Marketing

Outrage Puppet

~ dan

outragepuppetHardly a day goes by when mainstream (or alt) press, facebook or twitter doesn’t report some event, quote or photo that promotes feeling of outrage, sufficient to stir the emotions, galvanising us to share or retweet some sound bite, MEME image or story.

Whether innocuous or deliberate, wether reported about someone important or someone that wants to be important it matter little. It’s easy to let it trigger our emotions through our basal tribal behaviour (our biology is wired for it) to protest the offence across our modern bastions of information and truth ….social media,. And in that moment there is little intrest in the full story,  in a familiar emotion clouds intellect moment. Inevitably the largely good works of public figures over many years are suddenly erased and falling on swords often ensues, ultimately to the detriment of the community. 

And as if that isn’t enough cue then the outrage against the outrage and it lives for a least a second media cycle, mean while the big issues of our time hide in the corners ….

Consumer decision making process

~ dan

Consumer-decision-making-websites-2.pngIt takes a long time for a prospect to actually make the decision to buy a product or service. There are several processes they go through, and at each step there is a funnelling, or more correctly a loss, of prospects. This is called the consumer decision making process. If you understand your customer you can help them through each of these stages by embedding information and values that will aid a successful conversion.

Depending on who you ask there are a different number of stages, but most agree on these three main ones: Awareness, Evaluation and finally Decision. One of the goals of marketing is to make sure the input (Awareness) attracts as many as possible. Also at each step as you progress through Evaluation (does this product or service suit my needs?) and Decision (I’m going to pickup the phone right now) you want to retain as many as possible.

Pretty simple in theory. Understanding these elements and incorporating them into your website and and brand are really critical!

3 things you need to succeed in business

~ dan

3 things to succeed in business.pngThere are only 3 things you need to succeed in business.

1. A product or service

2. A market ie customers

3. A way to reach customers 

First up you need a product and that someone wants (and is willing to pay for). Steve Blank calls this the product-market fit and its pretty much Startup 101. 

The third thing are your channels these are what connect to two and without these you are likely to make it as a business. Most businesses start with a few customers and grow a bit by word of mouth referrals. Getting beyond this understanding your channels is critical to making your business grow, will you /do you advertise for example to who and how do you do it

A digital shop front (i.e. a website)  can super charge your word of mouth by acting as a ‘confirmation page’ as one of the first things customers do is look you up and check you out. Its also an important bit of glue linking your other channels and funnelling them back to you.

 

Shopfronts for the 21st Century

~ dan ~ 1 Comment

 

Brisbane websites

We are well into the 21st century now and many things have changed. One of those is the good old shop front. Once the principle way of telling people about your business, it wasn’t uncommon for shop fronts to be considerably larger than the actually business, as is the case for this little west end corner store (its still there today actually), with the business itself occupying only a small part of the building but the signage and the building itself suggesting a much bigger enterprise.

So what does todays shop front entail? Well for many, especially those without a physical shop its your website. And just like the shop fronts of old you can project a big presence, but this time its as big as you like. Here the canny sole trader can compete with much larger businesses through the presence they project.

Not Happy Jan! Remembering the Yellow Pages

~ dan

Hands up if you remember this ad? Can you believe this was published in the early 2000’s. While probably most of us still have the yellow pages lying around,  when was the last time you actually used it? You see its all about convenience and a web search can reveal so much more that a single line and a phone number? You get directions, reviews and can see visually all the business you might be looking for on a map…it really appeals to the hunter gathering in all of us.

Get your business on the High Street

~ dan
websites-high street of today.jpg
Queen St. Brisbane circa 1928, Image courtesy State Library of Queensland

 

Time was that if your business wasn’t on the ‘High St.’ you didn’t get a lot of customers. I suppose this was because back in the day, passing trade in a busy shopping location was the way to attract customers with an impressive shopfront. These days with everyone looking online for where to shop, finding a business doesn’t entail a stroll down the high street.

Google, google maps, Apple Maps, Siri and Alexa are now the High St of choice so its vital that today you have a presence on the shop front. This means you need both a website (a shop front) and then you need to get it on the High St. In the trade we call this search engine optimisation. Businesses on the first page of google, and ideally listed on the map inset get the lions share of the trade. Ask me about SEO (Search engine optimisation) as well as ad campaigns on google.

The other 5P’s, your “marketing mix”

~ dan

pexels-photo-266176.jpegProbably you have heard the phrase “Proper Planning Prevents (Piss) Poor Performance”.

In the marketing world we talk about another 5 P’s, that make up the marketing mix. Understanding these at a conscious level can really help when it comes to thinking about your advertising, where to put your effort and of course your website.

So here they are:

  • Product – That is the product or service you offer (try to be as specific as possible)
  • Place –  Where are you or your services based, its it a central or mobile location serving an area.
  • Price – What is the pricing for what you offer? And more importantly how does it relate to your competitors. Are you going to be competing solely on price is a good question to ask yourself
  • People – Who are the people you are offering your products and services to? Who is in your business, their skills are critically  important to your business
  • Promotion – How do you promote your business? from word of mouth, to passive advertising on a vehicle, advertisements and of course a website  too 😉

Understanding your P’s can help understand the positioning of your business right now as well as help to target where you want to be tomorrow. Having a strong sense of your P’s is an essential ingredient in any website design as it feeds into branding, messaging and even how you answer your phone.