In through the outfield

9 June 2011

Our Marketing Masterclass with Alasdair Inglis of Grow

A couple of weeks ago I attended this excellent workshop from Alasdair Inglis of Grow, the small business marketing experts.

I liked the fact that Alasdair started the half day session by saying that his aim was for everyone attending to leave with a minimum of five concrete things they will do for their business.

I was also impressed by the way he refuses to use PowerPoint. Instead he handed out detailed notes and had lots of photos on screen to illustrate his points.

Alasdair started by briefly covering the standard elements of a small business sales and marketing strategy:
– What are you selling
– What is your USP (unique selling proposition)
– Competitor analysis
– Who are your customers
– Lead generation – which methods are appropriate

He quickly launched into the marketing ideas and concepts we needed to understand to give us a competitive edge.

The first of these was understanding the power of customer testimonials:
–   These can be the most valuable form of marketing in the long run, especially if you manage to get an influential customer to sing your praises.
–   Work out what questions you need to ask to generate testimonials
–   Make sure they include some measure of the benefit of your product or service.

Then we looked at the power of case studies and success stories
–   These are more in depth than testimonials and can include video.
–   They should include the problem – what we did – the positive result
–   When making video testimonials make sure you concentrate on the sound quality over the visuals. It is worth investing in a directional microphone.
–   We have used our Success Stories on our YouTube channel to generate 200,000 views.

The power of having a customer database
– For long term success you should have a database with all your customers details and purchases in one place. This could be as simple as an excel spreadsheet or a full CRM (customer relationship management) systems such as SalesForce.
– The best way to think about what to keep, is what would someone need to know to keep your business going if you were away from the office.

Know your competitors – ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’.
–   Take advantage of your competitors hard work to develop their products or services and their understanding of the customers they market to.
–   Sign up to your competitors email lists using your personal email address. Gives you insight into their marketing strategy.
–   Look at their websites and Facebook pages.
–   Use seospyglass.com to check out where your competitors are promoting themselves on the web.

Know your target market
– Get to know your ideal customer – where do they live, shop, eat?
– This will impact your choice of marketing strategy.

Understand the marketing funnel
–   Don’t try and get a sale straight away, build up to the sale.
–   You need to have a really good opening offer that hooks people in so you get them into your funnel.
–   Three examples
o   Free download – build up price as the customer goes deeper into the funnel.
o   First contact is a cold lead – move them from warm to hot to customer to raving fan
o   Initial enquiry from customer – build information until they become a customer.

Have an irresistible offer
– What irresistible offer does your business have, so that people who first come into contact with your product or service make contact with you or buy from you?
– Examples would include: first session free, money back guarantee, discount for first order, vouchers.

Understand the importance of having a clear call to action
–   Give people a compelling reason to get in contact.
–   E.G. On your website
o   Call you
o   Ask questions
o   Email you
o   Buy from you
o   Join your email list
o   Request information

Focus on benefits rather than features
– Look at all your marketing materials and re-word them.

Understand what problems do you solve for your customers.
– What factors might make their business fail.
– What market are they will be operating in – Information about their competitors and customers.

Be aware of approximately how much do you earn from each customer during their lifetime?
– This will have a big impact on how you price and market your services.

‘If you sow seeds all year round, you get vegetables all year round.
–   Make sure you have a variety of customers, like a garden with a mixture of plants
–   This can help when a recession hits, or you lose one set of customers.
–   Examples:
o   Customer who buy or work with you once
o   Ad hoc customers
o   Regular repeat customers
o   Make sure you have a lead generation system in place that gives you a steady stream of leads.

Be aware of the importance of Search Engine Optimisation, especially on Google.
–   Google has revolutionised marketing, triggering a move from masculine to feminine.
–   Masculine – going out searching for customers using adverts, yellow pages and telemarketing
–   Feminine – waiting to found, by being attractive to your customers, let them come to you.

Alasdair covered quite a bit more during a very full half day, so I recommend you book yourself on and find out more.

One of the additional benefits of these workshops is meeting aspiring entrepreneurs, and it was here that I got talking to Bertie Stephens about Flubit. I’ve joined the fun Flubitron club

6 June 2011

The professionals: business bootcamp

Following swiftly on from the launch (Boris boots up Business Bootcamps at the British Library), our very own camp is nearly here.

Put together by experts and business owners, this two day bootcamp is designed specifically for sole traders in the professional services, from IT consultants, marketing freelancers to accountants. We have noticed that many people are setting up their own businesses, based on their professional skills after having been made redundant.

The content across both days covers all of the essential issues you are likely to face as a new business.

Along with practical exercises and inspirational presentations, you will receive a fact-file of research reports and guides to use afterwards which would cost in excess of £500.

The benefits of the bootcamp:
• Meet with like-minded people
• Understand how effective networking can boost your business
• How to present a perfect pitch
• Best practice look at financial viable models
• Get information on professional service delivery from the experts
• Discover more about how to refresh your business plan
• Introductory guide to intellectual property
• Develop a strategy to carry your business forward.
Experts

• Johnny Martin – get to grips with your finances with the no.1 small business numbers coach.

• Nick Winton – understand how to grow your client base and potential profits with clever strategy and lead generation.

• Rasheed Ogunlaru – how you can learn to ‘be your brand’ and grow your profile with effective networking.

Event details:
Mon 13 June 2011, 09.30 – 20.00. Tues 14 June, 09.30 – 17.00 at the British Library Business & IP Centre.

Cost: £125

Booking: The professionals: a business bootcamp

11 May 2011

Visit from the School of Communication Arts

Yesterday I hosted a visit for thirty students from the School of Communication Arts. I have to admit I had not heard of the school before, but have been very impressed by Marc Lewis their enthusiastic Dean.

I was initially a bit intimidated by presenting to such a young and dynamic audience, but they gave me an easy ride, and seemed genuinely interested in what the Library and the Business & IP Centre had to offer.

The school have created a great Prezi slide show to explain how they are different.

And here is an introduction from their prospectus:

Have you noticed that the best ideas are usually so simple that it is hard to believe that it took so long for someone to conceive of the idea in the first place?

School of Communication Arts is unique for so many reasons. Here are three things that make it such a unique place for you to launch your career;

A student to teacher ratio of 1:6 (that’s six teachers to every student!!). Every teacher is a top creative practitioner. Which means that our students develop a powerful network of valuable contacts whilst developing their abilities.

An entirely new vocation (Ideapreneur). This has captured the imagination of the advertising and venture capital industries. So much so, that some of our Ideapreneur students will receive £10,000 of funding for their start-ups whilst at the school.

An accredited curriculum written by practitioners using wiki tools. This simple idea enables us to teach the most up-to-date knowledge, which is essential in such a fastchanging world.

There are plenty more ways in which The School of Communication Arts is considered to be the leading school for advertising, some of which you will find in this prospectus. But the thing that sets us apart, more than anything else, is our cohort.

I wish you good luck in winning a place at the school. If you are successful, you are on a fasttrack to a very rewarding creative career. All the best, Marc Lewis

4 May 2011

The socialisation of the internet – Social Media World Forum

My colleague Fran Taylor has kindly allowed me to publish her notes from the Social Media World Forum in March. There are some excellent tips below.

Socialisation of the internet

– Social media encourages mob or herd like mentality, which can be really negative. The panel gave examples of this in Japan where users of social networks are often anonymous.

– You need to think about your business objectives first when using social media.

– If you have a strong product and brand, people will be receptive to you online.

– More controversially, traditional branding is ‘plastic’, i.e. it’s based on an ideal not a reality. Organisations have to accept that they won’t be perfect and that they’re made up of real people.

– It’s important to accept that you can make mistakes if you want to be innovative. Organisations need to remember the importance of ‘playing’.

– If someone ‘likes’ you on Facebook it doesn’t mean that you’ve made it. Someone needs to buy your product and give it a good review – this is the end goal, not a social media output.

– Marketers can be too optimistic when reporting on success e.g. “I have x thousand followers’. Again, success is in reaching your business goals, not just having fans on social media sites.

– Quote of the session: “Being dull is a recipe for disaster.” From Joanne Jacobs, social media consultant.

– Sites like Trip advisor are going to increasingly come into trouble with litigation, which may affect the credibility of review sites in the future.

– Worryingly the representative from Facebook had no idea if the site was accessible for people with a disability. The panel agreed it needed to be higher on the agenda.

– You don’t have to be innovative i.e. first to market. It’s fine to be an ‘adapter’ i.e. to build and improve on what others do first.

– We can’t move completely to crowd sourcing and social decision making in the future. You still need leaders and experts.

Measuring reputation and monitoring social media activity

Reputation

– The two main tools at the moment are Klout and Peer index.

– Reputation measurement is still flawed through social media – you need to take these figures with a pinch of salt as they don’t reflect the full picture, although they can be useful.

– Sites like Stack Overflow are being used for reputation scores in employing people in the tech industry.

– It’s important to know who are the major tweeters and bloggers in your industry and engage with them.

Measuring activity

– There are lots of agencies and products that could help us measure our social media activity. Brandwatch, Synthesio UK to name a few.

– It’s important to remember that monitoring agencies can’t access private content e.g. a lot of LinkedIn and Facebook.

– Good quote: “In real life all good relationships start by listening.” You need to know what you are listening to online and what types of conversations you want to monitor.

– It’s important to collect qualitative as well as quantitative information.

– Sampling can be effective.

– Sentiment analysis is when you look at whether content is positive, neutral or negative.

– If you have more sophisticated systems, they can link in to your CRM data.

– Google alerts are misleading – they only pick up around 5% of content.

– Free tools are ok but very limited. You have to weigh up time spent vs. value.

– Measurement is about outcomes and changes in behaviour. People are not ‘avatars’ or ‘clicks’.

Where social media fits in an organisation and PR

– It’s important to be clear who is accountable for activity, but no one can own social media.

– Be clear about how you measure your activity and what your business goal is.

– You can’t control, only follow and contribute.

– You need to set guidelines for staff, coach and train them. Focus on empowering them, again, rather than controlling.

– Sometimes the line between PR and customer service can get blurred through social media.

– It’s not about being ‘liked’ it’s about adding value.

Fran Taylor
http://twitter.com/#!/BL_Creative

28 April 2011

La Diosa and their right Royal wedding connection

One of our creative success stories came from a chance meeting in a Philosophy class between Natasha Faith and Semhal Zemikael. Together they went on to create La Diosa jewellery and now have a shop in Hatton Garden.

They have a knack of attracting celebrity interest in their contemporary designs, with Sarah Brown (our previous Prime Minister’s wife) a fan, and Michelle Obama pictured wearing their jewellery during a G20 summit.

As fans of Kate Middleton (soon to be married to son of the heir of the British throne), they created a pendant called Honey-moon, specially for her. And were pleasantly surprised to receive a letter in reply to their gift, saying that Miss Middleton was ‘touched’ by the gift, and wanted to thank them personally.

Given the current media whirlwind in the build up to the wedding day on 29 April, this story was eagerly snapped up by the Evening Standard and resulted in a half-page story last Monday.

So congratulations to Natasha and Semhal for their brilliant designs, as well as a sparkling approach to promotion and dazzling use of the media.

7 April 2011

The re-branding of Beachy Head

The biggest surprise on my recent four day perambulation along the final section of the South Downs Way, in England’s newest National Park, came on the final day of walking.

Although the established local beer for the area is Harveys, famous for its Tom Paine Ale, and still brewed beside the river Ouse in the heart of Lewes, there is now a new rival.

It comes in the form of Beachy Head Ale, produced in a micro-brewery based in the pretty village of East Dene.

We enjoyed a delightful lunch in their brewerytap pub, the Tiger Inn, sitting in the sun on the village green looking across to Sherlock Holmes’ retirement home.

The surprise came when reading their promotional brochure and discovering the re-branding of Beachy Head. As a relatively local inhabitant, I am well aware of the stunning beauty of Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, but also cognisant of its more well known feature. For most UK residents Beachy Head it is quite literally a jumping off point for those who want to end it all.

This, less attractive aspect has featured in many films, documentaries and news items. Beachy Head suicide spot.

Now, working as I do on the Euston Road opposite Kings Cross Station, I am all too aware of the stigma that can cling to an area, even if that reputation is no longer deserved.

So I was fascinated to see how the Davies-Gilbert family, who have farmed the Beachy Head area for 200 years are attempting to re-invent and re-brand Beach Head. As you can see at Beachy Head.org.uk, it is a beautiful part of the country, with lots to see and do.

While there, I began to notice the clean and modern Beachy Head logo almost everywhere I looked. And it will be interesting to see if the media starts to pick up on this more positive story about the area. However, given their predilection for the gory and ghastly, I have my doubts.

As a geographer, I was somewhat perplexed by the brochure map of the area. I would expect it to concentrate on visitor highlights, but, the designers have decided to omit the large village of Friston. Perhaps because it is adjacent to, and somewhat overwhelms the village of East Dene which appears to be the heart of Beach Head.

Have a look a the maps of area below and see what you think.

The re-branding of Beach Head

Beach Head logo

The biggest surprise on my recent four day perambulation along the final section of the South Downs Way, ??? in England’s newest National Park, ??? came on the last day.

Although the established local beer for the area is Harveys, famous for its Tom Paine beer, ??? and still brewed beside the river Ouse in the heart of Lewes, ??? there is now a new rival.

It comes in the form of Beachy Head Ale,??? produced in a micro-brewery based in the pretty village of East Dene.

We enjoyed a delightful lunch in their brewerytap ??? pub, the Tiger Inn, ??? sitting in the sun on the village green looking across to Sherlock Holmes’ retirement house. ???

The surprise came when reading their promotional brochure and discovering the re-branding of Beachy Head. As a relatively local inhabitant, I am well aware of the stunning beauty of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, but also cognisant of its more well know aspect. For most UK residents Beachy Head it is quite literally the jumping off point for those who want to end it all.

This, less attractive aspect has featured in many films, documentaries and news items. ??? wikipedia – ??? Green Wing clip

Now, working as I do on the Euston Road opposite Kings Cross Station, I am all too aware of the stigma that can cling to an area, even if that reputation is no longer deserved. ???

So I was fascinated to see how the Davies-Gilbert family, who have farmed the Beachy Head area for 200 years and are attempting to re-invent and re-brand Beach Head. As you can see from the map and at Beachy Head dot org, ??? it is a beautiful part of the country, with lots to see and do.

I began to notice the clean and modern Beachy Head logo almost everywhere I looked. It will be interesting to see if the media starts to pick up on this more positive story about the area. But given their predilection for the gory and ghastly, I have my doubts.

The re-branding of Beach Head

Beach Head logo

The biggest surprise on my recent four day perambulation along the final section of the South Downs Way, ??? in England’s newest National Park, ??? came on the last day.

Although the established local beer for the area is Harveys, famous for its Tom Paine beer, ??? and still brewed beside the river Ouse in the heart of Lewes, ??? there is now a new rival.

It comes in the form of Beachy Head Ale,??? produced in a micro-brewery based in the pretty village of East Dene.

We enjoyed a delightful lunch in their brewerytap ??? pub, the Tiger Inn, ??? sitting in the sun on the village green looking across to Sherlock Holmes’ retirement house. ???

The surprise came when reading their promotional brochure and discovering the re-branding of Beachy Head. As a relatively local inhabitant, I am well aware of the stunning beauty of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, but also cognisant of its more well know aspect. For most UK residents Beachy Head it is quite literally the jumping off point for those who want to end it all.

This, less attractive aspect has featured in many films, documentaries and news items. ??? wikipedia – ??? Green Wing clip

Now, working as I do on the Euston Road opposite Kings Cross Station, I am all too aware of the stigma that can cling to an area, even if that reputation is no longer deserved. ???

As a geographer, I was somewhat perplexed by the brochure map of the area. I would expect it to concentrate on visitor’s highlights. But, the designers decided to omit the large village of Friston. Perhaps because it is adjacent to, and somewhat overwhelms the village of East Dene which appears to be the heart of Beach Head.

Have a look a the maps of area below and see what you think.

28 March 20116 October 2015

The Marketing Master Class – Social Media for Business

Once again I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the second of Kimberly Davis‘ Marketing Masters Series, this time the hot topic of Social Media for Business. See Apprentice Kim and her Marketing Masters Series for my notes from the first.

Kimberly promised us eleven ways to turn free resources into powerful marketing and sales tools, and she certainly delivered, with additional excellent contributions from Warren Cass and Stefan Thomas.

Here are my notes from the day:

Definition of Social Media – A conversation between you and your customers (or potential customers).

Why you should use it:

Powerful
International
Instant
Connects people
No barriers
Viral
Easy (you don’t need to be tech savvy)
Is the future of marketing

Facebook

Half of UK population is now on Facebook
Average user has 130 friends

Twitter

“The SMS of the Internet”
58% of tweeps have +$60k income

Linked In

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon
Job searching

YouTube

Owned by Google
Increases your SEO

Research – Use Social Media to find out what are people saying about you and your competitors?
Surveys – Test – Feedback
Tools

www.Uservoice.com
www.Openmind.com
www.Topsy.com
www.Clueapp.com
www.Surveymonkey.com

Build a database
Building your Brand
Trust is essential
The power of blogging
Customer Service
Events and promotions
Networking
Referrals
Recruitment and Refresh
Sales
Create a Social Media Strategy
Do you need a Social Media manager?

Tools

www.tweetdeck.com
www.hootsuite.com
www.cotweet.com

Words of caution

Facebook owns your photos – and changes the privacy rules regularly
15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night
Friends don’t equal love
Beware of bots

The Marketing Master Class

Social Media for Business

Kimberly Davies

Story of Sarsaparilla

Flash, fluff and fakers

11 ways to turn free resources into powerful marketing and sales tools

Definition – A conversation

Powerful:

International

Instant

Connects people

No barriers

Viral

Easy (you don’t need to be tech savvy)

Is the future of marketing

Pre social media customer experience sharing

Good = 3 people, Bad experience = 9 people

Social media connects you to the world.

22% of online time in the US is on social networking

40 million tweets per day

20% of Twitter updates mention a business or brand

The Big Four – YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In

Twitter – 190 users – more tech savvy and higher incomes

Facebook – 600 million – casual not business – B2C

Linked In – 90 million – more service based businesses.

Facebook

half of UK population is now on Facebook

average user has 130 friends

90 items of content per month on average

Gets more visits than Google, people asking friends they trust for recommendations

25 fans enables you to get your own facebook domain address

Friends activities are recorded on stats page

Only .04% of adverts work on Facebook – compared to 8% on Google

Wall post conversions work better

Point your adverts to your Facebook page, not out of Facebook

Set your keyword campaign to run for two days, then go back an use same words at a lower price

Twitter

“the SMS of the Internet”

58% of tweeps have +$60k income

Mentions of you are visible

Needs a better tech understanding

Enables a direct link to people

Search topics and see what people are saying

You can brand your Twitter page

Tools – tweepi.com, twitpic

Hash tags – follow events and trending topics

Linked In

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon

job searching

gatekeeper

B2B

Great SEO – at least put in your basic profile details

Get recommendations for your business – much better than promoting yourself

YouTube

owned by Google

increases your SEO

for people who like to learn by watching than reading

can use Flip or iPhone – cheap and easy

Research

Use Social Media to find out what are people saying about you and your competitors?

Surveys

Test

Feedback

Tools

Build a database

lists, groups

get people to register their data

offer something for free in order to get people to sign up

don’t do it the wrong way – quality is more important than quanitity

www.getsatisfaction.com

Building your Brand

establish yourself as an expert – answer questions

have an opinion

loyalty

write articles and promote

www.ezinearticles.com

www.scribd.com

What can you write about?

What are you an expert on?

Trust is essential

– Your customers need to trust that you genuinely have their interest at heart.

Warren Cass

www.warrencass.com

www.business-scene.com

Why you should Network Online

Examples of Will it Blend and United Breaks Guitars on YouTube

Useful tools

www.Tweeteck.com

The power of blogging

host guest bloggers who have lots of traffic

comment on popular blogs

Customer Service

Monitor and respond to service issues

Give support

Answer questions

Respond to people’s comments, good and bad

People want to talk to people, not companies

Tools

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Via www.CoTweet.com

Events and promotions

invite

contests

direct people to your website, blog, etc

fundraising via sites like www.kapipal.com

increase awareness of who you are and what you do

ReTweet and Follow to enter

Networking

Keep up to date with what everyone is doing

Who moved

Build relationships

The world is listening

Reach a wider audience

Referrals

Introduce people to each other

Pay it forward

Recommendations – use in your marketing materials

Like Amazon Book reviews

Recruitment and Refresh

Create a buzz

Viral Marketing

What you say can go further than you think

Sales

Promoting a sale. Launching a product

Build rapport

Today’s fans are tomorrow’s buyers

Create a demand, teasers, new products etc

Offer discounts

Create a Social Media Strategy

What are you going to use social media for?

Think long term

Plan

Write 5 things you’d tweet today

Do you need a Social Media manager?

Interns

Assistance

Virtual Assistants

Outsourced Professionals

Dual identities – business and personal

Tools

www.tweetdeck.com

www.hootsuite.com

www.cotweet.com

Words of caution

Facebook owns your photos – and changes the privacy rules regularly

15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night

Friends don’t equal love

Beware of bots

Stefan Thomas – www.noredbraces.co.uk

Story of being an estate agent, made redundant

Pathological fear of public speaking

Top tips for real and social networking success

Don’t sell to your audience

Passion and confidence

Be aware of what you want to say – don’t make it up on the fly – you wouldn’t do that for a brochure or advert

When you get to a one to one – still don’t sell – treat it like a first date

People don’t go into online forums to be sold to – so don’t do it – build up a relationship first

Don’t use social media for selling

Social networking complements person to person networking, it complements it and keeps them warm.

22 March 2011

Insider Trends – The Future of Online Marketing

Once again Insider Trends founder and all round marketing guru Cate Trotter raced through an enormous number of ideas and examples.

Tonight’s topic was the Future of Online Marketing, and she started with a shocking prediction. If Google was dominant internet power in the 2000’s, then in the 2010’s it will be Facebook. In fact Facebook already drives more traffic to some websites that Google.

An interesting example from a recent net@night with Amber and Leo is the launch of Internet legend Guy Kawasaki’s tenth book called Enchantment. Rather than building a website to promote the book, he simply created a Facebook fan page.

Here are my notes from the excellent workshop:

Online Marketing in Context

It is big and growing fast:

– UK online retail growth is predicted to grow by 20% a year.

– 30 million UK residents already access the internet every day.

– UK Broadband has grown from 40% in 2006 to 71% in 2010.

– People are prepared to spend more money online than in the past.

– Increase in use is right across the age spectrum, with 65+ the fastest growing demographic on both the internet and Facebook.

– By the end of 2011 the majority of phones in UK will be smartphones.

o But the number of smartphone online sales are still only a tiny proportion of online retail.

Selling Online

The evolution of online retailing. The initial advantages over bricks and mortar were price and convenience.

More recently we have seen the development of rich media and additional functionality. e.g. Spotify, with online music and social media links.

The future of e-commerce will be experiential – informative – personalised – social – convenient and reliable.

Experiential – a richer, more immersive, more interactive retail experience.

– e.g. www.leverduredelmioorto.it – a grocery services which allows you to layout your own allotment, which they plant for you, with a webcam to show how your veg is growing.

– www.zappos.com – in 2010 they hosted 8,000 shoe videos on their website, and found that between 6% and 30% of viewers went on to buy a pair of shoes. So, for 2011 they plan to host 50,000 videos.

– Augmented reality

o An IKEA app for the iPhone which places virtual furniture in you rooms.

More informative retail experiences with extra layers of information and advice.

– Amazon customer comments and recommendations system helps enhance customers buying decisions.

– www.argos.com have added similar approach and increased by sales by10%

– When you are buying apples on the Tesco website, you will be asked if you want to see recipe suggestions using apples.

More personalised shopping

– www.tailor-store.com – allows you to customise almost every aspect of your shirt.

– www.boutiques.com – recently bought by Google – allows you to create a personalised shopping experience.

– Tesco have released an API to open up their enormous database to developers. An example would be a recipe website which would enable you to buy all the necessary ingredients from Tesco.com with one click.

Social shopping

– iTunes recently went social, using Ping, enabling you to see what your friends are listening too and buy the same easily.

– Facebook Commerce (could it be the next big thing?) – shops within Facebook which turn shopping into a social experience – evidence shows visitors are 2.5 times more likely to buy than on standard websites.

Confidence online has increased

– From marketing – to initial enquiry – to purchase – to delivery – and repair/upgrade.

– Facebook stores provide ease of access – reduced barrier to access – same familiar Facebook interface.

o e.g. 1800flowers.com – a mini shop still inside your Facebook newsfeed.

–www.tobi.com – a virtual reality changing room to preview online clothes.

– Dec 2010 Christmas online shopping experience – 45% had problems – 32% abandoned shop – 50% said they were unlikely to return.

o One solution is 24 hour 365 days phone customer support. e.g. Zappos.com

o www.nutshellmail.com – will monitor tweets or online comments about you within the hour – currently free (positive or negative)

– Simplify payments to improve the experience

o Amazon – one click shopping – a patented (in the US) idea.

o PayPal can sit on any website.

o Facebook credits – still quite new – But you can already buy them in Tesco supermarkets.

Delivery

– Home delivery concerns deter 44% of online shoppers.

– Perhaps not surprising as 1 in 10 deliveries fail.

o www.collectplus.com – using local conveniences stores for collection or drop-off – already adopted by Littlewoods etc

Marketing

Get the basics right first –Search Engine Optimisation is the number one thing to boost your online retailing.

The evolution of marketing

– Billboards, newspapers, TV etc.

-10 years since Internet marketing began in earnest.

– Now users have the same power and reach as companies.

– We are listening to each other, not companies – peer recommendations have value – advertising has the least impact.

o e.g. Shoes of Prey – One teenage fan’s vlog increased their traffic by five times.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ-FrW0KraM]

o Facebook Facepile application – lets you see which of your friends have visited a website

o www.blippy.com – shows what you have been buying on your credit card

How do you make your brand the thing people want to talk about and share with their friends?

Two approaches – organic and nudge:

Organic

– You need to create something special to catch people’s attention.

– Quality products and service will generate positive marketing – blogs – Facebook etc.

o www.songkick.com – tell it the bands you like – it will send you when they are playing

– Think about putting an amazing deal on your website – people will comment on it.

o www.hoxtonhotels.com – rooms for £1, once a year

Nudge promotion – works on a sliding scale from blatant to elegant

– www.lockerz.com – a blatant form of nudging – 17 million members since 2009 – all around selling – you get points for activities – many for getting a friend to do them – if you get 20 friends, your points double.

– www.snatter.com – less blatant – rewards for tweets and Facebook mentions

– www.tipfromme.com – benefits for sharer and share.

– www.dropbox.com – service enhanced in reward for sharing with friends.

– www.polyvore.com – lets customers promote themselves.

– Facebook Connect Comment – natural sharing.

– www.skype.com – the value only comes when others use it – so at the elegant end of the spectrum.

Overall conclusion

The web is becoming more sophisticated, and more satisfying (much more product information) and more social.

Retailers will need to think how they are going to move from a marketing budget to satisfaction budget.

“If I had to guess, social commerce is the next area to really blow up”, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder)

8 March 2011

An innocent clash of trademarks?

I’ve been thinking a lot about branding and trademarks recently (Logos with customer appeal – Apples and Marmite).

So this story in yesterday’s Evening Standard caught my eye (I’m innocent over trademark clash, says children’s vitamins maker).

Innocent Vitamins was started by Dawn Reid in July 2010, based in the tiny village of Ashurst Wood in East Sussex, close to where I grew up. According to the Standard article, Mrs Reid claims that her brand was not inspired by Innocent Drinks, and that her customers do not get the two brands mixed up.

However, the smoothie company, founded in 1999, and now with a turnover of £128 million, sees things differently. They say their customers are confused by this new brand, and that using such a distinctive name in a similar category is not an appropriate thing for another company to do.

“We have given the company a way out by respectfully asking them to stop using the brand name, which we believe is more than reasonable, and doubt that most other companies would be so tolerant. We have to protect our brand and everything we have stood for over the past 12 years.”

It seems that Mrs Reid is planing to fight to keep the Innocent Vitamins brand, so this one could run and run.

“I genuinely believe that my company can peacefully coexist with Innocent smoothies, and I would be delighted to meet up with them as we have already offered.”
http://innocentvitamins.blogspot.com/2011/03/innocent-vitamins-refutes-innocent.html

My limited knowledge of trademark law includes the topic of passing-off, and the deciding factor in many court cases is whether a reasonable person would get the two brands confused side by side on a supermarket shelf.

However, as the Intellectual Property Office IPO points out, it can be very difficult, and as a result, expensive to prove a passing off action. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-protect-passingoff

If you register your mark, it is easier to take legal action. This allows you to take legal action against infringement of your trade mark, rather than using passing off. Further information is available under Benefits of registered trade mark protection.

I know what I think, but have a look at the photos below and decide for yourself.

The IPO have a nice summary page on Trademarks on their website.

In summary:

A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish your goods and services from those of your competitors. It can be for example words, logos or a combination of both.
You can use your trade mark as a marketing tool so that customers can recognise your products or services.
A trade mark must be distinctive for the goods and services you provide. In other words it can be recognised as a sign that differentiates your goods or service as different from someone else’s.
A registered trade mark must be renewed every 10 years to keep it in force.

Fortunately the IPO make it very simple to search their database of registered here http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-find.htm

6 March 2011

Milking a story for all it’s worth

Last week I was admiring how successfully the Icecreamists have been at generating publicity for their Baby Gaga ice cream, made from human breast-milk, which costs £14 (Luxury foods in terribly bad taste). Then they had a set-back when their local council removed the milk for testing.

On Friday, yet another newspaper article appeared in the Evening Standard – Baby Gaga: Star takes legal action over London parlour’s breast milk ice cream flavour.

It’s a publicists dream come true. Probably the worlds most famous current pop star is threatening legal action over the ice cream, which her lawyers claim is infringing her Lady Gaga brand.

From a legal point of view, it seems unlikely that Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, also know as Lady Gaga, will win her case against Matt O’Connor the owner of the Icecreamists. He claims the term comes from the early sounds babies make when trying to speak, and has applied to register the trademark.

However, thanks to the Lady Gaga name, this story has now gone global, appearing in American, Russian and Indian newspapers within hours. Mr O’Connor must be rubbing his hands with glee.