New Media Marketing | RisingLine.com

Mobile Website Design & Development

(author unknown) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:34:08 PST

Client: Infuze Marketing | Sacramento, CA
Project: Custom designed mobile Website

How Google Searches Work

risingline33 — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:22:06 PST

A simplified presentation by Google of how their searches work and how they determine how high on the results page to list your site.

How Google Searches Work

risingline33 — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 04:22:06 PST

A simplified presentation by Google of how their searches work and how they determine how high on the results page to list your site.

It’s Easy to Spot Amateur Copy | by Lewis Bassett

risingline33 — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:25:16 PST

The following was originally published by Lewis Bassett of Bassett Providentia, Ltd, via his email list to which I subscribe. Every article I’ve ever received from him has been phenomenal, but this I think is one of his best. I’m sharing it here with his permission.

Lewis is one of the most talented marketing consultants I’ve ever encountered. I strongly recommend you subscribe to his email newsletter yourself. Just in case you’re as cynical as me, I have no connection and get no incentive for recommending him . . . I’m just a huge fan.

It’s easy to spot amateur copy.

Amateurs don’t know how to express anything other than excitement. So it’ll be high energy, full of hype, exaggeration and exclamation marks.

"Our new mouth-watering deserts are guaranteed to light your valentine’s fire! You’re in for a fun night! Hurry up and book now!"

Great copy should be conversational.

You should be speaking to your prospects the same way a friend might, if they were discussing the topic over a quiet drink after work.

There’s place for excitement. But there are so many other emotions you can – and should – express. (E.g., fear, shame, intrigue, suspense, tenderness, anger, sadness, surprise, benevolence, optimism, etc.)

We tend to do this naturally in conversation. And great copywriters know this.

But what if you’re not a great copywriter? Does this mean you can’t write great copy?

Probably. But it doesn’t mean you can’t write good copy.

There’s a simple and easy way to write compelling copy. And if you follow it, your work will be better than 90% of all the other rubbish that pollutes the Internet.

You don’t need any training. And you don’t need any specialist techniques.

Here’s what you do.

Go out and pitch your offering to as many people as you can. These must be people that are in a position to buy it.

Make sure you record every pitch you make. (There are plenty of iPhone apps for this.)

What you now have is compelling, conversational and natural copy.

You might need to clean it up a little. And you might want to add or remove a few points.

But what you have is proven to work, because it already won you the sale. Put it on your website, and it’ll almost certainly outperform what is on there right now.

Carpe diem.

Lewis Bassett
Director, Bassett Providentia Ltd

Lewis Bassett is an online marketing consultant and speaker, and helps companies to increase their revenue. Bassett Providentia Ltd is his consulting practice. For more information and to subscribe to his email list visit www.bassettprovidentia.com.

It’s Easy to Spot Amateur Copy | by Lewis Bassett

risingline33 — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 06:25:16 PST

It’s easy to spot amateur copy.

Amateurs don’t know how to express anything other than excitement. So it’ll be high energy, full of hype, exaggeration and exclamation marks.

"Our new mouth-watering deserts are guaranteed to light your valentine’s fire! You’re in for a fun night! Hurry up and book now!"

Great copy should be conversational.

You should be speaking to your prospects the same way a friend might, if they were discussing the topic over a quiet drink after work.

We tend to do this naturally in conversation. And great copywriters know this.

But what if you’re not a great copywriter? Does this mean you can’t write great copy?

Probably. But it doesn’t mean you can’t write good copy.

There’s a simple and easy way to write compelling copy. And if you follow it, your work will be better than 90% of all the other rubbish that pollutes the Internet.

You don’t need any training. And you don’t need any specialist techniques.

Here’s what you do.

Go out and pitch your offering to as many people as you can. These must be people that are in a position to buy it.

Make sure you record every pitch you make. (There are plenty of iPhone apps for this.)

What you now have is compelling, conversational and natural copy.

You might need to clean it up a little. And you might want to add or remove a few points.

But what you have is proven to work, because it already won you the sale. Put it on your website, and it’ll almost certainly outperform what is on there right now.

Carpe diem.

Lewis Bassett
Director, Bassett Providentia Ltd

Emotion and Advertising – Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial

risingline33 — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:08:18 PST

Out of the thousands of ads we’re exposed to each day, what is it that makes only a few stand out? It’s emotional connection. Those ads that don’t have it, no matter how technically precise, are noise and filtered out by our brain.

Here’s great example from The Richards Group of how it’s done right.

Emotion and Advertising – Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial

risingline33 — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:08:18 PST

Here’s great example from The Richards Group of how it’s done right.

Why We Don’t (Usually) Like Responsive Website Design

risingline33 — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:11:16 PST

First, for those of you who might not be aware, Responsive Web Design means creating a website that retains the same code and content but adjusts for whatever device might be viewing it. In other words, it’s a one Website fits all users approach. While it is great in concept it is not a practical solution, in our and other developers opinions, for most corporate Websites.

Website Magazine just published, Responsive Design: Not So Simple, a superb article on the significant limitations of responsive design. As the article alludes to, the problem with responsive Web designs is that they try to be be all things to all users . . . from a user on a 27 iMac screen to a a smart phone user . . . and in doing so it compromises the quality and control of all. As they state, “Different features are more appropriate for different devices.”

Rather than a responsive design, we typically advocate for our clients is developing a parallel dedicated mobile framework that works in conjunction with their primary site. There are some cases however where a responsive design might make sense . . . for example on a microsite.

If you’re debating whether your business should implement a new project using a responsive design please read Website Magazine’s article or contact us for more discussion on the topic.

Why We Don’t (Usually) Like Responsive Website Design

risingline33 — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:11:16 PST

If you’re debating whether your business should implement a new project using a responsive design please read Website Magazine’s article or contact us for more discussion on the topic.

Another Example of Great Branding

risingline33 — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:40:03 PST

As a follow-up to the great Google Chrome ad I posted a few days ago, here’s another great TV ad from Volkswagen. As mentioned about the Google Chrome Ad . . . there are two keys to branding that both these ads excel in: authenticity and emotion. If you don’t connect with your customers in these areas they really won’t get the true value you’re offering with your product.

The emotion of this ad is obvious, but notice too how authentic the laughter is. If the laughing in this commercial came across even with a suspicion of being staged the ad would lose a lot of its effectiveness. Another important key to this ads success is the very personal nature of the content . . . for a moment we feel like we’re sharing a intimate moment with someone we know.

This ad exemplifies the sales axiom . . . people buy from those they know and trust. In a matter of 30 seconds Volkswagen takes us from being a stranger to making us feel like we know and trust them. Every bit of your branding and marketing communication needs to be created with this same axiom in mind.

Branding with Authenticity and Emotion

risingline33 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:35:31 PST

Wow, this is such a powerful ad from Google Chrome. This branding campaign is a great example of taking a cold technical product like a Web browser and powerfully connecting with prospects and customers. Take a look at how Google uses authenticity and emotion to take a cold product and create a unique and lasting impression of the real benefit of their product.

Do you know who controls your business’ domain?

Douglas Case — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 07:15:43 PST

Where is your company’s domain registered and when does it expire? If you’re like many executives and managers you have no idea. How do I know? I talk to them all the time.

Here’s a typical scenario: ten years ago your company launched a web site…no one in-house knew where to start so
the person who claimed to know how to program their VCR was given the task of registering a domain for the company. This person registered the domain but used their name, address, and hotmail account. What’s more this individual may no longer even be employed by the company, probably could care less, and hopefully is not disgruntled with their former employer.

What would be the consequences to your business if your Website was suddenly gone and all your company email accounts ceased working or now featured a spam site (or worse)? Does this sound crazy? While this scenarios might be on the extreme, you are guaranteed some degree of misery and loss if you let your registration lapse.

If you are not immediately and unquestionably certain where your domain is registered, and more importantly to whom your domain is legally registered, stop everything right now and get it fixed!

Here’s how:

Access the Whois public database and enter your domain name. Assuming your domain does not have a private registration, look through the list of information and find the following:
Registrant Name: If this is not your name or the company’s name you’re at risk.
Admin Name: Do you know this person? Do you trust this person with your entire business? Your domain needs to be registered under a name of a corporate officer, owners or executives—not an employee. All it takes is one disgruntled employee to reek havoc on your business.
If you need help registering, renewing, or transferring a domain name please visit https://virsafe.com or call one of our domain registration experts at 480.624.2500.

More information on domain registration:

How to protect your domain name from hijackers, porn pirates, and your registrar.
Why it matters to master your domain
For general information on domain registration visit the Virsafe domain registration info page.

CMS Made Simple Admin User Tutorial

risingline33 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:42:43 PDT

CMS Made Simple Admin Overview Tutorial from Doug Case on Vimeo.

Keys For a Successful Web Site

Douglas Case — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 05:50:21 PDT

The content of your Web site is crucial and should be developed to quickly answer the basic questions and needs of your specific target visitors. Research shows that you only have a few seconds to entice your visitors to stay so it’s vital that you present obvious choices for them to find the information they need. In addition clear and compelling navigation options need to be present that allow your visitors to easily recognize where they should click to proceed through the sales/information process.

If your visitors become confused about what your site is about or how it applies to them, they are likely to just leave and look elsewhere. The goal of your front page is to allow visitors to qualify themselves as prospects for your business or organization and to proceed through the sales process by accepting a call to action that you offer. Call to actions can include purchasing online, contacting you for an appointment, subscribing to your newsletter/blog or whatever the specific next step is in your sales process.

The Essential Questions Visitors to Your Site Will Need Answered:

What do you do? One of the most common mistakes that sites make is not being clear on exactly what they are providing. The more complex of solution you offer the more important it is to provide this answer in easy-to-understand language. The essence of what you do should be the basis of your organization’s mission statement, but answering the “What you do” question will also include the specific products or services you’re offering.
Why you do it? This is related to an organization’s vision statement but needs to be expressed in concise language free from industry jargon. Telling visitors “why you do it” is a means of establishing credibility and positioning yourself as an expert adviser for recommending a solution to their needs.
Why are you the best choice? This question is the most vital for new prospects and should be answered by your unique value proposition. Your unique value proposition is simply a concise statement of how you
meet their need better than anyone else. In addition to stating your unique value, you need to back it up with real-life examples. The most effective support will be testimonials, portfolio’s of your past work, and third party reviews or endorsements if available.
What can I do? This is the question you want most asked because it means your visitor is satisfied (or at least intrigued) with the answers to their first three questions. They are asking how to proceed through your sales process. This doesn’t mean they’re necessarily ready to buy, but they’re willing to take a step closer. Your site needs to present unambiguous action items for your customers to answer their question of “What can I do?” by providing conspicuous “call to action” links in the body of your front page and the navigation menu.

How To Provide the Answers

Here are a few key principles for answering your visitors’ questions :

Be concise. Paragraphs of text on your front page will bury the answers to your visitors’ questions and result in a high abandon rate. Your front page, and navigation bar, should be thought of as a map that clearly directs people to more detailed information on the destination of their choice, without them having to think twice about their choices. While, supporting pages will provide more detailed answers the still must avoid verbosity to be effective.
Communicate in layman’s terms and avoid your industry’s jargon. Realize that much of the internal language your organization uses may have no relevance for your visitors.
Provide clear call-to-action choices for all types of visitors. The fundamental questions presented above provide answers for newly aware prospects through “trial” or first-time buyers. If you anticipate clients, customers with an ongoing relationship with your organization, to be frequent visitors you need to accommodate the needs of these visitors. Other visitor types can include press, investors or employers. The answers to each type of visitor questions need to be presented in proportion to the importance they have towards achieving the overall goals of your site.

Google Explains SEO

risingline33 — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:14:52 PDT

If you watch this very short video from Google and believe what they’re saying, you will catapult yourself into an elite group of people who actually understand the “secret” of SEO.

I emphasize the word believe because I’ve learned from years of Web development that many people persist with a misconception that SEO success is determined primarily by how that site is coded, even when they’ve been enlightened with the truth. Many, if not most, people think that there is some method by which a developer can arrange the code on their site to make a big impact on their SEO. We get inquiries all the time from people who are looking for someone to take their existing site and have it recoded so the same content is listed higher in Google.

That’s simply not how it works.

As stated in this video from Google, “First and foremost we [Google] care about content.” Not to go down another wrong path, this does not mean Google is looking for some special arrangement of content and keyword stuffed pages. What they are ultimately looking for is content that is unique and truly valuable to your target visitors. By no coincidence, that’s what real people are looking for too.

To be clear, there is still a place for proper coding (on-site SEO) . . . but it is not the driving force behind the overall success or failure of your Website’s SEO.

How long do you want to be in business?

Douglas Case — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:13:02 PDT

How many business leaders plan on sacrificing so much of their life for a business that sticks around for a decade or two? Assuming the answer to this rhetorical question to be “few if any,” then another question is begged: Why is the shelf life of most companies so short?

The best place to look is on the opposite end of the spectrum, to those companies who have created a legacy. I’ve been fascinated by this topic especially since recently becoming an adoring fan of Fiskars, a company founded in 1649 and on the cutting edge today of customer evangelism marketing utilizing social media.

Weihenstephan Brewery

Founded 1040

So maybe a better question to ask is, “Why are old companies are still around?” Starting with the extreme relics like Kongo Gumi, (the Japanese construction company who was in continual operation from the year 578 until January of 2006) there is a treasure of insight available that we can directly apply to the business environment today. I’m no business history expert, but I am smart enough to deduce that most of these companies are going to be found very strong in two important suits: 1)Exploiting environmental change, and 2)Exemplifying the marketing concept. Inversely we can deduce that most companies, the ones with short shelf lives, are probably vulnerable to environmental change and don’t adequately embrace the marketing concept.

Here’s what makes this topic so provocative today—as you may be aware we’ve just stepped into a period of radical revolution that will be destroying the status quo of how business interacts with society through social media and mobile devices.

So what’s the average business to do? Fight the trend? Stick to the old ways that have worked (or at least kept one’s head above water) and hope it all goes away? It all depends on how you answered the question of “How long do you want to be in business?” My brash prediction is that companies, large and small, who do not undergo an extreme
makeover and embrace the paradigm shifts of customer facing social media and mobile marketing platforms will cease to exist, sooner or later within the 21st century. For context to my position please see our perfect storm analogy.

As we continue to progress this new era, it’s a prudent tactic to take some time and study those organizations that have weathered and prospered from these storms of change time and time again—a truly fascinating and timely study. Here’s a list of the world’s oldest companies for those interested.

PowerPoint Background Design Pointer . . . Less is More

risingline33 — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 09:47:45 PDT

Some great advice from the design sage John McWade from Before & After Magazine

5 Reasons eMarketing Campaigns Fail

risingline33 — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:42:06 PDT

Internet Marketing or eMarketing is a term we use to encompass any electronic publishing that has the goal of generating demand. This can be both direct (such as special offer, buy now) or indirect (such as helpful articles that appeal to your target audience). The typical distribution channels for eMarketing include traditional blogs (like this one) with RSS, Email marketing (through services such as VeticalResponse, Constant Contact and iContact), Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and other social media channels.

eMarketing can be compared to generating “foot traffic” in retail. For instance, many people venture into a retailing business because they’re passionate about a product or service. So they lease a storefront, flip the sign on the front door to read “Open”, and wait for the customers to rush in and buy their goods. What separates a successful retailer from a bankrupt retailer is the realization that rewards are derived from hard work, quality, attention to detail, and a dedication to match the market need as it evolves. Retailers can even spend a significant portion of their budget to advertise their product or service, but if they haven’t addressed these variables, they’ll never generate consistent demand. And yes, these same principals apply to eMarketing.

So why do so many eMarketing campaigns fail? Here are 5 reasons:

CONSISTENCY – The marketer fails to consistently develop content on a regular schedule; which in turn disengages the audience. eMarketing is very easy to back-burner and before you know it the last time your bi-weekly marketing blast was published was four months ago. Not only are you loosing the chance to simply ask for more sales, your display of inactivity on your blogs and social media sites will carry negative connotations to your audience. If the last time you published a blog post a site visitor will entertain such thoughts as, “Is this company still in business?” or “If it takes them that long to get to things what kind of customer service must they have?”

ATTENTION TO DETAIL – Although our society has significantly lowered its standards on grammar and spelling, both are still important to develop readable and discernible content. Many eMarketers, myself included, have a tendency to become lazy in regards to poofreading [sic]. It still matters.

RELEVANCE – A marketer must evolve their passion to address a market need. People desire content that emotionally engages them and equates to their own interests. All material must be written from the perspective of your audience and it should be written in a way that captures and keeps their attention. Regardless of the subject matter, successful marketing communications should capture the emotions of an audience by making them laugh, cry, ponder, or get angry. Even nude para-sailing could become a relevant blogging topic if the subject matter is able to emotionally engage the reader and you’re able to relate to your business goal.

QUALITY AESTHETICS – No matter the content, people will make a strong initial judgement of your credibility based on the quality of graphic design for your marketing communication whether it be a blog, HTML email or Facebook page. By maintaining professionally designed electronic collateral, marketers will enhance their credibility and improve the viral component of their distribution – because who really wants to refer a terrible looking Web site to a friend or professional acquaintance?

MARKETING DISTRIBUTION – Going back to the retailer example, one cannot simply flip the sign on the front door to read “Open” and expect customers to pour in. Generating an audience of prospects will take effort; the content must be distributed out to a targeted group of readers in order to generate interest. Utilizing technologies such as Social Media, RSS (Really Simple Syndication), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and viral components such as a “Send This to a Friend” link are all viable methods to help build and maintain an audience. Marketers should also encourage their immediate sphere of contacts (family, friends, neighbors, work contacts, etc.) to read their content and spread it along.

Do you need help with putting together a more successful digital marketing strategy? We’d love to learn more about your needs and provide you some feedback on how we might be able to assist. Contact us anytime.

Another Example of Great Branding

risingline33 — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:40:03 PST

Branding with Authenticity and Emotion

risingline33 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:35:31 PST