New Website for HR Consultancy

Tugela HR website We are delighted to have produced a new website for the Northampton based, specialist International HR consultancy, Tugela HR.

They wanted a content managed website that could grow with their business and that would integrate seamlessly with their existing social media channels.

Thomas Schilling, the Managing Director of Tugela HR said: “Evolve Marketing clearly understood our business offering and designed the website in such a way that reflects this. Besides their professionalism, I’ve truly appreciated their flexible, can-do approach. This has taken the pressure off us but not compromised on the quality or speed of development.

If you would like a revamped  CMS website that is positioned appropriately for your target market without the hassle call Sharon on 01327 810003.

Brand Refresh for Health & Safety Consultancy

At Evolve Marketing we were delighted to be selected to refresh Acorn EHS’s brand so it better reflected their positioning as one of the South East’s leading Health , Safety and Environmental specialists.

Andrew Speedie, the Managing Director of Acorn EHS was delighted with the results and said Sharon, at Evolve Marketing has provided us with excellent work at a reasonable cost. The work was completed on time at each step of the process. The team at Evolve Marketing are trustworthy, consistent, and reliable offering creative, inventive, out-of-the-box ideas and implementation.

Refreshed logo

The Curse of Knowledge

I have always known that ignorance is bliss but it was only when I had the pleasure of reading Made to Stick that I really understand the ‘curse of  knowledge’.

It is a simple idea that once you know something it is difficult to ‘unknow’ it – the book explains that in 1990 PhD researcher, Elizabeth Newton at Stanford studied a simple game in which a group of people were assigned one of two roles: a ‘tapper’ or a ‘listener’. Tappers received a list of well known songs like ‘Happy Birthday’ and was asked to tap out the rhythm to a listener who had to guess the song based on the rhythm being tapped. I guess something like they do in the TV music show ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ but without any vocal elements just tapping – yes very tricky.

A great read... Made to Stick

Newton asked the tappers to predict the odds that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted 50%, i.e. they thought that they were getting their message across half the time (1 in 2) but in reality listeners only guessed 1 in 40 times. Why would they put the odds so high? Well when a tapper taps they are hearing the song in their head (naturally the listener can’t hear the tune just a bunch of disconnected taps). In the experiment tappers were flabbergasted at how hard it was for the listeners. For them it is SOOO obvious!

The problem is the tappers had been given the knowledge of the song title that makes it impossible for them to imagine what it is like to lack that knowledge. So they can’t imagine what it is like for the listener to hear isolated taps rather than a song. This is the ‘curse of knowledge’.

As a marketeer I often come up against this mismatch of knowledge. Business owners who know everything about their product or service, and can’t imagine what it is like for potential customers ‘not to know’. This also makes it difficult for them to share their knowledge effectively with prospective clients because they can’t re-create their customers ‘state of mind’.

I remember a decade ago showing my Dad, who had not used the internet much at that stage, Twickenham’s website. He was going to watch a rugby match and he wanted directions. I opened the website, gave him a few pointers about page links and left him to it, but 5 minutes later he called me back in frustration. He knew that there was more information ‘down there’, pointing to the bottom of the screen, but he didn’t know how to access it. I was incredulous, it was so obvious to me – side scroll bar / mouse etc. I could simply not imagine not knowing how to navigate a web page – the curse of knowledge!

This was a valuable lesson for me in highlighting how easy it is to assume knowledge and how frustrating it can be for those that don’t share that knowledge. So from a marketing communication point of view it is worth taking the time to reflect on ‘your curse of knowledge’ and what it could mean for potential customers discovering your product or service for the first time. You need to think about acronymns or jargon you may use and also how you could try to recreate the ‘not knowing’ state of mind.

As the objective marketing expert that isn’t burdened with the curse of the technical, specialist knowledge of a particular service or product, it is easier for me to bridge the gap between ‘knowing’ and ‘not knowing’. Call me on 01327 81003 if you would like to find out how I can help you communicate more effectively with your potential customers.

Supporting the Community

At Evolve Marketing we were delighted to help the local organising committee spread the word, by donating our time, to create a ‘Save the Date leaflet’ for their forthcoming Jubilee celebrations in June.

The committee are doing an amazing job with the planning of the event and I am sure it is going to be a great day out!

Also thank you to local print maestro, John Anderson of Inspired Print for kindly organising the printing of the leaflets for us.

Mobile Marketing is Here…

I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was. I guess I’d been aware that it has been lurking about for the last few years but it was only when I attended the Mobile Marketing conference a few weeks back that I really got to grips with what mobile content means for SMEs in the services sector.

The Conference was excellent, hosted by the eBusiness Club in conjunction with Nottingham Trent University. It was slick and refreshingly informative, with presentations from both agencies and SME practictioners. The first couple of introductory sessions reinforced the pace of change and looked at the trends, presenting some interesting facts about mobile usage. But the statistic that really caught my eye…  22% of those that access the internet in UK via mobile devices DON’T have a desktop at all. This means over one fifth (and growing) do everything they do online via their phone or tablet. They don’t sit down at a desk with a ‘reserved chunk of time’ to buy, research or connect online. Instead they snatch smaller pockets of time while doing something else; waiting in a queue, travelling, having a haircut or watching TV. It is now a familar sight to see a huddle of men outside the ladies changing rooms all peering at their phones while waiting. This idea of ‘stolen’ moments to do things online really reinforced for me the need for businesses to step up to the mark as far as their mobile content goes.

The afternoon was all about mobile content. The wonderful world of QR codes and Apps. Aaaahh to App or not….. that was the big question for the rest of the day.  Rob Borley at Headscape ran through an interesting case study highlighting the pros and cons; basically demonstrating what a minefield it can be!  For me the verdict is still out on Apps (with lots of hard questions and research to do on a case by case basis before committing to any spend). But I did learn some cool stuff about mobile content. Fyi the two most useful things I learnt about creating mobile content that afternoon were:

  1. Reviews are mobile content; woo hoo I say cos we all know how powerful reviews are at driving sales! This cemeted my belief that proactive review management should be a priority for every business.
  2. Google Docs can be converted to mobile content (each doc has a unique URL so it can be linked to a QR code or hyperlink) this means if you don’t have mobile content you can use Google Docs for your PDFs, word documents etc to make them mobile.

To sum up don’t get taken by surprise like I did – the age of mobile content is here (and in case you’re wondering it’s important because it can drive sales). So SMEs make sure your website is up to the task.

 

 

Non Critical Essentials .. a Great Way to Stand Out from the Crowd

Have you heard about that crazy Australian dentist Dr Paddi Lund who coined the phrase ‘Non Critical Essentials’? I hadn’t until this week when I was listening to digital marketing expert, Matt  Lambert talk about operational speeds of content management systems which he described it as a ‘non critical essential’.

Basically he explained it’s not a deal breaker but one of those many little niggles that differentiates users from having a ‘satisfactory ‘experience to one that delights them enough to become a loyal customer and brand champion.

But back to the fascinating dentist story …basically Paddi was frustrated. He felt undervalued because he realised that patients couldn’t know that his work was superior; after all who inspects their fillings or even knows what a good one looks like? So he took action and introduced numerous small touches that differentiated his business from the other dentists around. These small touches on their own weren’t particularly significant, but collectively they made a huge impact on the whole dental experience. He made it feel far superior to an ordinary dentist. Paddi used bone china to serve refreshments; offered freshly baked buns in a waiting area that looked like a chic coffee shop; he hung original art on the walls; he introduced a ‘stop’ button for patients; TVs on the ceiling; private waiting rooms for those that didn’t want to wait with others; a nurse that was the patient’s sole point of contact from making the booking, to welcoming them on arrival and then looking after them during their ‘stay’.

He also raised his prices significantly and naturally lost a whole bunch of price sensitive patients along the way, but he kept those that valued his superior services and were willing to pay for them. He could thus work less and earn more and he wasn’t a frustrated dentist anymore, that is before taking his new found business turnaround skills and selling them worldwide (including to the coach Clive Woodward).

I love this story as a Services Marketeer, because it beautifully encapsulates the idea of making the intangible tangible.  It also moves away from the idea of unique selling point and focuses on how to make your services stand out by getting the detail right. I believe it is worth spending time and energy thinking about how you can be great at all the ‘Non Critical Essentials’ that make up ‘the customer experience’. Because it is here that the battle for customer loyalty is lost or won.

 

Pulling Power of Digital Marketing

At Evolve Marketing we are enthralled with Digiital Marketing as it pushes the frontiers of marketing communications but is it the ‘pull’ factor it has that bowls us over. This ability to literally pull people to relevant information is overwhelming especially when you track the ROI. The way an effectively tracked campaign can literally show the ‘pulling process’ in clicks from awareness via banner advert, to interest in reviewing information on various webpages, through the action of buying online or calling or emailing is awe inspiring.

But to successfully market your business digitally needs proactive campaign management – constantly testing and refining your effects. Whilst larger businesses may have the resource for this function for smaller businesses we are finding outsourcing is proving a viable alternative. So when it comes to digital marketing, we call in the experts at Conversationware.

Joining forces with Conversationware means we can now offer our clients a fully integrated web marketing service. Thus they can enjoy the benefits of our professionally built websites and effective digital marketing campaigns. We believe partnering is an excellent way to get the job done effectively. If you want to know more about the Pulling power of Digital Marketing call us on 01327 810003

Good Day at the MK Restaurant and Catering Fair

A great way to kickstart the New Year …meeting local businesses yesterday at the MK Restaurant and Catering Fair in central Milton Keynes. As an exhibitor we had an excellent day meeting prospective clients and suppliers as well as catching up with existing contacts. Also a big thank you to John Anderson of Inspired Print for the speedy turnaround on our new roller banner, he managed to get it designed and delivered in 48 hours – excellent service at a great price.

Exhibition

Milton Keynes Exhibition

Congratulations to Dr French

We are delighted to congratulate Mark on recently graduating from Loughborough University’s Business School where he successfully completed a PhD in Strategy entitled Are firms too market-oriented? This research challenges the convention that highly market-oriented firms are considered to outperform less market-oriented ones. Instead his findings advance a more compelling model in which diminishing returns affects the income generated by activities such that income growth diminishes as firms become more market-oriented.

Dr French's Graduation

His Research Implications: Being too market-oriented can be detrimental to profits. Instead need to aim for the optimal market orientation in their business environment. To maximise profits, firms need to focus their market-oriented activities on sustained competitive advantage, or re-focus from external market-led strategies to internal resource-based ones.

For more information about these findings call 01327 810003.

Season Greetings

Merry Christmas! We wish all our customers, friends, family, suppliers and contacts a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous, healthy New Year. We hope you have a relaxing festive break.

Also this year rather than send out Christmas cards we have made a donation to Advantage Africa. They are an inspirational charity, based in Olney, who work across Africa at a grassroots level to help disadvantaged people.

Fyi we will be shutting shop for a short break on Friday 23 December and re-open for business on Wednesday the  4th January 2012.