Toggle Next Previous

Neglected alerts, error messages and other unglamorous digital touch-points can erode your brand

by Yannis |February 6th, 2013

I guess I could call myself an HTC fan. Not only because I think they produce decent products but also because I would like to believe that they follow Avis’s old moto, “We are No.2, we try harder”. Alas, they appear not to be doing so; they suffer from the same malaise that besets countless other companies with digital products and services.

A few days ago I was fiddling with the official HTC installer on my Windows 7 laptop and this shocking message came up:

Despite HTC’s efforts to provide quality service and engage with people (they were very quick to respond to some comments I made a while back on Twitter and to follow me) someone, somewhere dropped the quality ball. Alerts like this don’t just appear in a vacuum. They need to be specified, written, designed, programmed into the system that requires them, tested, approved and finally launched with the end product.

Read more Read more

Comments No Comments
Posted in Branding|Content|Customer Service|Interface|Mobile|UX
Toggle Next Previous

Pay with a Tweet: the instant marketing currency

by Yannis |May 11th, 2011

First was the big green button. More than 10 years ago charities and charitable sponsors started using it and soon it was everywhere. The text read: “Click here and we will donate 1p for each click”. Nowadays, a Tweet does just as well. It’s simple, instant and rewarding both for the service/product provider and the audience.

Here is an example from Twittercounter

And here are some other examples of how Pay with a Tweet is being used: http://www.paywithatweet.com/cases.html

Comments No Comments
Posted in B2B|Content|Content Marketing|Content Strategy|Customer Service|ecommerce|Skyron|Social Media
Toggle Next Previous

Time-wasting enquiries down 90% after website delivers the right content to the right audience in the right format

by Yannis |September 24th, 2010

News International AdHelpHere is another great example of a classic scenario: great content meets loving audience and they live happily ever after.

We developed this website for a single reason: to provide a small and targeted group of people – advertising production professionals – with the information they need to do their job better – ad specs and delivery details.

Previously, the support line featured on the website was being inundated with calls from frustrated users on a daily basis. The new website delivers the right information to them in the right format.  The result? A 90% drop in time-wasting enquiries and a very happy client.

The strikingly simple recipe for this is nothing new, but worth repeating:

  • Understand your audience
  • Generate relevant content
  • Make the content easily accessible
  • Sit back and reap the benefits

We love it when a plan comes together.

Link: http://www.niadhelp.com/

Comments No Comments
Posted in B2B|Case Studies|Content|Media & Publishing|Skyron|Umbraco|Websites
Toggle Next Previous

RSS feed without content? Would you send an empty email with only a subject line?

by Yannis |September 15th, 2010

boxAs an avid user of RSS and Google Reader I find feeds without content really irritating. An example is Marketing Week’s feeds that arrive with only a subject line and with nothing else. Marketing Week must be pretty confident that their subjects are attractive enough to incite double action. I say double action, because the user has to first click on the feed subject to open it and then click again to visit the original article on the source site. Imagine sending out emails to your audience with no content at all, but only a subject line!

Read more Read more

Comments No Comments
Posted in Content|Content Marketing|Content Strategy|RSS|Social Media|Thought Leadership
Toggle Next Previous

Migrating content from your old website? Here is a simple, yet über-effective tip…

by Yannis |August 28th, 2010

Thousands of pages, countless sections and subsections, hidden forms, forgotten PDFs and a global navigation buckling under the weight of 5 years worth of constant updates and additions. And now it has to be you in charge of migrating this unruly mess to your organisation’s brand new website and CMS.

It took years of hard work for the content to come together and everyone agrees there is some good stuff in there. But where do you start? Here is a trick to help you develop some criteria by which you can decide what to do with all this content.

Read more Read more

Comments No Comments
Posted in Analytics|Content|Intranets/Extranets|Websites
Toggle Next Previous

SharePoint 2010: The perpetual user journey on tap

by Yannis |June 16th, 2010

Had a hands-on session with SharePoint 2010 yesterday and experienced the vast amount of cross-linking that dominates the new version. Documents, people, knowledge, expertise, actions, disciplines, locations, are all weaved together into a (what appears to be) seamless network that can easily transform a quick intranet visit into a never-ending journey.

For years now we have been removing dead ends from user journeys in intranets and B2B websites. Each confirmation page invites further involvement, each content page features strong calls to action and cross referenced information and even the whole website is not a dead end, but it links to Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, Skype or mobile downloads (I looked into this process in an earlier post about the “engagement cycle“). The objective is of course to make each journey even more valuable to the individual and to strengthen their relationship with the brand.

Numerous community websites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Wikipedia have achieved stellar success on the back of this simple principle of inter-connectivity that leads to the perpetual user journey. SharePoint 2010 puts this amazing functionality “on tap” for any organisation ready to make a transition into this brave new world.

Comments No Comments
Posted in Content|Corporate Communications|Insights|Intranets/Extranets|Social Media|Websites
Toggle Next Previous

5 steps to transforming your consumption of B2B news with mobile RSS

by Yannis |May 17th, 2010

Search for “B2B Marketing” on Google and this is what you get:

  • 390,000 results in the last 30 days
  • 124,000 in the past 7 days
  • 18,700 in the past 24 hours

This staggering flow of information consists of content such as  white papers, research, agency solutions, advertorials, case studies, blog posts, editorial stories, news and real-time content. You’d be forgiven for feeling intimidated, out of the loop, ill informed or left behind. I asked a number of industry professionals, clients and business friends how they keep up with B2B marketing and industry news each week; most can manage just a quick flick through a magazine and a skim  through a couple of email newsletters.

Enter mobile RSS. I switched from web-based to mobile RSS a year ago and it has transformed the way I consume business-related content. Mobile RSS has allowed me to browse and read more content, to easily archive and retrieve items of interest and to constantly optimise my list of feeds so that I read what’s relevant to me and weed out what’s not.

Read more Read more

Comments No Comments
Posted in Content|Insights|Mobile|RSS|Thought Leadership
Toggle Next Previous

How to manage your content for ROI

by Yannis |May 9th, 2010

Your organisation is an unstoppable content generation machine. Whether you are in technology, telecommunications, publishing, financial or professional services, think about how much content you produce: news, press releases, research reports, white papers, case studies, insights, sales presentations, proposals, copy for your brochures, websites, products, solutions, manuals and the list goes on. Usually, content appears to just happen; nobody plans it, nobody owns it and nobody is checking to see if anyone out there is reading.

Typical pains associated with arbitrary content generation are:

  • Product managers focus on feature jargon only they can understand
  • Strategy people tend to turn thoughts into dissertations
  • The company website’s copy was more or less copied from the previous website
  • No one knows if anyone reads the case studies on the website and if they add any value
  • Is a white paper better off as a registration sweetener or reward?
  • The PR agency is writing some stuff for the news section, but they don’t understand SEO
  • A work experience person wrote the LinkedIn company description; he even misspelled the company’s name

Read more Read more

Comments No Comments
Posted in Analytics|Content|Content Marketing|Content Strategy|CRM|Lead Generation|Sales|Social Media
Toggle Next Previous

RingRing Media appoints Skyron to push proposition with new website

by Yannis |April 25th, 2010

Ring Ring Media logoRingRing Media, the fast growing international mobile media agency, has appointed  Skyron to shape and promote their brand, proposition and services to a global audience with a new website. The website will convey the company’s ethos, global reach, multinational clients  and focus on delivering value via a visually rich interactive experience.

RingRing Media manages international multi-million dollar mobile campaigns for some of the world’s largest brands.

Comments No Comments
Posted in Content|Corporate Communications|International|Mobile|Websites
Toggle Next Previous

Analytics help News International uncover the lead generating power of their B2B website

by Yannis |April 16th, 2010

NIC HomepageThe website of News International Commercial (NIC – the trade marketing arm of NI)  is a typical B2B exercise. It promotes the brand, showcases products and features case studies, news, insights and contact information. And like a lot of other B2B websites it could easily be left to its own devices  condemned to a sad life of brochureware insignificance. Such neglected B2B sites, and there are quite a few around,  act like a black hole where an unspecified number of users go in and out, but nobody knows what they get up to – and consequently nobody has with any idea how to make any money from them. So when the strategy behind the NIC website was drafted, Skyron advised the marketing team on the commercial benefits of analytics. Everyone agreed that to extract maximum value from the effort and money invested, a closer monitoring of the website’s performance would be the way forward.

Read more Read more

Comments No Comments
Posted in Analytics|Case Studies|Content|Lead Generation|Media & Publishing|Optimisation|Websites
« Older Entries