Winning Online

I’m just back from maternity leave and I’ve been catching up on what’s happened in the office while I was out. In the past few days, I’ve looked at wedding pictures, gotten updates on the babies that are expected this fall and even managed to get a handle on the current projects! But what have I missed?

I’ve written about this before – how hard it can be to keep up in the fast-paced online world. And while I did have some time each day to get the latest from my favorite blogs (Shh! Don’t tell my husband who has been led to believe that I never got a minute to myself!), there’s no doubt that there are things going on out there that we should all know more about.  So take a minute to help out a sleep-deprived new mom and drop a line with a link to recent developments that deserve some attention. Thanks!

Or should I call it ‘new media’? From traditional video to webcasts and streaming video, either way, we truly have a wonderful world out there to experience.

My job here at Winning Strategies is to give these experiences life –web life that is.

When someone said that a picture is worth a thousand words, I couldn’t even imagine what that person would say about video. I could be silly and try doing the math: at 30 frames per second (that’s 30 pictures a second), you’d have 30,000 words every second to decipher –true sensory overload.

Now, don’t get scared. No one said that the ‘wonderful world of video’ was going to be easy. But the true beauty of video is that the viewer never sees the difficulty that goes behind the making of a video. From filming to editing, to even exporting the video to a workable format, all of these steps are vital to making a video work.

Let’s take Adam Dvorin for instance. Adam is the media supervisor at Winning Strategies, he is a veteran journalist, and first and foremost, Adam is a great guy. Now, the question is: “How do you get all of these aspects of a person’s life across to someone else in just 40 seconds?” You can! You first have to capture Adam while he’s in his element:

This sample, 40 second piece (43 seconds to be exact) is a part of one of our internal projects here at Winning Strategies, but surely, you can see how it is applicable to other companies and organizations. Insight –this is the key. You have to provide the viewer insight into a world he or she may or may not understand. Only when you get the viewer to look from the inside out, you can truly relate to that person.

From this small video, you get a glimpse on how (a) Adam communicates to broadcast newsrooms; (b) reads up on his news items; (c) encourages his colleagues to better themselves; and overall, you see how (d) communication is truly his life. Not to mention, you (e) see how laid back and easy going a person he is; notice his mannerisms and the types of shots used. This was all done on purpose. Boy, all that in 40 seconds –ok 43 seconds, but who’s counting (me apparently)!

In any case, I hope that I conveyed to you how important video is to not only represent your goals and ideals internally, but also how important it is as a marketing tool. You can simply get your message (or several messages, as shown in this sample video) across the world with a click of a button.

All this through the wonderful world of video.

Web site technology and development is unbelievably important, especially when it comes to logically and logistically arranging sections, building content management systems, and making a site map that is intuitive and user-friendly in its navigation.  But — you can build the most beautiful shell with the most amazing looking Flash and the greatest bells and whistles, and without alluring and regularly-updated content, that Web site will be a one-off.  A one-visit wonder, if you will.  With the internet and your web site in many ways being defined by search, without filling that shell regularly and with a solid content stream, your site will fall by the way side.  Without direct traffic - which most of the time is predicated on name appeal or a viral effort behind it - no one will find your site.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound?

On the web, that answer typically is no.  Having an official Web site is integral to doing “business as usual” but to be found, to be relevant, and to be worthwhile, content - whether it be the written word, video, or audio - needs to be streaming through; People need a reason to come back to your site.  If it is just a brochure on the web, one visit is all that is needed and then abandonment will be your buzzword du jour. 

Our team was sitting with a client last week, discussing this very fact.  They have a very clean, nice, and user-friendly Web site.  But since the site launched, updates have been minimal.  So we tried to show them - through a typical Google search - why regular content updates and “movement”, even if it is the allusion of, coming from their Web site was important.  This is a client who in many ways is okay with not coming up prevalently in search (and is probably just fine with keeping a low profile publicly), but, those who might speak against what they are doing - as well as their competitors - come up on the first page of search.  For the search term we used to show them as an example - what you would assume a typical web user would search - they came up deep down on the second page of search.  This was keeping them almost completely out of their own conversation!  There was no real voice on their behalf.  Regular content is critical to their communications.  A dialogue is happening already and their Web site, while clean and pretty, is not there to balance the debate.

And while approval of regularly-updated, NEW content may not be feasible for this client, there are plenty of ways to get around that: By simply repurposing previously approved content, time-releasing large content pieces into smaller digestable updates on a schedule, or utilizing good materials from news sites or comparable industry web sites.  Before you know it, regular updates within that pretty shell can at least put them - and you - in the conversation.  

Search engines ostensibly determine Web site relevancy by the amount of updates you make and the amount of sites linking to you, as well as the targeted use of key words.  Two out of the three are in the administrator’s control.

When that tree falls, make sure people are there to hear it because a dialogue is always happening in this forest.

Language localization is the process of translating content into different languages or adapting a language to meet the needs of a specific country or region. Companies with a global presence are taking language differences such as pronunciation, spelling conventions and grammatical patterns into account when creating a web strategy targeted towards specific regional markets.

Collaborative translation, which is translation carried out by a group of people who are not professional translators but have a good knowledge of the specific subject, is growing in popularity. Facebook has been receiving considerable media coverage recently due to their large-scale collaborative translation project, which in a few short years will make their website available in over 200 languages.

As the term suggests, “collaborative” translation involves groups of people working together to produce the localized content.  For some obvious reasons, there are some critics of this type of translation.  Since the group members have different backgrounds and degrees of translation ability, the issue of credibility has become one of the noteworthy arguments against collaborative translation. This is certainly a consideration for those organizations looking to start a project of this nature - we also endorse the following suggestions:

• Standardize terms and styles of translation
• Store correct translations and reuse them effectively
• Make the collaboration a lively exchange between the members.

If you are looking for more information about translation and/or website localization, here are a couple of web sites you can take a look at for further details:

• Translations.com
  Provider of website localization, software localization, GMS (Globalization Management System) software products, and enterprise-level, professional translation services.
• Traduwiki
  Traduwiki enables you to eliminate the last barrier of the Internet, the language. Use it to spread your writings, blog posts, textbooks and other texts across the planet. Traduwiki has tools that ease collaborative translations so your friends could loom your text translations with little efforts, and others can do the same.
• Worldwide Lexicon Project
  The Worldwide Lexicon is a service which enables community-driven translations on any website. If you speak two or more languages join our translation community and help share the most interesting content on the web with the people around the world.

A recent study by Nielsen/NetRatings showed that in The United States alone, there were over 216 million Internet users by the end of 2007. Wow, that’s a pretty big number.  If the Census Bureau’s current US population count is at just about 304 million, that would mean that over 70% of the people in this country are web surfers- can that figure be right?  In this age of iPhones and blackberrys, desktops and laptops, PCs and Macs, I think that it could be. Is this reason enough to take your business online if you haven’t already done so? Yup, I think it is.

You know what they say, you gotta go where the people are.  What’s the point of running a billboard advertisement on a road that no one travels on, right? The first major challenge with marketing your products and services, whether it be online or offline, is getting in front of the right target audience. Considering the number of people hitting the web these days, it’s no wonder why the number of websites on the net is now in the billions.

So how do you go about deciding if a website is what your company needs?  Before getting a site started, there are some preliminary questions that you need to consider. First, why do you want to be on the Internet? What kind of image do you want to present to your current and prospective customers? What do you want people to be able to do when they visit your site?

Lots to consider and then there is putting all this into place.  The best advice I can give is to thoroughly think things thru, and come up with a game plan and overall strategy.  Many would-be-webmasters quickly get in over their heads when preparing to take their business online. There are certainly some areas of this process that would be best if left to the pros.  Website design, development and marketing can easily become an overwhelming task. It does take a degree of skill and expertise to make all this happen, more times than not the best place to start is with a good plan.  Remember, you don’t have to do everything yourself.  At the end of the day you will achieve the most success by doing what you do best, and surrounding yourself with others that are good at what they do too.

Until next time -

nb

With gas prices going thru the roof, people across the country have been forced to car pool or drive less altogether.  Grocery bills are climbing at an alarming rate so people are now being forced to find creative ways to feed their families, and themselves.  On top of this, I just read an article on CNN about how new home purchases are the lowest in 16 years.  Seems to be the craze over the last couple months, how poorly our economy is performing and the emerging stories of survival from an alarming percentage of the countries population.  However, it appears that the penny pinching philosophy hasn’t hit all industries, just yet.

At the Web2.0 Expo conference this week in San Francisco, the buzz was all about spending. Survey results were shared with the audience at the beginning of the week, showing that businesses are preparing to spend nearly $5 billion by 2013 on social networking tools.  Forrester, the research company which carried out the Web 2.0 survey, believes the technologies being developed and unveiled over the coming days (at the Expo) represent “a fundamentally new way” for businesses to communicate with employees and customers. It seems as if the masses are starting to get it… time to connect and collaborate.

The days of static page websites is long gone, and businesses across the globe are now scrambling to find ways to integrate user-generated content into their web marketing strategy. Wikis, blogs, virtual worlds and dynamic content – businesses are finding that this is where it’s at.

So as you peddle your bike to work and eat your ramen noodles for lunch, maybe it’s time to think about how you can work a Web2.0 strategy into your marketing endeavors.  After all, wouldn’t you agree that it is time to consider new ways to get the word out about your products and services?

Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by TechWeb and O’Reilly Media, is a conference and tradeshow for the rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies. For more information about this weeks Expo, please click here.

Can you imagine a day without receiving or sending an e-mail? We have certainly developed into a society focused on time optimization and technology reliance. Sitting here on my computer it is hard to imagine a time when “snail mail” was the way to send a message to family, friends and associates.  Not only does traditional mail take way longer, but it is a lot less convenient. Don’t get me wrong there are still many useful applications for traditional mail, but it is hard to argue the popularity, convenience and speed of e-mail.

As far as marketing capabilities is concerned, one application for traditional mailing is referred to as direct marketing. Direct marketing is what most of us call “junk mail” these days. The catalog you get from that office supply store, the pamphlet about mortgage rates you get from your bank (even though you are a renter), even the catalog from Victoria Secrets (whether you are a lady or a gent you know you get one, hehe) – these are all examples of direct mail.  The common opinion of junk mail is… well, we’re calling it junk mail, you get the point. However, in the eyes of a true marketer; even if you only look at the piece once, you have still read the message and you have gotten a name, phrase, perhaps a logo or brand in your head. This kind of “seed planting” is what direct mail is all about.

Since the rise in popularity of emailing, direct mail marketing has gotten some stiff competition. Email Marketing, or eMarketing, incorporates the same principals as direct marketing but is far more efficient and cost effective. With e-mail marketing you can easily measure your ROI (Return On Investment), you cut down on the time it takes to process campaign results, you can optimize your follow up tactics and can really focus on customer feedback and direction.

With the click of the mouse you can send out thousands of e-mails. Once the e-mail has been sent, you can seamlessly track results, from who opened your message to when they opened it, to what they clicked on when it was opened. The efficiency of e-mail marketing as compared to direct marketing is unprecedented. Information that would take weeks, even months to figure out with direct marketing campaigns is now delivered to you just about as quickly as the message is sent out. Instead of wondering if your target audience got the mail, or better yet if they opened it, you know. Strategic email marketing goes a long way to take the guess work out of what your efforts are producing.  Emarketing solutions such as the one provided by www.constantcontact.com allow you to “speak to your audience with impact.” Solutions like this one puts valuable consumer feedback at your fingertips with the click of the mouse.

If the ease and convenience do not appeal to one, then surely the ability to track efficiency and ROI will. With traditional direct marketing, it is hard to gauge your success rate. Without being able to determine your success you are really unable to tell if you have made a good investment or not. With e-mail marketing this can all be tracked, and you can weigh the investment you made against the return you are seeing. 

It is a given that not every target audience is well suited for e-mail marketing, but for those who are this form of promotion offers a tremendous opportunity. Emarketing allows administrators to focus on strengths, improve on weaknesses and get the message out where people are flocking to the most these days. So the question is;  are you Emarketing?

Winning Strategies provides custom email marketing solutions.  From the design and layout of unique, branded campaigns, to the distribution and tracking of campaign results, Winning Strategies can help you with your next emarketing promotion.  Contact us to learn more.

Anybody else feel that there are too many social networks to keep track of? First there was MySpace, then Facebook and now Ning or Kickapps allows you to build your own. But what about the now-now? (There is always a more current NOW - see article on Bloggers who try to keep up with the now, now).

Ok, so we all know that Google is creating the master social networking site that will hopefully consolidate all of these old and emerging social networking sites but what about for businesses? Slow to the networking scene, business have been wary for many years… although with the longevity (in Internet years) and power demonstrated by Facebook and MySpace they can no longer sit idle. People demand to be connected! Will this be possible in the biz world?

The NY Times this morning put out an interesting article on the new set of business oriented social networks. What about Linked In you say? Yes, I would consider Linked In a pre-cursor to this emerging world but companies are going to start taking some interesting steps forward by connecting their employees, clients, etc. in a move to improve communication, cut down on email and recruit new employees.

This combining of social networking and CRM is a bold move as I doubt people will want to reveal personal information in a corporate setting but it will be interesting to keep an eye out whether a “Killer App” can sweep in and take advantage of this “connecting people” movement from a corporate standpoint.

Here are a list of groups trying:

Visible Path

Select Minds

Tribe (recently bought by Cisco)

InsideView’s SalesView

Oracle CRM On Demand

Microsoft Sharepoint

Source bolsters is a marketing buzz word that refers to the positive opinion or feeling that a consumer or potential consumer has about a product, service or even company. Positive opinions and feelings can usually lead to positive actions on the part of the consumer; often times in the form of purchasing a product or service. There is no question that a company’s website can indeed generate a positive attitude and source bolsters. A website can be an individual’s first impression of a company, and as the saying goes “first impressions are everything.”

A good website reflects well on your company, your brand, and the work that you do. If this is true then a bad website reflects poorly on your company, brand and the work you do.  If your website looks aesthetically pleasing and has high-quality, relevant content, visitors will certainly associate a positive attitude with your brand.

At Winning Strategies we believe that a carefully planned website strategy can benefit a client and their customers in many ways. One such example would be a website we recently put together for our client Mainstream GreenHome. With the increasing concern surrounding the “Going Green” movement, our client aspired to be at the forefront of environmentally-friendly home building industry. The objective for their new website was clear - we wanted to educate home builders and the general public about green building methods while positioning our client as a leader in environmental responsibility and sustainability… an excellent example of trying to establish a positive attitude or opinion in the mind of the consumer (in this case, a website visitor). We were able to accomplish these goals with the help of a highly interactive, professional design and a well-organized content strategy.

At the end of the day if someone visits your website and they develop a positive attitude toward your company and the products or services you provide, you are helping your cause tremendously. Your website is a direct reflection of your company, your attitude and even your position in the market. There is no dancing around this, how you look on the web is extremely important and will have quite an impact on the way others see you. After all, you wouldn’t go into a meeting with a potential client without looking your best, so why wouldn’t you want your website to look its best too?

I go to google.com twenty times a day, easily.  I’m not just a google-guy though, I also go to Yahoo.com about a dozen times a day as well.  I really don’t have an allegiance to either search engine, I use each for different reasons. When I want to do a keyword search, there is no doubt I am headed to Google. When I want search and a little more, maybe grab some news headlines, or a quick look at how poorly my portfolio is performing, I’ll visit YAHOO!.  I’ve never been terribly impressed with the look and feel of the search results pages for either engine, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever found a search results page aesthetically pleasing.

As search becomes smarter and more intuitive, literally by the day, one would wonder when it will become more visually appealing as well. All that text… hmmm, just doesn’t do it for me.  I see Google’s tremendous success in the search market and can’t help but to wonder if they have something up there sleeve. Afterall, if I can jump on Google Maps, type in my address and peak into my own window from a satellite far far away, why can’t we come up with something a little more creative than text on top of text on top of more text?

Some would argue that the simplicity of search is what makes the major players so successful. Personally, I don’t see it that way. Based on the numbers of searches and searchers, there is no denying the tremendous opportunity that exists here to create a more visually appealing and user-friendly search experience. And there is no doubt that this “new” experience could certainly create exciting ways for advertisers to get their message out.

Some have already started to do this.  SpaceTime and SearchMe are applications designed to enhance the search process by using visual imagery in combination with text. Rather than seeing line after line and page after page of text following a keyword search, these applications show actual web page screenshots from the sites that fit your search criteria. SpaceTime displays search results as three dimensional images while Searchme spreads image results out in a fan-like pattern across the computer screen. With these applications, web users have the option to select a website based on visual cues and keyword relevancy, rather than just sifting thru page after page of confusing text, searching for something that might, or might not be what they are looking for.

Both of these applications are being further developed as we speak.  Overall, visual search is a new topic and there is much more territory yet to be explored. A couple of other players include KartOO, Quintura and Pixsy.