ThinkProspect is closed for the Christmas/New Year break from Wednesday 24 December 2008 and will re-open Monday 5 January 2009. Our one New Years resolution in relation to this blog is that there’ll be plenty more blogging going on. Till then have a safe and happy holiday and see you in 2009!
Up until recently, the main driver license and car registration body in Victoria, Vicroads, had a fantastic web-based tool you could use on your mobile phone, which showed the traffic conditions of Melbourne’s major freeways. It was a simple, small tool that comprised of a graphical map showing the freeways in green if traffic was light, which went to red if traffic was heavy.
It was so simple, it worked on most 3G mobile phones that had a web browser. Most of my family and friends came to rely on it. You head out and you check how heavy the traffic is.
However it seems Vicroads, perhaps impressed by the high traffic their baby was receiving, decided to give it an upgrade. A major upgrade. An upgrade so severe, that the only place the “application” now runs is on a desktop computer. I’m taking frames in frames in iframes with enough Javascript to start Web 3.0. It goes without saying that their great little tool is no longer usable on a mobile phone.
In total, the application comprises of 9 html files, 17 Javascript files, 47 images and 2 CSS files, for a whopping total of 587Kb loaded in one hit.
Don’t get me wrong, on the desktop this is a great application, but I can only assume that the managers at Vicroads who are responsible for this didn’t for one moment even consider who their users were, or what their application was being used for.
Do you?
There are many ways to promote your products online, engage with your audience and collect information about them. A fantastic example is the How Do You Like Your Vegemite promotion currently being run in Australia.
Vegemite, if you don’t already know, is an Aussie institution that no one outside of Australia seems to get. It’s a concentrated yeast extract that Australians can’t get enough of. Eating it is almost a religious experience.
As we all seem to eat it differently, Kraft have run with that by creating the first ever Vegemite Census, and asking people how they eat their Vegemite. They collect profile information and offer participants the chance to subscribe to forums to discuss Vegemite.
I love it! And I am a cynical old marketer. The thing is Aussies are passionate about their Vegemite and Kraft have turned this into a great way to engage with their customers and collect data about them.
Are you doing all you can to engage with your customers? Perhaps it’s time to think outside the box and look at ways of encouraging your customers to participate in a conversation with you.
With Nielsen NetRatings figures showing Google Search is used by 9.3 million Australians compared to just 184,000 users for Sensis Search is it any wonder Sensis have finally bitten the bullet and abandoned their search engine for Google’s? In addition all their Yellow listings will be stored in Google Maps, as well as WhereIs. It’s not before time.
So what does this mean for Australian businesses? It means that if you do not have a presence in Google it’s more vital than ever that you rectify the problem. More Australians use Google to find products and services online than any other search engine and if you aren’t listed you are missing out on vital traffic. And now more than ever with this announcement. The change is expected to happen from early next year so now is the time to get started.
Skip bin hire seems to be a competitive industry I discovered a while back. Never having hired a bin before, I used Google to search for and assess the local players and make my choice.
What I found was an industry that appears to be full of sites that are copying each other with regard to information structure and layout of their websites. And it my opinion, they were all bad.
Not one (except for the winner who got my money) had pricing readily available — they all wanted me to use their online quoting tool, which after 2-3 minutes and 5-10 pages, finally gave me a price.
I know there may be variables associated with bin size, delivery area, and other factors that effect final cost, but even the car industry with their range of options, add-ons and upgrades is able to give me a “price at a glance” from which I can work.
Lesson: Just because your competitors are building websites a certain way doesn’t mean you have to. In the skip bin hire industry, Trailer Trash is doing it differently. A uniquely branded site, their pricing, booking number and delivery locations are all visible without having to leave the home page. Another KISS website.
