Outbox4 - Digital marketing agency

Outbox4 is an Ayrshire website design and online marketing agency. We are a team of multi-disciplinary designers and developers specialising in website design, social media, graphic and digital media design. We work with SME’s and large blue chip companies. Our in-house skills enable us to deliver dynamic, integrated design solutions incorporating a range of media.

[outbox4-blog]

#pinterest can generate more traffic that the others combined, check it out

[outbox4-blog]

The handmade cheesecake company hand delivered to Steph @outbox4

[outbox4-blog]

4500 hits - 24,698 webiste hits in 3 months. 50% of which came from Pinterest...!!! That's interesting (at outbox4)

[outbox4-blog]

Responsive Design Versus App’s

We all love Apps. It’s great that we can just search for a certain game or that little app that can help manage household budgets, click download and sync it with your device and job done. But have you ever sat down and thought why an app has been created?

Apple is no doubt the App Daddy and some are used on a daily basis. From the Appstore’s initial relaese to now there has been a vast change in the App market. It is now no longer acceptable to create ‘an app for everything’ anymore. So called dumb apps with a price tag of £3.99 can make a person think is this worth it or not or would i be better searching elsewhere. Users are now wise to the idea of mobile websites and responsive design and so searching for a solution to their mobile problem is now not only confined to App Stores anymore.

Apps should be used if there is a monetary value to be made from its purpose. There must be logic behind its existance. Does it interact with the mobile devices capabilities? Do you have a plan to make money out of its distribution? If not you should re-think your strategy as maybe a responsive website would be more suitable.

There are pros and cons for both. See below:

Pros of an app:

Easily monetised

Access to device sensors

Once downloaded, the content is easily accessible

Content available offline

Pros of a responsive site:

Bypass the App Store approval process

No user intervention needed to download an app

Can be accessed on any device with mobile internet access.

Content updates driven by a CMS

As you can see there are benefits of both but depending on the work that has to be created it may not warrant an app to be created. Apps are great for brands who want to offer an app product that they can benefit from. If a brand just wanted keep their audience informed of recent updates etc. then responsive design is the way forward.

[outbox4-blog]

Outsourcing Social Media

If you’re a fan of the Guardian you might have read their blog yesterday questioning whether small businesses should outsource their social media. A reasonable question for any SME thinking about the future of their social media however, although asking the question, the Guardian failed to really answer it.

So what did the Guardian think? Well, to summarise, they believe that large companies should employ a full-time social media person, which is rather sensible, and SMEs should consider outsourcing but be a tad wary. Not the most informative to its readers, no?

So where do companies stand when it comes to social media? Organisations like Tesco, McDonalds or O2 will receive hundreds (if not more) enquires and complaints over Facebook and Twitter every day, which is why they need a team of people dedicated to their social media. When it comes to small or medium businesses you need to revaluate why your business is looking for social media. The likelihood is that, unlike Tesco, you won’t be receiving hundreds of complaints every day. Tesco have built a massive following already, their social media is there to maintain this following.

For smaller businesses social media is a tool to connect and target new customers and this is something which takes time, effort and a good whack of insider knowledge. Sure, anyone can follow someone on Twitter but do you have the time to sit and engage with them about their breakfast? Probably not.

Outsourcing your social media is like employing someone dedicated to not only live your business but to also care about your customer’s everyday lives – for a fraction of the price of employing a dedicated social media assistant.

Social media is changing constantly with new rules and new sites springing up every month. If you don’t have a business dedicated to advising you about your social media you could be left behind. Just over the past few months Pinterest has become a massive site for businesses. If you don’t have your finger on the social media pulse you might miss out on much needed business. By outsourcing to experts you’ll always be ahead of the game.

So what’s the catch? People will say that by outsourcing your social media you are putting your business in the hands of strangers who know nothing about your company. But think, what happens when you employ someone new? You tell them about your business. Outbox4 spend a lot of time with our social media clients finding everything out about your business – by employing us, Outbox4 are practically married to your business. We become an expert in your field and we are always in contact to ensure we have the latest news and offers.

Outbox4 build strategies, create targets and pull your business into the world of social media leaving you to concentrate on the important stuff.

[outbox4-blog]

Facebook’s Graph Search – The Tool That Might Make You Regret What You and Your Employees Like.

To most graph search seemed like a boring Facebook update much like the highly-hyped timeline change that was, quite frankly, not very exciting at all. However, now that a select few have been allowed to Beta test Facebook’s new project we’ve discovered just how accidently hilarious Graph Search could prove to be.

London blogger Tom Scott, who has been compiling screenshots of Graph Searches he’s done, has shown that a simple search could reveal more about yourself than perhaps you might want.  For instance, the amount of married people who also like prostitutes was alarmingly (and amusingly) large; see also Jewish mums who like bacon.

Now you might think this is harmless, it is really, but when you realise you can also search “current employers of people who like racism” you’ll start to release just how revealing Graph Search could be to both you and your business. Two of these brands being big guns like McDonalds and the United States Air Force.

But it’s not just big companies that could feel the effects of Graph Search. Local companies are easily affected too. If you go on to Facebook’s test search on their website right now you’ll see it shows those local to you in the same networks. This means people will be able to search locals for similar interests – whatever these interests might be – and see what company they work for.

This will especially affect the owners of these small businesses who could show up in searches by potential or current customers. You might like a page dedicated to throwing things at kittens, which is your own prerogative in your spare time, but if this comes up in a search tied into your business it could be very off-putting to people.

People are weird; they could take offence at the slightest like whether it is football, music, groups or anything in-between. Perhaps now is the time, while Graph Search is limited, to review your likes.

Of course, the simple solution to all this Graph Search drama is to make sure your profile is private and train your employees in the benefits of being a little more private online themselves.

[outbox4-blog]

Why Are People Not Using My Website?

Have you ever wondered why people are not using your website? Perhaps you feel as though you have the most amazing website in the world and you have spent lots of time and effort getting it the way you wanted but no business comes through. Frustrating isn’t it? Having a website is fundamental for businesses these days (well for people who wish to embrace technology). But having a website and having a website to generate leads are two very different things.

There are many factors that can affect a website negatively. Some issues such as dated design, poor navigation, lack of call to actions etc are all issues that need to be addressed when analysing the problems of your website. A good way of finding out if people are not spending time on your website is to set up Google Analytics. Google Analytics can show you the bounce rate of your website and the higher the bounce rate, the more people are landing on your website and leaving as son as they arrive. This evidence along with poor contact results through your website is a massive indication that people don’t like your website for some reason, and that phrase “some reason” is the task of finding out what is causing this problem and what can i do to fix it?

Here are a few items that website owners should look at when analysing their own website:

Design – Does your website suffer from out-of-date design? When was the last time it had new fresh content? Today’s website viewers expect and deserve modern websites to surf on. If it looks as though a website hasn’t been altered in years or suffers from a bad, out-of-date static design then users my think that this is just another website for a company that doesn’t exist anymore. People don’t bother searching to see if a company is still in business, they simply go back to Google and search for someone else.  Make sure your website has an up-to-date modern design. Perhaps use a Content Management System to manage your website and publish content regularly so that users know there is a living entity i.e. your business behind your website that can take care of their enquiries.

Call to Action – Does your website make people contact you? You would be suprised how many websites don’t have this fundamental concept. Create Newsletter sign ups, social media shares, contact forms and spread them across the website. A lot of websites only have a contact method on their dedicated contact page. Contact methods on most pages should be evident throughout your website.

User Experience – A lack of interactivity is a website mood killer. Your website is your key to get people interested in your company and if there is no interactivity then your user will be board of your website and ultimately bored with your company. Create interactive menus, image sliders, interactive galleries etc that will make your user interested. (This will need to be performed by a web developer if you are not confident in doing this yourself).

These are only a fraction of website factors that affect websites negatively. All websites who seek to gain leads and business using contact methods on their websites need to pay attention to the above. You must be honest with yourself. If you know that your website is not of the best quality, it is best admit this and make improvements than to do nothing. At the end of the day it is your website and there is only one person who will suffer, you.

Outbox4 have great experience in improving websites to increase website correspondence. If you are interested then please get in touch on 01292 473199 and a member of our team will be in touch within 24 hours.

[outbox4-blog]

Creating brand identity. www.partywiththegirls.com

[outbox4-blog]

Mobile optimised sites, are they just another technology fad?

Well let’s look at it this way; there are 6.8 billion people in the world. Of this world population over 4 billion of them own a phone yet only 3.5 billion use a toothbrush. That’s a lot of potential business you could be tapping into and a lot of dodgy dental hygiene.

In the UK 51% of mobile users own a smartphone with users will expecting a lot from your website. In fact, 60% will expect your site to load on their phones within 3 SECONDS and 74% of users will leave if it’s not loaded within 5.

So how to you keep up with the impatient Smartphone Generation? First things first, get your website optimised for mobile users.

There is nothing worse than entering a website on your phone and finding it’s not optimised for your screen. You have to zoom, scroll and jump though proverbial hoops to find the information you require. Why bother? Most users will simply look to your competitors.

Is your business doing so well that you can throw away potential mobile customers? Not even the business giants are mad enough to do that – especially when you think 91% of adults have their mobiles within arm’s reach 24/7. In America people are even shunning PCs completely with 25% of Americans using phones as their only internet access and the UK are following suit. People love to scan the internet on their phones while watching TV – you might even do it yourself. Time is too valuable to be concentrating on one thing.

By making your website mobile-optimised you are ensuring your business will flourish in 2013. Over 80% of smartphone users will use their phone to research a product online, of this 50% will go on to buy this product, which is why it is vitally important your website is easy for phone users to navigate if you want these sales. So how do you make your website optimised for mobile? Simply ask us at Outbox4. We can make your current website smartphone friendly in mere days. We’ll can even answer any of your mobile site queries and give you advice on your current website.

And remember, 2013 is the year where mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access in the world. Make sure your website is ready.

[outbox4-blog]

Responsive website design

Responsive website design Responsive Web Design is the way website are moving and 2013 will be the year of the responsive web design. 2012 has been a very unusual year in the PC market. For the first time since 2001, PC sales are projected to be lower than they were in the previous year. So which devices are consumers buying? Tablets, for one thing. Tablet sales are expected to exceed 100 million this year, and with more and more of using Smartphones, your website needs to keep up with what your customers are view your site on. A responsive website can automatically tailor the page layout to best suit the users viewing device, giving them the best and most seamless browsing experience. We can design any business or industry. Our core creation comes from having such a vast client base and our previous experience from working with many different types of business sector.