The art of linking
Linking is the essence of the Web. Web professionals must focus primarily on links, rather than the content or technology.
If you’re trained as a content professional then you’re trained to think about documents, manuals, articles, brochures. You’re focused on sentences and paragraphs.
One of the latest crazes on the web is “curation,” which seems to […]
Great web brands
SurveyMonkey is a great web brand because it is both very reliable and extremely easy to use.
Over the years I have designed hundreds and hundreds of surveys. I have looked at a lot of survey tools. Some were terrible, many were okay, but SurveyMonkey is by far the best. In fact, SurveyMonkey is one of […]
A day in the life of a web novice manager
“This website needs a total redesign,” Bartholomew Daehria guffawed enthusiastically. “It needs to be much more interactive and visually attractive.”
Tom’s heart sank. Another new manager. He’s seen it all so many times before. “What exactly do you mean by interactive,” Mr Daehria?”
“Call me Bartholemew, boy! Or better still, call me Bart. But, whatever you do, […]
You don’t need a mobile strategy
Mobile is a platform. It is a tactic, not a strategy. What you need is a strategy for the connected customer.
If a Norwegian man is sitting on the toilet reading the news on his iPhone, is he mobile? Well, research indicates that one of the most favored places where Norwegian men use their phones […]
Pavlov’s dogs are waking up
There is a growing resistance to traditional marketing techniques. Today’s customer is more logical, less emotional.
“International scientists say they have found the first evidence of resistance to the world’s most effective drug for treating malaria,” the BBC stated in 2010.
“The prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is a result of antibiotic use both within human medicine […]
The Customer Spring: Empowered customers rise up
The customer is not captive anymore. The customer is active. They are in control.
“Roughly 40 percent of tablet and smartphone owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV,” according to Nielsen News. What were they doing? Mainly checking email; but they were also researching products and tracking down discounts.
“Google reported revenues […]
Telling the truth is not a marketing sin
People are no longer so easily fooled by happy marketing and communication spin.
Once upon a time there was a company that was not doing well and was letting people go. Its internal communications department went into overdrive, constantly publishing feel-good stories. Market conditions improved and the company showed signs of recovery. The communicators department […]
From selling products to delivering services
The reason Amazon is so successful is that theirs is a services culture rather than a product culture.
“What we are doing is offering premium products at non-premium prices,” Jeff Bezos told Business Week when launching the Amazon Fire tablet. According to Bezos “We don’t think of the Kindle Fire as a tablet. We think of […]
The future is about service
“There’s no street address here,” the woman said to me. I had just handed in my US Immigration cards at the pre-screening section of Dublin Airport. I grimaced. I knew I had the full address on my computer somewhere, but my computer was so slow to start and it would take about 10 minutes for […]
If you want to hide it, emphasize it
On a website, lines are like walls, boxes are like closed buildings and anything constructed to catch the eye is perceived as a marketing trap.
I once dealt with a large product company that had a huge banner advertisement taking up half its homepage. It was getting less than 1 percent of clicks. Another company I […]
