How to: navigate the minefield of international marketing

Posted by Gareth on May 3, 2012 in B2B Marketing | 0 comments

We’ve recently had the pleasure of being asked to contribute to B2B Marketing Magazine, on the challenges of marketing internationally. Here’s an excerpt – you can read the rest of the article here!

As more and more companies operate in the global, or at least multiple-country market, with the expansion of instant communications and easier route-to-market for many products and services, it’s never been more important for smaller marketing agencies who don’t operate offices in multiple countries to offer co-ordinated international marketing services to their clients.

It can be very beneficial to both clients and the agency: streamlining a marketing manager’s operational costs and time liaising with one agency and offering opportunities for revenue growth within small-to-medium size agencies.

…read more on B2B Marketing

The Currency of Attention

Posted by Ben on Mar 20, 2012 in advertising, communications, internet, social media | 0 comments

Having recently become a dad, I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that need my devotion every day. It’s driven not by how much time it takes to get everything done, rather, it’s limited to how much time I have in waking hours (yes, it’s 4:40 a.m, and dawn has yet to break). Let’s do a little bit of basic mathematics. Now, I’m more than aware that these are assumptions based on my own life – I’m sure there are large numbers of variations.

There are 24 hours in a day. The average person sleeps for 8 of them. That leaves 16.

Put in getting ready for work, eating, commuting, drinking tea and general faffing, I would say that probably makes up at least 2 hours. We’re down to 14. For those of us who need to combat the eating and drinking with exercise, take out another couple of hours. For those of us who prefer to watch TV than go for a run – same. So we have 12 left.

Then there is spending time with the family, husband, wife, partner, friends, chatting, interacting with your work colleagues, people in the street, your mum on the phone, the guy in the newsagent etc. Another couple of hours. Let’s say 10 are left.

In that 10 hours (and this is being pretty optimistic, I have to admit), our attention is being demanded by so many different things that even if we had 100 hours we still wouldn’t be able to attend to them all. But the one thing you can guarantee is that for most people, that 10 hours is well and truly full.

So the question is, when you start out on a marketing campaign, how do you claim a few minutes of the attention which has already been claimed? How do you usurp one of your attention competitors?

The answer is simple, albeit easier said than done. You have to offer something which isn’t just engaging, interesting and compelling for the person whose attention you want, but it has to be consistent, trustworthy and, above all, better than what they are already spending their attention on.

Take a look at Social Media. There are umpteen dead Facebook pages, empty, abandoned blogs, ghost town-like LinkedIn groups and abandoned websites that if there could just be a bloody good clean up, the whole internet would be a far more interesting place. The reason that all of these things are dead is that despite the best intentions in the launch, the creator failed to offer something better than what was already out there, and as a result, failed to win the attention of their audience.

Attention is also incredibly fickle. You don’t just need to gain it – you also need to keep it. You need to keep being better, keep being interesting, keep being different, otherwise a competitor will come along and steal your prize. You need to constantly be on your toes, constantly thinking about what it is that your desired audience is going to want, constantly listening, improving and delivering excellence at every touchpoint.

In reality, attention is one of the most precious commodities in existence because there is a finite amount of it and it is actually reducing as more and more information is made available to us. The old rules of supply and demand are if the demand goes up and the supply stays the same (or reduces, which arguably it is as we are faced with more and more demands in our already over-busy lives) then the value of the commodity is going to increase.

Don’t dismiss attention. Don’t forget it and don’t ignore it. You might have 50,000 followers or friends, but are they actually paying attention to you? Don’t just think they are because they haven’t unfriended you yet, because in reality, their attention is somewhere else, with someone more interesting who is listening, and doing things that little bit better.

More haste. More speed.

Posted by Andy on Mar 8, 2012 in internet, technology, web | 0 comments

Remember those dark, distant days of dial-up? All that patient waiting, waiting, and more waiting for the pages to load. Agonising minute-by-minute anticipation rewarded (eventually) with the sparkly eye-watering newness of the super highway. Wow, how we marvelled.

But not for long. Soon the honeymoon was over. We demanded more. More of everything to browse and buy, easier access from anywhere, faster performance from hyper-speed fatband and instantaneous in-the-blink-of-an-eye connection to the web.

Today we expect a website to open its doors without an iota of hesitation. Our patience is micron-thin. If that site doesn’t open in a jiffy, we’re off to find another one that does. And fast! Research tells us that 40% of shoppers will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. And with every extra second of page load time costing a website 7% in lost conversions, no business can afford to delay its online customers for any longer than necessary.

But page load time isn’t just down to broadband breadth. Even with the fattest of pipes, you’ll find many leading sites will have their visitors twiddling thumbs. This is often because the Javascript tags used by many websites to measure results and reward referring channels can actually act as a brake on a site’s efficiency. Look under the bonnet and you could find web pages littered with dozens of duplicate, outdated and non-functioning tags. Left unmanaged these little critters will slow site performance and deter potential buyers.

Fortunately tag management has really moved on since the inception of analytics with innovations from people like TagMan. Winning several innovation awards, they are on hand to help slowcoach sites to streamline their tags, become more user-friendly and uplift sales.

So if you’re running a website, give it a quick road-test. If your test isn’t quick enough, it could be those little tags at fault. And those little tags could make a big difference to your sales. Because when it comes to speed, your visitors won’t be giving you a second chance.

The Continuing Importance of Blogs

Posted by Ben on Mar 2, 2012 in in our opinion..., internet, social media | 0 comments

With hundreds of millions of blogs published about every conceivable subject, it’s not surprising that brands are afraid of committing the resource to it for fear of being lost in the noise, or simply don’t see value in following through with what they had started.

The trouble is, that this often stems from a simple lack of understanding of the blogosphere – that it is in fact a community unto itself, made up of real people who really care about what they write and comment about.

Another common misconception that leads to blog burnout is that ‘thought leadership’ requires original content. On the contrary – in such a crowded marketplace, the real opportunities lie in taking time to listen and fuel your ideas. With this, you can play an important, qualified part in discussions with peers and professionals allows you to draw expert opinion into the mix, and ultimately offer value back to the community.

By the same measure, it’s not how often you write that’s important – a concern that’s frequently misplaced – the value of the content that you write, is what matters. That value comes from giving them information they can use, learn from, or question in discussion. It also comes from entertainment and distraction as much as learning.

Corporate bloggers would do well to rethink what their writing needs to do for the business. The ‘product’ that the new consumer is searching for is the level of passion and commitment you have to your offering – the customer experience – not just what it’s made of. Whether that’s sheet metal manufacturing or catwalk fashion, the meat of your material is based on the same principles.

A successful, well-syndicated company blog depends largely on who you choose to do it – choose someone who is genuinely passionate about your business, the one who is happy to speak to customers, stakeholders and interested observers, and the one who understands the culture and reputation that the business wants to cultivate.

Remember your business… and keep it real.

Posted by Ben on Feb 15, 2012 in advertising, in our opinion..., social media | 0 comments

It is a sad state of affairs, but the more we rely on the internet for business and communication, the easier it is to forget that we are still interacting with human beings. One of the earliest tenets of good business was that if you wanted customers to keep coming back, good customer service was really important. Just because the world has changed doesn’t mean this no longer applies. In fact, when considering your online reputation, I would suggest that it is more important than ever. Your offline reputation and online reputation are not mutually exclusive in any way. You lose one, you lose the other, and vice versa.

In working for a marketing agency, and for customer experience management clients like Satmetrix, I couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, like any marketing strategy, all too quickly marketers have begun to find ways to ‘shortcut’ the system. Just like they did with search engine marketing, new strategies are coming out to get more Twitter exposure or increase the number of friends you have on Facebook. There are thousands of widgets out there to mass submit yourself to social media sites. People are thinking up ways to force others to talk about them. It won’t be long before there are white hat and black hat social media marketing techniques, just like SEO. And guess who loses out, again? That’s right. The customer.

Why do marketers assume that the only way you can actually get results is to buck the system? I know we live with a culture of instant gratification and overnight results, but why does this have to be at the expense of actually providing customer service, customer value and going the extra mile occasionally? With all of the time and effort spent mass submitting your blog, you could have done something genuinely good for a customer, who is so happy that they can’t wait to talk about you. Surely that is what it is all about?

Just last week, James Baggott at Car Dealer Magazine was offered a spare car from Skoda, complete with lunch in the boot when he mentioned he was without a working runabout and didn’t have time to get lunch. Granted, VW Group spotted an opportunity for a great story in offering a ‘random’ act of kindness to an automotive journalist – but it’s clear they understand what being social all about. And a long time before the whole Giraffe Bread thing from Sainsbury’s, Julian Metcalfe from Pret A Manger may have started it all back in 2009.

I think Seth Godin really hit the drawbacks on the head in his post about trust and reciprocity, Trading Favours. Thankfully, the social web is self-policing for those that don’t. Unlike the search engines, which need to constantly re-write their algorithms to ensure that the results returned are the most relevant ones rather than the ones that some clever marketer out there has managed to cheat to the top, social media is continually monitored by the masses. If people don’t like what you are doing, or think you might be using the system for your own ends, they can just as quickly bury you. Or worse, ignore you.

Eventually, if all you do is get-rich-quick marketing without backing it up with some good, solid service and value, the only reputation you will really achieve is a surface one. If you want to build a reputation that is lasting, you have to remember that you are dealing with people, not a bot or machine. And in that respect, despite the advent of the internet, nothing has really changed.

How valuable is Facebook as a B2B marketing platform?

Posted by Ben on Jan 11, 2012 in advertising, B2B Marketing, in our opinion..., internet, social media, web | 0 comments

We’re often asked by our clients about the value of Facebook as a B2B marketing platform. Most recently, B2B Marketing asked us to comment on their article, “Facing Facts”.

Facebook can be as useful a tool for B2B marketing as much as it is for B2C. However, companies often fail by putting the horse before the cart, creating Pages before fully understanding their business goals behind a Facebook presence. It’s littered with orphaned profiles that have fallen short of audience attention.

It is human nature to want to feel part of a community. On the other hand, brands often forget the fundamental elements that make social networks work. Whether you’re a major manufacturer or a village solicitor, success doesn’t come from having lots of Likes. It comes from remembering the things that make good conversation: being interesting, relevant and valuable to whomever you’re engaging with.

Listening is just as big a part of communication as contributing. Social media activity should be divided between listening to what others have to say and contributing your own expertise, thoughts and ideas. Don’t just talk and ignore everyone else, as you may find yourself quickly being ignored by the community or worse.

Take the design community for example. It has a natural affinity with the tools Facebook provides to discuss design, talk about the challenges they face, inspire each other, and ultimately gather around a shared interest. For businesses in that sector, the benefits of having a presence on Facebook to draw them into the brand space are crystal clear.

In five years time, we may not be using Facebook. Chances are, we will be using something that has evolved from it. The tools will develop, but the actual process of online interaction and networking is here to stay.
Google+ is an interesting anomaly in the social media sphere now ““ it has clear benefits to brands and business use, because it has a much clearer delineation between what users do ‘socially’ and what they do for ‘business’ on the site. However, slow uptake is still its biggest limiting factor. It means brands need to spend more time researching if the people they want to target are on Google+ before committing to any time/spend. But if they are, it’s as easy (if not easier) to find them and communicate with them on Google+ (or LinkedIn) in a professional environment than on Facebook. It’ll be interesting to watch the development of Google+ as it opens up to more people and businesses especially.

In summary, it is very easy to have 1,000 subscribers, but a lot harder to have 10 that are actually valuable to your business, let alone maintaining good networking skills that keeps them coming back for more.

Although Facebook has many great facets to make it an interesting space for brands, one must be open to the fact that commercially, it may not the right arena for an online persona. It may well make more business sense to get involved with blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ or even a combination of many. As with any well-integrated marketing campaign, the first thing to do is search out the most relevant routes that will ultimately get the message to the right people.

Team Quick as a ‘Tache raise £1,159 for Movember

Posted by Gareth on Dec 6, 2011 in agency life | 0 comments

After a gargantuan team effort at growing poor facial hair, Quick-Thinking’s five Movember pioneers (for QT anyway) have managed to raise a fantastic £1,159 through the very kind donations of friends, family and co-workers / business colleagues. Gareth, Tim, Kris, Will and Andy would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that sponsored them and made all the bad photos, bad jokes and, overall, bad moustaches worthwhile.