The New BBC Homepage
Filed under: Agency, Customer Engagement, Design/Creative, Useability
A little creative thought for a Monday morning.
As per my usual routine of coffee and a quick update on the weekends events, my chrome address bar is pointed at the BBC homepage. As ever, it knows who I am and why I have returned. I can browse the results from the rugby while skipping across the latest Science and Nature discoveries, all because like an old friend it knows what I like to talk about… but whats this… “Explore the new BBC homepage”. Oh dear, I have seen this all before, just when you are happy they want to change it.
“Try out our new homepage design”
Navigating through to the new design, I am immediately hit with the volume of content, everything from CBB’ies to the latest Eastender catchup. The page is headed by a large horizontally scrolling wealth of content, you will find all that the BBC has to offer with a quick left to right. Different size images give different weight to different content articles. It definitely looks clean and crisp but where is all the content that I know and love? It tells me I am in London, and that the weather that I can already see outside my window is slightly overcast, but other than that I could be anyone.
In short it would seem the BBC are following their own strategic ambitions of what content I find… not my ambitions. The BBC Homepage currently enjoys the accolade of “Most referenced site” when anyone wants to build their own company site. I fear they will loose this altogether if the beta site becomes a reality.
Any customer facing interaction point should be striving more and more to the utopian “one-to-one” conversation theory, you know who they are, and they know exactly who you are. It would seem the BBC are stepping in quite the oposite direction, as will I… iGoogle here I come.
Check out the BBC beta homepage at http://beta.bbc.co.uk/
Consumer Writes…
Filed under: Customer Relationship Management, Marketing Strategy, Uncategorized
It was 60 years ago that Bill Haley & ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ music created a generation gap between young people and their parents. Today, the use of digital media is creating a new generation gap – the digital “divide” – not just in accessibility but in how the generations use those technologies. The willingness to connect, and share, and ‘like’ enables brands to connect with consumers like never before – engaging in a true conversation. In this new world , there are very few physical or psychological barriers to trying new ways to do things, the Digital Generation epitomize the new mindset of the decade: digital media means everything is interconnected, anything goes, everything is available, and little is private. They are savvy, skilled shoppers, who place a high level of importance on individualism and personal involvement in the creation process. Helpfully, they are willing to share information and Brands must respond by providing members of the Digital Generation with the tools they need create or re-create content & products to suit themselves.
As the world continues to globalise and technology continues to evolve, the world for consumers will become more convenient than ever before in the history of retail. Technology will advance rapidly, customer service will be more convenient than instant coffee, personalisation will be instantaneous, and mobile marketing & commerce will find consumers wherever and whenever they desire. With social media marketing platforms marketers will capitalize on public information sprawled across Facebook, Twitter, other, as yet unknown platforms; brands will take consumer psychographics to the next level, knowing what we “like”, who our friends are, what we are thinking about, who we follow, where we go, and our daily consuming patterns. Utilising new tricks and combining it with traditional marketing promotion tactics such as: added value, cross sale, all inclusive promotions, ‘green’, health and lifestyle, convenience shopping, and now mobile location based services. Consumers no longer shop for products; brands will go shopping for consumers.
A great web experience begins with YOU!
Filed under: Agency, Customer Engagement, Customer Relationship Management, Design/Creative, Marketing Strategy
For most organisations – the question is no longer ‘Do you have a website?’ but ‘What kind of website do you have?’. The quality of an organisations online presence is now the defining business metric – where a small, agile organisation can outperform the largest brands through well considered, cleverly constructed campaigns which drive potential customers to specific content within their well designed, user-centric websites.
An organisation that underestimates the importance of its online brand value is one that risks its entire future.
A well designed website has the ability to transform any business or organisation
So where does great web design start? Great web design is more than great graphics, it’s more than sharp design, it’s more than interactivity. It’s the entire recipe that creates the succulent, moist cake that we call a great user experience.
No matter how good the design, a website may fail if it doesn’t deliver a great user experience. The process we follow is to get inside the mind of your consumer(s).
- How do they know your brand or organisation? Customer? Prospective Customer? Or just unknown to you?
- How are they finding you - search engine? Online advertising? E-marketing? Social media recommendations?
- What do they want from you? Product Information? Corporate information? Or simply where they can buy?
- What do we know about them ? Browser, search term, screen resolution, mobile device, IP address, time of search.
All this can be used to understand and define the likely user requirements and therefore the way in which we present information to them – through design, through interactivity, through engagement – and ultimately through a successful sale.
The three best tips for success?
1. Be your End User
Understand the requirements of your end users – regardless of what you sell. Undertake internal research, external focus groups & market research. Create user personas and use them to map the user journey.
2. Be your Competitor
Analyse your competitors activity – learn from their mistakes and benefit from their successes
3. Differentiate through Usability
Different users have different goals from your website. Present different but relevant information to users according to their browser, access method ( mobile or static) and search terminology.
From engagement to sale, the story everyone wants to tell
Filed under: Customer Engagement, Customer Relationship Management, Marketing Strategy, Uncategorized
My starting point for this post was the desire to paint a picture of the ideal online customer engagement cycle – a sound strategy, intelligently and tactically implemented… Bear with me, sounds like the start of a sales pitch I know, and it kind of is, but it’s also hopefully a useful exercise (and of course you’ll have your own thoughts on the matter, and I’m more than happy to hear them if you disagree with mine!).
What we probably can all agree on, though, is that we’d love to track a customer’s interaction with our brand right from the moment we appear on their radar up to, hopefully, a sale. This might start off with an email or a Google search, go via a bespoke landing page to a contact form; or to a specific product, the shopping basket, and a sale. Or, as is unfortunately also often the case, it might be that you aren’t optimized for the right search terms and the prospect passes by, or a click leads to a generic homepage and a bounce, or a two-page foray into your site ends in them leaving in frustration because they can’t find what they’re after.
Of course, there are very valid reasons, usually budget related, why we have to make compromises, maybe focusing on website development in the first instance, or rolling out some lead generation campaigning without investing in a considered sales funnel to direct the recipient once they arrive on your landing page. We’ve also found ourselves recently in pitch situations against other agencies who specialize in one particular area of online marketing, and the same problem of siloed tactical thinking becomes apparent here, for different reasons. SEO specialists would sacrifice usability and creativity on the altar of ultimate rankings, email specialists focus only on click through- and open rates, and ecommerce houses get bogged down in the technology and not the output.
A website won’t pull like it could if it isn’t supported by the right search engine management, an email campaign could fall flat if the web page it clicks through to doesn’t deliver, and absolutely none of it will work if you aren’t talking to the right people in the first place. A typical strategy could be carried through via all of these elements, and they absolutely have to complement each other for it to perform, and to smash your targets for return on investment.
There’s no denying that there’s real power in having every tactical aspect of your online marketing strategy pulling together to draw people in as prospects and spit them out again as satisfied customers. That’s the beauty of online, particularly when accountability is everything, and that’s why we always propose solutions that address our clients’ business needs rather than having to push a solution because it happens to be what we sell.
How do you solve a problem like….CRM?
If I’m totally honest, I’m hardly being a visionary when I say that it’s strategically vital for all organisations to build customer loyalty and increase the ‘share of budget’ available? Research regularly tells us that the most significant increases in profitability are derived by increases in customer retention of as little as five per cent. Compare this to the cost of acquiring new customers – up to 10 times more than retaining an existing one!!. To my mind, it’s no surprise that Companies are focussing on customer retention strategies – often to the budgetary detriment of any new business acquisition programme. Getting the balance right is fundamental – May our effectiveness in retaining business be matched by a cost-efficient acquisition strategy!
My experience is that many companies felt they had ticked this particular box by implementing CRM ( customer relationship management) programmes. The investment made was considerable, the returns promised huge, but in practice the ROI metrics have not been delivered – and these metrics were largely predicated against customer retention and the increased revenue therein! So why is this? An effective CRM strategy comprises two elements –the first, deployment of an effective CRM technology. The second ( and IMHO the one on which organisations consistently fall down) is the strategic use of the CRM data to yield personalised, relevant, timely communications – via the optimal channel (s) – both on & offline. So many organisations concern themselves with new data when the real concern is not how much data they currently own or are able to obtain, but how to use the data effectively once they have it!
The net impact of this is a ‘double whammy’ – not only are organisations not making the returns they planned but they also risk losing long term customers through ignorance and an inability to address them with relevant communications.
The answer to this lies, not in a new technology , but in approaching the management of customer data differently and as the basis for the most basic of all CRM principles – “treating different customers differently”.
By using data to define Customer ( and prospect ) segments, by creating distinct and discrete content channels and by delivering this content across all media, we can accelerate the ROI by allowing businesses to drive profit through managing customer data to deliver intelligent marketing insight.