Having a One on One Conversation

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:43:41 +0000

Personalising your email or SMS messages in a useful way will help your contacts to feel like you are having a one to one conversation with them, and will help them feel like a valued client, not just one of the masses.

So what do I mean by a “useful way”? It’s pretty easy to add the firstname to your message - people expect that level of personalisation even in what is obviously a bulk email send now. What is useful for your clients / customers is going to be different from another organisation, but here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

expiry date of your customer’s account / subscription
number of loyalty points they currently hold
address and contact details that you currently store on file for your contact (ask them to update you if the details have changed)
last item that the customer purchased online (so that you can ask them what their experience has been like with that product, or you can ask them to rate your customer service during the transaction).

We’d love to hear what other ways you can imagine personalising your messages - reply to this post below.

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What’s Changed with Google - SEO Update

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:56:20 +0000

You may have noticed the recent significant changes to the appearance of the Google search engine website. Google is constantly changing their search engine to provide better, more relevant search results to visitors, and we work with a number of our clients to keep their websites optimised for Google’s changing algorithms. I expect the most recent user interface changes to ultimately have a significant impact on the effectiveness of your website’s rank in Google.

Depending on what browser you are using, when you go to http://www.google.com.au/ you may no longer see the ‘pages from Australia’ option which used to be found just below the search box. After entering your search terms (helped by Google’s new autocomplete feature in the search box) and hitting enter / go, you will see a left hand navigation with lots of new options in it, including a ‘Pages from Australia’ option. You can click on that link to restrict the search results to just Australian sites.

The new options in the left hand navigation include additional ways to restrict the search results, which will help you find what you are really after more quickly. You can specify that you want results for content published in, say, the past 24 hours. You can also search for content over a specified date range. The oldest content I found for our eNudge online solution was published in 2005.

It is my view that many people who have been using Google for years won’t be using the new functionality yet - there’s been much demand for the old, simpler view to be returned! I have also noticed that our clients, who have regularly visited particular websites, now find that those websites appear higher in their list of results compared to the results that other people see. This is an important behaviour to be aware of when you are evaluating your Google rank.

As people start using the more advanced searching options, it will become even more important to ensure that your content is kept fresh and change often. This ties in with the growing use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking sites by businesses. Similarly blogs continue to be advantageous as posts are usually considered fresh, up-to-date content by Google, and therefore more likely to be listed quickly.

In addition to the user interface changes, Google has recently improved their ability to find and index new website content (dubbed ‘Google Caffeine’), making it allegedly twice as quick for new content to appear in the search engine results. This is likely to help existing websites, who publish content regularly, to have that new content appear very quickly.

If you have tried out Google’s new features, share what you think of them by adding your comment below.

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Timing your Email Campaigns to Co-incide with Major News

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:44:54 +0000

On Friday a week ago, Apple launched the iPad in a number of countries outside of the USA, including America. That same day I know of at least two organisations - Borders and Domain - who sent emails out to their contacts on that exact day telling people about tools that they now have available for the iPad.

The message to the end consumer is very clear:

we’re up to date
we’re providing you with useful tools

I think you will agree that the above a very powerful messages to provide to your customers.

Timing your messages to co-incide with major news events, particularly when you are supplying useful tools to help people around that event, is a great strategy and should be something that you factor into your Communication Plan.

You’re could be thinking: “that’s easy for large company with big budgets”, or “but how do you know what the major news is going to be?”, or “co-inciding my emails with the news will take too much preparation time”. Yes… it does take effort to co-incide your campaigns with major news; and that’s why it gives such a powerful message to the message recipients.

So don’t discount this strategy as too hard! Factor this into your next Communication Plan brain storming session, or tweak your Communication Plan when you become aware of big news coming up. Share your thoughts by adding your comment below.

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iPad - Apple for ‘next big thing’?

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:30:20 +0000

I’m often asked what the next big thing is going to be in the IT industry. I’ve been thinking lately about Apple’s amazing success with the iPhone and how many people who are PC users through and through (myself included) have embraced the iPhone as a must have due to how easy it is to use. I continually hear stories of pain trying to get smart phones setup to receive emails and connect to the internet; with an iPhone it’s a breeze.

Given Apple’s recent amazing successes, it struck me the ‘next big thing’ in technology is probably going to come from Apple, and perhaps that ‘next big thing’ will be the iPad. Whilst initial reviews show that there is a long way to go for the iPad to be really useful, Apple wasn’t initially successful with the iPhone either, but made changes based on user feedback.

Australians have shown themselves to be keen to take up the new technology with Apple stores around the country selling more than anticipated, with uncertainty around when new stock will arrive.

Do you have an iPad or know someone who does? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Is the Appearance of your Website Important?

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:03:54 +0000

There are people who passionately answer Yes to this question, as well as those who passionately say No, it doesn’t matter - what is more important is the product / price of your goods or service, and that the website is easy to use. In taking this side of the argument, an example is usually given of a very basic / ugly looking website, which is easy to use, and has a large sales volume going through it continually. Who wouldn’t want the sales volume?

It’s the ‘form over function’ debate.

So how can we account for the ugly, yet very successful, website?

An excellent sales and marketing strategy.

However, you have to think that if you continue with the excellent sales and marketing strategy, and add a great looking and easy to use site to the mix, then surely the results would be even better?

I’ve just received an email from a client telling me that her business has increased dramatically since we moved her website from being a basic one page design (it wasn’t ugly, but it certainly needed improvement) to a professional looking site with pages describing her services, testimonials, her background, etc.

The bottom line is that getting the most out of your web presence is, and always has been, about doing a range of things well: a design that connects with your target audience, a site that is easy to use and guides the visitor to where they need to be (this is about design, content and functionality), a strategy to market your site (and your business) to attract prospects and stay connected to your client base over the long term, and a well-oiled system to handle website enquiries and deliver your product/service.

It is possible to do better than your competitors by only doing some of these things well; but if you achieve them all, then you will certainly receive the results.

At Contact Point we are passionate about both the form and the function of a website, with different members of our team specialising in these different areas. We can also assist you with marketing your website and utilising email / SMS marketing to stay connected to your customer base.

What do you think?

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Can I email people to ask permission to email them?

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:59:19 +0000

I get asked this question quite a lot, or worse, I talk to clients who just presume that it’s okay to send a commercial email without consent on the basis that “If they don’t want to receive my emails, they will un-subscribe”.

The bottom line is that it is illegal accordingly to the Australian Spam Act 2003 to send even one commercial email to one email address where you don’t have the prior consent of the recipient to receive commercial emails from you.

Part of the confusion over this stems from the fact that the anti-spam legislation most commonly discussed on the internet is the American legislation (usually referred to as CAN Spam). The Amercian legislation allows organisations to send unsolicited commercial emails as long as they adhere to 3 basic types of compliance in the areas of: unsubscribe, content and sending behavior.

So, just to be very clear, the Australian Spam Act legislation, which applies to emails of a commercial nature, sent to anyone in Australia or emanating from Australia, does require you to have consent of the recipient prior to the email being sent. There is a concept of ‘inferred’ consent in Australian Spam Act legislation, and there is also a concept of ‘conspicuously published’ email addresses that don’t carry the same requirements for prior consent. If you wish to rely on anything but express consent, it is worth careful investigation to ensure you aren’t breaking the law: further reading on the topic of consent.

A final point is worth making: the onus of proof of having consent is on the sender.

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What’s hot in technology for 2010?

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:41:29 +0000

My humble predictions for 2010, in the area of technology for small business are as follows:

use of iPhones and other Smart Phones for browsing the internet, collecting mail, etc will increase at a steady pace (I took up an excellent mobile offer that included an iPhone just before the end of December, so give me a call if you want to hear about my experience). This doesn’t mean that you have to rush out and change your website for very small screens because the smart phones handle full size websites fairly well, but having an alternative version of important data access areas of your site could be worthwhile e.g. for data searches / operational data entry / ordering functions and the like.
larger businesses, who to a large degree have held back from embracing the internet and electronic channels for marketing, will employ email and sms marketing to a greater degree, integrating traditional media and web-based campaigns to reach out in a meaningful way to their target market and existing clientele. This will take away some of the competitive advantage that smaller, more agile businesses have had over their larger competitors. It will also mean that your marketing campaigns have to be even more focused on delivering value and unique messages, not just selling.
more and more people will use Google to find things on the web, and generally use the internet as a research tool.
social networking sites will gather more momentum in the business arena, primarily through LinkedIn, Plaxo and Xing (rather than Facebook and Twitter), but I think there is still a long way to go before their use in this realm becomes imperative, and level of use will vary dramatically between industries.
cloud computing / software-as-a-service where you utilise internet-based servers to run shared software applications and store your operational information will continue to grow at a slow-moderate pace, as businesses still prefer the bricks and mortar approach of having control of their data and applications within their own environment.
Finally, it’s fairly clear that Broadband speeds and computer processor speeds will continue to get faster and cheaper and hard disk capacity will increase while the physical size of the disks will reduce and become cheaper per gigabyte. Will we use all this extra cheaper speed and capacity? I expect to see the improvement in technology infrastructure paving the way for a myriad of innovative gadgets and software applications to make it easier to do common tasks, from anywhere. Perhaps one of these will be the next “killer app”.

What’s your thoughts? Found a killer app lately? Add your comments below.

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Reducing the Likelihood of Un-subscribes at this busy time of year

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:25:50 +0000

I have noticed an increase in the rate of un-subscribes over the last few weeks. I believe that is at least in part due to the increased work levels across the board as people try to achieve as much as possible before Christmas and the end of year.

So, what can you do to reduce the likelihood that your contacts with un-subscribe at this time?

Value is king - providing value in your emails is always the most persuasive reason people have to stay on your email list. The question for you is what do my contacts perceive as value. It might be any of the things listed below, or something entirely different, the important thing is to know what your contacts value:

special offers, especially when they are only available to people who receive the messages
free shipping of products - this is especially appreciated by Christmas shoppers short of time, but not wanting to spend more on shipping. We’ve added a new Free Shipping image into eNudge to help you communicate this to your contacts.
information that helps your contacts achieve more with less, or save time
information that gives your contacts an edge
information that enables your contacts to solve a problem they have e.g. don’t know what to buy someone for Christmas!

Make Skimming Easy - including a table of contents at the top of your email helps your contacts to consume your message, finding the items more important to them, more easily. Using topic headings also helps to make it easy to find information. If you make it easy to read, people are less likely to un-subscribe.

Keep it short - if you have a lot to say, put that information into a web page, and include just a teaser to it in your email. This also contributes to making it easier for people to skim through your email.

Make it Personal - if your contacts feel like you are having a 1 on 1 conversation with them, they are also less likely to un-subscribe. You can do that through personalisation e.g. including their name and company in your email. If you have a bit more time, you can also include a personalised paragraph in your message. It’s not hard to do with eNudge.

Target your Emails more Carefully - that is, if you have different types of people in your contact database, go to the trouble of creating different emails to send to these different groups. A very obvious example is a Christmas message to your customers will be very different to a Christmas message to your suppliers. This consideration is also related to the first point above - adding value. What is valuable to one segment of your target audience, may not be valuable to other segments.

Add Humour - if you give your contacts something to laugh at, even if they don’t feel that a particular email is of value to them, they will be less likely to un-subscribe.

Ensuring People Know they Have Joined Your List - this applies to any time of the year, but especially at this time. Make sure that you not only get consent before sending messages to your contacts, but make sure each person knows they have given you consent - don’t hide it in fine print, and don’t assume.

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Movement towards Software as a Service (SaaS) increasing

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:23:41 +0000

Though it’s been around for over 10 years now, the concept of Software-as-a-Service model is becoming more prevalent, helped by the increasing launch of new web based applications such as Google Apps, and dare I self-promote, eNudge!

So what is Saas? Wikipedia describes it as “… a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or download the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires.” The model is pay as you use, for what you use.

There are lots of benefits, the most common being: cheaper software costs, paying for software just while you need it, without high costs of installation and purchase, and easier to work with others and remotely from your organisation through web-based applications.

I know that some of you are using SaaS applications to assist you to collaborate with virtual teams e.g. Google Calendar. So, I have three questions:

1/ Are you satisfied with the reliability and performance of the applications?
2/ Have you found them to be value for money?
3/ Are you considering utilising more SaaS applications in future e.g. are you considering using Google Docs (the SaaS ‘equivalent’ to Word, Excel and Powerpoint), Gmail for Business (rather than Outlook)?

Share your answers by posting a comment below.

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What’s in Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System?

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:42:24 +0000

Microsoft launched Windows 7, the new 64 bit operating system, on October 22nd. Windows 7 is said to provide:

a faster operating system, particularly if you have 4Gb of RAM or more on your computer; Windows 7 will actually enable to you utilise the extra RAM
easier search for files and emails, straight from the Start button
pin and jump lists to help you quickly access programs and files you use most often
aero snap feature that allows you to easily put two windows side by side to compare their contents
aero peek feature allowing you to see what’s on the desktop without minimising everything; the open windows are made transparent. Similarly an aero shake feature, to minimise all the windows and then bring them all back again to their previous position by shaking a window from side to side
a stronger firewall, anti-virus and anti-malware solution
tools for creating and sharing videos on YouTube

In addition, Windows 7 takes up 1/2 the room on your hard disk compared to Windows Vista. Developers and manufacturers are expected to be interested in Windows 7 because of the many new capabilities it provides, including touchscreen support. For more information you might like to read the Top 10 reasons to buy Windows 7 put together by Microsoft. In addition, Microsoft already has a new section of it’s website dedicated to Windows 7.

Unfortunately, you can’t upgrade directly from Windows XP to Windows 7, so if you’re like me you would need to do a fresh installation of Windows 7, which will probably give you a better result anyhow. You could of course temporarily upgrade to Vista, and then upgrade to Windows 7.

Some analysts are suggesting that this could be Microsoft’s last operating system, with the prospect of operating-system-less computers becoming more likely. Perhaps the question should be, will Google be successful in bringing out their Google Chrome operating system to replace the heavy-weight Windows operating system? You might like to read Google’s vision for their light-weight operating system.

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