slick Italian style designs, quality fabric and palatable prices combined with a decidedly cheeky tone of voice has made the brand a Kiwi businessman’s favourite. The famous “3 shirts for 3 hundy” offer has given them an almost cult-like status in the brands’ home country. With stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch the next obvious step was for the cheerful 3 Wise Men to say g’day to the Australian market. A store in Sydney was opened – that’s where we came in.
The Solution
A heavily social media driven strategy was devised – with a cautious eye on budget to minimise risk for the new Australian venture. We started by creating a Facebook presence along with a Twitter account and began building followers. Then we went on to re-skin the 3 Wise Men home page to freshen up the look, improve navigation and the overall shopping experience to better suit the brand – without having to go through the expensive process of an e-commerce redevelopment. The site also had geo-location added to ensure users would be presented with information relevant to their location.
To create a soft-sell environment for the brand to live out it’s cheeky personality we created a separate social media web universe – “The Bored Room” was born. Built around a video blog this mini site allows users to view selected video clips, comment, share and connect with the brand. To aid in viral spread we built in a variety of social media tools. To drive return traffic, the Bored Room also features changing discount codes for visitors to use in the e-store – ultimately driving sales.
The popularity of the Bored Room spun into production of a 3 Wise Men viral video. We took the popular story of the Emperors New Clothes and gave it a new, slightly bizarre twist to suit the cheekiness of the brand.
Next out of the gate was a Christmas campaign to drive traffic to both on and off-line outlets. “Smells like Christmas” is an online version of an advent calendar. At the core of the campaign is the mini site featuring a new offer – available for 24 hours only – made available every day from the start of December to Christmas day. The campaign is supported by social media tools (Facebook and Twitter) as well as off line collateral, window decals and local promotional events.
3 Wise Men are an exciting and fun brand to work with and we can’t wait to let you know what we’ll do next…
The world of legal services is changing fast. Traditional word-of-mouth marketing and life-long loyalty to one legal practice is being eroded by rapid developments in the online world. Your customers now use the internet to connect with other customers, find and evaluate services and conduct extensive research on topics that matter the most before making decisions.
This article gives you insights into the current trends and explains how you can make the most of them.
Image is important
Not so long ago marketing a legal practice was simply a matter of putting a sign up and choosing a nice font. Great service and word of mouth did the rest. Now your customers expect more. Today a website is an essential tool for strengthening current relationships and assisting potential clients learn about what you stand for and even connect with your practice. However, simply having ‘a website’ is not enough. A poorly executed online presence can backfire, result in disappointed users and may even damage reputations. News spreads fast in the online world! On the other hand, a considered online marketing strategy and a well-designed website is your chance to appear inviting and professional.
Before you run off and build a new website make sure you have thought about the ‘image’ you are have chosen to convey. Of course ‘trust’ is a given but there are other important decisions you will need to make about your chosen persona. For instance, do you want to be seen as friendly, professional, modern or traditional? Good web agencies will help you understand your options in regards to colours, layout and language and how these link to your personality.
What is important is finding the thing that makes you ‘different’. If you can ask some of your clients. They may have some valuable insights that you have failed to spot.
Help people find your site
As anyone who has searched for a ‘lawyer’ on Google will know the web is a very big place. In fact Google has now indexed well over 1 trillion web pages. So having a website gives you no guarantee that anyone will see it. You need to think beyond ‘website’ if you are to get results and ensure you do not waste your budget on a solution that will become obsolete or too expensive to maintain or expand.
Fortunately, a good online marketing strategy does not need to cost the earth – in sharp contrast to traditional channels such as newspaper, radio or TV. It takes some careful planning and a little bit of time but it will be very beneficial. Much of it comes down to choosing the right partner to supply you with sound advice and solutions.
Optimise for search engines
Part of any build phase of a new website should be ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ [SEO] which is the combination of a number of strategies employed to make your website easy to find. To some extent the ease with which potential customers can find you through search engines comes down to the way the site is built. So make sure your web agency has a good understanding of this. The words you opt to use on your site will also affect search ‘efficiency’.
Search engines rank sites on original content so avoid copying text from other sites. Make your text clear and easy to ‘skim read’ and ask your web development company to give you a list of commonly used ‘key’ words to include: The more you use the better your results from web search activity.
Creating well ‘optimised’ website text is not rocket science. Just be sure you get professional guidance before you start.
Online advertising
There are many types of online advertising available but the most common, and by far the most cost effective, is search engine advertising. You probably have seen this form of advertising when performing a Google search. They are called “sponsored links” which have been designed with smaller businesses in mind, and can be very effective. But don’t assume this is the right choice for you.
There are many ways to run a search engine marketing campaign and getting it right can save you a lot of money. Look to partner with a company that has experience in this field and work with them to set targets and budgets.
Directories
Online directories are a simple way of raising your profile. There are many online directories available in Australia including Sensis, Yellow Pages, AMA and other official legal directories.
Some directories are free but many charge for a listing. Before you take the plunge and pay for a listing make sure you know the profile of the directory’s viewers. If the operator of a directory can’t provide that type of information it may be a sign that it’s unlikely to work for you.
Utilising social networks
Social Networking seems to be the buzz word of 2009. In fact, online social networking has existed for a very long time. What’s new are services such as Twitter and Facebook having recently taken off. Networking sites may come and go but what won’t go away is your customers’ desire to connect and share thoughts and information. Developing a Social Networking strategy will be worth the effort.
Depending on how you want to approach the market you may want to make this a big part of your overall plan or just a small addition. Either way it is worth remembering you can’t do everything. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, article writing and participating in forums are all forms of social networking and it is easy to get caught up trying to influence all of them. A far better approach is to identify where the people you want to communicate are found and target a few areas that will help add to your reputation.
Measuring success
After doing your research, optimising your site and fine-tuning your online marketing strategy, you’ll want to know how successful it is. The obvious way is to look at your bottom line. But building a brand name takes time so getting some higher level data is necessary to check if you’re on the right track.
Make sure your website has an analytics device attached so you can see who visits your site and how long they spend there. This knowledge is essential in achieving success with your online efforts. Luckily Google offers site analytics for free. The information gathered will give you a greater understanding and assist in the allocation of your marketing budget to further strengthen your online marketing efforts.
Act Now
A wide range of new technologies are changing the way everyone is using the web. The global financial crisis has just added momentum to that trend as individuals and firms switch to more cost-effective and valuable ways of communicating and marketing. There is no better time to take advantage of this shift and build yourself a great online presence and strengthen your reputation.
A famously controversial American TV personality recently discovered the hard way that more power now rests in the hands of average people than has at any other time in history. Glenn Beck is known for being a very pro-republican commentator on the Fox Network. In this article we will look how some smart thinking and utilising social networks have held him accountable for his words and actions in way not possible until the last couple of years. I will also look at the implications, both negative and positive, for brands and the people who market them.
In the red corner we have…
Mr Beck does not try and hide the fact he is no fan of President Obama. This is fine of course – everyone is entitled to an opinion. The problem is that many people think that his tactics are less than honourable. He has been accused of spreading lies and hatred on many occasions. He is a favourite target of John Stewart’s Daily Show and there are sites all over the internet that claim to expose Beck’s lies.
Within minutes of him saying uttering these words videos of the segment had been distributed over the internet through social networks. Comments began springing up everywhere and it quickly became one of the most viewed video segments – for a day or two. And that may have been as far as it went if it weren’t for a group called The Color of Change.
This group came into existence to inform Black American’s, via the internet, of changes in the political landscape and help get their voices heard. The Color of Change had the idea to set up a special Glenn Beck page, not to expose his lies, but to expose the advertisers who supported his show. They posted a video of some Beck’s most outrageous segments and overlaid the advertisers who were sponsoring the show and asked people to use an online form to express their anger to the advertisers.
Some of Fox’s biggest advertisers soon dropped Beck from their advertising schedule. One even went as far as to stop advertising on the network altogether. Social networks were buzzing every time another advertiser decided to drop Beck. The people had spoken and it was influencing the bottom line of a major international company. Instant democracy in action.
What can be learnt?
Glenn Beck has already made a tearful apology – of sorts. He has always been hugely popular with his audience so it is likely he will bounce back from this after a few weeks of carefully constructed PR. But this example does highlight some very interesting questions…
Should brands pay attention to online campaigns like the one against Beck?
The Beck campaign is really just one example of a much wider trend, that of giving viewers of web content the right to be heard.
Blogs have allowed people to comment on articles for a long time but the issue with this is that only the truly motivated take the time to write a comment. Now that many sites have devised ways of making it very simple to be heard – usually a simple combination of vote up or vote down buttons like the one at the bottom of this article – more people are speaking up. This can only mean that campaigns like this will happen more often and with greater impact.
President Obama even has written some of his speeches based the number of votes on subjects held on the White House web site. And the subjects themselves were written by members of the public.
Companies can no longer hide behind the “official company line” or rely simply on media spend to influence the publics’s thinking on any given subject matter. Ignore social network driven campaigns at your own peril.
What does this say about the collective online community?
The original dream of the World Wide Web was to have information free to all and instantly accessible. This dream still lives on in a growing variety of ways and the online community has taken that philosophy into their lives. They love a movement and will react to a cause.
But beyond this grandiose concept is something far more fundamental. The human race is social in nature and individuals like to make an impact.
In issue 17.06 of Wired magazine an article examined how a massive cultural shift, the author called “The New Socialism”, is taking place. It is the idea that the human race is now congregating and communicating online and – through processes of sharing information, cooperating on small scale events and collaborating on large scale projects – a type of fast paced survival of the fittest idea is taking place. When a concept can grow and mutate at breakneck speed everyone can be exposed to it.
This is not a passing phase. It is an extension of what it means to be human. Empowering the individual to have a voice will always bring about change. That is what democracy is all about.
How can companies use this ‘instant democracy’ to their advantage?
All of this points to huge opportunity for brand managers. The collective opinions of millions of people can be assessed in real time. You no longer need to rely solely expensive software to analyse online conversations and try and gauge intent (bit of a hint here – it’s usually the ones that are angry that take the time to comment at all). Of course that software helps but having a system in place that allows people to vote on any given topic will give you precise real-time information, positive or negative.
This could be used to pinpoint new markets, develop new products conduct market research or even decide on what to speak about. I have recently been involved in developing a system for a client that will enable an audience to communicate and vote on detailed views that, until recently, would have been impossible. And it seems every company has information that is hard to tease out of their market or their stakeholders.
The rise of social platforms are letting us know that people want to be heard. Amazing things can happen if you listen to them.
In case you haven’t realised the global financial crisis has changed things. Crises reshape the mindset of consumers and this one has also accelerated the ‘online’ trend. Consumers now communicate, make decisions and spend their dollars differently – and they expect to be heard. This is more than just a passing fad. Things are never going to return to the way they were. This is the ‘new normal’.
Before the new normal ’stability’ is what everybody wanted and that suited marketers just fine. When you have stability you know what people are going to do. Markets are predictable and pliable. You don’t need to have a conversation to sell a widget. Just tell your market that it is great and will make them fell safe and part of a group, they will buy it.
This has changed, forever. Your market now hates stability. They want new. They want fast. They don’t care how long your company has been around. If you don’t listen to them they will drop you and move on. Markets want to be targeted. They are busy splitting themselves into millions of special interest groups. If you can’t market to those groups you will lose them
Companies and, more importantly, the marketers who work for them need to accept this change. Stop thinking “things will return to normal soon” and start preparing for a new normal that is more profitable. Move now. Your competition will be. Use the new tools that are available to gather information, learn and get ready. Social networks can be used to gather huge amounts of very rich information about what your market is doing right now – not a week ago, right now. With that information you can start to see patterns and prepare for the future better.
Those who see the fundamental change that has happened in our world and learn to embrace it will win.
