Sign-up using our home page to receive your free copy of our information packed e-newsletter. This month Managing Director David Woodroofe guides you through planning your own e-commerce website and give you all the top tips from Create Design Studio about selling your products online.
This article was written for the Networking group MBG for their February 2010 newsletter.
Typical Twitter Page
1. The Page Background
You can set the background design and colour of your page by clicking on the ‘Settings’ menu tab (at the top right of the page) and then click the ‘Design’ menu tab on the page that appears. You can also design your own background or take a photograph and place it on your profile background. The background could display your photo, your company logo and a description of what you do or what your organisation does. It could also display your contact information.
2. What’s Happening?
Type in your tweets using this box.
3. Main area
Here are all the tweets of the people you follow arranged with the most recent at the top of the page.
4. Main Menu
You can view and alter your profile using this menu as well as change your user name, and search for people you know.
5. Following/Followers
These two numbers show you how many people you are following and how many others are following you. To see a profile picture and a description of them just click on the words and a list will be displayed in the main window.
6. Lists
Using a list allows you to group together people who you follow on Twitter so that you can view only their tweets. For example all the people who write about the subject of motor racing are in a list and by clicking on the list name only their tweets appear in the main window. Other people can include you in their lists and you can view all lists you create or are included in by clicking the ‘Lists’ link.
7. Home
Clicking here will refresh the main screen and show you the latest tweets from those you follow.
8. @username
Click on this heading to see all the tweets where your user name is mentioned.
9. Direct messages
If you want to privately message someone then click here and your message will not appear on the main time line.
10. Favourites
If someone sends you a tweet that you’d like to save then click the little star icon on the left of the tweet text on the time line and it will be saved in your favourites, click this link to view them all.
11. Retweets
When you rebroadcast someone else’s tweet add an ‘RT’ to the front and include their user name with the ‘@’ symbol at the front. Any of your tweets that are rebroadcast will be displayed under this heading, as are those retweets you make and retweets made by people you follow.
12. Search
Type in a name or any other search term to find tweets that contain that term.
Linking up
The most popular use for Twitter comes about when it is combined with your website or blog. Whenever you write a
blog post or update your website or e-commerce store you can promote it to your twitter followers by including a web link in your tweet to encourage them to visit your blog or website.
Using web links
Long web links really eat into your character limit when making a tweet so use a specialist link shortening website to help you cram more into each tweet. (Try www.Tinyurl.com or www.bit.ly). These sites allow you to past in a long web link which it will then shorten for you. Simply copy and paste the shortened link into your tweet.
Automatic updates
Facebook and Linked-in can now be set up automatically to update from your Twitter status. Most social and business networking websites have a gadget that allows you to set this up. Once your Twitter account updates all your social or business networking profiles it means that you only have to type in your links and promotions once for them to be rebroadcast to all the people you have connections with, however they keep in touch with you.
There is also code that you can use to include a twitter feed on your website or blog. This code fetches and displays your tweets so that they can be seen by visitors to your website or blog without them needing to visit the Twitter site at all.
Facebook Fan Pages
These are an extension to the personal profile that you can build in Facebook and are useful for business because they
have space for galleries of photographs, useful for portfolios of work or to show pictures of your office and how to find it. There is also a place for your address and opening hours, customers can write on your wall with testimonials or you can place special offers, news stories and events on there to keep your ‘fans’ interested.
Create Design Studio have covered Facebook Fan Pages in this blogpost.
If you would like to use social networking sites to promote your organisation please call Create Design Studio on 01962 737989 and we can help you set up your website or blog and create profiles using social networking websites as well as guiding you on linking them together effectively.
There are three really important Meta Tags that will help get your website found by search engines: the Meta Page Title, Keywords and the Meta Description.
The Meta Page Title appears in the bar at the top of a browser window, in the case of Microsoft Explorer it is the text that appears immediately before the wording in the blue bar that says Microsoft Explorer. Most search engines place a lot of importance on this title when ranking web pages, so you should ensure that you have a unique title for each web page and that it contains your top search phrase for that page.
The Meta Description, is as it sounds, a description of what that particular web page is about. It is also the text that many search engines use to describe the web page in their search results. Again this is an important Tag that can help get the website found. Like the Title Tag most search engines do read these descriptions and place a lot of importance on them.
Meta Descriptions should also be written with real people in mind, as a well-written Meta Description can attract people to click on that site when faced with dozens of listings on a results page, even if it is listed towards the bottom of the page.
The Keyword Tag started life as the place to put all the phrases that you wanted your website to be found by, however many website owners found that they could out smart the search engines using them, most search engines no longer pay much attention to them. However some do use them and most will check to see if they have been included, so it is important to include them.
Keep in touch with your customers and promote your website at the same time
Any correspondence that you send from your organisation to a customer can also promote your website. Think about printing on your envelopes, having printed headed letter paper, printing your website address onto your invoices, comp slips, flyers and anything else you post out. Also have an email signature with your website address on it, these can be updated easily so you can always promote whatever you are doing online to any clients you communicate with via email. If you hand out any promotional items like pens, postcards or notepads then have these printed with your website address in addition to your logo.
Create Design Studio offer a range of new media marketing services, and we have years of experience designing and building websites and blogs, speak to our MD, David Woodroofe on 01962 737989.
A well thought-out website works hard acting as a salesman working 24/7 on your company’s behalf: always providing information, reassurance and your contact details to potential and existing customers who are looking for goods or services. Now that mobile devices are increasingly used for internet access your website could be guiding customers straight to your door.
A really effective website is updated regularly to remain at the top of it’s game. Without new information on products or services and company news it can slip down search engine rankings and customers may drift away from a site that always looks the same.
Take an objective look at your website: are there parts that could do with an overhaul? Make a list of things you could add to your website that could make it more effective as a sales tool for your business, always think from a customer’s point of view and try to imagine what they would be interested in. Why not survey your customers to find out what they would like to see on your website or take a look at the websites of your competitors to see what they do. Critically assess websites that you visit and work out what features you find useful that could equally be applied to your organisation’s website.
Making your website more effective means helping visitors to find you easily, stay longer once they arrive and more likely to initiate contact or leave their details with you. Once site visitors engage with your web site they are more likely to buy from you. These topics will all be covered in the next few weeks on this blog.
Personalised support to update and change your website is available from Create Design Studio if you would like to speak to us about your website please call 01962 737989.
If you already use Twitter, Ecademy and LinkedIn you might be interested in using Facebook to set up a fan page. It works in a similar way to your own profile page as you have a wall to write on and most of the other tabs: info, photos, notes and events. Instead of friends you instead ask your friends to become fans of the page you create. We have set up several photo albums to display images of our graphic design portfolio, our website design and our logo design archive. All our fans can see these images and invite their friends to become fans of our page too.
Create Design Studio Facebook Page
We have begun to publish ‘notes’: these can be the length of a status update or as long as a blog post and are great for publishing news of projects, testimonials from clients and for making special offers that are available to fans as the notes appear on their news feed when they log-in.
The events tool allows you to create events on a calendar and invite fans to RSVP. This could be useful for attending or organising networking events or open days that are open to fans. This tool could also be used for promoting special offers that are time limited or open only to fans. Giving any organisation the opportunity to thank their fans for following them and promoting their fan page as a place to get special offers. Creating this exclusive ‘club’ atmosphere can encourage customers to sign up and allow you to carefully target special offers at an audience who are likely to be interested in them.
The information tab is the place to post contact telephone numbers, email addresses and your organisation’s opening hours. Encourage your fans to get in touch using this information.
If you would like to have a look at our fan page on Facebook simply search (top right-hand side of the page) when you log-in for ‘Create Design Studio’ and we should appear in the results. If you like what you see why not become a fan and write us a note on our wall?
Create Design Studio are specialists in using online marketing to help your business sell more to your customers. Call David woodroofe on 01962 737989 to find out how we could help you.
The Create Design Studio Newsletter | November 2009
Developing your brand is about creating a relationship with your customers based on their perception of your organisation. Start not with what you sell but those who will buy it and find the appealing values that your organisation shares with them to give your organisation a personality they can relate to.
Successful branding helps to make sales easier because trust has been created between customer and organisation. Creating this kind of successful brand doesn’t happen overnight but it can be supported by making your organisation accessible to customers on the web.
A blog is a type of online diary, often used by businesses to publish articles about issues and events relevant to their industry that will be of interest to their customers and their peers. It can be hosted separately from your main website or the free blogging software can be installed on your web-server to integrate your website and your blog. Some smaller companies or freelance workers only have a blog as the software is versatile and can be used in a similar way to a traditional website with pages for services, products and contact information. You can update your blog as often as you like and as soon as you hit the ‘Publish’ button your articles are live on the web and can be indexed by search engines.
Blog-posts can be effectively promoted through the use of the social networking site Twitter where users write their current status in messages of 140 characters or less. These messages can contain hyperlinks that direct readers to your blog post, your website or to any other online resource you want to promote.
Your Twitter status can also be linked so it updates your Facebook status and your status on the Ecademy business networking site, meaning you only have to write updates once and all the people who ‘follow’ you will be informed. If you are trying to spread the word out about a new product or service it is obvious that linking your updates this way could provide an effective and low-cost way to promote them online.
These websites can also prove useful in other ways. By posting questions to those in your network others can respond quickly with personal recommendations and links to information resources. Additionally, social networking can enable you to keep in touch with friends and business contacts you may not often be able to meet up with in-person due to geography or lack of time.
Social networking has received coverage in the mainstream media and on the BBC news website an article by Claire Prentice explains how small firms are harnessing social networking for their marketing. As many small firms cannot afford to spend large sums on advertising they have turned to the social networking websites to reach a global audience with a minimal cost. Promoting special offers, new services and even to fill cancelled appointments at the last minute, updates on Twitter or Facebook build trust between customers and your organisation because they know the information comes from the source.
Social networking sites invite your customers to enter into dialogue with your company and the feedback you receive can be used to improve your services. However, your organisation also becomes open to criticism. Approach criticism as a chance to improve your service and potentially win back a customers and even this aspect of social networking for business use can have a positive outcome.
Are you a newcomer to social networking online? Here’s some tips on how to begin:
Online social networking site http://twitter.com, uses short messages to help you stay in touch with other twitter users and http://www.facebook.com is a full social networking site that allows you to upload photos, update your status and instant message other friends online at the same time as you.
Business networking sites include http://www.ecademy.com which is a large site with users from all over the world with clubs and regional networking groups you can join. You may also like to look at http://www.linkedin.com for opportunities to network with other professionals.
If you’d like to start your own blog visit: http://wordpress.com or https://www.blogger.com. Try reading a few blogs to see the breadth of writing that exists on the web. You can search Google for blogs or you can visit a blog search engines like http://technorati.com which has a list of 100 top blogs to browse. Also try http://mashable.com for blogs about the world of social media online and a series of articles on ‘How to’ that should help you if you are struggling to use any of the sites mentioned in this article.
Create Design Studio have a dedicated service for those of you who would like to start your own blog but don’t know where to begin. Setting up blogs on your existing website, designing the pages, showing you how to login and write articles as well as using Google Analytics to see how well your blog is doing. Call Create Design Studio’s Managing Director David Woodroofe on 01962 737989 if you would like to discuss having your own blog. To see an integrated blog visit: www.createdesignstudio.co.uk/blog.
If you decide to take the plunge why not look up Charlotte Lamb, Creative Director at Create Design Studio, on Twitter by searching for @charlotte_lamb to read Charlotte’s Tweets on Graphic design.
We are active networkers at Create Design Studio and 80% of our new business comes from our networking both on and off line. We have developed a rich seam of contacts that continually turn up opportunities for us.
David Woodroofe can be found most Friday mornings at BRX Hart, and on Wednesday mornings at Alton 4 Business.
Charlotte Lamb is a member of Andover MBG who meet the third Tuesday of each month at 7.30am, and writes for the MBG blog. Charlotte can also be found on Twitter.
Some of the Peer Group Learning seminars from Business Link we attend are really useful ways to pick up information and informally network with other business-people.
We have set up our own Facebook page this week (search for Create Design Studio) so expect updates from us on there soon.
Lately we have been advising on and designing e-commerce websites. It appears that shopping on the web is now firmly established and more companies are finding their website is an effective way not just to provide information on their products but to sell them.
Handles 4 Homes Website
Handles 4 Homes is a company that specialises in all kinds of door furniture and sell successfully over the internet using their full e-commerce website. We designed their site so that they can update it themselves when they receive new products or want to add special offers and promotions, so it’s a flexible tool for them to promote and sell their products.
If you want to sell using your website first consider your products and how best to organise them in product categories so customers can find what they are looking for. The menu system you put in place is vital to help customers find exactly what they want. Once they have found the product they want to buy you need to consider a system to allow payment. Also remember that you have to deliver their purchase and detail on your website how much delivery costs, this is vital information for your customers.
Selling online could help your business to reach new customers, if you already have a website it could do more than just provide information and contact details. Updating your products, adding promotions and special offers all help to keep customers coming back for more. Because your website is available all day and night to anyone in any part of the world, and increasingly on mobile devices, there is great potential for driving sales through your website.
Create Design Studio can help you to build an online shop and advise on all aspects of selling online, from processing payments to marketing using email newsletters. Call Create Design Studio and talk to David or Charlotte on 01962 737989.
Low tech and low cost does not necessarily mean low effectiveness when you are marketing your company. Postcards can be a good way to build your brand by combining image and text to present your company to potential customers and convey information about your services, location and contact details.
The postcard below was designed for a new company specialising in massage. The photo shows happy and healthy people and sets the tone for the information on the card in a positive way. The text and images together help to convey that massage can bring health benefits to anyone and this builds upon the company’s philosophy.
Well... Postcard
Even as a budget-concious start-up you can have geat photography on your marketing materials by using a photo library, the image cost less than £40 for a large version used on a pull-up banner and was used on all the marketing pieces produced. Once bought you can use the image on your website too.
You might hand out cards at events, leave them in dispensers, do a letterbox drop or post them out to contacts. By leaving a small blank space on each card you can also label or code them in batches to see what distribution method produces the best sales results.
Tonicity Group Publicity Postcard
A postcard also give you the opportunity to receive information back from your customers. Add boxes for customers to complete and you can find out how effective your marketing activities are as well as keep in touch with those who return the completed cards.
Create Design Studio have lots of online and offline marketing ideas, for businesses of all sizes. Call Create Design Studio and speak to David or Charlotte on 01962 737989.
4 August 2009 – Create Design Studio, specialists in Graphic, Print and Web Design, share secrets for improving online sales through websites.
According to IMRG Cap Gemini’s recent report, the recession has started to hit online sales growth and the exponential increases previously experienced by the e-tail market have begun to slow. Whilst this is not severe, marketers’ and business owners should be aware that there are ways they can improve the effectiveness of their websites.
“A website is a marketing tool that is available all day, every day to any potential customer”
David Woodroofe, Managing Director of Create Design Studio.
Create Design Studio offer Ten Top Tips to improve online performance:
For people thinking about starting a new online business, Creative Design Studio is putting together a special package of logo, business card, letterhead and website. They can also put people in touch with other business experts who can smooth the path of starting up.
For more information visit: createdesignstudio.co.uk or keep up to date with them on Twitter: Charlotte_Lamb
-ENDS-
Create Design Studio – UK Press Office Abby Singleton
Mobile: 07739-461-061 Office: 01252-715-168 Email: abigail@singletonpr.com
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