In my spare time lately I’ve been catching up on a good dose of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay. If you aren’t familiar with this show or who Gordon Ramsay is, here’s the premise in one sentence: Scottish award-winning celebrity chef rescues failing restaurateurs from bankruptcy with brutal honesty and humorous obscenities.
Aside from his entertaining overuse of the F-bomb, what I’ve found is that Ramsay brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and insight to the table on how to run a business. He himself has been at the head of many self-started restaurant ventures - some successful, some not so successful - and his passion, talent, and wisdom are clearly elements that have led him to become one of the most well-known businessmen in and out of the kitchen.
In Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay applies a number of basic principles to help failing restaurant owners turn their fate around. While the series revolves around the food industry, much of Ramsay’s lessons are applicable to businesses of any nature. Here’s a list of 10 of those lessons that will help you run a more successful business.
I came across this Volkswagen ad tonight starring my music idol John Mayer (who seems to get a mention in every one of my music-related posts). I’m not sure when the ad aired or where it was aired, but it targets car buyers who are also music enthusiasts. And not even regular “I like to listen to music” music enthusiasts, but very specifically “I like to rock out with my guitar” music enthusiasts.
If this ad had aired in Toronto in August, I probably would have taken a second look at VW’s. I too was in the market for a new car at the time, and I am also very much a guitar-playing music enthusiast who may or may not have ever had the urge to plug into my car’s stereo system and rock out on a white backdrop and be cool like JM. But the question is, how many of us are there?
We see car ads targeting audiences as specific as soccer moms, construction workers, and extreme athletes. Are guitar players (or musicians in general… I suppose you could plug in a keyboard too) out of sync (hah! pun was actually not intended) with these audiences, or did the marketers at VW see them as a natural (and profitable) segment of their typical audience?
If anybody has any info on the ad or campaign, please share!
Brought to light by a close friend today, I’ve spent the last 30 minutes or so watching each of the videos from Marie Digby’s YouTube channel. I have no intention to add another post to the blogosphere that testifies to the power of the social media landscape, but I’m a sucker for acoustic music covers so I thought it warranted a mention. The videos not only portray Marie as a talented and beautiful musician, but also captivates me with the fact that you get to see a side of her that you rarely get to see in other “celebrities” - the human one. And I think this is really where musicians (and artists in any other shape or form) are benefiting most from mediums like YouTube.
People these days are more skeptical than ever about everything they consume - music included. But I think that making effective use of social media tools (whether it be Facebook, MySpace, or YouTube, in this case) helps to reassure us that these are real people and not just some staged and over-produced group of pretty faces (if Britney did an a capella YouTube video, she’d surely regain some positive PR). John Mayer’s blog does it, Bathroom Sessions does it, and Marie Digby’s YouTube channel does it (if you don’t believe me, check out her Halloween post).
Where it loses a bit of its magic is when we find out that it’s all part of an elaborate scheme derived by a marketing team’s attempt to leverage the phenomenon described above. But by then you’ve already gone out and bought the Marie Digby CD, told all your friends about it, and wrote about it on your blog.
So there you have it, another post that testifies to the power of YouTube and the social media landscape. (Oops.)
My team and I have been hard at work building our agency’s new site (which explains my lack of posts lately). Just like the evolution of our business cards, the next evolution of our website is a reflection of the growth and maturity of our agency. It’s funny how much can change in a single year, but I think it’s absolutely critical to keep your company’s website up to date and always in line with what you’re trying to achieve. The ironic reality is that most agencies get so caught up in the work they’re doing, that they often neglect their #1 marketing vehicle. I’m guilty of this as well.
If you run an agency (or any company for that matter), you’ll know how commonly your potential clients or customers ask “where can I see some of your past work or learn more about your services?”. That question alone should be reason enough to keep the content on your site up to date. But the content isn’t the only thing to consider when it comes to your agency website. From design to tone to architecture, there’s quite a bit of thought that goes into building something that effectively represents your agency on the internet. Now engulfed by the magic and wonders of this process, I thought I would share with all of you my perspective on the anatomy of an agency website.
Design & Style
The face of your agency lies within the design and style of your website. More importantly, if you’re an interactive agency, this website represents your skill set and everything you’re trying to sell to your visitors. Hell, if you’re in the design industry at all, you can bet that your visitors will have greater expectations from the aesthetics that greet them. Not that visitors will be forgiving of an ugly website - and that’s the thing: sometimes the design and style of your website will say more than your content ever could. You may have the most intriguing and insightful copy in the world, but if it looks like crap, your visitors won’t buy it. Literally.
Consider this:
Is the style of your website consistent with the style of work you produce?
Is it easy for your visitors to find out information about your agency? Usability, usability, usability!
Is your website branded consistently with the rest of your materials? Colors, fonts, look, feel, etc. (More importantly, do you have a brand?)
Voice & Tone
Your website is a communication tool. And when it comes to communicating, it’s not always what you say, but how you say it. Imagine your website as if it were the front desk receptionist in your office. What does she sound like? How does she greet your visitors? This same concept applies to the voice and tone you choose to use to communicate your message to your audience.
Consider this:
Are you a “we” company? Decide whether you will communicate from first person or third person. The perspective you choose dictates how personal you want to get with your visitors.
Is your tone corporate, business casual, casual, or flat-out web 2.0? The fashion in which your content is written speaks again to the relationship you’re offering. A very corporate tone will allude to a more transactional relationship. A casual tone says screw the corporate BS, let’s be pals. You may find your agency’s tone somewhere in between.
Content & Architecture
Okay, now we’re talking about what you’re saying. For the most part, new visitors to an agency site follow a simple pattern when attempting to learn about your agency. Here’s a ranking of the must-haves on your website that also reflects the typical order in which a new visitor browses your agency’s content.
Portfolio It’s no surprise that visitors looking to see what you can offer will first check out what you have already offered to others. Plus, for the visual learners, a portfolio will say more about your capabilities than the copy of your services section will. Which brings me to…
Services
A portfolio is a great way to wet the lips of your visitors. Typically, after seeing what you’ve done for others, they’ll be on the look out for what you actually offer to do. As such, your services page should be prepared to clearly outline everything you can do.
About your company
You may have convinced your visitors that you’ve done great work and that you offer the services they’re looking for, but if you’re a crazy group of axe murderers (as some agencies may be…), then chances are the sales cycle stops there. Tell them a bit about your agency and reassure them that you’re not that crazy group of axe murderers. Or if you are, then try not to mention the murderers part. Or the crazy part.
Contact
If your visitor has made it this far, you’re in good shape. It means they’ve been convinced enough of your agency’s abilities that they’re even considering speaking with you. Make sure the contact options are clearly laid out and as easy as possible for your visitors. The harder it is to contact you, the more reluctant they’ll be to actually do it.
News/Blog
Here are the rules for this section, as I see it: if you have a lot of great news, share it in a news section. If you don’t have news worth mentioning, use a blog instead. If you don’t plan on updating the blog that often, don’t include this section! The use and importance of this section varies across different agencies of different sizes.
These are the basic sections to cover when it comes to the content on your agency website. Many agencies opt to offer extra features as well in hopes of adding value to the user’s visit. Remember folks, value is the keyword.
Consider this:
Does the content you’re offering provide the answer to the questions your visitors would be asking?
What do you want your visitors to do after interacting with the content on your site (i.e. what’s the call-to-action)?
Does your content offer reason for your visitors to come back?
* * *
Remember, I’ve only discussed the main areas of an agency website here. There’s clearly much more to consider when it comes to building out your site. But, if you don’t know where to start, this should give you a nice blueprint for your first few steps. If you’ve already started, I think it’s still important to review some of these points as a checklist just to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
As I write this, my team is still working hard at building the next instance of our online face. Looking back at the current site, I can’t help but see how many things need changing. It suited us a year ago, but so much has changed since then.
In light of this year’s wireless number portability hoopla, I found Fido’s latest approach sort of interesting.
Thank god! I was growing tired of my 7-hour conversations having to be cut off because my phone battery wouldn’t keep up.
Wait, do the phones come with 7 hours of free minutes too?
Isn’t it a bit weird that such a competitive service industry has one major player showcasing their products on the frontline (especially since 7-hour mobile batteries aren’t exactly unique to Fido)? Unless Fido expects wireless consumers to naively rack up their phone bills by making use of their “new-found” 7-hour batter life…
In my spare time lately I’ve been catching up on a good dose of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay. If you aren’t familiar with this show or who Gordon Ramsay is, here’s the premise in one sentence: Scottish award-winning celebrity chef rescues failing restaurateurs from bankruptcy with brutal honesty and humorous obscenities.
