Speed is by far the most critical metric to consider when re-designing an enterprise website – it won’t matter how beautiful your new site looks if nobody is going wait an extra millisecond for your homepage to load. In addition to providing a fast loading, responsive user experience – speed has a direct impact on your ability to optimize higher user engagement, conversion rates and SEO rankings – all of which drive better brand and marketing performance.

One of the primary signals Google’s algorithm uses to rank performance is site speed – but by extension it is really page speed that Google is measuring. According to Moz, page speed can be described as either “page load time” (the time it takes to fully display the content on a specific page) or “time to first byte” (how long it takes for your browser to receive the first byte of information from the web server).

Page speed is also vitally important to user experience – pages with longer load times tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page that result in an immediate negative impact on conversions. According to Google, 53% of users will abandon a site or web page if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds. This also has a direct impact on search rankings – with less than half a second separating the first and third pages of Google search results.

So how do you measure site speed? Google introduced its own web-based tool, accessible via Google Labs, called Page Speed Online. It’s available as a web-based tool as well as a Chrome extension. With it, you can quickly get an overview of high priority, medium and low priority fixes that can help increase your page speed.

Here are the top 5 for your digital agency implement to add instant horsepower right out of the gate:

  1. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Technology – AMP is a new open framework built entirely out of existing web technologies to dramatically improve the performance of the mobile web by enabling code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can load instantaneously —no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device you’re using. With Google splitting its index into separate versions for mobile and desktop – the time has finally come to start prioritizing mobile
  2. Wrangle Your Javascript and Stylesheets – Have your scripts and CSS load in external files instead of cramping up each and every web page. This way, only the browser has to load the files one time, rather than every time someone visits each page of your site. Ideally, put your external CSS in the portion of your site, and your external Javascript file as close to the tag as possible. As a result, the browser isn’t bogged down wading through all those requests for external files right from the start. The only time you won’t want to do this is if the Javascript needs to load near the top of the page – such as to display a name or load up an image carousel.
  3. Optimize Your Images – In Photoshop or Fireworks, you can use the “Save for Web” option to drastically reduce image size. An image quality slider lets you see the visual trade-offs between graphic file size and crispness. Also – don’t rely on HTML to resize Images – while HTML makes it easy to create a smaller version of a larger graphic it doesn’t mean it’s taking up any less room on the server. The browser still has to go through the process of loading the entire image, checking the width and height you want and then resizing it accordingly.
  4. Use GZIP compression – You’ll want to ask your web host if they use GZIP compression and deflation on their servers. These are two techniques that can significantly speed up a site, reducing file size by as much as 70% without degrading the quality of the images, video or the site itself.
  5. Caching – Many content management systems now have plugins that will cache the latest version of your pages and display it to your users so that the browser isn’t forced to go back and dynamically generate that page every single time. Plugins like WP Super Cache can take a serious bite out of page load times.

You can also look beyond your website itself and consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that serves up pages depending on where the user is located. Faster access to a server near their geographical area translates into faster load times.

While speed is the most critical metric of any re-design effort – it’s not the only metric. Working with a smart digital agency to define KPIs for the re-design of your next generation website will significantly improve performance metrics across your digital marketing ecosystem right out of the gate.

Go the need for speed?  Contact us

 

Top digital marketing agencies are quickly learning that mobile retargeting is now a key element in any successful campaign. But moving our clients to this strategy is not always an easy sell, as the many challenges that mobile presents can be intimidating. In spite of the roadblocks, mobile retargeting can increase reach and engagement far beyond other channels. Here are Bluetext’s six top tips for getting started with a mobile strategy:

  1. Unsure on how to reach target audiences on their mobile devices? Think social media platforms. Today’s target audiences are more likely to browse their social media apps on their mobile than search websites. Take advantage of the tools that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter offer for their ad campaigns.
  2.  Want to increase mobile traffic to your site? Optimize your website for mobile to fully take advantage of this platform. That means a design that is responsive for all devices, and features simple and concise headlines, titles and other text. More importantly, make sure that images are sufficiently compressed, reduce the number of redirects (nobody wants to wait for a new screen to load), and minimize code to maintain a high-performing experience.
  3. Not sure how to design for mobile? Think like a visitor to your brand would, accessing your site via a mobile device. That means simplified designs and copy, but also calls-to-action that are clear about where the visitor will land if they click on that button. Viewers don’t want to leave the screen they are on unless they know there they are going.
  4. Need to improve your reach on mobile? Safari is the leading browser for mobile devices, but leveraging Apple’s tool is not so easy. One simple trick: Make sure you are enabling Safari, which typically blocks third-party cookies in its default setting. Find a provider that is skilled at accessing Safari’s massive number of users.
  5. Still not seeing the conversions you expect? It could be your landing page. Try to simplify the actions on the landing page to make sure there is no confusion or abandonment from that conversion point.
  6. Want to get hyper-specific with your targeting? Try geo-fencing for conferences, events, shows and other gatherings of target audiences. Sophisticated new geo-locating tools allow geo-fencing to specific blocks around convention centers, hotels and other venues. Serving ads at the right time and place can pay big rewards.

Any marketing campaign can be much more effective with a mobile component, as long as it’s well-executed.

If you want to learn more or need help with your campaigns, Bluetext can help.

It’s almost January again, already! With 2017 almost behind us, amidst the holiday cheer and eggnog, it’s also time to reflect on 2017. It goes without saying that today, changes in digital marketing happen within the blink of an eye. There’s simply no better strategy for your business than a continual adaptation; the years of resting your laurels with time-tested methods are long gone. What works best with digital simply changes too fast, and nothing is really stable.

With that in mind, we know how busy you are this time of year, so we’ve gotten together and brainstormed what we believed to be a list of the most important digital marketing trends for 2018. It’s a big list, but we’ve narrowed it down to just a top four. We invite you to take a look — if only to just keep up with the ever changing modern media environment.

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Rapid response is a core component of Bluetext’s public relations services. We focus on having messages and media targets teed up when there is an opportunity for our clients to contribute expertise to breaking news events, whether it is a cyber attack, tech policy development, or in this case the horrific wildfires raging across Southern California. As the leading Emergency Mass Notification Services (EMNS) provider, Bluetext positioned client OnSolve’s CEO to speak about the challenge local officials face to alert citizens when wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters hit; ways for citizens to stay safe; and innovative new capabilities available through providers like OnSolve. Multiple interviews were arranged for OnSolve, including this live segment with The Weather Channel.

Need help with driving better PR results?  Bluetext can help!

Whether you work with B2B Marketing Agencies, B2C Digital Agencies, or the any of the Top North America Agencies, 2018 will drive more innovation and change. Here are my predictions of what top brands, challenger brands, and startup brands should expect.

1. Don’t Call it A Comeback, Twitter

Somehow Twitter will make a comeback…or completely die. Twitter has owned the short form text / new wave of communication, and it has dominated sports, entertainment, and politics. But can they make it relevant to marketers? To survive they need to focus on delivering a strong API backbone that makes it a utility to the world.

Prediction: Top marketing agencies will channel more of their clients’ paid media dollars to digital media other than Twitter.

2. Snap Has The Power

A great re-branding from SnapChat. Owning the brand SNAP, “just snap it”, will be the new “just google it.”  Like everything else, they must innovate or be merely a short-lived flavor of the day.

Prediction: As SNAP goes public the amount of advertising products will be innovative and robust. Top digital agencies will enjoy great success with SNAPs portfolio of targeting offerings and creative opportunities. SNAPs demise will come from an oversaturation of monetization that drives users away like Myspace, Tumblr, Twitter, Bebo, and many more social platforms before them.

3. Take It Personal, Or Else

The power of personalization will be so compelling and plug-and-play that everything digital will incorporate it. Delivering your personalized DNA via mobile to other media will work seamlessly.

Prediction: Top digital branding agencies will not be the only firms that are installing sophisticated personalization technology into their clients’ digital platforms. Personalization offerings will be robust and simple to integrate and configure. Costs will come down, everyone will implement them and a personalization optimization role will emerge with every digital agency team you hire.

4. Jump into Kris Cross-Device Marketing – and Quickly.

As technology matures in 2017, all brands will enjoy cross–device targeting – which is the practice of identifying and delivering a specific audience, across their devices. This omni-channel strategy allows marketers to reach users with consistent messaging across all their screens: desktop, laptop, mobile, tablet, wearable, and TV.

5. Search? Mobile? Social? Display? Content?
ALL OF THE ABOVE

Your personas all digest content from your brand and your influencers across many different channels.

Prediction: Media budgets will get more and more fragmented as brands try to drive omni-channel, hyper-personalized campaigns.

What’s your prediction for 2018? Let’s talk about it over coffee or lunch.  Contact me to chat.

When most brands think of a public relations program, they focus on traditional activities, including press release and announcements, customer case studies and industry trends, and pitching to reporters for coverage in their next industry pieces. A lesser-used technique for building thought leadership and brand visibility is through submitted bylines with a top company executive as the author.

Many industry publications have shrunk their staff as they scramble to cut costs in the digital world, and as a result, they are hungry for good content from leading commercial company executives, provided that these bylines are interesting and not simply marketing or sales-oriented articles.

One of the advantages is that the brand gets to control every word that is published, and isn’t at the mercy of the reporter or editor to select what they choose to include in the story. Pursuing these types of submitted bylines allows the company to control how its perceived by both its competitors and consumers.

Here are 3 reasons to build your company’s thought leadership through bylines.

Position yourself as an expert.  Garner attention in the industry with media coverage of informed written pieces from your company’s leading experts in the field.  Educate the public on little known issues to gain their trust and simultaneously expose your company name to new groups of consumers.

Identify a problem and the solution.  Although publications typically aren’t interested in articles that read too much likes sales pitches, these thought leadership can be used to indirectly promote your company’s products or services.  Media coverage of your experts place your company as the solution to the identified problem.

Set the stage for a launch.  Leading up to the launch of a product or service, companies want to be in the limelight as much as possible.  Gaining coverage from notable publications in relevant industries places the company and news of its new upcoming launch in the minds of target consumer groups.

When utilized correctly, media coverage of thought leadership pieces can be an invaluable tool.  It becomes an integral component of a company’s content marketing strategy to influence how its seen in its industry and cement its position as a leader in the minds of its consumers.

Looking to boost your public relations results? Contact us.

A few weeks back, I posted a blog about over-used PR terms to avoid. Needless to say, that post generated lots of responses and even a clever email from an old colleague that tried to use all them in one friendly note to me. The list of pr terms to avoid seems to be endless. So many to choose from, so little time.

So, due to popular demand, here are seven more PR terms avoid – to debate, disagree with, eliminate from your online dictionary, but above all else, to please stop using. And as with my previous post, I too am guilty of using some of these terms and will take my own medicine. I also recognize that language is defined by common usage, so that even though some of these terms may not be allowed in the Queen’s English, dictionaries reflect how people actually use words, regardless of the Queen. Nevertheless, I am fighting a last stand to get these words out of the PR world, at least for now.

  • Leverage. This is a tricky one because as a noun, I think it’s perfectly fine. The problem is when it is so frequently used as a verb, its meaning becomes vague and just seems lazy.
  • Impact. I know I’m losing this battle, but the word “impact” is a noun, not a verb or a gerund (ending in “ing”), and certainly not “impactful.” That’s just removing whatever impact it had in the first place.
  • Their. As in, “Bluetext is a cutting-edge digital marketing agency – their work is amazing!” While the sentence may be accurate, it still doesn’t work. Agencies, companies and inanimate objects are “its”, not “theirs.” This is a pet peeve of mine, and I always correct this whenever I see it.
  • Unique, when preceded by “somewhat” or some similar modifier. The word “unique” is binary – something is either unique or it isn’t –  there is nothing in-between.
  • Disruptive. This is a big red flag in a PR pitch or press release. Unless when talking about a student’s behavior in kindergarten, let’s all agree that this is both over-used and not used correctly. We can only look backward to see if a new product or technology was in fact disruptive. Predicting this in advance is wishful thinking.
  • Authentic. I was once guilty of using this word far too often. The idea was that campaigns would resonate better with target audiences through content such as social media and blog posts if they were “authentic” as opposed to “artificial” in their voice.  In fact, everything we do for our clients should be authentic, and pointing this out just undermines its credibility.
  • State-of-the-Art. Doesn’t every client want to describe their product as “state-of-the-art”? Let the product speak for itself. The audience can decide whether it’s new and different or not.

Part 3 of PR terms to avoid will be forthcoming.

Looking for an agency to take your PR results to the next level?  Contact us.

Everywhere you turn people want to talk about content marketing. What platform are you using, what content are you pushing, what channels are you leveraging and what is the right cadence of distribution are all questions content marketers are thinking about every day to position their product one step closer to their prospective consumers. As consumer marketing gets more and more targeted and sophisticated, the right content strategy is a critical element across any marketing plan.

 

If 2015 was about getting your feet wet, 2016 is about creating a strategy and operationalizing it in order to drive real results. But if you read the numbers you will see that while everyone is now doing it, they don’t know if they are being successful or even what success looks like. So here are some recommendations to think about as you are sitting down to determine if you are approaching your content marketing properly:

 

  1. Know your audience. We all think we know our customers, but how much data or research do you really have into their preferences? Do you understand why they have engaged or bought your products in the past and why they may again? Are you analyzing all of the data at your fingertips (Google Analytics, email marketing metrics, social metrics, brand sentiment, premium content downloads. Etc.) Knowing your audience is the most critical first step in launching an effective content marketing strategy to turn prospects into buyers.

 

  1. Know the Journey of Your Buyers. As you move your customers through a traditional funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion, advocacy), what content is most critical at each step to keep them progressing? Is your message resonating with them? Are you materials up to snuff? Are your prospects seeing your product or brand in the most consistent, effective manner across every potential channel?

 

  1. Create and document your plan. Doing content marketing by feel is not smart. Create a plan which outlines your target, your messages, your channels, and your calendar or cadence of activities. Each week when you huddle as a team it is much easier to make sure everyone is doing their assigned roles and progressing the program. Clearly you will want to course correct as your review the metrics, but starting with a solid plan can keep you one step ahead of your prospective customers.

 

  1. Measure, Evaluate and Evolve. The more you look at the numbers, discuss what they mean, and make sure everyone on your team understands the impact of their actions, the better your program will become. A weekly review, even if for 15 minutes, can you a long way to ensure that you don’t get too far off course over the course of a month or quarter.

 

  1. Take some Risks. Sure, everyone will want to use traditional channels (social, web, sponsored, etc.), but moving out of your comfort zone to try a channel where you have not spent time or money in the past can be effective.

 

  1. Combine Paid and Earned Efforts for Content Distribution. The best content in the world will fall flat without distribution to an engaged audience. Unless you are a well-known consumer brand with a large following, leveraging paid channels including social networks and search are critical for an effective program.

 

  1. What She Said. Engage influencers to amplify content marketing efforts. In today’s consumer marketing world the opinion and recommendations of influencers can go a long way and deliver the same impact as a great media article.

 

These recommendations can help you hone your content marketing strategy for 2016. The less prepared you are to succeed, the less your chances for driving real success with content marketing.





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A dynamic logo is a company mark that is malleable and constantly changing while maintaining its overall look and feel.  Logos were once thought of as a permanent visual representation of a company, but in the ever-changing digital world that is no longer the case.  Here is what you need to know about dynamic logos.

Logos are no longer static and evolve with the brand.  The company mark is now transformative and many companies, such as Google, have begun consistently changing the display of their mark.  The challenge is to maintain a consistent visual identity in the logo so the brand is still recognizable to consumers.  This involves certain visuals of the logo to remain locked, while other elements are consistently inconsistent.

Many well-known companies have enlisted the aid of top branding agencies to shift towards dynamic logos, include AOL, MTV, and Seagate.  A step further would be an animated logo that is responsive to the consumer.  One such logo is the mark of Brazilian communications company, Oi.  The company’s type is the fixed visual while splashs of color that shapeshift to the consumer’s voice is infinitely dynamic.  With such a dynamic logo taken to the next level, there are now endless versions of the company’s mark unique to its consumers.

A dynamic logo allows a company to shape the consumer’s experience with its brand.  By using these types of brand logos, companies have the fluidity to customize their mark for any occasion and engage their consumers.

Looking for best in class branding agency services or comprehensive and innovative digital marketing?  Contact us.

 

A logo is a central part of a company’s brand. It’s the first thing customers see, and what they learn to recognize as a short-cut to your brand values.  And it needs to convey a strong message about what you stand for, and how you work with your customers. Choosing the right logo can make a big difference. Refreshing your current logo might be even more crucial.

Here are five reasons why companies refresh their logos:

Hindrances.  As a company evolves and grows, its products and services will change in tangent.  A logo from its past may now risk pigeon-holing and hinder the company’s growth.  A company’s original logo may include words describing its offerings.  As its product and services expand a logo refresh would be needed to accurately represent its growth.

Modernization.  Overtime logo images that were once fashionable can become considerably outdated.  Sleek, minimalistic logos are the trend today and many companies find the need to adjust their logo to appeal to today’s audience and stay relevant in the market.

Renaming.  When a company changes its name, its original logo may no longer be relevant and a logo refresh is due.  This is especially true for companies where their original logo was a literal representation of its original name.

Digitization.  As the world grows increasingly digital companies now need to take into consideration how their logo renders on different screen widths and other mediums on the web.  Old logos did not take responsiveness into consideration and must redesign and refresh to adapt in the digital age.

Acquisitions.  When two companies become one, the company name may change and their logo as well.  An acquisition instantly expands a company’s products or service and their original logo may no longer be an accurate representation of the new company.

Since a company’s logo is such a close depiction of a company, a major change in any area of its business will affect its single most important visual representation.  A logo refresh aligns a company with its core values and ultimately its consumers.

Looking for best in class digital marketing?  Contact us.