Blog
Why You Should Blog
Posted Wed, 28 Jul 10
Whether online or offline, people do business with you because they know you, like you and they trust you.
Regular blogging offers you and your company the opportunity to connect with your prospects and customers online in a way that clearly demonstrates your skills and experience in your industry or specialized field. It also shows commitment to this.
When you blog, you build familiarity and positive branding that creates an online asset for you. Old articles that you have written still retain their value and are still read years later, thanks to content-hungry search engines.
It’s important that with whatever you post about, your blog should reflect your personality and who you are. If it’s dull, people won’t want to return again regularly. Writing on the web is more conversational than offline mediums, and it’s important to write like you speak.
By making sure you post to your blog regularly, you can build a regular following of those to look to you as an expert in your area. You will also help your website rank better organically in the search engines. Two great reasons why it pays to blog regularly on your site!
Can ALL of Your Website Prospects Access Your Site ?
Posted Fri, 18 Jun 10
Ever had problems surfing the web on your mobile device? Because mobile phone browsers view websites differently, surfing the net on your mobile phone isn't the same as doing this with your desktop computer.
The reason a site can be difficult to access via a mobile device is usually because the size of the page is a lot bigger than your screen. Increasingly, people are beginning to use portable devices to access the web wherever they happen to be. However, there are still many websites that are not mobile friendly.
As the market of mobile devices that are capable of accessing the Internet is constantly growing along with their user base, so too does the opportunity for marketers to expand their reach.
While some web masters use simple HTML codes to make a website to be displayed more or less correctly on mobile screen, the best solution for this is creating separate content for mobile phone users. You can see that YouTube and Google have already done this.
This added accessibility to your site can be created from a pre-made web design, so there’s little cost involved in making sure an increasing number of your website viewers can access you no matter how they browse the internet.
If you’re interested in finding out more about how to extend the reach of your website so that mobile device users are not excluded from browsing your site, give us a call to find out how easily this can be done for you.
Are You Maximising Your Adwords Results With The Right Web Page?
Posted Wed, 7 Apr 10
From online advertising to its website landing pages, a company's marketing strategy is just that, - strategic.
Or at least it should be!
Yet too often Adwords advertisers don’t think about what a prospect is going to see once they’ve clicked on an ad.
Often a prospect is left to navigate their way through the site to find what they were initially interested in. Instead of being gently taken by the hand and offered the information they were interested in, many leave the site almost straight away.
Why? Because what the ad promised, and what they ended up was not relevant and lacked sufficient interest to them.
This would-be site visitor translates to what is called a “bounce rate”in Google-speak. It’s a key indicator to watch on your site. If it starts getting high (say over 50%), it’s time to start asking the hard questions.
Questions like:
- Is the page my prospects are landing on too general?
- Is it even boring (even though it works for me)?
- Are there other things on the page that could end up distracting my visitors or take them off the page?
Google is adamant that that web searchers get relevant, quality results for their searches.
What does this mean to you if you’re Adwords advertiser? Well – put simply, if you want success with Adwords, you need to offer relevant, quality results to a user’s search query.
To not do this is not just a case of missing out on extra potential sales or other conversion goals.
As a form of quality control, Google checks your landing pages to grade you as part of something they call “Quality Score”.
They will penalize you with higher costs and lower positioning if your landing page is not up to scratch. So you can expect to see a higher cost per click in some cases, and a lower position on the page as well if you lack relevancy to search queries.
There is some good news here as well! Google can also reward you with lower costs and positioning for a high quality landing page if you improve your quality score. This means that you can sometimes end up paying less money for a higher ad position on the search query results page, as well as less money for the number of clicks that you get.
It’s always interesting to me as a marketer to see how just many Adwords advertisers send the traffic they are paying for through landing pages that they have not given a lot of thought to.
Yes, I know it’s tempting just to send someone to the easiest page on your site. It’s a lot quicker, and doesn’t require the time and perhaps additional cost of a purpose-built additional page to your site.
However, if you are doing Adwords - dollars to doughnuts, you are leaving money on the table if your page doesn’t do what it should.
It stands to reason that there’s not much point spending money on generating clicks for your ad if people lose interest shortly after getting to your landing page. Your conversion rates will not increase if the page you send prospects to if it doesn’t give them what they want and expect to see.
So it’s worth making sure that you’ve got this side of your internet marketing well and truly covered off.
Once you’ve had an opportunity to analyse web user behaviour on your site, you want to make sure that search terms being used are also being utilized the right way on the page that prospect lands on.
If you have a relatively new site and you’re not an Adwords advertiser, it can take a little while to get enough data to do this.
However, if you’ve had a site - and better still an Adwords account for a while - both of these can both be analysed together to find the best converting keywords for a particular product or service on your site. By doing this prior to creating a landing page, you can be a lot more targeted and relevant to your visitors’ search.
By creating relevance between the ad your prospect clicked on, and the content of the page they land on, you then increase your opportunities for conversion.
A landing page makes it easier for your visitors to:
- Answer basic questions, starting with “Am I at the right place?”
- Absorb and digest the key messages you want them to
- Complete a desired course of action, e.g. signup, purchase, etc.
Doing the above means satisfied needs. Satisfied needs mean happy customers, and a healthy bottom line for you.
The Acid Test: Does Your Website Landing Page Measure Up?
If your landing page is looking less than ideal, here’s an opportunity to do something about that.
We’re offering 10 free online marketing consultations on Landing Page Audit valued at $140.00 to the first 15 NBM clients who put their hand up! Time and resources unfortunately mean we can’t offer this to all of our clients.
We’ll give you our professional and honest opinion on whether your current landing page for your Adwords prospects could be improved, based on your campaign, your current landing page results, and our online marketing knowledge.
You’ll get a free low-down on where your landing page gets brownie points, and if there is room for improvement, where it could do with some help to do the job you intend for it.
You’re welcome to use this knowledge to help us build you a page that’s tailor-made for the job at hand, or simply leave it as it is.
The best thing is you’ll know exactly whether or not there are things that can be improved or changed to help boost your current results.
If you’d like us to check out whether you’re the pages your Adwords prospects are
To make sure you’re one of the 10 NBM clients who get to benefit from this offer, call the office today on (07) 5580 3933 or email us at solutions@nbm.com. We’ll work out mutually convenient time to get together to make sure you’re on track!
It’s the fastest way to make sure you’re not a Google advertiser who’s leaving money on the table!
5 Ways Branding Can Help Your SEO
Posted Wed, 30 Sep 09
The internet is predominantly a direct marketing medium. It's driven by databases, direct response and customer relationships which means it's highly targeted, highly accountable and very efficient. The trouble is, it's so effective that many businesses don't even consider the importance of a brand online. Big mistake.
The Kokoda Challenge 2009: The Analysis
Posted Thu, 17 Sep 09
By Rob
A couple of months ago, NBM's team competed in the Kokoda Challenge. To recap and reflect on this experience, I decided to take a look at our Tweets from our Twitter page over the course of the challenge and show you just what we were thinking at the time.
Before the Challenge
Before the event had begun, we were feeling pumped. We had done some good training and bought some top notch gear. As far as we knew, we were good to go.
Bring on the the Kokoda Challenge!
With a little more preparation
Testing twitter from sms. Adam
We were set to go. As we drew near the event, the gravity of the event became clear and a little trepidation set in.
All set for the challenge! I'm tired just thinking about it!! - Mitch
You should go to bed then Mitch - Adam.
The Challenge Begins
On the morning of the event, we awoke to a pretty nice day, no rain, harsh winds or any bad weather was forecast. We had packed everything we needed and we felt set to tackle the challenge.
What a awesome kokoda morning! Waiting for wez to pick us up. 96km here we come. Adam
We arrived at the event and unfortunately not everything was kosher, I suddenly realized that I forgot my pants. Luckily, I had my skins on and while they looked a bit strange, we managed to begin the race with a good start.
Off to a good start. Rob dropped everything including his pants.
The first part of the event was pretty straight forward, we were in unfamiliar terrain, but quickly approaching Polly's Kitchen our training ground for the challenge.
Over 10k in and Halfway to polly's can't wait to get there. Kokoda. Rob.
Unfortunately, on the way to Polly's we took a wrong turn which cost us valuable time.
Missed a turn off.. Had to do 1k extra. Now 97kms! Wez
Fortunately Mitch's dad and wife were waiting for us with refreshments and a refuel. Just around the corner, Polly's was also waiting. As expected, we smashed it and hurried towards the next checkpoint.
we just smashed pollies! All the training paid off. Need to move fast to make the hall before dark. Otherwise no lights. Adam
The Pain Sets In
On the way to the Hall we were struggling, but some nice flats allowed us to pick up our pace to reach the hall on dark.
At the enviro, the boys are struggling, need to keep pushing through. Kokoda Adam.
Making good pace along the flats. Should be at the hall just after dark. Kokoda challenge bring it on.
Mitch is thinking about something to eat. Apparently lentil soup is on the menu thanks to wez's mum!
At hall just on dark.
At a refreshing stop, Wez's mum and Eirin came, armed with lentil soup and general support. We wanted to stay a little longer, but the cold was setting in and we needed to keep warm and focused on our goal, we had officially walked over 50km.
After a nice break, we're back on the move. Over halfway. Kokoda. Rob
Conquering Syd Duncan Park
The pain by now was really setting in and some of us were close to OD'ing on Nurofen. We were aiming to reach Syd Duncan Park, which was about two thirds in. On the way, Wez's knee began to play up and he was struggling up the mountain. In addition, our light batteries began to dwindle and we were walking half blind through mountainous, rocky terrain – as you can imagine, not ideal for your knees or ankles!
After not too long, the pain became unbearable for Wez and he pulled out of the challenge.
68km in. Feeling awful but going to push thru. Wez is gone. His knee went. Kokoda. rob
The climb to Syd Duncan didn't get any easier. We were tired and wrecked, but we eventually made it to the major check point. Wez's mum and Erin were waiting for us with more food and support. I was feeling out of it and I think I fell asleep here. As good as this checkpoint was, Adam urged us to move on.
The Final Stretchp
Mitch and I began to struggle, but still, Adam's encouragement drove us on. We pushed past another checkpoint and at this stage we were really feeling it. At one stage we were about to pull out, but Adam convinced us for just one more check point. I'm glad we pushed through.
Unfortunately, we just couldn't do it. Our feet and legs were completely shot. We'd been awake for 24 hours and we gave it up. Our disappointment couldn't even be contained within 140 characters and yes, it was a low point.
Kokoda challenge is over for nbm, 82k only 13k to go, the boys couldn't do it. Disappointed. But there is always next year
Very disappointed we got so close but couldn't finish, i think my feet would have fallen off if i walked any further though! Mitch
The Aftermath
We ended up hurting for many days after
They didn't register our last check point? Mitch
my legs hurt - wez
Reflecting back on it now, 82kms was quite an achievement, one that, I'm sure, we'll all look back on for many years to come.
Is the customer always right?
Posted Wed, 16 Sep 09
By Gary Jeffress
This month's guest post is by Gary Jeffress from The Maverick Project. As the name suggests Gary is on a mission to change the way people think about business and life. He offers business and life coaching services, is also a public speaker and presenter. To get in touch with Gary visit www.maverickcoaching.com.au
I had an interesting experience recently. After ordering a meal at a local leagues club, I went to a bar to purchase a lemon squash and a glass of wine. The wine list displayed the house wine which was De Bortoli Chardonnay - $3.50. I ordered this and a lemon squash. The bar attendant, went to the refrigerator, took out a bottle and poured a glass. With the lemon squash, it came to $8.70. This was more than I expected.
When I queried the amount she charged, she replied "You asked for De Bortoli Windy Peak Chardonnay didn't you?" I said that I had asked for the $3.50 house wine listed on the wine list. She was most annoyed. She grumpily explained that she had poured the more expensive and better one. She then put it aside and poured the correct wine which was "on tap".
Although I looked at the wine list as I asked for the order, I did not mention it was the $3.50 house special. I used the De Bortoli brand name instead, which was on the wine list. In customer service training programs, I will often discuss the notion that the customer is always right, but there are many variations.
Business owners are aware that "The right customer is always right"
What response should have been used by the attendant at the time?
Another example was when I had ordered a takeaway chicken meal with specific choices of the pieces I wanted in the pack of 2. The attendant refused and said they were specific pieces put into the packs and could not be changed. This I challenged and after some arguing and the young person not budging, I left unhappy. That person had a perceived win in the moment and stood his ground. And in this day of competition with everyone wanting to do better than the next person perhaps it was a smart move on his part.
Although in a take-home environment isn't everyone the "right" customer? What young people are not taught is that a "life-time" customer is paramount and businesses should be training their people with this view. I walked out of that situation saying I will never go back there again and telling all who would listen of my experiences. If you were the owner serving at the time, would you have treated me that way, given a desire to see the same people in your store as many times as possible is most important to you. If some flexibility was shown I would not be spending a painful $10 just once. I would be in your store possibly 20 times per year. If I only spent $10 how much would that be per year. If I lived in the area for 10 years how much would that mean to you? Then multiply it by the amount of customers that walk through your door daily.
5 year plan? You mean 5 year guess.
Posted Wed, 15 Jul 09
A great post on the 37 Signals blog.. Why not to spend too much time planning.
"Let's just call plans what they are: guesses...So next time you're working on a business plan, call it a business guess. And that financial plan? It's a financial guess. Strategic planning? Call it with it really is: a strategic guess. 5 year plan? You mean 5 year guess." http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1805-lets-just-call-plans-what-they-are-guesses
Will You Join The Online Business Gold Rush?
Posted Fri, 10 Jul 09
by Wez
It's the modern day gold rush - the wild wild web. When you think that the web has only really been around in mainstream use since the beginning of the new millennium, not even 10 years ago, it's frightening to think where it will be in another decade. Think of the TV in its first 10 years and now look at the 50inch wide screen plasmas we're now used to.
World wide Internet users have trebled since 2000 (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm), and there's still plenty of room for growth. In terms of what the web has to offer I would think its only currently at 10% maybe 20% capacity of what it will be in the coming years.
Opportunities for Online Businesses
It's unrealistic to try and create the next Facebook or Twitter, however I can bet if you focus on your industry there will be an opportunity to create an online business to solve a problem or make things easier. We've already seen examples of these with the more obvious online businesses being created in Australia including sites such as www.realestate.com.au, www.seek.com.au and www.wotif.com.au
Once off the ground a good online business, combined with a revenue model like a subscription based service, can mean a high profit margin with ongoing revenue -- and provide great leverage possibly marketed nationally or even world wide.
My few quick tips for creating a successful online business:
- Focus on simple idea's, don't get too complex
- Stick to what you know best, using your current knowledge, experience and connections.
- It needs a clear business/revenue model (which Twitter is still trying to work out)
- Be prepared to spend the time and money to get it afloat.
- Start with the essentials only, focus on the core service. Do one thing and do it well.
Example Online Businesses
At NBM we've helped create and work with many up and coming online businesses:
www.doggyinthewindow.com.au
A pet products wholesaler created a website within their industry for breeders to sell puppies.
www.golfindustrycentral.com.au
A golf consultant saw an opportunity to create an education and information portal for the golf business industry.
www.funseekers.com.au
Event organizer created an online social and event club.
www.quickbackup.com.au
And of course Quick Backup, our web based business that we saw a need with our clients.
