The Quartz Effect

the quartz effect  //  Quartz Marketing is an innovative business service that helps companies develop a strong brand presence through developing strong marketing plans and running simple and effective marketing programmes and campaigns that you understand with you.

Jan 6 / 6:42am

The IMPORTANCE of a design brief…

I have had a lot of enquiries recently for brand and website build, most without a design brief from the potential clients. Thought i would put together something to highlight the importance of having one.


When first contacting web designers about your website or online project, it's very important to have a written brief.  Without some kind of brief, it can be difficult for web designers to fully understand the project and what it entails.  It could be the difference btwn a successful website design and a really bad one.


Spending time writing a clear and concise brief will make your project run a lot more smoothly and quickly than without.  The more detailed you can be in the brief about both graphic design and functionality of the site, the better.  For example, it's always a good idea to include in your brief any existing logos, branding colour palletes, copies of current business cards, corporate fonts to ensure the graphic designers are aware that there is already a brand identity that must be adhered to.  Secondly, if the site is to be redesigned, the more guidance you can give your web designers on what style of design you like, the better chance of success you have of having design developed that you like, first time.  It's helpful to let your designers know of 3 or 4 websites you like the layout and design of and specify what it is you like about them.  Perhaps the colours, whitespace, clean, uncluttered feeling or perhaps a busy site with lots of text and images.  These sites generally do not have to be industry related, only seen from a graphic design point of view.  Lastly, supply your web designers with 3 or 4 of your competitors’ websites so that they can see what you are up against.

                                                            

 

It's also crucial to give your potential designers a sitemap.  A list of the pages that are going to be required such as Home, About Us, Our Services, Contact Us, Media Library etc..  in addition to this, any special functionality that is required such as online payments, a user registration area to access a document library perhaps, ecommerce facilities are just a few of the functionalities that may be required.  Giving this kind of detail to your developers will allow them to study the project in detail.

 

Once your developers have a solid idea of your design and development requirements they can spend some time researching ideas for the site and if time allows research some of the latest technology on the web that could be used.  Once ideas have been discussed, your web developers should be able to give you a good idea of the cost of the project and estimated timescales for design and development.

 

Should you wish to move ahead with the project from there, you will have a good foundation for the project and should feel confident that both parties understand the project in detail.  Your web designers should be able to design and develop a first class site on-time and on-budget.

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Jan 1 / 11:34pm

Things we should all revisit for 2011 - Internet Marketing Practises

Happy New Year to you all, am hoping you have all had a great start to the year. I have been scratching my head the last few days wondering what would be the best way to start my blog for 2011, so decided on giving out some advise on internet marketing and remainder to all of is on some of the basics of the industry.

Being an internet marketer for many years, I am continually amazed by the less than professional and even ethical practises I see, being undertaken by other so called “professionals” in my industry.  So I have compiled this list of the top 11 problems I come across. Please take note – and even print this off and use it as a checklist for your internet professional, to ensure you get the services you deserve.

1.       Websites that do not consider the internet. Still, too many graphic designers and web developers are creating websites that do not interact with the internet. And by this, I mean they can never be found in the search engines because they are just not structured correctly. Ensure your website developer has a clear understanding of what the search engines need from a website and if they give you a vague or unclear message here, find a different developer. These guys will build you something that may look nice, it just will not add any benefit to your business.

2.       Websites that make it hard for people to contact you. Make sure your developer puts your contact details on every page of your website, either top right or top left. I am amazed by the number of website where potential clients have to search for contact details. Every click required to find your phone number or email address is a barrier to you making a sale. Review some of the developer’s recent client website. If contact details are not on every page, the tip is the developer knows little about internet sales and marketing.

3.       Developers who sell you a website, yet maintain ownership of things like the domain registration. In my experience, only the “dodgy” and un-trustworthy operators do this. They register a domain for you and hold onto it. Domains expire and must be renewed. If your internet professional has not given you the ownership rights of your domain, what happens when it expires? Either he will charge you an exorbitant amount to renew it, or if you no longer use their services, he may even deliberately let it expire so your website disappears. This is not a joke, a major internet operator recently and vindictively did this to a client of mine – the simple answer is, maintain ownership of your internet property.

4.       Developers who do not give you all your account logins or passwords. They do this to make it difficult for you to leave their services. The only possible reason I can think that this situation exists, is that they know their services are sub-standard and many of their clients do leave. The answer – get password for a. your domain; b. your hosting or CPANEL account; c. FTP; d. full admin rights to any administration panel you have been sold.

5.       Marketers who do not re-invest their profits into their own skills. Too often I see really bad or old advice given, especially in the Search Engine Optimisation services area. The reason for this is internet marketing is fast moving. Professionals in this arena need to invest thousands each year, in professional development to keep up. Things like link swapping and reciprocal linking are just bad techniques now yet internet marketers still promote these old, ineffective methods. Ask your internet marketer how much he reinvests into his own development and what was the last self development course he undertook.

                                                                                                                                            

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6.       Web developers who use their clients websites to promote their own businesses. This is a big one in this industry. Often I see web developers or online marketers who riddle their clients websites with links back to their own, promoting their own business. Industry standard is for developers to leave a small link in the footnote of your website. If your developer has done more than this (IE. if they have embedded links back to their site in the text of your site, or written blog posts about themselves) it is too much. Each link in the text of your website is a way for your clients to leave your website and not give you business. Your developer should be preventing this, not creating this. Before you sign up – review some of their existing client’s websites. Ensure any links to their sites are contained in the footnote and are discrete. If there is more than this, they are more interested in promoting their own business than marketing yours – get rid of them.

7.       Vindictive operators who make it difficult to leave their services. Some make it very hard for you to leave their services, making you waste time you should be spending making money, trying to sort out their contractual mess. You should be able to get out of any ongoing web development or internet marketing contract easily, with a minimum of fuss. You do not need a reason, if you want to leave a service provider, you should be able to. Make sure your contracts do not tie you in. Ensure there is an easy way to get out of your contracts.

8.       Vindictive operators who do not pass on your information to your next service provider. See point 3 above – get all your logins and passwords up front and take control of this. If you have all your information up front, there is nothing your service provider can do when it’s time to move on.

9.       Many web developers and internet markets seem to test their strategies on their clients websites and end up getting their clients website banned from Google. This is unacceptable. They should know their stuff and only apply proven and safe strategies. To avoid this type of issue, do some Google research on the business’s and business owner’s names. Once you scroll past the usual self promotion that will come up, you will be amazed at some of the things you will find. Angry ex-customers blog posting or writing negative reviews, clients suing them, some internet marketers just can’t seem to keep out of the courts. This should raise alarm bells.

10.   Vague strategies on value add. If your web developer says to you “You have to wait for 6 months or so for Google to find your website before you can expect any sales”, say to them “you’ll have to wait for 6 months before the sales generated from your work, pays for your work”. An internet professional should know what it takes to get your website making you money fast and should have a clear strategy to achieve that. Why else are you getting a website built?

11.    Lack of Reporting/Accountability. Everything on the internet can be measured and tracked. As such, your website developer should be able to set up a system where you can measure traffic (visitors) as well as leads (inquiries) and therefore sales. Internet marketers should have specific reporting proving the value they are adding to your business. Ask them what reporting they give you as part of their package. No reporting mean no accountability. The reporting should be specific and well defined. It should prove the money they are charging you is less than the money they are making you, or saving you. This way, you know they are adding value.

I hope this is useful information and will help you revisit your marketing strategies for 2011, do not hesitate to get in touch if you need to discuss any of the above further.

Happy New Year!!

                                                                               

www.quartzmarketing.co.uk

Internet_marketing

Comments (3)

Dec 20 / 9:00pm

Season's Greetings

Christmas

Dear All,

One of the real joys of the festive season is the opportunity to say thank you and to wish you the best for the New Year.

Thank you for all the support and trust in what we do. For those very reasons and more we will be back next year bigger, stronger and with a lot more enthusiasm and motivation.

Have a great Christmas and an even better New Year.

Kind regards

The Quartz Team

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Dec 17 / 10:39pm

Business Directories, Search Engines & being found...

Search

Businesses  going through the process of creating a new website should start by submitting to local directories, blog directories, search engines, and quality web directories. Today’s  post will focus on submitting your URL to search engines and web directories. Why should you do this? Because adding your website to directories helps you “Get Found” by creating nice inbound links and can even provide some traffic.

First, you should build a content rich website that contains all the necessary elements of on-page SEO. Getting your website setup properly prior to submitting to search engines and web directories is crucial, this will encourage their algorithms or their editors to accept your website into the directory.

As we went through the process of launching our website we submitted to a number of search engines and directories. Some are well known, others are in our industry, some are free, and some are paid, a process that never really stops. As a business with a specific industry and a target market you will have to decide which directories are best for your website to submit to. Below is a list of some popular search engines and directories that you should look into, and resources on how to find additional search engines and directories to submit your website:

Submit your URL to Major Search Engines

Google

Yahoo

Ask

Bing

You could also seriously consider:

AllTheWeb.com

AOL Search

HotBot

Submit your URL to Paid directories

Yahoo (Expensive, but one of the best links you can get)

Starting point

Business.com

Best of the web

Joeant

Regional, Local, and Industry Directories

Another way to generate quality inbound links is by submitting your website to Regional, Local and Industry specific directories. First, ensure that the directory or search engine has a good PR (download the Google Toolbar) - the higher the PR the better, so start with directories that are high PR or are specific to your industry.

Search for specialty directories by going to Google and searching for "submit a link" AND "insert keyword phrase here" or "Submit a URL" or "add a URL"… you get the idea.

Go to Google and search for other directories, there are pages and pages of relevant directories - and because they are listed and come up on the first page they are usually a quality website. Here are examples:

Yahoo Local

Yell

Thomson Local

Touch Local

Local

City Local

UFindUs

Here are some of the niche industry directories we are submitting to: Web design directory, SEMPO, Marketing  Consultants Directory, SEO List, SEOpros, Crunchbase, SEOMoz etc

Blog Directories

The last place you want to submit your website to is blog directories.

Quartz Marketing Takeaways and Tips:

- Make a list in Excel with all the directories you submitted to and the date you submitted

- Link back to the directories

- Use your keywords when you submit to the directories

- Check back in a few days or weeks to see if you were listed

- Check back once every 6 months or so to confirm you are still listed

- Join the Better Business Bureau

- Submit your website to the local chamber of commerce

- Submit your link to the city and county websites

- List your site at the local library's Web site

Comments (1)

Dec 13 / 8:31am

Time for a rebrand...?

Rebrand for 2011...

There is a time in every businesses life, when your 'brand' (colours, logo, look and feel) need a bit of a makeover. But just because you might be bored of your brand, doesn't mean it's had its day.

Let us take a look, we'll want to see everything... Your business cards and letterheads, your website, your promotional print. Even how you communicate with your customers - it can all be considered 'your brand'.

Let www.quartzmarketing.co.uk give your brand a going over, with a free, no obligation telephone or email consultation - and we'll take it from there.

Call 08443 510395 or send an email to info@quartzmarketing.co.uk to talk to our designers about our rebranding services

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Dec 12 / 4:41am

Consistency is King

We have a guest writer for our blog today, by the name of Mark Mcgee; a great blogger himself and a serious digital marketing expert and strategies. The topic is Integrated Marketing. Enjoy!!

Consistency is King

What is integrated marketing? For me it’s making sure that you use all the marketing channels relevant to your customers in a consistent manner.

But what do I mean by “consistent”? Consider these scenarios:

·         You have registered for an event, but two days later you receive a marketing email for the same event, encouraging you to register.

·         You’ve had a telephone conversation with a company representative, but later the same week you receive an email from the same company letting you know that someone will be in touch with you soon.

·         You have been given a discount voucher via email, but the shop assistant in the store knows nothing about it and refuses to let you use it.

In the above examples, there has been a lack of consistency – the right hand doesn’t seem to know what the left hand is doing. How does that make you, as a potential or existing customer, feel about the company? I bet it’s not a good feeling.

And consistency isn’t difficult to achieve. Modern CRM systems allow companies to gather a vast amount of data about their customers, both online and offline. Record every contact, every transaction and, most importantly, ensure this data is made available to everyone in the company that needs to know about it; from ensuring your email list is segmented correctly to simply informing the Saturday staff about your latest voucher scheme!

You have the data, it’s time to use it properly.

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Mark McGee is a digital marketing strategist and MSc candidate and is currently vice-president of communications for an international trade association based near Manchester. His ruminations about life, marketing and other randomness can be found at http://www.englishvoodoo.net. He can also be found on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Mark_McGee.

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Dec 1 / 12:59am

Enter to Win a FREE Branding Package for your business!

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Starting TODAY Wednesday the 1st of December, through to next week Wednesday, the 8th of December, you can enter to win a free corporate branding package from Quartz Marketing worth £200!  Just follow these steps to enter:

1. Follow @thequartzeffect on twitter (you can do this in advance)

2. Between December 1 and December 8, you must "retweet" (RT) @thequartzeffect one of the tweets announcing the contest.  The more times you "retweet" the more entries you receive!

3. All entries must be made by 00:00 midnight GMT, on Wednesday, December 8th, 2010.

4. Entries are not limited by location; you can enter from any location in the world. No purchase necessary. Alternate entries may be made by e-mailing Full Name, Company Name, Address, and Phone Number to info@quartzmarketing.co.uk (e-mailed entries will be added to our mailing list).

5. Contest exclusive only to twitter followers

Winner will be announced on Twitter, via a direct message on Thursday, December 09, 2010.  The winner will have until 17:00pm GMT, Thursday, December 09, to claim prize.  If prize is unclaimed by deadline, a new winner will be picked.  That winner will have 19:00pm GMT, to claim the prize.  In the event that the prize is not claimed by the second winner by the deadline, a new winner will be chosen.  The 3rd winner will have until 21:00pm, GMT to claim the prize.  If the prize remains unclaimed after 21:00pm, GMT, it will be donated to WEZIMBABWE www.wezimbabwe.org  to be used as a silent auction item.

Prize is limited to the following: 

  • 1 Logo up to 4 colours + black & white),
  • 1 business card (up to 4 colours + black & white, single or double sided) and
  • 1 piece of letterhead.  Prize is for design only

No printing is included. 

Prize will be delivered in multiple formats via email.

Don't have a twitter account? You can sign up for one for free at www.twitter.com.  While you're at it, you should join our fanpage on Facebook to learn how to maximize your online visibility and how to promote your business effectively online.

Good luck!

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Nov 24 / 1:10am

Social Media & small businesses - Case study

As more and more businesses jump into social media, case studies and success stories are becoming more prevalent. Yet despite the fact that small businesses are often just as entrenched as big business, the little guys are significantly under represented when it comes to case studies. Today I will fix that. I connected with Sue Tafeni of Chenai Chic earlier this month, I was immediately fascinated with how a niche businesses such as hers was using social media.  It gives a fascinating insight into why and how a small business uses social media.

Firstly, what is Chenai Chic?

Chenai Chic is a bespoke online tailoring business, specialising in Southern African traditional wear.  There is a designer in everyone, so my inspiration comes from everyday life and what I see people wearing. The richness and diversity of materials sets off my creativity. The company was started 3 years ago. After some extensive background research it became apparent to me that South African traditional wear was a fairly 'untapped' market and a strong demand existed for young to middle aged women who originate from that region of the world. People from West and Central Africa have for many years now, established fashion markets in the western world, retailing their traditional wear often worn to occasions such as weddings, dinner parties, graduation ceremonies etc. Many Southern African women interviewed stated that they found themselves 'having' to wear outfits from these regions just to be identified as an African! But not necessarily identifying with the style or even fabric of the garments.

My business plan followed thereafter and continues to grow......

Why did you decide social media was appropriate for your business?

As the business is purely online at present, we decided that the rapidly growing social media network was our best form of marketing and given that the vast majority of Chenai Chic’s customers and fans are women and given women’s use of social media, it becomes clear why social media is something we see as important! In June the “2009 Social Media Study” a US study from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners found women are turning to social media for fun, entertainment and connection.

·         Fifty- three per cent of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly.

·         Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs.

·         Twelve million posted to blogs and 8 million published them.

This is an impressive use of social media. Granted the findings are for the US market but it would not be presumptuous to assume that African women’s use of social media is on par with their US counterparts.

How do you use social media for your business?

We view it as a medium to deepen our connection with our customers and supporters, be it a customer actually buying from us, a window shopper or a business seeking to connect with us.

The social media platforms – Twitter and Facebook – we use tend to complement each other. Ideally it would be great to engage equally in every social media platform that exists but reality and resources dictate that decisions have to be made about where to invest time and energy. We regularly tweet and facebook update on our latest designs, events and general fashion news.

As they say in marketing, “You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…. you’ve got to be willing to play…”

(Couldn’t have said it better myself.)

What considerations should small businesses make before jumping in head first?

There is the aspect of how companies manage the expectations of fans/followers and communicate with them. When people follow you on Twitter or become a fan of your Fanpage on Facebook, I think there is an expectation by many people that they can engage in some dialogue with the company or at the very least the employee of the company.

The danger  is when companies and even ‘celebrities’ create a profile, people follow and try to engage with the company or celebrity and there is a deafening silence. No re-follow, no response to messages.  It’s as if this ‘celebrity’ or company is saying to their follower “Nothing you say is or ever can be of interest to me”. The dilemma for companies is that if they have a lot of followers replying to every single message, it ends up being time consuming and costly. It will be interesting to see how companies respond to this challenge of balancing followers and fan expectations with communication versus the cold hard fact of resources and allocation of time.

                                                                                                                                       

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What other practical applications are there for small businesses?

Firstly, LinkedIn, Facebook and Social Media are gradually taking over the role of traditional marketing platforms. Only three years ago if you were looking for work either as a freelancer or consultant or even as a paid employee you would check the main job boards, your contacts of course and recruitment consultants. Now if you are looking to pick up some work or extra projects you tweet your availability. Within minutes you can have followers retweeting your availability and suddenly your whole networked has expanded. Smart recruitment consultants are leveraging this. Same applies to the fashion industry, global fashion shows like New York and London, have a lot to thank the social media platform for as it allows for real time marketing, communication and even flow for some of these events. Now you get real time uploads of the latest designs onto social media not having to wait for some publications or televisions for that.

Secondly, there is sourcing information and referrals. Twitter has become a de-facto search engine and with the recent announcement by Google that its results will now integrate Twitter data, the reach has rapidly increased. People using social media to put out good quality, relevant and informative messages have more likelihood of visibility in search results for relevant keywords. And for companies, and even independent bloggers looking to build or expand their brand, this can only be a good thing.

____________________

Sue Tafeni is the founder of Chenai Chic, an online Afro-wear boutique. She has in the past been the Afro-wear sponsor for Miss Zim UK, Miss Southern Africa, Miss Yorkshire Africa and has exhibited at festivals like Zimfest. You can view her collection at www.chenai-chic.co.uk. You can join her page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chenai-Chic/165218548867?v=wall.  You can follow Sue on Twitter on http://twitter.com/ChenaiChic.

For more information about this topic please don’t hesitate to contact me on info@quartzmarketing.co.uk.

                                                                                                  www.quartzmarketing.co.uk

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Nov 9 / 11:43pm

Social Marketing

Social

Over a year ago in a Techcrunch interview of LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, he made this interesting analogy for social space:

“MySpace is like a bar, Facebook is like the BBQ you have in your back yard with friends and family, play games, share pictures. LinkedIn is the office, how you stay up to date, solve professional problems.”

This is inspiring for marketers who look for a right ingredient to do social marketing. If you take Reid Hoffman’s analogy and apply with Rapleaf’s study of gender and age of social networking users (http://www.rapleaf.com/press/gender_age), you will get the following insight:

Although the social contexts are different as described by Hoffman like a back yard vs. a bar, Facebook and MySpace share the same majority user segment whose age are between 18 to 24, women predominantly, like to socialize and share affection with friends and family. B2C marketers should take note if your engagement tactics are more on the emotional side.

LinkedIn shares a different user profile with the major age group between 25 – 34, predominantly male users. You will also spot a small segment whose age is 55 to 65. This user group is insignificant on Facebook and MySpace. According to Hoffman, users on LinkedIn who are in the state of mind of working in an office want to stay up-to-date and problem-solving oriented. This sounds like a perfect medium for B2B marketers whose engagement tactics are more on the functional side.

When you are planning a social marketing campaign, remember to add social context to your touchpoint analysis. Otherwise, it is like knocking at people’s door to sell business solution when they are socializing with friends and family in a back yard. It is awkward.

www.quartzmarketing.co.uk

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Oct 31 / 11:23pm

Get ready for Christmas with our November Promotion

Static-gif-final-ad

A creative web banner, designed for your business.


Our November promotion is a creative advert designed in line with your company’s corporate identity for:

Custom Static Banner Design           £40

Animated gif Banner Design             £45

Flash Banner Design                          £50

Quartz Marketing November promotion is getting you ready for Christmas with bespoke, creatively designed adverts for your business

You may think November is too early to be thinking about Christmas but we have been producing Christmas related marketing for some of our very organised clients since August! A published banner or advert today in print or online publications will no doubt bring in traffic and business your way.

Christmas comes round so quickly, we thought we would give a little incentive to those that leave their Christmas marketing to the last minute and miss out on the opportunity.

These banners will be creatively designed so that they are perfectly aligned with your company's brand identity, with a message of your choice.

We will deliver the banners to you in the formats you request.

Quartz Marketing can help you set yourself apart from your competitors with these creatively designed web banners.

Promotion includes...

·         Bespoke creative design, perfectly aligned with your company's brand identity

…Get in touch today and take advantage of this fantastic promotion…

·         info@quartzmarketing.co.uk

·         08443 510395

·         Follow this link to complete a simple form and we will get in touch with you  http://quartzmarketing.co.uk/contact.html

 

Terms and conditions apply.

Terms and conditions

1) Offer includes 1 hour of creative time only.  Any further works will be quoted for and agreed upon before proceeding.

2) All copy, images and brand identity must be supplied.

3) Quartz Marketing Ltd has the right to refuse service.

4) Offer only available until 29th November 2010.

5) Payment terms – 100% of the cost must be paid before work commences.

6) Service level agreements will be agreed upon instruction.

7) A signed order for the banner must have been received before 4pm on 29/11/10.

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