Recent project was making this short video of NZ’s top selling art prints for NZ Prints. Most useful lesson – allow a finite amount of time to make the video. Making it as perfect as you can with a deadline is more productive than an open ended project that is not released until every tiny detail is completed to plan.
Antony Ellis showing Foursquare listing for NZ Prints
“There isn’t just one mayor in every town anymore.
Foursquare.com could be the next big thing in social networking. Not in the “overtaking Facebook” kind of way, rather the potential “new Twitter”.
The idea is simple: a website which allows users to “check in” with their smartphones at a venue (a cafe, bar, or shop, for example) via GPS, and let other users know their location, and post supplementary reviews and tips about that place.
“Location-based online services like Foursquare are the beginnings of an easy new way to market your business, stay in touch with your friends and to find other people’s recommendations about places you visit exactly at the time you need them – like when you are looking at the menu,” avid Foursquare user Antony Ellis, whose day job is marketing manager for prints.co.nz, says.”
Continue reading the rest of the article here
If you are the owner of a Christchurch business reading my interview with Lee Suckling in today’s “The Press” about how people in Christchurch are using location based internet services like Foursquare and are wondering why business owners engage the services of an independent online marketing consultant like me this article is for you!
Keeping a lid on the amount of money spent on online marketing is vital to commercial success in a small market like New Zealand.
The key to cost-effectiveness for a small NZ business owner is to learn about online marketing and then to become engaged in the process as part of your daily routine. The most effective way to learn more about how to improve your online marketing right now is a free 15 minute discussion with an independent online marketing consultant – please contact me today to organise a suitable time.
The benefits of becoming engaged with your businesses online marketing and social media are more than just the savings you make not having to pay someone else to do it.
After 15 years of thinking about the needs of New Zealand art buyers at NZ Prints, talking to customers, listening to compliments and complaints, reading thousands of emails, blog comments, comments on Facebook (and underpinned by analytics and keyword research) I can sometimes feel almost supernaturally in tune with our customers. I guess you could say that I am “in the zone”. By knowing the different kinds of customers we have so well and knowing what kind of art they are looking for I can have such a strong intuitive sense of how to connect with them via an email promotion about something I just know that they will like. Or if we should be working on curating a new category of NZ art for them to choose from (after much debate about the meaning of Kiwiana in New Zealand art we launched a Kiwiana collection recently based on customers asking for Kiwiana gifts and gallery owners referring to all non-Maori contemporary New Zealand prints as “Kiwiana”).
This kind of connectedness is business gold. But you have to know the tools to use and how to plan an online marketing strategy to guide you. This is where independent online marketing advice from a business perspective can really help you start off on the right foot. For a free initial 15 minute discussion of what you need please contact me today.
Last Thought: This connectedness is obviously not a manufactured shell of customer engagement around the outside of the business but the kind of affinity that can only be built up over time. Online marketing and social media facilitate this process but like most internet marketing it is simply old fashioned marketing being done more effectively (it’s just like being the store owner who knew all her customers by name and what they “usual” was but with thousands rather than dozens of customers). I have found a great case study on this topic at my local supermarket where a processor of primary products has responded to customer concerns about farming practices in a flawed way that is extraordinarily instructive. I’m writing an article on this topic at the moment but am waiting for the business owner to respond before publishing. Please subscribe to my blog or check back here again soon as articles like this on what not to do are sometimes more useful than another list of best practice!
For at least the third time a Tweetup of Christchurch twitterers has been held, last night at Cocopelli. I wanted to go for two reasons – I was curious as to what a Tweetup might be after seeing Tweetups being organised on a semi-regular basis in Auckland and Wellington and I wanted to meet James Stewart, whose ArtKlick site I once thought had the potential to be a significant competitor to New Zealand’s favourite online art print shop (New Zealand Fine Prints is one of my clients).
Because my interest in Twitter and social media is from a business perspective the best way of summing up my expectations was hoping for a chamber of commerce meeting for the digital age and dreading being dropped into the Uni chess club on a free booze bender.
The key questions I want to know from other business orientated Twitters are:
- How do you find new followers who are obsessed enough with your company’s products, services or events that they want the constant contact that Twitter enables?
- How do you keep your followers interested and engaged?
- What strategies do you employ to filter the deluge of distracting tweets from other people during your working day?
I didn’t manage to meet anyone else who was thinking about Twitter in these terms. It was interesting to meet a relatively diverse bunch of Christchurchians and I enjoyed the night out on a personal level but a business person dropped into the Christchurch Tweetup would have been hard pressed to spot even a glimmer of the potential that social media and online marketing has for promoting their business.
It would have been a lot more interesting professionally if we had had a guest speaker (why not get someone like Giapo to come down and talk about how they have grown their business using Twitter, or a social media consultant like Simon Young who could give Christchurch based online marketers case studies to benchmark their efforts against). And wouldn’t it be a stimulating exercise to brainstorm some online marketing strategies to pay back the bar who hosted the event with some real time social media promotion on the night to test out some ideas and share the knowledge of those present to demonstrate to non-Twitters the real world benefits of harnessing social media?
My online marketing tip to Cocopelli? Put up a sign and hand out a flyer with every purchase asking customers to follow them on Twitter to receive news and special offers. Cost about $20 for 500 photocopied fliers and probably better value for their business than putting on pizza and drinks for #tweetCHCH
Foursquare has arrived in Christchurch. Not sure when Christchurch was added to Foursquare’s list of cities. I am doing some digging and will expand this post as I can’t find any reports of this being officially rolled out (previous rollouts have been noted in their blog).
Five years ago pages on the internet didn’t seem to change that often. My common searches would return well-known pages in a familiar order. But during the day now I am constantly updating pages on sites I work with to reflect the latest news for customers and visitors. It’s remarkable how dynamic the internet is becoming – a swirling pool of ideas updated and annotated by a community of readers and visitors.
The commercial core of websites aren’t changing a lot – the best e-commerce design and functionality of five years ago still works today. This is a relief to store owners who aren’t faced with upgrading the nuts and bolts of their stores – because changes right now are around connecting with your customers better. Progress in this area relies on Twitter or Facebook – which stand alongside your website, woven into its fabric for sure but not part of its scaffolding. The investment here is time – something that startup businesses may have in abundance if customers are still a bit thin on the ground!
In website promotion improvements are continual and I am revisiting two areas I have spent time researching before that I am planning to learn and do more with this year. I am dusting off my web analytics experience and I really want to make some videos! There are two articles at the top of my reading for this – one on Video and SEO and this one on Analytics.
This job advertisement arrived in my inbox today. It sounds like a great job. However what really struck me was how the writer has managed to capture what a role like this actually entails.
Wanted: Communications & Online Projects Manager
Kea is looking for a communications ‘guru’ who also happens to be a great project manager with a good understanding of the web. As a small not-for-profit organisation, what we really need is a passionate ‘jack-of-all trades’.
ABOUT KEA
Kea is New Zealand’s Global Network. Our mission is to connect New Zealand with the rest of the world by building a network of ‘global citizens’ who take an active interest in the future of our country.
Kea is especially committed to supporting organisations and individuals that are helping to grow
the New Zealand economy through international trade and investment, or helping to build New Zealand’s brand and reputation on the world stage.
Kea leverages its global network to help:
support the international success of New Zealand and its people.
increase export trade by providing New Zealand businesses with greater access to international markets.
promote international investment into New Zealand’s productive and export sectors.
provide New Zealand with access to global insights and relationships made available through the leaders of large global corporate, research, and education institutions who are active in our Kea and World Class NZ networks.
promote the attraction/return of highly skilled migrants, and help to match their skills with appropriate opportunities.
support the activities of other public and private sector partners who share our vision for a more globally connected New Zealand.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Position: Communications & Online Projects Manager.
Reports to: Executive Director.
Primary objectives: to develop and execute a cohesive communications strategy for Kea and for the successful delivery of key online projects, in particular the PassItOn initiative, and EveryOneCounts and EveryVoteCounts campaigns.
Functional relationships: required to maintain a number of important functional relationships, including:
Sponsors and funders.
Content channel partners.
Suppliers.
Media partners.
Content providers.
Government and other key stakeholders.
Key role outcomes:
Ongoing generation of rich, quality content for key online projects.
Maximum user uptake of online projects.
Satisfied sponsors and partners.
Proper project and financial management of key online projects.
Development and execution of a cohesive communications strategy spanning all major channels and projects, including social media platforms.
Specific tasks and duties:
Content sourcing and scheduling: use existing relationships and identify new content providers to develop and maintain a pipeline of content for online projects.
Content management: preserve the integrity of site content, moderate content.
Community management: regularly (daily) post content to primary social media platforms and monitor online commentary.
Strategic opportunity ‘spotting’: work with sponsors and partners to identify and fully leverage opportunities as they arise.
Newsletters: produce monthly campaign newsletters.
Administer incentive programmes: run prize draws and work with incentive partners to oversee prize fulfilment.
Stakeholder updates: produce regular stakeholder uploads, including site traffic stats, success stories etc.
Stakeholder management: manage key functional relationships (see above).
Media management: maximise media coverage for Kea initiatives.
Technical liaison: principal contact on technical matters related to online project sites.
Communications strategy: develop and execute a cohesive organisation-wide communications strategy.
Ideal skills/experience/attributes:
Key account management.
Sales and marketing.
Online content management.
Communications strategy development.
Online community management.
Digital publishing.
Social media strategy.
Essential skills: high level of computer proficiency (MS Word, Photoshop or other image manipulation software, and exposure to website content management systems).
Personal attributes:
Highly organised.
Professional.
Passionate about New Zealand.
If this role sounds like you, please email your CV and a brief expression of interest to scott@keanewzealand.com. Applications close on Friday, 19 March 2010.
This NZ Herald article interviews several influential New Zealand marketers about how they are using social media. My favourite comment is from Simon Young, formerly iJump but now calling himself #sy [I wonder about the wisdom of this as some reports have Google viewing hashtags as a marker for spam when they are indexing Twitter] “I think people will have an unlimited amount of anger towards a company or organisation, but they will always soften it a bit when they realise they are dealing with another human.”
Launching your new online business is a time of trepidation and excitement and it’s vital you focus on what will be important long after the initial hoopla has died down.
I am analysing a beautifully designed site developed for a line of children’s clothing and bedroom accessories. When writing my marketing report for the owners I wanted to headline some key things to help them prioritise from the many different goals that they have for their business.
This made me realise that - being conservative by nature - I think the number one priority for New Zealand business starting selling products online is the goal captured by the wonderful term “Ramen Profitability”. Ramen are (of course) a kind of noodles – so what do noodles have to do with the performance of your online business?
Ramen profitability is generating just enough profit from your website to survive on a diet of noodles! This means you are covering your costs and making a (very) small surplus. This might not sound ambitious to you but I think that proving your business idea is sustainable even if you are not making very much profit is actually a tremendous achievement (especially if your target market is a small one like New Zealand). Sustainability is the best base for future growth because you now know that there are customers out there for you – all you have to figure out is how to grow this base with a marginal cost less than the marginal profit on the extra products sold. If a campaign doesn’t work you can retreat back to your sustainable noodle level of profitability and try something else.
My firm belief is that the key to Ramen profitability is to really keep an eye on your costs, no matter how small. How much are you being charged by your web host, your developer or payment gateway? I had a client who was being charged by their Christchurch web developer $10 a month for “submission to search engines” – which as Google, Bing etc do this for free borders on the criminal. Because I deal with lots of different clients I have a good idea of what level of fixed overhead you should be paying and if I can help you save money you are on your path to Ramen profitability even after paying me for my advice!
After a NY Times article criticised New Zealand’s Hoki industry as unsustainable the NZ Seafood council fought back using, among other things, Google Adwords.
This article discusses this innovative campaign.