Web Design, Digital & Social Media Marketing in Singapore

Using personas of your target audiences to determine the contents required for your website

// January 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Web Design

<A quick recap – inline with my belief that all websites must be built with the end-user in mind, contents that are placed on these web pages must naturally be what the target audiences want. As such, I advocate the approach to first understand who they are and deliver what they want.>

As a continuation of my earlier post on the 3 important things web designers need to know when designing a website, I am sharing with you the tools that I use when helping my clients decide what are the contents that are required for the website.

The tool that I use is called the Persona Chart where the target audience is identified, their purpose of visited established and the type of content they want is listed. Have a look and see if it helps you in your next project. If you need the MS Word version, just drop me an email. ;o)

3 important things every web designer needs to know before designing a website

// January 26th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Web Design

When designing websites for clients, web designers should always remember that they are not creating digital brochures. They are creating an interface where users interact with contents and eventually do something that the website owner wants them to do (be it an online sale, refer a friend, bookmark the website, etc). Here are 3 important things that web designers should know before firing up their photoshop and dreamweaver.

1. Know who are the target audiences

Don’t guess.  Don’t assume. Ask your client and they will probably start telling you ‘everyone’. It is our job to guide them on this. I will always ask my client – If anyone would be visiting your website, who will they be? Here, we are not trying to identify demographics like male/female, age group, etc. We are trying to identify specific groups of people. For example, if I’m trying to identify target audiences for a kindergarten website, it would be:

• Parents of potential students
• Parents of existing students
• Education partners
• Potential staff

2. Know what they want

Visitors come to your website with a specific purpose in mind. Seldom would people browse aimlessly, so you need to really know what they want. After establishing who the target audiences are, I will always ask my clients – If a parent of a potential student is to visit your website, what do you think will be their purpose in visiting your website? This question never fails to get my clients thinking the real purpose of the website – A place where their potential clients get what they want! To illustrate my point clearer, let’s see what the parents of potential and existing students of a kindergarten would want:-

• Parents of potential students want to evaluate if the kindergarten is suitable for his or her child. To do that, they will want to understand the curriculum, environment, enrichment courses, principal’s & teachers’ profile, testimonials from existing parents and enrollment details.
• Parents of existing students want to know upcoming events in the kindergarten, be updated on news and announcements, enquire on administrative matters  and to provide feedback.

3. Know what you want

Now that you know who they are, and their purpose of visiting the website, it is time to work on what your client wants from each visitor. It could be as simple as email enquiry, downloading of a factsheet, visiting the facebook fanpage or even referring the website to a friend. Help the client map out the website goals so you know the objectives of each webpage that you will be creating.

Honestly, this is just the beginning and I usually spend 1-2 sessions with the client just working on these 3 things. It is also the findings during these sessions that allows me to gather sufficient knowledge and information to start working on the information architecture, which ultimately, determines the layout (which will somehow affect the overall design).

What’s your methodology in creating websites? Share them here!

Jetstar Asia’s radio ads – Example of content marketing

// October 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Design

On my way to work in the morning, the Jetstar Asia’s radio ad always catches my attention. I think it resonates strongly with my belief in content marketing. 90% of the ad talks about highlights of the destination, content that tourist visiting will like to know. That’s an excellent example of content marketing. You share contents that are relevant to your potential customers, allow them to consume these contents, over a period of time, build a relationship and influence a sale at the end of the day.

I was hoping to get more information on the ad about nightlife in Taipei from their website. To my surprise, there was indeed a free travel guide for Taipei that I could download for free. 2 thumbs up!

I see an extension to this radio ad campaign to the digital space by publishing these guides onto a Jetstar travel blog, allow their customers to comment or share experiences and thus, completing the entire experience. The blog posts which are search engine-friendly (if they are properly crafted) will also help drive relevant traffic to the website.

I will fly Jetstar the next time I visit Taipei. ;o)

Google SideWiki changes the world wide web to a singular Social Web

// September 27th, 2009 // No Comments » // Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Design

Google recently launched the SideWiki plug-in for firefox and IE browsers. With SideWiki installed, anyone can now contribute comments to any webpages. Yes, any webpages. That effectively converted the entire world wide web to a singular social web that empowers consumer to comment on anything & everything.

The SideWiki feature adopts a user rated system that determines the ranking of each comment. Comments that are voted ‘useful’ gets a higher ranking. Abuses can be reported to Google so the folks there can review the offending comment and decide if it should be removed.

Brands hesitant in embracing the social web now has a new challenge right at their doorstep. SideWiki has basically created a comment box on all their webpages allowing anyone to pen their views. Think about your competitors posting a comment that focuses on the weaknesses of your product and emphasizing their strengths over yours. Think about happy customers complimenting your staff for a pleasant experience at one of your outlets or a unhappy customer complaining about the quality of your services. Can you ignore these like you used to because it is happening elsewhere and not on your website?

This is major step forward in the transition of the world wide web to social web and there is more to come. The key is to start learning how to embrace the social web, understand and accept that your corporate website has became a platform where consumers can now openly discuss, comment and compliment you. Listen to the consumers and address issues to deliver a more consumer-focus, consumer-centric and consumer-driven service / product. Equip your people with skills in handling positive and negative feedback and not sweep them under the carpet.

When is my job done?

// May 20th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Agency Management, Web Design

It struck me hard that most of the time, digital agencies believe their scope of service ends at the launch of the website. The team’s just dying to move on once the site is launched and little attention is spent on it thereafter.

To me, the launch of the website marks the beginning of part 2 of the job. It is when real users start interacting and consuming contents that we have created. This engagement will need to be measured through properly defined tracking metrics so we can learn if the information architecture is doing its job, if we are really getting that conversion we want, or simply put, if we are meeting our goals.

It is only through this form of tracking that the team (and the client as well) can learn and make changes. That’s the beauty of digital. Track-n-Tweak!

The mindset shift that we need to do this remaining 50% job so that we can really deliver an experience to the client’s audiences and eventually, deliver results to the client impacts a number of things. It changes the way the team works, in terms of scheduling and tasks allocation, it creates the need to think deeper in terms of tracking metrics & it changes the way we do our costings.

More importantly, it changes the way clients see the agency. Which client will not be appreciative of an agency that follow-through the entire campaign, constantly on the lookout for potholes and proactively making tweaks to make sure we see results.

I believe the first step is a mindset change from the top. The rest will follow suit.