26th August 2013

So What Is Digital Radio?

With the results of the recent Perth radio survey (5/2013) out, which saw a very rare situation of a tied Number 1 position for 96fm and 94.5, we thought we would look at radio in more detail, in particular Digital Radio.

So what is Digital Radio? Well for some people they believe it is the digital screenplay. In fact it’s a whole lot more than that. Digital Radio provides the listener with more choices of stations to listen to than the usual FM band (up to 22 digital only stations).

Another really cool feature is scrolling text (or radio text). Because digital radio comes with a small screen it allows content to be displayed in regards to the program you are listening to. This can include the plot summary to what is being played, the name of the track, up to the minute sports results, competition details, or details on what’s coming up next.

But as you would expect with digital, the quality means a clearer sound, because it is not subject to normal atmospheric or electrical interference. This means no hiss, crackling, fading or overlaps. Just great radio, as long as you are in the coverage area!

With Digital Radio your tuning is done by station name, not frequency, which makes it easier to find your favourite station just by choosing on the text display. There are a number of different ways to receive Digital Radio.

  • In your Car (Digital Car Radio)
  • Online (Digital Radio Online)
  • On your phone

The technology of Digital radio receivers means that you don’t need to bother retuning to the station. The Digital Radio stations broadcast differently but the receiver does all the work, so you don’t need to retune on the move, finding the best signal every time.

Digital Radios are now able to Pause; Record and Rewind live radio and even broadcast slide images. This means you’re in control. In the near future we will be able to download music direct to the radio’s memory and Electronic Program Guides.

Finally the best thing about Digital Radio (unlike Digital TV) is that it’s free to receive the signal! So if you don’t have a Digital Radio, maybe now’s the time to seriously consider it. Look at some Digital Radio reviews to find out which is the best digital radio in Perth (or wider Australia) today!

If you would like to obtain a guide for radio media and production costs in Perth, then download our Checklist below:

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August 19th 2013

Is It Time To Take Another Look At Your Mailbox?

In this age of tweets, blogs, emails and updates one would imagine marketing is all about going digital. And to an extent, it is. But given the huge focus on digital, we thought it would be a good idea to shine a light on a channel that hasn’t been in the spotlight. We’re of course talking about direct mail (the kind that the postman puts in your mailbox, remember?). But isn’t direct mail dead you ask? Well, we don’t blame you for thinking that, but you would be wrong. As long as we continue walking up to our mailbox and collecting our mail, direct mail as a channel will be alive.

As marketers then, the question we need to ask is: Is it effective? Thanks to Australia Post, we have a few answers to that question. The latest Australia Post Consumer Survey Mail Findings (May 2013) throws up some surprising figures. Based on a sample of 1000 Australians across age, gender and location demographics, the Survey reports that 82% of people check their mail everyday. More importantly, Australian households read 73% of the addressed mail they receive. Combine the figures and what you have is not just an impressive reach, but a high readership for personalised mail as well.

A key question that needs to be asked here is, just who is reading the mail and are they part of my Target Audience? One of the key demographics for most brands is the 18-29 year olds and here Direct Mail scores almost as well. Of the addressed mail they receive, young people tend to read almost 70%, with their favourites being mail from fashion stores, real estate companies, the government and local service providers. Given how little young people read in general you’ve got to say that’s an impressive figure.

The next interesting statistic is the average engagement time with mail. In other words, what level of interaction can you achieve with direct mail? The answer, on average, is about 3 minutes, with the time dropping to about 2 minutes for people under 30 years. Considering media fragmentation and the multiscreen phenomenon, this level of engagement with a single channel is pretty high.

One of the big benefits of direct mail has always been its shelf value. In general we tend to hold on to physical mail a lot longer than other forms of communication like emails. On this yardstick, the numbers show that over 50% of people (58% to be precise) store their mail for later reference. Indicating that we still place a pretty high level of importance on mail. It’s also in line with the general belief that direct mail allows people to choose the time they want to engage, which in theory should make them more receptive to its message.

While these are impressive numbers, there is one last figure that, to us at least, sums up where direct mail stands in today’s crowded media market. And whether it can hold its own in the future.

In response to a the query about how people would like to receive marketing and promotional content, a majority of young people chose both direct mail and email. This clearly indicates that what people really want is choice. Choice in how they receive your message, and choice in how they engage and respond to it.

Crucially for direct mail, this also shows is that the advent of digital marketing hasn’t spelt the end of direct mail. What digital has done is give consumers another way to interact with brands, but not necessarily at the cost of direct mail.

So if you’re looking at your marketing mix, and haven’t considered direct mail, then based on the above you should give it a good look. On the other hand if you’ve saturated your digital marketing channels and are looking at new ways to reach your market, then the good old direct mail piece may be just what you need.

Either way, it’s a good time to take another look at your mailbox. Who knows, you might just find a free gift waiting there for you.

Source: Australia Post Consumer Survey Mail Findings

12th August 2013

Is Mobile Advertising Effective?

It’s perhaps a sign of our times that we now carry as much computing power in our pockets as we do in our heads. The reason of course is the rise of the smart phone. Given its ease of use, interface and growing computing power it’s become the device of choice when mobile (and even when not mobile i.e. while sitting on the couch).

So what does this mean for advertisers and advertising? Given its usage, advertising on mobile screen is here to stay. Whether that’s display advertising, search advertising or newer app-centered advertising. The question is: Just how effective is mobile advertising. Is it a poor cousin of online advertising, or can it hold its own.

The latest research from Google’s Think Insights provides some answers. Understandably, Google has focused its efforts on mobile search advertising. The question that Google seeks to answer is: What impact do mobile search ads (those little paid ads that appear above and below your search results) have on driving traffic to your website.

The research studied 327 advertising accounts across 12 different industries for the period from March 2012 to April 2013. It looked at how many unique site visits were driven by search ads and whether stopping search advertising led to more clicks through organic search results. That is, if you stopped doing paid search, would you make up for the traffic lost through organic search.

What they found is pretty significant and the numbers are impressive: 88% of clicks on mobile search ads are incremental to organic clicks. In other words, if you stopped your mobile search ads, you would lose these clicks. They wouldn’t be replaced by organic clicks.

What’s really significant is that they found this to be the case across all 12 industries. With each of the verticals registering over 80% incremental clicks from mobile search ads. Which means the behavior is universal.

While this study was restricted to mobile search ads, it points to some important trends in digital advertising. For one, mobile advertising can’t be treated as an add-on to your digital marketing strategy anymore. If you’re keen on capturing all the consumers looking for your product or service, then you need to spend time and energy crafting a specific mobile strategy.

Moreover, with location based services and mobile apps now the norm, mobile advertising can be far more targeted and relevant than before. The more you know about your consumers, the more you can move them from awareness and interest, through to desire and action. And mobile technology offers us ways to understand and track consumer behavior like never before.

Recent research indicates that we interact with our phones more than 100 times a day. Over 80% of smartphone users in the US don’t leave home without their phone. And 61% of smartphone users perform searches on their phone every day.

Join the dots and it becomes clear that mobile advertising isn’t just a nice thing to do. It’s an essential element in any campaign. The one thing that mobile advertising allows you to do is make your advertising mobile. When people pop their phones in their pockets, they take your advertising with them. Everywhere. And that’s an opportunity advertisers have rarely had. Done right it can lead to a whole new way
of interacting with your consumer and as Google’s research proves, it can be very effective.

Source: Google Think Insights – How Effective are mobile ads at driving traffic?

22nd July 2014

What Makes A Great Website?

Websites are one of the main resources of a business. Having a trustworthy, proficient, and engaging online presence requires work and persistence. You know there are a huge number of sites out there, so how might you stand apart from your competitors?  To solve this problem, it helps to find the best small business web design agency for your specific requirements.

A decent website grabs your interest and gives you the information you need. Here are some important things consider when building a site for your business.

1. Organization & Structure

Great sites are efficient and follow a structure. Their organization makes them simple and easy to use. They are also built around a target audience and market. 

By structuring your site intelligently, site visitors will be more inclined to explore the content in your site. Additionally, a perfect organization and structure allow Google to simply crawl and index your site more easily.

2. Simple Navigation

Effective sites offer simple and easy-to-understand navigation. Visitors should find everything they need as quickly as possible. If users need to wander around the site trying to discover what they need, they will get disappointed and leave. For this reason, you should incorporate a clear navigation bar on your site.

Depending on the size of your site and the amount of content, you should think about executing a super menu, also called uber menus. These types of menus go beyond the regular drop-down menus by permitting you to organize content in your navigation bar utilizing segments.

3. Unique Content

Excellent sites focus on their target audience’s desires. Great and fresh content builds the user’s interest and encourages them to come back for more. Furthermore, Google esteems content that is important and intriguing for users, so creating unique content is an extraordinary method of double-dipping when it comes to making a decent site. A few organizations decide to do this by writing articles or blogs about their services or products, while others make pages answering frequently asked questions by customers.

4. Excellent Design

Excellent design is vital to a site. A decent site is one that merely has all the information a customer needs. Great sites present this information in a way that considers user experience. Consequently, it is important to design a site for both desktop and mobile.

5. Speed

Users would prefer not to wait for slow content to download; they need their data rapidly and immediately. In today’s internet, most users realize that if they click on a site and it doesn’t load as quickly as they expect, they can return and tap on another that will load quickly. Optimized images, video, and audio give a site the required speed it needs to load quickly.

Alternatively, when it comes to diminishing page speed time for mobile devices, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) proves to be useful. This is a project backed by Google to rapidly load sites on mobile phones. Page speed plays a major role in the success of a website.

6. Simple To Read

The vast majority of users don’t read site copy carefully; they instead scan them. Prioritizing content by importance help the site’s readability by making the text easier on the user’s eyes. The difference between the text color and the site background is also vital. Optimized sites won’t ever utilize a dark background tone and dull blue text or white background color and yellow text.

Placing content in a hierarchy assists individuals with distinguishing significant sections on the site. Excellent sites go through headings to break the content into sections and give small paragraphs of text to help their consume their content more easily.

Utilize these features on your site and improve your business by contacting Ad Impact Advertising for the best quality web development services in Perth. We are a complete digital marketing agency in Perth that offers high-quality web design and development services at low costs.

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15th July 2013

Thinking Inside The Box. Does Constraint Kill Creativity?

The popular notion of creativity is that it’s best achieved when there are
no constraints. With complete freedom comes complete creativity.

Remove the obstacles of budget, style guides, mandatories and you’re on the path to creativity. Unshackled from everything that’s holding them back your team can now come up with great ideas. Or so the logic goes.

The truth is quite different.

Not only do constraints not hold you back, they can actually boost creativity. As counter intuitive as that sounds, what it indicates is that constraints can work as road signs. The good ones point you in the right direction and lead you to your destination. The wrong ones make you go around in circles. Have too few and you could get lost. Have too many and you’ll end up nowhere.

Constraints are a reality of life. The laws of physics and chemistry, the rule of law and monetary constraints are all limitations we deal with on a daily basis. Other constraints may seem entrenched but on inspection may be based on past assumptions — your business model, or which customer needs your business serves, for example.

So how do we recognize the right constraints, and discard the wrong ones?

While it’s not always easy to tell in advance what limitations, or mix of limitations will work best, there are some key indicators that can guide you in recognizing the right constraints.

One of the first yardsticks to use is to ask if a constraint is moving you towards clarity, or is it just complicating things. If it’s helping clarify the problem, keep it. If not discard it.

Another good guide is to evaluate whether the constraints enhance your understanding of the problem. Do they help you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing? User needs, for example, are great because they provide focus and rationale. If the constraint confuses or overly narrows scope without good reason, remove or replace it. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different combinations of constraints. Remember, clarity of purpose is your goal.

Here are a few examples of how constraints helped boost clarity and creativity.

The small screen solution

The explosion in smartphones has meant more and more online companies are developing mobile apps for their services. In many cases the app comes before the website. One of the unexpected benefits of this has been that a phone’s small screen has forced discipline on companies and developers. It’s meant companies need to ask themselves what’s really critical to communicate to the customer, and which functionality customers really need. A 4” constraint of real estate hasn’t meant a lack of creativity, in fact as many apps prove, it’s meant a big boost in creativity.

This simplicity-oriented mindset can be used for any function. Ask yourself, what’s the one thing you want your customers to know or do at any given point of interacting with your business? If you could only communicate with them via a 4″ screen, or a business card, or a 6 second Vine movie — what would you say, what would you ask of them, and what would you want them to feel afterward? Once you’ve cracked that, chances are, all the other stuff that once seemed important now seems superfluous.

Houston, we have a problem.

In 1970, Apollo 13 went on a lunar mission. The launch was successful, but a fault inside the space module meant carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts built up in the module. On the ground, engineering teams had to figure out a way to clean the air with only the equipment on board. The unbelievable constraints of lives at risk and time running out drove them to a totally unexpected solution. They figured out a way to use the command module’s square air cleaners in the lunar module’s round receivers. Who says a square peg can’t fit in a round hole?

The truth is creativity needs some grit, much like the grain of sand in an oyster; constraints push us to think beyond the norm and come up with elegant, beautiful solutions.

When constraints become mandatory, we need to recalibrate how we work. The economic downturn has forced us to be more innovative, leaner, faster and smarter. From this difficult time, companies have started collaborating with former competitors, built new relationships with customers through social media and created products and services that are better, and cheaper.

Thinking outside the box is well and good, but if the box is the right size and shape, it might be just what your creativity needs.

Sources: Mashable – creative constraints, HBR Blog Network – Boosting Creativity Through Constraints

8th July 2013

Online Retail – A Threat, Or An Opportunity In Disguise?

The latest Roy Morgan Research finding confirms a trend most of us are probably aware of – More than 50% of Australians now shop online. In the last year alone, online retail has grown 12% taking the percentage of online retail as a part of overall retail spending to 9%. While that may look like a small number, it points to something much larger, a trend and a fast growing one at that. Online shopping is here to stay and it’s increasingly going mainstream.

What does this mean for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers? Do they continue as normal and hope to grow, or do they adjust their strategy and launch/re-vamp their online offering?

Online shopping is posing what is arguably the biggest challenge to traditional retail in the last decade. Be it the smaller family owned businesses or the large retail houses. Advancing technology and hand-held computing are only making online shopping easier, faster and more accessible. With the global market now within reach, prices are more competitive than ever. And more options mean consumers are increasingly calling the shots.

What this means is that no longer is it acceptable to just put up a website and have an online presence. Viewing the Internet as another revenue stream – and a growing one – is what’s needed. This means investing in the infrastructure needed to optimize your website for e-commerce. Making sure your User Interface (UI) is elegant, simple and easy to navigate. And ensuring your site delivers on key customer needs.

It doesn’t just stop with a website. The other big number that’s come out of research is the use of smartphones for online purchases. The use of Smartphones for shopping has grown a whopping 101% in the last year. Add to that the fact that smartphone penetration in Australia is now at 50% and the message is clear. Your consumer is increasingly interacting with your brand via a smartphone. Is your brand ready for this? Is your website optimized for smartphones? Do you have an app that makes interacting and shopping from your store easier? Is your e-commerce infrastructure geared to handle phone transactions? These are critical questions and you ignore them at your own risk.

In our interaction with clients we’re seeing an increased need for comprehensive, integrated digital strategies. Rather than adopt digital as an add-on, clients now need to build digital into their core marketing strategy and offerings. This includes ensuring their hosting can handle increased traffic and data. Their pricing is-up-to-date, relevant and location specific. Their user interface is simple and easy to navigate. And their delivery channels are robust.

Globally, the big retail brands are already doing this. Macy’s (which includes Bloomingdale’s in its stable) recently revealed that it’s been investing heavily in web technologies with it’s website slated to become a big component of the business. The results are already showing: 89% of its growth came from online sales and overall profits have surged 20%.

John Lewis, another brand that’s embraced online retail, has made click and collect a central part of its online strategy. It now offers consumers the option of picking up their purchases from any of the Group’s supermarket chain outlets.
Kmart USA is another big retailer who’s investing heavily in online retail.

As these examples show, those retailers who choose to play in both spaces can do extremely well and convert what is a challenge into a great opportunity for growth.

There’s an old saying in the Stock Markets – The trend is your friend. Australian retailers would do well to take this to heart. The trend is clearly in favour of online retail, and for those who embrace it, it’s an opportunity like no other.

If you’re a retailer looking to establish or enhance your online presence, feel free to talk to us about how an integrated digital strategy can help you grow your business.

Sources: Roy Morgan Research, abc.net.au

24th June 2013

SEO For Youtube

So you’ve got a killer viral video. But can anyone find it?

You’ve just created what you’re sure is the next big viral video and it’s all set to top the YouTube charts. It’s got a horse-dancing pop star, a bleating goat and a cute kitten. How could it not be a rage? So you upload it and wait to make the evening news. And wait. And wait.

You see, word of mouth is the most powerful way to make a video go viral, but if no one can find your video, what are they going to talk about? While reams have been written about how to create viral videos, very little is said about how to get people to find that video. Surprisingly, even savvy digital marketers fall short when it comes to taking advantage of video SEO techniques.

Here then are a few pointer on how to make your video more discoverable
on YouTube.

It’s all in the Title. And the description. And the tags.

When it comes to video titles it’s critical to remember that what works on Google search isn’t necessarily what works on YouTube. When people search videos they tend to search a bit differently than conventional search engines. For example “Justin Bieber Look” won’t make a great YouTube title, while “Easy Justin Beiber look tutorial” is closer to what people will search for.
The other thing to do is search for videos similar to yours and see what they’re using in their titles and descriptions. Can you make yours better or more clearer? The YouTube Keyword Suggestion Tool is worth checking out for more in-depth recommendations.

Think Channel, not just Video.
It’s worth remembering that YouTube is itself a social network. As YouTube continues to prioritize channel growth and audience engagement over individual video success, its’ worth spending time on cultivating your channel. So even if you don’t have a video to post yet, you can still keep your subscribers engaged by posting, liking, commenting on and sharing videos from other YouTube channels.

Update the rest of your video, playlist, and channel metadata.
Things like creating closed caption transcripts for videos, adding social media links, and verifying your website to improve your SEO and enable annotation links directly to your website are all great ways to ensure your video is found.

Use Other Social Media.
YouTube isn’t the only place you need to post your video. Your own social media communities are a great place to seed your video. Also, post your YouTube links to Facebook, Google (brand page, events, communities) LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Foursquare, etc. You should also include links to your profile on these networks directly from your YouTube channel.

Identifying and posting videos to the top website forums in your industry can significantly boost your organic views. In addition to standalone website forums, third-party LinkedIn Groups and Google Communities can provide additional, targeted audiences for your video content.

Know What’s Working.
Do you know which of your videos are attracting the most views. YouTube Analytics is a quick way to see which of your videos are most engaging to viewers. The sub-menus will tell you which videos are the most viewed and have the highest audience retention and engagement. Knowing what works means you can replicate successful content and find ways to improve the content you already have.

Stay Engaged
Since October 2012, YouTube more heavily rewards audience retention (minutes spent watching your videos) in determining search result rankings. So focus on developing your audience just as much as developing your video content.

How do you do this? Resist the urge to chuck in one more Harlem Shake video on your channel and instead work towards creating and sharing content that’s original, unique and surprising.

Video is an extremely powerful medium to promote a brand. So it’s well worth the time and effort to not just create great content but optimise it so your audience can find it quickly. And share it even faster.

Also, it’s worth remembering that doing it all on your own isn’t always the best option. Often getting an SEO expert in and having them optimise your content for the maximum possible reach and views is well worth the money.

Sources: Capture The Conversation, YouTube Creator Playbook.