Its Midnight on Sunday - Is your business working for you ?

A simple view on why a good company website is needed

It’s midnight on a Sunday night and a customer wants to find out where the nearest store is or whether your company stocks a certain product. Imagine being able to provide that customer with all the information they need without having to get out of bed and tell them.

A website provides you with this opportunity - It rarely takes sick days, works 24 hours a day and 7 days a week and it’s even willing to work on Christmas day...

Customers often use a company website as their first point of contact with the organisation, it creates an impression of your company straight away and can sometimes make the decision as to whether the customer wants to interact with your company or not.

Benefits of having a well designed website include:

-          International recognition of your company.

-          Websites can often be less expensive that traditional media. Online there is no need to pay for reprinting of literature if there have been changes to any information.

-          They are convenient for customers as they are able to access the information they need wherever and whenever they want to.

-          You website acts as an online identity – no doubt your competitors will be online so pitch up beside them and don’t miss out on valued custom.

-          Give the opportunity for increased sales – customers are more likely to buy if procedures are simple and quick. Plus some customers might discover you by using online search engines so might not have known your company existed otherwise.

-          Websites can be used as a promotional tool – a successful website can raise awareness of your company and be used as an online brochure showcasing your products in a limitless showroom. Printing costs can also be cut as literature can direct people to the website.

-          A website hosts the ability to update information quickly and efficiently.

Overall it IS important that your company has a website as customers use it as a source of information about your company, a place to purchase your products and it offers you company endless opportunities to communicate with your customers.

However it is important to note that a good website design is extremely important, the reason many websites fail to produce results is because of bad design. Good web designers understand the need for websites to engage users and stimulate interest and often web design is not as expensive as first thought.

 So give your company the online presence it deserves and call Monkjack Marketing for a quote...

www.MonkjackMarketing.com

How important is a company logo?

A company logo is the face of the business; it is an effective way to give a company a personal image that people can connect with, no matter what the size of the organisation. It has to be unique and memorable whilst reflecting values of the business.

It is extremely important for companies to have a well executed integrated marketing campaign to ensure consistency of message and use media channels to their full potential. A good company logo can act as the lynch pin for this. Consumers will get used to seeing the logo and know instantly who the company is and what they are about.

A good logo acts as a silent salesman, it allows instant brand recognition from consumers and it can conjure emotions and thought processes connected with the brand. A consumer is more likely to choose a company with a logo they recognise because of the connections they have associated with it – Looking at it simply people are more likely to trust a person who they recognise.

Two elements have to be carefully considered when designing a logo:

Firstly design – this can either be simple or complex, this decision depends completely on the brand image. It is also important to be sure that the logo is still effective when reproduced. If a logo is too complex when printed on a small scale it may lose its effectiveness.

Secondly colour – different colours bring with them varying connotations. Banks tend to use gold, green and blue to project a mature and trustworthy image whereas fast food restaurants and companies aimed mainly at the children’s market chose bright colours such as yellow and red. There are also differences with the meaning of colours in different countries so if you’re dealing with a global brand this might be something to take into consideration.

Taking the Chanel logo as an example; the use of black and white projects an elegant and classic image in keeping with that of the brand. The backward C’s further this. If you were to ask any fashion conscious male or female they are guaranteed to know the Chanel logo – I would even go so far as to say that many people who aren’t interested in fashion would know it too.

This is also evidence that some products would be nothing without their logos. Imagine most designer bags minus a logo, many of them would just be simple bags and they wouldn’t cost half their current price.

Another way to grab consumer’s attention is to have hidden meanings within logos  this can cause discussion around the brand. However it is a good idea not to make them too metaphorical otherwise people may miss the point.

So how important is a company logo? Very. A logo is so important that companies are attempting to sue others who they believe to be copying them. An example of this is back in 2008 Lacoste attempted to stop a Gloucestershire dentist from using a crocodile as the logo for the business.

A logo is a brilliant opportunity to connect with the consumer and cement your business into their brand repertoire. Don’t miss out...

www.MonkjackMarketing.com

Colourful branding, for a colourful company!

Marketing is a way to get your business known, it helps to give your company top of the mind awareness and often it can be used as a method of differentiation. Not all businesses want to market in the same ways as their competitors and in a market full of companies offering similar services and products, a company’s approach to marketing can make all the difference.

One of the best ways to be noticed amongst your target audience is to get to know them. Academics call them ‘salient beliefs’, these are the attributes consumers are looking for and if activated they allow consumers to form overall attitudes on the product. These attitudes can make the difference between a consumer choosing your product over a competitors.

But how do you get to know your consumers?

Market research is an option and has been used by many companies to create successful campaigns. T-mobile is living proof that identifying consumers attitudes about a situation and appealing to them in your marketing communications can make you stand out. They carried out market research at the beginning of the recession and found that consumers were turning to friends and family, spending increasing amounts of time with them and they also found that unplanned get-togethers were becoming more popular. This research led Saatchi and Saatchi to create the ‘Life’s for sharing’ campaign and the famous Flashmob in Victoria station. It quickly created a buzz online and became a viral marketing campaign as people had captured the moment on their phones and uploaded it straight to Youtube.com therefore emphasising the role of ‘sharing’. Footage was also made into a TV advert and stills used for billboard, magazine and newspaper adverts. By appealing to their customers current attitudes and almost saying ‘we understand and we can help’ T-mobile contract sales increased by half compared to the same period the year before.

Another way to understand consumers is to put yourself in their shoes. What do they want? How would you like to be told about if you were them? What sort of media do they use? If your target audience are fans of social media then focus on that and do something creative, let them take the lead in sharing the links and encourage them to make spoof adverts, offer to put the best on the brand website. Think about what your customers would respond to and cater to it. After all if you can make your customers feel special they are more likely to remain loyal to your brand.

The best advice that can be given for companies not wanting to do the same as competitors is to try something new, take a new slant on an old idea and don’t jump on every bandwagon that goes past. Being different is bound to bring with it potential dangers and others may think your ideas are off the wall but do bear in mind: people used to believe the world was flat and those that suggested differently were the ‘weird’ ones…

www.MonkJackMarketing.com

Why Facebook advertising?

Here are some reasons:

This is as perfect for small local businesses as well as national businesses. You can specify the geographic area you want your ads to appear in and it’s relevant whether you sell products or services to consumers or businesses. You can actually specify types of people who work for specific companies’ age which gender etc...

Your customers and potential customers are on Facebook. Half the population are spending 30 minutes per day on Facebook. They’re sitting there. If you know how to reach them better than your competitors, you’ve got yourself an ongoing stream of new customers.

Targeting. All that private information that Facebook has in its vaults is available to you, the advertiser. You can target your customers with amazing precision.

It’s not expensive at present either.... These are the early days of what we think will be the next big advertising forum. Advertising on Facebook is still quite inexpensive in comparison but it won’t last.... This is one to investigate now and we can do it for you...

Monkjack Marketing CLICK HERE to find out how we can help.

Do people feel safe buying online?

The UK leads the rest of Europe in terms of the amount spent online with the biggest sales on books, DVD’s, leisure and travel. Sales are estimated to reach £56 billion by 2014 so with figures like that is it still possible that people are dubious about purchasing items online?

Department stores are popular because consumers are able to get everything from under one roof. Online is exactly the same but with an endless amount of goods, consumers can sit on their chairs or sofas , order whatever they would like from underwear to remote controlled cars and it can be done 24/7.

Reasons that people worry about buying goods online vary. Some worry about their credit card information getting into the wrong hands, others worry about their personal information being used in a fraudulent way. Certain individuals are simply intimidated by the whole process and others, particularly younger people, don’t want to wait for the delivery of the goods and see it was a waste of time.

E-tailing offers different benefits depending on what the individual may want. Online individuals can:

-          Reserve and collect

-          Purchase and get it delivered

-          Search for the best price - Three out of five consumers think that the prices offered online are better than the ones in store

-          Buy online because they don’t want the human interaction

-          Some items are not available in store - The internet has a limitless shop front

Statistics show that women are more dubious than men when purchasing goods online with many of them abandoning a sale if the website isn’t working as they expected. 33% of consumers worry about security and 41% prefer using a well-known retailer when buying online.

To make customers feel comfortable websites need to provide evidence that they can be trusted with consumers’ personal details and make them feel at ease. There is however 20% of consumers who would be happy buying from a website they haven’t heard of. Leading retailers, such as Argos and Marks and Spencer, have begun integrating their channels in order to make the customers experience seamless and to reassure the 80% of consumers who prefer a website they recognise.

With generations of children being taught that ordering items online is convenient and the methods becoming even more efficient the number of people purchasing goods will undoubtedly increase. There will however always be people who prefer not to purchase certain items online but without those people where would it leave the high street?

http://www.monkjackmarketing.com/

Facebook – what’s it all about? -Basic-

It all began in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard University student room back in 2004 and has been transformed into one of the largest social networking sites online with over 800 million active users. Facebook can be explained as a social networking site designed for individuals who want to easily stay in touch with friends, family and co-workers.

Users are able to add friends either by email address or search for them by name. They can then request their friendship, share photos, update their status and write on their wall. It is essentially like texting but on the internet, however it is important to note that others can see it unless it is sent by private message. !!

Facebook has played a part in being responsible for the changes in the way people interact. Users are able to keep in touch with friends who have moved to the other side of the world, see their pictures and speak to them on Facebook chat – an IM service to the side your webpage which allows you to see when other users are online. However Facebook has been at the centre of a long running debate about how the younger generation are not taking part in ‘real’ conversations and prefer to ‘poke’ each other over an internet site.

It is not just individuals who can benefit from the site, it is also a helpful tool for businesses. Companies can create groups and pages with information about themselves and their products. Facebook users can then decide to ‘Become a Fan’ or join a group to offer their support. There have been a few occasions where Facebook groups have had an impact on wider society, for example the 2009 Christmas number 1 was Rage Against The Machine instead of X-factor winner Joe McElderry.

Geo-location tagging company Foursquare is now facing competition from Facebook who have launched ‘Facebook Places’ - an application for mobile phones to allow users to alert friends in real time where they are, what they are doing and who they are with.

This application has reignited the debate of online privacy and whether the ‘youths of today’ are sharing too much information. Facebook stress that users chose to opt into the application and decide whether or not to check-in at a certain location.

Privacy settings on Facebook are easy to change and it is suggested that individuals make sure that they are au fait with just what others can see. Check out my other blog post: ‘Social networking – business, pleasure or both?’ for advice about adding work colleagues to Facebook. ** Comming Soon. **

The best way to learn about something is to experience it so set up your Facebook account today!

We can set it all up for you - ask us. CLICK HERE AND ASK

Thanks

Monkjack Marketing

Does Link Building Work?

Links to and from your website have been the foundations upon which search engines have identified and ranked the popularity of all websites for years. The idea being that links count as ‘votes’ for your site.

It should be a combination of quality and quantity of links, however it is best not to sacrifice the quality for quantity as the quality of the site that the ‘vote’ or link comes from plays a key factor in the improvement of your site in the search engine rankings, due to the respect that the search engine has for that sites ‘vote’.

The respect that a search engine such as Google has for a website can be identified at a high level by the PR or Page Rank a website has. Page Rank comes from a multitude of criteria found in algorithms used by Google and other Search Engines and is a rating out of 10 (10 being the best and highest quality site out there).

Having said this there are very few with a 9 or 10 Page Rank these are reserved for very few such as Google.com itself. At time of writing there are only approximately 20 Page Ranked 10 Websites in the world, including Facebook.com, whitehouse.gov, w3.org and get.adobe.com.

Link Building is known as off-site website optimization, any good quality and effective Search Engine Optimisation Campaign should also consist of on-site optimisation which refers to content, meta data, internal links as well as several other key areas - all of which will be covered in future blog articles.

Off-site Website Optimisation consists of more than just Link Building, although Link Building is a key part of it and is actually a key part of Search Engine Optimisation in general.

There are a multitude of link building websites and directories that you can either be free or that you pay for. Usually if you are prepared to have a reciprocal link to the directory of link building website, or pay a fee, then your site will be looked at and accepted more quickly.

So although the design and construction of Websites, how people use and interact with websites have changed the principles and importance of Link Building within an effective Search Engine Optimisation campaign remains the same, for the time being…

Author:  http://www.monkjackmarketing.com/