“It’s one of the most cost effective and measurable communication tools available to business”

At Connecting Images we use a combination of print and email to keep in touch. We do this because we know an email is good for reminding you we are here and getting you to visit our website. Print on the other hand is perceived and more valuable and capable of holding the reader’s (your) attention longer.

How are you using email to communicate with your database? If you’re not Connecting Images can assist you with:

* Setting up a database to comply with privacy laws
* Crafting content and design for maximum readability
* Distributing your email campaign to avoid SPAM filters
* Monitoring and analysing the results to improved effectiveness

It is a case of horses for courses and email marketing is a cost-effective option if you wish to stay in regular contact with your existing customers and referrers and can also assist in driving traffic back to your website.

In addition to email marketing, for those working with a budget, you will certainly benefit from one of our FREE Fusion sessions. These sessions can be an invaluable tool in developing a strategy around how best to communicate with your target markets. Run by Mark Thornton, our new Managing Director, these sessions offer you the opportunity to explore all your sales and marketing options.

Differentiate yourself from the competition by keeping in touch with your consumers and contact us now to find out how we can help you increase your sales potential!

For more information on how to create effective email marketing campaigns view this post or contactus arrange to come in for coffee and a chat.

According to Neilsen Online, Australians are spending a staggering 37.5 hours per month on average in front of our PC’s, we also use the web 39 times and visit 65 different domains.

While the Connecting Images team no doubt skew these figures (after all we live online) we were intrigued by what everyone else is up to and how their behaviour is relevant to our clients.

Twitter vs Facebook vs Blogs vs Email vs Google (and other search engines)

Thanks to recent hype and celebrity usage Twitter is now well and truly part of our pop-culture. As the new kid on the social media block, estimates put user numbers at approximately 700,000 (or roughly 6% of the total active online population).

This user volume (predominantly early adopters with an interest in tech) has real potential to drive traffic. User web savvy content creators who wield influence in their networks and will comment on (both positive and negative) and link to content they find online. The technographics of the Twitterverse indicate 5% of users account for 75% of all activity. ie There’s a small group of heavy users driving the trend. These super influencers are self-confessed Social Media Geeks, many Twittering about the topics of online marketing. Source.

Twitter’s recent growth, combined with the 3.9 million Australian Facebook users (approx. a 40/60 male to female split) indicates a real shift in web users’ behaviour, from predominantly information consumption to active networking with social and business applications.

While growth rates of new blogs and web based email accounts remain relatively static, visits to Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Blogger and WordPress are still higher than Facebook and Twitter combined. Google is still number one for traffic generation with over 10% of total visits to all sites in the first week of July out-performing Facebook by nearly 250%. Source Hitwise.

Some other key insights for Australia:
-    The average viewing time on a web page is about 53 seconds
-    Google averages about 10 million visits per month
-    It has a 90% share of the local search market
-    Of the 12 million active web users nearly all had an email address
-    46% of web users over 50 consume social media (blogs, video, photo sharing)

Here’s our take on what this means for you:
-    Make sure your website is well optimised to be found in Google
-    Create great content that users want to consume
-    Offer them something free of charge in exchange for their email address
(you do have a database, don’t you?)
-    Send a snappy e-newsletter to your “fans” containing short snippets of articles, linking back to your website
-    Use platforms like Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic back to your site

Our team is continuously creating traffic generation strategies for clients. To find out how you can get the most out of your website contactus today.

We’ve all heard the speculation and at times cold hard facts. The sales of print media are down, particularly in the US and the UK and the popularity of online advertising is increasing!

According to an Online Advertising Expenditure Report, compiled by Price Waterhouse Coopers for the quarter ending September 30, 2008, “Online advertising has experienced a 30% growth year-on-year, with advertisers spending a record $450 million in the third quarter of 2008′.

These figures suggested that advertisers did not pull back on their online spend as the global downturn took hold. ‘In fact advertisers spent over $100 million more during July to September 2008, than they did in the same period in 2007′.

Meanwhile a 2009 market forecast by Frost and Sullivan indicated that for the first time “… advertisers will cannibalise their traditional media budgets, particularly print, to spend more on measurable and accountable online advertising, as opposed to increasing overall budgets.” Source.

Established online advertising methods like pay-per-click (PPC), think Google Adwords, and targeted banner advertisements on high traffic media properties are still gaining popularity, and their cost increasing inline with increasing demand. However, with social networking quickly increasing its chunk of eyeballs with advertiser competition still relatively low, the channel is fast becoming ‘the place’ for some advertisers to allocate their budget.

Is Facebook advertising right for your business?

Consider this case study, which came to us via Ken Burgin of Profitable Hospitality.

The ads he recommended produced some amazing results for retail and hospitality businesses targeting the lucrative 18-30 year old market.

‘I just thought I would let you know about some results I received with Facebook advertising after following your advice.

Previously, I have run out like most other businesses and spent significant money on glitzy ad campaigns to appear in the local paper and TV advertisements.  Little did I realise at the time that the kids and diners who i was trying to advertise too were either a) dining out with my competitors or b) on Facebook.

I have been running a Facebook campaign (linked to our websites) for a restaurant and also a clothing shop.  I have targeted this campaign specifically to the geographic market (quite easy to do on Facebook when you have a play with it) and to my surprise, we have had a significant number of visits to our restaurant’s website and last night for example, our $$$$ were up by over $1000 in the till. The shop has had record sales with revenue up by 80%…and the cost? About $0.05 per click.

“I was blown away by the response I received to these campaigns and even more blown away by the number of people who actually read Facebook adverts.”

Need assistance to determine what type of online advertising would best suit your business? contactus and arrange to come in for a coffee and a chat.

The topic on everyone’s lips this morning is the passing of Michael Jackson. One of the most well known musical artists of our time, Jackson’s death has led to a media frenzy of rumoured and unconfirmed reports.

As previously discussed on this blog, traditional media is increasingly turning to websites and blogs as official sources of information when a large news story breaks, as these websites are often able to process news stories a lot quicker.

TechCrunch.com has this morning reported that several websites such as celebrity gossip website TMZ.com, which was the first source to break the story, the LA Times Website, Perez Hilton’s gossip blog and Twitter have all crashed or experienced delays in the first few hours after the story broke, due to extremely high traffic volumes. No doubt the capacity of these websites will continue to be tested throughout the day as more news becomes available.

TechCrunch.com claims that this story is currently ‘dominating’ the web.

“And just in case you didn’t believe this story is dominating the web right now, 9 of the 10 trending topics on Twitter are MJ-related. The lone exception is Ed McMahon, who also passed away two days ago.

“As an aside, hat tip to TechCrunch.com for its quick response taking the “hot topic” and creating newsworthy content, relevant to their own subject matter of reviewing new Internet products and companies. Way to leverage an issue!

News.com.au has also today experienced the impact of increased traffic when “big news breaks” with 900, 000 visitors to its website by 2pm today – a typical full day is 400,000 – and its internal system is predicting there will be 1.3 million visitors by the end of the day! This is proof that we now go to the web to validate word-of-mouth reports or radio “snippets”.

Last week’s post explored online reputation management. This week, another issue relevant to the topic has emerged.

In case you haven’t heard, users of the social networking site Facebook are now able to register names for their profile pages. These names also act as a URL address extension so that users can to access their profiles directly.

The ability to register became available last Saturday June 13. Three million users have already registered individual profile names – 500, 000 of whom did so in the first 15 minutes of this feature becoming available.  Source.

Connecting Images recommended to its clients with existing Facebook pages to register their business name/s as their individual profile names, so that their profiles became easier for existing and potential customers to locate.  In addition, getting in early could prevent others from inappropriately registering their business name.

The process of poaching a competitor’s name online is not new – think back to the early adopters who registered well known web addresses long before the legitimate brand owner set up a website!

Poaching business names online is quite common and referred to as ‘cyber squatting’. Businesses must be able to establish their genuine presence on such sites, to avoid reputation management issues.

So what can you do to avoid cyber squatting?

Quick tips

- Regardless of whether you are currently engaged with new communication technology, stake your claim anyway, and register your business name on emerging web services.

- Don’t try to get creative! Register your most commonly used business name (the one that is on your website, in your marketing collateral and in your advertising).

- If you find that someone else has already registered your business name as their individual profile name, check it out and if you suspect it is a case of ‘cyber squatting’ take action. Some services (i.e. Facebook) offer the right of appeal.

Want to know more about how your business can best utilise emerging web services? Contactus and arrange to come in for a coffee and a chat.