Saying Thank-You

It takes nothing to say thank-you, except the two words.

Unfortunately, we seem to have lost the ability to say thank-you in today’s society. Saying ‘thank-you’ is something you say like ‘G’day’, or ‘Goodbye’ but it doesn’t seem to carry the same impact, and it is not used in relation to the serious acts of good faith and acts that exceed expectations where a thank-you is definitely required.

When you’re in business, I’m sure that all of you will appreciate that there is nothing better than receiving a thank-you for excellent work, or work in which you’ve engaged and excelled to create a maximum benefit and payback for your client.

Yet, many clients still do not know how to say thank-you.

After thirty-two years in business, let me tell you, that when clients say ‘thank-you’ to me they get rewarded handsomely and even over-rewarded, because we work hard for them and we’re constantly motivated to make sure that they succeed. Those people who believe that saying ‘thank-you’ opens the gates for rorts such as overcharging, under-performing, etc, are disillusioned. While this could be a risk of saying ‘thank-you’, the greatest risk is that you demotivate and devalue your work in the eyes of the provider, the sub-contractor, the art-source supplier, etc, and as a consequence you may receive less effort, less interest and within the organisation. There can also be problems motivating individuals to perform on your work.

My advice is that you should think about the "Thank You" phrase when you are trying to do work, especially leading edge work or work that involves serious thought, brain-activity above the ordinary, etc, and consider saying thank-you more often. You will get a great result, you will become important to the supplier, and the person that performs the activities and functions for you, and I’m sure that you’ll be amply rewarded.

After writing this I felt it may be a bit corny for our newsletter. Then I sat in front of the desk of an excellent furniture salesman and heard him say thank you for the order in a demonstrative way. It did not sound corny. It sounded polished, professional and sincere and I know the retailer would have been pleased to hear it. So I published this

- David Higginbottom

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable

This article caught my attention, and I wanted to share it with you.

It is written about transforming your business, but it has wider and more significant application in regard to websites. These, unlike a business, always go through continual transformation, and they need the Purple Cow thinking to be really effective.

For both your business long term, and your success on the Internet, I hope you enjoy this article.

Getting Started

In his book, Seth Godin tells the story about when his family left the city to drive through the countryside and were (initially) excited at the sight of grazing cows. After driving for a few hours however, looking at cows got boring: the only thing that would have been worth their attention, Godin says, would have been a purple cow.

This feeling can be translated to a commercial setting. While the inventors of aspirin, or the frozen pizza, built their fortunes by selling a new product, today customers’ needs are by and large met and already provided for in an increasingly competitive, saturated market. To succeed, one must market a “Purple Cow”, an iPod or a Frappuccino. While the original marketing mix included such “P”s as Price, Product, Position, Publicity, Promotion, Packaging and Permission, the mosti important “P” in the future may prove to be the “Purple Cow”.

Why Read It?

To excel, organisations need to distinguish themselves from the competition: in this book, marketing guru Seth Godin likens the art of being recognised and of leading a market to a cow in a field in the countryside that will only be noticed by a passing driver if it is coloured purple. His book is a manual for creating the remarkable and standing out from the crowd. With customers increasingly satisfied – even spoilt – organisations have to find ways of not just meeting their needs, but exceeding them and finding entirely new ways to deliver value.

Contribution

1. Death of a salesman

Godin’s first contribution is to challenge conventional marketing and public relations wisdom that ascribes success to “share of voice” in standard media streams such as newspaper and television advertising. He highlights that even Coca-Cola’s fantastically expensive adverts do little to sell more cans of soft drinks and argues that the end of what he calls the “TV-Industrial Complex” with the saturation of global communication, places more emphasis on being people’s first choice, rather than simply a close second.

2. Know your business and be passionate about it

By understanding exactly what your business or product is, you can target your marketing more exactly and prioritise tasks. Godin uses most of “Purple Cow” to explore practical examples of remarkable products and services. What they all had in common – from the maker of an internal combustion engine to a publicist for the plastic surgery industry – was a strategic focus on using their unique selling points to meet a previously unexplored market. A market for luxury iced coffees did not exist when Starbucks first marketed its Frappucino”, but by doing something different, they created a profitable product.

Knowing what makes your business and customers tick will allow you more opportunity for success than ever before.

3. Brainstorm and reinvent

Many marketers and salespeople understand the importance of being passionate about their product, but what about developing a product that compels people to make decisions with the same passion? Godin cites salt as an example. For years, it was a commodity manufactured in vast quantities with greater economies of scale but diminishing returns. Manufacturers are increasingly realising the benefits of selling handmade, luxury brands – for instance, those targeted at gourmet restaurants – that add value in new ways and for which they can charge a premium.

By developing radical, maverick products, or by re-inventing old products so that they meet new needs in creative ways, marketing is at its most effective.

Context

The importance of being passionate about your product and of creating remarkable marketing strategies has been discussed by management guru Tom Peters (“The Pursuit of Wow”), and the way ideas travel through populations has been studied by Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point”.

Godin, self-proclaimed ‘agent of change’, argues that most marketers treat these concepts as fads and fall back on tried and tested but boring channel marketing strategies and advertising, hoping that word of mouth will do the rest.

With consumers spoilt for choice in a global market place, learning how to create a “Purple Cow” is essential. In a trouble-beset global economy, the only way to create a truly winning product is to be revolutionary. With increasingly flat, globalised communication, customers reject otherwise decent products, seeking only the most extraordinary and unique.

Source: Business Essential, A&C Black Publishers, 2009.

Further Reading: Seth Godin: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable. London: Penguin, 2005.

Web Thinking is Always Customer Driven

This is a report on web thinking and blockages to successful web performance written recently while visiting the USA and Canada.

“At the time of writing this I am in Canada, having crossed over from the US in the last two days.

I am carrying a small Acer notebook computer, and enjoying the privilege this provides in terms of being able to plan my itinerary online, which includes searching for good hotel rates, getting buses and trains, booking online, and arranging rental cars. I have also been able to stay in touch with the office, finish some reports, and search for areas of interest online as we go.

Wifi is fairly readily available in the major cities and at hotels, but generally unsecured. You can look, but you must go to a FedEx office if you want to make secure bookings, check bank accounts etc.

Wifi should be more secure and more freely available, and if you are in the tourist industry, this is an opportunity for leadership over the competition in the future.

Overall I would say that our websites are superior to those in the USA and Canada where very simple websites persist for many businesses. For others, the websites are poorly designed and do not have the strong promotional ingredients and functionality you would expect from the "home "of Internet and business.

I have made this observation over the past three years, and this year it has been easier to claim a superior position for Australia, probably due to the fact that we are becoming more professional online, even at the trade and small business end.

We know the interest in our e-Success courses has increased dramatically, and the knowledge and creativity of our businesses participating in these programs has also risen substantially in the last two years. Yellow Pages in Canada is struggling, and is advertising on TV. Print generally is suffering, including major newspapers, which continue to search for a new competitive edge for what is a mature and declining life cycle positioning for their industry.

However, I am amazed at how much print, and investment in print advertising there is in North America. This is probably why our web and online capabilities are starting to move ahead of theirs. They are still very reliant on traditional marketing mediums and this shows.

Now to some points I would like to make regarding the frustrations that emerge when you are online dependent for a 3-week period.

The conclusion I have reached for most of the problems with online and e-Commerce solutions is that the accent is on the technology of the Internet, rather than on how the technology can be adapted to human behaviour. Human behaviour in terms of modern marketing has been developed since the 1950s, just after WW2. This is the time when marketing emerged in the US and the modern consumer economy was born. The digital age, technology and web/Internet economy we are now immersed in is only really 10-12 years old.

The result is that the culture of the consumer economy developed by marketing since the ‘60s is well entrenched in terms of consumer sentiments, emotions and habits in the way we search for information, make decisions, and perform transactions.

If the new creative geniuses of the digital age are not conversant, or not well connected with consumer behaviour, or neglect this in preference to technological enhancements, then the technology becomes the focus, and appeal and empathy with consumer behaviour is sacrificed.

You see this in the websites and online information when you are totally dependent on the new source of communication, from information search to online booking and transaction.

Here are some examples:

1. Most websites ask you to enter in booking dates and times. When you go to the pop-up calendars, they are slow. Only the top line appears on the screen and you have to continually scroll down.

If you cannot book on those dates and you return to the home page or booking page, the information you have already entered is lost and you have to begin all over again. Not very consumer friendly, frustrating, and enough to make you go to another site in desperation.


2. With some sites, you are half way through booking and making plans because you have to refer to paperwork, itineraries etc., and the website time expires. Who in their right mind thought of expiring the website without any idea of how long it takes on average to complete the transaction?


3. Some sites have small pop-up ads appearing in the middle of the transactions, which include mandatory fields such as names, emails etc. they take over the screen and force their messages on you. Hardly conducive to doing more business.


4. There seems to be a big problem with price. Most highly ranked Google ads, including those with Click campaigns and paid advertising positions, entice you with price offers. When you go online, you can’t get to the price unless you fill out 4-5 screens of mandatory data, choices of options etc. Even then the price is not firm, as you have to then go through another list of options with value added services and extra prices to get to what you think would be the “joe average” price for the service or product.

At this point you are totally frustrated, and in many cases you not only give up on the site, but you give up on the Internet and reach for a telephone because what you have eventually found is offered is not anywhere near the final solution given online, or the final product or service you want.



You hate the site, you hate the brand, and you hate the web designer for wasting your time. Isn’t the Internet supposed to be fun, time efficient, and full of good solutions that meet your individual needs with the help of the search engine optimisation, descriptors etc.?


5. The telephone. I just said that when you’re frustrated you reach for the telephone but …… the number of sites you go to where you have great difficulty finding the telephone number, or even the contact address, is amazing.

I’ve already stated that the digital age should understand established consumer behaviour since the ‘60s. Yet, just like voice activated complaint systems on the phone, good brands and good companies here are hiding telephone numbers online, either deliberately or through poor programming, or opting for 1800 numbers or call centres which drive consumers mad. A web page that drives consumers away is not the central focus for e-Success business.


6. The staleness of sites is very apparent. Many sites have obviously not been updated, and have old articles, seasonal offers etc. Dating the site by not keeping it up-to-date is a sure-fire way of turning business away.

Simple two or three page sites should be banned. There are far too many in North America of these do-it-yourself high school projects. Sites with flowery details, amateur photos (photos that do not capture what you need to see), without any details and specifics such as a map, an address, a telephone number, specifics on the product or service, price, time frames, performance ratings, and easy-to-use online payment systems. An email would help too.


7. Big business is a big offender. I went to the American Express site as I needed to make contact with them about travellers cheques. Their telephone is unattended on the weekend, and there was no way to email them, and no list of contacts for the East and West Coast, or major cities.

I needed to contact the ANZ Bank in Australia. Online was difficult, so I went to the phone. The operator wanted a whole lot of details from me so my phone bill got to $30 before I could give him the card number I wanted stopped. By the time I over-rode him, I lost signal. An email would have been very simple. Listening and getting essential details from me would have been easier.



There is a great saying at the TD Trust Bank in Canada that all businesses could listen to in terms of consumer behaviour. It says, “There are people on both sides of the counter.” Businesses today seem to be of the opinion that customers are not people, and that consumer behaviour is actually consumer compliance. They don’t listen, they don’t respect clients, and they often treat them like idiots. In the digital age, it is so easy just to make to contact, or to switch to another site. I didn’t call back the ANZ Bank, and I couldn’t email them because their site is poorly designed. Their voice activation didn’t handle my category.


I could go on and on.

When we begin to build new websites/ communication platforms online, or re-enhance old websites, we begin with a consumer brief in the hope that the client understands how their consumers behave. This brief is critical to the success of the site. If they don’t know, we ask leading questions to examine what they need to find out before we develop the site further.

The reason we have e-Commerce and online expertise at Competitive Edge hasn’t changed since we began business in 1980. It is to understand consumer behaviour through research, observation and analysis, develop strategies to create the most competitive appeal to the selected targeted consumer groups, and communicate this effectively so we maintain, gain and retain viable and profitable customers.

Understanding and appealing to consumer behaviour continues to be the key to traditional and e-Commerce marketing success. Programming skills, web development and design, and all facets of the digital communication age are tools to enable this to be achieved with greater time effectiveness, cost efficiency and customer “reach”. They are not the end in themselves, and never will be.”


David Higginbottom

The Benefit of Online Email Campaigns

Around 1985, I met a marketing professional called Vin Jenkins who had been contracted to write a series of small books for Australia Post on the emerging science of direct mail marketing.

I had met Vin when I was at Monash University in Marketing. He asked me to describe and document how I thought direct mail interacted with the other promotional and communication techniques in marketing, and how I saw the relationship of direct marketing to TV, radio, magazine and print, etc. The section I wrote formed part of a published set of books on direct marketing sponsored by Yellow Pages.

When I think back the emerging role of email campaigns is similar to the emerging role of direct mail at that time

Over the last year, we have become very active in running email campaigns for a number of progressive clients in our customer base. We have become involved in many recent campaigns and because of this all our email experience has developed rapidly through suppliers of email databases and contacts in the e-Commerce industry. There is generally not a lot of information available, just like in the early days of direct mail.

What is oblivious is that email campaigns are growing faster and having more influence on direct marketing than direct mail campaigns in the 1990’s.

In addition emails are much more acceptable and widely read than direct mail even in its most progressive marketing days. It’s acceptable to get a 10% readership (quicker and easier to read) and at least a 5% response for an email campaign which compares much more favourably than the better estimates for good direct marketing campaigns, usually around 3% readership and response.

While direct mail in my opinion, is in a mature to declining phase in its life cycle, email marketing is in its infancy and take-off phase in the life cycle and has many contributing years ahead for marketers and savvy SME’s.

For those companies that collect emails, probably in preference to telephone numbers, this technology offers tremendous opportunities at a very cost effective budget, provided it is not treated as direct mail online. It needs copy that is professionally written like good direct mail with a thorough understanding of the target market consumers, their sentiments, and consumer behaviour.

The benefits list below is a combination of my thinking and Rajiv’s thinking, so it is a mixture and fusion of traditional marketing overlaid with today’s technology, and time and cost constraints.

Here’s how we see it:

1. Email campaigns are very cost effective. If you have your own list, they are cheap, cheap, cheap to send. If you don’t, then you can purchase a list of around 16,000 clients selected (sample specific) to your profile and target market for around $2,400 a cost per reach of 15 cents per customer. Much cheaper than the stamp and envelope alone, and guaranteed to get to the reader and get read.

Note: the cost can go up if you want specifically targeted professionals, individuals or difficult to access markets.

If you are using your own email list (customer database), a bounce rate (the rate of emails bouncing back to the server) of 10% is acceptable.

For a purchased list of emails a bounce rate of less than 10% is usual, however the email campaign is costed on the basis of a click through rate of 25% (This means 4,000 customers of the 16,000 customer emails will actually click and visit your website / landing page)

The cost of the purchased emails per click through is 60 cents – still cheaper than the envelope and the stamp.

The primary role of the email campaign is to get the consumer to act on an offer within a short time period. It is not a platform for just attracting attention or building corporate loyalty etc. Its major design is to get a “here and now” (viral) offer on the table in a short and efficient timeframe using emails that have a succinct offer that can be acted on with the click of a mouse (click through) or payment by credit card etc.

Consumer behaviour dictates that when the email is received it is easy to read, short in length, the offer is apparent and concise, and the action required (if they want to take up the offer) is easy and quick to enact, and time frames for response or delivery of the service or goods are acceptable and precise.


3. Emails are not like direct mail where the offer builds and builds, often with a story line. They get straight to the point in the same way as an advertisement with a coupon for a cash back or a prize.


4. Email campaigns can open the door to continual or successive offers based on membership, loyalty, or repeat purchase. They suit all industries, just as direct mail. They can be used for legal services, e-Commerce, insurance, banking, travel, hospitality, lifestyle and wellbeing, health, automotive, real estate, etc. etc.


5. Email campaigns must have professional copy that talks to the individual with some knowledge about the way they think, act and buy. It must have immediate rapport with the reader, but it must talk to them in a personal and individual way so they will not delete it as “another person wanting to sell me something”. They will want to open the email because it has a topic and initial opening line that captures their interest and creates desire.


6. Email campaigns should be run over short time periods. The offer, acceptance and delivery should take no longer than two weeks, and preferably should be concluded within 10 days. Otherwise, why use email, which is a quick response communication tool?


7. It doesn’t matter if everybody emailed does not take up the offer. If the offer is genuine, trustworthy, without gimmicks, and strikes at the needs base of the recipient, then brand reinforcement and interest will strengthen that person’s future relationship with your organization, whether they be an established customer or an emerging/ new customer.

Emails are therefore unique. In our case study it costs 60 cents to get a click through for 4,000 customers, yet all 16,000 customers (another 12,000) get positive reinforcement of brand, product / service and organisational image and credibility.


8. In the past, direct mail response rates of 1.5% - 2% to specific offers were seen as good to excellent. Similarly, email responses of around 3% should be your target, but 5% is achievable and this is considered good to excellent. There is also a “pass on” rate where the email can be forwarded to friends and colleagues.


9. There is no reason why you can’t use a trial an email campaign using your existing customer base, and then once you are satisfied, extend the email campaign to a purchased email database for your specific customer. This way, you can see if your existing customer base can be extended and successfully replicated through email online campaigns.


10. Whatever you do, do not use email campaigns to “go fishing”. They must be Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, give a definite Response and Time result. They must be S.M.A.R.T.

David Higginbottom
Competitive Edge (Asia) Pty Ltd

Juggling the Critical Success Factors For Real Online Results

Google is just over 10 years old since its commercialisation.

During that time, web developers and marketers have been trying to decipher the best approaches and methodology for optimising their position and ranking on Google and associated search engines, the second best being Yahoo in Australia.

Google has, on many occasions, “let the cat out of the bag” by outlining optimum strategies for success on their search engine. A “cat and mouse” affair in which they give enough, but not too much, to let online marketers, web designers and web users into the secrets of capturing the best positions on a search engine.

All the time they are working with a huge globally backed workforce to change the way in which they are gaining revenue streams, delivering services, and maintaining relevance and competitive advantage in the fast moving e-World. You have to get used to the idea that we are always coming from a behind position in trying to utilise this new and marvellous online marketing tool for business optimisation, just-in-time communication and business networking, in addition to the social and community contributions that search engines make.

Just yesterday we were optimising the website design and rebuilding framed websites and websites with strong Flash and visual architecture that appealed to us, but today it will not gain us credibility with Google and other search engines. We have all worked really hard on clean, seamless navigation and good copy with strategic key words that appealed to the search engines and our online customers. We have worked tirelessly with meta tags and linkages to get it right.

We were just getting there when Click campaigns, landing pages and key word density parameters started to invade the new paradigm. We have had to adjust to websites that have good appeal, not only to ourselves, but to our customers. But this was still not enough.

We then began to analyse the best way to deliver key words, titles and copy that was organised to make the search engines position us and rank us on the first page.

We even became “first page conscious” and wanted companies like Competitive Edge to guarantee this position when our stale website came out of the “cold” in its re-incarnated form and began to meet optimum parameters for Google and other search engines. We were not content to hear that we would have to wait 3-4 months for Google to rank us for the new website. We wanted it now.

Unfortunately, the game had escalated and now the copy we wrote is becoming as important as the web design, navigation and optimisation provided usually by outside experts. Our copy, which had been satisfactory for our clients, has now become even more important for the search engines and our linkages have to number in the hundreds. Most of us have dreaded writing copy at any time, but now we really needed help. We have had to update the copy and home page regularly to meet the “new” aspects of the website that the robots, who regularly visit, want to rank in our site.

Our website was becoming a major marketing tool that had to be professionally managed on a weekly basis. Not some site that we did with our cousin, student son or daughter, or the graduate down the road, and forgot about.

We have to watch our domain for competitors who positioned against us, and we have to understand how our site is faring on a regular basis through tracking and monitoring our unique visitors (no longer Clicks), their time of visit, length of visit, pages visited, key words used, how they got to our site, etc.

We now need to make changes and make them fast, so we need a Content Management System that would allow us to post copy, changes and pictures, and present our website in a dynamic and “new faced” manner on a continuous basis. This is becoming difficult, but necessary, because everyone is on the web and they want to see our site, and we need it to sell using phone, email, introductions, referencing, and ready access from a search engine that can find us and rank us for customer convenience and use.

Google is in control and we have to publish, present, blog, Twitter, Utube, and do everything we can to appeal to the social media, online videos, and the new mix of just-in-time multimedia and social media.

This is becoming arduous, but for those who can grasp the critical success factors, there are great rewards. Combined with good web strategies, strong in-house traditional marketing, and a competitive online site, businesses of all sizes are now able to drive customers to their site and to their bottom line in a cost effective manner.

The online is becoming the lifeline for many businesses, and those who cannot keep pace become the businesses that work with the residual traditional markets that are dwindling in size, volume and viability.

What can you do?

Understanding and tracking the success factors, and maintaining a website as an operational and marketing tool on a daily basis is a necessity today if you want to reap the combined rewards of online and traditional marketing. Even traditional marketing relies on online support, and the total organisation requires online efficiency.

The key factors that need to be juggled are numerous, but they can be summarised as follows:

1. A dynamic tracking and monitoring capability, supported by online statistics of your website performance.

2. A comprehensive Content Management System that you can work.

3. Excellent domain names and landing pages that assist target marketing.

4. Continuously improved content, with a great supporting mix of excellent visuals and clean and contemporary site design.

5. Key word analysis, understanding, and support for your core business positioning and value proposition.

6. Clean calls to action that direct the customers to an outcome for their invested 1-2 minutes on your site.

7. Strong, powerful links to your site, with directories and allies and partners.

8. Optimum use of titles and layout to maximise search engine preference.

9. Continual search engine optimisation and refinement. It will never be finished.

10. Competitive analysis of your major competitors in your defined market space.

Welcome to the new e-World where e-Success is earned from real online results obtained by strong, committed competitive and analytical behaviour. The world of web design and strategy supported by professionals who study how the Search Engine (Google) game is played, and when the rules dictate different winning strategies.

Goodbye to the “I have a website” world.

We are always open for business. You can call Competitive Edge or email us if you want to know how to be a better e-Juggler and compete for profitable, viable business online now and in the future.

03 9853 1899 / comedge@comedge.com.au / http://www.comedge.com.au/


Do not fall behind because the game is changing and the challenge is continuous.

Erratic Government Grant Policies Hamper SME Business & Export Growth

One of the greatest inhibitors to growth in Australia is the constantly changing policies at the influential levels of government.

While industries, on the whole, go about their business on a daily basis without any reference to grants, there are a number of companies that can look to government grants and identify these as being influential in achieving success, particularly in exports.

Exports are one of the areas where government is influential. Many countries we deal with have a centralist government policy, or have a history and culture of government with great influence and a high degree of respect in their respective societies. To this end, working with government is an advantage, and one that should be seized on by most Australian businesses contemplating exports to most parts of the world.

The problem with the government, however, has been their oscillating policies between supporting small business and supporting large business. In this uncertainty, medium business usually does quite well, especially those companies in the $20-40 million turnover bracket.

If we include these medium size companies with small business, they are actually the powerhouse of Australia and the future that the government should be looking to. But lately I have noticed that there is a trend back to supporting big business, and forgetting about the small end of town.

This is a pity because every time the government changes policy, it sends businesses confusing messages. This creates inequality for the small and emerging medium size business, and it rewards big business which if examined, apart from the mining industry and certain key sectors, on the whole cannot grow because of the nature of our society today.

I would not have great difficulty stopping people in the street, even those who do not know much about business, and asking them about the future of large companies. Most of the people would (except for mining, telecommunications, and energy) express the view that we are not going to see great numbers of new large companies emerging in our society today. Merger and acquisition is the way to grow because large companies “eat each other up” in their tremendous appetite for quick growth and they are not prepared to “do the time” with entrepreneurial or generic growth and development.

Large organisations feed on the medium and emerging entrepreneurial companies driven from the small and medium size sector. This trend has been accentuated by the growth of the web-based companies that can emerge and grow to a substantial size very quickly. Because of their culture and their strong entrepreneurial base, companies such as these, that embrace new technologies and new market opportunities, are more capable of fast growth than those in the more “constipated” larger organisations where there are many checks and balances on risk, idea generation and the general motivation to follow, invest and achieve new and exciting market growth opportunities.

Where am I going with this?
Well, what I’m saying is that small to medium companies are the powerhouse of the modern society and will continue to be, aided and abetted by online web-based technology. Large companies will be very static and will continue to flourish in our society, but will not be the area where we will see great replication or emergence of new business ventures.

If government wants growth, rather than re-investing most of its successful funding programs in the same companies time after time, then it must push towards where the growth is.

The growth is in the small to medium business (SME) area.

My frustration is not only this, but the frustration that the grants available are being purposely targeted to the large companies, starving this sector of much-needed support and funding at a time when our world economy is under pressure, and at a time when we have many business growth segments in our society that cannot be supported because of this lack of funding.

One good example is in exports. Government departments and agencies at Federal, State, and even local government level, are all dedicated to expanding exports. Austrade has offices that reach out into local government areas, and are often aligned with business development areas created by State Governments. In most grant situations, government ask for export potential or export achievements as part of their funding process.

Many small to medium companies can demonstrate a pathway to exports, and many of them can even demonstrate exports (due to the growth of online e-based commerce) that have added to the bottom line, even in early years of growth.

However, the problem is that under the Export Market Development Grant (EMDG) currently administered by Austrade, many of the small to medium companies can get very little return on funding for their export effort. This inhibits their ability or their desire to go into exports.

I have worked in exports for 32 years, and I find it very disappointing that a company that makes strides to captivate or follow up on export leads, or even to visit markets and create export opportunities, gets very little funding under the current EMDG.

Under this grant, a company gets $10,000 deducted immediately from any export expenditures to pursue export opportunities. If they travel overseas, say to Japan or America, attend a trade fair, follow up with another visit, which is usual in the first year of operation and necessary for business development and relationship creation, then that first $10,000 is easily spent. At this stage, they have received no extra funding. They are at zero return. If they send samples, entertain an inbound visitor in Melbourne (which most of them do not do because they are not very inbound conscious), or they complete another trip overseas within the yearly period stipulated by Austrade, they might get up to $15,000 or $17,000 in eligible EMDG expenditure.

Taking out an odd side trip for a visit, which is usual when most people go overseas, they may be able to claim $15,000. In total, they will be lucky to get 50% of the $5,000 they can claim (remember $10,000 comes off the initial claim), leaving them with $2,500 for their effort.

It is no wonder that small business is disillusioned with the government. Consultants such as ourselves often find it hard to convince small businesses to get proactively involved with exports. It’s no wonder that small business considers that the grant returns are not really substantial, and not worth seeking when, on a daily basis, they are fighting for cash flow, trying to achieve high levels of growth, and trying to stay afloat in their initial growth years despite any huge growth in the actual market segment in which they compete.

Governments should make an exception for small businesses or emerging businesses, and they should make it more lucrative for them to achieve these grants. Large businesses, by the nature of their size, can afford to put $50,000 into an export opportunity, send three staff to a trade show to man the booth etc., and can easily achieve a $25,000 or $30,000 rebate from Austrade, giving them a powerhouse for future export growth based upon their initial investment and export thrust funded with the help of the government.

It is difficult for a small business struggling to get overseas with $15,000 - $20,000, to make this initial leap, and to gain the necessary “beachhead” for export growth.

We are an island. We depend on exports. Exports are essential for our future growth, and we must have exports that are greater than the materials we take out of the ground. We need an export market grant that truly reflects the nature of our business today in Australia, and the tremendous growth that small business creates for Australia today. In the future, it is the SME vision that underpins our growth, not the large end of town consisting of the major corporations.

We also need an emphasis on urban and regional SME growth with creative and contributing grants. By definition, large organisations have had their contribution and should be self-funding.

If you are interested in strategic advice on exports and the Export Market Development Grant, please call us on 03 9853 1899, or email us on: comedge@comedge.com.au

A.I.D.A. IS A GOOD MODEL FOR WEB COPY

Developing good copy for the web page has been more of an art than a science.

When the web first began, people loaded on as much copy as they could to try to entice people to come to their site to find a company that is secure and comfortable for them to deal with, and one that can develop online relationships while still providing the quick search for products and services.

Unfortunately this bold attempt, especially by companies often providing their own copy that is not well written or well researched, has tended to persist. Because website enhancement and design often means re-jigging the website by an IT or web designer company that does not have great copy skills, capability or competency, the original copy is still used and re-used, sometimes in an abridged form. New websites and re-enhanced ones often lack the effectiveness that web-based new copy could bring to the site.

A great framework for developing copy is A.I.D.A.

This has been a framework used by salesforce and advertising consultants and agencies over the years. It is probably 100 years old, and it lays down the way in which you develop copy or develop the framework for a sale.

The key elements of A.I.D.A. are:

1. Attention. It is important to get the customer’s attention. This is the key first step because you cannot close the sale or satisfy the consumer unless you get their Attention. This ensures they become interested, committed and involved with you online, face-to-face, or through the development of written copy.

2. Interest. Once you have their Attention, which is usually a 30-second period of time (what a coincidence that most consumers only spend 30 seconds on average on a web page), it is then important that you maintain their Interest.


This is best done through a number of strategies in face-to-face selling, printed copy, and on the web. Such strategies can include:

1. Creating a unique appeal by statements in the opening Home Page copy or introduction copy that leads directly to Interest for the consumer, and a desire to read the Products & Services sector or some other major sector in the website.
2. A link to another website or to a particular branded service that the consumer may consider in pre-purchase and search behaviour.
3. Provocative statements that aim for higher performance, greater efficiencies, better savings, better technology, better innovation, etc.
4. Excellent Flash pictures and visuals that demonstrate a successful company and one with high Interest that creates consumer confidence to proceed further with the website.
5. Testimonials or quotes, even on the Home Page, that create enough Interest to move forward with further web page exploration.

3. Desire. The Desire part of a web page is similar to the Desire part of a sales presentation. In a sales presentation you only have approximately 1.5 minutes to get the customer’s interest if you are selling face-to-face. On a web page, this may be as little as 25-50 seconds. No matter what the situation, the process is the same. You cannot build the Desire to purchase a product or service unless you have gone through the Attention and Interest stages. This is critical.

If you are successful in getting to the Desire stage then, because there is already Attention and Interest, there is no nagging tendency to continue searching other sites until you have fully explored the site you are on. You may have as much as one minute to build this Desire.

You, yourself, may actually be able to reflect on the “Desire” copy stage by examining your own use of websites. For instance, you may have gone into sites and even explored the payment gateway and clicked through the payment gateway without committing, just to see how the process works, or to see the range of products and services available. You may have also clicked on an airline ticket offer and gone all the way to the end without committing, just to see how it works without building Desire. The same with accommodation and other services such as cosmetics, cosmetic surgery and a whole range of products.

Professional buyers are no different in that regard. They also have a desire to complete a professional procurement, and this can happen with engineering, architectural and other products.

The building of Desire may involve sampling the process without submitting a final order if there is a payment gateway, or if there is a phone number or contact page that asks for further action. This does not mean that because the Desire has been aroused and there have been trial purchases online, that they will go to a final action stage. It is just part of the Desire process.

The point is that you must have a way of being able to transmit Attention and Interest from your site to Desire and Action. Let’s go to Action.

4. Action. This is the most important point because it is the basis of commercial and government business. If you raise Attention, Interest and build Desire, you are obviously trying to get the consumer to take Action in some way. If you start a sales process and do not have an Action page, then it ends up not being a sales-based process, but a conversation or viewing-based process in which there is no needed or desired outcome.

To do this in business is to waste time and resources, and is a failure to drive customers to the bottom line to the detriment of the business’ viability.

What you must do in every website is to sit down and say, “What are the 5-6 actions that you would like customers to take?”, and then to try to build this into your website copy, and into the navigation and architecture behind your website.

Such Actions can include the following:

1. A call to Action. To allow them to actually print off print-ready material on the website that can lead to application forms or further action, which may mean going to an office or calling a company etc.
2. Actual Action, which involves purchasing on a payment gateway.
3. Action that can include a search for further information. This can mean ticking boxes on the Contact Page, asking for someone to call the customer, searching or asking for further material, or gaining specifications etc. This is best done in a speedy fashion by having boxes that are ticked, rather than having people to fill in lengthy emails to request information in their own words.
4. Getting customers to receive an email that can be marketing-based and can encourage an actual sale, even though this has not been asked for directly on the website.
5. Getting customers to visit your place of business, and to engage in some way through special offers, promotions or retail clubs etc.
6. Asking customers to purchase a specific product or service on an annualized basis – e.g. joining fitness clubs, sports clubs or team events, registering for car clubs, courses etc.

So review your web copy now for the Attention, Interest, Desire and Action stages.