Sure, Tom Pellereau might well sell a good number of units of his revolutionary new product (a curved nail file). But that success won’t be down to the quality of the product, or its ingenious design.

While Jonny Ive is forging never-before-seen devices out of never-before-used materials that connect to global networks, the best minds of Britain are lining up on The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den to present more marvellous trinkets that would fit best in the catalogue of Jonny Mills.

The world is in the middle of massive, fundamental, technological change, bringing with it vast opportunity.

How much of the world is still wide open for digital innovation? What about health care? Politics? Let alone how much of the world is yet to even join the net. In a post-PC era, where you’re no longer chained to a desk, what new things are possible?

With scope like that, however much we might love nailcare innovation at Tom’s level, isn’t it our duty to press ahead with what’s next, rather than to subtlely refine something that is just fine already (for a quick buck)?

My plea to you is this – find out what can be achieved. Build a better world, one tiny bit at a time. Look forward and think big. And please don’t put your own face on all your products.

Many businesses who work with printed media are still thriving. I’ve been talking to a few of them and will be publishing short interviews with their interpretation of the current state of play in the world of print.

First up, I talk to Trevor Nicholls, owner of The Leaflet Delivery Company – a Milton Keynes based leaflet marketing business.

Here goes…

1985: Many businesses have switched from direct mail and newspaper advertising over to digital marketing channels over the past 5-10 years. In your opinion, does this leave a gap behind for those still willing to use traditional marketing methods?

Trevor: I think that because of an ever accelerating increase in the use of digital media, it is becoming harder to get noticed online and it will continue to do so. There is going to be more and more emphasis on online relationships and other people’s opinions and recommendations.

Companies wishing to market themselves need to have multiple marketing pillars across all media, both online and off. It’s important to realise that digital media is just another media type – and needs to be treated as such. Ensuring the right message is sent to the right market, using the right media is the route to success in any form of marketing. It’s important therefore not to think of doing “Digital Marketing” in place of print marketing, but instead looking at ways to integrate both on and offline media together.

A good example of this is a case study that we did with the Xscape building. They had a Milton Keynes based marketing campaign where you could download a free parking ticket from their website. Take up was OK, but was increased by over 200% when they supported it with a leaflet delivery campaign.

1985: How effective is leaflet marketing right now? Do you have any success stories that you can let us in on?

Trevor: We have loads of success stories of clients that have built their business off the back of leaflet marketing. For example, Kitchensmart – when they first started their business they tried various forms of advertising, including magazine, local papers and leaflets. They monitor all of their marketing campaigns very thoroughly and as a result, have cut back on poorly performing channels and doubled the amount of leaflets that they put out instead.

River Nene foods is another good example – we’re working with them to boost their food box delivery rounds. The latest comment that we had from them was: “We know when the leaflets go out as our phones don’t stop ringing” – which is obviously very encouraging for us to hear.

1985: Print is normally considered an expensive form of advertising, especially in an age of supposedly “free” online channels. How cost effective do you see your service as?

Trevor: Obviously, we’re not as cost effective as free, but leaflet marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to get into every household in a targeted area. Quality print can be bought at very competitive prices – for example, we can print five thousand double sided leaflets A5 leaflets for just £85, and then deliver them for approximately £200.

Free online channels can be very time consuming and it’s important that when you’re planning any form of marketing campaign, that you look at the time investment as well as the pound investment. But overall, the most important thing to remember is the return that you get from your investment. You must measure the results from every different marketing activity that you do in order to make smart decisions going forward. For example, If I spend £285 to get five thousand leaflets delivered and it brings me in £2,000 of business – then it’s worth it. But if I spend five hours on Facebook and Twitter (my hourly rate would put this well in excess of the amount paid for the leaflets), how much money would that bring me in? Social Media Marketing has it’s place – in fact I’m a big fan of it, but if I had a limited budget, I’d spend it much more effectively through direct response marketing.

1985: Do you feel your marketing services are more inclusive than digital campaigns? At least everyone has a chance to read your message with a leaflet, where many just don’t have a computer, email or a social media account…

Trevor: Again this goes back to the marketing triangle. Get the right message to the right market using the right media. There’s a saying that you should go fishing where the fish are! If your prospects are online, then you need to be online. If they’re not, then you need to look at other channels. It’s not just a case of doing one or the other though – they’re different forms of marketing. With leaflets, we’re interrupting their routine, we’re pushing the advertising into the persons hands and they’re going to see it. With a digital marketing campaign, they’re often search based – so the prospect is seeking out the service and they’re choosing whether or not to engage with the advertising, and choosing which advertisers specifically to engage with.

1985: How can businesses get more creative with their leaflet marketing campaigns? What would be your top 5 tips for success?

Trevor: Firstly, you have to stand out. There are lots of boring, plain, “ME TOO” type adverts on all forms of media. Be different from the crowd to get noticed.

Think about the headlines that you’re using. We see lots of advertising that has the Logo in prime headline positions. No one cares what your logo looks like – logos don’t sell. Have a great headline that attracts attention and compels the audience to read on.

Don’t write your copy based around you or your company. If you’re a family run business that’s been around for 20 years – so what? People aren’t interested in those facts until you’ve convinced them that they need to find out a bit more about you. With leaflet marketing, you’re looking for people to raise their hand to say that they’re interested. You don’t need to tell them your business or life history. Keep to the benefits of the product or service and how you can solve their problem.

Make sure that you have a compelling, drop dead, no brainer offer. Ensure that it’s an offer that still makes you money rather than costs you money, and keep very clear of bland percentage discounts like 20% off. People don’t believe it. Think about using your offer to up-sell or cross-sell your products, and above all ensure that you have a deadline on the offer to make people respond now.

Our thanks go out to Trevor for taking the time out to give us some insight on those questions.

About Trevor Nicholls
Trevor Nicholls is the director of The Leaflet Delivery Company. Set up in 2009, Trevor established the business as Milton Keynes’ leading door to door distribution company and is now expanding the company to form a UK wide network of franchised branches. Trevor is known in the community as an expert in direct marketing, whilst specialising in leaflet marketing, he is often consulting with his clients on innovative ways to attract new customers.

We don’t need to plan projects out, we’re too small for that yet.

How many of these statements sound familiar to you?

I’ll let you in on a secret. Being small in today’s business environment can be an advantage, not a restriction. It means that you don’t yet have the problems of communication that come with a medium or large sized organisation. Messages don’t get lost or distorted amongst the layers of bureaucracy on the way from those who ‘think’, past those who ‘manage’, to those who ‘do’. Office politics hasn’t yet sunk in. Working from home on a whim just to see more of the kids isn’t yet a thing of the distant past. Meetings don’t yet consume your entire day. Customers still get support from those who build your tool, dream of what it’ll do or at least who have used it more than once.

Small business have the advantage of being able to scale like no other. Big projects can be handled efficiently by a network of reliable contractors, hungry for work – just like you. Your business can double in size overnight, because you’ve already got that network in your address book.

They have the advantage of being able to change strategy at the click of your fingers. Data’s just started rolling in that shows your project is about to sink, or that a different direction is going to turn a profit for you? You can change course, quickly and easily. Your business isn’t yet the size of an oil tanker that’s faster to sink than it is to turn.

You can talk to the people that matter directly – your employees, who can benefit so significantly from knowing what’s going on with every project, at all times, where you’re headed and where you’ve come from. And you can talk to those other important people – your customers, who have support enquiries that you can answer because you’re in a position to know – you built what they’re talking about! You can even listen to them and learn about ways to improve what you have (without a months worth of user testing sessions and focus groups).

Small, right now, is most definitely a great place to be.

Let me give you a quick real-world, comparative example…

Big Ugly Company
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a support question to Vistaprint (on behalf of a client). A whole week went past without them getting back to me. So I wrote to them on Twitter, on a Friday afternoon. On Monday afternoon, they replied to my Twitter message asking what was wrong. I simply told them that they took too long to get back to me, even on Twitter. Their answer? They don’t work over the weekend.

Small But Perfectly Formed Company
During the same week, I ordered a VPS account from Bitfolk. My order went through with a problem – I’d used characters in my hostname that weren’t permitted. Yes, it’s sad that their signup form didn’t validate against these. But they had a good fallback – one of their staff members emailed me within 15 minutes to tell me, and asked me what I’d prefer to set it as (with some possible suggestions). I emailed back. They made the change. It was setup 30 minutes after. This was on a Saturday morning.

Now I tell businesses to avoid Vistaprint like the plague (not just because of my problem with them, but also because their print prices are extortionate and their print quality so poor) and I recommend Bitfolk as a great, UK based VPS solution, with very helpful support, whenever I get the opportunity.

Photo courtesy of Shiny Things.

By Customer Service I don’t really mean the quality of a support line, or the weight of paper you use to reply to a customer enquiry. I’m talking about the touch-points in which a customer interacts with your brand to get something done. Any interaction is an opportunity for great customer service, whether you meet that customer in person or not.

Poor customer service is all around us. Banks are notoriously bad for using offshore call centres staffed with people who are typically very difficult to understand, or are very bad at understanding the caller. On a sensitive phone call involving personal finance, this is a bad mix. It’s an obvious customer service faux-pas, and it’s easy to see why businesses that employ this kind of penny-pinching tactic get a bad rep amongst consumers.

Mediocre customer service is most prevalent. Service without a smile is the norm for 99% of transactions I encounter in person, over the phone and online. Long, poorly managed queues at Ikea are a great example, the 7.20PM over-crowded first offpeak train from London Euston to Milton Keynes is another, and the giggling group of teenagers employed as staff at Topshop are a good example too.

Good customer service is much harder to come by. For me, this involves a fast interaction between me and a business in which a transaction (not necessarily monetary, it could be an information exchange) happens without a significant problem – or failing that, any problem is resolved with quickly, efficiently, without me having to push for it, and with a smile and apology to follow. Today, buy your sandwich from a Pret A Manger, you’ll find an awesome selection (no matter what time of the day – they keep up with demand) and staff that will please-and-thankyou you to death… good customer service. It makes lunch go down that bit smoother.

Great customer service is something altogether more difficult and therefore much rarer. BT employ the services of a disastrously poor quality (offshore) call centre to handle broadband support enquiries. But their @BTCare team provide excellent service via Twitter and email. If you want something done, talk to those guys, because you’ll feel confident that they’ll handle it – and they will. They’ll even write back to you to let you know what’s going on with your problem, and they’ll do their best to find you a refund for any connection loss too. For me, great customer service involves a degree of advocacy on the part of a staff member at the business in question – to act on behalf of the customer to get a problem fixed or to get something done, and to deal with that personally. Advocacy is not achieved by passing a caller from one department to the next. It is not achieved by using stock responses or automated emails. It is achieved by hard work, good staffing levels, and cash spent where it counts – on building a strong relationship between business and customer.

Right now businesses have a huge advantage over the past – social media provides a way that you can interact with your customers (or prospects) instantly and prolifically. Use it! Communicate, reciprocate, share, bugfix, troubleshoot, and well – just chat.

Featured photo courtesy of Amber De Bruin.

In my opinion it’s a significant improvement for Pages, which have felt a bit neglect recently.

If you’re a Page owner and you’re using it to promote your business, product or service, then you’ve probably tested a few ways to optimise your page so it generates more Likes, engages with visitors as much as possible, and converts some of them into a prospect mailing list (or another action).

Traditionally, this has been done using a Fangate – a simple app that defines a page that visitors to your Page see when first viewing (before they hit Like), then a confirmation page when they Like it, after which they’re directed to the Wall / Feed.

The theory behind this is that it increases Likes because you can use your Fangate to include a clear message defining your business, and a gaudy big red arrow pointing at the Like button.

Like many (often forgotten) great learnings from Direct Marketing, it works. If you haven’t been doing this over the past year (at least) then you’re either not concerned about increasing your Facebook traffic, or you’re too concerned about presenting an overly clean UX on a (formerly quite clumsy) Facebook Page structure.

To give you an idea about the effect this has on numbers – one page I administrate received between 1 and 5 new Likes per week pre-Fangate, and gets more than 5 Likes per day with the Fangate.

But no more. The new Pages layout prevents you from using a Fangate. My guess is that this will significantly lower the number of Likes to many pages. So what’s a good route forward to replace them?

In my opinion, the answer is not to sit still and just accept lower stats. Test some new strategies and see for yourself what improves your results.

The main problem I think viewers faced when checking out a Page in the old layout, was that all they’d really see without a significant amount of exploration was the most recent 2-3 posts on the Page’s Wall. Often that can be pretty unrepresentative of either the business/product/service or the general atmosphere of the Page.

The new Page layout doesn’t suffer from the same problem, it has space with the header for your business logo, business name, and a short description to be visible straight away. That should actually clear things up quite a bit for confused visitors.

But more importantly, the new layout allows you to add a ‘Cover Picture’ – a header photo to run at the top of the page. Stop and think about this for a second because it’s actually very powerful. Before you assign it to being a funny photo of you and your cat, or to a generic shot of your shop front, or something equally meaningless – FORGET that this is a photo space and think of it instead as ADVERTISING space.

Run a product photo. Run a shot of your team. Run a promo shot that you had done of your most recent exhibition. Either way, use it for something meaningful and use something that has real impact.

Don’t forget, it’s also an opportunity to overlay more text. Here’s an example of a Facebook Page that I manage (www.facebook.com/theartcurator) and have already moved over to the new layout already. I’ve included a bubble above the Like button as a short statement about the service and as a CALL TO ACTION – that magical term we all forget with social media marketing.

Face it, you’ve got just a few seconds to convert a viewer from a passing Bouncer, to a dedicated Fan. So it’s important to make that first impression count. Keep your Wall full to the brim of interesting posts, videos, pictures and links. Don’t be boring, develop a personality in the way you talk. Post links to associated content on the web that’s worthy of your readers’ attention. Don’t just post links to your own site and your own products, share the love a little!

The new Facebook Page layout will be rolled out universally at the end of March – so get ready for it. Like any piece of marketing, TEST and ANALYSE.

Featured photo courtesy of owenwbrown.

“The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age’s embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today’s interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not.”

— Modern boys and mobile girls, April 2001 edition of The Observer

Apple have otaku by the bucketload.

So do Starbucks, Nike, Marlboro, Red Bull and Ikea.

Sure, a lot of people out there just buy a computer as a means to an end, many just want a coffee – fast, and hot, and others just want some trainers to hit the treadmill in. But that’s not what makes these brands who they are. They aren’t in the game of functionalist superiority, convenience, and competitive discounting. No, they charge a premium for their products because their customers love them and are happy to pay. In fact I’d bet they could charge another third on top of their existing prices without many of their customers shying away from a purchase.

It’s an obsessive relationship that makes us buy Nike over an unknown brand that may even be superior in every way.

Some non-profit brands like Linux have huge otaku too, charities like Amnesty International have deeply entrenched followers, but so too, do Jeremy Kyle, Eastenders and Big Brother.

In fact, otaku, in my opinion has very little to do with the brand itself, it’s quality, or it’s size at all. Many people are obsessive about cooking brownies, compulsive about running marathons, or utterly driven to spray graffiti in the streets.

On the other hand, some things will never have otaku.

No matter how hard they try, Lemsip will never have otaku. Nor will Carphone Warehouse, or One-Stop convenience stores.

Otaku just isn’t applicable to every sector. You can’t be passionate about lemon flavoured painkilling drinks. You can be passionate about being healthy, about getting to work on time, about being at the top of your game – but noone is ‘into’ Lemsip. No matter how prominently they say it, how many free packs of fizzy tablets they give away in competitions, or how many of their TV ads shove it down my throat – I will never find Lemsip on Facebook and Like them. A national TV campaign contributing to only 85,000 likes is fairly disastrous in my books, and I will bet my last pound coin that none of those 85,000 people will ever camp overnight outside of their pharmacy to be first in line for a Lemsip product launch the following morning.

In contrast, Freshome – a rather good interiors and architecture blog, is sitting pretty at 224,000 Likes. Guess what? Interior design is an otaku goldmine.

No, Lemsip has no otaku, and it never will. People will continue to buy it for other reasons, without feeling an obsession.

If you’ve read this far along in this post then I’ll leave you with a few learnings…

• If you can, pick otaku
  If you’re thinking of starting out a business, then consider picking something that has otaku. Often, when you’re very passionate about something, you’ll stumble across other people who feel that same way as you – even more now that we have such developed social media networks.
• No otaku? No problem, just don’t expect social rocket fuel
  If you already own a business, or are involved in the marketing of a business, which is lacking somewhat down in the otaku region – or even is a total otaku blackhole like Lemsip, then my best advice is to stay away from social media. At best, you’ll face an uphill struggle. At worst, you’ll incite a lot of profanity.
• Got otaku? Make it dance
  If your business is in a sector that oozes with otaku, that defines the very term itself, or commands legions of obsessive-compulsive fans, then make it do the hard work for you. Build relationships with fans, talk to them, love them back – not just on Twitter and Facebook but in the real world too.

Have a fantastic day, and whatever you’re obsessive about yourself – go out enjoy it, you deserve to!

Ver-bose
Adjective: Using or expressed in more words than are needed.

Of course, there are lots of cases where being verbose is a bad idea – the title of book, a road sign, or a product name for example. In many cases, short and concise copy is obviously a big win.

In a technical sense, running a command in verbose means you’ll get a step by step report of exactly everything that is going on. It’s a great tool for debugging, solving network problems, or unpicking how something operates.

Of course, it’s nearly useless when you’re verbose about banal events, but when you’re working on something that someone else might find interesting or genuinely useful, being verbose about it can build a really powerful connection.

If nothing else, someone out there might just learn something from your reports. Don’t be afraid to set that -v flag occasionally.

Photo courtesy of Romana Klee.

Here’s my guide on what to include in a good copywriting brief to help you get the most out of your time together…

Who are you and what makes you special?

Of course it’s important to include facts and figures about your business but this kind of information alone will not give your copy that sparkle.

Your copywriter may not be familiar with your company and industry, so try to give them an honest summary of your business. The more information you give, the easier it will be for your copywriter to get into the mind of your business, your brand’s image and personality, and it’s worldview.

Try to include:

• A couple of paragraphs about your company
• A list of at least five words that best describe your company (e.g. vibrant, innovative, environmentally friendly)
• Information about the products or services you offer
• Your USPs
• Where you fit into your industry sector

Who are your competitors?

Providing your copywriter with information about your main competitors will help them to make your business stand out from the crowd.

Try to include:

• Their website addresses
• Examples of their marketing literature
• What makes you different from them

What’s your big idea?

Now that you’ve told your copywriter a little bit about you, it’s time to tell them what you want them to do.

For example:
“We want you to write a website to sell our new web-based educational software to schools and parents across the UK.”

Who’s your audience?

The most important part of copywriting is knowing who you are aiming your words at. Information that you provide on your target audience will influence the tone and format of the copy.

Try to include demographics such as age, gender, occupation, income, location, interests, etc. It may also help to think of your readers as individual characters in a story to paint a better picture of your target audience.

For example:
“Sarah is 40 years old and lives on the outside of Milton Keynes. She works full-time as a hairdresser and has a thirteen year old son called Jack. Jack is doing really well at school but struggles in Science. Sarah can’t afford a private tutor, so is looking for a cost-effective way that Jack can improve his Science in the evenings after school.”

How do you want to sound?

If your company has a style guide or guidelines about the kind words to use to describe your business then include this in your brief. But if you don’t have this kind of information available then just think about your personality and the kind of image that you want your brand to present.

Try to include:

• A list of at least five words that best describe your sense of style (e.g. witty, funny, laid-back).
• Your preferred tone of voice (e.g. conversational, formal, professional)

What are your aims and objectives?

Try to list as many of the main goals you are hoping to achieve from this project as possible. Your copywriter will want to know what you want the reader to do, why you think they’ll do it, and how they will benefit from doing it.

For example, do you want to:

• Drive traffic to your website?
• Generate more sales?
• Obtain information about your audience?
• Increase requests for your catalogue or brochure?
• Improve brand awareness?

So, to continue the example above, you want Sarah to buy your project because you know that it will help her son improve in school, as well as saving her time and money.

Conclusion

You should finish your copywriting brief with a short conclusion with any other additional information you want to add.

Finally, make sure both you and your copywriter know whats happening next and then just enjoy your time together!

OK.

So what?

When you think like that, “so what?” is what your (would-be) customers are saying.

Photo courtesy of RBS.

• A dark art, deploying techniques and skills that are owned by few.
• A way of scamming / beating / getting round the system.
• A quick way to get a lot of traffic and make money online.

Sadly, if you believe these things then you are highly likely to be burned, as there are just so many businesses and individuals in the industry mis-advising people or just plain lying.

But aside from those who are just out to scam you (rather than the system), just think for a minute about the attitude and motivations behind those three points.

Above: Although rather fetching, black hats don’t suit many businesses.

Someone who is willing to deploy a technique that meets those three criteria, is actually handing over the keys to their business. Your business is nothing without credibility. Rather than spending time developing a great product, they want a quick route to getting what they have now seen by more people. This is the “more traffic is always better” philosophy, rather than a “better traffic is better” philosophy.

I call it a “Black Hat Attitude”. It’s a willingness to actively seek out ways to get a competative advantage, by cheating, rather than by simply being better.

A Black Hat Attitude is short-termist. It’s cheap and easy. And it’s likely to back-fire.

For every person in the SEO industry that talks about creating thousands of backlinks automatically for a client, generating hundreds of articles through spinning, or withholds information from you because its just “too technical” – there is at least one business who’s site has been blacklisted for breach of Terms of Service, one customer who’s been put off by (so obviously visible) scam tactics, and one business who’s headed for bankrupcy because Google won’t list them anymore.

I found a very revealing conversation on Linkedin recently, on the MK Advertising and Marketing group, which a certain local SEO launches into quite an aggressive rant about his own service offering. Here’s the link, if you’re interested…

What Alex fails to tell people, is that the Google makes changes to its indexing system every day, and that major updates (like Panda) can make thousands of low quality backlinks utterly worthless (or can actually negatively affect your position).

There will always be people like Alex though, and always businesses looking for the easy route to making a quick buck that will hire him.

But for me, the real shame of that discussion is that seemingly very intelligent and reasonable business people credit his point of view as credible business practice.

My advice? Do the right thing. Build things that are good, great or radical. Amaze and delight your clients. Promote yourself, seek referrals, ask people to link to you if you think you’re really worthy of it. But don’t waste valuable hours of your career trying to scam the system.

Photo courtesy of Yaluker