Bad Taste Bears – Cute, collectable and controversial

Armadillo has been commissioned to build the new Bad Taste Bears e-commerce website. Bad Taste Bears is one of the UK’s most successful collectable figurine ranges, with a massive collectors’ base and worldwide distribution. Kirsty McGregor of Odd Co Ltd, the team behind the hugely successful Bad Taste Bears figurine range said “We felt the time was right to update the site and pretty much wanted to go for something completely different. Our site is very important both to promote us to a general market and also because it’s home to our Members’ Forum where collectors share experiences, organise meetings and keep in touch with all that’s going on the world of the Bad Taste Bears.”

Kevin Robson, Armadillo Client Services Manager said, “We’re thrilled to have to the chance to work with Odd Co Ltd. They have an excellent, quirky business and clarity of vision along with a real sense of fun. The site we’re building has a lot of functionality, with e-commerce alongside membership services and the OddCo Ltd. team were also really keen to have content management control. The design is something we’ve spent a lot of time on to make the site attractive to new customers and current members. It’s not a transition form the current website, more of a departure but there’s a need to be sensitive to a lot of different opinions. At Armadillo, we offer a depth of support to clients that allows them control of their site backed-up with friendly advice and training should they ever need it.” The Bad Taste Bears site will be live in November 2011.

Ads Coming to Official iPhone and Android Twitter Apps

Get ready for Twitter ads on your smartphone. Today Twitter announced the inclusion of Promoted Tweets in its native iPhone and Android apps.Currently, iPhone and Android users only see Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets in the searchfunction of Twitter’s official app. And Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts have long been part of Twitter’s mobile browser display as well. Today’s announcement now brings those Promoted features to the main feeds of the official Twitter apps for iPhone and Android.Before jumping on Twitter to share your hatred of Twitter ads — ironic, no? — consider the following. First, initially the ads (i.e., the Promoted Tweets) will be from companies you’re already following. So, if you follow Virgin Air, you could see an ad for discounted airfares.Second, the ads will only show up in the official Twitter app for each platform. So, if you use Tweetbot, Tweetdeck or any other third-party Twitter client, you won’t see these ads.Third, the ads will show up in your timeline just like a regular tweet, and will drop down into oblivion as the people you follow post status updates. And if you don’t like an ad, you can swipe to remove it. Twitter says it only wants to serve ads that are relevant to your interests.Finally, nothing is free. Twitter has two options in its path toward monetization: serve ads or charge a subscription fee. Twitter has become an important communication tool. It would be disappointing to see it disappear because it couldn’t pay the bills.

Users Expect Websites to Load in the Blink of an Eye

Think your three-second page loads are “just fine”? Think again.

According to engineers at Google, even the blink of an eye — which takes around 400 milliseconds — is too long.That’s the word from the New York Times, which makes an unusual foray into the world of web development with its article “For Impatient Web Users, an Eye Blink Is Just Too Long to Wait.”Some web developers may remember the days of the two-second rule (and no, not the one that applies to dropping food on the floor). The established wisdom —well-tested at the time by usability experts like Jakob Nielsen and others — was that after two seconds the number of users willing to wait for your page to load dropped off significantly.That rule still holds, it’s just the amount of time that’s changed. Nowadays the Times’ claims users drop off after a mere 400 milliseconds, and a difference in page load time of just 250 milliseconds is enough to convey a distinct advantage over your competitors.

6 Tips for Investing in Your Online Brand

Your online brand tells customers who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Whether you’re a small business, internet start-up, or a large corporation, online brand building is crucial in an era where the internet is many customers first point of contact with a business. Your online brand also gives you a key point to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

1. Know Your Customer. Defining your target audience is the first step in being able to connect with them. You may need to segment your audience in able to speak to them more personally.

2. Establish Your Presence. Focus on clearly stating what you do. The internet is full of searchers with short attention spans, and if a visitor can’t determine what you do and of what benefit that is to them, you’ll likely lose them before you get a chance to win them over. While businesses frequently lead with their name (who they are), focus instead on what you do. Instead of ‘Daily Grind Coffee Shop’ try something like ‘Fine roasted organic fair-trade coffee beans for coffee lovers with a conscience.’

3. Give Your Brand a Voice. Having a brand spokesperson will allow customers to connect to your brand. Customers respond to brands who are conversational more than corporate.

4. Always Be Consistent. Creating an online brand requires consistency across your messages and online presences. With the explosion of social media, brands now have many points of contact with their customers. Be sure that wherever you interact with customers, your message and image remain the same.

5. Determine the Channels You’ll Use. One goal in online brand building is to be constantly in front of your customers wherever they are, such that when they become ready to make a buying decision you’re the first company they think of. People buy from people they know and like. Balance your branding across as many channels as make sense based on your customers’ presence there, and your ability to deliver quality content and a consistent message.

6. Plan How You’ll Integrate Social Media into Your Branding. Social media gives you an opportunity to interact with your customers in the places they’re spending time. It also gives you an opportunity to put a personal face on your brand. Decide where you’ll interact, which tools you’ll use, and who will be the voice of the company?

Also recognize that this is not an opportunity to be overly promotional, as that behaviour is not tolerated well in the social media circles. Instead, take the opportunity to interact with your customers. If you would like to find out how we can help you further feel free to contact berry Burgess on: 0191 257 8380 or visit www.armadillo-creative.com

Armadillo appointed to brand EnergySwitch

Armadillo is completing work on a new brand and website for EnergySwitch Ltd. EnergySwitch is part of a group of companies aimed at helping consumers save money on their household bills. This new site helps people to find the lowest possible prices for energy and show that there are ways to reduce fuel bills. It’s a free service that anyone can access and get advice to help save their energy and money. Armadillo’s Client Services Director, Rachel Burgess commented, “We had to produce an informative and authoritative site with a friendly and engaging tone that allows people to easily access the information they need. There’s a lot of confusion around energy costs and switching suppliers, many consumers don’t know what real savings will be and this site helps to cut through those issues in a straightforward way.”

PPC or Organic SEO – Which Works Better?

As challenging as the competitive field of search engine optimisation (SEO) is, it might seem as if a large spend on Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing is the answer. Organic SEO has its own costs, in education and time, or in hiring an expert. Possibly PPC would offer a better return? While the best strategy for many businesses is to do both, ultimately the answer to our question of the better value comes down to costs per click (CPC) and conversion percentages once a visitor arrives at the site. Some conventional wisdom has stated that PPC works better for business-to-business offerings, while organic SEO works better for business-to-consumer offerings. While this may have held some truth in the past, one thing is now clear… paid search traffic is on a continuing decline.

Is your brand social?

Twitter
In general, the game is to express your message within the scope of 140 characters. You can choose to tweet using the customize Twitter site or you could resort to using the various Twitter desktops. Until now the majority of people engaging in Twitter were more interested in followers. Don’t follow too many people at once, as they can drown your brands message. Take time when choosing who you want to follow, are these people you would like to talk to. If you can create a targeted community of followers who will retweet your message to their community then you are hitting your market place. Its not about volume its about quality. Don’t send spam tweets and remember be courteous, there is no need to be rude about someone on twitter you’ll get blocked.

Facebook
Facebook is very much a different creature from Twitter. You don’t post one line sentences in Facebook and expect your message to be amplified, people on Facebook are more concerned about genuine relationship.
A recent report confirms that people are spending more time using Facebook than Google. This alone gives them the upper hand in advertising, and the “Like button” holds great promise, though not yet realized, in changing the marketing landscape in providing ads that we actually care about.The 55-65 female age group is the fasting growing community on Facebook.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn caters to the professionals. When you use this Social Media, you have to put on a different hat. If you want your brand taken seriously, forget about small talks and gossips. Leave the informalities to Facebook. Engage your audience in a professional manner

If you would like more information about a social marketing strategies please contact berry@armadillo-creative.com or visit www.armadillo-creative.com

The evolution of 2 great company logos

Apple: Probably few remember the original Apple logo, which featured Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree with the inscription ‘“Newton … A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought … Alone.” Thankfully, within a year, Jobs was introduced to Rob Janoff, a young designer based in Palo Alto, California who was assigned to help market the clunky Apple II, a  far cry from today’s sleek MacBook. “For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up,” recalled Janoff in an interview with Sync Magazine. “I just stared at the wedges for hours.” Eventually, Janoff created the polychromatic Apple logo which survived until 1998.

Did You Know? More Interesting Digital Marketing Facts

1. An average person sees 625 messages per day.

2. Yahoo collects around 10 Terabytes of data on its customers each day, which is roughly as much as Tesco collect from their Club Card customers in a year.

3. A recent survey showed surprisingly 44% of Twitter users were happy to be alerted about special offers and new products. 48% had responded to an advert they had received and most startlingly of all 44% had actually referred a product alert onto a friend.

4. 90% of adults use mobile phones, 73% use the internet and 89% watch digital television.

5. In a survey of the top 26 UK retailers, it was found that every £1 spent on online advertising yielded £3.44, a fantastic ROI. Television advertising yielded £2.15 per £1 spent.

6. Over 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over the New Year

7. There are 55 million tweets per day, approx 640 tweets per second

8. 10pm -11pm is the most active hour on Twitter

9. The average person spends 15 minutes on YouTube a day

10. The average time browsing via a mobile device is nearly 3 hours a day

Planning Your Mobile Strategy

Planning Your Mobile Strategy

In planning your mobile strategy, you’ll want to consider:

1. How will you deliver your mobile experience? Will you create a mobile-optimised version of your website, or offer an application for customers through application marketplaces for smartphones?

2. Will you offer the full functionality of your website, or focus on the critical elements for mobile commerce? 
Here are some considerations based on the feedback from current mobile users:
 UK users prefer to access the mobile internet using a browser rather than an application (70% for mobile versus 55% for application), according to a study by Orange.

3. Speed is more important than full-featured functionality. Faster m-commerce sites have better response rates when compared to more full-featured, but slower, sites. Users want a rich experience, but not at the sacrifice of speed.

If you would like to find out how we can help you contact us on 0191 257 8380 or visit www.armadillo-creative.com

Is eMarketing Part of Your 2012 Plan?

What’s on your marketing plan for 2012? Most businesses have an idea of how important eMarketing (also called internet marketing) is, but many either don’t have a clear strategy or a concrete plan. Putting the time in to plan for activities that can produce results now will yield results for the year to come.

Before diving into the possibilities for your eMarketing plan, let’s briefly touch on marketing plans in general. Not having a written marketing plan, regardless of the size of your business, is a plan to fail. Marketing plans must act as both a plan for the months to come (I prefer a 12 month plan) and a business intelligence tool to report on what’s worked, to what degree, and what should be changed.

Plans should include a healthy mix of marketing strategies that you know to work from past efforts and new strategies you are testing. They should list the pertinent details like: