When creating a slideshow, we want to consider the purpose of the slideshow so that our slideshow enhances visitor experience. The slideshow needs to be a valuable use of web “real estate.” After we determine the purpose of a slideshow, we then craft the design and functionality around this purpose.

At a recent Synotac Lunch + Learn, we delved into slideshows and had a lively discussion about these five core slideshow purposes:

Tell a story: Explain a product, service, or concept through a series of narrative slides. Telling a story could be useful if you’re conveying a complex product or service.
Example: oDesk (not a site we designed, but a great story!)

Cater to different visitor types: Provide messaging and calls to action that cater to unique visitor types. Segmentation could be based upon psychographics, information needs, or pain points.
Example: Penguin Computing, AGC Oregon

Access deeper website content: Provide calls to action and buttons that draw visitors to easily access specific content deep within a site (this could be ideal for content portals or sites where key pages are deeper in the site architecture).
Example: Scotts Pressure Wash

Promote recent content and events: Build credibility and promote return visitors by featuring recent events, news, or articles in a slideshow. This is common for online magazines and informational resources.
Example: OPALCO, Good Magazine

Share collections of information: Use a slideshow to showcase testimonials, products, designs, work, staff, awards, etc.
Example: Synotac

This list isn’t exhaustive, but offers a selection of slideshow types that can effectively engage your visitors. Determining the style and functionality of your slideshow based upon your slideshow’s core purpose results in a more engaging, intuitive visitor experience.

Handmade color wheel by Dave Drouin

For this week’s Lunch + Learn, we delved into education surrounding color theory. Color is a powerful force in our lives. Its biological and physiological impacts have shaped our world. Yet, much of the time, we take color for granted.

At our digital marketing agency, color is a hot topic. It shapes our clients’ brands and how we approach our work. Adherence to strict color guidelines ensure their brand cohesion through everything we do.

Color Theory

So, what is color theory? According to Betty Edwards book, Color, it is “the study of rules, ideas and principles that apply to color a general topic, somewhat apart from the artist’s actual practice of working with color pigments.” In a digital marketing agency, we are concerned with the color of pixels, rather than pigments. Still, pulling from the knowledge of artists and scientists throughout history has practical applications in our work.

The Color Wheel

We started with a little history of the Color Wheel. Sir Isaac Newton used a prism to view what he called the ‘spectrum,’ and assigned names to the colors that he saw. He created a color wheel in 1706, based on the seven spectral hues. He also included what he believed to be connections between color and sound. At Synotac, we began by building a color wheel with paper and crayons. We covered the twelve hues on the color wheel and their relationships. The idea was to cover the foundations of color, have a new-found appreciation for it, and bring that knowledge to the digital world. Plus, it was fun!

Shades of Gray

We use the three attributes of color: hue, value and intensity to describe the colors that we perceive. The color wheel is our basis for determining hue. Often called the ‘grayscale,’ we use a seven-step Value Scale from white to black to determine the lightness or darkness of a color. There is an almost infinite number of steps between white and black, but research shows that seven or so steps are about the maximum a human can retain in visual memory.

That’s intense!

The final descriptor for identifying a color is Intensity. The question is, ‘how bright or dull is the color relative to the brightest color possible to the dullest possible?’ In other words, how close is the color to the pure hue, versus the point at which no color is discernible at all?

Taking Theory to Practice

We can then identify colors by their three attributes: hue, value and intensity. Identification of color brings an awareness of what we see around us and help us to have conversations with each other in the same language. By revisiting the foundations of color, we can rediscover the world around us and see it with new eyes.

As businesses we are always working to engage our prospects.  Online quizzes can be a good way to casually spark a positive conversation and engagement with your visitors. You can incorporate them into your website, email newsletters, and social media. There are a number of tools available, and most content management systems for website and email newsletter platforms have some form of simple polling available. Facebook has a great feature that allows you to ask a simple question of your friends.

An excellent example of this technique comes from a top digital marketing agency in Portland, ISITE Design, which features a quiz in every newsletter they release and then the results are shared in a future blog post, social media and the next newsletter.  This gives visitors a reason to look forward to the next newsletter as well as stimulating engagement and sharing of the results.

Check out Synotac’s own survey initiative, State of the Business Owner, to receive access to the exclusive research on what it means to be a business owner in 2012 and win a chance at a $150 Amazon gift certificate.

The insights from a good website visitor survey can be invaluable in increasing the effectiveness of your website at generating results. One of the most popular website feedback formats is the free 4Q survey developed by analytics guru Avinash Kaushik - check out his excellent blog Occam’s Razor to learn from the best about web analytics.

This methodology is straightforward and based around three short questions:

1. What was the primary purpose of your visit?
2. Were you able to complete your purpose?
3. If not, why not?

The power of this survey is that it is permission based and sharply focused on understanding the “why” behind the actions your visitors take on your website.  Web analytics can provide tremendous amounts of data about what is happening on your website, but the reason behind what your visitors do is always obscure.  Using this survey you can start to truly understand the reasons behind your visitors’ behavior and make more meaningful changes to drive business results.

If you would like to know more about the reasoning behind the 4Q survey, read Avinash’s original article on the survey concept: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/the-three-greatest-survey-questions-ever/.

Check out Synotac’s own survey initiative, State of the Business Owner, to receive access to the exclusive research on what it means to be a business owner in 2012 and win a chance at a $150 Amazon gift certificate.

As noted by Robert Cialdini in his classic work on human psychology, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the law of reciprocity is one of the strongest forces in human interactions; if I give you something, you will feel compelled to give me something in return.  As a result, one of the most effective ways to engage with our market is to offer them something of value for free.  They will then seek to repay your generosity, and you will find a much higher rate of success in generating new customers.

One of the best examples of this technique of generating original research is a company called Inavero that provides customer satisfaction surveys and custom consulting to the staffing industry. Each year to survey staffing companies around the US about their current opportunities, challenges and performance. This original research provides valuable content to staffing companies that want to learn more about current best practices in their industry to improve their service and financial performance. Naturally, companies that engage with the original research you create are often interested in learning more about how you can help them with paid services.

One of the strengths of this technique is that it is the creation of a marketing event for your company.  One of the most important things that any company can do is to create marketing events for itself.  This is what retailers have done by building out a whole calendar of holidays: Halloween, Christmas (in the commercial sense), New Years, Valentine’s Day, the 4th of July, and so on.  This gives retailers a reason to engage with their customers throughout the entire year.  The best thing about building your own marketing events, however, is that you don’t have to share them with your competitors!

Check out Synotac’s own survey initiative, State of the Business Owner, to receive access to the exclusive research on what it means to be a business owner in 2012 and win a chance at a $150 Amazon gift certificate.

My favorite format for testing headlines comes from Joe McVoy of Profitable Marketing Enterprises, who advocates a very simple approach:

1. Brainstorm your ten favorite headlines with your team; strive to make them as different as possible, since meek headlines rarely win.
2. Next send an email to at least one hundred of your target prospects titled “One-question survey” (or buy advertising on a website your prospects use) and offer a chance to win a small incentive such as a $50 gift card for completing your survey.
3. Once they click on the link your survey, ask them to rank the ten headlines from most to least compelling.  Make sure to have your survey tool randomize the order of the headlines so that the results are not biased.
4. Once you reach one hundred responses, select the winner based on the data.  It’s almost never what you would have picked!

If you’re looking for inspiration to write great headlines, here are some additional resources:

• Our article on The Top 100 Headlines of All Time
• A List Apart’s article on headlines

Check out Synotac’s own survey initiative, State of the Business Owner, to receive access to the exclusive research on what it means to be a business owner in 2012 and win a chance at a $150 Amazon gift certificate.

Gallup describes the research behind the survey:

“The instrument was the result of hundreds of focus groups and interviews. Researchers found that there were 12 key expectations, that when satisfied, form the foundation of strong feelings of engagement. So far 87,000 work units and 1.5 million employees have participated in the Q12 instrument.”

Gallup uses the Q12 as a semi-annual employee engagement index – a random sampling of employees across the country.

The engagement index slots people into three categories:

• Engaged: employees who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
• Not-Engaged: employees that are essentially “checked out.” They are sleepwalking through their workday. They are putting in time, but not enough energy or passion into their work.
• Actively Disengaged: employees that aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged co-workers accomplish.

The results of the latest engagement index found the North American worker population divided up as follows:

• Engaged employees – 28%
• Not-engaged employees – 54%
• Actively Disengaged – 17%

This is absolutely astonishing!  Think about this: over 70% of all workers are either underperforming or actively sabotaging the work of their company and co-workers.

The twelve questions that comprise the Gallup Q12 are:

1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
2. Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right?
3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
10. Do you have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
12. In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?

Check out Synotac’s own survey initiative, State of the Business Owner, to receive access to the exclusive research on what it means to be a business owner in 2012 and win a chance at a $150 Amazon gift certificate.

In our article on Net Promoter Score, we covered how The Ultimate Question can help companies to increase customer loyalty and profits.  Today we are going to add some additional tips on the most common mistakes made, the principles of successfully using NPS in your company, and the steps to becoming a customer-centric company.

Top 10 Customer Satisfaction Survey Mistakes

1. Too many questions
2. The wrong customers respond (pay attention to your most profitable customers)
3. Employees don’t know how to take corrective action (must be precise and timely)
4. Shouldn’t be a marketing campaign in disguise
5. Don’t link to economics numbers that matter
6. Cookie cutter surveys not customized
7. No generally accepted standards
8. Confuses transactions with relationships (the former is easy to do, but the latter is much more important)
9. Surveys dissatisfy customers (they are too long and the loop is not closed)
10. Employees focus on gaming the number, not improving results

NPS Principles of Success

1. Ask the Ultimate Question and little else
2. Choose a scale and stick with it
3. Aim for high response rates from the right customers
4. Report relationship data as frequently as financial data
5. The more granular the data, the more accountable the employees
6. Audit to ensure accuracy and freedom from bias
7. Validate that scores link to behaviors

The NPS methodology was created by Bain Consultant Fred Reichheld after years of research into customer satisfaction. In his book, The Ultimate Question, he details how one simple question – How likely is it that you would recommend [company] to a friend or colleague? – has been shown to be the single best measure of whether or not a customer will become a repeat customer and refer you business in the future.

This survey can be delivered over the phone or via an online survey tool to your customers.  Depending upon whether or not your customers engage through long-term relationships or one time transactions, the survey can be done regularly or directly after the business interaction.  One Search Engine Optimization company I know here in Portland surveys their customer base every six months for insights.  Enterprise Rent-A-Car is famous for asking The Ultimate Question as renters leave the lot from which they picked up their car.

The approach for calculating your company’s Net Promoter Score is based up the following approach:

“On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague?”

• Promoters (9/10) – This is someone who is a strong advocate for your company and will bring you future customers and repeat business.
• Passives (7/8) – This is someone who has no strong feelings about your company.  If convenient and no better options come along, they will continue to do business with you.
• Detractors (6 or less) – This is someone who is actively dissatisfied, and they will spread negative opinions about your business at every opportunity, online and to prospective customers of yours.
• Net Promoter Score – This is calculated by taking the percentage of Promoters and subtracting the percentage of Detractors.  For example, if you surveyed ten customers, and five were promoters (50%) and three were detractors (30%), your Net Promoter Score would be 20.  So the formula to remember is NPS = %Promoters – %Detractors.

Based on the customer’s response, asking one follow up question is appropriate:

• Promoters: What specifically would you tell someone to get them to work with us?
• Passives: What would it take for you to rate us a 9 or a 10?
• Detractors: What is the primary reason for your score?

In all cases, if they express dissatisfaction about anything, ask if they would be open to someone from your company to follow up about it directly.

Some interesting statistics about business growth and Net Promoter Score:

• Bain Consulting found that a 5% increase in customer retention typically translates into a 25 to 100% increase in profitability
• Most industries have Net Promoter Scores between 0 and 20.
• The most successful growth companies in the world such as Apple and USAA have scores between 50 and 85.
• Certain industries such as airlines and credit cards have negative scores.

This week, a quick overview of visitor preferences for a mobile app versus a mobile website, a bunch of great information about email marketing, a high-level overview of current SEO information (subject to debate), a couple of nice management articles, and we finish it off with some thoughts on typography.

Mobile: Apps v. Website

Current data on the preferences between mobile app and mobile website — subject to change. Shopping and entertainment — give ‘em an app. Navigating or finding information — let your visitors use your website. App or Browser? Depends What Consumers Are Doing, eMarketer, 2.9.12  (suggested by Cat)

Email Marketing

Interesting case study of how moving an offline customer engagement program to include better online integration can help drive sales. Taking incentive from in-person to online boosts sales $105,000, MarketingSherpa, 2.1.2012 (suggested by Cameron)

Marketing Research Chart: How CMOs rank trends that impact email marketing, MarketingSherpa, 2.7.2012 (suggested by Cameron)

Post-sale Nurturing: Nonprofit’s email welcome series beats newsletter open rate 47%, marketing emails 257%, MarketingSherpa, 2.7.2012 (suggested by Cameron)

Search Engine Optimization

Okay, this is a pretty fun way to learn a bunch about the state of SEO! Ian Lurie is consistently pretty entertaining on his blog. SEO Exam Questions: The Answers, Conversation Marketing, 2.8.12

Project Management and Management

Don’t get too bogged down in the project management process that you forget the people! The Cost of Bad Project Management, Gallup Management Journal, 2.7.12

Balancing work and life isn’t just about time, it’s also about quality of that time. Why Work-Life Isn’t Balanced, Gallup Management Journal, 2.2.12

Design

Some suggestions on how to select a typeface: What’s Your Type? The 5-Step Guide to Finding the Right Font, The Daily Egg, 2.6.12 (suggested by Cat)