A Marketer’s Introduction to Flash Animation

Flash animation is a pretty popular web design element these days, but most marketers still don’t recognize its full potential. In fact, if you’re like most people, you probably just associate it with the all too frequently used (and incredibly annoying) Flash “splash” page—the introductory page that prevents you from immediately getting to a website’s home page.

But Flash—like most things—can be used for good or evil.

Flash Brings Your Page to Life.  
One of the things that separates the Internet from print is the ability to have motion graphics. This same thing can help separate your site from your competition’s. It may sound cliché, but when done properly, a Flash animation can truly bring your page to life. Does your company build beautiful things? Does your restaurant have a one-of-a-kind atmosphere? If your company or organization does something much better than others, why not highlight that facet of your business with a Flash animation?

But Won’t People Need Special Players to View My Site? 
Five years ago, it was hard to convince a client to use Flash. It was a “new technology”, and not many people were able to view Flash. Latest versions were always required for download, and most people wouldn’t bother. Nowadays, though, Flash is used on virtually all the most trafficked sites on the Web—and for you that means that anyone that comes to your site is likely to already have been to a site which uses Flash and downloaded the necessary technology. In fact, Adobe’s latest stats tell us that over 98% of Internet users have at least Flash 6 installed on their systems. 

Flash Can Be Updated
Did you know that your Flash animation doesn’t have to be static-for-life, or static-until-you-ask-your-web-designer-to-update-it? With script, Flash can now pull images and text externally from your server. This means that you can effectively update your animations with fresh content whenever you want…in a Flash (yes, we did just go there.)

To learn more about how to enhance your site with Flash, contact your local TruePresence consultant.
 

Determining The Right Customer Cost per Acquisition For Your Business

Trying to figure out your paid search budget? Clearly defining your acceptable cost per acquisition for new customers is the best place to start.

All things being equal, the more your company is willing to invest to acquire new customers, the faster the customer base will grow.  However, there is also a direct relationship with your desired number of new customers and the amount you need to invest to obtain them. Deciding how much to invest in acquiring each new customer depends on the value of your customers over time, as well as your overall business goals. 

Let’s Start with Annual Value

There is a lot of talk about the “Lifetime Value of a Customer”.  Understanding the lifetime value is important, but most businesses don’t have the luxury of waiting a lifetime to get a return on investment. Thinking more in the short term, let’s understand the annual value of a customer.  Take a home cleaning business as an example. The annual value of a new home cleaning customer can be figured out like so:

Average Transaction Amount: $100
Average Transactions per Year: 26
Gross Revenue per Year: $2,600
Average Profit Margin: 50%
Annual Gross Profit Margin: $1,300

In addition to the value of one customer, you should also consider how much of your new business comes from customer referrals.  If 50% of all new business is the result of customer referrals, for example, you can assume that every new customer generates another customer. 

Once you’ve done the preliminary math, then you can wisely determine how much of that annual gross profit margin you are willing to invest. Continue Reading…

Have you checked out MarketingProfs yet? It’s easily one of our favorite marketing sites. They’re always giving us good marketing advice and insight, in easy-to-digest articles, case studies, and webinars that are actually fun to read and don’t require a ton of our time.

 Well, one of this week’s articles was a keeper: Katherine Towner’s “Email Etiquette: Use It or Lose It.” How many of use allow ourselves to get lazy, informal, impatient–or worse, irrational–over email?

“Most email etiquette mistakes happen,” Towner says, ”when haste and emotion override common sense.”

And email mistakes can easily damage both your professional reputation and your professional relationships.

Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to brush up on your email etiquette. Read Towner’s entire article here on MarketingProfs.com.