Who wants a new watch?

Apple is poised to enter the wearables market in April with the very highly anticipated Apple Watch. Smart watches aren’t anything new, Samsung has a few, Pebble made a massive impact on the market with their inexpensive and feature packed release, and many other major manufacturers have also released their products. I’ve even seen some dirt cheap one’s on TradeMe. Some are much better than others, but none have really made me want to run out the door with a battered Visa card burning a hole in my pocket. Until…

By now, we all know Apple aren’t always the first to market with new platforms or technologies. In fact, since Steve’s passing, it almost seems like they sit back and wait to see what trends take hold before getting involved themselves. Their Watch is no different. Set for release in April, the Apple Watch does step up the benchmark though offering some quirky and cool features and potentially opening a whole new platform for App developers. In fact, at Topcatt, we’re toying with building apps for the Watch already!

While it still doesn’t yet replace the need for you to carry an iPhone around, it does go a long way to allowing you to leave it in your handbag or suitcase more and more, with much of the core day to day communication functions of your phone built into the watch. Given we only use our phones to make phone calls 12% of the time we are using it, the watch really does go a long way in removing the need for the phone. It also opens up a whole new way of communicating and we could see ourselves returning to Morse Code (or some kind of modern version of this) and poor stick drawings to communicate again! Find out more about the Watch by WATCHing this video but be prepared to have your mind a little blown! Where is Google Glass then? Oh, still years away!!!

Now, ask yourself, who wants a new watch?

Square in New Zealand! Square in New Zealand! Read all about it…Is Square in New Zealand?!? Yes.

Square is a digital payment provider. A bit like Paypal. In fact, at this stage, they’re the only REAL competitor to PayPal here in New Zealand. There are other VERY interesting alternatives in the States, one that seems to be raising a lot of money and support currently is Stripe, but in New Zealand, it’s either your bank or PayPal – until now.

Square looks the goods to me. They’ve got a very slick POS app that comes FREE with your membership (also FREE). You get a little square device that plugs into your smart phone and you swipe a customers credit card through it and boom…your phone becomes an EFTPOS terminal. Let’s break it down:

Traditional method – Your NZ Bank (ASB, BNZ, etc)

Merchant facility – set up fee ($150)

Merchant Gateway transaction fee – anywhere from 1.6% to 3% depending on the size of your transactions, volume, etc.

Paymark Gateway – a weird 3rd party that only seems to exist here in NZ, why, I don’t know. But they hit you for another $15 per month plus a transaction fee (not always the transaction fee). Paymark, from what I can see is a scapegoat for the banks who don’t want the hassle of managing your digital transactions. They’ve put this other layer in there so if you run into problems, they can say “It’s Paymark” who will then say “It’s your bank” leaving you high and dry – and out of pocket!

Physical EFTPOS terminal – must be rented through yet another third party at a cost of $23 – $150 depending on type, mobility, etc.

Additional charges for different credit cards – such as American Express.

Cost for a license to run a POS system (register).

At the end of the day, you are paying a hell of a lot there to use digital banking through your website and physical store.

And now, the alternative….

Square charges:

2.75% for swiped transactions for ANY credit card.

3.25% + 15c for any manually entered transaction (we call these card not present).

That’s it.

OK it seems a little on the high side, but let’s see what else you get…

FREE:

POS system that runs via a tablet or smartphone – it’s really simple to use and set up. It provides all your reporting needs etc…and it sits in your pocket.

Card swiper – this little gadget turns your smart phone into an EFTPOS terminal. It plugs directly into the headphone jack and away you go. But what about people who have to sign? Yep, they can sign your phone/tablet with their finger and yes, it’s legally binding. In fact, Square builds this into EVERY transaction for added security. It also has a certain cool element right! “Thank-you, please sign here” 🙂

Support – 24/7 online and phone support

There are also additional accessories (like ticket/receipt printers, cash drawers and hand-held, cordless barcode scanners which are available for purchase.

Now the skeptics out there are saying “Yeah, ASB/BNZ also offer a mobile swiping device” and good for them. I’m sure they’re charging like a wounded bull for them also. Do they integrate seamlessly with your POS system? Do they generate digital receipts/invoices for your clients and send them via email automatically? Square’s system is VERY impressive and in my opinion, totally worth it. If you run a restaurant/Cafe, spa/salon, trade, or any business that accepts (or could accept) cash/card on delivery, you should click the link below and find out more.

https://squareup.com/global/en/register

Also, Paypal has a similar offering, but I don’t think its available in NZ at this stage. I’m all for this stuff, anything that can keep the NZ overcharging banks on their toes is all good in my book!

What do you think about Square?

From 1pm, 30 September 2014, ‘second level’ domains like the .co in ‘.co.nz’ and the .org in ‘.org.nz’ will become optional. You’ll be able to get .nz names with them, without them, or both. You may have ‘Preferential Registration Eligibility’. This means you could register or reserve the shorter version of your .nz domain name before it becomes available to anyone else. Find out more.

You can visit www.anyname.co.nz to check the status and availability of your domains. Basically it works like this:

If you own the .co.nz domain, then you have preferential rights to the .nz domain. This is the most common situation for our clients. All we need to do is pre-register your domains (cost is $25/year (plus GST) per domain) and this stops anyone else from getting their mits on it. If you own a different extension to your domain (eg: .net.nz or .org.nz) you have to check the status of the .nz domain at anyname.co.nz. Their might be a conflict process where anyone with a relevant extension can put their case forward to claim the .nz domain. Generally speaking, those with the .co.nz domain will get it but you might as well try.

Come March 2015, the deadline to claim your .nz domain expires and any unclaimed .nz extensions go to the open market. If there’s a domain name you have had your eye on, let us know and we will add it to the list we are keeping. Come March, we’ll try and get as many of the ones on our list as we can automatically (we’ll send you the bill if you’re successful).

Any domain names that haven’t got a .co.nz or similar extension registered, the .nz extension will become available from September 30th on a first in first served basis. Let us know asap if there’s any that you would like us to get for you.

Once you own the .nz extension of your domain (or have bought any others you might like), you get to decide whether or not you want to use it or not. We will be changing this website to www.topcatt.nz for one, but that’s just our preference. We don’t expect it to play an enormous role in SEO (but you never know for sure), but being less to type in, why not! This is also a fantastic opportunity to build a squeeze page or 5 for your keywords. If you don’t yet know what a squeeze page is then you haven’t been watching our blog. Squeeze pages are an excellent way of capturing a page 1 organic listing in Google (or any other search engine) for a keyword. Talk to us now if you would like to improve the visibility of your business – a squeeze page or other SEO technique might be just the thing!

For the month of September, we are wanting to stiumulate a bit of work for our brand new web developer. Luke is quick to talk it up and thinks he’s all that. So we decided to smash him and find out – yep, baptism of fire! Looking for a basic website or want to rebuild your small business website? Luke also loves to build a one-page website (awesome for mobile phones) like this one so its a really good time to talk to us about getting mobile!

This offer is for a strictly limited time and conditions apply. Give us a call on 0224 867 228 or use the form below to get in touch and take advantage of this offer.

Transition your website to our secure, reliable and lightening-fast NZ based servers and we’ll give you 3 months FREE on your first 12 month plan. We will also transition your website across without any hassles or any need for you to do anything. Let our expert server tech’s put your concerns behind you and enjoy state-of-the-art hosting service with Auckland’s leading boutique Digital Agency.

Click here to learn more about our hosting solutions.

Multi channel Marketing – or as we like to call it, Topcatt 360 Digital

Multi channel marketing is the process of reaching the right person with the right offer through the right channel at the right time. It refers to the practice of interacting with customers using a combination of indirect and direct communication channels – websites, retail stores, mail order catalogs, direct mail, email, mobile, etc. – and enabling customers to take action in response – preferably to buy your product or service – using the channel of their choice. In the most simplistic terms, multichannel marketing is all about choice.

The importance of multi channel marketing

Multi channel marketing is important for the simple reason that you must be where your customers are. And they are everywhere. If you need another reason, consider this: Multi channel customers spend three to four times more than single-channel customers do.

There’s no doubt that customers today have much more control over the buying process than marketers do. Thanks to the proliferation of available channels, customers have more choices than ever when it comes to how they want to get information.

Today there are more ways to reach customers – both in terms of number and variety of channels – than we could have imagined not so long ago. And as the number of channels continues to rise – and it will – the need to embrace multichannel marketing will become not only a good idea, but a critical one.

Challenges

• Targeted messaging. Thanks to the plethora of channels and choices facing customers, delivering the right message to the right audience isn’t enough. Not only must your customers receive your message, but they also must be attentive, receptive and willing to act – regardless of the channel.
• Highly choreographed campaigns. Expecting customers to change channel or device preferences is unrealistic. As a result, marketers must constantly develop and coordinate highly orchestrated touch points and micro-campaigns that span multiple channels fluidly, in a way that the customer finds meaningful and trustworthy.
• Marketing response attribution. It is increasingly difficult to know which channels, campaigns or sequence of touch points contributed to qualified conversions and sales. Knowing what triggered each response would enable marketers to assess whether or not their marketing efforts were getting the best results.

Three steps to getting it right

So what does it take to do multichannel marketing right? Here are three keys to success:

1. Create and maintain a single view of the customer across all channels.
2. Establish a multichannel marketing platform.
3. Create consistent customer experiences across all channels.

Create and maintain a single view of the customer

Having a single view of the customer is critical. That’s because today’s customers often interact with your brand in a variety of ways that involve more than one touch point. It is vital that you understand how your customers behave across all channels, at each and every touch point, and that you also understand each customer’s value to you.

To get that single customer view, it may help to establish a centralised marketing data mart that consolidates all customer data in one place regardless of source. When creating and maintaining a single view of the customer, keep these points in mind:

• Having a lot of customer data is not the same as having a single view of the customer. It’s not just the data itself that is important; it’s what you do with it.
• Your customer view must evolve. Customers change. Businesses change. Your customer view must change along with them. That means bringing in new data, refreshing old data, building new models, updating old ones, etc.

Establish a multichannel marketing platform

You may have heard the saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The concept certainly applies to marketing, and that’s why it’s so important to establish a multichannel marketing platform. And by “multichannel marketing platform,” we mean one that includes processes and technology to support:

• Campaign management, including capabilities for segmentation, workflow creation and campaign execution.
• Advanced analytics, including predictive analytics and campaign optimisation.
• Advanced execution, including capabilities for content management, event triggering, real-time decision making and next-best-offer management for both inbound and outbound marketing programs.
• Response attribution, including the ability to perform marketing mix optimisation, scenario planning and marketing attribution analysis.
• Digital marketing, including capabilities that expand marketing beyond traditional channels to newer channels, including the Web, email, mobile, video, etc.

By establishing a multichannel marketing platform, you will be able to integrate traditional and emerging channels. You will also greatly simplify the creation and execution of cross-channel campaigns by enabling marketers to create, in essence, a single campaign that can be replicated across various channels. And all this puts the holy grail of marketing within your grasp – reaching the right person with the right offer through the right channel at the right time, while reducing costs and improving the effectiveness and performance of your marketing efforts.

Create consistent customer experiences across all channels

Customer experience is one of the most powerful competitive differentiators. And while the quality of the customer experience is important, consistency is equally important. That’s because your customers experience your brand as a whole, whether their interactions with you are online, in a store, over the phone, or some combination of these. What value is there in a positive online experience if a customer’s in-store experience is negative? If you treat each channel as a distinct entity, you run the risk of turning customers against you if you fail to deliver consistency.

Topcatt 360 Digital Members enjoy multi channel marketing handled expertly every day of the year for a simple, affordable, monthly fee. If you are wanting to take your products or services to a broader audience, why not get in touch with us and find out how Topcatt 360 Digital can do this for you in a sensible, affordable way. It’s free to chat about your goals and our expertise!

Since humble beginnings in the late 90’s, Social Media has grown to become arguably the most prominent aspect of the current internet. This blog entry isn’t going to document the evolution from way back then, but addresses the current status of different platforms, and what’s likely to come next here in New Zealand. If you are looking for a comprehensive overview of the chronological history of Social Media, this is a good read. Social Media is one of the areas of expertise for the Topcatt team and our Topcatt 360 Digital members enjoy having their Social Media marketing handled by us, expertly. Click here to learn more about how Topcatt 360 Digital can manage your Social Media strategy.

Currently the main vehicle for Social Media interaction in NZ is Facebook. In fact, it could be argued that Facebook is the ONLY platform in use here in NZ. Most clients and people I ask associate the term Social Media and Facebook as one in the same. It never ceases to amaze me the lost opportunities other platforms offer and the potential market many kiwi businesses are missing. Given our limited population, anyone with an online store should be focused on international markets. To do this, it’s about selecting the most appropriate tool for the type of business you are in. One example of this is people in the building/renovation industry, wedding or fashion who don’t currently use Pinterest.

One of the first Social Media platforms to find true popularity was MySpace. Primarily using the vehicle of music, MySpace launched the careers of people like Lily Allen and quickly became the must have vehicle for anyone with or wanting a career in the music game. The competition was on to see who could get the most plays on any given day! On the back of MySpace, came Facebook. In it’s infancy, the mighty FB was designed as a social platform for Harvard Uni students to interact. It’s now pretty common knowledge that the addition of the two words that made Mark Zuckerberg one of the richest men alive soon catapulted FB into the stratosphere. The two words were ‘its complicated’. Since Facebook became a global success, we’ve seen a lot of other platforms enjoy various levels of success. Some of the more notable are LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and most interestingly Google+ (which started life as a terrible platform called Orkut).

As you might have guessed from the image, my prediction is Google+ will become the most important Social Media platform for businesses and users in the future. For those of you who have an android phone and a Google Account, you are probably already familiar with GoogleNow which gives you some indication of the value of G+. If I’m speaking another language to you at this time, perhaps you should get in touch!

Given the fact that EVERYONE has a Facebook page, FB will always be there, but those who know where the current trends in search are and appreciate the encompassing offering from Google, understand the value of Google+. G+ is currently outgrowing FB in terms of new memberships and in the US enjoys a massive number of users. This trend is slowly starting to filter down to NZ, so its a very good time to jump ahead of the bell-curve and get your business on Google+ today. In fact, many of you are already on G+ even if you aren’t aware! If you have a GMAIL account, you also have a G+ page. If you don’t have a Gmail account, this is how you get a G+ page. Simply join or login to Gmail and click the link in the top right corner of your browser that will read +yourusername. This will take you to your page where you can get it up and running.

Next month we’ll talk about the reasons why Google+ is so important. If you would like to know more about the role G+ has in your business today and into the future, please contact us and we can get together and talk this through.

To create a Facebook Shop or Store on your Facebook page is simple enough. There are a number of ways of doing this and it’s been around for a couple of years or so now. It’s interesting that there still aren’t a lot of Facebook shops yet, especially in New Zealand. Perhaps this is simply because many people don’t yet know about this functionality, or perhaps its because people don’t really associate Facebook with purchasing products. You might investigate a company, like and follow their conversations and interact with them on Facebook, but you are still most likely to visit their online shop or go into a physical store to buy. What do you think?

Here’s a story I found online regarding setting up a Facebook Store and some of the plugins/apps you can use for this. For those with WordPress or Shopify eCommerce stores, I would recommend Storefront. It seems Payvment (owned by Ecwid) is the cheapest way to do it and Ecwid’  premier app looks to be the most sophisticated of them all – so if you think selling through Facebook is the way forward for your business and you don’t already have a online store, go with Ecwid.

With more than 500 million active users on Facebook, there are more potential customers using Facebook than there are logging into eBay and Amazon combined.

Most of these users don’t see the site as a purchasing platform, but more and more businesses are adding an option to use the social networking site to browse and buy their products. These four Facebook apps offer flexible options for adding a storefront to your business page.

1. Payvment

Free beta app Payvment (now acquired by Ecwid) allows you to handle your entire e-commerce operation through Facebook. The app allows you to accept credit card and PayPal payments, which are credited to your PayPal account. You can customize charges for shipping and choose whether to charge sales tax.

Unless you disable the option, your products will also appear in searches people make on other Payvment storefronts when they choose to search “all of Facebook.”

Other helpful features include selling multiple quantities of an item from one listing, give discounts to customers who like your page and adding options like sizes or colors to item listings.

Store owners have access to their selling histories and order statuses, and they are able to send messages to buyers through the app. Implementing Payvment’s instant payment notification can help keep on top of orders as they’re made.

2. Storefront Social

Storefont Social creates a tab on your business’s Facebook page that allows you to showcase items in your online store. Some templates include options to tweet or share specific items, and shoppers can search by customizable categories or with a search bar. In order to set the store up, you need to install the Storefront Social app. The basic package costs $9.95 per month.

You cannot use the store as your sole storefront because there is no way to complete a transaction using the platform. Rather, people who wish to buy your products are directed to the product URL that you provide.

If you are a seller on eBay or Amazon, you could link to your listings on those sites, as well.

3. BigCommerce SocialShop

Like Storefront Social, BigCommerce SocialShop doesn’t allow transactions. Rather, it directs users interested in products to an online store — in this case, a BigCommerce online store — and allows them to share their products on their walls.

Because BigCommerce is a full e-commerce platform, it’s a more extensive Facebook storefront tab option. At $24.99 per month for the most basic package, it’s also the most expensive.

4. Ecwid

E-commerce site builder Ecwid also has a Facebook storefront option, but unlike BigCommerce SocialShop, the app allows customers to drag and drop products into a shopping bag and check out without leaving Facebook. You can integrate the same store on your website, MySpace profile, LinkedIn profile, or Tumblr by copying and pasting a widget code.

Basic accounts are free, but selling more than 100 items will cost you $17 per month.

How to structure a news story for SEO is a common question or conversation we have with our clients. Many clients use their news items (or blog) to update their readers on exciting things and interesting articles. If you are using WordPress (all our clients are) then a simple process will increase the visibility of your news story to Google. Here’s how it works:

Report on Structure of a news Story for SEO

Here’s a report we ran recently for one of our valued clients to review a single post on their website in terms of SEO for the keyword they were targeting. It will help you understand what Google is looking for when determining who gets to the top and where we were able to improve this single page to make it rank better.

You can see from this report (not complete for privacy reasons) that there is quite a lot that helps to structure a news story for SEO. When writing your content (if you aren’t a Topcatt 360 Digital Member – as members don’t need to worry themselves with this) it will pay major dividends to consider how to structure a news story for SEO. Pay careful attention to the title, the headings, the use of capitalisation, the use of keywords throughout, attaching images and creating outbound and internal links. All these things will help you create a higher ranking news story.

Incidentally, you might want to review this news story for an example of how to structure a news story for SEO.

This article is optimised for a long-tail keyword search “How to structure a news story for SEO”. Try searching for this in Google and let me know how we went!