ShipServ is the shipping industry’s #1 e-marketplace, and, as of today it’s also winner of the Red Herring 100 Award for European innovation.

It’s a very cool company.

Eight years ago the shipping industry was awash with e-marketplaces making bold promises of new beans for the ‘new economy.’ Today, only ShipServ flourishes (the others are toast). They got in touch with us towards the end of last year to see how we could help revamp their brand and their online presence.

Here’s what we did.

We took them from this:

…to this:

Along the way we’ve worked hand in glove with ShipServ’s VP of Marketing John Watton, and CEO Paul Østergaard to redefine their core positioning and messages, turbo-charge their corporate pitches and plan their next brave moves into the world of web 4.7.

So, we’re thrilled that the new site is now up and sailing.

Thanks to John and Paul for giving us the space and direction to do work that we’re really proud of.

Big thanks also to the extremely talented Ben at Jackfruit for his superior web development skills (Ben’s the guy who did the physical build); and thanks to Rob and the team at RMA for their work on another top drawer piece of design (they’re the guys who created the site templates).

…And watch this space – because there’s more to come.

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Branding, Clients, Identity, Innovation, Marketing, Petri Dish, Sites We Like, Web Design, Web Marketing

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Your goal for SEO: to generate ‘high value’ prospective customer traffic.

‘High value’ means visitors who are engaged with your product / services set and are actively looking for help.

‘Prospective’ means visitors who are new, or relatively new to you / your site and are looking to you as a potential vendor and solutions partner.

Broadly speaking, you need to capture the interest of people who are researching solutions to problems that you can solve, and to divert their attention to strategic points within your web site.

How? Well, one big thing to consider is your KEYWORDS. (There’s more to SEO than this, but we’ll just concentrate on keyword principles for now…)

Your aim is to structure your on- and off-site content using the words that your audience is using to search the web – so that you improve your chances of featuring on the first couple of pages of Google in relation to a given search query.

For example, if you’re in the business of IPTV and your audience is searching around your backyard using phrases like ‘IPTV content management software,’ then you need to align the language you use to describe yourself with these terms.

At the same time, you need to be aligning yourself with a set of keywords in a ‘win-able’ arena amongst competitors: some keywords will have no competition, others will be red hot.

In simple terms, this last point creates a ‘keyword index.’ You need to place a calculated bet on where you want to play. Your choice should be calibrated by the following formula:

Volume of daily searchers on any given key word

(…divided by)

Volume of other web pages that are optimised around those keywords

Clearly you want to engage with as many people as possible that are using search terms related to your products / services. At the same time, you want to position yourself where you can compete, given the resources you have to hand.

The challenge is best illustrated by a quick experiement….

If you’re in the business of software apps for sales support, you might choose to optimise around the term ‘CRM.’ This would currently give you an audience of 563 searchers per day on Google. Unfortunately, it would also put you in direct competition with 129 million other web pages that are optimised on that term. Alternatively, if you were to focus your keywords around the concept of ‘sales management software’ you’d have a total audience of around 50 searchers a day; and using this route, you’d be up against approximately 150,000 other pages.

Clearly the chances of capturing the attention of a ‘CRM’ searcher are more remote than for a ‘sales management software’ searcher…. and this ought to give you plenty of food for thought, because conventional branding wisdom becomes a little cloudy in the face of hard data.

But choosing keywords is not just a question of running the numbers. Those branding considerations are absolutely essential to a successful SEO strategy.

For example, you need to consider the following things…

You brand equity – what’s does your overall investment in non-web language mean to this work? What about your sales patter and your product naming conventions? Do these things fit with your keyword findings?

Market maturity – does your current searching public really reflect where the market is at? Are you leading them or following them? What stage is your market in terms of possessing a common body of language to describe its problems and requirements?

Influential people – are industry analysts setting the market terms? Or are they just spinning far-fetched yarns? Do you need to follow or ignore them? What influence do they have on your customers? Will this influence matter tomorrow? Has it already had an impact?

Your resources – can you afford to compete in hotly competed areas? If you have a mega-budget, why not just nuke it out? If your resources are small, can you find smarter keyword arenas to play in?

The quality of the data sample – if you’re playing in niche territories, are you willing to bet a keyword / naming convention on a sample of 10 searchers per day? Once your product category matures, how are the trends going to change?

The state of the nation – can you afford not to play in competitive fields?

The above questions should create an interesting debate where branding ideas meet public perceptions of you and your products and services.

Ultimately, your SEO choices will be determined by your guts and your resources.

Some words of warning…

Be warned, branding babies should never be thrown out with the bath water.

Competition is also a key factor. To nuke it or to duck it is not always clear cut.

As ever, you’ll make plenty of branding compromises and web concessions along the way… The best advice we can give is to treat your keywords strategy as a journey – experiment, tweak and try again. The path to SEO nirvana wasn’t built in a day…

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Keywords, Marketing, Petri Dish, PPC, SEO, Technology, web analytics, Web Marketing

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The conclusion is yes, kinda… and it’s no doubt sent Gladwell’s afro into a tight spin, as well as the rest of the globe’s marketing mavens

So, all those billions of marketing dollars that are spent on locating and ‘tipping’ a market’s influencers may be misguided?

If you haven’t read it yet, here’s a quick synopsis:

• Web/network guru who knows lots about network effects releases research that undermines the value of the ‘maven’ in turning ideas into marketing epidemics
• He looks deeply into some long-standing common wisdom about networked-ness, such as the six degrees of separation theory, runs new tests and concludes that the results were unrepresentative …that normal people are just as important at spreading stuff as ‘influential’ types
• Further, he does a number of other interesting studies to suggest that it may be impossible for us to gauge at any one time why a given idea/product/pop band is able to ‘break out’ from the pack and go big time

The guru in question is Duncan Watts, author of ‘Six Degrees: The New Science of Networks‘ and senior researcher at Yahoo (a big network). He knows his onions. What’s interesting about his research is that it takes Gladwell’s ideas and zooms out on them to create a far wider field of enquiry.

For example, Gladwell picks Hush Puppies as the memorable breakout brand of the mid-nineties NYC hipster scene. Watts asks why didn’t other stuff that they were wearing fare equally as well?

We think this is a really neat question to ask.

What’s at stake here? As the Fast Company piece says, the idea of influencers and tipping points lends itself really well to the world of marketing, where data is in short supply but pixie dust isn’t. Bigwig execs at agencies become arbiters of taste, identify a group and persuade brands to spend a bunch of cash dreaming up clever schemes of ‘brand advocacy’ that they hope will spread. Does it work? Well, sure it does in some circles, but in others definitely not.

What if the original idea is a bad one? What if the context is wrong? What about the bigger picture? Those guys in NYC may also have been wearing ski goggles in June, but their inability to ‘tip’ the eyewear – perhaps a failure of ‘brand empathy’ or just their general lack of ‘stick-ability’ – isn’t in question.

Here’s our take on the whole thing:

Influence is critical, but if the basic story is wrong, or if the marketplace isn’t ready then you’re destined to fail if you’re trying to create a buzz. Further, these three elements need to be aligned – cosmic style – for things to ‘tip.’

Taking them in reverse order, finding a receptive marketplace can be a research game or a ‘go with the gut’ game. Either one will do, but one should recognise that out of everything, getting this bit right is the most important thing.

Story is a creative game. It’s all about how you tell them. Good content and great execution really counts.

Influence is an interesting one right now. ‘Tipping’ and ‘brand advocacy’ in the physical world involves spending time, money and tea-leaves on finding the right people to help spread an idea. Online, however, this can be a relatively scientific exercise. Tools like Technorati can help you seek out influential bloggers; social media services like Digg and Stumbleupon can help you understand how people are engaging with and spreading certain stories. These things can also help you attract numerous people – influencial or otherwise – to your stuff.

Watts’ recommendation on the whole thing – through his work with Yahoo – is interesting. His latest research is on a new product offering called ‘Big Seed’ marketing, which at face value seems like a nod to the old days whereby creative campaigns are cast widely into the mass market (eg, via web banner ads) and folks are encouraged to pass them on. This is very different to the tipper’s tactics (go narrow, persuade and cajole): it’s big, bold, brash, and – importantly – very expensive. Tactically this is based on the assumption that ANYONE can be an effective tipper, and that reach and volume rather that type of people is the thing that counts – which is exactly what he concludes in his Gladwell-trumping research.

As a game of one-up-tipping-manship this makes for interesting sport. What we’d advocate is a mix of the two. Certain media, such as ad banners, will themselves screen important people out (SEO guru Aaron Wall points this one out in his excellent post on the theme). It’s far better to use the tools at our disposal to take a read of the market and go seed from there…

In other words ‘influential’ may mean something different to the narrow view that Gladwell prescribes. In the B2B sphere this is likely to be a mix of the maven, the uneducated and the unshaven…. if they’re active in the sense of passing ideas around, then everyone has a role to play. We just need to find them and engage with them in a cost- and attention-effective way.

How? Well, here’s a view on what we do at Velocity, courtesy of our web stats package…

The first spike occurred after we blogged about an event we spoke at. The idea had a market, the content had a decent storyline and we passed it around the folks that cared about this kind of thing. The second spike occurred after we wrote about something that we knew was interesting to our industry. Again, a decent story, a marketplace and (after some cursory research) an engaged audience. No rocket science here – we just tagged it on a few social media sites.

The effects? Well, lot’s more interest in Velocity than usual for starters. But the second item also ignited an old flame. The first also generated a rousing debate amongst some really interesting people that were relevant to us, and placed us somewhere near the centre of things. Does this qualify as a ‘tip’? Yes – in our world of B2B the first challenge is to seek out and engage with ideas in a very rational way. Our work may not have taken us to the top of Digg, but then we’d never expect it to. Our audience is a narrower one…. as I’m sure yours is too.

So we think that marketplace, story and influence count. When it comes to ‘tipping’ in B2B then the pursuit of influencers alone (without a well-researched, well storylined context to place them in) won’t necessarily help you.

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Branding, Marketing, Online PR, Petri Dish, SEO, Tipping Point, Web Marketing

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Let me explain….

This post hereby announces the death of the good old monthly agency retainer.

Paying your agency a fat monthly stipend – agreed in advance and for a set duration – is not in your interest, because the dynamics of this type of deal are not stacked in your favour.

Think about it. Retainers mean the following bad things for you as a client:

• Type of work is agreed too long in advance
• Volume of deliverables is set for too long a period
• Style of work is agreed before you’ve had a chance to learn about one another

Retainers are broken because they’re geared to be retrospective. When you pay a fixed amount in advance for an ill-defined set of services, everything you do in the future will – in some shape or form – be related to either justifying or using up the allocated time and money.

This leads to the following unsavory effects:

• Meeting time devoted to activity reviews
• Lengthy paper reports that nobody reads
• Bargaining about the value of time spent vs work done

…in other words, the retainer model means a large proportion of time and output is devoted to justifying the terms of your financial relationship. And, worse, none of the above encourages speed, clarity and innovation – all of the things you want your marketing to be.

Wouldn’t you rather be progressive?

At Velocity, we think Tweakonimics is where it’s at.

Tweakonomics is based on an understanding that marketing is…

• A risky endevour (it’s a lot of cash to shell out on a regular basis)
• Something that needs to be directly linked to your sales efforts
• A constantly moving feast of activity
• In need of constant measurement, adjustment and tweaking

As such, we think it’s a bad idea to agree anything too far in advance (you wouldn’t do sales reviews on an annual basis, right?!). We prefer to structure our work loosely in the sense that we can always adapt to changes and opportunities, but tightly in the sense that we spend every minute of our time on something proactive and productive.

Here’s how we do it:

• Everything we do is a ‘Program’ (a ‘Marketing Acceleration Program‘ in fact)
• This program is geared to do one thing: move you forward
• We only ever plan on a maximum of 90 days activity
• We only ever ask for 90 days worth of funding (and so share your financial risk – if you’re successful within 90 days, then we are too)
• We only ever commit 30 days of activity to paper
• We don’t do time reports (but we’re crazy about delivering stacks of value activity)
• We don’t do paper reports of any kind
• We assess our work on a 30 day basis by asking one question only: ‘did we achieve everything we wanted to achieve (and if not, why not)’… and we do this face to face with our clients

By doing this we keep all our planning and reporting (ie, paperwork) to a minimum, and run everything we do to a 30 day cycle. This means we can always tweak for enhancements, adapt quickly and, importantly for you, it means we are constantly working hard to earn the right to support you for the next 90 days.

But above all, this notion of Tweakonomics keeps our work ultra-focused.

So – kill all retainers.

We’d love to be in your 12 month budget, but we’d rather you made us earn the right to bill against it. So think 30 days minimum, 90 days maximum. Think Tweakonmics.

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: B2B, Marketing, Petri Dish

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Like many of our clients, our marketing is not exactly rocket surgery. It involves encouraging a few firms to enter into a rather lengthy (but very interesting) discussion about their brand and their communications (as opposed to experimenting with wacky tactics to convince a zillion consumers to try out our new fizzy drink).

As such, the most effective way for us to engage with more new prospects would probably be to hire another great sales guy and get him out there walking and talking. So why not scratch the marketing efforts and stop with all the blogging?

I’ve already written about reasons to blog this elsewhere. Conclusions have been as follows: its great for your SEO; wonderful for reputation management; a good way to polish sales messages and seed marketing collateral; and a nice way of engaging people in product feedback. All good, compelling stuff. But really these are fringe benefits.

The biggest and best reason to blog in the B2B space is because – if it’s done properly – it’s a relationship winner.

Let me explain…

Stan, Doug and I had lunch on Friday and talked about our first six months as an agency proper and our first few months as an online outfit. What about the blog?

In many ways, it’s a little too random – check out the tag cloud on the blog home page. No real thread. Shouldn’t we be thinking harder about editorialising our subject matter?

For sure, this can only help to make us even more relevant and interesting, but in our discussion we needed to take a step back. Why bother in the first place?

As mentioned, our sales are generated via relationships – and through Stan mainly. Surely a better way for marketing to bolster this effort would be to provide Stan with a brochure, or perhaps divert the time and money into a telesales agency?

Well, whilst both would undoubtably help, we think this approach misses the point.

As a sales guy, what Stan needs is differentiation. There’s plenty of agencies out there vying for our prospect’s attention. And they have a wealth of brochures to throw around.

In addition, they all have equally compelling web sites – stuffed to the brim with pages that describe their services, their people, their portfolio and their history. Ours does this very well too.

They also issue a press release every time something interesting happens to them.

So, we’re dubious that throwing more resource at this kind of thing would really help Stan.

Instead, what matters for us (and 99.9% of our clients) is the relationship that our prospects have with Stan (and our client’s Stans). Once they feel happy with our brand, then people buy from him, not our brochure.

So, investing time and money in differentiating the Velocity relationship seems to us to be a more sensible exercise.

Now, of course, we encourage Stan to wear impressive shirts and wear his hair in nice ways – and of course, he’s also a bit of a looker…. But our blog can really help him too.

Because aside from Stan the man, and a few meetings with Doug and I, where else can a prospect (or a new hire, or an investor) get a feel of who we are? Where can they get a nugget or two that adds value to their relationship with Stan?

Is it in a brochure? Nope – that’s just a hygiene thing. We have to have one of those because everyone else does. (By the way, we do it differently so that it IS memorable and loveable.)

Is it via a super-cool ‘Services’ section on our site? Nope – not entirely. Again, that’s something we’re obliged to do… but do well, and better than the other guys.

No… where we can really shine is in our blog.

This is the channel where we can best communicate our thinking, our experiments, our failures and our successes …ie, describe all of the things that make us the people that you’d like to have a relationship with.

It’s obvious though, right? Where else would you put this kind of stuff? Send a press release? Create a brochure? No way. A blog is your showcase for all the brilliant thinking that’s contained in your people (as opposed to your marketing material).

In other words, a blog is an extension of a Stan – it’s the showcase for your company’s soul when he’s up and left the sales meeting.

That might sound mushy, but its true and it’s very important to your success as a B2B outfit. How else are you going to get prospects to really engage with you other than through your people and their ideas?

So, after lunch had finished we decided that we’re going to devote a lot more focus to this blog in 2008. It’s going to become tighter and it’s going to possess better content on a more regular basis.

As a result, you should expect us to talk about it more and point you to it a lot.

Because it’s the home for Velocity thinking.

It’s what will differentiate us from the rest of the pack.

And we really think you should follow our lead….

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2007. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogging, Petri Dish, Sales Enablement, Social Media, Web 2.0 Woteva, Web Marketing

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12 days ago I blogged about our (re)birth as a presence on Google. Today, we’re #2 on our key term ‘B2B technology marketing agency’ on Google.com (that’s right .com!).

Here’s what happened in the interim…

The great big ‘Velocity SEO Petri Dish’ experiment is generating some serious results.

Now, back in November, our plan was to optimize around the term ‘information technology marketing agency’ because we felt competition around the term ‘B2B technology marketing agency’ was a little too hot for a runt start-up like us.

But we’ve tweaked a few things and it looks like we’re winning. Here’s the view from Google today:

Google snapshot on Velocity’s SEO efforts around the term ‘B2B technology marketing agency’

And, for a live view of things, try this…

How did we do it?

Well, I’m conscious that this post is crowing and that these things have a habit of changing fast (competitors, algorithms, the gods). But, to be honest with you it’s not rocket surgery – you just need to know what you’re doing and you need to be committed to the cause to keep it up.

Here’s our paper on how to do it properly using some good old search engine optimization (SEO) trickery.

If you don’t have time to read it just yet, here’s the quickstart guide:

• Establish your terms: ideally, go for concepts that are high on searcher volume but low on competition
• Implement your site and your design using these terms
• Publish a shed load of content to your site on a regular basis around these terms and concepts
• Encourage other people to link to you using these terms
• Engage with the world through things like Pay Per Click (PPC – eg, Google Adwords), social media networking, online PR and blogging campaigns: drive people to your site

…and that’s basically it. It gets a bit more complex once you get into the nitty gritty, but these ideas should get you going.

Or, of course, just contact us and we’ll help you out.

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Petri Dish, SEO, Web Relations

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…web re-birth that is.

As you may know, our web site went live this week. But we hadn’t existed in any real terms because Google hadn’t recognized us.

We’ve been trying mighty hard to coax their tiny search spiders onto our site – using dead flies, midnight runes and some good old search engine optimization trickery.

And today saw the first signs of success. See below.

Our first link indexed in Google:

Our first Technorati ranking (8,911,336!):

Our first Bloglines links indexed:

So, like a small child, our site is now wailing in the world and I feel like a proud (search) father.

We’re gonna make a ‘web relations’ and ‘SEO’ case study of ourselves, and report the progress that we make on this blog.

Of course, the aim is for world domination around the theme of ‘information technology marketing agency’. Watch this space…

© Roger for Velocity Partners, 2007. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Petri Dish, SEO, Web Marketing, Web Relations

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