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We’ve covered a range of topics since we started blogging regularly near the end of September 2013. This has been something of an experiment to discover whether producing quality content, on a regular basis, could have a positive impact on the number of visitors we see on our site.

We saw some impressive numbers in the first two months:

• 24% increase in overall unique visitor traffic
• 770% increase in traffic from social media
• 24% increase in direct traffic

Some of our more popular posts have been on the following topics, which we’ll summarize briefly.

Google Hummingbird for Business

Probably the biggest piece of news in 2013 has been the new Google Hummingbird update. Google reported that Hummingbird was it’s most significant search algorithm update since 2001, well over a decade ago. Basically this update signaled that Google has moved from being a search engine to being an answer engine, and it’s now more social.

Rather than everyone getting the same search results for a particular query, Google is moving toward giving answers to your queries that are relevant to you. For businesses this is an important distinction to make because it means the content they produce has to answer questions, and be relevant to their audience. See our more complete Hummingbird analysis here.

The SMO of SEO

Social media optimization has really taken hold in 2013, and we predict its continued importance in the years to come. Given the more social nature of Google with Hummingbird, optimizing our content on and for social media has risen in importance as well. Experts are now saying that SMO is part of SEO.

For example Google indexes each G+ post directly so you’ll see links directly to social posts show up in your search results. Not only this, but Google has also been indexing publically available Facebook posts for some time now. Social activity is taken into account by Google when ranking content so the more popular on social our content is the better it will likely rank in search results. Check out our post for more on social media optimization.

An Introduction to SEO

Google has not abandoned its core search engine ranking system however. We covered some of the basics to this core SEO in two blog posts here and here. Keywords and keyword research continues to be a key component to ranking success in 2013. Keep in mind rules of thumb like use your keyword once for every 100 words of content, and be sure your content is generally between 600-800 words in length. Also keep in mind that it’s important to use your keyword in strategic places throughout your content. We also recommend building your websites in WordPress, and installing the SEO by Yoast plugin. Finally always include some media, photos or videos, in your content for extra SEO juice.

Google Hangouts for Business

Google Hangouts on Air (HOA) have been a very successful part of many businesses online marketing efforts in 2013, and we predict these will be ever more important in the coming year. We’re actually seeing Toyota adopting this feature, and taking things a step further by integrating HOAs into their sales process for the 2014 Corolla.

HOAs provide excellent SEO opportunities because of the automatically recorded YouTube video with its opportunities for keyword placement. HOAs can also be spun into additional content with the video included for further engagement. Check out our Google Hangouts for business post for more.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our year end review, and look forward to a successful 2014! We’ll be posting once more before the years out, and as always are looking forward to your comments. For more check out our blog where we post regularly.

Ad Agency Think Webstore in Ridgeland, Mississippi is celebrating the success of a remarkable acquisition.

In September of 2011, M&F Bank (FMFC), headquartered in Kosciusco, Mississippi with 41 branches across Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida, was in a challenging position. M&F bank had acquired its share of non-performing assets (NPAs) from the real estate crisis in 2009, and although progress had been made, there was still a lot of work to do to get the NPA ratio down. The bank was not effectively communicating their true value to customers, and consumer confidence had fallen. The stock price was depressed at around $3/share, and they were facing layoffs and branch closings. In spite of these factors, the leadership team recognized great potential for success. The core commitment to service was strong and employee loyalty had not faltered. The leadership team wanted to create a message and culture of aggressive growth in order to expand their business.

M&F Bank began a strong turnaround beginning in October of 2011. To help revitalize their brand and message to target customers, M&F brought Mississippi advertising agency and consulting firm Think Webstore on board to handle rebranding, reconnect with their target customers, and promote services with a focus on lending. While the marketing team was working on image and customer communication, other team members got to work whittling down the NPAs.

 

Setting Goals

When Think Webstore took over the M&F Bank marketing and advertising account in October of 2011, they immediately got to work on several fronts including Branding, Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations, and Organizational Communications.

 

Five of the challenge goals out of the gate were:

• To foster a spirit of growth and prosperity within the organization amidst layoffs and branch closings.
• To raise the visibility of truly exceptional employees and service provided by the bank branches.
• To increase revenue from bank products including commercial loans, personal loans, and auto loans.
• To make the public aware that the bank not only had money to loan, but also was eager to make loans, despite the public perception that banks were not lending.
• To add key products or services that supported challenges 1 through 4.

 

Executing a Plan for Turnaround

It is always a major challenge to foster a spirit of growth in the face of layoffs, even while the direction is true.

With new messaging and visible commitment in place, M&F was able to leverage their most valuable asset, their employees and customer service culture. New advertising reintroduced the M&F brand and promises to their consumers and marketplace. Once customers entered the branches, the employees delivered.

Working together, Think and M&F crafted the “30 Minute No Hassle Loan Consultation” to make loans accessible and friendly, and then something exceptional occurred. Not only was the team able to meet sales goals that had been a challenge in periods past, reach goals were exceeded in loan categories. M&F Bank was experiencing a long awaited boost and was beginning to once again thrive, even as their competition struggled.

 

Measuring Success

In 2012 the bank was able to meet and exceed reach goals in lending. By 2013, just over 12 months later, the team had managed to reduce NPAs by approximately 75%. On February 6, 2013, M&F stock was up to $8.45.

Renasant Bank, a Mississippi based bank with $4.4 billion in assets, compared to M&F Banks $1.6 billion in assets, approached them and had a unique proposition — an opportunity to merge to build an even stronger Mississippi bank. Renasant Bank already had a considerable presence in Mississippi, but not in the Madison County and Rankin County areas, where M&F Bank’s presence was strong. A generous deal was struck.

On February 7, 2013, as reported in a previous press release, the signing of a definitive merger agreement was announced jointly by M&F Bank and Renasant Bank involving a stock transaction then valued at $119 million. In June, after the merger was approved by over 99 percent of eligible shares from both companies, Renasant Corporation and First M&F Corporation, the stock transaction was valued at over $142 million. The merger/acquisition later received regulatory approval. The newly combined Renasant Bank has locations in Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, and an estimated $5.8 billion in assets.

On Tuesday September 3, 2013, M&F Bank branches officially reopened as Renasant Bank.

 

A 16 Month Marketing Turn-around to Success

M&F Bank’s ad agency, Think Webstore, had a demonstrable victory in marketing, advertising, strategy, and public relations for M&F Bank. In 16 months they had delivered more than past agencies had delivered in more than twice as much time. Even more relevant, the work performed.

After layoffs and branch closings, delivery events were intentionally coordinated and tiered to demonstrate promises of growth and investment within the bank. Delivery events included brand updates, new direct messages to customers, branch makeovers, print articles, new television and print advertising, and invitations for experts to appear publicly on radio and television. At a time when most companies would be trying to handle troubled employee morale as employees anticipated the next round of layoffs, M&F Bank was demonstrating its commitment to growth and reaping the rewards of revitalized employees and customers who were watching change happen.

By the beginning of the tenth month, M&F Bank’s percentage growth outperformed all publicly targeted competitors but one, and had done so on a relatively smaller budget in a short timeframe. By month twelve they had overcome the final closest competitor in percentage growth. By February 6, 2013, the day before the definitive merger agreement announcement, M&F stock price had risen from $3.07 on October 3, 2011 to $8.45, a 175.2% percentage growth in just 16 months. After the merger announcement, the stock price rose to over $18/share.

This merger is big news in the the state and the region. “The word in the regional banker circles is that M&F Bank went on a ‘Marketing Blitz’ and made a great deal. We were that marketing blitz!” says Think Webstore Owner and President Bryan Carter. “While we dearly miss our leadership team with M&F, we look forward to developing the next leadership team with a bank that wants to aggressively engage and grow their market.”

Today we return to the theme of Business Strategy, beginning at the beginning – the formulation of a company’s strategy. Without proper preparation, evaluation, and planning, even the best plans and strategies will fall flat.

To devise a strategy that will work for your particular business, you must approach the process with as much information as you can gather, and perhaps most importantly, with honesty. An honest evaluation and look to the future are vital in the formulation of a business plan.

There are three general steps involved in putting together a quality Business Plan: analysis, setting objectives, and finally the detailed plan.

I. Analysis

Whether you are beginning with a new business or formulating strategy for an already existing company or new product line, the first phase of the process is in analysis. You need to look at as many variables as possible during this initial phase. Break down your company in detail – internally, externally, situation, location, finances, past performances, etc. Break down your competition, as well as you can, in this same detail.

Study your market; study your industry; study the larger markets and trends. The ultimate goal here – to be able to see your company as it really is. If you have an inaccurate estimation of your company at the end of step one, then none of the other phases will matter. This is where the above mentioned honesty comes into play – an honest evaluation and analysis is crucial. We cannot stress this enough; take the time and use the resources needed to do this step properly.

II. Setting Objectives

Once you finish the analysis phase, you then have the chance to set goals and objectives for your business. Many companies try to set goals first, but then you have no idea how realistic or achievable your goals might be. Goal setting comes after analysis – you see where you are, and then you can make plans for where you want to go. Often, in analysis, companies find out things about themselves which are surprising!

Objectives will be formed in multiple ways: long-term goals, short-term goals, overall objectives (internally and externally), financial goals, etc. Often these will be framed as mission statements, vision statements, or company statements. So objectives will span several planes, including horizontal (over time) and vertical (building on one another).

III. The Strategic Plan

The objectives which you set in step 2, after a careful consideration of the information you gather in the analysis stage, should in themselves suggest a strategic plan. The plan itself merely provides the specific ways that you will go about achieving your objectives. What projects or programs will you implement to achieve your ultimate goals? If your company wants to increase sales, for instance, then your strategic plan will need to lay out exactly what steps you intend to take to increase your sales.

The strategic plan will be based on the analysis, which will have considered such questions as – what is your competition doing that is successful? what are you doing that you know is not working? what is no one doing? what has worked in the past? what are the markets showing for the future? You can then take the answers to these questions and decide what your specific company, in your particular situation, can do to achieve your objectives.

Final Phases

As you are in the final phases of fine-tuning your plan, there are three final questions to consider.

1. – does my plan make sense?
2. – is my plan feasible?
3. – will this plan be acceptable to all parties involved (employees, consumers, investors, etc.)?

Finally, keep in mind during this phase that your plan is not set in stone! As we will see in Steps 2 and 3, the plan will be constantly revisited and modified as needed. You want to put together the best plan possible, this is no excuse to cut corners early (which will inevitably derail your efforts from the beginning), but do not get caught up by the “myth of perfection” – the chances you will get every possible piece of your plan exactly right is somewhere near 0%, even with the best teams and analysis in the world. Formulate the plan with all proper preparation and caution, and then move forward.

Our next article will look at the second step in Business Strategy – Implementation.

Social media has become such a part of most of our lives that life without it seems a distant memory. It’s tough to imagine that Facebook has only been around since 2004 – that’s just 9 years ago. Interestingly, LinkedIn is slightly older, launched in 2003, making it just 10 years old. Twitter is slightly younger at only 7 years old, launching in 2006. Pinterest is a relative baby at 3 years old, and Google+ is younger still, at only 2 years of age.

Facebook is certainly the largest, and more active, social network available today with 1.19 billion active users. What may come as a shock to some is that Google+, the youngest of the bunch, comes in second by active user count with 540 million. Twitter, considered by many to be Facebook’s runner up, has only 232 million active users, just behind LinkedIn with 259 million active users.

What Active User Means

There are several different ways active user can be defined. Some active user stats come from daily active users, and some from monthly. More often than not stats, like those above, are referencing monthly active users. This means that a person has taken some action with the social network in question within a given month.

The action can be as little as clicking a like button, which doesn’t even have to take place on the actual social site. This means that we’re not talking about 1.19 billion people checking their Facebook pages every day, not even every month. What we’re talking about here are the number of people who interact in some way with a social network on a monthly basis.

Another Way to View Social Media

Another very interesting way to view social media is to look at social widgets. These are the interactive buttons you see on websites, and are part of what make up the active user stats we’ve been reviewing. The perspective here is to look at the number of top websites that use these social widgets.

A recent Moz article takes a look at the top 1,000,000 websites, and which social widgets they use. Here we see Facebook in the lead with 260,816, and the Google Plus One button coming in second with 164,531 sites using this button.

Social Media Perceptions

A final perspective is what people perceive to be the most active social networks. Watch ESPN for any length of time, and you’ll see mentions of Facebook and Twitter fairly frequently. This kind of perception based evidence tell us that people, the man on the street, don’t really perceive Google+ as being in the number two position.

Not only is Google+ in the number two position, it’s actually almost doubling Twitter in active users. We believe that perceptions take time to change, and that appears to be the case with social media. For example, Google+ has recently seen mentions by network TV shows such as Chopped on Food Network. Ted Allen says: +1 if you’re watching an all-new Chopped at 10|9c! Also Toyota recently began using new Hangout on Air features on Google+ to sell cars.

After putting together a few blog posts on branding (here and here), we thought it might be helpful to look at the overall picture of Business Strategy. Branding is certainly an element of Business Strategy, but it is only one piece of a much larger and more complex puzzle.

Every business needs a strategy in order to succeed. As obvious as that sounds, many businesses either operate without a realistic or sustainable strategy, or they operate with no real strategy, or they operate with a seriously flawed strategy. Any of these mistakes will make it that much harder to have a successful business. A sound strategy will help you take your business where you would like it to go, and it will help you evaluate along the way so that you can make changes when needed.

Today we will look briefly at what we mean by “Business Strategy,” and also give you an idea of some of the upcoming blog posts that will relate to this larger idea.

Defining Strategy

Business Strategy essentially encompasses everything that your company does to reach its business goals. Even in a simplified definition like that, we can already see that multiple things are assumed, such as the notion that your business has stated goals which you are trying to reach in specific ways. Too many businesses try to jump into strategy in the middle; this almost always fails because strategy is a building which needs a firm foundation, and then is put together piece by piece.

There are three major stages of Business Strategy:

• formulation
• implementation
• evaluation

We will look at some of the aspects of each of these stages in upcoming articles.

Business Strategy Formulation

Formulation is the first stage of Business Strategy, and it is exactly what it sounds like – this is where you put together the actual pieces of your plan. When you sit down to formulate your strategy, you will review things about your business like identity and general mission, and you will also want to measure where your business is now. You can then take these pieces of information and reach a list of goals or objectives – once you see where you are, you can concretely talk about where you would like to be, and how long it will take you to get there.

Finally, in this first phase, you will come up with a plan, or strategy, for getting your company to achieve these stated goals. We could simplify this process by saying: In the formulation phase you figure out where you are now, where you would like to be, and how you would like to get there.

Implementation

The next two phases, Implementation and Evaluation, are a bit simpler to briefly talk about, but just as crucial to the success of your strategy. In the Implementation phase your company will be doing things like setting aside money for the plan, choosing people to be in charge of the plan, and deciding exactly how to put the plan into place. This phase also might include new training and organizing, and obviously integration into the already existing flow of company policies and procedures.

Evaluation: Final and Ongoing Step

The final step, Evaluation, is something you will then be doing on an ongoing basis throughout the duration of the particular strategy you have put into place. Evaluation simply means that you must see how well the plan is working, and is it bringing you closer to your stated goals, and do things need to be modified in order to work better. Quite often we need to tweak implementation because our evaluation shows us that some things could be better – and this is perfect! Remember, the goal is reaching company objectives, not just having a plan and sticking to it.

More in depth articles on each of the three phases will be coming soon, so if your business needs help with planning and strategy, stay tuned!

Next up Business Strategy Formulation.

Optimizing your website for mobile is becoming less of an option and more of a requirement than ever before. The number one issue reported by mobile web users was slow load times (Gomez). This statistic is followed closely by the fact that the study found 46% of mobile web users were unlikely to return to a website if they had trouble accessing it. Perhaps worse is that 57% of this group would not recommend that site if they experienced trouble with the site.

These statistics highlight an underlying trend. That is if your website doesn’t have a mobile first strategy, or at the least a mobile minded strategy, your company will be left far behind the competition. Consider if that 46% number, which was from research in 2011, grew to 60% or 70% or even more. That would mean your company needs to seriously consider mobile optimization, or face the inevitable consequences.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday are Going Mobile

Further, we can see the importance of mobile growing when we look at Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales year over year from 2011 to 2012 in this infographic. Here we see that online sales from a mobile device climbed 16% in 2012 from the previous year. On Cyber Monday 2012, 18% of online shoppers checked out deals on their mobile device, and 13% of those actually made purchases directly from that mobile device! These numbers are up 12% and 7% respectively.

Looking at the above numbers from last years Black Friday & Cyber Monday, compared to 2011, we can see some definite trends continuing. It’s a fair bet that these trends will continue in 2013, 2014 and beyond. Projections for these deal days in 2013 have around 18% of consumers making purchases from their mobile devices, compared with around 14% in 2012.

Usability and Brand Experience

In our last couple posts, on business branding and company branding and design, we covered some basics as well as strategies for building a brand. That brand must be maintained, and consumer confidence will quickly lessen if their mobile experience isn’t top notch. Circling back to the Gomez study, we find that fully 74% of mobile web users are willing to wait more than 5 seconds for a page to load before leaving a site.

If your mobile page takes longer than 5 seconds to load you’ll be losing 74% of your mobile traffic. Interestingly 77% of top North American companies, from varying markets, have web pages that take more than 5 seconds to load. This spells enormous opportunity for your company!

Building the Mobile Experience

Providing a mobile optimized experience for your customers has never been easier. Simply paying attention to the need for a mobile site is more than half the battle. One option is responsive design. A responsive design delivers a consistent user experience across devices. Another option is to build a fully mobile version of your site, and technologies like Jquery Mobile make this option very attractive as well. Getting those mobile load times under 5 seconds is an attainable goal.

Get optimized for mobile now! It’s a very actionable goal, and will future proof your business. If the technical aspects to mobile optimization aren’t your specialty, hiring a professional is an excellent option.

Once you have made the investment to learn about your target audience, the ideas for branding imagery begin to be narrowed down. See our article ‘Business Branding’ http://thinkwebstore.com/business-branding/) for more general information on the branding equation. When the concepts for your company brand begin to become clear, it’s now time to bring in the design team. A good design team is there to receive your ideas about how you want to brand your company, and then take those ideas and turn them into effective communication.

Choosing Your Design Team

Choosing a design team is a very important part of the branding equation. If you are to be successful, the design team has to buy into your ideas, and you both have to be on the same page. That does not always happen! And when the client and the designers do not see eye to eye, then the work suffers.Take your time to choose the right design team. Visit them, interview them, look at their past work, test out some of your ideas to see their reactions – do your due diligence to try and find the team that will fit you and your project best.

Once you have found your design team, you then get to share with them your vision for the branding of your company. This conversation could include most anything: your company message, imagery you like or dislike, ideas you discarded along the way, your audience, information about your products and services…the more you can give your team in the beginning, then the better they can design. The designers then take all of the information that you unload, and they begin to turn your ideas into images and/or words.

Branding with a New Logo

The first piece to be designed for your brand will be your company logo. Your logo is the most central and foundational piece of branding design. Every other piece of advertising that you do will be based on the look/feel/color/energy of your logo. So your logo should definitely follow the rules listed in our last blog post – it should fit what you do, it should immediately convey a message, it should be accessible to your target audience, and it should be something which will immediately begin building brand recognition. Your logo will be on everything, so take the time and spend the money to have it done right! A well done logo which follows all of the “rules” is a powerful piece of advertising even when standing alone.

Website Design for Your Brand

The second thing to do is your website design. Again, this design will be based on your company message, your logo design, and also configured according to the branding philosophy that you have developed for your company. For many companies, the first place potential customers encounter them is on the web. This means that your website has to do a great job of representing your company. The design and content should both communicate and instill confidence in your visitors. You cannot be there when people visit your site! That is obvious. So make sure:

• that the site is consistent with your company image;
• that the design communicates your message and overall site content;
• that the site looks good (i.e. the design is professional and attractive);
• that your site is intuitive and easy to navigate;
• that the site answers the important questions people will want to know, and does it in a place and a way that is easy for the user;
• that your contact information is easily found on every single page of your website.

There are many more things we could say about website design, but if you’ve followed through the general branding steps and the proper logo steps, then you’ll be applying those same concepts on your website design.

Content Drives Traffic, Leads and Sales

The next thing you can do, once you have both a logo and website design, is begin designing “light content” pieces. This includes items like business cards, letterhead, social sites, print/online ads, etc. All of these are important for getting your company out in the public eye. No matter how small we think an item might be, a business card, for example – the same rules of design should apply. If the only advertisement a person sees is one that does not represent your brand well, then all of your effort is wasted. So take the time, and the resources, to ensure that each of your design pieces properly represents your brand to your potential consumers.

Finally, you can design your “heavy content” pieces. This includes things like brochures, booklets, packets, etc. We also recommend hold off on these heavy content designs, if possible, for a very practical reason – once you have printed something, it’s done. And it’s expensive. So we often suggest that people massage and revise their core content on their website, where reviews and revisions are much less costly. Then, once you feel good with your brand presentation on the website, you can pull from there to populate the heavy content design pieces.

Branding for Success

Branding, as we have said in these last 2 posts, is critical to your company’s success. Design, or the actual execution of your company’s branding ideas, goes hand in hand with this success. So if you are beginning a new company, or revamping an existing one, take the time and the effort at the front end to develop quality branding and designs. These things will be in front of the public constantly – you will not regret the extra time spent at the beginning to help develop a proper image for the long run.