OriginBlu Communications Blog

If you’d told me when I started working twenty something years ago that there’d come a time that not only would I be able to carry my computer home with me in a compact designer bag, I’d also be able to go on business trips and work from anywhere.

I’m going on a business trip? Really!

The freedom found in having a job that is location independent is in equal parts liberating and disconcerting. At least it is to a control freak like me. I like to know where I’m going to be and when. But there’s also an adventurer lurking beneath the surface, not always as vocal or outspoken, but there none the less.

A couple of weeks ago my boss announced that we’d be going on a business trip which would require us spending a night away from home.

One night, hmmmm, I can do one night. I’ll pack my laptop and Internet connectivity thingie and I’ll be good to go. I’ll write all my posts (including this one which needed to be posted today) ahead of time, so that I won’t have any deadlines hanging over my head. All good.

Then last week Mich informed me that we’d be going for two nights instead of one, and (here comes the clanger) we’d be driving instead of flying.

I wasn’t pleased. It meant a lot more rearranging and whatnot in order to ensure that my workload remained on schedule in spite of the time away from the office. Most of which would be spent on the road driving. I’m more than happy to work in the car, I’ve done it before, but things like battery life* and Internet connectivity make it challenging. Luckily I don’t suffer from motion sickness or I’d really be screwed*.

On Wednesday morning (the day we were supposed to leave) I woke up looking like I’d used my left cheek to store a cache of winter snacks, while a throbbing pain along my jawbone alerted me to the fact that the root canal treatment I’d endured recently hadn’t been a success.

Nice.

I had to text my boss at 5:15am to let her know she’d be driving up alone. A visit to the dentist revealed an abscess beneath the offending tooth and I was sent home with antibiotics and instructions to return on Monday to have it removed. Mich was already en route by that point so I ended up flying to Hoedspruit the following day.

[This is what we writers call back story so bear with me okay]

I arrived just after lunch to find the company we were visiting in the middle of a crisis, and our business trip’s agenda completely blown out the water as a result.

More punches to roll with.

On the drive back Mich and I dissected the unfortunate turn of events and tried to figure out what the lesson in all of it was. We’d forgone three days of valuable office time for a trip that ultimately didn’t produce any results.

Or at least that’s how it seemed on the surface.

Then we dug a little deeper and looked a little closer. It turned out the trip wasn’t such a waste of time after all. Yes there’ll be time spent on the weekend catching up on all the work we didn’t get to, but that seems a small price to pay for the real value we gained from our time outside of the office. What at the outset seemed like inconvenient challenges, were in fact little nuggets of insight that we wouldn’t have had if our trip had gone according to plan.

Instead of immediately complaining about all the negatives (which we’re so often wont to do), we pondered why, if everything happens for a reason, did the last couple of days pan out as they did.

We both came to the stark realisation that working (i.e. being constructive) doesn’t just mean sitting in front of our laptops and typing with intent. It can also mean taking a solo trip through some pretty countryside and just enjoying the much needed alone time. Or it can mean just being there for those who mean a lot to us when things are tough. Getting to know people in their downtime can reap priceless rewards (so long as there’s no tequila involved).

It’s about relationships, because at the end of the day, if we don’t make the effort to connect how can we ever breathe life and personality into our work.

We didn’t do what we set out to do, but we achieved so much than we could ever have hoped for if we had. And at least we were able to take out our laptops from time to time and deal with the really urgent stuff! God I’m glad it’s not 1987.

And finally on a personal note I realised that being out of my comfort zone is a great way to get the creative juices flowing.

See you out there,

Ang

*I later discovered that typing while sitting in the front seat does in fact bring on a mild form of car sickness, so I’m sitting in the back seat with my boss chauffeuring me as I write this. Even more amazing than the Driving Miss Daisy scenario I currently find myself in, is the fact that the boss’ car is equipped with a power outlet so I can charge my laptop’s battery.

I get in excess of 150 emails a day. My inbox is the portal through which clients, friends, suppliers and industry stalwarts communicate with me. Keeping on top of these emails is a challenge, and how well I manage to do that is how I measure how well I am coping with the day to day running of my business and my life. So understand me when I say how much I loathe those messages that creep into the queue uninvited (much like an inebriated gate crasher at a black tie dinner).

Do you use email marketing as a means of communicating with your audience? And if so, are you The Uninvited Guest? You may well be using a shotgun approach in your marketing efforts, where even a 1% return is justification for a campaign. But have you stopped to think about the other 99% that are probably using your logo as a dartboard in the office? Or worse, you could end up being binned (and banned) for good.

Just so that we are all on the same page, I have called on Wikipedia for a clear definition of the topic at hand.

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing.

The benefits of using email as a marketing tool include lower cost, track-ability, speed, reach, and share-ability (is there such a word?). Used properly, it is a very effective means of building good relationships, adding value to your audience (existing and prospective), and yielding direct returns on investment. Oh – and it is also friendly to Mother Earth.

Some ground rules that need to be established at the get-go

• I will treat each e-mail address in my possession as a P-E-R-S-O-N…
• I will ALWAYS give my recipients the option to remove themselves from my database (without having to send an email!). One click with the option to say why (note: be willing to hear this without taking offence).
• I will communicate content that ADDS VALUE to my client base.
• I will not treat my audience as buffoons and will ensure that my grammar, spelling and punctuation are sound. ‘First Cum First Served….’ Really? This classic example arrived via a very large incoming tour operator just last month, and had us all rolling about on the floor clutching our sides. Make people laugh – YES. But don’t be the laughing stock!
• I will respect my clients’ busy schedules and broadband limitations, and will therefore not send emails with enormous attachments that take forever to download, and which require more than one click to access.
• I will test my messages across multiple platforms to ensure that they display correctly in a number of different email programs.
• I will analyse the results of all campaigns to see if my objective has been reached, and if not, I’ll make it my business to find out why.
• I will always aim to do better!

Based on the experience I have gained after having handled a lot of email campaigns for our clients, I have a few nuggets of wisdom to share. Brace yourselves for the sheer brilliance *snigger snigger*.

Database

A database is one of the most important assets at the disposal of a business. It is a summary of all of your clients – existing and potential. Why this oft-tedious task is handed to the most junior of employees baffles me. One badly captured email address is one potential client (and sale) lost.

A database is not just about data capturing. It is about on-going management to ensure that your information is current. In a business world where statistics have shown that a person can go through as many as 379 jobs in a decade, you need to be sure that you are keeping your contacts updated. How? Make use of the auto-responders to update your list when you send out a campaign. And get your sales team involved to ensure that their relationships in the field are mirrored perfectly in the company database. Yes it takes time, but what’s the point of using email marketing if you’re talking to thin air?

I have seen databases where in excess of 35% of recipients bounce back due to invalid email addresses. A third! Come on people, this is HUGE! I have other clients who enjoy less than 1% bounce back rates due to regular and fastidious management.

And quantity is not better than quality! Rather have 100 people on your list who have asked to be there (i.e. opted-in) than 12000 that you’ve hijacked and are sending unsolicited messages to. You are not scoring points here – you are being a pain in the proverbial.

Content

Make sure you are communicating value. Not something that YOU feel is valuable, but something that adds value to your customer. This does involve a bit of psychoanalysis on your part. You need to delve into the needs of your audience, find out how you can assist them, make their lives easier, inform them or entertain them.

And while you may pay a lot of attention to the design features of the campaign, your recipients are probably not marveling over your shadowed edges, admiring your genius in matching colours to logo, or staring in awe at your animated pictures. They are scanning your message (if you even get that far) and either acting on it, filing it in the archives for future use, or deleting it. This being said, don’t send out something that looks heinous. There are some fundamentals that need to be considered in order to make the visual experience of reading your message an enjoyable one. The Comic Sans font is for your own screen only. Don’t use it for anything other than your kid’s birthday party invitations. Likewise with clip-art.

Engagement

Right. You have their attention. How do they reach you? Are you putting the onus on them to type an email or to pick up the phone? You need to use quick and direct calls-to-action that require only ONE CLICK. Direct them to a customised landing page on your website that is relevant to why they clicked the link in the first place. Give them the information they need and offer them quick access to a member of your team. Pronto-pronto.

Distribution and Testing

You need to make sure that you are using the right software to distribute your bulk mails in one shot. This enables you to easily keep track of an entire campaign, as well as to review trends between different campaigns sent to the same client list. What is the best time to send? What content works best? What day of the week yields the best-read rates?

This software must give users the option to unsubscribe, to update their information, to forward to a friend, and to share on their Social Media platforms.

Another vital element is to always have a web version of your communication. No amount of testing (and we advocate testing across the most commonly used desktop, web and mobile programs) can guarantee that an email looks exactly the same across different email programs (Microsoft 7, Office 2010 – this one’s new, and a bit of a spanner!). By having a “view web version” link, you are giving your recipient the option to look at your message in the format in which it was originally designed.

This aspect of marketing is actually such an in-depth one that I will be looking at each of the above sections in much closer detail in future posts. I will share examples of good email marketing practise, tips and suggestions on how to create and share good content, and an explanation/glossary of some industry jargon that may have your head spinning (read rates, hard bounces, soft bounces, feedback loops, and black hat practise – to name just a few). I will also be discussing what is on the horizon regarding legalities of online communications. Anyone heard of the looming national registry of people who do not want to receive ANY emails – period? Watch this space.

Enough said. Give me a holler if you want to chat about any of the points raised, or if there is something you would specifically like to hear about.

See you online (but only if you want to!),

Michelle

Take a look at the top and bottom edges of your screen. You are looking at your Internet browser. A browser is the interface between you and the Internet. It is the ‘window’ that makes sense of, and allows you to, look out over the vast wilderness otherwise known as the Worldwide Web. Believe it or not, it has a major influence on how the Internet is viewed and created.

The most commonly used browser is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Other examples include Google Chrome (my personal favorite) Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator, Opera, and that mainstay of Apple Mac users, Safari.

I find Internet Explorer’s success wholly inexplicable as it really is a terrible browser. Regardless of whether I write from the perspective of a web designer or a web user, the story is the same.

Internet Explorer is horrible.

As a web user, it is slow, resource hungry, and security intensive (to the point of paranoia). And as a web designer it’s even more frustrating. Very often I’ll design and code a website, test it in all the other browsers, and smile smugly as it displays beautifully in all of them. I will then weep quietly in my corner as my “perfect” site loads looking like a dog’s dinner in the world’s most popular application, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

So how does such an utterly dreadful product end up being the world’s most popular browser?

It has to do with Microsoft’s power and influence in the computing world. Basically, if you own a PC (as opposed to an Apple MAC) it follows that you also own a of copy Microsoft Windows. There are alternative Operating Systems, but none as easily accessible as Windows. Most new PCs come pre-loaded with Windows, and each copy of Windows ships out with – you guessed it – Internet Explorer.

As the consumer you have the power to change it all that though. Most people don’t give a second thought to their web browsers, and end up using Internet Explorer for years, completely oblivious to the fact that there are actually alternatives.

Enter Mozilla and the open web project.

Formed in 1998, Mozilla is the company responsible for bringing us Firefox. This open source web browser is much more stable and sensible than that other one that should not be named.

What is open source?

Open source basically means that the ‘source code’ of the application, in this case Firefox, is freely available. Thereby opening the doors for clever coders the world over to contribute to the browser with improvements or adjustments. The result is a more adaptive, intelligent, and flexible product…and best of all it’s free.

Taking a leaf out of Mozilla’s book, Internet giant Google began the Chromium Projects sometime in 2007, releasing their browser, Google Chrome in 2008. Chrome quickly changed the game. Also an open source project, with the weight and shrewd acumen of Google behind it, this new kid on the block has rapidly become a main contender for the sought after “king of the browsers” title. Quick, lightweight, secure, and intuitive, this no frills, yet fully inclusive little browser has gained a cult following.

It’s also a firm favorite of mine. I recommend Google Chrome above all other browsers. You won’t be disappointed! However if you’re still using Explorer I urge you to at least investigate the alternatives.

Strangely enough, and in spite of the plethora of choices available, Internet Explorer still holds the lions share of the browser market.

So there you have it. A brief outline of what a browser is, the options available to you, and a little bit of history.

And the future? With the insane proliferation of Internet devices (1000 of them in 1984 to 1000,000,000 of them in 2008) and mobile platforms such as the iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, and others, it is becoming increasingly important to present the Internet in a hassle free and slick manner.

Let the second round of browser wars begin.

See you online,

Brey

* We’re not in the habit of using other people’s photos, but we found this one so apt it was hard to pass up on it. Be sure to visit Noah’s blog, as he’s written an equally disparaging post on the plague that is Internet Explorer.

Did you know that Google runs over one million servers around the world, and processes over one BILLION search requests and about 24 petabytes of user-generated data EVERY DAY? For those who don’t know – and that included me until about five minutes ago – a petabyte is a unit of information equal to one quadrillion (short scale) bytes or 1024 terabytes. To add to these mammoth figures and put them into context, it is estimated that there were 2,095,006,005 Internet users as of 31 March 2011 – which means that just over 30% of the world’s population now has access to Cyberspace!

I’ll admit that these figures make my head swim – but maybe that’s because words fly my flag higher than numbers ever could. But the bottom line is that the Internet now gives us access to a huge glut of the information we need, or simply want for the fun of it. These days we can Google just about anything and everything. Recipes, school projects, holiday destinations, flights, words, sayings, quotes, information on anyone even vaguely famous or well-known, music, videos, history, geography, biology, medicine, ailments, maps and directions, addresses, telephone numbers, contact details…the list continues indefinitely. Let’s face it, we cannot imagine life without the World Wide Web. And businesses could not function in a competitive market without access to and representation on the web.

This brings me to the importance of web pages. Research shows that most websites will lose 80% of their traffic within two minutes of landing on a page. The graphics engage the viewer first – an aesthetically pleasing web page will encourage the viewer to explore further, while one that isn’t will serve to repel almost instantly. A sensitive balance is needed visually.

Thereafter it is the copy or content that will draw the user to the product and either sell them, or spur them on to scour the web for greener pastures.

The most important consideration regarding content is the needs of the person or user landing on the website. What information are they looking for? Who is your target audience?

Good web copy needs to be short and to the point, with absolutely no jargon. Many copywriters make the mistake of bombarding readers with the total extent of their writing skills, throwing out marvels of prose that say very little. It is much more important to anticipate the questions your visitors will be asking themselves, and explain everything in clear and concise terms. Banish the waffle and keep it simple, but give all the facts.

Give the copy on your website the attention it deserves. Hire a good copywriter – it will be cash well spent. And remember – your website is like a salesperson. Make sure that it uses the right words to get the job done.

Here’s to keeping it simple,

Ing