Merryn, Author at Merryn Bourne Creative

How you can grow sales by building a stronger brand community

October 18, 2017

by Merryn branding lead generation marketing sales

website-post-header

Here are some tips we’ve accumulated to help you strengthen your brand community:

Create meaningful content

Many organisations produce content solely for advertising purposes, but this often comes at the detriment of building a community. People tend to block out advertising material, or anything they deem to have too strong of a sales push. On the other hand, if your content is engaging, helpful and shows you really care about your product or service, your customers are far more likely to follow you, regularly interact with your material and even share it with their friends. If you’re unsure whether your content is adding value, simply ask: ‘If I were a customer, would I be truly interested in viewing this?’ If the answer is no, it’s probably time to reconsider the kind of material you’re producing.

Know your audience

We live in an era of personalisation. It’s essential to customise your communications to ensure individuals only see the information they’ll be interested in. If the option is available, why not tailor your message to specific individuals to ensure they get the most out of your communications? You can segment customers into groups that would benefit from a unique offering – for example, location, sector, purchase history, browsing habits or gender by reviewing the analytics data you already have about them. By feeling like your message has been tailored specifically to them, studies show that customers are much more likely to engage with you and become a part of your brand community.

Always be authentic

No longer do brands have to look authentic, but they also have to be authentic. Today’s socially conscious and tech-savvy consumers expect the brands they endorse to be honest, transparent, deliver on their promises and to remain true to their identities. They are far more likely to join brand communities that speak to human experiences, appear passionate about what they believe in and are willing to accept their faults. On the other hand, if these expectations aren’t met, criticism can spread like wildfire across social networks, devastating your credibility and making it near impossible to build a strong community. Remember, your credibility is one of your most valuable commodities, so use it wisely.

Cabrini: A case study in Aged Care

cabrini-care-westmead-events-and-activities

When it comes to Aged Care, having a strong brand community doesn’t just benefit sales, but can significantly enhance quality of life for elderly people, which makes this extra important. Last year, Cabrini Care approached Fish Tank Creative to develop a multi-channelled communications strategy. By focusing on open and nurturing communications, our approach enabled closer communication between families, residents and staff. Here are some of the features we introduced to help build a stronger brand community for Cabrini:

A brand awareness campaign
Fish Tank Creative engaged the local community with a campaign of beautifully designed newsletters, articles, photography, blogs and Facebook posts. Not only did these provide important information and updates about day to day happenings, but they also emphasised the warm spirit of Cabrini, offering a glimpse into moments of happiness, laughter and joy.

Website redevelopment
We introduced a host of new, interactive web features to better engage families and members of the community. These included:

A monthly events calendar that updates in real time, helping keep families in the loop about activities during the month.
The “message a resident” feature, which allows users to send a personalised message or greeting to any resident, helping make their day.
An online booking channel, offering families the opportunity to book out the family dining space for special quality time with their loved one.

Information on the website and search engines has also been redeveloped for user-friendliness, ensuring the community has the best possible access to information.

As a result of this new approach, Cabrini says it now enjoys improved communication of important information and activities. But beyond this, the changes have also led to a more vibrant, open and engaged community, helping bring residents, staff and families closer than ever before.

Need help building a stronger brand community? Merryn Bourne Creative can work closely with your unique brand to develop an integrated marketing communication strategy. For more information, contact us today.

Are load times slowing your business down?

October 4, 2017

by Merryn clients lead generation search engines seo technology web design

It’s common for businesses to prioritise sleek design, nifty functions or extra content over fast load times when building a website. Having all these added bells and whistles can be an asset to your brand, helping you to stand out against competition and attract customers’ attention. But if they begin to encroach on your website’s speed and efficiency, there’s a point where they’ll stop making your customers happy and start slowing sales down. Not convinced? Amazon reports show that just a one-second improvement in page speeds yields seven per cent growth in conversion rates and a ten percent overall increase in sales – proof that speed is a big deal.

Here are the main areas of your business load speeds may be influencing:

Customer experience

Research shows that when a website runs efficiently, we perceive the brand to run with equal efficiency, leading to better trust and improved customer retention. Alternatively, slow load speeds can kill the browsing experience. After all, how frustrating is it when a site lags for what feels like a lifetime when you’re just trying to access basic information? A website could be beautifully designed and have awesome interactive features, but at the end of the day, if it is too slow, users will simply shut the tab and switch to a competing site. In these situations, the business is not only at risk of losing a sale, but also a repeat customer, which is a big opportunity cost. Remember, consumers, value their own time above all else, which is why a smooth user experience should always be first priority.

Search rankings

While many people expect loading times to influence user experience, few anticipate how much they can also affect search engine ranking algorithms. There are two factors influencing this. Firstly, Google searches have user engagement indexes that track how many potential customers are engaging with the content on a website. So if people keep dropping off a page shortly after opening it, Google will think something illegitimate is going on, placing the site lower in its rankings. Secondly, if the search engine is too slow to connect to the data on a particular web page in time, it will simply ignore the content, leaving the site out of search results, no matter how good its other SEO efforts are. And as you’re aware, search rankings have a large impact on web traffic, which is a crucial driver of sales.

Here are some simple tips to help improve your page loading speeds:

Compress your pages

Large pages are bulky and slow to download. The best way to speed pages up is to zip them, which reduces their bandwidth, improving download speeds by up to seventy percent (according to Yahoo).

Optimise images

Large images take too long to load, but small images are too low quality, which is why striking a perfect balance is key.

Enable browser caching

Caching temporarily stores data on visitors’ computers, keeping them from having to re-download it each time they visit your page.

Minimise CSS

Excess or unnecessary code can really slow download your speed. It’s important to regularly sift through your coding and make reductions where possible. You can also copy and paste CSS into tools like CSS Minimiser, which will optimise your stylesheet automatically.

The Merryn Bourne Creative team are experts at building websites that are both beautifully designed and quick to load. For more information about improving the functions of your site, contact us today.

supercharge your ads with facebook pixel

How to Supercharge Your Ads with the New Facebook Pixel

September 20, 2017

by Merryn marketing social media

What’s a Facebook pixel?

A Facebook pixel is a small piece of coding that allows you to track and optimise your ads, helping build targeted audiences for future campaigns.

What’s new?

Released early this year, Facebook’s new pixel is easier to use and track. By integrating two separate pixels, Custom Audiences and Conversation Tracking into one, Facebook has streamlined its system, offering improvements to its functions:

Conversation tracking

Track the actions of web visitors from your Facebook ad and monitor how they interact with your website. For example; are they buying more from desktop or mobile? How often do they drop out at your payment page? Use this to make necessary improvements.

Optimising ads for conversion

Improve the quality and targeting of your ads, boosting their overall effectiveness. Use the data provided to ensure your ads are being seen by the customers most likely to take your desired action.

Building custom audiences

Facebook can help find optimal audiences for your ads based on people’s interests, likes and demographics.

You can also expect other benefits like faster loading, improved website SEO and the capability to track multiple events.

How to get started

Create the pixel and add it to your website. Find the ‘Pixels’ tab under ‘Ads Manager’ on Facebook. Click ‘Create a Pixel,’ give it a name and accept the terms. Next, paste the pixel code into the header of your website and check the status is active by clicking ‘Send Text Traffic’. This code will then send data back to Facebook, allowing you to better measure your activity. For more info about setting up your pixel, see Facebook’s guide.

How to start tracking the events that matter to you:

Once you’ve set up your pixel, you can start adding events, which allow you to customise and track the actions people take on your website. To do this, find the ‘Pixels’ tab in your ‘Ads Manager’ on Facebook, click ‘Install Events’. Choose the events you’d like to track – for example, when people make a purchase, make a search, view certain content or sign up for registration. Next, assign whether you track these on ‘Page Load’ (when someone lands on a page) or on ‘Inline Action’ (when someone clicks something) and select any additional parameters you’d like to measure. Copy and paste to your site and enjoy the benefits of improved ads!

Merryn Bourne Creative can help you optimise the way you produce, measure and track your advertising with the new Facebook pixel. Contact us today.

Our tech branding takeaways

July 28, 2017

by Merryn branding design digital Uncategorized

brand- our tech branding takeaways-fish-tank-creative Technology companies all want to be the next big thing. Their products often seek to meet needs that consumers don’t yet know they have. But a great idea is only the starting place: to stand out from the competition, they also have to show they’re competent and capable of running a sustainable business.

A brand is a brand is a brand. And then, there are technology brands.

While other industries face new competitors, technology companies face disruptors – companies that completely alter the competitive landscape – game changers. It’s a matter of survival. Technology companies that embrace their brand will elevate their value in the market and better position themselves for long-term success.

In a fast-changing industry full of fiercely competitive players, reliability is key. So it’s no wonder that blue—which appears in 61% of logos from the top technology companies— is chosen as a staple color. What is compatible with cool blue? Clean white. It appears in over 40% of industry-leading logos.

Google, Facebook & Microsoft brand logos

Technology is all about innovation but, when it comes to colours, entrepreneurs shouldn’t be afraid to think outside the blue and white box.

NCIS Group brand logo 2017

Modern
Masculine
Innovative
Different
Cutting edge
Freshness
Refreshment
Nature
Growth

Green is a dynamic, sustainable colour. NCIS wanted to be seen as different. It wanted to stand out from the other tech companies. We chose this colour for NCIS’ logo because it’s seen as modern and innovative, whilst also conveying sophistication and business acumen.

NCIS wanted it’s brand personality trait to be unique, bold and different from all the other tech company logos. And, their logo design has had a huge effect on how consumers have viewed their brand.

Different colours can say different things about your brand, and will appeal to different customers. So where should you start? Let’s break it down:

Determine your brand’s personality.
Explore colour psychology
Analyse your competition

We can help you dig in to the data and psychology behind logo colour choices, and discover how colour is crucial to your customers, their choices, and ultimately your business.

It’s time you use colour to position your brand for success.

Your path to SEO success

June 28, 2017

by Merryn digital marketing seo

Want to make your brand more visible on Google? Here are some tips to help you improve your search engine ranking so you no longer feel invisible.

No matter what you do, never sacrifice good writing for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Quality content drives search engine rankings and the best websites are written for the user and not for the search engine. Rule of thumb: make a site you would want to visit and write it the way you (and other humans) would want to read it.

#1 Keywords are Key

Google relies on keywords to establish who you are and how to connect you to the World Wide Web.

Keywords should be thought of as the words someone is most likely to type into a search engine to find your content. To stand out, it’s important you place your keywords should somewhere in your content, preferably in the first paragraph, so that they appear. Again, try here to speak like a human and use words that you believe humans are most likely to use when they are searching for a page about your topic.

One thing to be mindful of with Google is that it looks for how often your keywords pop up. However, it’s less about quantity and more about quality, so don’t try to trick the search engine by repeating the same word over and over again. By creating quality content specifically for your intended user your site traffic will organically increase.

#2 Stay Fresh and Remember to Refresh

Updating your content on a regular basis is viewed by Google as one of the best indicators of relevance for a website.

#3 Be Link-worthy

Google looks at the words you use in links to help determine the content of your page. Using links within your website will help to emphasise keywords. So, rather than having “click here”, try writing out the name of the destination as “click here” has no search engine value.

#4 Start Socialising

If you want to achieve higher recognition and boost your brand, you need to socialise with your audience. Social media is great for this. You may find that a great deal of your traffic comes from social platforms, so it would be wise to make sure your content is “social friendly”.

In addition to this, social platforms will allow you to understand where your target audience is and therefore help you build a stronger presence.

#5 Mobile Friendly means Google Friendly

As more and more people are using their phones to search for content, it would be wise to make your content mobile-friendly for the sake of good user experience. In saying this, you will also want to do this for the sake of search, as Google has indicated that mobile-friendliness is a Google ranking signal. This also includes being wary of pop-up penalties.

#6 Make Friends with the Top Dogs

Work hard to make connections in your field as this will help you spread your business’s message and vision. Once you know which companies you want to befriend, follow and like them on social media and even engage with their content to help boost your brand’s awareness.

We hope these tips put you on the right SEO path.

With SEO there are no guarantees or quick schemes. SEO is highly technical and complex, but at its heart lies the philosophy that Google wants to highlight the most relevant search matches to each user when they go searching. So, remember this;

Google determines relevance by;

- Seeing how many people visit your site

- The content published on your pages

The websites that are linking to yours

If you need help optimising your status with Google, please get in contact with us at Merryn Bourne Creative.

Our team of communication specialists will help your brand’s voice sing loud and clear.

Email Opt-ins the do’s and don’ts

May 4, 2017

by Merryn lead generation Uncategorized

With more than 200 million emails being sent out every minute of the day, it’s safe to say email is still a heavily used communication platform for consumers, brands and marketers alike.

But this isn’t the only piece of evidence which proves it’s too soon to contemplate the demise of email marketing. 59 per cent of B2B marketers say email is the most effective channel for generating revenue.

EMAIL-OPT-IN-INFORGRAPHIC

So, how can your business optimise its email opt-in rates?

For email campaigns to be successful, it’s essential your business works at engaging and attracting subscribers. However, building a lengthy subscription list can be challenging, especially given the inevitability that customers are likely to unsubscribe down the track.

That’s why, businesses need to implement marketing strategies that’ll maximise their opt-ins so they can not only keep subscribers active, but also invite new subscribers in to grow their list.

But, before you kick start utilising email opt-ins, it’s important to understand what your customer behaviour is like. For instance, you could track their social insights and be aware of their entire profile to make sure your email messaging is relevant and targeted.

Need some useful tips?

Here at Fish Tank Creative, we’ve compiled what we think to be some of the best practices for businesses when it comes to optimising their email opt-ins:

Identify your audience’s preferences and deliver a form that actually helps your customers through the signup process
Provide your audience with an opt-in offer that is specific, valuable and easy to understand
Keep the form simple
If you want to include animation or add interactive elements, make sure they don’t distract
Keep the copy clean and attractive
Make it easy to close the opt-in form
Keep the form optimised for mobile users in terms of its size, button placement and content
Make sure your form is placed in the right eye-path to attract conversion
Test a few opt-in forms and see which one works best for you
Make sure your opt-in forms carry your brand personality

We want your brand to stand out from the crowd. It’s important when you come to designing and implementing your email opt-ins, that you make smart choices so your business is standing out for all the right (and not the wrong) reasons.

So, if you want to make an effective sign-up form, this is what you should avoid when making an effective sign-up form:

Too many mandatory fields

Capturing information is good, but a lot of information makes visitors sceptical about how it will be utilised. Limit your form to a few fields, you can always use surveys to find out the rest.

Improper sizing for on-the-go subscribers

It’s recommended when it comes to designing your opt-in form that you keep mobile visitors in mind. Improper sizing will jeopardise your user getting a great experience.

Problems exiting the form while viewing

Some opt-in forms are so bulky that they occupy the entire screen, while others are small to see where to exit them.

Note: If you design your pop-up so that it does cover the main content of your page you’ll put your business at risk of being dropped down in Google’s search rankings. This could potentially hinder your site’s reach, and in turn, the overall success of your business. To avoid Google penalties, your business needs to ensure users have a positive browsing experience on portable devices.

For more information on how you can create beautiful email opt-ins as part of your business’s overall marketing strategy, please get in contact with us.

Is it time for a rebrand?

April 3, 2017

by Merryn branding Uncategorized

No matter how much you love your brand, there will come a time when you will need to change things up.

Your target market may grow uninterested, you may develop a questionable reputation, or new competitors may be putting pressure on you forcing you to mix up your business tactics.

When you are faced with these challenges, there are only two options; you can stay with the branding strategy that got you stuck in this sticky-mess, or you can rebrand your business, turn it into something new and start the process of rebuilding.

Rebranding a business’s goals, message and culture is hard, especially if your brand has market status – is well known or successful. And although many have tried to grow their brand, most have failed.

To be successful, a brand requires more than just a revamped logo. It demands a vision that inspires customers, investors, and others to transfer what they valued about the old and be continued on with the new. This way loyalty will remain regardless of your new identity.

It’s important to remember when rebranding that you should not to deviate too far from the core values you held and built into your business at the beginning of your journey. Dramatic brand changes could result in your audience losing sight in the business they had previously related to. So, why do businesses engage in a brand overhaul?

There are a number of reasons why businesses rebrand their brand;

- Competitors

- Potential for growth

- Keep up with the times/ staying relevant

- The desire to target a new audience

- Your business is merging with another

Damaged reputation

To nail rebranding it all comes down to smart, well-researched angles, savvy marketing and better quality control.

Learn more on how your brand could be the new #watchthisspace

We’ve discovered some businesses who experiment with their branding. In an attempt to find new ways to revive their brands these brands succeeded. We believe their brands have not only continued down the same successful road, but have also been made stronger.

Apple

Apple has possibly one of the best rebranding stories of our era. In the early-to-mid-1990s Apple came dangerously close to bankruptcy. The brand didn’t stand for much, and certainly didn’t stand out, until Steve Jobs took over the company and changed everything from the look to the product and the series of strong marketing and advertising campaigns.

Burberry

Burberry is a fantastic example of how a brand can change its image with a few simple marketing tweaks. Just a couple decades ago, Burberry was suffering from a bad reputation, being associated as gang wear. In 2001, a new creative director, Christopher Bailey, took over and started introducing new products like swimwear and trench coats that were unaffiliated with previous images of the brand. Celebrity endorsements from Emma Watson and Kate Moss helped cement the new image of Burberry, and now the company is a major luxury brand, touted as a symbol of high class and wealth.

Regardless of the motives, these companies recognised the need to implement a comprehensive rebranding strategy to take their businesses to the next level.

Rebranding isn’t simple, and it can’t be done overnight. Instead, you’ll need to dive deep into your company and your target demographics; why, exactly, is your current brand failing? Is there a way to recover with your current audience, or do you need to target a new audience? What’s the best way to reach this new audience? What are the best marketing channels, ideas, and images to associate with yourself? There’s no right answer to these questions, and the possibilities can be intimidating, but in any case, if your current brand isn’t working—it needs to change.

Is your business interested in engaged in a rebranding strategy? Merryn Bourne Creative will work closely with you to help your brand succeed. For more information, please get in contact with us.

Uplift your EDM open rate with A/B testing

February 20, 2017

by Merryn lead generation marketing Uncategorized

Want to improve the effectiveness of your website’s marketing efforts, but unsure how to evaluate whether the changes will be successful or not?

The solution to your problem is A/B testing.

A/B testing involves running an experiment between two web designs (A and B). By comparing the two versions against each other, you’re able to determine- via statistical evidence – which web page performs or converts the best.

From this, you’re able to gain an insight into the behaviour of the visitors accessing your web page and adjust your website accordingly to maximise conversion rates.

Not only does A/B testing help you understand the impact you’re making, but it also gives you a much fuller understanding about your customers’ behaviour and preferences.

Starting point:

Once you have determined your goal – perhaps to increase conversion rates, reduce bounce rates or increase sales – you then need to decide what it is you wish to test on your landing page.

What can you test?

A/B testing can look at anything on your website that affects visitor behaviour.

However, try focus on aspects which are most likely to have a large impact. For instance;

Headlines
Call to Action text
Call to Action Button
Any graphics used in direct correlation to sales efforts

By focusing on the aspects which have the greatest impact on your customers, you’re less likely to get caught up on minute details which may only have a minimal impact.

How A/B testing works:

In an A/B test, you take a web page and modify it to create a second version of the same page. This change can be as simple as a single headline or button, or be a complete redesign of a page.

This leads to half of your traffic being diverted through the original version of the page (known as the control, or A) and the other half through the modified version of the page (the variation, of B).

Visitors are then served either the control or variation, and their engagement with each is measured, collected and analysed through a statistical engine. As a result, you are able to determine whether changes made to the web page had an impact on visitor behaviour – positive, negative, or no effect at all.

AB-testing-INFOGRAPHIC

The benefits of using an A/B test:

A well planned A/B test can help improve your bottom line by allowing you to better understand what works and what doesn’t. This means when it comes to deciding what marketing strategies to use, decisions can be made quicker with a result that’s guaranteed to be effective as the evidence found from the A/B tests will help you better understand what your customers are responding to.

A/B Testing process:

When running an A/B testing experiment, you should treat the process in a scientific manner.

Study your website data
Observe user behaviour
Construct a hypothesis
Test your hypothesis
Analyse test data and draw conclusions
Report results to all concerned

For more information or guidance on A/B testing, please contact us on 02 8399 2223 or email us.

With a consumer driven Aged Care market – you need to be visible.

February 6, 2017

by Merryn branding

Australians are living longer and healthier lives and it is important that as people age, they have a choice about their care. These new government reforms are driving innovation and growth in the Aged Care sector.

In 3 weeks, home care packages will change to give your clients more choice about their care and who delivers it, in compliance with the 2015-16 Budget. Consumers will be able to choose a provider that best meets their needs, so get ready. People will be researching for their best fit, are you visible to your target audience?

How is your customer service? Are you keeping your clients happy? It will be easier for your consumers to change providers if they wish, for example, if they move to another area to live. If they make a change, the funding for their package will follow them to their new choice of provider.

The choice will be theirs if they are not happy they can change. Home care packages will be assigned to people based on their individual needs and circumstances. This will make sure people receive care in a way that is fairer and more consistent around the country. Be prepared for change.

As an Aged Care service provider, do you have strong messaging around how you improve peoples lives? Are you activating this campaign as part of your overall integrated communication plan? We can help you drive results in your market.

Merryn Bourne Creative can help you develop an integrated communication plan, suited to your unique Aged Care service. For more information, please contact us.

How to boost your retention rate with customer aftercare

November 24, 2016

by Merryn branding lead generation marketing

aftercare-blog-header A Harvard study has found that a five per cent improvement in customer retention can lead to up to an 85 per cent increase in profits. This is proof that the relationship you have with your existing customers is important to your overall business. A company with poor retention is like a bucket with a hole in it – you can keep filling it up, but it will continue to leak until you patch it up.

The key to retaining customers is to treat your relationship with them like you would a friendship. Keep it personal, stay in contact and remember to say thank you. You’ll soon notice customers stick around for the long term. Here’s how to build this friendship with customers:

Say thank you after each purchase.

Sending a customer a humble ‘thank you’ email after they’ve made a purchase is a great way to keep the dialogue open and flowing. It also gives them a chance to provide valuable feedback on your service. This communication should let the customer know that you’re still here for them and that they haven’t been forgotten once they’ve made a purchase. While you can use this space to up-sell, cross-sell or to capture data, its more important to show the customer that you value their business, their feedback and their time.

Keep in touch.

Studies show that strong engagement between a business and its customers will result in higher overall retention and profit rates in the long term. This means that its important to take advantage of your mailing list of existing customers by creating engaging, helpful and consistent content that will be of interest to them. Not only will you experience less customers unsubscribing from your communications as time passes, but truly engaging your customers contributes to higher brand recognition and likeability.

Make it personal.

We live in an era of personalisation, which means its essential to make use of the data you have already have about your customers. A good way to personalise your messages is to segment customers into the groups you believe will benefit from a unique offering or proposition. Dependent on your product or service, segments could be based on anything from location, to age, gender, industry, or past purchases. By feeling like your message has been tailored specifically to them, studies show that customers are much more likely to engage with what you have to say, which could direct them to make repeat purchases.

Don’t come on too strong.

It’s hard for customers to feel genuinely valued in today’s world. They’re met with a never-ending barrage of marketing material each day in everything they do – from browsing online, to watching TV, checking their emails or even walking down the street. As a consequence, they tend to block out anything they deem too much of a sales push. By maintaining a genuine relationship, sharing useful information with them and keeping things personal, you can help stick out above competition.

Merryn Bourne Creative can help you develop a customer aftercare plan suited to your unique business. For more information, contact us.