Maxys Max Media and Entertainment

Quality vs Quantity

What is better, a website that converts 1% of 100 visitors or 10% of 10?

JavaScript is disabled! To display this content, you need a JavaScript capable browser. Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22! Our recent CLIVE ALIVE (see video above) event discussed "Creative Differentiation"

I've never heard of Quantity Service!

Is marketing just a numbers game or is it the quality of your visitors and customers that matters most?

At the recent Online Retailers Conference in Sydney I was amused at the disproportionate number of exhibitors promoting Search Engine Optiminisation (SEO). SEO is essential (it helps to qualify your web visitors) but it's only one small part of online marketing and customer engagement.

The influence of mass media advertising is descreasing - we are increasing influenced by online word of mouth testimonial.

12.5 seconds

The most critical element of a new visitor to your website is the first 12.5 seconds - it's in these first few moments that a new visitor makes a decision whether to stay or go.

What's your web visitor experience like? Did your website engage? Did it build trust?

What's your ratio of visitors to customers look like? Is it increasing or decreasing?

For the record the average across most retail sites is 1% - wow 99% of website visitors don't engage!

How well do you know your visitors and online customers?

I was very impressed with Core Metrics whole of customer cycle management system at the show.

How can you easily increase online customer engagement?

A recent US Report on online advertising effectiveness showed that rich media with video significantly increased website results.

But a warning, not all rich media video is the same

A Few Tips on Rich Media with Video

• Users appreciate quality content and production. For professional results use professionals - it's not about the technology it's about the communication.
• Content must be relevant to the viewer. There's no point running a video for red meat on a vegitarian recipe page (unless you're out the convert buyer behaviour).
• User control is important - allow users to quickly close or mute.
• Cookie control functionality so your visitor is not getting the same message every time. Better still create a series of sequenced messages that create a conversation with your returning visitors and customers.
• No buffering - No one want to wait five seconds or more for a website video to load and play. Rich Media video must be fast.
• Keep your message real and to the point. Your in your viewers very personal space (less than a metre), value their time and eyeballs. Make your message sharp and to the point.
• Entertain to inform (if required use professional presenters)

Professional Rich Media Video will dramatically increase your visitor to sales ratios.

For more information on creating effective Rich Media video please give us a call on 61 2 8005 8072

What and interesting couple of days - Twitter knocked back a takeover from Facebook, our first big corporate (AstraZenica) embraced CLIVE on mydr.com.au, the Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) tender closed yesterday with Telstra outlining what it will and won't do;  whatever happens next is too hard to say. 

Can the network that will lay down a communications and future economic infrastructure for the country been built without Telstra? 

Whatever, we'll soon know BUT the future is digital irrespective if Gerry Harvey thinks online is a waste of time.

First, I have the utmost respect for Gerry Harvey, he's done a great job in building his retail operations over the last 50 years - BUT the times they are a changing and the future ain't rocket science!

Simply, people follow paths of least resistance. The facts are that advertising dollars follow where customers search - online advertising is growing - newspaper, television and radio effectiveness is decreasing. Today the media landscape has changed; online is where Rupert is focused and some say why James dumped his dad's beloved PBL and Nine.

The future is online.

Today most people begin any purchase search on the web. Do we have to look any further than real estate, holidays, books and music?

From buying a computer to a car, we are beginning to see rich internet media reduce the need for retail showrooms.

Today we can get a look at and explore a product without having to waste time in traffic, car parks, weekend warriors and apathetic or untrained sales staff, 24/7 from the comfort of home.

Once customers know what they want they compare, is it then only a question of whether it is cheaper/easier/faster to buy online or go down to the local shop.

Online social word of mouth recommendation and influence is also increasing. See Seth Godin's Tribes and Forrester Research's Groundswell.

GH's current strategic advantage - current brand awareness, purchasing aggregation and distribution is key - all the rest are just commodities.

For sellers, producing an internet video is far cheaper than most 30 second television commercials (excusing the HN ads) and without having to pay all the advertising rebates.

Nearly every manufacturer or supplier would secretly like to get closer to their customers (if they could) and disintermediate costly or inefficient (not adding significant value) supply chains.

SMH today - THE $1.6 billion online advertising industry is set to get a revenue injection from reluctant converts to the medium after a study of its effectiveness as a brand-building tool.

 New Epsilon CMO Survey Highlights Shift to Digital Marketing;

Decrease in traditional Marketing Budget

Chief Marketing Officers at many of the biggest brands in the nation are seeing a major shift in the marketing landscape. Almost two-thirds (63%) of the 175 marketing executives surveyed see an increase in their spending on interactive/digital marketing while 59% report a decrease in traditional marketing spend. 

Marketing Mix:

CMOs of the biggest brands have been early adopters of new media with social computing and blogs receiving the most interest whereas instant messaging and interactive TV ads were the least popular.

* Social computing (including word of mouth, social networking sites, viral advertising, etc.) was the most popular emerging channel with 42% of marketing executives expressing interest in adding it to their marketing mix.
* Blogs were the second most popular emerging channel: 35% of marketing executives want to pursue blogs and 19% already use blogs
* Almost one-third of CMOs mentioned Podcasting as an area of interest: 31% are interested in adding Podcasting to their marketing mix and 18% already have.
* Mobile devices also elicited interest: 29% are interested in Mobile Devices (Phones/PDAs) and 22% have added them to their marketing mix.

Australian Tourism Campaign Update

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Last week we looked at the new Australian Tourism Ad by Baz Luhrmann 

24,684 views on YouTube/ 31 comments.

Influential American Media "Creativity" website  had this feedback

" we looked at work for Tourism Australia that was produced by Baz Luhrmann, who just happens to be gearing up for his newest movie, an epic love story called "Australia" starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The Australian filmmaker, known for "Romeo + Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge!" teamed up with Australia's tourism board to conceive the spots, which also feature an Aboriginal actor who's in the movie. With both the place and a character in common with the film, we wanted to know how well this campaign sells content and commerce simultaneously. Do these spots make you want to pack off to Australia? How 'bout the movies?

While Rate the Adsters liked the campaign, most—other than the proud Aussie, that is—just couldn't swallow all the magical desert dust. Commenter "AndrewR" says, "I think the insight (need for revival & escape) is interesting, and the truism about the brand (incredibly grand nature & escape) is spot on....What bothers me though is the dark, moody and seemingly one-trick gravitas of it - and the seemingly narrow target audience this will appeal to. To be truly effective it'll need a number of different moods and executions to provide a bigger story and emotional connection with the 'brand' of Australia. I only hope Tourism Australia has deep pockets, because Baz ain't cheap!"

"Grafbob" points to how Tourism Australia might be a wee out of touch with the global economic climate: "I tend to be an American workaholic. The spot did rekindle my memories of discovering the Cascade Mountains nearby. Being mostly broke these days, Australia seems like Mars. ...Given the current economic situation, I feel that it might be a long time before I would be able to get down under."

Publicity and Media for your Small Business

One of the tools in your business marketing armoury is the "Press Release". That one page of your fantastic news blasted out to all those lovely media outlets and bloggers around the world, with the aim to get your story into the mass media, in front of your potential customers, into the blogosphere and on the tips of everyone's lips - all for FREE.

Yeah right! Now let's get back to reality.

In terms of Return On Marketing Investment then Press Releases are a very effective strategy BUT with one proviso - the content HAS to be newsworthy.

In a past life, we once put a laptop in a surfboard connected to the web as a publicity stunt to highlight a mobile technology "work anywhere" concept - it caught the media's attention. That release generated a major Sunday night new television headline story and about twenty radio and newspaper stories in less than three days.

The upfront PR investment was $3,000 for writing and publicity management, the value of the coverage received an estimated $100,000+

It doesn't always work out that way.

Making News

With the recent launch of Maxys cool transparent video service CLIVE we once again put the writing of our media release in the hands of professional journalist - Fran Molloy from Ultraverse - tech savvy mum of four.

Note: From a business point of view at the moment we're mainly concerned with organic online growth (without the big bang of a product launch) to give us time to develop all our marketing collateral based on initial market feedback.

If you are time poor then using a professional writer for your press release gets a far greater return on marketing investment and time BUT, another proviso, you need to be selective in your writer - select a writer that knows your marketplace and by their nature they tend to be distant enough from your business therefore more objective in terms of how your potential readers will respond.

In terms of return on expenditure we've found a huge 10:1 difference when articles were professionally written by a writer who fully understands our market and the needs of their peers - publishers and other journalists.

The key is a good clear brief.

If you follow the article links below to draft your brief for your writer you can then spend more time making sure the marketing message is what you want to say and more time on getting the message out there.

Once your article is written it then comes down to distribution.

Press Release Distribution

There are basically three levels

1. High end more traditional media distribution systems like Reuters
2. New web based services (both FREE and paid) like PRWEB
3. Create a direct, personal relationship with journalists/ bloggers.

CASE STUDY - MAXYS CLIVE

Objective:

Test Press Release Services for Maxys CLIVE with the aim to include Press Release Distribution in our marketing service offerings to our clients.

• When we have more budget then we'll look at the higher end solutions. This is where a large number of journalists get their articles.
• We've used PRWEB very successfully over the years so I decided to hold off PRWEB until we've launched the CLIVE promotional video (currently being produced)
• I'm also holding off dealing direct with local journalists just yet until we've got a few more local case studies and testimonials to discuss.

So what's left?

A search on Google for "FREE PRESS RELEASE" finds the following good article on Publicity & Media For Your Small Business and includes

• Benefits of marketing with Press Releases
• Writing your press releases
• and websites to submit your Press Release

Press Release Submission

We submitted our carefully crafted Press Release to each service. This took a few hours.

The following table represents the results so far from our mass Press Release Distribution exercise after 14 days

Original Release: http://www.maxys.com.au/The-Face/News/Press-Releases/

Observations:

• Want Clicks - pay.
• An interesting point: Some of these services automatically syndicate their content to other websites = more articles in Google/ search engines. We will run a further analysis later to see which sites this content comes from and the number of links and new customers these derivative sites bring in.

Next steps

We have some new announcements coming up in the next few weeks. I'll then run this process again spreading the budget over a wider sample and look to include PRWEB and others in the analysis.