Creative

4 Reasons Your Website Doesn’t Work

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Creative, Design, Marketing, Web Design by Paul McEwan on November 7, 2011 | No Comments

“How do I get leads from my website?”

I am asked this all the time. I must sound like a nutty-internet-social-media zealot when I answer  those who have been successfully doing the old school sales thing for years and years without a real online presence. So sometimes my consultation is met with a glazed expression, silence at the other end of the phone or an email response about Mary Poppins; It doesn’t get very far and my creativity is superseded with the client’s own more excellent ideas. There are many reasons a website doesn’t work that are obvious from terrible design to poor content. That list is long. Here is a short basic list of how to hire someone to make a website that doesn’t work.

1. Place little value on creative marketing ideas involving the gain of website leads. Do not take any professional consultation seriously.
   Every business is different and every solution is different. Without an audit the quick answer to “Why isn’t my website working?” is always the same: Do the basics. Want to push past your competitors? Then for the love of all things don’t be just like them.
2. Spend as little as possible on the website marketing budget because it’s supposed to just get found in Google anyway.
   A nice looking store on the corner of a busy city street doesn’t always get the business it deserves if the sign isn’t clear, it looks closed, has no access and no parking. Whether it’s viral marketing or traditional marketing, at least have a plan. If the plan isn’t followed we’ll then know why the site didn’t work.
3. Have the website automated so you never have to touch it. Your phone number on the homepage should work.
   This is taking the view that the internet is not entirely real and a website is just a cost of doing business. Imagine walking into an open house where the agent is a cardboard cut out with a pasted on grin and a motorized arm waving  back and forth. The feature sheets are there with a “please take one” sign and we follow a roped off path through the home. Yea, it would work I guess.
4. Have the site created so it will be all things to all people. Avoid focusing on a target group of search terms.
   Specializing in Vancouver Real Estate is like a lawyer announcing they specializing in legal stuff. Come on. Have some balls and choose a market, geographic, demographic or caged monkeys. Choose it.

This internets stuff is a tough sell for some. Those who don’t like being on line, don’t have time for it or simply don’t care. They have been successfully doing the same thing for years. If they are in sales then it is probably a front loaded business which is to say, they have to jump through hoops, have meetings, drive people around, gathering documents and hold hands to get the sale closed. It’s a lot of free personal time with their clients before they close the deal and see any monetary gain. It’s no wonder the internet seems to contain little or no value to them. I understand this.

Just remember, online marketing is the most scalable choice for the small business. It’s measurable and most eyeballs start their search online for almost everything. Even if it’s something a prospect needs to see and touch in person before a final decision, the search will start online. Social media is getting easier for people to use – we are just at the beginning of what the internet might eventually be, and already is: A real space thick with engagement, communication and networking places.

Do you have a question or something to add? Please do so below or contact me today

Protected: Social Media and SEO Package

Posted in: Blog, Clients, Company News, Creative, Design, Marketing, Technology by Paul McEwan on May 29, 2011 | No Comments

How we plan advertising.

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Creative, Design, Real Estate by Paul McEwan on November 19, 2010 | No Comments

I think REALTORS® have some of the worst. advertising. ever. Just listed! Just Sold! Don’t do it!  One reason I got involved offering services to real estate was to help rid the lower mainland of some of the crap. I literally thought to myself, ‘well there must be no one offering decent real estate advertising’ and ‘I can do that’. I set out to save us all from another IJS [I Just Sold].

I have since discovered the market is thick with creative graphic and design talent and the blame for the poor advertising is the REALTOR® themselves. They simply fall into a rut of doing what the last person did or because they got 3 calls from 20,000 mailed pieces means it must be working or they just don’t know anything about it and are busy doing real estate to think about it much. They send their next listing to their graphics person to create another mail piece.

TribalYell Integrated Branding will not take on new clients who want Just Listed and Just Sold marketing pieces. And unless you have some authentic engagement going on, we will not set up social media to auto populate this crap either. We will not add to the mess you’re all in. We won’t do it – no way.

There is another way. These questions need to be asked at the start of every advertising piece.

• What are you giving?
• What do you want in return?
• What problem do you need a solution to?
• What problem do they need a solution to?
• How will it be communicated?

Notice the last question was not “How will it be written?” or “How will it be said?”. This is because communication takes place in every image, line, shape colour and yes: word. Let the creative take your communication miles and start standing out. If you do this, wear your boots because you will be standing with the crap around your ankles.

Online marketing, social media, display ads or mail out pieces all need to be good. Does this sound complicated? Then hand it over to us to look after. Let’s plan something for the entire upcoming year.

Ad Campaigns That Work

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Creative, Marketing by Paul McEwan on August 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

Just because the Pet Rock or The Million Dollar Home Page are simple doesn’t mean they are easy to think up. It takes a creative mind to think up simple. The kind of simple that have most people scratching their heads wondering why they didn’t think of it first. To create an ad campaign that works always appears to be simple. So simple it looks like the creative department didn’t  do anything and left it to the art department, but it’s the other way around. It’s the idea. If the creative is good, the art department is hardly needed, it all just falls into place. The best ad campaigns don’t ever change our minds about a person, place or product but  they will change our actions. Our actions to buy, go, or vote for.

I Don’t know if this guy thought of this by himself or if it’s been done elsewhere. It illustrates my point. More people who would otherwise never give any money to a street person, will be more likely to change their minds and throw money at this guy than any other in his market sector.