Interactive tools to help customers get to know you better, while you get to know them better, are the thing.

I’ve spent far too much time looking for it: Simple(-seeming) interactive tools that allow web visitors to self-select what they want from an information provider.

Yes, that is the basic function of web-sites, and the interactivity is simply navigating the site. But I’ve been eager to find something that doesn’t require a new page to load each time the user refines his request. That’s too slow, too clunky. Sometimes you need tighter controls and a more fluid experience.

Rapid, interactive decision trees or something like it, was what I thought. Not a wildly successful search, though. The closest I came was a decision tree developed by the FDA to help big pharma determine how to market new drugs. It did the job, but it was neither nice to look at nor to build (total reverse engineering job).

Google and YouTube, ironically enough, created an interesting interactive decision tree. This uses YouTube’s newfound interactive functionality to allow viewers to answer their way forward to the ideal information. Lovely google, they provide an extensive wiki and how-to so that you can make it happen.

Then there’s Jellyvision. They’ve already made a product that can be taken off the shelf, and – with the help of a design company and some AV expertise – turned into a first-rate interactive customer experience.

Like all great things, it’s deceptively simple. Just a guy chatting with you and asking you the occasional question to bring you forward constructively. At the end of the play, visitor leaves happy (presumably), with the specific information he/she was after.

Crucially, the host comes away even happier, with specific information about the visitor and his or her preferences. That kind of information greases the wheels of any marketing automation programme, which is probably why Eloqua, for one, has already used it for their own ends.

I’ve never implemented a Jellyvision story, sadly. I’d love to, for anyone willing to take the jump.

And, for those who’ve done it already, I’d love to hear their experiences. How many people who started a journey hopped off? How much time did it take to design the decision tree, and how much time to program the marketing automation that can track it? What was the final conversion rate like?

Lastly, obviously, as someone who spent far too much time getting here, I really want to hear about any other people’s experiences with other interactive tools. What have you seen? Anything even better that does the same trick?

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: design, web analytics, Web Design

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Taking the theme “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” to heart, let’s talk first impressions: Landing pages. For many of your potential leads, they’re the first meeting with your company. Either you win enough trust to introduce yourself properly, or they’ll bounce right out.

This 11-slide presentation is all about first impressions: Some of the best product landing pages in the business.*

After the slideshow, look for the list of resources. In the slideshow, either use the arrows at the bottom to navigate or simply press right-arrow on your keyboard.

The Landing Page Resource List

♦ Google tells you how to ensure lightning quick landing pages: How can I improve my landing page’s load time?

♦ Landing pages should have a strong, clear and easy call to action. Check out Smashing Magazine for best practice in design of call to action buttons. For copy, Quora tells you what kind of text works best.

♦ Michael from SAP’s Integrated Marketing tells you how to shorten the B2B buyer cycle with landing pages.

♦ Brendan tells you just how to create a secondary call to action.

♦ Stan and Doug nailed it in the Content Marketing Workbook: You need to make yourself useful. A good landing page screams utility.

♦ Landing pages should be regularly experimented with using A/B testing. Try Google Website Optimizer for an easy way to do this.

♦ Landing pages often make a simple, sharp and absurdly ambitious promise. Many combine imperatives (“go here”, “do this”, “start that”) with a bold claim in the new naive style.

♦ Oli of Unbounce, the landing page specialists, provides a gorgeous 12-part landing page rehab program.

♦ If you like spending money on A/B testing (that is, if you want help to get it right), Visual Website Analyzer is a smart place to put it.

*The landing pages used as examples in this tutorial were pre-selected by the legendary UX (user interaction) community at Quora. The pages were offered as “killer landing pages for products“. As most are B2C, they may need tweaking for B2B purposes, but the principles abide.

What’s your take on the 11 landing pages? Drop a comment.

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, B2B lead generation, Demand Generation, design, Landing pages, Lead Generation, Web Marketing

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This 22-slide presentation is all about first impressions: Some of the best product landing pages in the business*, and a somewhat slanted visual introduction to me – all paint pretty arresting pictures. If one topic doesn’t churn your butter, maybe the other will.

After the slideshow, look for the list of resources. Just click on the thumbnail below and away you go; either use the arrows at the bottom to navigate or simply press right-arrow on your keyboard.

The Landing Page Resource List

♦ Google tells you how to ensure lightning quick landing pages: How can I improve my landing page’s load time?

♦ Landing pages should have a strong, clear and easy call to action. Check out Smashing Magazine for best practice in design of call to action buttons. For copy, Quora tells you what kind of text works best.

♦ Michael from SAP’s Integrated Marketing tells you how to shorten the B2B buyer cycle with landing pages.

♦ Brendan tells you just how to create a secondary call to action.

♦ Stan and Doug nailed it in the Content Marketing Workbook: You need to make yourself useful. A good landing page screams utility.

♦ Landing pages should be regularly experimented with using A/B testing. Try Google Website Optimizer for an easy way to do this.

♦ Landing pages often make a simple, sharp and absurdly ambitious promise. Many combine imperatives (“go here”, “do this”, “start that”) with a bold claim in the new naive style.

♦ Oli of Unbounce, the landing page specialists, provides a gorgeous 12-part landing page rehab program.

♦ If you like spending money on A/B testing (that is, if you want help to get it right), Visual Website Analyzer is a smart place to put it.

* The landing pages used as examples in this tutorial were pre-selected by the legendary UX (user interaction) community at Quora. The pages were offered as “killer landing pages for products“. As most are B2C, they may need tweaking for B2B purposes, but the principles abide.

If you want to share the landing page content, but not the Ryan Skinner content, I won’t hold it against you. Here’s the landing-page only content.

Got your own observations on these landing pages, or landing pages in general? Drop a comment. Or leave your guesses about the location of that big chicken….

© Ryan Skinner for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, B2B lead generation, Demand Generation, design, Landing pages, Lead Generation, Web Marketing

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We’re big infographics fans so when LinkedIn launched their new LinkedIn Maps tool, we were first in the virtual queue to have a play. The tool generates a colourful, dynamic map showing all your connections and how they’re related to each other. It colour codes the clusters it identifies and lets you assign your own labels to the colours. You can zoom in on specific individuals and see where they fit in your world.

My network was pretty accurately clustered in these groups:

It would be nice if you could embed your map in a web page or blog post. In any case, the share-able version doesn’t let others see the names of the individuals in your cloud. Which is probably a good thing.

Go have a play.

inmaps.linkedinlabs.com

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B social media, Content Marketing, design, Innovation, LinkedIn, Social Media, Web Design

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I came back to the office today to find Stuart, our senor designer, all covered in spray paint. In this age of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, it’s great to see a designer actually get out the scissors, card and spray cans once in a while.

What’s it for? Watch this space. We’ve got a new eBook/call to arms/high-pitched rant coming out any day now and even if you hate the contents, you’ll love the look.

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B marketing agency, design

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Why B2B marketing is the place to be

• Because business can change the world and technology is changing it.
  While Diet Coke will only ever be sugar water without the sugar.

• Because it’s hard.
  You have to really understand this stuff to sell it. There’s no coasting.  And hard things are always more rewarding.

• Because it’s exciting.
  Our clients are innovators and entrepreneurs. Brilliant people inspire.

• Because it’s grown-up.
  We don’t condescend to the target audience and we don’t manipulate his or her insecurities. We build compelling arguments, back them up with air-tight evidence and incite action. And you don’t have to shower after doing that.

• Because it’s incredibly dynamic.
  Digital, analytics, video, lead nurturing… this is the steepest learning curve you’ll ever be on. Ask any snowboarder: that’s the best part.

• Because it’s cutting edge.
  Some of the new B2B tools are much more sophisticated than their consumer versions. They have to be when a sale can mean a million.

• Because it’s important.
  For every bottle bought of Katie Price’s Sensation (or whatever), there are a hundred business-to-business transactions behind the scenes. In economic terms, she’s the tip, we’re the iceberg.

For more information on the kind of person we want, see below.

© lucy for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Advertising, B2B marketing, B2B marketing agency, Copywriting, design, Technology Marketing

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Ice the champagne: our ‘Margin Killers’ campaign for IBS has been shortlisted for the Best International Campaign category in this year’s B2B Marketing Awards.

IBS is a leading provider of distribution resource planning software.

In this campaign – working closely with Andy Bailey and the IBS marketing team –  we re-positioned the company as a distribution specialist, developed a new web marketing platform and launched an ambitious content marketing campaign to generate leads, increase engagement and position IBS as a thought leader.

Campaign goals:

• Consolidate the web infrastructure for global marketing campaigns

• Position IBS as the thought leader in global distribution software

• Generate leads and feed the CRM system for follow-up

Campaign strategy:

• Create an online engine to drive international content marketing

• Deliver flexible content for global marketing and PR programmes

• Measure the improved performance of the website and content

• Measure impact of different marketing investment across countries.

• Provide global content support for local marketing execution.

We’re now writing and designing an ongoing series of eBooks on the value drivers of wholesale distribution: expenses, cash, revenue, inventory, and margins. The first eBook, on the Six Margin Killers, has already resulted in 1,050 downloads from 4000 views: a conversion rate of 26%.

It’s been a really successful campaign, with a proven increase in visitors to the site, more time spent on the site, and a lower bounce rate. And as the content builds, these will all improve even more.

Neil Stoneman masterminded the campaign and he’s riding the analytics like a bucking bronco. Watch this space.

© lucy for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B content marketing, B2B marketing, Content Marketing, Corporate Positioning, design, Lead Generation, Thought Leadership

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Calnetix Power Solutions has invented a technology that captures waste heat from engines, boilers and industrial applications and turns it into electricity. The process is called the Organic Rankine Cycle, and has been used in large-scale, big footprint applications for many years. What makes Calnetix’s product different is that it’s applicable to the hundreds of thousands of smaller-scale engines and boilers in use all over the world.

It’s a clean, green, efficient technology, so it was perfect for Velocity’s green tech arm. This kind of solution is the future as people look for ways to save money, reduce carbon emissions and cut down on their dependence on fossil fuels. A zero-emissions, zero fuel solution should get a lot of attention – but so far, nobody knew about it.

When they came to us, Calnetix needed to launch to the global market at the PowerGen show in just eight weeks.

What we did

Positioning

• Rather than a completely new technology, we recommended showing how it was based on a piece of trusted technology (ORC) already widely used for decades
• The breakthrough was to optimize it for smaller scale applications

Branding

• Completely new identities for the company and the product, emphasizing the green credentials
• New names for the Optimized Rankine Technology™ and the CleanCycle™ product.

Launch

• A new Stage 1 website in delivered in flat HTML in just two weeks – in time for the PowerGen Show.
• SEO strategy and execution to ensure that Calnetix are as high up the search rankings as possible.
• New collateral – a product brochure, a pocket-sized guide, and a 1-page information sheet – all with a graphic illustrating how Clean Cycle works. Plus a new presentation and document templates.
• The PowerGen show stand picking up on the visual theme of the identity, collateral and website.
• Three videos, two on-site case stories and a ‘chalk talk’ explaining exactly what Calnetix’s CleanCycle technology does.
• PR around the event – run by Bridget Fishleigh of Nomad Communications. She set up some key interviews and got coverage during and after show.

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The new website homepage:

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Brochure pages:

Front page

Inner brochure pages

Keeping the momentum

• The Calnetix PS website will evolve and develop as more content is added to become a more comprehensive, richer site and a platform for lead generation.
• Next: content marketing campaigns built around thought leadership material such as ebooks, white papers, videos and case studies.

CEO Brad Garner said:

“This was a great experience and a really fun project for us to be involved in. We gave Velocity a short timeline to complete a large number of tasks and they did a great job in accomplishing them all. They kept us involved at every stage, and made some great judgment calls that impacted on our idea.”

Calnetix Power Solutions was a really good client to work for. They needed us to get up to speed on a market fast, do a lot of different things, and apply our branding chops to get to market quickly. To help us deliver on such tight timescales, they gave us all the information we needed then let us do what we do best.  Onward and upward.

© lucy for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B marketing, B2B technology marketing, design, Lead Generation, Marketing, Web Marketing

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Ok fine, the iPad is better than this.

Photo credit: Phil Campbell

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Just when you thought the Apple Cosa Nostra couldn’t have its fingers in more pies (or i’s) the iPad arrived to fill the void in your life that you didn’t know you had. Marketed with Apple’s customary élan, the iPad seems set to achieve world domination despite the very obvious question which no one seems to be asking: how are men going to carry it around? Are we going to finally see widespread uptake for the man bag?

Doug and Stan have got themselves a pair of iPads. Strictly speaking, they ought to be blogging about it, but it’s my turn to write a post so I’m hijacking their topic. So far it seems they love their new toys, and although they’ll deny it, Apple’s branding must have a lot to do with it.* The appeal of the coquettish lower-case i is so irresistible the designers must be hugging themselves (whilst carting another wheelbarrow-ful of cash to the bank).

Like the iPhone, the iPad can do just about everything except bump off your mother-in-law: music, films, video, unrivalled on-the-go internet access –it’s a veritable smorgasbord of entertainment and future models will undoubtedly exhibit hundreds of other handy features. All this can leave you feeling like the Apple progeny are taking over the world. They are, of course, but don’t let that worry you.

It’s worrying the people at Adobe though. Unless you live under a stone you’ll know that the iPad doesn’t do Flash. AdMob has also joined the ranks of companies who have incurred Apple’s imperial displeasure. Sure, Apple should be allowed to do what it likes with its own stuff – but only up to a point. Econsultancy’s Meghan Keane pointed out that Apple’s move to force developers to use iAd is anti-competitive and could land Apple in trouble with the regulators.

I’d argue that Apple’s general behaviour is becoming increasingly anti-competitive; it’s not just confined to AdMob. What’s frustrating is that Apple doesn’t need to behave this way. It’s already got the edge in terms of innovation, usability, and design. Sure, it’s still a little pricey but that actually only helps its brand image. It doesn’t need to act like the bully in the playground – acting that way just makes it look a bit… paranoid, frankly. Paranoia and bullying are signs of weakness. Maybe it’s no coincidence that Jobs has been quite seriously ill: that would be enough to make anyone fearful about losing their edge.

Apple’s behaviour doesn’t fit with its brand image: laid back, cool, sleek, and user-friendly. If it’s not careful it’ll destroy that: people are already disappointed about the lack of Flash. Of course Flash has its flaws, and it’s good to try and innovate to make poorer alternatives vanish into oblivion, but there’s a difference between offering new things and marketing them, and imposing your will on the market. It’s a difference Apple seems to have lost sight of.

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*I shouldn’t be smug because it works on me too.

© lucy for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Add new tag, Advertising, Branding, Corporate Positioning, design, Marketing, Technology Marketing

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The old cliché “a picture is worth a thousand words” has been around forever so there must be some truth to it. But only a certain kind of obsessive compulsive neurotic (often our favourite people) would go to the trouble to do the maths. David Ash, a consultant at Camwood, the application migration experts, is just such a neurotic.

As it turns out, a picture is worth at least 2,380 words (if ‘worth’ can be correlated with ‘weight in bits’  – a large, but not entirely implausible, ‘if”). Here are David’s workings out:

Average Image Size
JPEG: 11.9K
As determined by Optimization Week (yes, there really is something to optimize every week)

Average Word Length
5.12 Characters
According to the recent (presumably unpaid) work of some Scrabble-happy academic.

Calculations:
11.9K = 11.9 x 1024 bytes = 12185.6 characters

12185.6 characters / 5.12 characters per average word = 2,380 words.

Conclusion:
Even a measly 8-bit colour picture actually paints 2,380 words.
If the picture is made of pixels of greater colour depth, then multiply accordingly:

16-bit picture = 4,760 words
24-bit picture = 7,140 words
32-bit picture = 9,520 words

In other words, as David wriggled free from his straitjacket for long enough to state, “Even the lowest-grade picture actually paints twice as many words as originally thought.” David goes on to point out that the Chinese version of the proverb actually comes closest:  “One picture is worth ten thousand words.”

Note to Velocity design team: ths does not mean your salaries should be 10,000 times higher than the copywriters. No one ever seaid the world was fair.

Thanks for the… uh… insight, David.

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Photo: mindmapinspiration – flickr creative commons

© Doug Kessler for Velocity Partners, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B marketing, design, infographics

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