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No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars…

Posted in: Daily Quote by Jazz on July 24, 2009 | Comments Off

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars…

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

Helen Keller

Google Shuffle: search for same keywords yield different results – Why?

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on July 23, 2009 | 1 Comment

Google Shuffle: search for same keywords yield different results – Why?

Have you ever wondered or come across your site ranking at different ranks for the same keyword search?

Shuffle in SEO terms can be defined as: same keyword search from same or different place yielding different results.
Further, same searches at different time of day may yield different results from same location/computer.

That can be attributed to mathematical algorithms that maybe considering many other factors such as your past searching history, searches happening at that time etc. All of these are speculations, Google and other search engines are secretive and ever changing.

Whats important to keep in mind is not to  be addicted and get carried away with your ranking or minor fluctutaions, but rather focus more on conversion once users come to your site and sales while keeping the most important factor for rankings: backlinks from quality high ranked websites.

Guidelines for Content writing for Web/Blog

Posted in: Content Writing by Jazz on | 1 Comment

Guidelines for Content writing for Web/Blog

This is for all of the content Guys

These are some principles that apply to any /all content on the web. Even for those of you who will be writing Blogs every month

  • Writing Style  should be Informal- relaxed, personal, friendly, conversational, Informational pages can have a more formal tone- Objective, factual
  • Use active voice whenever possible – especially for instructions/labels that support user actions
  • Use the second person (you) to set a friendly informal tone
  • Use Contractions (can’t, won’t) for a conversational tone
  • Word choice- strive for simplicity in terminology, avoid abbreviations, acronyms and Jargon
  • For word selection take the following into consideration- Connotation- elderly Vs senior citizens,
  • Avoid words with unspecific or multiple definitions – good, some, soon, everyone
  • Ensure the tone remains consistent through out the site since it reflects the branding
  • Write to facilitate quick scanning
  • Sentence length- 8-20 words
  • Sentence Variety- add interest by varying the traditional subject and verb sequence about every 5th-6th sentece
  • Bulleted lists to make it easy to skim a written passage for relevant content
  • Numbered list for sequences/instructions
  • Use the inverted Pyramid writing style- helps users get to the point by quickly scanning headlines. Present conclusions at the top and put details at the end of the page or on a separate page

Headlines and titles-

  • Identify content of a section-macro level description 40-60 characters.
  • Put important words first that make sense even when truncated.
  • Emphasize actions or decisions
  • Help Guide readers
  • Include subtitles to help guide readers done the pyramid
  • They should help users comprehend even when displayed out of context
  • Use “hooks” to get the readers attention

Quotations –

  • Questions- “ How do you turn lookers into buyers”
  • Unusual Statements- “How to lose ecommerce customers?
  • Comparisons- “What works, and what flops, in a E commerce webite”

Links

  • Underline only Links- give them the best affordance or “click-ability”
  • Link Text – Cue users if this is a different destination- “New Window”
  • The text should be clear and understandable

Some facts from Usability studies-

  • Line length refers to the number of characters per line.
  • If line length is too long, reading speed decrease- eye gets lost returning to the next line.
  • Line length of 5.5 inches was read faster then that of 1.8 inches – eyes have to move more to return to the next line
  • Young and older readers prefer shorter line lengths– optimal  line length is seven words per line
  • Ideal line length is 55 characters per line (column format) for Readability
  • Although some studies show that 100 characters per line are better for reading speed
  • Trade off here is Readability Vs reading speed

You can also explore the “Readability Tool” – Ms Word – Tools>> Options>Spelling and Grammar Tab>>Turn on the readability statistics

Customer Centric, CRM and Target Marketing

Posted in: Web Marketing by Jazz on | Comments Off

Customer Centric, CRM and Target Marketing

With increased competition and globalization, organizations realize the importance of knowing their customers and providing them with better service. In today’s dynamic marketplace survival depends on being able to effectively maintain and utilize long-term customer relationships.  With technology changing so fast and competition just a click away, simply offering a service or producing a product can no longer provide the competitive advantage. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is one of the systems that connects different parts of company; Sales, Marketing and Customer Services and can help with customer retention, increased sales and superior customer service.

A.                 What is CRM?

CRM is not just a software system or technology but a strategy that a company can implement to achieve its vision. CRM allows a company to be customer-centric and change its culture to support its vision. CRM software is one component of the customer centric strategy that provides the infrastructure to be more competitive and provide superior service to your customers.

There are three major functional modules of CRM:

·         Sales module provides ability to manage leads, convert them into opportunities, place orders , automate back office functionality such as credit checks, purchase orders and reports

·         Marketing module provides the ability to create campaigns, segment data into lists and track performance to calculate ROI

·         Customer Service module provides ability to answer customer enquiries, screen pop, manage customer problems and requests to effectively provide better service

B.                 Why organizations need CRM?

Customers need CRM to get better insight into customer behavior and modify their operations to ensure best possible service.

Some added benefits are:

·         Customer Retention: due to growth of internet, customers are a mouse click away going to competition

·         Customer Satisfaction: satisfied customers are less expensive to hold on to and focus on them can lead to increased customer retention

·         Customer Profiling: customer data is an asset and systems are needed to capture and warehouse it

·         Targeted Marketing: in order to do personalized marketing superior customer knowledge is needed

C.                 What CRM can do for them?

CRM as software provides a central database and a standard user interface used by all departments of an organization. It allows the various departments to share information and history of a customer. It allows an organization to implement business processes, enforce rules and automate functions.

D.                Expectation and Results:

Due the complexities of an organization and each company’s unique mix of people, processes and products a CRM implementation is generally challenging. Despite anticipated potential, the benefits from CRM are not seen quickly. This can be contributed to factors such as poor requirements, data and user adoption. Majority of implementations fail due to users not being involved in design and decision process, lack of training, technical and functional support, and lack of effort at management level to make everyone understand that the extra effort need to capture data in some cases can reap rewards for the whole organization.

E.                 Growth:

An industry study conducted in 2004 by the International Data Corporation and Cap Gemini showed that only 12% of large European and North American companies had completed CRM systems. The majority of them were first generation systems with focus on implementation for call centers and second generation system that focus on customer data analysis and customer linking activities were just emerging.

Another study in 2007 performed by T.H.G. Sales Automation in partnership with Microsoft Corporation with 20,000 large, mid-sized and small businesses revealed that 42% were using CRM and another 13% were in process of implementing it. In terms of growth for the rest of companies, 1 in 4 indicated that they were either buying or investigating either a new CRM system or upgrading it.

Campaign Management – Steps to run a campaign

Posted in: Web Marketing by Jazz on | Comments Off

Campaign Management – Steps to run a campaign

What is Campaign Management?

Campaign Management is a series of marketing steps used to achieve specific goals of a strategy. The goals or key objectives of a campaign can help in deciding the strategy, mode of delivery and to report ROI. We know that one single campaign isn’t enough, there are multiple tactics that come together which influence the creation and closing of opportunities.

Steps to do a Campaign Management in Microsoft CRM

Preparation:
1.    Define campaign goals
Examples of Objectives:
•    Increase sales revenue
•    Acquire new customers
•    Focus on current customer
•    Up sell / Cross sell to current and future customers
•    Sell specials or slow inventory

2.
How to target campaign:
•    Existing customers – Define target audience based on objective of campaign. Marketing and sales can collaborate to define fields on the basis of which future segmentation can be done.  This could be fields on sales screens, leads or opportunities.
•    Leads: consider using current and past leads.
•    New Leads: Buying and using 3rd party leads, removing suspect leads, importing, de-duping against existing customers and past lead data.

3.    Determine program/channels and processes: Email / Search Engine PPC / Events / Phone call and define process to for converting to leads and Sales force cycle.

4.    Define responses: In this state clearly defining what a response means and what will be the follow up can help in evaluation success or failure. Examples: Opened Email, Visited website landing page, Registered for event, Registered but no show.

Campaign Execution:
1.    Build campaign
2.    Segment data and build list: based on geography, type of company, company size, product, past history of buying or response.
3.    Create template / content
4.    Mass Email

Campaign Tracking:
1.    Analyze responses and track follow up.
2.    Measure ROI via reports, Budget vs Actual Cost, Response rate, Leads, Opportunities, Quotes, Orders


 
 
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