Saturday, December 15, 2007
Thanks Servant Of Chaos
This piece of research (that beautifully rolls up into a great viral piece) by the makers of Drambuie, is a great introduction on how paying yourself out and using negative customer feedback can improve your sales.
I think Guy Kawasaki's advice on the value of polarising your customer base comes true in this piece.
Ive never tried Drambuie, but given this bunch of yokels hate it, it makes me want to go and try it :)
Labels: advertising, conversations, demographics, Marketing, Sydney Internet Marketing, Sydney Video Production, sydney viral marketing, viral
Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:33 PM
Share on Facebook
Email this
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Interesting news from the ACCC who say that Consumers consider blogs as reliable and as influential as mainstream media.
Sounds like call to action for online reputation monitoring :P Its also interesting to consider how the ACCC see's its role in new media. Will they try to control and censor australian bloggers and online review sites.
"CONSUMERS who get their news from the internet are likely to trust a blog for reliability as much as a mainstream media site, the competition watchdog said today.
"For a growing base of users, these are all equally valid sources of news, information, entertainment and gossip, and users are not necessarily discriminating between traditional and new sources.""
This is very cool but also scary, what has made the internet great is its total freedom. Will that be eroded by Australian governments and what can we do to ensure that bloggers cannot be held legally liable if they critisise an Australian Company online.
Source: Courier Mail
Labels: Blog, blogs, consumer, conversations, internet, Marketing, online, pr, PR 2.0, reputation, reputation management, reputation monitoring, sem, seo, social media
Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:29 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Apparently sprinters reach their highest speed right out of the blocks, and spend the rest of the race slowing down. The winners slow down the least. Its that way in most new business too.
The earliest phase is usually the most productive.
The striking thing about this phase is that its often completely different from what people think "business" looks like. When you think business you think suits, offices, boardrooms, reports. However most successful businesses are the opposite of this, and whats more they are probably the most productive part of the whole economy.
Why the disconnect? I think there's a principle at work here: the less energy people spend on performance, the more they spend on appearance to compensate.
Whats worse is that the energy people spend on seeming impressive, actually makes their performance worse!
Suits, for example, don't help people think better. I bet most executives at big companies do their best thinking when they wake up on Sunday morning and are making coffee in a bathrobe (or in the shower or reading a bedtime story to their kids). That's when you have really big ideas! Just imagine what a company would be like if people could think that well at work all the time.
I don't have a proposal for how to achieve this in the real world, but it did seem interesting to pry this topic open.
Sometimes i think professionalism is a dieing fad from the 1970's. Today we want authentic, genuine products, partners, clients, suppliers and friends. Real people who do real work. No longer does the bland, fake "take a number and get in line" sterility of professionalism cut it for the informed, seasoned, advertising-hardened consumer.
What do you think, leave a comment on the blog...
Disclaimer: Thanks to Jessica Livingstone and Paul Graham for Inspiration
Labels: advertising, behaviour, communities, consumer, internet, Marketing
Posted by Nick HaC @ 3:35 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Every new project (or job, or hobby or company) starts out exciting or fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point: really hard and not much fun at all.
And the you find yourself asking if the goal is really worth the hassle.
Maybe you're in a Dip - a temporary setback that you will overcome if you keep pushing.
But maybe its really a Cul-de-sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try.
What really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly whilst staying focused and motivated when it really counts.
Winners quit fast, quit often and quite without guilt - until they commit to beating the right dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realise that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it.
Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip - they get to the moment of truth and then give up - or they never find the right Dip to conquer.
Whether you;re a graphic design, a sales rep, an athlete or an aspiring CEO, this fun little book will help you figure out if you;re in a dip thats worthy of your time, effort and talents. If you are, The Dip will inspire you to hang tough. If not, it will help you find the courage to quit 0 so you can be number one at something else.
The Dip - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/
Labels: behaviour, communities, Ideas, Marketing, Startups, web 2.0
Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:55 PM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Here is the latest Video from our WebTV Show - Get Shifted! TV
Labels: behaviour, communities, consumer, design, Ideas, Marketing
Posted by Nick HaC @ 1:03 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Great Article in AdAge, Below...
Don't Convince Us Your Brand's Better that it is If It Isn't
Be True: So Your Product Isn't Inherently the Winning Choice? Thats ok, Just Tell an Honest , genuine Story.
Balanced diet
If you practice what I call a brand-balanced diet, the following criteria will sound familiar:
- Your brand story is consistent and can be measured against consumer-resonant benefits.
- Your brand teaches rather than preaches.
- You enable your consumers to have choices and are sympathetic to "studied cheating."
- You invite your consumers to be part of your brand through ongoing dialog.
http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article.php?article_id=120028
Labels: advertising, behaviour, branding, consumer, Marketing
Posted by Nick HaC @ 9:52 PM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
We just bumped into a podcast from mid 2006 from PodWorkx that we thought was was quite interesting to see some early perspectives on podcasting and the role of consumer consumer generated media coming into play.
Disclosure: PodWorkx is now part of the Shifted Group, Copyright 2007
Click to Download - PodWorkx.com - An interview with Mick Stanic.mp3 (27.86 MB)
Today we had the pleasure of interviewing Mick Stanic. Co-Founder of ThePodcastNetwork and founding GM/EP at Singleton OgilvyInteractive. We talk about the state of the podcasting industry aswell as how Advertising and Media companys can relate to Podcasting as a technology and as a marketing channel. Thanks Mick!
Labels: advertising, communities, internet, Marketing, online, podcasting, Startups
Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:35 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Monday, July 9, 2007
It's estimated that up to 50 percent of visitors to landing pages will bail in the first eight seconds.And while that amount of time can feel like an eternity to a bull rider in the rodeo, it's a mere blink of an eye to an email marketer hoping for strong conversions and a positive return-on-investment.
Online marketers spend countless hours and untold millions trying to make recipients click on a link leading to a landing page. But delivering only clicks is short-changing the company. Marketers need to convert prospects to customers; clicks need to result in purchases. with online marketing, the bridge between the click and the credit card is generally a landing page.
As online competition intensifies, greater efforts are being placed on maximizing revenues from each and every opportunity. And few opportunities are as rich with possibilities as when an email recipient clicks a link within a message and comes knocking at your online door.
A MarketingSherpa reader survey found that average landing page conversion rates for email campaigns ranged from 5.67 percent to 11 .31 percent for free offers, and from 5.67 percent to 7.63 percent for e-commerce campaigns.If your conversion rates are running near the bottom or below those ranges, consider making changes to your landing page program. A new evaluation by Silverpop of landing pages from 50 companies finds that placing a little more effort on nurturing recipients once they hit those landing pages would be time and money well spent. This report, evaluating landing pages from companies throughout North America and the United Kingdom, can serve as a valuable guide.
Key Findings
Landing pages that pass the eight-second test successfully feature a number of important attributes. Unfortunately, many of those reviewed in this study failed to grab the attention of customers and prospects, leading them down a clear path to conversion. Silverpop found that:
- Successful landing pages grab attention quickly by matching the promotional copy in the email's call-to-action that yielded the click. Yet 45 percent of the landing pages evaluated failed to repeat the email's promotional copy in the headline.
- Catapulting a clicker to a Web site's home page generally fails to deliver on the promise inherent in the email's call-to-action. Yet 7 percent of email campaigns dumped recipients there.
- Recipients can be taken aback when they click on a link and end up on a landing page without the same look and feel as the email that captured their attention. But three out of 0 marketers risked confusing customers and prospects by sending them to landing pages not matching the email.
- Asking too many questions can lead prospective customers to become wary and frustrated enough that they abandon the process. Nevertheless, 45 percent of landing pages that included forms required more than 0 fields to be completed.
- While the presence of a navigation bar on a landing page can be a distraction that pulls visitors away from the primary conversion goal, nearly seven out of 0 landing pages included them.
- Professional writers know it's a lot harder to write short copy than long. Apparently some marketers are taking the easy way out, since 25 percent of the landing pages reviewed by Silverpop required scrolling through more than two screens of text.
Labels: advertising, behaviour, Email, Marketing, online, websites
Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:13 PM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
We have seen an explosion of consumer choice, a new level of scarcity of consumer attention, the growth of abundance of options and masses and masses of online consumer review and comparison sites.
Under 30's have grown up with advertising, and are fully aware of the processes that corporate marketers use to sell them products.
Are there are more products than consumers need? Just go to the supermarket, you have 20 types of peanut butter, 200 types of cheese and 80 types of toothbrushes.
Want to but a tshirt online? Which one of the 10 million sites do you choose?
We could speculate that consumers and businesses make more choices based on social recommendation than advertisements.
We could also speculate that are seeing the end of the media-industrial era, and the rebirth of the pre-industrial era consumer run Market Place (this time with global, realtime efficiencies).
This new era is the market place of the people for the people. Of course there will still be a strong need for insustrial processes, but these will become commoditised as platforms, just like electricity and the railroads have become.
If you are selling a product, a service or an idea... spreading your brand will soon strongly rely on person to person social reccomendation.
But with so many products and features on offer, how do you get noticed? Instead of selling based on pure functionality, as a coat functionally keeps you warm, the new market is about style! So what defines style or fashion, social influence and reccomendation?
The drivers of social reccomendation are the early adopters, the merchants of cool. Those who take early risks and by breaking the norm send waves through the social landscape. Sometimes they succeed, and sometime they miss the mark. Aside from the risks of this space, this is the source of new social influence and trends. And this space must be recognised.
Dont think this only applies to consumer goods, business to business services and products follow the same rules. Business communities and social networks are potentially even closer, tighter and more intimate than those of the consumer social community. Is it possible that the tightness of the business community creates an even stronger desire to use the hip process or service or business practice?
The rules of consumer influenced have changed. Has your businsess shifted?
Labels: advertising, behaviour, branding, communities, consumer, design, internet, Marketing, online, pr, reputation, social networking, technology, viral, web 2.0
Posted by Nick HaC @ 5:46 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
In the golden age of branding, several guests at the party held sway: brand, PR, marketing, external relations (ER), research, and the agencies. On top of that, we had a few occasional attendees, such as consumer affairs, investor relations, and community relations.
Today, in the golden age of consumer empowerment, we have the same party guests, but their sway is being challenged in a very big way by an aggressive, sometimes rude and abrupt new guest at the party: the consumer influencer.
I'm talking about the loudmouths everyone hears and reacts to. These folks really move the needle when it comes consumer generated media creation and spread. They write the power blogs, lead the communities, organize the forums, create the boards, upload the most viewed videos on YouTube, lead mini-revolutions on Facebook, and more.
They may have accrued influence over time or have situational influence (e.g., they were first to try and review the iPhone, hence setting off a broader chain reaction). That influence often spills from the online zone into the offline or vice versa. Indeed, today's uber-influencers are largely platform agnostic, except they tend to have a more quantifiable digital trail of results online. Put another way, if you search their names, you'll find evidence of something they said.
Who manages and converses with these influencers?
Is there a defined person, department, group, or entity within your organisation charged with influencer management? Should there be? Equally important, what are the risks of too many folks going after the same constituency?
Our advice is to engage a partner like shifted pixels to monitor, engage with and report on thesee internet conversations. Engaging a blogger or high profile forum members requires a very different set of techniques than traditional PR. Keen to know more, call us for a quick chat.
-------------------
Update: 11 July 2007
Ok so we must confess we have been caught out for copy pasting (see comments) from one of our favourite websites for the majority of this blog post. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and whilst that is true, if your gunna copy other people stuff, you really should to give credit to your source.
We were in the wrong, and we definitely were not practicing what we preach. Sorry readers...
Thanks Richard (http://richardstacy.wordpress.com), sorry bud, sometimes we just get so excited with the ideas out there we cant help but publish them, and its very easy to want to own that idea for yourself.
Labels: communities, consumer, Marketing, pr, reputation
Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:34 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Every single day, someone, somewhere is discussing something important to your business; your brand, your executives, your competitors, your industry.
Are they hyping-up your company, building buzz for your products? Or, are they criticizing your service, complaining to others about your new product launch?
A great brand can take months, if not years, and millions of dollars to build. It should be the thing you hold most precious. It can be destroyed in hours by a blogger upset with your company.
A new product launch could take hundreds of TV commercials, dozens of newspaper ads, and an expensive ad agency.
It can also spread like a virus with the praise of just one customer, at one message board.
A company can dominate market share, throttle competition and hold the #1 brand in the world.
It can also crash in months if it fails to listen to what its customers want.
By now, you should have an understanding of just how powerful consumer generated media (CGM) is. Your next action could be the difference between your company’s success or failure. Do you click the back button and ignore the conversation, or; do you engage a partner who can help you manage and interact with this new online community?
Shifted Pixels is managing online reputation for some of australia's largest companies, call us for a quick chat to let us know about your online reputation.
Labels: branding, communities, internet, Marketing, online, pr, reputation, social networking
Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:36 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Our friend Trevor Cook, a well known blogger and PR guru, has released a fantastic online guide to Social Media.
What is Social Media?
The online communities, technologies and practices that people use to share news, opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives.
The paper includes lots of new stuff on emerging communities such as second life, wiki's, twitter, myspace, facebook aswell as "traditional" social media - blogs, rss, podcasts and more.
Check it out - Guide to Social Media
Labels: Blog, communities, consumer, mark, Marketing, online, pr, reputation, social networking, web 2.0
Posted by Nick HaC @ 6:46 PM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Seth Godin talks at Gel 2006, a very funny look at how stuff is broken.
Labels: advertising, behaviour, consumer, design, Fun, Ideas, Marketing
Posted by Nick HaC @ 10:32 PM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Check out this new "Viral" video from a US Crysler Dealership
1. The Video is blatently "selling" the user, using traditional techniques. Same old TV advertising crap. The reason this video sucks is the same reason Tivo rocks.
2. Treading viewers like idiots doesnt work anymore. The best virals have a uniquely human voice, they sound human. This video sounds like ad talk.
3. There is nothing "Viral" about it. What information would viewers want to spread here?
4. There is no stimulation of viewer emotions. Why do i care?
5. No point of view. The most effective virals have a strong (even offensive) point of view. Its really the only way to get noticed in the new "Attention Economy"
6. No one got kicked in the nuts, and no boobs were shown (Lets face it, why do people typically watch YouTube)
Shifted Pixels is working with traditional businesses helping them prepare their existing media content for the new-media environment. Call us for a quick chat if you need more info...
Labels: advertising, Marketing, social networking, video, viral
Posted by Nick HaC @ 12:24 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
We have observed several trends in writing effective and compelling copy for websites.
These tips probably dont apply to highly factual or technical websites, but if you are selling or delivering a marketing or brand message then read on...
1. Create Allure
Just like first dates, writing compelling website copy is about not giving away too much information. Its kind of like trying to spark an interesting conversation with your website visitor, and then leaving them with a lingering desire to find out more.
2. Keeping it Simple
Try and only have 1 or 2 concepts per page. If you have a large number of ideas on a page, and the web visitor become even slighly confused, they may be likely to close your website and keep looking.
3. Its not about you!
People don't care about you and your credentials, they care about themselves and their problems.
Instead of writing:
"We are the leading provider of X, and our expertise ensures our position as the number 1 in the Y industry."
You can flip the message on its head:
"Are you looking for a X provider you can trust? You may feel more confortable knowing that all the Y Industry complexities and issues can be managed by the #1 market choice."
4. Short is sweet
Avoid long paragraphs or too much detail.
If you have lots of information, break it into bite size chunks over several small pages with a logical & super easy to use linking strategy.
A technique we use to spice up key points is using a 4 to 5 item bullet point list. Example
This technique be used to raise the impact of the key pieces of information you are trying to get across.
5. Search Engine Readiness
Pick a theme of 1 or 2 key phrases for each web page (eg "sydney oven repair" or "how to sell books online"). Try and achieve a "Keyword density" of 3 or 4 for each of your key phrases.
This will also subconsciously reinforce your brand message with the website viewer and increase the perceived relevance of the webpage.
6. Call to Action
Don't just put information on your web pages. You need to tell a story, to create a path.
I remember (vaguely) at University the TV advertising slogan AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). It might seem that the same applies to web page copy.
Make sure your webpage is leading somewhere, and ensure their is a link at the bottom of each page suggesting to your visitor where they should go next.
The Results: Using these techniques we have been able to improve our average website visit length to our Shifted Pixels site from less than 1 minute to more than 3 Minutes! Chuffed :)
Posted by Nick HaC @ 8:03 AM
Shameless Plug
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
At Shifted Pixels, we deliver services that leverage the measurable business benefits of the online engagement.
Give us a buzz! We want to talk to you!!!
A lot of our clients seem scared or overwhelmed by PPC advertising these days. We find this interesting, but not surprising. They are concerned that keyword costs are rising, there are too many advertisers, and the entire method is becoming cumbersome and overcrowded. Don't be scared! PPC advertising can be very effective and should be considered in your marketing campaign.
Posted by Nick HaC @ 7:58 AM