Wimbledon and Online Marketing Success

June 20, 2011 By 4 Comments

Venue 151

Wimbledon, Britain’s premier tennis tournament, started today. As a child growing up I always watched Wimbledon, and each year it left me inspired to spend the summer working on my driving left-handed forehand well into August.

All these years later the name “Wimbledon” still brings back fond memories. I remember the rise and fall of Navratilova, Jimmy Connors’ tenacity, John McEnroe’s weird service, Stefan Edberg’s elegance and probably my favourite match of all time: a brilliant semi-final in ’77 that saw Björn Borg beat Vitas Gerulaitis 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 8-6. I was also a massive fan of South African Kevin Curran, who never quite did as well as I hoped he would.

Stick to What You’re Good At

Wimbledon hasn’t really moved that much with the times. Sure, the technology has changed slightly what with electronic “eyes” detecting whether the ball is in our out and the demise of the wooden racket. But what keeps me coming back to Wimbledon every year is its sheer class. Its professionalism and the sense that I know what I’m going to get: awesome tennis played out at high speed.

Wimbledon has never dumbed down. It’s always insisted that players follow a strict dress code. It’s stuck to grass, which isn’t the most popular surface on the circuit, and only recently added a roll-out roof over the top show courts to keep the London rain at bay.

As a business owner, I respect Wimbledon for maintaing its unique brand, sticking to its guns, and its consistent message that this is the premier tennis tournament on grass in the world.

Sure, games at the US, French and Australian Open are no doubt equally enthralling to tennis fans around the world. But there’s something special about a tournament that harks back to another era. That captures a sense of summer, at least for me. [Read more...]

Filed Under: communication, news Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Get Free Online Content

August 17, 2010 By 37 Comments

Yup. Steal someone else’s.

Joking aside, one of the most frustrating things about being a creative content marketer is when someone rips off your content.

Now I’m not going to name and shame a particular site as I don’t want to share any “link love” with them, but I came across a rather large organization today whilst doing some work for an existing client that had snatched my copy, turned it around a bit, and presented it as their own. So many of the phrases and key words were mine, I recognised it instantly. Hell, even the punctuation echoed some of my own stylistic tics!

I looked more closely at the site – it was even operating under an almost identical url to my client – and low and behold the company, as a direct competitor to my client, was trying to brand themselves with the same message and key value proposition.

Talk about things that make you go duh!

How Low Can You Go?

It’s no doubt too late for the particular Gothenburg company (!!!) in question, but if you’re looking to establish an online presence, no matter how desperate you get, don’t try and pass someone else’s copy or content marketing off as your own. I say this because your copy – your online content – needs to reflect your business and no one else’s. Period.

You can’t build a business around someone else’s content or brand messaging. And even if you manage to skirt along on your competitor’s coat tails for a little while you’ll soon discover that there’s no long term value in it because customers won’t be able to differentiate between your businesses. And that will water down leads for the both of you. [Read more...]

Filed Under: communication

The Hottest Property in the Office?

July 10, 2010 By 5 Comments

Here at Jontus Media the hottest property in the office is definitely 37signals’ Basecamp and Highrise.

Without either online solution it would be impossible to keep up with all the projects I’m responsible for and all the contacts I need to keep in touch with.

Why I love Basecamp

First and foremost it’s perfect for managing multiple projects. If I’m running a team project I can login, set up the project, add the participants and schedule To Dos and Milestones that we need to achieve. Because the people that work for me are often out of Stockholm it enables us to maintain a virtual office and communicate effectively with each other.

Jontus Media_ Projects

Basecamp – indispensable

As project leader, I can schedule when staff are meant to complete tasks (they get emails automatically sent to them 48 hours before they’re meant to complete the task) so I don’t have to worry about reminding them or chasing them up. Basecamp does that for me.

Basecamp is also great for managing a project with the client. You just add them to the project and they can keep up to date with milestones, share information, work on files collaboratively and generally make sure a project is delivered on time. My clients love it! [Read more...]

Filed Under: communication Tagged With: , , ,

Where We’ll Be in Five Years

July 2, 2010 By 20 Comments

Social communication channels like blogs, Facebook and Twitter may well be here in five years – but one thing is sure, they’ll be very different to how they are today, as will the way we communicate online.

The history of web is littered with rapid changes. For example, who could have predicted five years ago that Google would receive less monthly traffic (in the US!) than a site set up by a college student to keep in touch with friends.

I haven’t got a crystal ball (alas), but here are my predictions.

  1. Blogs won’t be as popular as they are today amongst larger companies because they’ll realise there more connection and interaction with social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
  2. Blogs will still be popular with small businesses and start ups as they try to rank well in Google and other search engines, but many will also have to juggle a larger social media presence than small businesses do today.
  3. The battle to dominate social media interaction will rage between Google, Facebook, Twitter and another key player. Whoever succeeds will be the site or service that can (i) bring people together (ii) successfully monitize their platform.
  4. Mobile will have become the Net. There’ll be no distinction between being online “at a desk” and on the go. For everyone. The only difference will be the devices we use to connect and communicate online.
  5. Companies – both B2B and B2C – that do not take mobile online communications seriously will lose out to those that do, and risk going the way of the Dodo.
  6. Interactive content marketing for mobile online platforms will be imperative and ubiquitous.
  7. Businesses will need to create online content marketing that combines text, video and audio as cheaply and rapidly as possible.
  8. It’s likely that even bloggers will be “creating” for users who expect to interact with web content. E.g. posts will be “explored” or “experienced” with ones fingers, instead of a mouse. This will have been driven by the emergence of the 3rd generation iPad.
  9. PR newswires will have struggled to tie their business in with the social media channels that dominated the early 2010s and many will have fallen by the wayside, struggling to keep up with the pace of change. The PR newsrelease may be no more than a 140 character tweet (or link to a video).
  10. A new branch of SEO known as Social Optimization will have emerged, with PR companies, marketers and communications consultants struggling to persuade customers that they can help them deliver the social media results they want in an increasingly noisy online space.

Oh, and I’ll be living in France / Italy!

What about you?

Where do you think we’ll be in 5 years?

Filed Under: communication, content marketing

Teach for Reach

June 9, 2010 By 9 Comments

Whilst your content marketing might be entertaining, informative, snappy and sexy, you might want to try teaching for reach.

For example, if you run a copywriting agency don’t just bombard clients with ads, banners, testimonials or sign-up forms, set out to actually teach them.

My post last week 10 Tips to Help You Write Better Headlines was a specific example of teaching to reach.

Now I could have saved that kind of post for an existing client who I’m teaching to write better web-copy, but by sharing it with everyone for free, my experience and expertise becomes a way of reaching new audiences.

Giving it Away

For some “old school” business folk giving products or services away for free seems crazy. But as someone who embraces online marketing and communications I know from experience that sharing some of your best tips or suggestions actually brings people in. Not everyone will feel, for example, that they have the skills to craft their writing into web-writing and may then turn to you – say, an experienced, professional copywriter – to help them with their campaign.
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Filed Under: communication, communication strategy, marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Buying a Custom Logo for Your Blog

December 29, 2009 By 5 Comments

If you’re a regular reader of this business communications blog you will have noticed it’s been sporting a new logo for the last couple of weeks. I’ve got a stack of compliments from friends and colleagues about the design so I figured it might be a good time to discuss the process behind the change.

The logo comes from Logo Design Consultant, a professional custom logos design company, based in Delaware, USA.

After five years of tweaking my own logo in Photoshop I was looking for a more professional design solution to help my business stand out. Logo Design Consultant’s portfolio convinced me their 99 USD solution was the way to go. I don’t regret my choice for a second.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: advertising, communication