Sitegeist Blog - Beitrags-Archiv für die Kategory 'Being good'

It’s the same online and offline. If you want people to help you out with market research or insights, you’ll get more (and more engaged) responses if you offer them something of real value.

Cheap as chips
I recently visited a website and was interrupted by a pop-up asking if I wanted to take part in a 10-minute survey. I’d go in a draw to win an iPod.

No. I don’t really.

First – of course – I probably wouldn’t win the iPod. Second, I actually own an mp3 player. You can buy them now for about $10. And third, what a bunch of cheapskates! [I did appreciate being told up-front that it would take 10 minutes, though. Points for that, at least.]

I might have done the survey if they’d offered a night away as their prize. Or a car.

Real rewards
A couple of months ago, I got a survey enclosed in my electricity bill. 5 questions. If I answered them and sent it back inside a fortnight, they’d knock $10 off my next bill.

Did I do the survey? You bet I did. Took a minute. There was a postage-paid reply envelope. Too easy. Happy to help.

Money for nothing?
So whether you’re offering a prize or an up-front reward, make sure you’re not just taking your web visitors (or real-world visitors) for granted. Doing real market research costs money. If you want to involve your users or community, don’t take the piss. You can still get a cheap deal, but offering the slimmest of chances of winning a $150 music player doesn’t really cut it.

Got an in-store competition? That’s great! But the same rules apply. Make the prize worth it.

Not like this in-store window display that I saw recently… Is there anything sadder than a sad bear offered as a prize to kids with lice and nits?

QUSETION: How does an organisation with ongoing online content requirements ensure their content is :

• Of a high standard?
• On message?
• On brand?
• Compelling?
• Consistent?

ANSWER: Make a style guide.

Ha ha. OK, bad joke. No. Not by creating a style guide. Or not only by doing that, anyhow.

And using spell checkers doesn’t really help either.

It’s all about communication. People engaged in content creation (text, design, video, etc) need to understand more than just the subject matter to create effective content.

They need to be brand experts and brand ambassadors. They need to understand:

• Voice: Who is the content from? Is it an organisation or a person? How should the content be seen by the audience?
• Context: Where will the content be placed? What will be next to it? Will it be reused in different contexts?
• Audience: Who will read it? When and why? Are there particular search terms being targeted that help identify who the likely consumer of the content is?
• Influence/Outcome: What are consumers of the content meant to do after they are finished?
• Search and Find: How should the content be structured to enable users to find it, and then to read it easily?

It’s only after all of these questions are answered that content creators can go about their business.

After that, it’s all about talent (which can’t be taught) and technique (which can). Oh, and a style guide.

Do your content creators (in-house or external) have all the information they need?

Purple or Prosaic?
It’s a tricky business naming a product. The first decision is probably to work out whether you want something suggestive, creative and ephemeral, or something literal and descriptive.

I always want to go down the purple path, but common sense (usually) eventually kicks in.

The right way to go might depend on a few variables:

• the nature of the product (Socket Set versus CK One)
• names of competitor products (Jif, Vim, Bam)
• fit with other products you make (iSnack 2.0???)
• your target market (Carlton Draft versus Mountain Goat Hightail Ale)
• and more

In the end, you want a name that resonates with the right people at the right time.

Getting the right ‘feel’
When I was thinking of a name for this business, I thought literal (Content Strategy Australia), personal (Ryan Strategy Group), evocative (too embarrassing to reveal) and thematic (WordWork) before hitting on Sitegeist. It’s a name that not everyone ‘gets’, but it works for me because it captured the spirit of the business I wanted to run:

• clever
• funny
• sophisticated
• self-aware

Not everyone likes it, but most of my clients do.

Slipstream what?
I recently helped Ben, a friend and former colleague, come up with a name for some software he has developed. The original name – ‘Slipstream’ – was evocative; meant to imply speed and ease – two of the product’s main attributes. It was also already being used, so he chose another name – this one far more thematic and overt about the actual product: WindowFlow.

In hindsight, he was lucky my initial suggestion wasn’t available; the new name is clearer, less ambiguous, and should work better with the product’s target market. Smart thinking.

What tree?
I also worked for a while on the popular online travel bulletin board at Lonely Planet, the Thorn Tree. A great name…if you already knew what it was.

But, as a smart website manager asked me, why would anyone click on those words in a navigation menu? She was right. The product name was too obscure. The result was a product that felt just a bit too ‘clubby’ and exclusive.

Solution? Simple: call it “Thorn Tree travel forum”. It retains its quirky on-brand identity, and also “says what it is on the tin”. Bingo.

Research. There it is again.
A word of warning, though. When naming a product, do a bit of research into what the words actually mean. Toyota’s Starlet is a good example: A starlet is a young movie star with potential. Yes. But another common definition is “a young and inexperienced actress who is projected as a potential star”. Overhyped. Hmmm.

Another car model is the Mirage: “Something illusory”. And there’s the whole Pajero=wanker debacle. Or does it mean “straw seller”. Or is it just an urban myth?

Here’s a fun product, snapped in a shop window in the charming Victorian town of Beaufort last weekend. It’s always worth checking out any slang implications for your product name too…

With the announcement a week or two back of the iPad (great name, guys), thoughts again turn to the e-reader.

The Kindle, launched in 2007, was the first big-name foray into the e-book reader space, and – if electronic book readers finally really take off on the back on the iPad – it’s set to be a revolution in both publishing and reading as shattering as the invention of the printing press around 1440.

Hyperbole? Yeah, maybe.

Although if Apple’s track record with established production and distribution methods (think iTunes and the music industry) and with owning a nascent market (‘iPod’ now equals ‘mp3 player’ in the same way that Walkman, Rollerblade, Hoover, Xerox and Kleenex all once became synonymous with their product class), is anything to go by, the iPad will at once popularise e-book readers and redefine the e-book marketplace.

If I ran a newspaper, and I wasn’t already terrified about the future, I would be now.

So what about actual books? I’m not talking about literary forms, such as the novel or poetry. I mean the actual physical paper-based artefact?

Well, who knows? I bought a brand new vinyl LP last year, so old formats can still survive technological revolutions. [Having said that, I quickly digitised the record and now listen to it almost exclusively as mp3 files…]

As for the book, some folks out there obviously think there’s a mid-point between old-skool print and the ephemeral digital age.

And if this concept video from Japanese mobile phone innovation crowd Mobile Art Lab is anything to go by, I say, bring on the hybrid!

This one is simple. It’s straight from Marketing 101:

Customers are more interested in benefits than features.

Here’s why, and – more importantly – how to make it happen on your website…

The bulk of your online activity needs to be devoted to explaining why potential customers should buy/use/contact/believe you. Yet too many businesses spend all their time explaining their products or services – often in painful detail.

Of course, describing what you do (or what your product does) is important, but it should always be done with your potential customer in mind. What benefit do they want from your business?

Here’s Sitegeist’s simple 5-step plan to improving your website content, and boosting effectiveness at the same time:

1. Look at a claim or product feature on your site.
2. Ask the question, “So what?”
3. Write down the answer. This is the benefit.
4. Now, delete the original copy, and replace it with the benefit.
5. Repeat throughout your site.

Benefits vary, and include:

• saving time
• saving money
• making it easier
• improving status
• feeling good
• getting rich
• knowing more
• looking better

Here are some examples of product features that become stronger when pitched at a customer need:

We’ve got the best-tasting coffee
So what?
Our coffee might be the best you’ve ever tasted; perfect for turning a 10-minute break into an island of indulgence in your busy day.

We have the cheapest printing service
So what?
Save on printing so you have more of your marketing budget to spend on the great copywriters at Sitegeist!

We have the most experienced climate scientists in the country
So what?
Our climate research is the most highly respected, so you can be sure that you are 100% correct at your next dinner-party global-warming discussion.

Our political party has the best policy on refugees
So what?
Our refugee policy allows us to look the rest of the world in the eye and say, “We’re doing the right thing”.

So if you know what your customers actually need, give it to them.

And if you don’t know what your customers need, maybe it’s time to ask them.