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You are here: Home / Archives for General Posts

General Posts

A Smarter Way to Outsource Your Marketing Activities

Last Updated on January 14, 2019 by Kompani Group Leave a Comment

Since we launched Kompani Group over a decade ago, clients have come to us for a variety of reasons. Some wanted strategic advice on how to navigate a particular set of issues. Some wanted a new website. Some wanted lead generation or SEO support. Many were looking to outsource their marketing department altogether. Over the years, some clients have gotten pretty creative in how they work with us and we thought we’d share with you some of those ideas for how to best leverage a company like Kompani Group.

For Companies With Less Than $100 million In Revenue

The cornerstone of outsourcing: do what you do best and outsource the rest. Companies, especially those under $100 million in revenue, typically have some core competency; they specialize in a particular product/service. They are subject matter experts in their particular field. But, rarely are these companies also experts in what their product/service is not. If this is you, and you are trying to manage everything internally, you are then at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to the other fundamental elements of a business: Branding, Marketing, Information Technology, Operations, Accounting, Strategy, and Business Optimization as a whole. These are all functions that can be sourced out.

[Read more…]

Get Creative with PPC

Last Updated on October 18, 2017 by Adam Olen Leave a Comment

Recently, Google made improvements to its extension capabilities and the ease with which extensions can be managed in the Adwords dashboard.

Call Extensions allow you to display your phone number in your ad. Smartphone users can click to call from their mobile devices. Sitelink Extensions link directly from the ad to specific pages on your website, saving customers from having to click around to find the page they want. Location Extensions allow you to include your business address, phone number and a link to a map reference in your ad. App Extensions provide a link to an app, making it easy for searchers to automatically download the app. With Offer Extensions, you can attach an offer to your ad. A click on the view offer button goes to a Google hosted landing page where the customer can print or save the offer.

With so many PPC options and opportunities, some businesses have figured out ways to be extremely creative on a limited budget. For example, a well known company bid on misspellings of commonly searched terms.

Blasting the Myth of the Fold

Last Updated on May 31, 2018 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

The Above-the-Fold Myth

By Milissa Tarquini Director, User Interface Design and Information Architecture at AOL

We are all well aware that web design is not an easy task. There are many variables to consider, some of them technical, some of them human. The technical considerations of designing for the web can (and do) change quite regularly, but the human variables change at a slower rate. Sometimes the human variables change at such a slow rate that we have a hard time believing that it happens.

This is happening right now in web design. There is an astonishing amount of disbelief that the users of web pages have learned to scroll and that they do so regularly. Holding on to this disbelief – this myth that users won’t scroll to see anything below the fold – is doing everyone a great disservice, most of all our users.
First, a definition: The word “fold” means a great many things, even within the discipline of design. The most common use of the term “fold” is perhaps used in reference to newspaper layout. Because of the physical dimensions of the printed page of a broadsheet newspaper, it is folded. The first page of a newspaper is where the “big” stories of the issue are because it is the best possible placement. Readers have to flip the paper over (or unfold it) to see what else is in the issue, therefore there is a chance that someone will miss it. In web design, the term “fold” means the line beyond which a user must scroll to see more contents of a page (if it exists) after the page displays within their browser. It is also referred to as a “scroll-line.”
Screen performance data and new research indicate that users will scroll to find information and items below the fold. There are established design best practices to ensure that users recognize when a fold exists and that content extends below it1. Yet during requirements gathering for design projects designers are inundated with requests to cram as much information above the fold as possible, which complicates the information design. Why does the myth continue, when we have documented evidence that the fold really doesn’t matter in certain contexts?

Once upon a time, page-level vertical scrolling was not permitted on AOL. Articles, lists and other content that would have to scroll were presented in scrolling text fields or list boxes, which our users easily used. Our pages, which used proprietary technology, were designed to fit inside a client application, and the strictest of guidelines ensured that the application desktop itself did not scroll. The content pages floated in the center of the application interface and were too far removed from the scrollbar location for users to notice if a scrollbar appeared. Even if the page appeared to be cut off, as current best practices dictate, it proved to be such an unusual experience to our users that they assumed that the application was “broken.” We had to instill incredible discipline in all areas of the organization that produced these pages – content creation, design and development – to make sure our content fit on these little pages.

AOL client application with desktop scrollbar activated

As AOL moved away from our proprietary screen technology to an open web experience, we enjoyed the luxury of designing longer (and wider) pages. Remaining sensitive to the issues of scrolling from our history, we developed and employed practices for designing around folds:

  • We chose as target screen resolutions those used by the majority of our users.
  • We identified where the fold would fall in different browsers, and noted the range of pixels that would be in the fold “zone.”
  • We made sure that images and text appeared “broken” or cut off at the fold for the majority of our users (based on common screen resolutions and browsers).
  • We kept the overall page height to no more than 3 screens.

But even given our new larger page sizes, we were still presented with long lists of items to be placed above the fold – lists impossible to accommodate. There were just too many things for the limited amount of vertical space.

For example, for advertising to be considered valuable and saleable, a certain percentage of it must appear above the 1024×768 fold. Branding must be above the fold. Navigation must be above the fold – or at least the beginning of the list of navigational choices. (If the list is well organized and displayed appropriately, scanning the list should help bring users down the page.) Big content (the primary content of the site) should begin above the fold. Some marketing folks believe that the actual number of data points and links above the fold is a strategic differentiator critical to business success. Considering the limited vertical real estate available and the desire for multiple ad units and functionality described above, an open design becomes impossible.

And why? Because people think users don’t scroll. Jakob Nielsen wrote about the growing acceptance and understanding of scrolling in 19972, yet 10 years later we are still hearing that users don’t scroll.

Research debunking this myth is starting to pop up, and a great example of this is the report available on ClickTale.com3. In it, the researchers used their proprietary tracking software to measure the activity of 120,000 pages. Their research gives data on the vertical height of the page and the point to which a user scrolls. In the study, they found that 76% of users scrolled and that a good portion of them scrolled all the way to the bottom, despite the height of the screen. Even the longest of web pages were scrolled to the bottom. One thing the study does not capture is how much time is spent at the bottom of the page, so the argument can be made that users might just scan it and not pay much attention to any content placed there.

This is where things get interesting.

I took a look at performance data for some AOL sites and found that items at the bottom of pages are being widely used. Perhaps the best example of this is the popular celebrity gossip website TMZ.com. The most clicked on item on the TMZhomepage is the link at the very bottom of the page that takes users to the next page. Note that the TMZ homepage is often over 15000 pixels long – which supports the ClickTale research that scrolling behavior is independent of screen height. Users are so engaged in the content of this site that they are following it down the page until they get to the “next page” link.

Maybe it’s not fair to use a celebrity gossip site as an example. After all, we’re not all designing around such tantalizing guilty-pleasure content as the downfall of beautiful people. So, let’s look at some drier content.
For example, take AOL News Daily Pulse. You’ll notice the poll at the bottom of the page – the vote counts are well over 300,000 each. This means that not only did folks scroll over 2000 pixels to the bottom of the page, they actually took the time to answer a poll while they were there. Hundreds of thousands of people taking a poll at the bottom of a page can easily be called a success.

AOL News Daily Pulse with 10×7 fold line and vote count

But, you may argue, these pages are both in blog format. Perhaps blogs encourage scrolling more than other types of pages. I’m not convinced, since blog format is of the “newest content on top” variety, but it may be true. However, looking at pages that are not in blog format, we see the same trend. On the AOL Money & Financehomepage, users find and use the modules for recent quotes and their personalized portfolios even when these modules are placed well beneath the 1024×768 fold.

Another example within AOL Money & Finance is a photo gallery entitled Top Tax Tips. Despite the fact that the gallery is almost 2500 pixels down the page, this gallery generates between 200,000 and 400,000 page views depending on promotion of the Taxes page.

It is clear that where a given item falls in relation to the fold is becoming less important. Users are scrolling to see what they want, and finding it. The key is the content – if it is compelling, users will follow where it leads.

When does the fold matter?

The most basic rule of thumb is that for every site the user should be able to understand what your site is about by the information presented to them above the fold. If they have to scroll to even discover what the site is, its success is unlikely.

Functionality that is essential to business strategy should remain (or at least begin) above the fold. For example, if your business success is dependent on users finding a particular thing (movie theaters, for example) then the widget to allow that action should certainly be above the fold.

Screen height and folds matter for applications, especially rapid-fire applications where users input variables and change the display of information. The input and output should be in very close proximity. Getting stock quotes is an example: a user may want to get four or five quotes in sequence, so it is imperative that the input field and the basic quote information display remain above the fold for each symbol entered. Imagine the frustration at having to scroll to find the input field for each quote you wanted.

Where IS the fold?

Here is perhaps the biggest problem of all. The design method of cutting-off images or text only works if you know where the fold is. There is a lot of information out there about how dispersed the location of fold line actually is. Again, a very clear picture of this problem is shown on ClickTale. In the same study of page scrolling, fold locations of viewed screens were captured, based on screen resolution and browser used. It’s a sad, sad thing, but the single highest concentration of fold location (at around 600 pixels) for users accounted for less than 10% of the distribution. This pixel-height corresponds with a screen resolution of 1024×768. Browser applications take away varying amounts of vertical real estate for their interfaces (toolbars, address fields, etc). Each browser has a slightly different size, so not all visitors running a resolution of 1024×768 will have a fold that appears in the same spot. In the ClickTale study, the three highest fold locations were 570, 590 and 600 pixels—apparently from different browsers running on 1024×768 screens. But the overall distribution of fold locations for the entire study was so varied that even these three sizes together only account for less than 26% of visits. What does all this mean? If you pick one pixel location on which to base the location of the fold when designing your screens, the best-case scenario is that you’ll get the fold line exactly right for only 10% of your visitors.

So what do we do now?

Stop worrying about the fold. Don’t throw your best practices out the window, but stop cramming stuff above a certain pixel point. You’re not helping anyone. Open up your designs and give your users some visual breathing room. If your content is compelling enough your users will read it to the end.

Advertisers currently want their ads above the fold, and it will be a while before that tide turns. But it’s very clear that the rest of the page can be just as valuable – perhaps more valuable – to contextual advertising. Personally, I’d want my ad to be right at the bottom of the TMZpage, forget the top.

The biggest lesson to be learned here is that if you use visual cues (such as cut-off images and text) and compelling content, users will scroll to see all of it. The next great frontier in web page design has to be bottom of the page. You’ve done your job and the user scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page because they were so engaged with your content. Now what? Is a footer really all we can offer them? If we know we’ve got them there, why not give them something to do next? Something contextual, a natural next step in your site, or something with which to interact (such as a poll) would be welcome and, most importantly, used.

Click here for full article on boxesandarrows.com May 2011 Issue

 

Launch & Learn

Last Updated on October 18, 2017 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

Building a successful small business is about making the fewest mistakes

One of the principles of new media and marketing is a strategy called “Launch and learn.”  This method is used to quickly launch products, websites and marketing campaigns to establish brand loyalty and customer communication before the product or website has actually reached perfection. Launching campaigns and websites sooner rather than later allows for consumer response to show you what works, and what doesn’t.  Setting up metrics such as open rates, conversion rates and analytics allows you to inexpensively launch several initiatives at the same time using different vehicles to reach end users.   After analyzing the results you can then allocate monies and resources to what works the best. If you are involved in e-commerce, the numbers will always tell the truth.

Another basic tenet of strategic marketing and planning is transparency.  When promoting products or services, it is absolutely imperative to clearly articulate what it is you are offering.  We believe in advertising as a tool to provide the information necessary for consumers to make intelligent choices.  People want the facts and the research behind a product before making purchases, whereas 5-10 years ago a spectacular image of a product or the promise of a feeling the product or service might provide, was enough to sell it.  Promoting marketing integrity from the start provides a strong foundation by building customer loyalty and satisfaction and also helps the “launch and learn” technique  distinguish between product and delivery feedback and a lack of solid information provided to the consumer.  When testing initiatives, the less variables involved the better.

Its okay to make mistakes, and every new business should be prepared to make them.  By setting up metrics you can launch initiatives and analytics to see what works, and what doesn’t.  The key is to make the fewest mistakes possible in terms of time and money. Because each product will take a different marketing approach, there is no way to know exactly what will work best without first testing the waters. Steer clear of any marketing firm that claims to have a successful marketing approach upfront for your product or service, because this may end up costing you more than just money in the long run. If you would like to learn more, please contact Kompani Group at (786) 594-0435 for a free consultation.

 

Apple tops the list of the most valuable brand with an estimated brand value of 153 Billion dollars

Last Updated on April 5, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

The value of a strong brand is indisputable and often accounts for at least 50 percent of the total market valuation

While being remembered is essential, it is becoming harder every day. A strong brand stands out in a densely crowded marketplace. Translating the brand into action has become an employee mantra.  There is substantial evidence that companies whose employees understand and embrace the  brand are more successful.  What began as corporate culture under the auspices of human resources is fast becoming branding, and the marketing department runs the show.

Click Here To See Interesting Commentary From Cristiana Pearson at Millward Brown

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER – and a Great Way to Differentiate Your Business

Last Updated on April 5, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

At Kompani Group we believe in empowerment.  Whether it is our clients or our own team, we view it the same way. We always strive to arm all of our stakeholders with the best tools and the best information.  As B2B marketing evolves at break-neck speed it becomes increasingly evident that CMO’s are buying into this philosophy.  The game is not about jazzy ads, but about delivering meaningful information to the marketplace.  Our good friends at Desantis Breindel have written a spot-on white paper on this topic.  In keeping with their philosophy that “content is the gift that keeps on giving,” we are sharing it with you.

Give them a visit at www.desantisbreindel.com and follow them on Twitter

Advertising Meets Venture Capital

Last Updated on April 5, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

With a front row seat to view the emergence of some of today’s best ideas, ad agencies are capitalizing on ground floor opportunities by launching internal funds to invest in emerging brands.  Entrepreneurs with great ideas, but little knowledge of reaching their market, are finding this as a valuable way to engage the expertise of the agencies while making them stakeholders rather than merely vendors.    AdAge has their finger on the pulse of this emerging trend. Please take the time to view their recent article — we loved it!

Click Here to Read the Full Article

Communicate or Die

Last Updated on September 26, 2017 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

Most people have a difficult time writing content for their websites, let alone email blasts. The easiest and simplest way to get your word on the email wire is to create a digest of your website’s content. Content? Yes… Blog posts. Wait a minute, he said blog posts. Yes ladies and gentleman, you work tirelessly to do a great job for your clients and run a ship shape company. We can hear you say, “I don’t have time for to write blog posts.” Many people try writing to their blog, then stop. The common thought is that the effort does not equate to $$$$. Below are some indirect ways that writing to your website will help with your business.

  • It makes you a thought leader, a knowledge powerhouse, with the potential of being perceived a leader in your field.
  • It shows the rest of the world that your doors are open for business. Imagine going into a store and all their products are covered with dust. That’s how it looks when you have a blog post or news item dated 2007!
  • Allow search engines to get more link juice by finding relevant content and associate that content to your business.

If you commit yourself to write at least one blog post a week.  You will have 4 great articles to post in your newsletter. It’s that easy.  Aim high, even if you only write two posts, that’s great content for your newsletter.

When you are ready to send your blast. Get a small excerpt from each post, the title and a read more link pointing to your single blog post.

Here are all the milestones you reached:

  1. This exercise keeps your website current.
  2. Not only will you get traffic from the search engines, but the newsletter will remind your prospects and contacts about your existence.
  3. If some of your blog posts are helpful tips (like this one) you pay it forward.
  4. And finally, the most effective e marketing systems will provide you with an abundance of intelligence and analytics about who actually read your newsletter, who they forwarded it to and what they clicked on in the newsletter.

Like greatest showman on Earth, P.T. Barnum, who turned 200 years on July 5th 2010, always used to say: “What happens when you stop promoting ………absolutely nothing”

Invest your money where R&D in new corporate management techniques are being developed

Last Updated on March 20, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

Re-Tooling the Corporate Structure of Management
Market forces are at work as the traditional corporate structure of management is being reviewed and re tooled in an ever changing environment. Over the last few years many corporate management structures have been compared to the U.S. Government – a large bureaucratic mess that is not in touch with reality.

Today with the increasing size of most large corporations it’s become more difficult for them to evolve and take risk when it comes to incorporating new technologies and ideas into their corporate management structure. No one wants to rock the boat. Change can be scary, cost money, and might not work. On the flip side change can still be scary, save a company lots of money, and can open doors that lead to new products or services.

We encourage companies to set aside a portion of money to be invested in small businesses in all kinds of sectors. The amount of money invested in each business can be as little as $20,000. We consider it R&D for management. Just one breakthrough from a company you invested in links you to a new solution to make your corporate management structure more efficient and profitable. Additionally, being on the ground floor provides a first mover advantage as you take this new concept out to market.

Kompani Group believes companies must be flexible by allowing new ideas and solutions that are not the norm to be introduced into the corporate structure. It can be uncomfortable at times but when you’re too comfortable with status quo you’re probably not growing and someone else is going to sneak up behind you and then leave you in the dust.

Chilean business incubators in the house…

Last Updated on April 5, 2019 by Jan Havmoeller Leave a Comment

The complementary nature of non-profit business incubators and for-profit incubators became quite apparent during our meeting with 5 Chilean government sponsored business incubators.

On May 16-19, 2010 the National Business Incubator Association, NBIA, celebrated its first 25 years by organizing the International Conference on Business Incubation in Orlando, Florida.   Amongst the more than 500 business incubators from all over the globe were 5 Chilean business incubators who all decided to visit Kompani Group to explore synergies between their non-profit incubator outfits and a for-profit business and strategy incubator like Kompani Group. The explorations trip for the 5 Chilean business incubators was funded by the Chilean Development Minister, and included Mr. Eduardo Aranda M from Gerente Incubadora de Negocios in Santiago, Mr. Etienne Choupay Magna from Pontificia Universidad Catolica De Valparaiso, Mr. Diego Gonza’lez Carvallo from Austral Incuba – Universidad Austral de Chile, Mr. Enrique Roma’n Gonza’lez from Penanova Incubadora De Negocios and finally Alvaro Bustos Torrebalance of SantiagoInnova.

For more information about the NBIA and this year’s International Conference on Business Incubation please visit http://www.nbia.org/events/conf2010/index.php , this year’s conference host University of Central Florida’s business incubation program at www.incubator.ucf.edu , or visit this year’s title sponsor Florida high tech Corridor Council www.floridahightech.com

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