You may have heard or seen the very hilarious and creative Old Spice viral ads. However the question we ask is – did it help generate sales? The answer is a big yes. According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice body wash products rose 105%!

Creative Director Iain Tait told RWW “In a way there’s nothing magical that we’ve done here, we just brought a character to life using the social channels we all [social media geeks] use every day. But we’ve also taken a loved character and created new episodic content in real time.”

At nearly 19 million hits and counting, the YouTube campaign shows that video-sharing platforms can be very influential in extending campaign audience reach.

They also took social media engagement to another level through the use of personalised video responses to selected individuals from Ellen Degeneres to everyday people. Your company doesn’t need to do this, but what you can do, is help people feel valued and a simple thank you for a Facebook add or Twitter follow goes a long way.

Social networking is not only to build your online brand presence but if harnessed in the right way, a company can utilise it to gain valuable consumer insight to further improve their business.

There’s a lot of talk about social networking as a way to interact and converse with our customers. But it is only when we convert these conversations into something, that it begins to benefit a business.

A significant part in this value exchange is to listen. As a brand, yes we should talk about our products, but communication is a two-way street. A company can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in market research just by listening to their customers. Encourage feedback on your products/services and build a community around your brand through frequent interaction.

At the end of the day ROI (return on investment) is what keeps businesses in operation, so take advantage of what social media platforms affords a business!

Australia leads the world in social media engagement with the highest global average time of 7 hours per month, according to Nielsen’s Asia Pacific (APAC) social media report.

Now is a perfect time for businesses to dip into the social media realm to increase online brand presence, attract new business, and improve customer service and loyalty.

Nine million Australians are now interacting on social networking sites according to the Nielsen 2010 report.

• Facebook dominates online social networking
• Twitter records strongest growth in social media usage
• Mobile social networking increasing

It also found Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia are the top 3 in the most popular social media websites in Australian visits.

Does your business have a social media strategy? If not contact us today to get you the best results from your Social Media Campaigns.

Google Caffeine

The speed, accuracy and relevancy of Google search results are only getting better.

On the 8th June 2010, Google announced one of their largest ever search algorithm updates.

Built to make search more up-to-date, Caffeine will index new content within minutes of it being published with Google to “provide search results that are 50% fresher than their previous algorithm.

Google’s new indexing system called Caffeine will produce real-time search results that previously only covered breaking news articles, and will now include information from social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Google have commented on their blog: “Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.

Some background for those of you who don’t build search engines for a living like us: when you search Google, you’re not searching the live web. Instead you’re searching Google’s index of the web which, like the list in the back of a book, helps you pinpoint exactly the information you need. (Here’s a good explanation of how it all works.)”

What impact will it have on a business? The considerations will both be:

1. Some businesses search engine rankings within Google may increase or vanish.Historically, large Google updates have seen some sites significantly affected both positively and negatively through the algorithmic updates. While for some the position change is marginal, other more significant movements have seen websites entirely vanish from view. However as always, Google’s focus is around keeping its search engines results fresh, accurate and up-to-date and so these regular updates are crucial in Google maintaining its position as a market leader in the search engine industry.
2. Real-time search resultsWebsites that have previously sat at the top of Google’s organic results will now find that their sites move down to make way for real-time results. While real-time results may only show temporarily, for sites that are currently getting top spot through a fixed could find a dramatic drop in website traffic even over a temporary drop. A company who has no social media strategy, (or not a strong one) will need to rethink their approach to web marketing to keep the Google as a viable source of traffic.
3. Real-time inclusion of social media updates within organic results may also see more widespread usage of social media platforms as it increases reach to search engine users. A study found 51% Facebook users and 67% Twitter followers were more likely to buy the brands they liked and followed on these sites. Social media gives a face to a brand and by engaging customers in sharing content that demonstrates their expertise, will help divert quality traffic to their website and hopefully into conversions.

If your company’s website has been affected by the recent changes, you may want to talk to your SEO expert to find out what can be done to help improve your site rankings and make it more robust for the future.

In the current economic environment, consumer confidence low and many businesses are feeling the pinch of poor sales. Retailers like Myers and David Jones are competing aggressively to stimulate sales in a down market, so what are you doing to improve your sales?

What strategies are you planning to entice new buyers? Perhaps discounting certain stock items may help cash-flow.

Once customers are attracted to your business, it’s much easier to cross or up sell on additional products or services. In this way it’s good to think about what items are easy to cross or up-sell. E.g. if you are a beauty salon owner, you might advertise waxing at a discounted price, and then once you have your customer through the door, up-sell them to laser hair removal or a skin care treatment.

It’s surprising how many businesses cut their marketing budgets in weaker economic conditions at a time when marketing is crucial to preserve existing clientele and attract new buyers to the business. Naturally costs and overheads are a factor for any business so the key is marketing your business smarter. If you currently use traditional marketing methods such as newspaper, magazines, radio and letter box drops why not consider web marketing. Web marketing by comparison to traditional marketing methods is quite low cost, and is often not only more effective but more measurable as well. This means you can better track the cost of obtaining a sale.

If you’re already utilising web marketing, take the time to work on developing and improving your web strategy. You should consider improving your current site from an information perspective and improving it for sales conversions. Increase or develop a social media presence, send out email newsletters, write blogs etc.

Whilst some of these strategies will drive sales immediately, other strategies will develop sales long term.

Not getting the best results from your website and not sure how to get them?
Call us today on 02 8904 0288 or complete our free website assessment here.