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Clicks and mortar – why the online and pop up approach could work

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Pop up shops are popping up everywhere, from the streets of the capital to back waters of hill and sale. Sounds almost over-dramatic but the pop up shop revolution has shown no sign of slowing down, stopping or disappearing.

Its sticking power has given rise to much musing about the state of the economy, the high street and so on, as well as discussions about how we shop, where we shop and how city and town centres across the UK will look like in the future.

Flick on the TV and you will come across various shows that (un)helpfully tell or show us where, as business owners, we are going wrong; from chipped paint in your hotel bedrooms to not organising your goods in the shop window in the right way is affecting how your business is doing. Get the basics right, we are told, and everything else will follow.

But then, there are threats and opportunities external to our business that can make and break it, it seems, almost simultaneously. The Internet is a many faced beast; friend and foe, it is the life blood of many a business and yet, some say, it has been a drain on the high street, changing how it will look, forever.

Add to this the tumble and turns of the economy and you have a recipe for both disaster and growth, winners and losers.

Then along came pop up shops

The idea that the centre of a city or town is no longer just for shopping, but recreation and socialising too, is slowly catching on but despite consumers searching and finding bargains online, their dismay at seeing row upon row of empty shops is palpable. And so, someone, somewhere came up with the idea of renting a shop on a short term basis and shift a load of stock.

Bingo! A new business model was born and the buying public quite enjoyed the experience. It caught on and thus, several years later, pop up shops are still popping up all over the place.

The concept is simple… it is about renting a space for the short term, to offers your goods and services to a grateful public.

But, its simplicity is deceptive. Although you can think that this is an easy ride, without marketing and an experience, you are missing the point.

And so, if you are shimmying on the precipice of taking the pop up shop plunge with your online business, you will want to know what this ‘clicks and mortar’ approach could bring your business, if successful…

  • Your brand – A New Audience

An on street/shopping mall/high street presence will allow you to effectively extend your audience from the offline world, to the ‘real’ world too. Brand awareness is something you do need to be taking seriously, expanding your brand psyche in the minds of your buying public.

  • Boost sales (possibly)

Nothing is guaranteed, and unless you do take on the advertising and marketing challenges of a pop up shop, then you may be more than disappointed that you did not have the bumper sales you thought you would. However, with advertising and marketing, you can increase sales.

  • Hype

Call it what you will, but when there is a hint of trendiness, buzz or hype about you, your products and services then business can become a whole lot easier. Pop up shops, by their temporary nature, can be the spring board to this buzz. Tell people you really are only there for a short period of time and, as the old saying goes, when it is gone – and you are gone – so are the deals.

  • Interaction and a PR vehicle

However, pop up shops for the online business is a little more than clearing space in the warehouse. It is an opportunity to connect and interact with your customers but, you can still get them to talk about you online. Tap in to your social media presence – run a competition! Anything! – that sparks interested online. The pop up shop can be a powerful, freewheeling PR vehicle.

  • Love your customer!

As if interacting with them isn’t enough, possibly schmoozing with your customer is a great way to find out more about your customer base. What do they like or not like? What causes them hassle? What would they like that is different? How can you solve this problem? In essence, this is how a pop up shop differs from a market stall – it is all about using every single ounce of energy you have to link and connect with your customer.

  • More from your budget

Every business has a budget. No business, even the very biggest corporations, have a bottomless pit of cash to throw at every little thing thus, getting more for your pound is somewhat essential. Pop up shops can be a great kick start to a marketing campaign, and with decreased rents and other overheads, it is worth considering…

  • Rent

In fact, low rent is something that most businesses find attractive about the pop up shop concept. The economic collapse and recession from 2008 drove many famous names to the wall, and thus, shops on the high street were left sad, bedraggled and empty. Every landlord would rather have 3 months of rent – even if it is reduced – than 3 months of no rent.

  • A look to the future

No business can stand still. Repositioning and rebranding is something that many businesses, from web designers to fashion designers, are constantly looking to do as they grow and evolve. Rather than just using pop up shops for the same old, same old ‘shift surplus stock’, why not tap into this lucrative market for product development or a pre-launch?

  • The ‘shopping season’

If your product or service has its own season – gifts for Christmas, fashion for summer etc. – then a pop up shop could be a great way of shifting last year’s stock, introducing this years’ and just generally creating a hub-bub around your product and brand.

The pop up shop is an exciting concept that many brands have already used – just look at Google. Is it something you could use?

5 minute read: how to use Vine

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Vine is an app that allows you to create and share small bites of video. Many businesses are using ‘vines’ as a marketing vehicle. If you feel your marketing could do with a boost, why not take a look at creating and sharing vines?

Step 1: Download the app

On Apple you will need to download the app via the App Store or through Google Play for android. Once you have downloaded it you will need to create an account. Like all accounts set up for business, take care which email, password and mobile number you use.

If you have a Twitter account, you can create an account through this social media platform. In fact, this is where you may have come across some short, bite size vines as Twitter acquired the app in October 2012.

This move was greeted with much furore and thus, the use of short video clips have gathered pace in recent years as a result.

Step 2: Your profile

Don’t forget the old, old lesson that creating and completing your profile is essential. Add a few words about your business, using your tag line and logo if you can. Add your location (great for local businesses) and select a profile colour.

You can also use your Twitter contacts on fine to ‘find friends’ in the app.

Step 3: Explore trending vines

Before you go plunging in and create mini-Hollywood blockbusters, take a moment to surf around the app to see what us trending.

You will notice from clicking on ‘home’, and then ‘explore’ that there are different categories of posts and, you will also see that #hashtags can be used on Vine too – perfect for a #hashtag campaign.

Step 4: Communicate

Vine Messages is a way to have video conversation with friends and customers too. You can do this by pressing and holding the camera icon. Don’t forget that you only have a few seconds so it is worth planning on what you intending saying or communicating in a few short seconds.

Top tip – before plunging into online marketing, why not make a few test videos and shares with trusted friends or colleagues?

Step 5: Record and share your own vines!

This is the exciting bit! Bearing in mind #hashtags, and your campaign goals, start creating your vines. Look online for examples created by other companies and how they utilised them. Once complete, don’t forget to share them.

Step 6: Interact

Vine is a social app, just like all those other mediums we use in everyday life. Not only should you be looking to interact with customers and ‘fans’, but take time to interact with other like-minded Vine users too. This way, you build a presence on a great app.

Step 7: Review

You can see how well your Vines are performing by examining your loop count. You can also use other analytics programs online to see how well people interact with Tweets and posts when they do, and when they do not have Vines are part of them.

Step 8: Branch out

Vine can be used on the web too, where you can ‘explore the beautiful world of looping videos’.

Using graphics and visuals such as short pieces of video is proven to have a dramatic effect on engagement rates, as well as being a powerful marketing tool. Why not take a look?

Have you used video, whether through Vine or maybe via YouTube? How did the experience impact on your business?

5 minute read: how to create a #hashtag campaign

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Hashtags are a great way of connecting and engaging with an audience but, in order for them to become the marketing vehicle you want or need them to be, you need to take several steps.

Follow our 5 minute how to guide and your hashtag could become an almost too-hot-to-handle-social-media-campaign…

Step 1: Find out what YOUR audience is REALLY talking about

There are two key factors here: identifying your audience and what these people are really conversing and discussing. Just because everyone was talking about the recent leader’s debate here in the UK, doesn’t mean your global audience is.

If you sell holidays, why not find out where people are talking about and why… If you are in the food sector, what foodstuffs are people conversing about? What is the latest super food? And how can they get it or use it?

Step 2: Simplicity is key

Hashtags can be used across a variety of social media platforms but checking out massively successful hashtag campaigns and you will see that they use one channel appropriate to them, and kept the ‘how to enter the competition/campaign/exchange’ as low barrier as possible

For example:

Using Twitter

  • Follow @LocallyHQ

  • Tell us what you think the most important website ingredient is, using #creativeweb

  • Be part of the discussion!

No form filling; no subscribing to a newsletter; no navigating to website. Simple.

Step 3: Be social!

However, having a campaign landing page can work well as some customers will want to explore this campaign further. If you run a #hashtag competition, you will need this as there always have to be rules with these things.

But, the overall aim is to be social so why not have a smorgasbord of happy faces, amazing tweets and great ideas or discussion points to inspire others to contribute?

Step 4: Use traditional media too

If you are planning on running a #hashtag campaign, you need to know it is a long term exercise, not one that will instantly light up the world of social media – unless you are very fortunate.

Any offline or traditional marketing you do can be harnessed too, so keep that #hashtag rolling across your newspaper adverts, flyers, posters…

Step 5: Buy online promotion

Buying online promotion is one way to give you #hashtag campaign a bit of a kick start, should the uptake be slow. There is a paid ability on Twitter to promote a hashtag campaign BUT, like all marketing campaigns, going out on a limb will have far less reach than it being part of a strategic marketing plan.

Step 6: Harness real time opportunities

This is a posh way of saying leaping on the bandwagon of positive news. Hi-jacking is something that many other brands and businesses do but always take care that you are using this appropriately. Anything that plays on the misfortune of others is never a good idea – always be positive.

And finally, always measure the results, as well as reviewing was does work and what doesn’t. Why not build a #hashtag campaign in to your marketing plan?

The Value of the Landing Page

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The online world is full of links, all competing to grab the attention of the thousands of passing eye balls per hour; some will blink and stay long enough to engage/buy/sell/comment/like/share and so on.

Links are all signpost to ‘Somewhere’; some may be pointing at ‘Nowhere’, a land bereft on the vast continent of the Error Page 404 and these too can be a source of frustration and annoyance, Just as you thought you were coming across a lovely place, paradise is ripped out from underneath you and you are left staring at a blank page.

However, there is more of a problem lurking and that is the confusion surrounding what a landing page actually is…

The easiest way to define what IS a landing page is to flip it on its head; a landing page is NOT, as we all like to believe, any old web page that happens to be the place where a user lands.

A landing page is… (fanfare of trumpets please!)

… a webpage that contains a form which has been created to capture a user’s information.

Glad we cleared that up. Now we are all singing from the same hymn sheet, we can battle on with the why we have them, what they should look like and what their value is.

Why bother (or, what is the value of a landing page?)

Online forms are used for all kinds of reasons; subscribing to blogs so you never miss a post, enquiry forms, or transactional information for online purchases etc. You can probably think of many other examples but they all share the same common goal: to initiate an exchange between YOU and the USER.

It is quite simple – the user gives you information and you, in return, provide them with a service,/subscription/and answer to their query etc. giving you chance to ‘convert’ the user from a potential customer to a buying one.

However, this page is not necessarily the page to practice your graphic design skills on, so forget adding YouTube videos and dancing reindeers because, literally there should be nothing to distract the customer from completing the all-important contact form.

Having said that simplicity is the key with no distractions, there are certain components of the landing page design that need to capture the visitor’s interest.

The Header

If you have ever noticed where your eyes fall when you are on the web, you may have realised that they tend to be around the middle to the top of the page. Anything too low down that is important, tends to be missed in the first few valuable seconds that our eyes are drinking it all in.

With this 2 seconds to capture visitor interest, the header of a landing page is quite important; if this is completely uninteresting (and we have all been there!), your user will simply turn away.

Bear in mind HOW your visitor got there…

In some cases, the landing page is accessed through a specific advert that they have found on another site/somewhere else. Hence, their clicking of the advert means that created the right impression in so far that it was attractive and of interest.

Imagine the let-down of arriving on a rubbish landing page…

Your landing page needs to meet with expectations and in this sense, should be an extension of the advert – same font, same colours, all branded and joined together. If it all looks a little bit of a mish-mash, it’s a bit of a disappointment.

Right, this header needs to be colourful and creative, in line with your advert and also be part of your brand.

The Statement

Now that the header is in place as an extension of your advert or at least fully branded to your business, you now need to tell the visitor, clearly, simply and elegantly what it is they are looking at, the purpose of it and what to do.

Also known as a primary call to action, there are loads of examples out there on the Internet – some better than others, we hasten to add.

We saw some great ones the other day…

  • “Would you like the best in daily updates on xxxxx to your inbox?” – underneath were two boxes, one for your first name, the second for the email address.
  • “Don’t miss out on the latest news from xxxx” – again followed by the email sign up, as was the same with…
  • “Get the best offers BEFORE they hit the high street!”
  • “NEVER miss a blog post again!”
  • “Can you afford to miss out?”

They all suggest, in their own way, that there is a positive quality to signing up to a newsletter, subscription, blog etc. with some suggesting the negative aspect of not being on the all-important mailing list.

This reverse psychology has been around for many years; after all, by suggesting to someone they could be missing out, or be in the minority has a strong sense of emotional appeal, for some people.

Others of us, of course, think that by subscribing, our inbox will be flooded on a regular basis with rubbish, so be careful not to over egg that pudding.

The Body

An over-complicated landing page has been proven to affect conversion rates that is the number of people who do what it is asking them to do. Once again, simplicity and directness is key with every element supporting the advert, the landing page, the brand, as well as getting them to fil in the form.

Take a look at this one for Basecamp; it has a quite a clever graphic that is actually pointing at the first box, a clear visual signal of what it is you need to do. It’s friendly, non-forceful and there is no need for lengthy scrolling either…

Which indicates that the information they are collecting is what is needed to get your started with their service; if you don’t need to know the person’s age at this point, why ask for a birth date? Really think about the information you need to collect on your landing page – pare it back so that you really do only ask the questions that you need to.

The landing page success

It would seem that the best landing pages are those that are tailored specifically for the brand or website itself; opting for a ‘that’ll do approach’ might not get you the conversion rates you are hoping for.

Do you have a landing page? What do you think it says about your company? Is it successful?

10 steps for better search results local businesses – Part 2

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In the first instalment of optimising your website for a local audience, we looked at 5 steps: keywords, optimisation, Google Local, local business listing websites and consistency.

Get these 5 steps right and in place, and your website could feature more prominently in local search engine results, perfect if people through the door is part of your business.

Is buying local becoming more important?

Buying locally source food is something that, in recent years, has become not only trendy but also more genuine; consumers are realising that food that has not been in plastic packaging on a plane for 13 hours before it hits the supermarkets, is not the only good quality, well-priced produce on offer.

And it seems that consumers are not just looking at local food but local retailers of other items too. Finally, it seems, we are getting fed up of the ‘same old-same old’ from the hyper stores, and once again looking for the unique, quality items are a great price from local businesses.

And so yes, NOW is the time, with campaigns like ‘small business Saturday’, to trade on the local-ness of your business. You could gain more customers, more fans. more shares, more success – and we all want and need a bit of this kind of action.

Like everything, it takes effort and a smattering of know-how, this in this instalment we cover from steps 6 to 10, the remaining 5 steps that consolidate your presence online, in a local sense.

Step 6: ‘genuine’ reviews

We hinted at this with the local website listings etc. as some of these sites will be review based. However, to expand this point a little further, Google along with other major search engines have hinted in the long and distant past, that genuine reviews are welcome, forming a positive basis for some nice social signals.

However, bribery is not a good idea. On your website, simply ask people to ‘tell us what you think’ or rate it with stars. For WordPress, there are all kinds of review plug-ins and what-not that make it easy for customers to leave a review. If you think people can’t or won’t be bothered (because you can’t be when you shop!), then you really need to change this view.

We are all connected, every second of the day (or so it seems) with the online world, thus people can and do leave reviews, good ones as well as the not so good. So, ask people to rate their shopping experience etc. – if nothing else, it proves your website is alive!

Step 7: social profiles

We have talked about social media a lot, and how, if done right and used well can add value to your website. But, you need to make sure you are not only taking full advantage of them but have also created the right kind of social profile.

What can happen, is that we are faced with “yet another” profile form to fill in; bit bored of writing the same stuff, we skip a few boxes, promising that we will come back and fill them in… but we never do.

So, you know the ‘edit profile’ tab on various platforms? Go back NOW, and open it and fill it in and remember: complete the bit that says where your business is. For those that are on the high street, naming the village/town/city is an obvious one to complete.

(And don’t forget step 5 Consistency)

Step 8: start building local links

Before you scuttle off and buy links, you need to know this is no-no. It is such as a no-no, it deserves to be shouted from the tallest building in your town – do NOT do it. Search engines can spot them a mile off, sniff them as soon as they hit your pages and your website is blacklisted, doomed to the bin from which it is very, very difficult to escape.

In this sense, we are talking about building local links. A great way of doing this is to get involved in some of the local groups of social media, as well as other similar businesses.

If you have great content on your website, that you are updating regularly, and that it of interest to them, then you could have a fruitful relationship beginning to form.

Try this: type in {your location} + blog, and you will have a list of blogs all linked to your town or local area. This could be a great start to some local links…

Step 9: Go mobile!

This doesn’t mean hitching up a caravan on going on tour but, is something we have talked about many times before… and we think it is worth going over old ground. It really is that important.

There are 1 million more mobile devices activated EVERY DAY across the world than there are babies born. This may seem an unbelievable statistic and we have no idea where it came – genuinely, we found it on the internet, so it must be true – but, regardless of its authenticity, it does spell out something we have long suspected: more people are using smart phones and other mobile devices, and this figure is growing.

Whether mobile phone ownership gazumps the daily birth rate is neither here nor there. If your website is NOT mobile ready, then you are missing a huge chunk of the population…

If you are already mobile-optimised, then take another look and make sure all those local contact details are obvious; pay close attention to the ‘contact us’ page.

Step 10: get analysing

Now that you have done all this, you need to monitor, assess and review if this is having an impact and, if so, how much. Of course, being flooded with more enquiries and an increase in custom is all well and good, but as with all things internet, the effects are not always immediate or obvious.

When we are busy, the hard/boring/uninteresting stuff can be shoved aside. We all do it, with different things.

Analysing who is coming to your website and from where, along with other useful information is not too difficult to come by, providing you know what you are looking at, once you have the data in front of you. No one is an expert on everything, so if you need help, just ask.

There are various options online, as you would expect, some that you pay for and some that are free. You can also take advantage of Google Analytics, but again, it all seems a little complicated. However, once you become accustomed to it, know what you are looking at (sort of), what you are looking to see improve (sort of), Google Analytics can be quite helpful.

Paid for software can be easier to fathom, but when money is tight, you may not want an additional monthly fee.

And so there we are, 10 steps to making your website appear in local listings, near the top. For many businesses, this is important to them and, increasingly for customers, it seems that local is beginning to outweigh ‘cheapness’ too, with more people taking time to find the right product at the right price… and if it is just down the road, all the better.

Let us know how you get on… [email protected]

Going viral – what #TheDress taught us

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If you have not been on the Internet for the last few weeks (pfft! Who can live without it?), then you will have seen or even partaken in the #TheDress debate (take a look at the science behind the dress colour debate).

A poorly shot photograph shared on Instagram of a blue and black dress started an online debate, with everybody joining in, from Mavis at no. 32 to Kim Kardashian. Some saw a ‘white and gold’ dress and others saw ‘blue and black’.

Whether you joined in or not, unless you are not on any kind of social media, don’t watch TV and basically switch off from all society, then you cannot have failed to have heard about the #TheDress debate.

And this is our very point. The discussions, the engagement and the coverage of this dress and its colour combination, had the nation talking – and beyond – about the product, the company, the psychology and the inner workings of the eye ball.

Of course, Roman Originals, the company behind the dress are now reaping the rewards – and why not? Their website hits have shot up by 500% (yup, you read that right), their phone calls have significantly increased and their sales are doing very nicely indeed, thank you. Drill in to this analysis, and you will see that people are not buying only this particular dress, but all kinds of others products too.

All this got us thinking…

In pensive mood, we hunkered down with the kettle and the chocolate digestives, and took a moment to ponder the power of #TheDress. What ingredients make for a viral episode on social media?

We came up with 5 factors, including a sprinkling of magic fairy dust…

Use of photos

We have said it before and we’ll say it again, photos really make a difference. They can be the source of conversation, repulsion, attraction and confusion. Adding photos of your products and asking or inciting debate is a great way to get attention to your posts and products.

In this case, the original photo was unfiltered and used on Instagram; the comments that then ensued all questioned the original posting that said #TheDress was black and blue. Some say the dress as white and gold, thus the comments started rolling.

Good quality photos are always best, and this photo was not intentionally posted to provoke debate; in fact, the user was quite clear was the colour of the dress was…

Use of #hashtag

Once the momentum started to build around #TheDress and the ensuing debate, the hashtag came in to being. Every time someone commented and the various social media streams, the use of the hashtag ensured that the comment found its way in to the forum.

Get people talking, sharing and communicating

Social media is about making connections, creating discussion and sharing ideas. This online debate is a perfect example of this, but on a gargantuan, global scale. Simply because your viral debate does not measure up in the same reach and magnitude of #TheDress, does not mean it is not having an impact.

Some hashtags are in use for weeks, if not months and others are a mainstay of some of the groups that meet up on a regular basis on various social media platforms; there are various business groups, for example, who meet on Twitter and thus, any tweets that you want to be part of the stream of comments should contain this designated hashtag. Think of it as a call sign…

Magic fairy dust – the one comment, the stroke of luck

In this case, the photos posted on Instagram was a genuine one; it was posted with no more intention than a flash-in-the-pan photo of one of the many products sold at Roman Originals. But, there was a stroke a luck and sprinkling of fairy dust…

… there was one comment, by another Instagram user, that questioned the ‘blue and black’; they say, they saw white and gold… and then someone else joined in… and it started to roll and roll. Before you knew what others the dress came in, THE photo of #TheDress was bounced, shared and re-tweeted thousands and thousands of times.

There were comments and articles on the psychology of what people saw and why; there were debates on the street with the local junior reporter for the local TV catching their break by dangling a tablet in front of the eyes of many a Wednesday afternoon shopper, asking them what colours they saw… the debate was enormous. And, for a change, it was all good fun. We discussed it over our dinner table too; did you?

Cannot be contrived

And we think that this shows a fourth and important final point about the whole #TheDress thing. As hard as you try, some of the best viral exchanges cannot be contrived.

The photo was not posted to incite or excite comment; it was not posted to cogitate favour or stir ill-feeling. It was a photograph that was simply shared, then commented on… nothing more. Even though we try hard with the whole hashtag thing, photos and the like, sometimes something takes off.

Blessing… or curse?

The ‘taking off’ bit can be a blessing and a curse. Roman Originals are a company big enough to deal with the 500% jump in website visitors, the phone ringing off the hook (around 150 calls per hour in the days immediately following #TheDress explosion) and have enough staff to work the barricades and the tills.

For a small, online local business, this may not be the case but, should a social media campaign go viral – and this episode shows that it can, in a blink of an eye and when you least expect it – ride the crest of the wave, for it could be the making of you…

(And the dress…?

It is available in blue & black, and white & black, red & black, as well as pink and black… but not a white and gold option, just yet. But Roman Originals is planning to create one, allegedly.)