Ten Mistakes in Blogs

I found this helpful post that lists the top ten design mistakes that would affect blogs’ usability. If any author avoids doing them, s/he will have a certain theme and design for their blogs, and will maximize the number of new readers by giving them a good impression, and they will understand the author and his/her blog more.

1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
5. Classic Hits are Buried
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

FERRARELLE Mineral Water Ad

I would like to share with you this wonderful FERRARELLE Mineral Water Ad. When I just saw it, I repeated it at least 3 times, and I was curious to know about this brand more and the ad and its effect on the Italian Market. However, I didn’t find all the information that I was looking for, but here is what I found. According to coloribus, it is one of the best ads and won an award: Euro RSCG Worldwide 2007-2008 Starchannel: Best from the best. Moreover, according to this article, Ferrarelle Sparkling mineral water has entered the UK market in November 2007 and built an awareness of its brand by sponsoring different events during the Summer time. The article states that Ferrarelle marketing export manager Annalisa Altini said: "Since our launch in November sales have increased by 20 per cent and Ferrarelle is now listed in Waitrose stores and numerous delis and restaurants across the UK.

One more thing about Ferrarelle water, it doesn’t have a website!!!???

5 Tactics to Improve Your Thank You Pages

I really liked this article because it shows some effective ways in creating loyal customers from an ecommerce perspective. As I mentioned in the previous post, those ways will help the company keep their existing customers and encourage them to do the marketing for a product/service and a company as whole. Here are some tactics that companies should be aware of, and they should modify their websites especially the last pages “Thank you pages” in an efficient manner that leads to understand the customers more and know how their experiences were “Satisfied or not”? And attract them to visit and purchase from the websites again. However, we should clarify to the customers that the purchasing process is completed and it’s their choices to continue doing one or more of the following list or not. So, we will not have an opposite reaction from them which will affect the businesses negatively.

1. Refer a friend form
2. How to Track your Order
3. Show products related to those ordered
4. Feedback Survey
5. Coupon for Next Purchase

7 Tips to Create Loyal Customers

I really like this article that shows simple and very important ways to create long-term relationships with customers. Here are the tips:

Tip # 1 Give them more for the money
Tip # 2 Never keep profit at the core of doing business
Tip # 3 Transcend anger into praise
Tip # 4 The rule is that there are no rules
Tip # 5 It’s not just your spouse, they have birthdays too
Tip # 6 Empower your employees to care
Tip # 7 Do not forget tips 1-6 ever, make it a habit

Tip # 5 has a huge influence I believe, and many companies don’t pay attention to it. For example, Loehmann's stores offers 15% for its members on their birthdays, which I think very clever.
The last tip is the most important one because it’s an ongoing cycle that keeps customers satisfied and that will lead them to do the marketing for any business.

7 Factors in Building Successful Brands

I think all of them are really important and we should use them as a checklist to know and evaluate our brand “buji.” I haven’t thought before of internal marketing as a major aspect in building a brand and I’m glad this post has gave a better understanding of this aspect and its effect on a brand. Internal marketing will help the employees to understand more their business which will lead to perform better when they deal and interact with the customers either face-to-face or virtually.

"Never Assume"

I want to share with you this wonderful post on palmerwebmarketing.com. The author advices "Never assume" the 10 points below, which help companies to improve their websites optimization and make them aware of some errors in the design that can affect them negatively and loose sales. The author has described each one of them, but here I would like to stress on three of them.

Assumption #1: People will know how to find your website
I think this is the most important point for businesses, to make sure to use the right techniques that help their customers to get to their websites. Then, attract them to provide their contact information like signing up for free membership or buy what they want easily.

Assumption #2: People know what you sell
Assumption #3 : Everything will go as planned
Assumption #4: People know where to click
Assumption #5: People know how to get home
Assumption #6: People know where they are

Assumption #7: People know how to buy
This assumption is related to the information design, and if it wasn't good enough, this will affect a business negatively. One of the ways that helps a customer to place an order effectively: Having a Cart button associated with Checkout button in all pages, so a customer can complete the order whenever s/he is ready, rather than searching for the checkout page and not completing the buying process.

Assumption #8: People will volunteer loads of personal information
Assumption #9: People will contact customer service if they have a question or problem

Assumption #10: People will come back
Here comes the important role of building customer forever and make sure that they will buy again products/services. Here are some ways to help in building brand loyalty:

• • Having efficient advertising and PR campaigns. For example, offering earning points that can be exchanged with a future order by a customer or offering "free shipping."
• • Creating two way communication channels, such as blogs and reviews, this will lead a company to interact with its customers and understand their needs. Also, will help to know the competitors and how are they fulfilling the customers' needs.

Honda Accord Advertisement

This wonderful advertisement for Honda Accord was introduced in UK in April 2003. It is two minutes long and was shot in real time with no CGI “Computer-generated imagery” involved in the sequence. It was split into two takes because there is no enough space to film the whole ad. It costs $6 million to shoot and took 3 months to complete. I think one of the most shocking things about this ad is that there are only six hand-made Accords in the world and the filmmakers dissembled two cars to film this ad. So, everything they used even walls, floor, ramp and complete Accord was from those two cars.

This ad is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen. However, there are lot of questions in my mind and trying to look for answers…
Why would they rip apart two Accords to use them in filming this ad? They could have used similar pieces and tools and no one will recognize it. Why did they film it in real time, and the latest graphical programs and machines are available and affordable to them? Why did they spend all this time “3 months,” money “$ 6 million,” and massive effort while they could have spent less and have the same results?
Have they done all this as part of the advertising thing, so customers will appreciate the ad, Honda and Accord when they know those facts about filming the ad? Or they are targeting non-technical customers who appreciate more work and effort in real time and not using any digital tricks.
I know all what they’ve done in this ad is very eye opening, but is it really worth it? Especially that they could have done the same results or even better by making a good use of technology in filming, and spending less time and effort.