Developing a Facebook application that drives business
If you are in the field of digital marketing, you will at
some stage have considered, or at least thought about using Facebook as a
potential marketing channel. Everybody is jumping on the so-called ‘social
media bandwagon’ these days; yet despite the negative connotations this phrase
carries, there are a multitude of benefits in jumping upon said bandwagon.
There are countless case studies online where enterprising
agencies and businesses have leveraged the social and memetic power inherent in
social media to either generate vast sales figures or turn their business
around. So I shall not mention them all here. What I will do however, is introduce
to you the notion of using Facebook applications to generate leads for your
business. Why do I have the right to tell you it’s a brilliant medium? Because
we have used it and have done exceedingly well in doing so.
The example I put to you is that of our client Inspire
Abroad, a growing volunteering opportunity provider with a fantastic
proposition. They find good causes and projects across the globe that need
people like you and me to get involved and make a difference. Such a
volunteering opportunity would usually be undertaken by students either between
college and university; graduates looking for adventure before beginning a
career or those who fancy a career break and wish to discover more of the world
and travel.
The first challenge here is finding the target market. Some
time ago you may have thought that Facebook was just for younger types,
stereotypically students. Now, although this was true, the balance has shifted
and now the average age of the typical Facebook user is actually much higher. Popular
statistics from Pingdom state that at least 45% of US Facebook users are
between 35 and 54. If for the sake of argument, we were to extrapolate that
across global Facebook usage, it shows that some of our older target audience
is indeed familiar with and actively uses Facebook. Having been a student
myself I can safely say that the majority of students of all years at
universities up and down the country use Facebook. This makes Facebook a great
place for Inspire Abroad to present themselves to their target audience.
Now it’s all very well setting up a business page on
Facebook and posting on the walls of your doting following, but sometimes you
have to go a step further and really drive the interaction.
Those of you who are familiar with Facebook will be aware of
the myriad of applications available to users and you may even know of the
Facebook developer’s platform. We used this platform to produce a custom
application for Inspire abroad to add to their company profile page. The aim
here was to get users to interact with the application to submit their details
and express their interest in the Inspire Abroad volunteering opportunity. In
exchange for these details, these users are then rewarded with a volunteering
guide in the form of a PDF to better inform their volunteering opportunity
search. You can see the value here already. With each exchange of details via
the application, Inspire Abroad are gaining business leads; Facebook users who
are either actively researching volunteering opportunities or interested
parties who want to stay ‘in the know’ as they intend to travel at a later
date. These details can then be stored for mail-outs and e-mail campaigns, only
in this case… They will already have a very, very warm list to interact with.
Now I wouldn’t be much of a marketer if I just left it at
that. If you create something brilliant and have a wonderful market
proposition, you need to make it known.
So, to support the Facebook profile page and information
gathering application we implemented a Facebook Ad campaign. By researching our
key markets and their interests we were able to create an ad campaign that only
appeared to our desired audience. Once clicked these ads would then direct the
user to the application to begin the process. In utilising these ads within
Facebook, we refrain from interrupting the user experience, making the
transition as smooth as possible. Ads like these have a reach in the hundreds
of thousands and once these users engage with the brand at the application
level, they are then more inclined to explore the Inspire Abroad website and
the Twitter presence as well, as they have warmed to the brand. We know this
because we were able to track their exploration via Google Analytics.
The outcome? A great deal of qualified leads that can be
nurtured and communicated with at will. Can you say that you have achieved the
same? Few can, which is why we pride ourselves on taking innovative steps like
these to leverage technologies that would usually intimidate others.
If you would like to know more about developing a Facebook
application or would like to know how social media can benefit you, either
explore the rest of our blog or contact us.
Online marketing for businesses and marketing to end customers is different. A person buying a product for their company has different “buying standard” compared to a person buying something for himself. There are profound differences and one of them is the emotional experience. These points should be remembered when developing online marketing activities.
B2B and B2C marketing is used to differentiate the internet commerce business. There are companies that sell primarily to businesses while others sell primarily to end customer. Marketing programs are the same for each type of business but they differ in executions and the outcomes of the marketing activities.
B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing campaigns are concerned with the transaction. They are usually shorter because they need to capture the customer’s attention immediately. These campaigns usually offer special deals such as discounts and vouchers that can be used both online and in the store. Their goal is to get their customers to buy immediately. B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing process is longer and is more involved. Although its goal is to turn prospects into customers, a B2B company needs to focus on building long-term relationships with their clients. They use marketing to educate their customers about their products. In an email campaign, you usually see contact information for offline transactions and contain more information on the features of the product, benefits and the prices. This marketing strategy is usually the first step, and it usually includes direct mail, telemarketing, and newsletters and follows up by a sales representative who will discuss the business’ requirement in more detail and walk the prospect through the sales cycle.
The main difference between the B2B and B2C marketing comes down to the buyer’s emotional perspective about the purchase. Consumers buying decisions are based on status, security, comfort and quality. On the other hand, business buyers base their decisions on increasing profitability, reducing costs and enhancing productivity.
In online marketing, if you are offering products and services to businesses, it is wise to invest on a marketing budget that focuses on marketing programs and materials that offer your target market what they need in order for them to make a rational business decision. Help them determine the value of your products and services through quality materials, testimonials and other activities that builds your credibility. If you are offering your products and services to end consumers, understand the motivation of your buyer and the emotional aspect of the decision. It is best to create compelling materials that build awareness of your brand and project the quality service and best price. Always remember what is important to your target audience and create an online marketing program that will reach out to them and convince them to buy your products and services.
At Generate UK we can help advise you to optimise your Online Marketing Strategy to reach your desired target audience. Our consultants are specialists in online marketing and can help focus you campaign on either B2B Marketing of B2C marketing. If you would like to discuss your Online Marketing further please do not hesitate to get in contact with us, we’d love to talk with you.
How long are you prepared to wait for a website to load until you get impatient and click away? One second? Two? Google recently carried out an experiment where they intentionally decreased the speed of their own website from 100 milliseconds to 400 milliseconds. The results showed decreases in the average number of Google searches from 0.2% to 0.6%. Users were turning their backs on Google as the time taken for search results to appear was too long. Even after Google returned their site to the original speed they found that searches continued to decline for the next five weeks!
It is because of this dramatic affect that speed has on user’s experience of a website, that Google has announced faster websites will be ranked higher. This is the first time that Google has officially announced that Speed does have a direct effect on Rankings. SEO guru’s have suspected this for a while and a fast website is always desired for usability reasons, but Google’s announcement has put any debate over this issue to rest.
Google uses its Googlebots to test how long a page takes to respond as well as Google toolbar to test page load times. Generate UK have invested a lot of time and money into our server capabilities. This means that the sites that we host on our server have quick and smooth load times. As demonstrated by the Google experiment speed not only judges your Google ranking but that the amount of users actually decreases with a slow website. This in turn will also have an effect on your conversion rate. With a slow running website traffic is less likely to stick around and ultimately not buy into your services or products.
A lot of people are concerned that this change will really only benefit larger organisations as they can afford to pay more for hosting. I believe this is a misconception. Small sites can often react and respond faster than larger corporations can to changes on the web. Making small changes on a larger website can often be a slow process due to internal bureaucracy; whereas smaller sites can often make those small changes to help increase the speed of their website.
Currently less than 1% of search queries are effect by site speed according to Google. However Google have already released a list of tools to help test your sites speed. This could only be the beginning for the importance of site speed. Google’s passion for fast internet and dedication to releasing new tools demonstrates that this could be an extremely important signal for the future. Google have been using speed as a signal for several weeks now and there has been no dramatic change. But this simply could be the beginning of a bigger campaign for faster websites.
Generate UK has invested in a high performance server infrastructure for customers websites we host. We ensure that our server is fast, efficient and reliable. Google says that a 0.5 second delay in the page load speed of your website can reduce traffic by 20%. As a business can you afford to lose this amount of traffic? Generate UK servers deliver up to 35% more speed over traditional hardware, this is to ensure that your website does not suffer because of server speed restrictions.
On page content can also affect the speed of your website. Having a large number of images, flash files or Javascript can increase the time your page takes to load. There are tools that you can use to run reports on your websites speed which will tell you exactly how long each page takes to load as well as identifying areas that are slowing you website down. Follow this link to see which tools Google suggest you use. Alternatively there are other sites you can use such as websiteoptimisation.com.
It is important to remember that this is only one aspect or signal of SEO. Along with speed we still have to take into account on page and off page SEO. These are all areas of search engine optimisation that Generate UK specialises in. If you would like to get your website ranking higher in Google then why not talk to one of our SEO consultants. We can help advise you on areas of your site that may need improvement to benefit from higher rankings.
Out of the ashes of Froogle and Google Products is Google’s take on what a price comparison website should be. Google Product Search is still officially in Beta; however any application where Google is involved is bound to attract attention and more importantly traffic and users.
It’s an interesting move by Google and it must have made the likes of Kelkoo, Pricerunner and the like sit up and take notice. These are the current incumbents in the price comparison market; their business model is to take a commission from sales of products they have referred (they also charge to place products higher in the searches). So their search engine ranking in the most popular search engine in the world is very important to them…..
So now they are in direct competition with the very same search engine they need to be ranked on in order for their business model to work. If that was not bad enough, Google has confirmed that there will be no charges to list products and they won’t accept payment in return for rankings. So on the face of it, not good for the price comparison chaps and it does not bode well in the future for other sites offering price comparison for insurance, mortgages, credit cards etc. Surely, it is just a matter of time before Google start to enter these markets too.
The good news for a lot of ecommerce store owners is that there is a new channel for them to showcase their products and services through; a channel which has the backing of the largest search engine in the world. So in terms of opportunity, it’s a big one and almost a no-brainer if you have an ecommerce store. The challenge is to work out the best way to use this channel and how to optimise your products so that they are shown and provide you with quality, targeted traffic.
The following tips and ideas are what we have seen when testing and playing with Google Products Search, some of these views will be open to debate, so it would be interesting to hear from others.
Before you start, the first thing to do is go to the Google Merchant Centre page and create an account. This will become the home of your product feed and where you upload your product information. You will be asked to verify your account, to ensure that no one else has the ability to upload products.
The next step is to really understand what it is you’re trying to achieve. This article is about promoting your products for Google Product Search, so hopefully that is your objective. The idea is that by increasing your understanding of Google Product Search, the more likely you will be able to work with the product feed to ensure your product has the best chance of ranking highly for the keywords related to your product.
Improving your Google Product Search relevancy
The following tips and ideas are what we have seen when testing and playing with Google Products Search, some of these views will be open to debate, so it would be interesting to hear from others.
1. Let’s get the obvious bits out of the way. Make your feeds relevant to the product they are promoting. Read and adhere to the terms and conditions and guidelines of Google Product Search.
2. You can have up to 70 characters for your product title, our advice is to be short and concise as possible for the keywords you are going after. There is little point in going mad and trying to include too many keywords.
3. The description field provides you with an opportunity to add to your product title with more information about the product, for example the benefits or the performance of the product. Remember this is about relevancy, so make the description relevant to the product and not your ecommerce store.
4. Product Type is quite self explanatory and signifies the type of product you are selling. It is important to then ensure that the product fits into the correct taxonomy. If you are unsure, then you should look at Google’s Taxonomy Structure help.
5. The Link page is what the viewer will click through to reach your site, so it is important that this is the relevant page and has all of the correct information on it. Think about general usability here and what would expect if you were looking for a specific product.
6. The next field is the all important price field, which is a mandatory field. Please make sure that this is the same price as on your website, so as not to encourage issues.
7. Product ID, could be your SKU or part number. This is your number and your internal code; we have customers that refer to this as a part number, while others call it a product code.
8. MPN or UPC identifiers refer to a recognised number (similar to a barcode) that relates to that product. It is a bit like a ISBN number for a book. If you have this information available it is definitely worth using as this could be used to create a search.
9. The product image is self explanatory and really important not just for Google Product Search but also for your main website. We advise that you use the best image you ahve for your product as you can show more when the user clicks through.
What next?
If you have followed the instructions above, you should have a document ready to upload to Google Products Search.
The next step is decided what format to upload the feed. Fortunately, Google offers different options depending on what works best for you; these include web form, text file, CSV, FTP and XML file, it is also possible to connect directly using an API.
Once you have decided on what method you would like to provide your feed, it is time to log into your account and take care of the general account settings. This includes specifying your target country and the location where you would like your products to be shown. Think carefully about this part of the process because it is not necessarily about showing up in every search result, instead it is about being shown to the audience most likely to buy from you.
Give it go…
If you’re selling online, it is definitely worth having a look at Google Products Search; it will grow in stature as Google iron out the little bugs and quirks. Currently, not all stores are using Google to promote their products, so there is an opportunity to get ahead of your competitors.
If you would like to discuss this further with one of our SEO consultants, please do not hesitate to contact us 01635 550431.
Sometimes it pays to take a break from conventional e-mail marketing wisdom. In a business environment where fancy HTML ‘one-to-many’ e-mails is the norm, there are a few people out there trying a range of clever, different and sometimes downright unorthodox approaches to get their e-mails noticed above everybody else. In this post I shall include and discuss a few interesting notions I’ve come across recently.
“You’ve got lower open rates? Well… It could be a good thing!”
As those e-mail savvy among you already know, many of the most popular e-mail hosts block images by default. Many of those businesses that go to the trouble of creating fantastic, artistic e-mail pieces may not be getting the message across.
As a result there are a number of e-mail marketers out there that have instead decided to optimise their e-mails for image blocking, making sure that all their Calls to Action and key selling points are still clear despite the lack of imagery by using plain text and image ‘alt’ tags. The advantage of this of course is that the recipient is more likely to have read and digested the e-mail despite the images being blocked. The fancy e-mails on the other hand, may well be displaying as tables full of the dreaded little red crosses and will likely be ignored.
So how does this relate to open rates? Well, if your image blocking optimised e-mail was able to get the message across with text alone… The recipient will have had no need to click the ‘unblock images’ button thus failing to trigger an e-mail ‘open’, the result being lower open rates.
So if you are one of those e-mail savvy marketers that have gone to the trouble of optimising your e-mails and you are experiencing low open rates; it could be because of irrelevant subject lines and weak content. Or it could just be that you are incredibly good at avoiding the image blocking problem! Remember, there are external factors that affect e-mail metrics so open rates aren’t everything! To truly understand the effectiveness of your e-mail campaigns you need to weigh up the metrics against the end results of the campaigns in question.
This can be quite difficult when you’re not used to dealing with complicated metrics. This however is something we at Generate UK are brilliant at. Our e-mail marketing system provides in depth metrics that you can use in conjunction with our help to convert those stealthy e-mail ‘opens’ into tangible results… results like extra sales for example!
“HTML e-mails out-perform against text based emails e-mails. So use them”
It sounds odd doesn’t it? The use of HTML e-mails and the fancy imagery therein has been proven in some cases to increase clicks by up to 50%. So why would anyone want to use plain text e-mail?
The world and his dog are familiar with HTML marketing e-mails, be it a newsletter, printable voucher or a list of the latest and greatest offers. As a result people are becoming increasingly familiar to HTML e-mails as a ‘one-to-many’ marketing medium.
This is precisely the reason why a text-only e-mail could do the trick. Something that doesn’t look like a fancy HTML e-mail may just stand out.
Not only this, but many people who receive personal e-mails receive them in plain text, be it from work colleagues, friends or even as proof of an important online transaction. Therefore a great deal of importance is attached to these. This makes text only e-mail a great medium for those of you wishing to deliver a sincerely personal message or when trying to tackle a charitable or emotional topic.
Making a move like this is worth some thought however. If you are known for your fantastic e-mail aesthetics, you don’t want to put subscribers off by making it seem like you aren’t trying. Inconsistency and disruption, despite raising some eyebrows and breaking the norm in a good way, can also be damaging. If you are still confused however, talk to us. We can deliver an equally punchy impact without damaging your credibility.
“Getting users to use a scroll bar in an e-mail? Pull the other one!”
As an e-mail reader, would you go to the effort of using tiny scroll bars to access content? Probably not. Many e-mail marketers would hark back to the notion that “the harder the recipient has to work, the less like they are to do it”. Fair play to them, this is typically true. You and I don’t want to spend our evenings scrolling for miles to find the content we want in an e-mail. We want it easy, but if a company were to inject a bit of fun into scrolling… it may be worth an extra five minutes of our time. This requires a hint of creativity however, LocalsKnow.ca, have just that.
Click here to see the email used by Canada Travel.
Loads of scrolling involved, but it wasn’t so bad was it? Sometimes thinking ‘outside the box’ as cliché as it sounds, can be just the ticket to those extra click-throughs and sign-ups. In addition to that, it wasn’t graphic heavy either which allows it to fit in with the points above.
Personally, I thought this was a particularly novel idea. You on the other hand might think differently, so although such an approach may generally awe your audience, you risk cutting out segments of your contacts list that aren’t so appreciative. Before you hit the drawing board to cook up something equally interesting, be sure you understand your audience and segment your contact lists beforehand. This way you avoid the risk of aggravating your more serious prospects with your creativity. We’re masters of segmentation and we’re great ideas people here at Generate UK so if you have a pressing need to shock and awe your contacts list, give us a call on 01635 550431.
Is Social media just a fad that has developed in the last couple of years, or is it the biggest shift since the industrial revolution? To get a grasp on how huge Social media is think of Facebook as a country. If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest in the world just behind the United States of America. Watch the video below to try and get a grasp of just how huge this phenomenon actually is.
If you would like to further discuss how Social media can help you and your business please email us.
We also have a white paper on Social Media which is available to download for free here.
Forums have been around since the birth of the internet and Wikipedia states that it is ‘the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board’. Forums can be useful and are much underestimated. Meeting like-minded people and helping those out, through sharing content through knowledge, can be exceptionally powerful.
It certainly helps your perceived leadership position within your industries and often information is forwarded on. Within forums, most people have a user sign off and this is the opportunity where you can leave a link back to your website.
Do you have a forum? Do you ever post on relevent business forums? Have your say by posting a comment below.
Business is tough at the moment and small businesses have to think beyond their next piece of work. It’s interesting to hear directly from businesses about their challenges in terms of creating new business opportunities; which is why we’re pleased to hand over this blog post over to Christopher Eades, director of AA Eades and Son.
“We’re a small local building firm based in Newbury and for us having that steady flow of business coming in is vitally important. Over the years we have built a fantastic reputation locally for quality workmanship at competitive pricing. Whilst business is still okay, with the downturn in economy I felt it was important to look at new ways to seek out new business rather than just rely on word of mouth.
I was discussing my situation with a friend who in the past has used email marketing and suggested that I tried it. I was sceptical at first; could it really help me and directly bring me business? I thought I would seek out a company to talk to and was recommended by another friend to speak to Generate UK. As you can tell I often go on recommendation!
I contacted Generate UK and sat down with them to look at the possible options available. We haven’t got a website, this is something that we are thinking about, and so I thought the online activity was limited in terms of where I could send people to so we opted for a direct response.
We decided to trial an email marketing campaign and as I mentioned after being pretty cynical I have to say I’ve been very pleased with the results. We invested in two thousand local contacts and Generate UK designed and sent out a personalised email campaign promoting our company and the services we offer with a promotion attached.
As a result we received 137 responses and 18 of these have turned into positive enquiries which we have quoted business for. The great thing about the campaign is that Generate initially tested a batch of 50 to analyse how the message was received and the response it had. The initial message was tweaked only slightly and the main message was sent. It was a text based communication that was personalised with the recipients’ first name and signed off by me with my personal email address.
The campaign has more than paid for itself and I am teeing up another one in the near future.”
Christopher Eades – Director, AA Eades and Son
Thank you Generate UK!
Email marketing is now one of the most cost effective ways to market to your potential customers; as a result, it is no surprise that the UK market grew from a value of £221m in 2007 to an estimated £274m in 2008. Despite the economic doom and gloom, this growth is expected to rise further in 2009.
For more information on email marketing click here or to speak with one of Generate UK’s internet specialists about building a direct response campaign please call 01635 550431
During the course of the next month, we’re going to provide you with a countdown of what we think are the top 20 online marketing opportunities for companies in the UK. If you’re a regular reader of our blog, then you are most likely involved in Marketing in some shape or form? If so, I would imagine that you go through the daily rigors of trying to increase your brand and company’s visibility, through a multitude of different marketing channels, both Offline and Online. The Holy Grail is trying to figure out which one delivers the best results whilst tapping into the least amount of your marketing funds.
Generate UK are an online marketing agency focused on finding the right environments to deliver targeted communications, using the best technologies to achieve maximum results.
Why do we believe in online marketing?
It’s measurable
It’s quick
It’s costs effective
The Top 20 Chart has been made up from our own commercial experiences, through our customers and partners’ knowing what has proven to be successful and what hasn’t. We hope that our Top 20 Chart provides you with a number of useful ideas to put into practice and helps you strive towards an online strategy, which will take your online communication and website’s digital presence to that next level!
We’re keen to hear from our readers, so please feel free to add your comments and own ideas below.
Hi. My name is Kim, and I have just completed my first week at Generate UK. Before this week, I had no idea what ‘online marketing’ was, and now, with the help of my new colleagues I can give you a very short and brief explanation of what I have discovered (as my knowledge is still limited, but I’m working on that).
‘Online marketing’ doesn’t mean an awful lot to someone like me, who had never given it much thought. From what I have realised, a company’s website is crucial to advertising their products or services and to help raise awareness of their brand. This is done by building and designing an aesthetically pleasing site, which has all the different functions a company may require, for example, purchasing goods online. Although, once a website has been created it needs to be marketed effectively, otherwise it is completely useless as nobody would know that it existed, and it would go to waste. It can be marketed using:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - This increases visibility in search engines escalating the venue’s profile, by improving search engine listings.
Email marketing campaigns - sending highly targeted emails to a selection of people to promote a client.
Pay per click - advertising via the internet using search engines.
Content management systems are used to manage a business’s site.
And a few more that I haven’t grasped yet, but I’m in the process of familiarizing myself with them.
Once I managed to come to terms with SEO and all that jazz, it was time to start making the phone calls and to book meetings with potential clients. In preparation, I did some ghost calls, where he would pretend to be a potential client, and I would attempt to sell Generate UK’s services. This was very entertaining, as my colleague got into different characters to make it more authentic, but as a result, I couldn’t stop laughing! Nonetheless, they proved to be very useful, and prepared me for the different reactions I received. The rest of the team helped me feel really relaxed, were very encouraging, and great at explaining all the technical terms I struggled with, and they all managed with my excessive amount of questions fired at them.
The biggest challenge I came across this week was; the term ‘search engine optimisation’ (which still sounds a bit alien). The challenge lies with learning about what Generate UK actually does and then attempting to sell their services… What a challenge that was. But, now I’ve got the basic knowledge I need, and my confidence is slowly growing, I’ll look forward to achieving even more next week and having fun along the way.
I’ll look forward to continuing my journey next week, and sharing it with you.
