Last year, the European Union passed new online privacy regulations that stated all websites across the EU must obtain users permission before storing cookies. Previous laws relating to online privacy stated that website owners must tell people how they used cookies, and explain how to ‘opt out’ if users wanted to do so. However, new rules say that cookies can only be placed on machines where the user or subscriber has given their consent. The only exception to the new rule is for ‘strictly necessary’ cases, such as remembering what a customer added to their shopping cart after they have hit ‘proceed to check out.’

In effect as of May 26, 2011 websites in the United Kingdom were given 12 months to comply with the new laws. In case you haven’t looked at your calendar in a while, today is way past that, which means any website not complying with the law as of Saturday is now in breach of this law. Interestingly enough, the BBC last week reported that the government itself was expected to miss the May 26 deadline.

“As in the private sector, where it is estimated that very few websites will be compliant by 26 May, so it is true of the government estate,” a Cabinet Office spokesman told the BBC last week. “The majority of department websites will not be compliant with the legislation by [May 26].”

The spokesperson said that the government was “working to achieve compliance at the earliest possible date” but offered no indication as to when that might be. Of course, preparing your site for a change like this is no easy feat — websites have to first do a cookie audit to determine what cookies they’re storing, and then put together a solution that informs users of what they’re collecting and offers them a way to opt out of cookie collection if they wish to do so. In fact, the Information Commissioner’s Office has said it’s well aware that it will take time to comply. It seems ICO is happy enough to know that websites are on the path to compliance and is very understanding of those that aren’t there quite yet.

“We’ve actually spoken to lots of organisations who are on the road to compliance,” said ICO’s Dave Evans. “They’ve told us about the steps that they’ve already taken [...] so we’re aware lots of organisations will be compliant, either already or in the near future,” he continued, later adding that the ICO knows it’s not an easy task for website owners to undertake.

“From our point of view we have to recognise that this isn’t an easy area for people to comply,” Evans said. “I think this isn’t a matter of just switching off the internet and starting again, it’s not so simple as that. There’s lots of work involved. For some of the organisations we spoke to, this cookie audit takes a long time because of the sheer number of cookies that they use. So while we recognise that there are issues around how long this is going to take, what we do expect is that anyone who’s not ready by the end of May 2012 can at least demonstrate that they’ve a), taken some steps already, but b), that they’ve got a realistic plan that at they end of which they’ll be able to say they can achieve compliance.”

You can read more about the new cookie law and find additional information on compliance over on the ICO’s website.

So where does that leave your website and how can we help you.?

KP Studio have developed a cookie bar that sits at the top of your website that tells visitors that your website stores cookies, and that gives them the option to leave if they don’t want to have cookies on their computer.

Yes there is a cost, but only a nominal fee – £99.00 which includes implementing and styling to your websites “style sheet”

If your website doesn’t have a Cookie warning bar you could be breaking the law, so give the team a call on 01254 30 40 88

Several companies have taken on the service of scheduling tweets and Facebook updates, letting you choose which date and time an update goes out. Instead of letting you decide when to push out an update, Buffer takes the scheduling into its own hands and sends out updates at “optimal times.”

Buffer conducted a survey of 2,000 Twitter users last August and found that engagement was up 200 percent for users who scheduled tweets with Buffer, The Next Web reported. The company claims that there are optimal times to send out tweets and other status updates, times when people are more likely to see the content and click on shared links.

Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, and so many other services have popped up that let you schedule tweets and status updates for later, though all of them focus on scheduling at a specific time. Services like Hootsuite are more suited to people who want complete control over their status updates, where those who use Buffer are more willing to turn that control over to a piece of software to do it for them.

Buffer was founded in 2011 and is run by a three-man team. The company raised a seed round of $400,000 in December from 19 angel investors including Huddle co-founder Andy McLoughlin, and Thomas Korte and Gokul Rajaram from AngelPad.

Beyond funding support, the company plans to turn a profit by charging for premium services. Buffer is free for up to 10 posts per month, but you can upgrade to the Pro or Premium plans. Pro is £5.00 per month for several social media accounts and 50 Buffer posts, Premium is aimed at businesses, costs £50 per month, and offers unlimited Buffer services.

Or can it?

We all remember, and some have the scars still, web 1.0 and the furore that it created about valuations. Every business that cropped up had ‘massive potential’ and we all fell for it. Few really have survived and fewer still have delivered on that dreamy potential. In between then and now, there have been just one or two massive IPOs which have have been hyped in the same way and then delivered. Google remains that shining example of proving the case for those optimists.

But Google had a business model that already worked. It was growing like crazy with real money flowing in through the door and had a very detailed plan of how it would not just continue to grow that model but it had several new ways to make money up its sleeve. And it has delivered on it. In fact, Google had a product or service that customers wanted, would pay for and it had several enhancements that would earn more money. Google never fell into the trap of having to think how to charge its consumers even if it had some ways to do it. It charged right from the start for services around that user base to companies that had money. Google was not a consumer business, it was a business to business.

And Google had Intellectual Property (IP). It had specific technologies and understanding of search that no others had. It still has and its still evolving. Strip away lots of other clever things, much of which we can do without if push came to shove like Google Buzz etc, Google has a prize asset that is worth $billions.

Facebook has users but no real IP. I’m sure there’s lots of ways it’s optimised the site but realistically it’s nothing that hasn’t been cloned in some way (hence all the court cases against them). It’s value is in the potential of monetising those 800m users. So here’s a ‘what if?’ scenario.

The top 100 users of Facebook have enormous numbers of ‘Friends’ or followers and some of them grow those numbers of followers in the tens of thousands per day (you can look this up, by the way, on Facebook itself). These would be the likes of superstar celebrities. These celebrities are paid nothing by Facebook yet the number of times their pages are accessed per minute far out weigh the vast majority of the 800m users have accessed in an entire year.

Facebook is nothing better than a decent sized TV channel that shows some interesting content. Just like the ratings, some content is more polar than others. So what if some of that content switched to another channel? What if Google+ said to Lady Gaga, come to my site and close down your Facebook site and I will pay 50% of every piece of revenue I earn from advertising paid for on your pages? Would she move? What could Facebook do about it?

It couldn’t happen, could it? Well they probably said that about the Premier League or naming Highbury the Emirates Stadium. You see Facebook has several ways it might potentially make money but without the following of those users interested in others then it falls to pieces.

We are in what is often called the ‘Follow Me’ era of social networking where it is about getting your personal brands worth more by adding followers. Klout, Peer Index and others then tell us how ‘influential’ we are on the various options to network and it’s obvious some ‘brands’ have better cache than others. Well, if you went to a Lady Gaga concert and you saw an advert for Coke on stage as she sang you can bet your bottom dollar that the Lady herself would earn a great deal from it as Coke tries to leverage her brand.

Facebook has that potential problem to face, in my opinion. The vast majority of the 800m users of Facebook will never pay a penny for using the platform. However, they are definitely an advertising opportunity but some users are worth more, like premium advertisement hoardings, than others. So if the high worth ones are picked off, what is left?

Facebook has contracts but has an obligation to tear down your pages if you no longer wish to use the service. So users can come and go pretty freely. While there is no substantial alternative to Facebook to attract these big stars away there is no real threat. But Google has that potential.

Will it happen? I don’t know. Let’s put it this way, when Sky took boxing into premium land, the sport lost a massive following. In fact, I have not actually watched a whole boxing match since whereas when it was free on TV, I was an avid fan. Monetisation has the potential to alienate people and lose followers completely.

History is a funny old thing. While social networking is new and its business models look different with multifarious opportunities to potentially make money, there is a fragility to the model that makes it creak at the edges to the point that if something gives then it could all implode.

At the end of the day, every business needs to have a sustainable engine for making money. Facebook has advertising today producing around $3bn a year and growing but if that was the main contributor to the valuation then the company, in my opinion, would be worth no more than $30bn. That’s still a heck of a valuation but it does kind of show that there is a substantial amount missing from the equation. And even then, there is a threat to that business in the competitive world to attract the marketing budgets of big firms which are notoriously tough to sustain.

Even though online advertising is on the up, we all know that business has its limits and is notoriously fickle. We all know that certain places to advertise cost a great deal more than others and celebrities have a strong opinion of how they should be used in adverts.

That day of dichotomy between the ‘followed’ stars and Facebook has not arrived. I predict it will arrive in some form or another at some point in the near future.

There are other potential ways to monetize us like having the Facebook ‘wallet’ or virtual credit card system – but that would rely on us waiving our rights to privacy and giving our credit card or bank account details to a site already famed for its accessibility. I can’t see those easily making up the difference.

Facebook looks a fantastic opportunity, have no doubts about it, but money making is all about the execution on a sustainable business model and it’s not there yet. It’s a ‘potential potential’ business still and I think for that reason it’s over-valued by a large distance, possibly tenfold. And what it has is not bullet proof, either.

Three things can happen in the coming years beyond an IPO -

1) Facebook makes more money than everyone expects
2) Facebook makes the money everyone expects
3) Facebook fails to live up to expectations. If you weigh those options up in the cold light of day, the best you’ll get is a 33.33% risk of any of them happening

and that’s not good odds in my book.

For those of you who don’t know what instagram is (or you have been asleep lately) – its a simple camera app that allows you to share your pictures, but with an artistic twist – available for iPhones and Android phones – and its FREE

The 2 Things That Instagram Can Offer Your Brand

I think the success of Instagram boils down to two things: intimacy and that natural urge to create. This is good for you as a brand.

Let me show you what I mean.

1. Intimacy – Seth Godin’s classic book Permission Marketing is about the process of getting people to give you their attention by asking for it. That’s what permission means…and once you get that permission you’ve also created a form of intimacy.

This is what email marketing is all about. Being in someone’s inbox is like an invitation to be in their personal space.  The same is true for social media sites where you have to be “invited” if you want to appear on their stream.

Instagram is like a new inbox. But its appeal is all visual.

2. Everyone wants to create – Another reason Instagram has become a smashing success…and I would argue it is the reason…is that it has leveled the playing field for artists of all stripes…now the amateur can create stunning photos by snapping a picture and then treating it with effects that render it unusual, beautiful and unique.

This is perfect for anyone…big or small brand to local or international brand…who wants to brand themselves in a visual way.

And according to Paul Allen, 700,000 Androids are activated every day, which means now Instagram has their Android app out, there will be a sudden flood of users, a huge audience to get in front of.

So what kind of plan should you have? Let’s look at a few strategies.

Strategy #1 – Engage the audience

Like all social media, interacting with the community is the most important part about growing your brand using Instagram…and this means investing in beautiful, high-quality shots that users can’t see anywhere else.

If you are sharing photos that your audience could easily see on your website, then you will fail. Instead, share photos that engage your audience in a way that allows your customers to experience your brand and feel like they are part of your “gang”.

For example, Red Bull allows its fans to experience the brand without actually having to do the crazy things they promote like extreme motorcycle riding or mountain climbing.

That makes their strategy fit hand-in-glove with Instagram. They take exciting pictures that wow their followers…who in turn like, comment and share…spreading the Red Bull brand.

Strategy #2 – Post regularly

Where Pinterest is visual in a grid layout , Instagram presents a brand through the linear stream.

That means if a user is following a lot of people on Instagram, your photos don’t stand a good chance of being seen if you just post one or two a day.

You need to post regularly like snowboard company Burton Snowboards who has uploaded 100s of instagrams in a very short time:

And by the way, a steady stream of photos won’t feel spammy like a steady stream of tweets or Facebook posts might if…you provide high-quality photos.

Stream the same old stuff and you will get ignored.

Strategy #3 – Use the hashtag feature to get more followers

Burton Snowboards also tapped into hashtags, using #snowboarding, giving them further exposure, but also picking up more followers.

See, when people search for photos in Instagram, they are going to use tags. This means you need to think a lot like you would if you were doing keyword research. You could also use a third-party app like Webstagram to find out what are the most popular tags since the app won’t tell you.

Also popular are tags like #dog, #sky, #flower or #sunset.

And keep in mind that you can go back and add hash tags to your photos. Just do it in the comment section. This will definitely increase the number of likes and follows you get.

Strategy # 4 – Use the geo-location feature

Adding to their Instagram strategy, Burton Snowboards encouraged their sponsored riders to take pictures of them selves in different places around the world…and to verify this was the case people had to set their locations, which is easy for users to do – simply click the geolocation button, which via either GPS or GPRS will locate you.

Strategy # 5 – Build a slideshow of photos

The way that Starbucks makes its Instagram account pay off is through the interplay with other social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Among other things, Starbucks posts photos of coffee-taste testing at headquarters and in-store experiences from different locations around the world. They then share these photos on Facebook, which allows fans to comment. In essence, their Instagram strategy works because they are sharing photos that interest their followers.

In addition, they’ve created a slide show on their site to promote fans photos. Starbucks has made it really simple by using the #starbucks hash tags.

Starbucks to date have over 300k USER contributed Instagrams – now that’s some serious customer interaction.

Strategy # 6 – Go behind the scenes

Of course beautiful products seem like a perfect fit for Instagram, but Tiffany & Co. goes beyond just simple photos of their products. They take close-up photos of jewelry, interesting views of the tools used to create their products, the techniques used and even the craftsman who make the products.

You also might see photos of story boards for window collaborations: This is a neat strategy that shows the customer how a product is made, involving them in the story of your brand.

Strategy # 7 – Leak a story

The car maker Audi is using Instagram to market their brand by showing off new concepts and models. The trick behind this strategy is to share the different levels of innovation that a product goes through. Or sharing different concepts that you are about to roll out…generating a lot of activity among your fans.

Strategy # 8 – Crowd source Creativity

One of the greatest strategies to use with Instagram is to collect fan-created content.

Like their blogs, GE’s focus with Instagram is to increase awareness of everything they do…from aviation to energy…and that they are more than a light company. It’s really perfect for the engineer and science geeks who like to see engines and tools behind all of their products.

GE also capitalized on their fans desire to create and share by running a photo contest call #GEInspiredMe.

Fans voted for the best photos on Facebook, and the winner won a trip to Wales to be GE’s Instagrapher at their aviation factory.

Clothing maker Mark Jacobs’ Instagram strategy was to allow fans to take the photos…basically tapping into user-generated content and hashtags. During the holidays the brand ran a contest where followers tag photos #marcfam.

Some photos were taken from backstage of a show and others were views from areas around the show. They then posted those photos on their website.

This strategy works great for Marc Jacobs because it taps into that artist in all of us…and gets the customer involved with the brand.

Strategy # 9 – Create an Instagram RSS feed

If you are going to use Instagram to create a promotional contest, here are the steps on how to do that:

1. Announce you are going to have a contest – On your website and other social media accounts, let your fans know that you are going to launch an Instagram contest.
2. Use a theme – A good contest is built around a theme and a hashtag. For example, GE might do a contest around #energy that is generated from #wind or #sun. Their fans would then tag their photos with those hash tags.
3. Submit photos – Next, users enter their photos by uploading them to Instagram using the hashtag designated for the company. In the case of GE it was #GEInspiredMe. These are the photos that will be entered into the contest.

The best way to announce the winner is to do it on your main website and point all of your social media announcements back to that page. That way you drive traffic and links to your website and not some social media property.

Conclusion

As you can see, just about any type of brand can use Instagram for their marketing purposes. Even f you’re in an industry like an accountant that is not image based, then you’ll have to be creative…

Show pictures of your staff, a day in the life of the team, fun things in the office, latest designs, even cups of coffee. And if you are really having trouble consider hiring a consultant to help you get started.

If you need the KP Team to help you start your campaign, give us a call on 01254 304088

There are many reasons why using WordPress.com blogs may be useful and convenient but there are also many reasons why the most successful companies choose to use the self-hosted option.

What is the difference between a self hosted WordPress site vs a WordPress.com site ?
Basically the first difference is a hosted website means that your site is on your own custom domain name on your own host versus getting a blog on [yourname.Wordpress.com]

Customization and branding options are endless
Anyone can quickly start a blog at WordPress.com but you will quickly find that there are many limitations when you want to start growing your site. The theme is set and cannot be changed. Depending on the theme you choose, you are not able to change headers, images banners, etc. Some more advanced implementations of WordPress requires FTP access to manipulate code in the backend. Using a shared system like WordPress.com does not allow you to make any backend changes. There are lots of customisations that are done with website including adding featured slideshows, galleries and customising it with an existing brand.

No limits on functionality and plugins
One of the downsides of using the shared WordPress.com system is the inability to add new plugins as they become available. New plugins become available daily and many website plugins require a self-hosted website to work.

Full control over search engine optimization and analytics
By self-hosting your own WordPress website there are unlimited opportunities to optimise your site with such tools as SEO plugins. Also, any search engine benefits will be attributed to your domain name rather than contributing to a subdomain on WordPress. com. Having your own domain rank and index well is also important for branding and marketing consistency.

It is confusing to send your clients to [yourname.Wordpress.com] for your website content. Many websites today have only one easy to remember url which makes it easier for buyers and sellers to remember where to go for important information.

The All-In-One Blogsite for Realtors
Websites today are hybrid sites that combine blogging, community, social media, video and core website content. To create a website with all of these features requires a fully flexible platform that allows the ability to customize and plugin features as needed. This can only be accomplished through a hosted solution. Agents who start with WordPress.com blogs will not be able to take full advantage of the capabilities that are possible with the WordPress architecture.

Well what are the drawbacks of self-hosting ?
It takes time to self-host, requires web experience and time for ongoing maintenance and upgrades. But this is solvable, if you are a busy agent and top producer and do not have to time to maintain your site but want the benefits of this powerful platform, we can help. Our fully managed WordPress hosting solutions allow you to take full advantage of a hosted WordPress solutions on your custom domain name.

Don’t send visitors to [YourName.Wordpress.com] anymore.

Dont’ know how to get started ? Please let us know and we would be happy to help.

For a full overview of our hosting packages please have a look at our hosting page.

Still, PPC is much more economical than traditional marketing methods. For a relatively low investment, you can see big returns on the number of visitors and conversions your site receives. This is particularly true for sites that are either new or have not yet been ranked by the search engines. Some of the benefits of an adequately funded PPC campaign include:

• The ability to monitor your advertising budget on a daily basis. As you determine what is working and what isn’t, you can adjust your budgets, keywords and other factors to suit your needs.
• The ability to target specific keywords. Targeted keywords yield targeted searchers who are looking for exactly the products and services associated with the targeted keyword(s).
• The ability to pay only for successful marketing. Under PPC, you only pay a fee when a user clicks on your ad. In this way, you only pay for searchers who not only see your ad, but also click your ad because the Adtext itself is seen as relevant and of sufficient interest to investigate further.

Determining your PPC budget is a somewhat complex because at its heart since there is no set price for Pay per Click Advertising. You can count on paying a set-up fee and, in many cases, a monthly fee, but after that, your budget is entirely based on your needs, capital and desire for growth. Due to the nature of PPC, determining your Ad Budget can be a bit complex.  In general, however, it is highly unlikely that you can spend less than £500 per month and expect good results from an ROI standpoint.  Doing some basic math should illustrate this:

1. Assume a minimum Cost per Click of £1.00; if your budget is £250, you basically will get 250 clicks and landing page visits over a period of one month.
2. Assume that you will get just a modest 10% Conversion Rate.  This translates to at total of 25 leads or sales.  Depending on your pricing or services, you can expect anywhere from 0.5 to 10 percent conversion rates.
3. Now take your sales price and your profit margin and do some basic math.  What is your ROI at 1 sale?  This illustrates how / why your budget for advertising needs to be sufficient to generate enough clicks and traffic to generate enough sales and gross profit to justify the expense.

Because PPC is generally bid based, it can take time and effort to determine how much you should be bidding. Most PPC companies will do some ‘testing’ for you prior to commencing your project. You will then be able to set a daily budget for your campaign. This number can range greatly, depending on the niche and keywords your business centers around.

At the end of the day, it is often best to work with a company that specializes in Pay per Click Advertising. They will be able to work with you to develop the most effective campaign. Some of the areas that a good PPC company will assist you with are

• Keyword research and development
• Geographical targeting
• Search Engine Optimization
• PPC campaign management
• Daily budget testing
• Reporting

Determining your PPC budget can be an entirely subjective matter. However with keyword research, testing, targeting techniques, excellent Ad Copy and converting landing page you can make the longer term budget as objective as possible because it will be based on live stats.  It is important to take the time to research the process, keywords and targeted audience in order to determine an adequate budget.

Pay per Click advertising can be one of the most cost effective methods for advertising your business.  However, full use of the processes and the tools are essential to generate meaningful ROI.  Businesses of all sizes rarely have staff expertise to fully execute consistently successful PPC campaigns.  Outsourcing PPC to a seasoned Internet Marketing Company, with a “Google Agent” Google Certification like KP Studios, is generally the best avenue towards achieving the necessary ROI.  The management fees are clearly justified merely through the savings that come from the processes that quickly focus on the most productive elements while weeding out the least productive elements.

If you want to talk to the KP team about increasing your internet sales or traffic, call us on 01254 30 40 88

1.    Listen effectively: If you know what your customer are saying about you, you can react appropriately. Listening to what your customers are saying about you is the very first step in getting customer service right, and social media is no different. Reputation monitoring can help you track how your brand’s reputation is faring on social channels, and what steps can be taken to improve it. It can also give you an idea of the channels over which your customers want to talk to you. The best monitoring services will separate the wheat from the chaff (and Twitter, for instance, can be full of chaff). If you respond directly to a comment then you legitimise it so be choosy about which battles you chose to fight on social channels. Prioritise responses based on the person’s influence on social channels and the severity and legitimacy of their issue.

2.    A simple dedicated Facebook tab can help to deal with customer service issues. It’ll stop your main page getting clogged up with complaints and issues and gives people a clear platform to air gripes.

3.    Resource social media channels properly, with people who are authorised to take action. Get the relevant areas of the business involved – this isn’t just a marketing channel. Consider who you need to involve from the technical support, sales, product development, promotions or PR teams. Research by Conversocial found that some of the biggest brands fail to respond to customers on Facebook. Our experience suggests that you have a few hours at the most to resolve a customer’s issue over social media – and probably much less on Twitter. So if you’re going to be credible on social channels for customer service issues, trained resource needs to be available at a time to suit the consumer. Tone and content needs to be consistent and there should be a clear escalation procedure in place to deal with potential problems.

4.    Be responsive. Don’t create a ‘Talk to us! We’d love to hear your experiences!’ page and then leave comments there to rot. Fallout around the recent Papa John’s incident could’ve been minimised if it hadn’t taken the company so long to get its story straight.

5.    Don’t be afraid to let customers talk to each other. Sometimes they’ll be able (and willing) to help each other out. (But check they’re telling each other the right things, and recognise and reward the efforts of your best contributors.) When setting and refining your approach, it might be worth inviting hand-picked customers to help.

6.    Don’t shy away from criticism. No brand will be the subject of universal praise so be prepared to receive a complaint or two. Sometime, a negative can be turned into a positive.

7.    Respond appropriately. There’s nothing like posting identical corporate responses to everyone who comments on your wall to get the community into a spin. Have some standardised issues and answers pre-prepared but tailor the actual responses to the individual. Don’t use inappropriate language and, most importantly, be appropriate in how you compensate customers.

8.    Apologise if you’ve got something wrong: Don’t be afraid of using the ‘s’ word and don’t forget to keep people in touch with progress when you’re trying to right a wrong.

9.    Ensure that strong social media guidelines are in place and that all staff are trained in social engagement. This will ensure consistency when responding to customer queries. It would also be useful to have a crisis management plan ready to be implemented should things go wrong.

10.    Join up social customer service with other relevant business areas; social media is your real-time window on public opinion.  Review comments, trends, remedies, competitors and new technologies quarterly to showcase best practice and refine your approach. And don’t forget to pass on this insight to significant others within your business, from the marketing and PR people to the HR people.

Here is the scenario, competitor #1 has a company name called Pepsi, you however have a fantastic new drink that you want to market – now given that we are in the 21st century and the thought of not having freedom of choice scares people so much they sit outside the houses of parliament starving themselves to make a point – why can’t you as a product developer / business legally target the same channels as your competitors.

Look at Harpers Bizarre as a prime example – as a design agency we have a few clients who are in the fashion industry, this is a prime candidate for this scenario – Armani perfume have a full page advert in the opening pages of this month’s edition, on the facing page is a another full page advert for Gaultier Perfumes – this is as basic of a marketing strategy as you could get; find your competitors and product place yourself alongside them for maximum exposure and more importantly, CUSTOMER CHOICE.

Okay the brands above are an extreme, and it’s highly unlikely that any of us have a company big enough to even dream about trying to take a cut from their profits, but we all accept that in this day and age.

This is where some companies, INCLUDING MARKETING COMPANIES can’t translate online marketing from “normal” advertising channels such as magazines, and instead of looking at this as a marketing strategy they will look at it as an underhanded strategy of stealing business… Its not underhanded in any form, underhanded marketing employs tactics like contacting your clients directly without your knowledge, what we are explaining is “piggy-backing placements” wich is simple marketing.

So as a design/marketing studio who runs online campaigns for its clients as well as ourselves, if we aim some of our Adwords at competitors, why shouldn’t we, we want to show people there are other options available to any potential clients, let’s call it virtual networking, like two or more design/marketing companies being at the same event – all companies then get to show their skill-sets, and we let the client choose who they want to use.

So putting this into the Adword world as long as you stay within Google’s guidelines then nothing is illegal, no trademarks have been breached and Google Adwords accepts this as a normal route of advertising – some say it’s not moral, but ask Lord Sugar how much he made from moral advertising! – and if we return to the Harper’s Bizarre scenario does your customer when choosing their perfume care about moral marketing techniques, definatly not,  they try both scents and choose the one they like.

So let’s see what is acceptable in the Adword guidelines.

your company runs an advert that is as follows:

 Mr. Wilsons Dandelion & Burdock

Organic Dandelion and Burdock, established in 1999 and brewed in Lancashire with real burdock

www.mrwilsons.co.uk

And this is triggered with the keyword Pepsi – There is nothing illegal in this instance, you are not in breach of a trademark, and you are within Google’s guidelines.

BUT if you was to make an advert like this:

Mr. Wilsons Dandelion and Burdock

The Alternative to Pepsi – Organic Dandelion and Burdock, established in 1999 and brewed in Lancashire with real burdock

www.mrwilsons.co.uk

Now I am sure you can see the trademark issues here, and the result would probably be a takedown notice by Pepsi and a removal of your advert by Google themselves

So what do you do to combat it, NOTHING, hopefully if a client likes your work more than your competitor you will be chosen for the project, if they prefer your competitors portfolio then the client wasn’t right for you.

It’s all about choice and as much as consumers have choice you as an advertiser have just as much choice – if you stay within the law – to advertise anywhere that sells advertising space – Google Adwords is exactly this.

I currently have a massive 20x20ft billboard for another design agency right outside my studio – I won’t say I wasn’t annoyed at first, but eventually you get over these things and realise that is the business world.

Everyone wants needs to get in front of clients.

2. Keep it simple. Many people cite overly complicated navigation or too many pages in the purchase path as reasons they don’t complete their online sale or abandon their shopping cart. Successful eCommerce sites simplify the checkout process and display clear pricing and shipping information. They also post clear return policies and access to customer service. Putting your brick and mortar store’s phone number in a visible place on your Web site is a good idea. Studies suggest that consumers feel more confident knowing you’re just a phone call away if they have a question or if there’s a problem with their order.

3. A picture really is worth a thousand words, so use photos of your products and go easy on the text. Online usability studies suggest that people do not read; they scan. It’s 25% harder to read on the Web, so keep these guidelines in mind for optimum readability: Headlines should be 8 words or less, shoot for 9-12 words on a line (people don’t want to read across the entire screen), keep sentences short (15-20 words) and try to keep summaries under 30 words and hold paragraphs to 40-70 words. In this way you can maintain compelling product descriptions alongside your product offerings.

4. Market your site once it’s live. It’s not enough to just build a Web site. You need to make an effort to market and promote your Web site to new and existing customers. Collect email addresses on your site to help you keep in touch with customers and consider creating a newsletter. Seek links from other sites that complement yours. Optimize your site’s content for relevance and submit it to the major search engines. You’ve got an incredible built-in marketing opportunity in that you can promote your products to millions of  customers. Take advantage of this capability to reach a whole new set of customers.

5. Make payment processing easy. Online shoppers need a way to give you money online. That’s easy these days. You can accept credit card payments with either a PayPal account or an online merchant account. PayPal is ideal for anyone trying out the eCommerce waters since there’s less of an upfront commitment, but you may end up paying more per transaction. If you know from the beginning you’re going to have strong sales and lots of online transactions each month, you may want to consider setting up an online merchant account. The thing to note about PayPal is that both the buyer and the seller need a PayPal account UNLESS you use the PayPal Payment Pro stystem that they offers, where this runs seamlessly into your eCommerce website like any other merchant account – all for a nominal fee per month. It’s so easy to create a PayPal account that more than 96 million consumer accounts have been created at PayPal since it was founded in 1998 and it’s estimated that PayPal has a 24% share of all U.S. online payments.

Generally speaking PPC Campaigns should be done in conjunction with an SEO campaign. They offer a virtually instant way of bringing targeted traffic to your website, albeit at a cost. In terms of general setup, most PPC campaigns are straightforward, but to run them properly and effectively does require ongoing analysis and constant monitoring.

If we consider adwords, get your account setup. Then you need to consider which keywords you want to target….this is can make or break a campaign. It is worth reading an early post done on keyword analysis and selection. Once you have your target words, you then need to start to think about how you want to display your ads ( search network and or display network), and what you want to put in your ads. The content of any ad should be as targeted and relevant as possible, this will help your click through rates (CTR). Don’t just do one ad, make sure you split your campaign into separate ads, this means you can have very specific ads for each group of related keywords.

Time to get started….and time to start monitoring. The key to running a good PPC campaign is to ensure that you always monitor it and make changes as required. As your competitors make changes to their campaigns, this can affect you, so you always need to be looking at what is working and what is not working. You also need to consider your ROI and your conversion rates…..is the amount it is costing you, worth paying given the amount of sales you receive? Monitoring this is vital to ensuring the campaign is worthwhile and effective.

Take your time setting up the campaign, ensure you have thought about the keywords you are targeting, you have set up specific ads for each group of keywords, and you have written the ads with CTRs in mind. Then monitor the effectiveness and start to fine tune your campaign, you won’t get it all right initially so you need to make changes as you go.

And if that’s all too overwhelming, then give the team a ring on 07968 093856