Seems sensible, but the litany of example after example of companies putting their brands at risk and downgrading their brand’s impact continues to this day. It has been – and continues to be – too easy for legacy email systems to enable cavalier attitudes towards the email space.

Email is now an embedded communication channel millions of people prefer and as a result, consumers more than ever expect companies to behave responsibly – and expect those brands they have invited into their lives over time to transfer that aura of respect, trust and dependability to email communications.

Email has been viewed as the “cheap” channel – so shooting poor data through the network has not been taken seriously due to the relatively low cost of sending campaigns out the door. As email has evolved over several years, and as ISPs more actively manage traffic across their server networks, the idea of “throwing spaghetti against the wall” is no longer responsible or acceptable.

Compromising the reputation of your IP Address compromises your brand. It is time consuming, costly and unintelligent – particularly in light of the fact the latest advances in email software enable the user to actively manage all aspects of the email channel and see precisely how their brands are being represented to ISPs and markets at large.

Data integrity =’s Brand integrity. This is not a new concept. Smart, successful direct mailers using the postal channel have embraced this tenant for years – and prospered from it. Brand “strength” and “reach” were achieved in many cases through maintaining a keen eye on driving efficiency across all direct marketing channels.

Transfer of those historical tried and true direct marketing drivers into an easy to use, easy to manage and easy to test solution suite now allow smart email marketers to realise efficiencies in the channel that were just not possible or too costly to actualise in years past.

Advanced, transparent reputation monitors ensure your control of how your brand is being received. A/B Testing that requires no/low support ensures you take control of how your brandgrows. Failsafe routines allow you to take control of your brand’s perception in the marketplace by eliminating broken links, ensuring Opt In/Opt Out compliance and catching oversights such as “no subject” and image rendering failures – before your campaign is sent.

Take control of your brand – just like you used to. Protect it. Enhance it. Extend it.

Our opinion is that you don’t need to create the best website in the world in order for it to work. But what you do need to is to make sure that whatever it is your website is about, that it captures the users imagination and makes them want to find out more.

Visual appeal goes some way to achieving that and the level you take it to depends on what your website is about - but Coca Cola, as an example, have used some neat tricks so that when you take a look at each product in their range (http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/default.html) the screen zooms around to give a little flashy presentation.

You might not want to go to that level, but using techniques like Coca Cola have done means you can get a  lot more info on your website without overloading it. With only so much space on websites and impatient users that want things and they want them now you need to think very carefully about what your most important user-engaging features are and hit them with it straight away.

Carousels on websites have been around for some time now but the transition effects are become slicker all of the time. Users love to see slick graphical touches and when they get the ‘ooooh’ feeling they remember it, they’ll probably stay on your website for longer and they may even tell others - http://www.neteffekt.co.uk/email-marketing-screens.php

Sites like Amazon have the right idea when it comes to content placement by the way that after they’ve learned a bit about you they push more relevant content onto the screen by swapping out the generic place holder type offerings. It’s pretty basic but it makes me feel good because I feel like my web pages on Amazons aren’t like anyone elses. (Maybe that’s a little sad!)

This is definitely the way to go. Showing all users all of the same content each time they visit your site won’t give the user a feeling of satisfaction and it will become stale and boring for them over time.

When I use websites I want to know that the sites I’m using are learning about what I’m interested in and what I’m not interested in. It also helps refresh my memory when I revisit sites I’ve not been to for a while and draws my focus back to what I was last doing.

We’re already written a few articles on copy writing & content, email design, ecommerce features and usability that are also worth reading and they should help you consider how you can fine tune your users experience when interacting online with your business.

Don’t stop with your website and make sure that any other type of communication using email, social media, RSS or whatever else are just as engaging and are reinforcing your brand in the way you want them to.

We were invited (along with Oracle & Experian - amongst other big names),  to present at a recent event discussing this topic and to answer big questions on

• How to connect the new data generated by digital marketing with traditional transactional databases.
• How to develop a genuine 360 insight into your customer by using multiple information sources.
• How to make the most of new forms of targeting: behavioural, location - based and by recommendation.
• How to measure effectiveness and optimise budgets on this new data landscape.

Over the next few months we’ll be running a series of articles on our blog to help you find answers to the questions above to help you become more creative with your data and to get the most from it.

If you have time then it’s worth taking a minute to have a look at the presentation we ran on the day - http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/Content-from-Being-creative-with-data-25th-November

…our technical director Dave also has a spot on the video interviews - http://www.ipa.co.uk/Content/Content-from-Being-creative-with-data-25th-November

Watch out on Twitter or our blog for the first article in the series. (…and don’t forget to sign-up to our monthly email)

Watch this video (1h 20m) and make you’re own mind up. We were impressed as we’re sure you will be and then you’re mind will be racing as you think of all the different ways Wave can make a difference to you.

It certainly got us thinking and just the thought of live updates on reviews while you’re looking at a product online, talk live to multiple people on chat forums, creating a customer support system that logs conversations to a knowledge base - you get the idea!

Run a few searches on Google for Wave and you’ll find tons of information and watch this space for the ideas we’re thinking about too!

As of 30th of September 2009 email might start to be called ‘old fashioned’!

Read more on the official Google Wave webpage - http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

But on the other hand, the excitement of whizzy tools like Google Analytics can sometimes mean that more fundamental things are overlooked in relation to how your website is performing.

Think about implementing feedback loops for customers and it’ll give you the best and most honest information around. OK, so some of the feedback may be a little harsh and some of it may be useless but it’s all information that will give you a better understanding of what your customers really want, what they don’t like and what they do like about your website. They may even be nice to you ;0)

We’ve picked out 2 really good feedback loop services than can help you make your websites do more and help to retain more customers. We’re not affiliated with any of these companies but I thought it’d be useful to pick out a couple of real life services that do the job. I do like the look of them both though…

Product Reviews
Everyone uses product reviews these days and it makes perfect sense to do just that. If you’re going to spend £100 on a shiny new thing then you’re going to want to know if it’s worth the money and that it can do the job.

You can easily find the best priced product by using Google Base, Kelkoo and other comparison tools but what you really want to know is what the people who bought it thought of it.

At the same time, you don’t want to cram so many product reviews into your website so that the layout becomes horrible to use and services like Reevoo have overcome this with a number of different ways to layout and style the process of capturing and displaying product reviews on your website.

For more info on Reevoo click here

Customer Satisfaction Surveys
When customers engage with your website their experiences can vary massively because of things like browser differences, operating systems, network connectivity, how skilled the user is etc etc.

You don’t have control of how they interact and the thing is, you’ll never know exactly what happened and what they thought unless you ask them.

Surveying customers can be really low-effort in terms of set-up and deployment and what’s great is that it gives you the very best information on how to keep your customers happy. OK, so some customers won’t respond and you might get some abuse but you’ll be left with info you and your team can really work with.

Shopzilla lets you set-up your own surveys online and they’ll collate and send you the data so all you need to do is make sure your customers are asked to participate.

We’ve talked about automated messaging on our blog before and if you utilise that as a way to deliver surveys using email to your customers, say 3 days after they bought, then the whole process can be automated and set-up with low-effort and low-cost.

…what you waiting for?

Seriously though, you should think about surveys and product reviews for your website. Even if you decide one or both is not for you then at least give them some thought as these could be a couple of things, which are relatively easy to implement, that are holding your website back.

How It Happened

Emails tend to start off with very streamlined designs, making them easy to use and less likely to run into display errors in different email clients. However, as marketers reach a level of comfort with email marketing, and quality content continues to be developed, more and more of that content begins to find its way into their email communications.

It can start with something as simple as a sidebar, or additional space for images. As the months go on, additional content accumulates on your email template, and soon it hardly resembles the streamlined communication vehicle it once was.

Think this might be the case with your own email? Ask yourself a few questions:

1.    What am I trying to communicate?
Trying to communicate more than two or three main ideas in an email is difficult in light of how quickly most email recipients sift through their inboxes. Identify the one idea, if you could only choose one, that you would want recipients to take away from your email-is it the first thing you notice on your test message? If not, consider moving or eliminating excess content.

2.    Am I overloading?
Giving visitors to your website a variety of options is fine, but an excessive number of links and linked images on an email can make it difficult and frustrating to engage with. Many marketers rely on emails to drive traffic to their sites, but the amount of clicks an email receives has much less to do with the number of available links than the relevance of those links. Also, too many links on an email increases the chances of frustrating site visitors who wait for a page to load only to realize they clicked on the wrong link in your message-an easy mistake to make with several links in close proximity.

3.    Where can I make changes?
Some content on your emails will be non-negotiable, but be mindful of including any non-essential elements. For example, a large graphic about an event could have a negative impact if it’s the first thing a recipient sees. In this case, the recipient may believe the event is the focus of the message-even if that is not the case-and could abandon the message due to lack of interest in the event. Scaling the graphic down, or simply using stylized text to promote it, would slim down the message and make sure the recipients’ focus is on your products, editorial, or whatever else you consider to be the key takeaway (see #1 above).

One common email element not likely to be eliminated by any marketer is advertising space, but there is no greater contributor to a bloated-looking email than a slew of rotating banner ads. At the very least make sure clearly defined borders separate advertising from your own content, and avoid using any unnecessary images of your own, which can contribute to the cramped appearance.

Less is more

The tendency of emails to become inflated stems from marketers’ desire to communicate as much information as possible with their subscribers. While this desire is perfectly understandable, it does not always take into account the user-experience of those who will be receiving the messages.

It’s a good thing to have more ideas than can fit onto one email-for your subscribers’ sake, try not to overload your messages. One idea on an email can still get great results, but only if your recipients can find it.

Worried by the supplier bills, salaries and all the other expenses that go with running a business, many are looking at ways to curb expenditure in order to weather the economic storm - and all too often the first casualty is all things ‘online’.

“Why should we be investing in Pay-Per-Click, updating our site or sending out emails when things are so tight at the moment?”

The answer to that question is simple, “because your competition still are”

Your competitors will have asked themselves the same questions you are. It’s worth while looking at the answers to all your questions, because your competition may very well be picking up on an answer that you may have at first overlooked.

In addition, you should consider that it doesn’t necessarily take a big investment into your website or online marketing campaigns to bring results. The cost of developing and expanding your online business can be very small in comparison to offline or traditional marketing costs of print, radio or TV advertising and yet still yield great returns.

(example: is it going to cost more to take out those ads in the local newspaper that will only run for a week, or improve the usability of your website and get more ad banners on a selection of your affiliate partner websites?)

A lot of companies often fail to realise the potential of their online commitment to their business when their perception of their results leads them to feel that a particular process wasn’t successful. This “marketing campaign didn’t work”, or “that banner ad didn’t work”-is what they’ll say. Why didn’t it work? What factors where present that could be effecting other areas of our business? Is the image of the puppy dog killing your message? Have we targeted the right people?” Even bad results have value.

Commitment means taking results and converting them into something tangible. “OK that didn’t work for us, …why? …Then let’s try this…” This kind of attitude will, in the long term, achieve more results because of the knowledge building nature of the problem/solution response.

examples of how developing change can cut costs

• Transferring traditional marketing to online digital versions (PDFs and so forth) can dramatically cut costs. By simply making company information such as catalogues, brochures, white papers available as downloads which can then be distributed via the internet  can eliminate printing and postage expenses which frees up budget for other departments.
• By using analytics tools you can discover whether your PPC campaigns are actually cost effective (something that some companies will hide from their clients.) Sometimes more revenue could be gained from attracting repeat customer business through email marketing as opposed to trying to attract new, unique custom through search engine marketing.
• Testing and adapting your website content can achieve massive results. From simply changing the wording of a headline or title, removing an image or changing something that was confusing your customers. It’s outstanding how small differences can have big results. But only by commitment and not being afraid to face some home truths can positive change develop.

Commitment and effort to any online activity should be sustained and energetic. Whether it’s an ecommerce website or an email marketing campaign designed to drive traffic to your website or solicit some other kind of interest or response, as a company you should believe in your goals, what you are doing, what you are saying. Dropping off with momentum will be seen by your customers and interpreted as you just don’t care that much. It’s understandable why so many companies are doing just that in this current time, but now is really the time to be focusing more effort on these areas of your business, as opposed to cutting them off. Your competitors may see this and use it to accelerate past you, using these uncertain times to their benefit.

Most web-based businesses see increased drop off in return when their websites stagnate. If you’re not committed to updating your site, bringing your users latest products, information or customer care, or making your website better to use, then they won’t be loyal.

By committing to your online goals you can achieve results. Adapting, changing tact and developing your methods for delivering your message may be called for, but this is to be expected as part of any realistic world view of marketing your business.

Through analysis we can see what’s working and what’s not and then adapt and change to fit the surrounding landscape, or even stand out further as maybe the case. But commitment to the fight is what makes successful companies stand out from those companies that fail to see the relevance in staying committed to online marketing.

If you would like to know more about why you should be considering more commitment to your online business then give us a call on 0870 41 777 41.

The degree to which software can be used comfortably by a wide variety of people, including those who require assistive technologies like screen magnifiers or voice recognition.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at why you need to make sure that your website is accessible.

In the context of web browsers, “assistive technologies” are pieces of software that help users understand the contents of a web page. Examples could include screen readers or braille displays for the blind or partially sighted. These work by reading the raw HTML of the web page and they don’t pay attention to CSS, (although there are now styles in CSS2 that are targeting screen reading technology, so it is worth bearing in mind for the future). You can give these users the best chance of successfully using your website if you mark up your pages in a semantically correct fashion. This will help the software and therefore the users infer the correct meaning from your websites.

Bearing that in mind, you might think that this sounds like a great idea, but surely it is going to cost more to take the time to make sure that the page is accessible. Won’t it require some compromises in design? You’re right to think that, because it will. However, there are two big reasons to make sure your pages are accessible. The first one is the legal argument.

Back in the year 2000, the organisers of the Sydney Olympics were successfully sued by an individual, Bruce Maguire under the Australian Disability Discrimination Act, because parts of the Sydney Olympics website were inaccessible to him. Bruce, being blind, used a Braille display and encountered numerous problems with the site. For example, images on the site did not have a text alternative specified using the “alt” attribute for the “img” tag. The organisers ignored the ruling and were then fined A$20,000. They had argued that the W3C’s accessibility guidelines were too new to be taken into account when implementing the site, but they had also ignored things like the alt attribute, which had existed since HTML 2.0.

This has world wide implications because disability legislation is broadly similar in Australia, USA, Canada and the UK. The guidelines were new 8 years ago, but not anymore. It is generally understood that you need to reach the “AA” level these days. You could save a bit of time and money and create a site that doesn’t follow these guidelines, but prepared to face the legal consequences. Better then to take them into account at the earliest stage?

The second big reason doesn’t have anything to do with accessibility, but rather search engines. Search engines use “bots” to visit your site and index the content. Like screen readers and braille displays, these bots are pieces of software that read your HTML. When it comes to searching this content, how it is marked up and the contents of the attributes will have a direct bearing on how likely it is the search engine will think your content is relevant. This is because the algorithms they use will try and infer more meaning to the content. “Reading between the lines” as it were.

Making your ecommerce website accessible gives you three benefits.

1. Enables more people to use your site and spend money with you
2. Saves you legal worries in future - the guidelines will only get stronger!
3. Improves search engines understanding of your site

Here at neteffekt we’re experts in creating accessible ecommerce websites and email marketing campaigns. Get in touch with us if you want to start profiting from the above benefits. You can’t lose!

Looking at the failings of your website is just as important as looking at your successes.  In order to keep ahead of the game, it isn’t enough to just be happy with the users that actually “converted” (that is someone who bought something or downloaded from you, or made an enquiry). You need to know why those users who didn’t get as far as buying from your store left at a certain stage, or why they fell short of clicking the “download now” button.

And what that means is taking a cold, hard look at what you have put online as representative of you or your company. What you have said, how you have said it, the way you have presented yourself, your company or your products online requires evaluation and re-evaluation in order to get the best results.

Many people simply don’t like to admit that they got it wrong.

Improve Your Website Success through Knowledge

Using tools like Google Analytics, and Website Optimizer, will help you learn about visitors behavior on your site. Where they have come from, what they have looked at, how long they have stayed on your site.

The beauty of analysing information like this is that the results aren’t emotional, they aren’t judgmental. They are facts. Pure and simple. And by accepting facts we can move forward with solutions.

Knowing the facts can help you to make decisions.

And we can help you realise those decisions.

Analytics tools alone won’t give you ALL the answers as they only work with facts. But marrying up facts with astute, critical and informed observations on your site will furnish great results.

If people aren’t converting on your site then we can help you to look at the factors that could be holding you back. Maybe your terminology is having an adverse effect on customers; maybe an image by a button is causing confusion?

By analysing website data we can look at improving the performance of your site. Maybe introduce an email marketing campaign to drive visitors to a new product or area of your site. Maybe changing a page title, article title or re-wording a description might improve how your website visitors interact with your site.  There are lots of things that we can do to help improve your website. We can help you to begin to understand who is visiting your site, what they are looking at, and why they are leaving. Amending or even just slightly changing relatively minor elements of your website can, in some instances, yield massive results. But only through analysis, questioning and testing can you achieve better results.

By working together we can use information to get a greater insight into who is out there, lurking in the woods that is your website, and with effort and thought we can get them to come in out the cold.

Benefits of Analytics

With the upsurge in analytics tools available, there was a time when it was quite confusing as to which way to go with analytics tools. With the release of the totally free Google Analytics the choice best suited to the average man was apparent. Although GA offers a wealth of sophisticated analytics tools, the reports can be broken down simply enough for anyone to understand.

Learning to use GA shouldn’t be too daunting for anyone who actively takes a keen interest in their website. What we encourage is user uptake from our clients in order to spark positive action and reaction on their site to trends, performance and results.

•    Did a particular email campaign encourage more visitors on a certain date?
•    Did more people buy product X after the banner campaign launched?
•    Or was there an increase in traffic after we advertised on Site A?

But of course, it’s one thing to have the facts. Doing something with them is entirely another matter.  Being committed to long term growth and development with your website (especially if you are a web-based business) is crucial in terms of reacting to website analysis.

But don’t worry; this isn’t as scary as it may sound…

Help Is At Hand

If the idea of using analysis tools, adopting new ideas and taking a new approach to how you deploy your website sounds all too radical, then do not fear.  Help is at hand.

Along with the wealth of information available on the internet (which we would advise you start to take a look at), we’ll be more than happy to help you design and execute your web strateg(ies), email and marketing campaigns. From advice on adapting or updating site layout, terminology, colors, and even content, we can offer help and advice on all aspects of your website functionality.

As you evolve as a company, so too should your website. Continually evaluating, testing and re-developing your website will go some way to ensuring you’re as close to the curve as you can possibly get.  That’s where we can help. We can advise and offer our technical expertise on all levels of strategic planning.

If you would like to discuss your current website and how you could improve its effectiveness then please get in touch.

1. What’s the best SEO Tactic for websites?
   There isn’t one
2. What’s the best font size to use on a website?
   There isn’t one
3. What’s the best CMS?
   There isn’t one
4. What’s the best colour combination for websites?
   There isn’t one
5. What’s the best screen resolution for designing websites?
   There isn’t one
6. What’s the best way to structure websites?
   There isn’t one
7. What’s the best way to SEO page titles?
   There isn’t one
8. What’s the best keyword density score for a website?
   There isn’t one
9. What’s the best font to use on a website?
   There isn’t one
10. Where can I find a good image of someone in a headset?
    There isn’t one

If you’re struggling finding your answers then give us a call on 0870 41 777 41 and we’ll be glad to help