One of the major benefits of email marketing is that email is free, but obviously this is the same reason why spam has become so popular and so frustrating. With spam comes spam filters and with spam filters comes the blocking of legitimate email.

In this article we’ll try and describe the basic steps that can help reduce the number of emails you send out that get blocked by spam filters — hopefully resulting in a more rewarding marketing effort.

Many spam filters work by analyzing the email based on its content and the words used. Many words — such as free, sex and so forth — are very heavy spam trigger keywords. Your priority should be to avoid such words while keeping your newsletter as professional as possible.

Later in this article we will show you a technique that we use to help us detect words that could trigger spam filters that we may have missed.

When formatting your email, keep it simple and professional. Excessive use of different colors, fonts, sizes, images and so forth will result in a higher spam filtering rate. Keep your email as clean as possible, and try to stick to a maximum of 2 or 3 different font types and sizes. Overly large sized fonts will surely add to an email being flagged as spam, as will too many images (or not enough text).

Try and use a short and simple stylesheet rather than using font tags excessively. Most spam filters don’t appreciate a multitude of font tags and inline formatting, and the more primitive filters can’t detect stylesheets so they will not penalize as easily.

Use a template if you plan on sending newsletters consistently. This will make sure that all your newsletters look and feel the same. It will also add a touch of professionalism and branding to your newsletters.

Whilst not directly affecting spam filters, this will enable your readers to distinguish your newsletter instantly, thus not reporting it as spam accidentally. Some spam filters work by querying a spam server, whereas others report individual emails as spam. If your email gets reported as spam, then more than likely multiple spam filters will flag your email.

Being consistent with your timing of the newsletter also helps. For example, if you send a newsletter once per month (we personally don’t recommend you send out any more than this, unless you’ve got something really interesting to say), then aim to send it out at the same time, on the same day each month.

Once again, your potential readers will learn to expect your email, adding professionalism and often improving open rates, also reducing accidental spam flagging as well.

Always make your mailing lists double opt-in. This means that when a user subscribes to your mailing list, they will be sent an email with a link that they must click on to confirm their subscription.

This is very important because many people can accidentally enter an incorrect email address, or even the email address of someone else on purpose. When that person receives a newsletter they did not subscribe to, they will assume they have been spammed, and your newsletter (and possibly your web server) will be reported as spam.

Every newsletter you send out should contain a way for the reader to unsubscribe. Not doing so is illegal in some countries and is an instant sign of spamming. You should also display your contact information (Phone, Fax and Address) clearly, as this greatly increases confidence in your email and your company, as well as conforms to spam laws in the United States. Contact information also allows a potential customer to contact you if need be.

The key to avoiding spam filters is testing. The first method of testing I use is to send the newsletter to multiple email accounts with existing spam filters. For example, we have a Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) account and a Hotmail (http://www.hotmail.com) account that we make sure we send our clients newsletter to. If the newsletter ends up in the junk folder, then we’ve got some work to do.

We also have a couple of email accounts with different web hosts that have spam filters in place. In particular, they mostly use spam assassin — a popular piece of spam filtering software. Spam assassin is useful because every email that it flags as spam is given a report and a list of why that email was considered spam.

We also have a local spam filtering application called No Spam Today! for Workstations, that runs a local copy of spam assassin on our local network. It acts as a very close replica to the same software used on thousands of servers world-wide. By sending  copies of the newsletter to No Spam Today! — using the spam assassin checking techniques — gives us feedback as to why an email may have been flagged. If we’ve used words or formatting that we shouldn’t have, or if we’ve included too many images, etc.

Avoiding spam filters when sending out legitimate newsletters can be a time consuming effort. However, as your mailing list grows, it can also be a very beneficial exercise. we’ve watched open rates of just 2 to 3% soar to a massive 50% and over, simply by applying the techniques described in this article.

Diversify our email marketing solution takes away a lot of the hard work by allowing our clients to have consistency and management over their lists and email creatives. Just as importantly Diversify has been developed to be in complete compliance with all major email service providers such as hotmail, yahoo, google, aol and more. This enables us to ensure high delivery and click through rates of our clients emails. Further more, we try to eductate anyone using our solutions or any other on the steps above to enable them a high return on investment and good knowledge of the procedures they undertake.

The same degree of downturn doesn’t have to affect online shops, and the simple reason for this is that ecommerce shop owners can be rigorous in their advertising spending, offering their consumer targeted promotions without the need for a large scale PR stunt or expenditure to get the message out there. Online overheads are a lot smaller, once the site is specified and built the only ongoing cost is hosting, and site maintenance – there are no large overheads.

We are in a fast paced economical climate with financial changes affecting us as the consumer weekly. Large brands such as Mini have recognised this and started looking at the benefits of changing the way they sell their products. Last year the Mini advertising theme was based around heritage, adventure, fun and exciting times with the product. However, this year they are looking at how the car can benefit the consumer; lower tax, most economical in its class etc; they have essentially made their product financially viable in the current economic climate. By coupling this approach to social media advertisement they have bought their product to the forefront of consumers’ minds that may have been in the market for a new car but needed the extra persuasion.

There are currently few digital agencies in the UK that can offer anything above the standard SEO and PPC campaigns which simply make a key word hit the top spot in the search engines, there is no justification for this method if people aren’t actively looking for that “t-Shirt” or “Christmas gift”. Awareness needs to be created of a brands, services and products to make search marketing effective for businesses. We are living in a society where shoppers need to be wined and dined rather than shaken upside down for their hard earned cash. Online sellers must change the way they sell by going to the consumer rather than waiting for them to click on their site and buy. Any digital agency worth their salt will deploy a strategy to engage the brand as a whole entirety with potential customers on every level. On top of this it has to be actively monitored and changed to suite the brand and the market reaction and trends.

It is crucial to find a digital agency that can manage cost effective channels such as social media, blogging, online picture and video distribution, as well as SEO & PPC techniques which enable messages to be relayed in a non sales focused way but with the end goal of converting to sales. They must also allow consumers to connect with brands on a social level and by doing so generating a buzz for the brand and further word of mouth advertising which can only increase its popularity and sales. All of this must be deployed strategically by a team that understands the core concept of brand engagement.

So how can you determine whether a social media strategy is proving beneficial to your business? How do you know that it is working out for you? And is now really the best time to find out?

Rather than focusing on individual social media campaigns, I’d like to look at social media measurement from the perspective of a business that a) buys into social media, b) commits to it over a period of time, and as such c) has an integrated social media strategy. You people know who you are!

Let it breathe

The key with social media measurement, I think, is to stand back and take a widescreen approach to measurement.

Rather than focusing on the smaller, campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter or the number of fans on Facebook, wouldn’t it be better to look at how it helps to shift the most important business KPIs, such as sales, profits, as well as customer retention and satisfaction rates?

To do this effectively, you’ll need to give your social media strategy time. Like a good wine, it needs to breathe. In doing so you will be able to look at your overall business performance, as well as the performance of your social media campaigns over the duration.

Take the Skittles campaign. I called it ‘brave’, ‘amazing’, ‘sensational’ and ‘ballsy’. I still think it is all of those things, and I’ll think that next year even if it fails miserably. It was a big move. But nobody yet knows for sure whether giving over a brand’s entire website to consumer-powered media channels is a smart move. Only time will tell.

Social media vs TV advertising

Here I want to make a small point on accuracy, and attribution. I firmly believe that if you can spend tens of millions on TV ads and make any kind of sense out of that investment, in terms of TV ads helping to boost sales while increasing the key brand metrics, then you can make sense of your (much smaller) investment into social media.

TV campaigns can run for a long time, and the effects on the business are a) not known immediately and b) possibly overstated. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, and advertising executives (and creative agencies) like to take credit for improving sales, when really these sales might have little or nothing to do with TV ads. Attribution is one thing, but knowing that something works is entirely different. Social media appears to be a mixture of the two.

Maybe we can create a model for scoring the performance of social media, or for splitting up attribution by channel, but the truth is that there needs to be some room for manoeuvre when making sense of things. There are few absolutes in measuring advertising campaigns, if you work outside of paid search. You can far more accurately measure social media than you can a TV ad, but like TV advertising, or PR for that matter, there has to be some scope to play around with attribution.

Like TV advertising, social media will play a role in moving brand metrics, and perhaps more so (it is easier to make a noise and to be socially active; there’s an anytime, anywhere factor at work here. And hey, shit sticks around longer when you throw it online). There is a huge viral factor with social media sites (behold ye retweeters). You can really see word of mouth in action on social media sites, and as such there is less guesswork involved when measuring the results – less extrapolation is needed. If 500,000 consumers start saying good things about your brand, with few dissenters, then surely it is fair to say that brand favourability will have improved?

If brand indicators matter, or if you subscribe to the AIDA model, or if you care enough to undertake research to find out your own brand metrics (PDF), then by all means factor in your social media efforts when attributing the success of your overall marketing campaigns.

Take a snapshot

Before you start the clock it is a good idea to benchmark where you’re at…

1. Make a note of the obvious numbers (number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Digg links, Delicious bookmarks, and referrals from social media sites, plus existing website traffic).
2. Make a note of the less obvious benchmarks (such as SEO rankings and referrals, customer satisfaction scores and other business data).
3. Make a note of ROI benchmarks. How much are you paying to acquire customers via other marketing channels? How vast is that advertising budget, and how is it being split up? And what proportion is being directed into channels that you cannot accurately measure?

After that make sure you’re doing the right things. There are lots of social media experts handing out lots of advice for free. There are all manner of social media agencies out there that will help you, if you don’t have the appetite to do this in-house. And there are sites devoted to measuring social media. Get some, get some.

Measuring the effects of social media in 10 steps

1. Traffic
This is one of the more obvious ways of measuring social media. Remember that quality often beats quantity, though not always (as many CPM-focused publishers will surely testify).

2. Interaction
Participation is a valuable indicator for many publishers (and brands). It says something about the kind of traffic you are attracting. Remember that an engaged customer is a highly valuable one. Interaction can be anything from leaving comments, to participating in support forums, to leaving customer reviews and ratings. It can happen on your website and on other websites. Keep your eyes and ears open!

3. Sales
We track leads from organic Google referrals and also paid search. It didn’t seem like much of a leap to track other channels, such as Twitter. Try it. Dell did, and discovered that it made $1m from Twitter in 18 months. Blendtec’s ‘Will It Blend?’ campaign on YouTube helped to drive “a five-fold increase in sales”.

4. Leads
Some companies simply cannot process sales online, because their products or services do not allow for it. For example, the automotive industry, which tends to measure the effects of its online ad campaigns by the amount of brochures requests, or test drives booked in (as opposed to car sales, which is, in marketing terms, an altogether more macro effort). B2B operators are in a similar position. If you are a consultant and spend time interacting on LinkedIn Answers then there’s a way of tracking that activity to enquiries about your services. The same applies across the spectrum of social media sites. Choose your weapon, thought leaders.

5. Search marketing
The SEO factor cannot be understated. Social media can be far more powerful in this regard than you might initially imagine. For example, a well-placed story / video / image on a site like Digg will generate a lot of traffic and a nice link from Digg itself, but the real win here is that it will generate a lot more interest beyond Digg. Bloggers and major publishers are following Digg’s Upcoming channel to unearth new and interesting stories (Sky News now has a Twitter correspondent). One link and 20,000 referrals from Digg might lead on to 40,000 referrals and 100 links from other sites. The long tail, in action. 100 links means that your page might well wind up being placed highly on Google, resulting in lots of ongoing traffic. Remember too that you can use sites like Twitter and YouTube to claim valuable search rankings on your brand search terms (‘social search optimisation’).

6. Brand metrics
Word of mouth and the viral factor (inherent in sites like Twitter, Facebook and Digg) can help shift the key brand metrics, both negatively and positively. These include brand favourability, brand awareness, brand recall, propensity to buy, etc. Expensive TV ads are measured in this way, so if these metrics are good enough for TV then they’re surely good enough for the internet? Positive brand associations via social media campaigns can help drive clicks on paid search ads, and responses to other forms of advertising. We know that TV ads boost activity on search engines, resulting in paid search success stories, so I’d bet that social media can do the same.

7. PR
The nature of public relations has changed, forever. The last five years have been largely about the traditional PR folks not really being able to figure out the blogosphere. But if PRs cannot control the bloggers, then how on earth will they handle consumers? The distinct worlds of PR, customer service, and marketing are fusing. Twitter means everybody has a blog these days, and somewhere to shout about things to their friends (and beyond). Social media sites are the biggest echo chambers in the world! In any event, if you can measure PR (beyond adding up column inches and applying a random multiple to the equivalent size on the rate card!), then you can measure social media.

8. Customer engagement
Given the prevalence of choice, and the ease with which consumers can switch from one brand to another, customer engagement is one of the most important of all metrics in today’s business environment. Engagement can take place offline and online, both on your website and on other sites, particularly social media sites. Customer engagement is key to improving satisfaction and loyalty rates, and revenue. By listening to customers, and letting them know that you are listening, you can improve your business, your products, and your levels of service. The alternative is to ignore customers, which sends out a terrible message. Our research found that an engaged customer will recommend your brand, convert more readily and purchase more often.

9. Retention
A positive side effect of increased customer engagement – assuming certain other factors in play work in your favour – is an increase in customer retention. This is going to be a crucial factor in the success of your business in the years to come. Make no bones about it: we are moving into an age of optimisation and retention. Watch your retention rates as you start participating in social media. Over time, all things remaining equal, they should rise. Zappos, which is a case study in how-to-do-Twitter (and active on MySpace, Facebook and Youtube), is closing in on $1bn of sales this year, and “75% of its orders are from repeat customers”. Go figure, as they say.

10. Profits
If you can reduce customer churn, and engage customers more often, the result will surely be that you’ll generate more business from your existing customer base (who in turn will recommend your business to their network of friends, family, and social media contacts). This reduces your reliance on vast customer acquisition budgets to maintain or grow profits. It makes for a far more profitable and more efficient organisation. I really hope that more businesses will find a better balance between acquisition and retention, sooner rather than later, from a resourcing standpoint. Too many acquisition strategies appear to be ill-conceived, are not joined up (both in terms of marketing and also operations), and as such are ripe for optimisation. Plug the leaky bucket and you won’t need to turn the tap so hard to top it up. And remember that old adage about it being cheaper to keep existing customers than to seek out new ones.

The most important part of your website is the layout. If you were to ask your wife/sister/brother/friend to visit your web site and order one of your products do you think it would be an easy thing for them to do? Would your site navigation or difficult-to-read text confuse them?

Looking at your web site from the perspective of a potential customer can help you see and hopefully fix any potential pitfalls standing in the way of your turning your current visitors into profitable customers.

Here are a few things that you should look at from the perspective of your (potential) customers:

• Web site navigation: Do you have a clean, simple and most importantly CONSISTENT method of navigating pages on your web site? If the menu on your home page is different to the menu on your other pages then you have a problem.Your navigation menu should ALWAYS remain in exactly the same place on every page of your web site, and as a general rule of thumb the closer it is to the top of the page, the easier it is to both find and use, which will inspire confidence in visitors to your web site.
  
  
• Registration/signup processes: We have all at some stage tried to signup for an account at one of the big free email providers and the experience can sometimes be a nightmare. First the password wasn’t long enough. Then it didn’t have enough numbers in it.Then the “I accept your terms” checkbox was suddenly gets unticked. And worst of all, some do not use JavaScript to show me the error messages. They made me wait for the page to reload to see one error message at a time.How useable are the forms on your web site? If someone came to your web site to signup for your newsletter or to contact you would they give up in sheer frustration? If so, what can you do to make it easier for them to signup/register?
  
  
• The flow of information: Does the copy on your web site read well and have a sense of fluidity about it or does each paragraph end abruptly leaving your visitors confused as to where to look next? You should always make sure your words and paragraphs are cohesive and make sense. If you need to, use bold subheadings to give the reader a break before moving onto the next paragraph or topic. The best way to ensure good flowing copy is to use an experienced online copywriter a service we offer to all clients.
  
  
• Prominent contact details: Regardless of what you sell online you should always make it simple for a visitor to contact you either via email and/or phone. We publish our phone number in the top right hand corner of every page on our site and also have an easily identifiable contact link on the navigation menu. Even though most of your customers won’t contact you straight away, they do feel at ease when they at least know your contact information, should the need to contact you arise.
  
  
• Easily identifiable links: When browsing your web site most people will skim over your content until they find the text or link they are interested in. When they find a link to more information, most people expect that link to be blue and underlined, so it’s a good idea to format all of your links like this. Sure, green links may be more aesthetically pleasing along with your green logo and green menu bar, but they wont stand out and will make it hard for visitors to navigate your web site.
  
  
• A face behind the web site: When we buy something online we want to know that we are buying from a real person/people and not a faceless corporation. Whenever possible include photos of you and your other staff members in your web site. If you’re a little camera shy then you can include photos of your office/warehouse instead – generally the more photos you have of yourself and your company, the more credible you will appear thus resulting in more trust from your visitors and more sales.
  
  
• Security seals when selling online: If you sell products online you absolutely must use secure sockets layer (SSL) to securely accept your visitors credit card information. When you buy your SSL certificate the vendor (such as Verisign) will give you a special seal to place on your web site.When visitors click this they are taken to the vendor’s site which shows information about your security seal. This inspires confidence in your visitors, knowing that they can purchase from you securely and wont have to worry about their credit card being used for fraud.
  
  
• When all else fails: When you want to make your web site more useable but don’t know what to do next, why not use a full service digital agency like us to put you in the right direction.

In conclusion, your web site should be an extension of the core values and beliefs of your company. Don’t make it hard for visitors to navigate, signup and/or order. You want them to associate positive emotions and vibes with your web site which will result in sales and referrals from their friends and colleagues. The last thing you want is someone closing their browser window because it was too hard to buy from your web site.

If you feel your website could do with a review as it falls into some of the negative area’s above please contact us

In this article I will discuss 15 best practices that you can use everyday in your email marketing activities. Used wisely and consistently, there’s no doubt you’ll see an increased response from your subscribers — whether it be for more feedback, more product/seminar registrations, or even more orders.

1. Avoiding the Spam Filters

The majority of large Internet service providers now use rigorous spam protection mechanisms to trap unsolicited email before it gets into their customers inboxes. Spam filters generally “rank” each email by a number of different criteria, and, if that email rates above a certain level (such as 10 spam points), then it is flagged as spam and deleted.

To make sure your emails don’t get flagged as spam — and deleted before they even get to your subscribers — avoid using words such as ‘Free’, ‘£££’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’, etc in both the subject line and the content of your email.

2. Maximising Click-Thru Rates

Both web pages and emails can contain a lot of text and graphics, and this sometimes makes it harder to get your subscribers to perform a certain task, such as clicking on a link to see your special offers.

Numerous research papers tell us that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link — such as this — as opposed to a banner or button. So, if you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they are bold, blue and underlined. This will mean that more subscribers click through, meaning more conversions/sales for you.

3. The Power of Personalisation

If you were standing in a crowded mall, which of these would get your attention: “HEY, YOU!” or “HEY JOHN” (assuming your name is John). The power of personalisation can and should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the boring “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? Put simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

4. One-Click Unsubscription

If you want to grow your mailing list, then there are 2 things that you absolutely must have: a double opt-in process, and a quick way to unsubscribe. In some countries, it’s actually mandatory by law that every email has an unsubscribe link in it. The unsubscribe link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed — courteously — from your mailing list.

5. Signup Confirmation

Don’t get accused of spamming — always, and I mean always use a double opt-in confirmation process. Double opt-in means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send them a “confirmation” email. This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.

6. Tuesday / Wednesday = Increased Response

Studies conducted by online research analysts have shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend. On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend. We’ve actually experimented with this, and received the best results by sending out emails at around 2-3pm on a Wednesday.

7. Repeat Email Communication

An auto responder is an email that is scheduled to be sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your mailing list. Auto responders are a great way to automatically follow up with your subscribers or provide them with more information on your products/services.

For example, if you provide a free newsletter, you could setup 3 auto responders for new subscribers: the first is sent 1 hour after they subscribe. It contains a thank you message and a link to get 10% off your newly released eBook.

The second is sent 24 hours after they subscribe, telling them about your community message boards, and the third is sent 72 hours after they subscribe, in which you can offer them a special deal on becoming a paid member of your site.

Auto responders help your subscribers build trust in both your company and your brand, and this can help make it easier when trying to close sales in the future.

8. Consistency is the Key

If you’re running a newsletter or frequent email publication, make sure you keep the look and feel consistent from issue to issue. By keeping the look and feel consistent, you help to maintain and strengthen your brand and your image to your subscribers, which again will make it easier to close sales when you need to.

Create a template for your newsletter and whenever you need to create a new issue, use that template as the basis for each issue.

9. On Time, Every Time

When sending a regular email to your subscribers, always make sure that it’s sent on the same day, at the same time. For example, every Wednesday at 3pm. Your subscribers will come to “expect” your email to arrive in their inbox on the same day at the same time every week, meaning that they want to read your content and are generally more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.

10. The Half-a-Second Subject Line

When your email arrives in your subscriber’s inbox, you generally have about half a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete your email or ignore it. In your subject line, try and specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email. For example, instead of using ‘Our Site Newsletter Issue #1′, use ‘Our Site Newsletter: 10 Tips for Financial Freedom’.

11. The Free Bonus Hook-In

Free is overused these days, especially on the Internet. However, if you’re looking to grow your subscriber list, then create or source a product of value to your visitors (such as an eBook or discount coupon) and offer it to them for free when they sign up for your newsletter.

To make sure they don’t simply type any email address into your subscription form, setup an auto responder to send them the free bonus 1 hour after they subscribe to your newsletter.

12. The Preview Pane

Popular email clients such as MS Outlook show a preview of an email when it’s selected in your inbox. Always have some interesting content at the very top of your email, as this is the part that will show in the preview window of your subscribers email program. If it’s interesting enough, then your subscriber will open your email and continue on reading.

13. Link-Click Testing

When creating marketing emails, try using different text for both content and links. Also try re-positioning images such as logos and buttons. After sending about 3 different emails, compare the click-thru stats and see which one worked best. Now, when you need to send marketing emails in the future, you know that you will be sending the right mix of content and images that will attract the most click-thrus, and ultimately the most sales.

14. Email-Based Learning

Add value to your website, build trust in your visitors, establish your credibility and collect more subscriptions to your mailing list by setting up an email-based learning course. To do this, simply create a series of auto responders (for example, 5) containing unique content. Then, schedule the first one to be sent after 24 hours, the second after 48 hours, etc.

15. Always Sign on the Dotted Line

Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it’s one of the easiest ways to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an unsubscribe link. You can use your signature to link back to your website, and even to other products. Here’s a sample signature:

Regards,
tom smith
Manager – Company XYZ.
Visit our website at http://www.companyxyz.com
Unsubscribe from this newsletter at http://www.companyxyz.com/unsubscribe…

Conclusion

By implementing the 15 best practices described in this article, you can take your email marketing to a whole new level –- attracting more subscribers, and building both your brand equity and credibility at the same time.

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site. You can build web site credibility by providing third-party support (citations, references, source material) for information you present, especially if you link to this evidence. Even if people don’t follow these links, you’ve shown confidence in your material.
Linking to highly credible information and data helps increase your client’s website credibility due to the laws of association. If someone you know recommends a great resource then you’ll hold them in higher regard. The same goes for your website.

2. Show that there’s a real organisation behind your site. Showing that your web site is for a legitimate organisation will boost the site’s credibility. The easiest way to do this is by listing a physical address. Other features can also help, such as posting a photo of your offices or listing a membership with the chamber of commerce.
Before someone buys from you they want to make sure you’re an established company and that you wont suddenly vanish overnight. By showing people you have a real office, real employees and a phone number you’re answering the “what if…” questions that all new visitors to your website will be asking themselves.

3. Highlight the expertise in your organisation and in the content and services you provide. Do you have experts on your team? Are your contributors or service providers authorities? Be sure to give their credentials. Are you affiliated with a respected organization? Make that clear. Conversely, don’t link to outside sites that are not credible. Your site becomes less credible by association.
The easiest way to do this is by writing articles or starting a blog on topics that relate to your business.

4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site. The first part of this guideline is to show there are real people behind the site and in the organization. Next, find a way to convey their trustworthiness through images or text. For example, some sites post employee bios that tell about family or hobbies.
On top of this you can give each employee a blog. Let them post about their likes, holidays, hobbies, etc. This helps to convey that you are in fact people and not simply a website or business.

5. Make it easy to contact you. A simple way to boost your site’s credibility is by making your contact information clear: phone number, physical address, and email address.
I’m still surprised at the number of websites I see that don’t contain clear and concise contact information where the only way to contact someone is through a website form.

6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose). We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing a site, we pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues, and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. The visual design should match the site’s purpose.
Your website will look more credible which will result in more trust and thus more customers.

7. Make your site easy to use — and useful. We’re squeezing two guidelines into one here. Our research shows that sites win credibility points by being both easy to use and useful. Some site operators forget about users when they cater to their own company’s ego or try to show the dazzling things they can do with web technology.
One of the best ways to make sure your site is usable is by looking at the big guys in the way that they layout their website navigation, pages, links and images and overall user journey.

8. Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently). People assign more credibility to sites that show they have been recently updated or reviewed.
Again, a blog is a great way to do this. No matter how unimportant you think something is, it’s always better to post something over nothing. Post news about your company, talk about new clients/products/services and even events taking place in your local area.

9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers). We always  avoid having ads on client sites. If ads are a core revenue stream they must be a clear differences between the sponsored content from your own. Avoid pop-up ads, unless you don’t mind annoying users and losing credibility. As for writing style, try to be clear, direct, and sincere.
This is one of the most important pieces of advice for anyone involved in the world of online marketing and sales. Keep the credibility of your website high at all times, avoiding annoying and intrusive ads at all costs.

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem. Typographical errors and broken links hurt a site’s credibility more than most people imagine. It’s also important to keep your site up and running. It’s one thing to design and build a website but it will still require a devloped online strategy to see it grow your business.

Time Critical

With little time to spare (18 days to be exact) we designed and built their show stand complete with champagne bar and video screens. Designed handout printed material, designed the stands 3d visuals and designed and developed their new website.  Everything was delivered on time and the client was bowled over with the level of commitment and detail Bing Productions provided for all aspects of the project.

Our mission now is to work with Brichwood developing other areas of the brand ready for the 2010 season. Area’s of our expertise used:

• Website Design
• Online PR
• Video Production
• Photography

You can view the new Birchwood website here

The website features a full sales order processing system, allowing the sales staff to manage stock, upload new products, and overview and manage orders seamlessly. Due to the content management back end in the site, when an order is placed over 90% of the hard work is done automatically by the mechanisms we have developed with the site. Picking and packing is the only manual process in the work flow of selling online with out system.

Good product photography is key when selling online as the viewer doesn’t have the opportunity to physically examine the product before purchase, we therefore photographed these beautifully hand made scarves giving as much detail and feel as possible.

The site went live and due to a high social networking buzz we created using facebook and twitter Habibime received their their first sales within hours of launch.

Website Features

• Clean and modern design approach which enables a strong showcase of products
• Full E-commerce and order management which includes the following sub features:
  Inventory tracking, Shipping calculated on the fly, Voucher Codes, Related Products, Affiliate Integration, Digital Product Download facility, Customer Management, Automated Order Status Communication, Order Management, Secure payment gateway via Pay Pal & Sage Pay
• High resolution product photography with on page product zoom
• Social networking book marking
• Send to a Friend
• Wish List

Services used