The Milton Bayer Blog

Is my advertising OK? Well, no actually, it’s not.

Ray Wellington — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:55:02 +0000

I obviously talk to businesses about their marketing, a lot. We talk about how they are holistically, and it’s interesting how often the same topic comes up without me raising it. The conversation turns to Metrics. The question is usually a version of “How do we know our results are good results?”

The trouble in answering this is it’s hard to use ‘national averages’ as my answer. In reality, all propositions, market demographics, timings and interactions vary the answer so much. But nobody wants to hear that.
Take banners as an example. The much lauded online visual commodity is shifting from a response mechanic to an awareness mechanic according to media owners; so don’t expect huge click-throughs because the average performance of banners is tiny. Instead use them for increasing awareness they say. For the marketeer however, rationalising the validity of a banner in the mix becomes harder to justify for just awareness.

But is that OK? Well I would say No, it isn’t!

You CAN use banners for click-throughs if they are targeted, positioned and created in the right way. We’ve been quoted a range of averages recently that range from 0.06 to 0.09% click throughs. So for every 10,000 times a banner appears, you’ll get up to 9 click throughs. You pay per thousand impacts so even with millions of them, it’s hard to justify the cost per lead.

Several factors can impact the click-through rate. For example:

Audiences and targeting
B2B or B2C – get it right
Brand or non-branded
A keyword’s place in the search funnel
Ad copy’s creative messaging – CTA
Type of offer
Images/design
Interaction
Industry competitiveness

So should we forget banners or accept the small returns?

NEITHER. I say do them better. Stop being lazy. Engage. The content-rich one we did for Toro leafblowers recently got SEVEN times the ‘national average’ at 0.58% or 63 in 10,000. It was
engaging, interactive, creative, and full of information, right there in the banner. It was actually interesting. People wanted to click it!

And isn’t that the point? Well then let’s not forget it. No-one has to view advertising today, so we need to make them choose to.

The post Is my advertising OK? Well, no actually, it’s not. appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

Avion Worldwide Website Launches

Ashley Chant — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:59:35 +0000

If you’re fed up of motorway traffic jams, why not hire a private jet or helicopter? Or if you’ve got enough spare cash you could even purchase your very own private aircraft.

The new website was created using WordPress and utilises a responsive grid to optimise browsing on tablets and mobile phones.

Visit Website

The post Avion Worldwide Website Launches appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

Whiteboard animation by Milton Bayer

Ray Wellington — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:19:13 +0000

The Kite® Foundation is a fascinating organisation with a truly brilliant mission. To explain what Kite® is, we created this whiteboard animation. 63 illustrations were designed and timed to draw in sync with the voiceover by Jordan Reynolds. This type of presentation works well because it embeds the dialogue in the brain through the use of picture stimulus. Far more effective than Powerpoint. If you would like to have one of these created for you, bugger off it’s a nightmare to do – only kidding, bring it on.

The post Whiteboard animation by Milton Bayer appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

2013 Lucky Calendar Desktop Wallpapers

Milton Bayer — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 10:37:21 +0000

2013 is upon us, we’ve miraculously survived the Mayan Calendar predictions and popped out the other end ready to start a new year. Lucky you, eh?

Every year the studio here at MB put together a creative calendar for the year ahead. Everyone in the studio takes a couple of calendar months and we are generally free to do whatever we feel is appropriate (loosely speaking!). This year’s concept is ‘Luck’ and we’ve pulled together some cool pieces for your desktop!

January’s calendar piece has been created by Mr David Bardell, he explains:

“Tigers are lucky in China as 2013 is the Year of the Tiger I wanted to infuse it with something else. Elvis seemed to fit the bill and I read somewhere he had numerous ornamental tigers in his house. Couple that with the song ‘Tiger Man’ (uhh huh!) and you’re onto a winner!

“I am the king of the jungle. They call me the tiger man…”

Basically, I wanted to make a tiger look bloody cool. So I did, it’s a tiger, man!”

Can’t wait till February? Checkout our previous calendars.

The post 2013 Lucky Calendar Desktop Wallpapers appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

Merry Christmas from all of us at Milton Bayer

Ashley Chant — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 13:49:45 +0000

The post Merry Christmas from all of us at Milton Bayer appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

What Bad Web Practices Look Like in Real Life

Ashley Chant — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:25:43 +0000

These short Google videos show what bad web practices would look like in real life, I hope you find them amusing.

Site Search

Online Checkout

Landing Page Optimization

The post What Bad Web Practices Look Like in Real Life appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

More Websites Go Live In November

Ashley Chant — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 10:30:17 +0000

In the past two weeks we’ve launched 5 websites, and we’ve also got another handful of sites getting ready in the run-up to Christmas.

The sites have been a mixture of WordPress, Drupal and bespoke builds, see below for further details of each one.

Brooklands Hotel

Brooklands Hotel is located in the stunning county of Surrey, just 20 minutes from London and standing where the world famous Brooklands race track once reigned supreme during the 1920s and 30s.
The new Drupal website promotes their luxury rooms & suites, spa treatments, meeting & event rooms, weddings, restaurant and leisure packages; the site sections also have various cross sells of these services.

Visit Website

VisitBritain Annual Review

VisitBritain are the national tourism agency, responsible for marketing Britain worldwide and developing Britain’s visitor economy. It’s been a huge year for them with the London 2012 Games and they needed their Annual Review website to reflect this.
The website includes various animations from the homepage and loads pages dynamically adding a stimulating element to support all the website’s information and statistics.

Visit Website

Dipti Rice

Dipti Rice, known as The King of Rice, supply what they call Pure Aroma Basmati rice. The unique rice is due to the position of the rice fields in the foothills of the Himalayas, meaning the fields are fed with pure sweet mountain water, giving the remarkable effect of purifying the aroma released when cooked.
A WordPress site was create to inform consumers and trade customers about their products and generate further interest in their products.

Visit Website

ERN Global

Banks, merchants, payment processors and consumers generate billions of transactions every day around the world. Only a fraction is used to create value. ERN provide everyone in this payment eco-system the tools to see, manage, analyse and create valuable actionable insights from this ‘big data’ environment.
Milton Bayer created a WordPress that will be developed with further functionality in multiple stages.

Visit Website

Baroque Mayfair

Baroque is an extravagant bar and restaurant situated inside the Playboy Club London in Mayfair.
This small site was not designed by Milton Bayer but we produced a WordPress site from the provided visuals.

Visit Website

The post More Websites Go Live In November appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

MB Launches a Couple of WordPress Sites

Ashley Chant — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 11:03:59 +0000

The digital department have been busy with WordPress sites recently and have launched two in the past few weeks.

www.nichesolutionsgb.co.uk

Nichesolutions are an independent chemical manufacturing company supplying cleaning products to dairies, breweries, bakeries and the hospitality industry throughout the UK.

The new website informs their customers about the product ranges they offer, and has a basket/checkout facility to place orders for the required chemicals.

www.hoban.co.uk

Hoban are a haulage company that specialise in all types of waste transportation and waste disposal. From scheduled UK service contracts, to individual worldwide assignments.

The content managed website promotes all their core services and also advertises available jobs along with trucks and trailers they have for sale.

The post MB Launches a Couple of WordPress Sites appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

Apply With LinkedIn

Ashley Chant — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 18:58:59 +0000

In July LinkedIn launched a new plugin called “Apply With LinkedIn” that allows users to apply for jobs using their LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn feel this could be the future of job applications as it makes applying for jobs on various websites faster, and also enhances the information a company will receive on the applicants. For example after submitting the application the user can view people in their network that are connected to the company and request referrals to increase their chances of getting hired.

We have now worked with Impact Recruitment to implement this on their website and we expect many applicants to start using this new simple method. Its easy to easy add you just need to setup an application on LinkedIn then include a snippet on JavaScript for the button. Full instructions can be found here.

Take a look at it in action on Impact Recruitment (http://www.impactrecruitment.co.uk/jobs) or watch the video below for the LinkedIn demo.

The post Apply With LinkedIn appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.

New SEO Techniques

Milton Bayer — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:00:45 +0000

Search Engine Optimisation is a constantly changing field. Google, arguably the world’s most popular search engine update their search algorithms as the internet develops, using the latest factors available to ensure search results are ranked as accurately as possible. With the rise of social media networks Google+, Facebook and Twitter, there are now new techniques we can use to help improve search engine rankings.

Social Shares

One new factor that Google use when evaluating page content is its weight in the social arena. Individuals and businesses have driven traffic to websites through sharing links across social networks. From Facebook likes to Google +1s and Twitter retweets, Google now use these numbers as indicators of quality content. It is unknown how much value Google attaches to this one factor currently, but it should be expected that their importance to SEO will grow as has the amount of content shared via social networks over the past few years.

Writing engaging content for your target audience will help your chances of seeing your content spread viral, but ensuring your blog articles or pages have clearly visible and attractive social-sharings buttons will help in building up the numbers. Websites such as StumbleUpon and Digg also allow you to broaden your audience and chance of sharing.

Personalised Search

Now that Google have stepped into the social media arena with Google+, currently holding over 90 million users and counting, it was only fitting search results would follow begin to show content shared through this new section of your Google account. An extension to social shares, when logged in to your Google account and making searches, articles shared by friends or pages in your Google circle are given priority over links and domain authority, pushed to the top of search results. News organisations, businesses and individuals with a strong social media following will therefore see their content flourish in these personalised searches – another reason to take notice and make use of social media sooner than later.

Engaging within the Google+ network is now something to consider in your marketing / social network strategy. Using Google+ can help customers find your business faster and easier, increase visibility, as the content you share to those within your circle will be seen both on your page but also in their search results.

Author your posts using Google+

Content creators can benefit further by incorporating their Google+ profile into content Google indexes. Content set up in this way display your Google+ profile image and name alongside the regular Google search result, helping to increase your exposure and build trust in visitors that the content has a human author and is reputable. To set up author links for your content simply follow Google’s guidelines.

The post New SEO Techniques appeared first on The Milton Bayer Blog.