Without cookies, websites would be immensely cumbersome. They would have to pass information from one page to the next every time a link is clicked. This could be terribly unsecure. Cookies are, by and large, far more efficient and secure.

Cookies are particularly important for online stores. Without them, you wouldn't be able to buy anything. Every time you clicked onto a different page, the store would forget who you are and empty your shopping basket.

Unfortunately, there's always somebody that wants to spoil the party. No, I'm not talking about the ICO. I'm talking about those that use cookies for unscrupulous purposes.

Tracking cookies track a user's browsing habits. They can be fairly innocent-perhaps simply enabling an online store to show you products similar to ones you've already looked at on the same site-but they're sometimes viewed as an invasion of privacy. They could, after all, be use to tell a company what you do on the internet, which you may or may not be happy to share. Some less scrupulous marketing types might use that information to bombard you with unwanted advertising.

A year ago, the European Union decided on some new rules to govern the use of cookies on websites. They called it the e-Privacy Directive. All twenty-seven members were asked to adopt these rules, but only Denmark and Estonia agreed to comply fully. The UK's version of the measures were put into place by the ICO, but companies were given a year to make sure they were compliant. That deadline was 26th May 2012.

What are the new rules?

Well, basically the idea is to protect the privacy of internet users and allow them to give 'informed consent' to having their information used via cookies on websites.

It's a noble goal, but it's not without its technical flaws. As mentioned above, the vast majority of websites use cookies. In the majority of those cases, cookies are essential to how the website works. Stopping them from working would effectively break the website. In many cases, if a user were to choose not to allow a website to use cookies, the website would have no choice but to turn that user away.

Thankfully the ICO have produced a snappy 30-page guideline document that sort of tells you what you're supposed to do. I use the term 'sort of', because it's not the clearest document in the world. In essence, the ICO are keen that you do something, but isn't specific on what that something should be. Thankfully their website offers a little more advice, but it's perhaps still open to interpretation.

In essence, if you are using cookies, you are required to let visitors to your site know. You're also required to tell them what you're using cookies for.

So what do you need to do to make sure your website complies?

The first thing everyone seems to recommend is to do a cookie audit. This means clicking through every page (or at least every section) of your website and identifying what cookies are used. If you use Firefox, you can download and install the Firebug and Firecookie extensions and run them while you click through the pages. These extensions will tell you what cookies each page is loading and provide a good starting point.

The next thing to do is tell visitors about those cookies. The most common strategy here is to modify your website's privacy (and cookie) policy. In it, you should detail what cookies your website uses (list them if you need) and, importantly, what they are used for. Your wording needs to be straightforward and not confusing. Remember your audience. Some of them might not be very computer literate. Note that you should, where possible, include information on both your own cookies and third party cookies that are used on your site (such as those used by tracking code like Google Analytics). You don't necessarily have to have a detailed understanding of how third party cookies work, but you should acknowledge that they're used.

The important thing here is that your privacy policy needs to be visible. It's all well and good putting lots of useful information in it, but if people can't find it, you're still not complying with the regulations. In order to give 'informed consent', your visitors need to know that there is something they need to consent to.

The next step, therefore, is to publicise this information. There are a number of approaches that you could take to implement this. We've trawled numerous sites and found several different approaches. Any of these should suffice, but all require you to have a detailed privacy/cookie policy on your website.

• Simple notification. Your website should include a simple, clear and obvious notification that the site uses cookies and include a link to the policy that details how they're used. Other than this, your site can function exactly as before. In most cases, this is probably the most sensible approach. The information is readily available and the obviousness of the notification uses implied consent: if the user continues to use the website, they're consenting to the use of cookies.
  Examples: http://www.hsbc.co.uk, http://www.channel4.com/
• Consensual notification. A handful of sites have adopted an approach whereby visitors have to actually do something before they can proceed. In most cases this involves ticking a box to indicate that they accept the use of cookies for the website (which includes a clear link to the privacy policy so the user can make an informed decision). Failure to accept the use of cookies prevents the user from using the website, either by hiding or disabling navigation or by simply preventing access to the main site. This is probably overkill. While most people who want to use your site are likely to click to accept the cookies that go with it, there's always a chance it could dissuade the more casual visitor.
• Hybrid consensual notification. This is kind of a combination of the above. There is a clear notification on the website, but once the visitor has accepted the use of cookies (again, usually by clicking a tick box or a button), the notification disappears. The visitor can still (more or less) use the website as normal without consenting, but the notification will remain.

Some websites are going with the extreme route of having pop-ups or areas of their home page with dedicated messages about cookies, with reference to the updated privacy policy, that require a user to tick a box, thus obtaining informed consent. An interesting irony here is that the website would probably need to use a cookie to capture consent like this, but since it would only be on the condition that consent is given, technically it complies with the law. You can adopt these routes, and I'm sure the ICO would be thrilled, but it's not entirely necessary.

Perhaps the best approach in the majority of cases is to go along the implied consent route, which the ICO are happy with. To do this, the information about the use of cookies needs to be available in the privacy policy as before, but it should be made clear on the site that cookies are being used and are required (with details in the privacy policy) and that continued use of the website assumes implied consent for the use of such cookies and information for the purposes of providing the services on the website.

There are limits to what implied consent will cover. It means you can only use information collected via cookies for the purposes required in order to serve the website to your visitor. It does not, however, allow you to capture that information for purposes outside of that scope. For that, you would need additional explicit consent, but you should probably first ask yourself whether you really need that information.

Beyond the scope

One thing it's worth noting is that this regulation does stretch a little beyond websites as well. Email marketing can be affected. Many people using email marketing tools to send out email may be able to get tracking data on those emails that tells them the number of times an email has been opened and what links are clicked. It can potentially tell them who performed these actions as well.

There are separate laws covering email marketing that this article isn't going to go into, but providing you're adhering to these-i.e. you're getting consent to email people in the first place-then you're more or less covered anyway. A consideration, however, is that you might want to add a note anywhere on your site that someone can sign up to your mailings (or within the relevant privacy policy) that your emails may be tracked for effectiveness.

In summary

The new EU cookie law and its UK derivative have the honourable intention of looking after website visitors. Admittedly, the implementation is flawed, to the point where the governing body can't provide clear guidance as to how to adhere to it. It is, however, a law and website owners need to take note. Unless a site is deliberately flaunting the law, it is unlikely to face legal action, but the ICO is keen to ensure that all site owners have a plan in place to achieve compliance within a reasonable time frame.

Consensus suggests that you should do the following if your website uses cookies:

• Update your privacy/cookie policy to detail what cookies you use and what you use them for.
• At the very least include a clear and obvious notification on your website that you use cookies with a link to said privacy policy.

In the longer term, browser manufacturers are looking at ways to further improve the way users deal with website cookies. We'll wait to see what that means, but in the short term, the onus is very much on the websites to make sure that they provide clear information on how they use the data they collect.

Incidentally, my favourite kind of cookie, not to mention my reward for writing this article, has chocolate chips in it.

-----

The following links (to third party sites) are provided further information. You may or may not find them useful.

ICO guidelines: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx
Useful article: http://boagworld.com/site-content/the-eu-cookie-law-what-to-do-now/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
Cookie Monster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_Monster

There have been many developments at Papertree Digital. We have been busy building a great team with extensive knowledge of a whole host of new solutions - mobile landing pages, mobile apps, bespoke Facebook pages, Asset Manager (online document storage), online brand protection and much more.

Our development team has expanded and we have been creating some great looking, functional websites and email marketing templates for a wide range of industries - financial, sports, ecommerce, arts and marketing to name a few.

Online advertising, especially Google advertising, is a great way to get your business in front 1000s of potential customers.

It might not be something you have thought about doing, or perhaps you have and may have found it quite daunting. If so, we can help.

We have experience creating, deploying and managing campaigns across some of the world's largest advertising platforms, including Google, Right Media Exchange and Facebook.

Where do you currently advertise?

There are so many ways to get your business known to your target audience, the hardest part is working out which work best for you.

• Local or national newspaper
• Industry specific publications
• Billboards
• Venues (pubs, clubs, service stations, etc.)
• Cars
• Leaflet distribution
• Traffic islands
• Television

The question we ask

How do you measure the success?

For example, if you took out an advert in a local newspaper, and they have a reach of 10,000, you might have 10,000 people see your advert - if they turn to that page.

How do you know that the people that see your advert get in touch or search to find further information? More than likely you won't be able to and this applies to a lot of traditional advertising avenues.

A question we get asked

How does online advertising differ?

• You get in-depth reports showing you exactly how many people saw your advert.
• You can see exactly how many people went through to find out further information.
• You only pay for those who action your advert (e.g. go through to your website).
• You target people who are interested in your product or services.
• You're in charge of the amount you want to spend.
• You don't have to pay to create a piece of design work.
• There are NO contracts.

There are lots of reasons why it differs, why businesses haven't tried it and why they should.

How we can help?

We understand the need to make sure that every piece of advertising counts. Calling on years of experience, we have honed our processes to make our inclusion process easy for anyone to get started. There are four simple steps:

Step one: Keyword research

We'll get to ask a few questions, get to know what your goals are and make sure we understand your business. It also gives you a chance to ask us anything.

Once we understand and you are 100% happy, we will create a keyword report based on the information gathered. We will then advise of the best keywords for your campaign. Keywords chosen are added to the Papertree advertising inclusion form.

Step two: Budgets

Generally we find businesses feel better working on a monthly basis so costs are easier to budget for. If you have particular event or offer running for a certain period of time then that's ok too as we can set campaigns up to run when you want and how you want.

Once you are happy with your budget, we will add this information to the Papertree inclusion form.

Step three: Content

As there are no banners, images or pictures to be designed, all we need to worry about is the content. It is important to give a quick, enticing snippet of information attracting viewers to your website or intended goal.

You don't even have to worry about the amount of content needed as adverts can normally be seen at the very top of search engines and have a limit to the amount of characters usable.

Here's how to layout your content

• Title - No more than 25 characters (including spaces)
• 1^st line - No more than 70 characters (including spaces)
• URL - The website page where you want to send the person who clicked your ad.

That famous saying: "here's one we made earlier". Our advert for Argent of London can be seen at the top of Google above advertisers with much bigger budgets allowing for great results.

Google will even tell you why you're seeing this advert!

Step four: Launch

Well nearly. First we will send you a copy of the inclusion form we have been going on about; this will give detail on exactly what we agreed - keywords, budget and content - to make sure there are no further questions and you're completely happy.

LAUNCH - your advert will be served and you will be one click away from attracting 100s of new visitors to your site, service and products.

You can remain certain of two things: your advert will be shown to those who have an interest in what you do and you will only pay for those who click on your advert - much different to publications where you pay regardless of if someone sees your advert or not.

Why have we chosen Google as our primary advertising engine?

• Google handles over 1 billion searches per day.
• Google has over 620 million visitors per day.
• Google has 7.2 billion daily page views.
• 87.8 billion monthly worldwide searches are conducted on Google sites.
• Google's global search market share is 85%.
• Google.com's worldwide ranking is number 1.
• 97% of Google's revenue is from advertising.

What next

Hopefully by reading this you will have a better understanding of how online advertising works, why it is good and how it fairs against more traditional forms of advertising.

If you're intrigued by online advertising and want to find out more information, or you want to set up a campaign, give us a call (02476 608 019) or let us call you by simply filling in our quick contact call back form.

No pressure, no fuss - just clear, understandable assistance.

Timelines have been around for user profiles for several months now. They've met with a mixed but largely positive response from users, many of whom have already adopted them. Upgrading to the timeline profile was initially voluntary, but the process of automatically upgrading all remaining users from their old style profiles has already begun. Upgrading fan pages is the next logical step.

So what are the changes?

The principle change you will see after March is that the layout of your page will change. The linear and familiar three column layout will be gone. Instead of having one post under another in a single column, a timeline now runs down the centre of the page with posts branching off it in chronological order.

Posts for the current year may be grouped into months to make them easier to find, while older posts are grouped by year with just a selection of key posts from that year on display. A simple menu in the upper right of the screen allows you to browse through recent months and past years with a single click.

At the top of the page, the page's profile image remains, but it has been made into a square approximately 125 pixels in width and height. Dominating the top of the page is a new 'cover image' (or the option to add one if you haven't already). The space for this image is approximately 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels in height and can be almost anything you like (more on that later). The cover image is a great way to include your branding and colour scheme and can help the page to stand out and make an impression.

What does this mean for the custom tabs on my pages?

Don't panic! For the time being at least they're still there and we don't see any indication that Facebook plans to get rid of them just yet. You can still get to them via the horizontal row of links below the cover image. Clicking on these links takes you to a separate view within the new page layout with the 'custom tab' content in the centre. Currently this looks a bit odd as the timeline pages are much wider so the existing custom tab content looks somewhat narrow, running down the middle. In time we hope that this will improve and that these custom pages will be allowed to use the full width of that section.

What the changes do mean is that you can't land on these custom tabs by default anymore. Previously you were able to set them as the default tab a visitor sees when they visit your page if they haven't already 'liked' it (if they have, they were taken to the page's wall). That option isn't there anymore. Visitors will see your timeline by default whether they 'like' it or not (see what I did there?).

Whether this is a good or bad thing is debatable. Marketing people the world over are probably raging about it already as it means their hard sell messages on their custom tabs might not get seen. But maybe they shouldn't. Recent studies have shown that users are more likely to engage with your brand through the posts you make on your wall than through your custom tabs. Done well, the custom tabs can still add something significant to the overall experience, but you may see better results by delivering timely, relevant content via your wall as anybody who 'likes' your page will see that information on their own home page when they log in to Facebook. Timelines can only make this even better.

Why are Facebook doing this?

The simple answer is "because they can". Facebook are notorious for changing the way their system works on a regular basis, as much to keep it fresh as for any other practical reason. As a 'free' service (at least to most end users who aren't spending advertising money with them), it is Facebook's prerogative to do what they feel is necessary to their own site.

The timeline changes, however, would appear to come from a far more admirable stance: that of improving the customer experience. At the end of the day, Facebook needs to keep visitors coming to its site in order to generate any worthwhile advertising revenue. Anything that can make the experience better for the end user is a definite boon in this sense.

Timelines are intended improve the overall user experience. Users will soon know exactly what to expect when they go to a Facebook page for any company. The information they want will be more easily accessible and where they expect to find it.

By standardising the pages and presenting them in a more user-friendly way, Facebook is hoping to encourage users to spend more time on the site, which will hopefully improve the likelihood of your customers and potential customers engaging with your brand.

Can I avoid the changes?

I'm afraid not. The change will be rolled out en masse to anybody who hasn't already 'upgraded' to the timeline system on March 30^th. There's nothing any of us can do to avoid this. It's best to embrace the changes and look for the benefits they might bring.

What do I need to do to prepare?

The change will be automatic. You could just do nothing and let it happen, but there are a few things we would advise you to at least consider.

Get a cover image

The cover image sits at the top of your page. If you don't have one, you're missing out on an opportunity to make your page stand out.

The cover image can be any image. Facebook will scale that image to fit, but the final size will usually be 851(w) by 315(h) pixels. It might be shorter if your cover image isn't very tall, but it will never be any bigger. Bear in mind that the profile image slightly overlaps the cover image in the bottom left. The image will also be optimised, so complex images might end up with some noise or distortion. Your best bet is to stick with something simple. That can include photographs (providing you have the right to use them).

You're not allowed to include calls to action, special offer details or contact information on the cover image. You also can't use the 'like' button there or use slogans that ask users to do something on your page (e.g. like the page or share a post). It's also worth bearing in mind that if someone clicks on your cover image, all they'll see is the full sized version of that image.

New posts

If you don't use your Facebook page very often, it's probably worth reviewing your procedures for keeping it up to date. Social media really is a fantastic way to engage with your target audience these days and it doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming to maintain. An interesting article or link every now and again, or even just an updated status message can go a long way.

Don't forget that any posts you make on your page will appear on the home page of any user that likes your page. It's a free way to remind them that you're still there and that your products and services are available. The very nature of Facebook means that users can 'like' or comment on your posts, which is a big deal for any brand in building customer loyalty. If they like what you're saying, they're more likely to keep you in mind when they're looking for the type of products and services you offer.

Now is also a good time to get some up to date posts on there so that your timeline looks a bit more exciting when it eventually goes live. We'll be three months into 2012 by the time the new update goes live. When was your last post?

Note also that you can flag key posts from the timeline to 'stick' at the top for up to seven days if you want to. You do this by clicking the 'highlight' button on a post on your page (it looks like a star). This makes that post span the full width of your timeline to make it stand out.

Information about your company

All of the blurb about your company used to be hidden away on the 'info' tab on Facebook pages. That tab still exists, but some excerpts from it appear on the main page now, just below the cover image to the left.

Chances are you already have something in these fields, but now is the time to check what is there and make sure it is still relevant. Is the information accurate? Does it say what you need it to? It's going to be on display all the time, so it may as well be right.

How do I see what the changes will look like?

You can see the changes by logging into Facebook and going to your page. Providing you're logged in with an account that has admin access for that page, you'll see a 'coming soon' ad at the top. In that ad is a 'preview' button. If you click that, you can see what your new page will look like on or after March 30^th.

You might also see some links to edit the page, add a cover image and even an admin panel that gives you information about your page. Obviously your customers won't see these things. You can start using them, however, to customise your page if you want to.

I really like the timeline. Can I have it now?

Yes! As above, log in as an admin, go to your page and click the preview button to view the timeline then start making any changes you want to make, such as uploading a new cover image. When you're done, click the 'publish now' button at the top and your page will be live so the world can see it. Once you start modifying your page, you have seven days to preview your changes before your timeline page is automatically published.

I don't have a Facebook page. Where do I start?

If you're interested in having a bespoke Facebook page for your business but need some more advice, we can help. Just get in touch with our team of experts and we can guide you through the process, making sure you are fully aware of the pros and the cons of having a page for your business.

We will help you understand reasons for having one, help you build a business case and scope out exact requirements of your brand.

All you need to do to find out more is get in touch. Request a call back via our website here or email hello@papertreedigital.com.

XML stands for extensible markup language. XML is just a way of structuring data. It doesn't do anything else. It relies on a software application to make use of the data it holds.

XML generally consists of a series of bracketed tags, otherwise known as 'elements' or 'nodes'. Elements can contain other elements or actual data.

Below is an example of some XML, in this case, a catalogue of some of my guitars.

<instruments>

<guitar>

<make>Gibson</make>

<model>Les Paul Standard</model>

<purchased>2006</purchased>

</guitar>

<guitar>

<make>PRS</make>

<model>Custom 24</model>

<purchased>2007</purchased>

</guitar>

<guitar>

<make>ESP</make>

<model>Eclipse II</model>

<purchased>2007</purchased>

</guitar>

<guitar>

<make>ESP</make>

<model>FX</model>

<purchased>2009</purchased>

</guitar>

<guitar>

<make>Gibson</make>

<model>Les Paul Custom</model>

<purchased>2011</purchased>

</guitar>

</instruments>

In this example, there is an element called 'instruments' that contains several (child) elements called 'guitar', each of which has other child elements nested inside it (such as 'make' and 'model'). Several of those child elements have textual or numerical data in them.

XML format

XML needs to be in a certain format so applications can understand it.

All elements must have an opening tag and a closing tag. These sit either side of the data the element contains. Both the opening and closing tags take the same basic format. Both use angled brackets either side of the name of the element. The only difference is that the closing tag includes a forward slash before the name.

<element>Content</element>

The name of an element in an XML document doesn't matter. You can call your elements anything you like. There are, however, a few restrictions.

• The letter case must be the same in both the opening and closing tags. Upper and lower case characters can be used, but both tags must use the same format. For example, <guitar> does not match with </Guitar> because the case of the G is different.
• The name must start with a letter (A-Z, upper or lower case). It can contain numbers and other characters, but they cannot fall at the start of the name.
• The name cannot contain any spaces.
• The name cannot start with the letters 'xml' (in any case).

The data relating to an element is stored in between its opening and closing tags. Data can include text, numbers, and/or other elements, as we saw above.

When you don't have any data in an element, you can either have the opening and closing tags together…

<element></element>

…or you can close the element by finishing the opening tag with a forward slash. This is the only situation where you wouldn't also require a separate closing tag.

<element />

Both of these methods signify that the element is empty.

An alternative is to leave the empty element out altogether. This reduces the size of the XML document, making it easier to transfer, as it means it isn't including elements that don't have any data in them. Sometimes, however, it's useful to include the empty element just so that the structure of the XML is preserved. This is particularly useful if there are multiple elements of the same type (such as the 'guitar' elements in the example above) that all have the same child elements.

Data can also be stored in attributes. Attributes are appended to the opening tag before the closing bracket (>) and consist of an attribute name, followed by an equals sign (=) and the data it contains in quotation marks.

The attribute name has the same restrictions as for element names above (except that it can start with 'xml' in any case if you wish), but can otherwise be called anything you like. An element can have as many attributes as you like but each attribute for a given element must have a different name.

<element attribute="data">Content</element>

The closing tag of an element will never have any attributes.

XML structure

XML data is structured so you can see that any data stored within an element, including that of other elements inside it, relate to that element.

For example, if we take one of the elements from the XML above...

<guitar>

<make>Gibson</make>

<model>Les Paul Standard</model>

<purchased>2006</purchased>

</guitar>

...we can see that the 'guitar' has both a 'make' and a 'model'. The 'make' of the guitar is Gibson and the 'model' is Les Paul Standard. All of this data relates to the same guitar.

This is a very basic example. XML documents can be much more complex and contain whole catalogues of data. However, the principles are always the same.

Data, encoding and special characters

Elements can store any type of data of any length, including text, numbers and special characters. Attributes are best for small items of data, but there aren't really any limits and you don't have to use them at all if you don't want to.

Some characters serve a specific purpose in XML. For this reason, they cannot be included in items of data without first being encoded. Encoding is a way of replacing a character with something else so that it doesn't break the XML.

Encoding normally takes the form of some text or numbers between an ampersand (&) and a semi-colon (;). This is called an entity reference as it refers to the character entity it replaces. It can take the form of an 'entity name' (where the characters between the ampersand and semi-colon are text) or an 'entity number' (where the characters are numbers).

There are five characters that cannot be used within XML data without being encoded. XML includes some predefined entity references for these five characters so that they can be easily encoded.

The characters are as follows...

XML uses these characters for other things. Applications reading an XML document that has any of them within the data will have problems. The angled brackets (< and >) are a good example of this. Because XML uses angled brackets to define the tags of an XML element, any software trying to parse an XML document will get confused if it finds an angled bracket that isn't part of an element tag. A maths expression such as 10 > 2, for example, would cause problems. Encoding gets around this.

The XML standard recognises a number of different entity references. Any character (including letters and numbers) could feasibly be encoded in this way if you know the right entity reference. It is only necessary, however, with certain characters that would otherwise cause problems parsing the XML or that XML doesn't recognise (such as the pound sign (£), which becomes &pound; or &#163;).

In conclusion

XML is a great way of storing data and sharing it between applications (including websites). It's also a common standard, meaning that any developer familiar with XML will be able to retrieve structured data from it one way or another, regardless of what the elements are called.

But XML doesn't do anything else. In order to actually use it, you first need to do something with it. This could mean importing it into a database or a spread sheet or parsing it with another kind of application.

If you want to use XML data on a web page, you first need to transform it into another format. That's where XSL comes in. But that's for another day...

• Quick response marketing (or QRM) is about joining up your print and digital marketing.
• It's about making your print work much harder to generate sales.
• And it's about delivering flexible, cost-effective and joined-up marketing to mobile web users - 32m and accelerating in the UK alone.

That's the marketing line. Put more usefully, quick response marketing (QRM) drives sales by linking your advertisement, poster, leaflet or publication to a mobile web page.

It creates an immediate response to your print campaign and gives you the opportunity to deliver compelling multimedia marketing to customers on the go - and the option to "Buy now" directly from the phone.

See our quick response marketing demonstration.

Why is quick response marketing significant?

There has always been a disconnect between print and digital marketing.

Print marketing - whether a newspaper ad, brochure or poster - is about stimulating interest and encouraging a sale or further investigation. It's personal and portable. And it surrounds us. It's everywhere.

Traditionally, digital marketing has always been locked away in a box. We're only exposed to online marketing when we fire up our computer. In most cases we search out products and events which interest us before making a decision to buy.

Where digital marketing has the edge is in the ease of fulfilment. With a shopping basket just a click away, the path from interest to purchase can be very short. Print has to rely upon quoting a web address or a telephone number and hoping that there's a follow up.

Digital marketing also has the ability to do far more to make a case for a purchase - video clips, product galleries, customer testimonials, social media peer reviewing, downloadable brochures. The experience of the product or the event  it can offer is far richer than can ever be achieved through print.

Quick response marketing (QRM) is significant because it brings together print and digital marketing in a practical and effective way for the first time.

And it does so in a way which involves a huge growth area - mobile web.

The importance of mobile web

Mobile web is already huge. Almost half of all UK internet users already access the web on mobile devices.

During 2012 we will reach the tipping-point where more than half of all mobile phones in the UK will be internet-enabled smartphones. And a recent projection indicates that smartphones will account for 100% of the UK market within four years.

Mobile web does away with the notion of the internet being something locked in a box on your desk or on your laptop in your bag. Mobile web is in the hand, portable and everywhere. Mobile web does surround us.

But mobile web isn't the same as the web.

Modern smartphones make a very good job of displaying standard websites - but what's much more effective is to offer a look and feel which is optimised to the phone (simple things like bigger buttons and a more "app-like" interface) and slimmed-down content which focuses upon exactly what the mobile user needs - and quickly. Dates and time. Locations. Bullet points. Reasons to buy. Calls to action. Buy now. Sign up. Share with your friends.

But what does this mean for print?

Put simply, each print campaign you create should be accompanied by a mobile-optimised web page. This web page can stand entirely separately from your website - and should be seen as a specific piece of collateral to follow up the campaign.

The piece of print should include a QR code which, when scanned using the camera of any modern smartphone, will take the user directly to the mobile page.
The mobile page should be used to engage the user with more (and enhanced) information to follow up the campaign and to give clear calls to action (Buy now or Sign Up or Tweet this, perhaps).

Some ideas for mobile landing pages

• Deliver video or an electronic brochure
• Sell products or tickets directly from the phone
• Encourage sign-ups to your mailing list
• Generate an email voucher
• Make your message viral with instant sharing on Twitter, Facebook and emai
• Location-specific content: deliver different content from the same print depending upon the user's location

Measureable and flexible

Each scan of a QR code is logged so you can assess the effectiveness of your QRM campaigning.

And because QRM only involves the creation of a single mobile page and QR code, you can blend it into your marketing without significant spend (and without affecting the running or management of your existing website).

Why not give it a try?

We are working with the John Good group, our parent company, to deliver a quick response marketing service.

Have a look at their quick response marketing page - it contains a video presentation which showcases what's possible with QRM and there's an onscreen QR code which you can scan to see a live campaign in action.

We expect QRM to be huge. What do you think?

-

And if you don't think that you have enough mobile visitors to worry about the mobile web - you soon will have!

The future of the web…

As we've said before, the future of the web is mobile.

• Almost half of UK internet users access the web via a mobile device.
• In 2012 more than 50% of all mobile phones in the UK will be smartphones.

However, a recent report by Google shows that 79% of their biggest customers don't have mobile-optimised websites.

And when you consider that Google themselves are now rewarding websites which offer a good mobile experience with better search results, it's clear that there's a justification for embracing mobile as part of your digital marketing strategy.

Delivering mobile

There are two ways to deliver a mobile experience to your users:

• Mobile app
• Web app (or mobile website)

Mobile apps

There's been a gold-rush to mobile apps since 2008 when Apple launched its App Store to promote the downloading of iOS apps to iPhone (and, more recently, the iPad). There are now some 425,000 apps on the store which have been downloaded over 10 billion times.

Apps can also be downloaded for the other main mobile phone platforms including Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows.

Apps are developed natively for each device which means that the full range of each phone's capability (eg, the camera, GPS positioning, notifications) can be blended in to the app.

Apps are single-platform. An iPhone app won't work on an Android device, and so on.

Apps are distributed from central stores (such as Apple's App Store or the Amazon Appstore for Android) which makes the process of monetising downloads straightforward and easy to manage.

In the case of iPhone/iPad apps, Apple decide whether an app is fit to be distributed, and will take 30% of the sale price of each download.

Companies looking to deliver an app which gives marketing or promotional information might find it challenging to satisfy point 2.1.3 of the App Store Review Guidelines:
2.13: Apps that are primarily marketing materials or advertisements will be rejected.

In fact, Apple themselves recommend that if there's no justification for using the additional functionality of their mobile devices within your app, then "you may consider building a web app using HTML 5"…

Web apps

…which is handy as this is our recommendation, too!

A web app is, in essence, a mobile version of your website which is displayed automatically when a visitor using a mobile device comes to your standard website.

It can look and feel just like a mobile app but will be a real-time version of the website designed with mobile users in mind - both in terms of how it looks and in terms of its content.

(It's vital to remember that mobile users have needs which are quite different to those of your standard website visitors. They'll want information quickly, they'll want it to the point and they'll want clear calls to action. There's little sense in restyling your website in its entirety. Think about what users really want when they're on the move.)

Web apps have the widest reach. Unlike mobile apps, they work on all phones, regardless of the operating system. To match the reach of a web app you would need to consider developing, managing and maintaining at least four different mobile apps (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows).

Web apps don't need to be downloaded. They serve from the same web address as your standard website.Web apps are feature-rich. There are ways to perform location sensing and caching, too, so that the app will deliver even without an internet connection.

There's no approval process. You choose what's right for your web app and that's that. If it's a marketing web app you want, great! Let's build it.

Web apps can be more affordable, faster to build and easier to develop than mobile apps.

They're more pragmatic, too. The only constant with the web is rapid change and it's difficult to predict confidently where the mobile device market is going (some reports have Windows Phone dominating by 2014, some consider that a new mid-range Apple device might boost their share and what about Kindle as a low-end mobile tablet?). A mobile website is the best bet because it will work today and it will work in five years' time, on whichever device is to hand.

Of course, if you want to develop a game or something which relies on the smartphone's core functionality, then a native app is always going to be the better option. But to deliver joined-up marketing to an exploding mobile market-place, the best place to start is with a mobile website or web app.

Ask us for more about web apps.

A web app in action

As a result of a dispute with Apple, The Financial Times replaced their iOS mobile app with an HTML browser-based app - and it's excellent.

To see what's possible with a web app, see the FT's app page.

-

GA also helps you to identify where your marketing resource is best spent. In tracking how many conversions occur as a result of a link from your Facebook Page or from a piece of email marketing, for example, you can determine the return on investment (ROI) for each of your touchpoints - even print.

Here are five essential tips for making the most of Google Analytics.

Define goals and funnels

A Goal (sometimes referred to as a conversion) is any desirable activity on your website. A goal might be

• purchase confirmation page: your visitor has become a customer
• mailing-list sign-up thank you page: your visitor becomes a prospect
• product detail page: your visitor shows interest
• product sheet download page: your visitor becomes engaged
• contact us page: your visitor becomes a lead

Setting up a goal is as easy. On your GA Overview page, click on the "edit" link under the Actions column, then choose to "Add goal". See the Google Analytics help page for more.

A Funnel is the path you expect the visitor to take which leads them to a goal. A funnel, for example, for a product purchase from an email campaign might be:

Campaign landing page > Product detail page > Add to basket page > Checkout page > Credit card entry page > Thank you page

Funnels are useful because they help you to identify problems in your page flow by showing you how many visitors exit before fulfilling at each stage of the funnel. If most visitors make it through to the "Add to basket" page but no further, this might indicate that there's a usability problem with the page which needs addressing.

You can build a funnel once you've set up a goal - and through the same interface. See the Google Analytics help page for more.

Understanding $index and page values

$index enables you to measure the value of every page on your website and to identify pages which aren't pulling their weight.

When you create a goal you can (and should) assign a goal value to that page. The value you assign isn't important in absolute terms, but should express the relative importance of that page. Let's say a mailing list sign-up is twice as important as your contact us page. You might give the former a value of 20 and the latter a value of 10.

Once your goal pages have a value, GA will begin to calculate the value of every other page in the website by analysing the role each page plays in contributing to a visit to the goal page.

GA looks at all the paths taken to all the goal pages on the site and, based upon an equation, assigns an $index (or page value) to each page. This $index is expressed in US dollars but that's irrelevant. The numerical value of each page should be seen as a relative indication of that's page's contribution to the website.

When viewing your "Top content" report, it's worth ordering by $index so that you can see which pages contribute most - and least. Once you have this insight you can factor in your funnel pathways and prioritise pages which need some attention to improve their effectiveness.

More on $index and page values.

Campaign tracking

GA has a powerful method for monitoring how many visits we made to a specific web page (or even downloadable document) as a result of the visitor clicking a link in an email newsletter, Twitter post, Facebook update, banner ad, reciprocal link, non-Google paid keyword or any other digital touchpoint.

To use campaign checking you need to add campaign variables to the landing page URL which you use as the link in your email, banner ad and so on.

Let's say that you want to link from your emailshot to http://www.mydomain.com/myproduct.html.

With campaign tracking, you should instead use this link http://www.mydomain.com/myproduct.html?utm_source=autumn-newsletter&utm_medium=eflyer&utm_campaign=new-product-launch

Looks complicated, but luckily Google have provided an excellent tool for generating this URL.

Every click on that link is recorded by GA as having come from an eflyer, specifically the Autumn newsletter which was used as part of the New product launch marketing campaign.

You can analyse results in your Traffic Sources > Campaigns report.

Traffic sources

If you want a quick overview of where your traffic is coming from (and what proportion, for instance, comes from your social media touchpoints or from search engines), your first stop should be the Traffic Source > Referring Sites report.

This is often a useful way to build up a picture, over time, of how your touchpoints are contributing to your traffic, and enables you to identify trends.

Annotations

A simple trick - but one that many GA users don't know about...

Whenever you launch a marketing campaign or make a change to the website, you should get into the habit of annotating your stats. To do this, go to your Dashboard and click on the small grey arrow beneath the main chart.

Click on the "Create new annotation" link and enter a date and a note (eg, "New season launched" or "Autumn email sent").

The annotation appears throughout GA as a small white speech bubble at the appropriate date to remind you that something happened - so you can explain that sudden spike in your page visits!

And finally...

Not quite a sixth tip because the feature has only just gone live - but make sure you look out for the new Real-Time Data reports which GA is rolling out.

You can sign up for early access to real-time analysis on the Google website.

-

In writing this series on joined-up marketing as extended copy I know I'm ignoring all the rules which say that blogging should be short, pithy, to-the-point, bullets rather than paragraphs. Nobody reads from a screen, do they?

So, to sum up, here are a dozen takeaways - common-sense ideas for joining up your marketing.

1. Know what you want to achieve, how you will measure it, how you'll know if it's worked and what you will try next if it fails.
2. Review your customer data. Is it good enough? What does it tell you? Where are the juicy segments? Is it ripe for micro-campaigns?
3. Use Google Analytics to understand how your website is being used and how it needs to work harder. I recommend this book.
4. Don't just build web pages, build landing pages with calls to action and which support the campaign collateral which links to them.
5. Mobile is no longer a nice-to-have. It's what you should start with. Everything should be optimised for mobile. If you don't have the budget for this, start small with a series of standalone mobile pages - try our Quick response marketing service.
6. Incentivise email sign-up and social following - and resource it! Make sure that if people follow you that you're giving them something to follow.
7. Carry your brand identity and personality across all collateral. Give a joined-up experience wherever your customers are.
8. Encourage sharing. Like. Tweet. +1. Go sharing-button crazy.
9. Don't just engage with people when you want them to buy from you. Communicate to enhance the brand experience. Curate third-party content. Be sociable with social. Say thank you. Say sorry. Use regular, purposeful email to keep people familiar with you.
10. Encourage feedback to build compelling peer reviews, to learn more about what your customers think, and as an opportunity to engage personally with them.
11. Think about how print can work harder to drive a sale, a sign-up or a web visit.
12. Write a plan. There's so much to do that you need to know what you have time for and what works best for your customers. Record everything you do and everything your customers did as a result of it. Repeat the stuff that works - and don't be afraid to try something a little bit different to make it work even better.

If you've made it to the end, email me for a special prize (just kidding). But do get in touch if something here strikes a chord - or a nerve. It would be great to hear what you're doing and the issues you're facing when joining up your marketing.

In part three of this series on joined-up marketing, we're going to begin at the centre of all the activity - the website. It's here that interest needs to be converted into a sale so it's important that the landing page (or pages) is designed with conversion in mind.

Perhaps the exhibition page is light on copy and heavier on images - a carousel of artwork, maybe. Or a short video clip - a guided tour of what to expect. Professional and peer comment and review can be compelling at this stage - and dates, times and prices are key, too.

The most essential element is a clear and enticing Book Now button which should lead to a smooth ticketing experience, with the opportunity for upselling additional events as appropriate (an  exhibition brochure, a drinks reception, a guided tour, relevant items from the shop).

The process of landing and ticketing should be examined on mobile devices as well as on desktop computers, with the call to action retaining its pull regardless of the screen size. The future of the web is on mobile. Having mobile-optimised web marketing is no longer a nice-to-have. It's where you should start from.

Social sharing is a must, with options available to Like, Tweet and to +1.

Say thank you with email

Once a sale is made, a branded thank you email should be sent. This can be seen as the first part of the experience, and an opportunity for the museum to deliver some effective after-sales communication.

If the buyer is from out of town, why not suggest places where they might like to stay, making the most of the museum's affiliate hotels and guest houses. Offer links to travel websites or to websites containing information for tourists and London culture.

Two weeks before the event, say, there's the opportunity to email the customer again with a note from the exhibition's curator to thank them again and to talk in a little more detail about what the exhibition hopes to achieve - and which pieces of work are worth particular consideration.

Encourage recipients to share this communication to their social networks by including "Like" and "Tweet" buttons. Mention that the museum is on Foursquare and that there will be a weekly prize awarded at random to anyone who checks in.

Include calls to action for specific items of exhibition merchandise or for membership of the Friends.

One day after the ticketed event, the museum should arrange for another automatic email, perhaps from the Chief Executive, to express thanks and to encourage feedback via a button linking back to the website.

This email is a great chance to publicise forthcoming exhibitions or to say, for example, "Did you know that if you join the Friends today, you can come and see the exhibition again for free?"

Driving traffic to the website

Once the website (and mobile site) are set up with conversion in mind, the main task is to deliver traffic to the site. In our fictional example, the museum begins by sending targeted email campaigns to its database of patrons.

Email

As a frequent user of email marketing, the museum knows which tactics work best for its patrons: which time of the week (and day) to send a campaign, which type of subject line lead to most opens, how the layout of the email itself affects the number of click-throughs. Any email marketing system work considering will give the ability to run A/B split testing for campaigns so that you can dry-run on a random selection of your database different subject lines, from address and entire content to see which generates the best response - and then send the most effective to the remainder of the database.

Segmentation of customer data gives opportunities for very tight campaigning. Perhaps the museum wants to focus on patrons living within London and target these with a particular campaign - and attack prospects living outside the capital for another campaign, one which , perhaps, blends in a trip to the exhibition as part of a weekend trip to the city.

If information is held about the customer's visiting patterns then there's the chance to deliver flexible email marketing which includes special offers or other effective calls to action. A member of the Friends, for instance, should expect quite different communication from a prospect who may have attended one exhibition 18 months previously or to another who books for every event.

Social

Facebook and Twitter are key touchpoints. For some organisations, in fact, this is the main way in which customers experience their brand. For many, their Facebook page is the de facto front door for their website - the homepage of the homepage.

As mobile begins to dominate how we access information and marketing, the role of social networks is going to grow ever more important, as a way for organisations to communicate about what they do, and for customers to feed back, to ask questions and to contribute to the marketing effort by sharing tweets and posts with their communities.

Our museum has a branded Facebook Page - and a Twitter account.

Their Facebook Page is, in effect, a microsite which sits within the Facebook interface and which they can use to disseminate information about what's coming up. The look and feel of the page can match that of their website and can contain image galleries, video, mailing list sign ups, competitions - really, pretty much anything. For the forthcoming exhibition they've rolled out a new design of the page which focuses heavily on the event and includes video, photography and a book now link.

The key to having a Facebook presence is to encourage "Like"s. Once I like you, your Facebook updates will enter my stream. One way to incentivise likes is to restrict access to a part of the Facebook Page (or even the entire page) until the visitor has clicked the Like button. Some brands will publish a voucher or offer once a visitor has liked, for example.

Updates to Facebook and Twitter are made regularly from within the marketing office. When promoting an event, each update should contain a link back to the website to encourage click-through - and the destination page should always have a clear call-to-action whenever appropriate.

Though the objective of communicating across either platform is the same (to encourage followers to respond to your message and to share it), the content can and should be different.

The brevity of Twitter's 140 characters lends itself to more frequent and snappier updates - quick posts about interesting aspects of forthcoming events; sharing of thoughts and opinions; linking to third-party resources (aka curating); and responding to specific and direct questions.

Twitter timelines tend to get bogged down so it's important to post often to keep visibility high. Perhaps a couple of times a day - or more regularly if there's genuinely more to say.

With the more easy sharing of images, video and links, Facebook is more flexible and more transparent. Users can also easily see which of your posts have generated the most interest in terms of comments and likes. You can exercise more editorial control over Facebook - it's closer to traditional "publishing" than Twitter's "in-the-moment" feel.

It's fine to cross-promote. If an offer is running on Facebook, tweet about it. If you're running a competition on Twitter, post about it to your Facebook wall.

Twitter and Facebook give great options for timely and reactive marketing. If a particular day is looking low on sales, there's the opportunity to generate some last-minute activity by targeting the social channels in a way which even email can't quite deliver.

Let YouTube take the strain

Our museum publishes video clips (tours of the building, a guide to exhibitions and so on) to its YouTube channel, which is branded to match the look and feel of its main website. The videos are carefully tagged to attract search traffic from within YouTube and there are plenty of links back to the site to encourage through traffic.

The museum site uses a YouTube embed of the uploaded clip on its own pages and the HTML 5 version of the embed for its mobile site.

And don't forget print!

Print is still is pretty rude health. And with joined-up digital on its side, the humble poster, leaflet or brochure is a touchpoint in its own right, and yet another set of front doors.

…particularly how it plays with mobile

We're big fans of QR codes. The technology itself isn't particularly interesting (it's just a barcode) - but what it offers is potentially very significant indeed. With the rise, rise and (soon) domination of smartphones, the majority of us are going to have internet at our fingertips wherever we are. A recent survey by the Office of National Statistics found that already almost 50% of all UK internet users visit the web on their mobile device. Another found that in 2012 more than half of all mobile phones in the UK will be smartphones. When we reach that tipping point we will have crossed the Rubicon into a future where the web is consumed in the hand and not on the desktop.

There has always been a disconnect between print and online marketing collateral. Sure, web addresses have appeared for years at the foot of posters, on ads and in longer publications, but only as a gentle nudge or as a reference. We are expecting a great deal if we think that people are going to see a URL and remember it for long enough to type it into their computer (or their smartphone, if they have nimble fingers).

With a QR code you are able to give one-click access to instant upsell information. I see a poster, I'm interested, I scan the QR code, I engage - and I fulfil. This fulfilment can be to buy something or to book a ticket there and then; it can mean signing up to a mailing list; it can mean tweeting a marketing message to my followers; or it can mean watching a video, reading additional information, interacting with enhanced, added-value content which the poster could never provide - but which the poster has introduced me to.

The key with QR strategies is to have in place well-designed web pages which are optimised for mobile devices and which are built with conversion in mind. Don't just send a QR scanner to your standard website - and certainly never to your standard homepage. Send them to a page which has been designed with their iPhone, Android or Blackberry in mind - which behaves like an app in other words. And send them to a page which continues a conversation with them. They'll have scanned the QR from a particular poster, for instance, intrigued by a special offer, say, so make sure that your landing page follows this up. And make sure that it's easy for the visitor to do what you want them to do once they're there.

Visitors who tread the QR path are highly engaged with you. Make sure you engage with them.

Our museum, for example, use a QR code on their generic exhibition posters which takes visitors to the mobile version of the exhibition page. In the season brochure, there's another QR code which works alongside the more detailed content available on the page and offer a video interview with the curator - this is delivered together with a "Book tickets" button which enables a quick passage to the mobile-optimised ticketing process.

Personalise print with variable data printing

In much the same way that email marketing can be harnessed to give targeted and segmented communication, variable data printing allows for highly personalised traditional print collateral. Working from their customer database, the museum launched a postcard campaign at the beginning of its current season. It identified different niches within its data - Friends, regular attenders, school parties, infrequent attenders, those who have bought from the shop, perhaps. Each different niche group receives its own specially designed postcard with a marketing message to match ("Why not become a Friend" or "Thanks for being a Friend" or "Why not come back to the museum this Spring") and with personalised marketing copy and a relevant special offer or promotion.

There's even the chance to blend in a personalised URL (or QR code) for each recipient  which leads to a web page where each recipient can tell the venue more about themselves to help the data collection process.

Once the artwork is created and the logic processed, a single print-ready pdf file is produced which can be supplied direct to the printer for output on a digital press.

Measure, measure, measure

And, of course, our museum knows exactly which collateral features which URL - and can measure how effective each strand is in bringing traffic to the website.

Next >

-

The data

The museum has a database of patrons - these are individuals who have booked online for previous exhibitions or have signed up to receive future marketing material or who have joined the Friends or who have bought merchandise items online. Perhaps the database contains information about purchasing history - which patrons come regularly, which infrequently, which only once, which live in the local area, which further afield and so on. This information is extremely useful, as we'll see, as it enables you to run nicely targeted mini-campaigns, each with their own effective calls to action.

The event

There's a new exhibition of impressionist art running for six weeks during the summer.

The campaign

The museum will be using the following touchpoints to drive ticket sales.

1. Website (and online ticketing)
2. Paid search
3. Email marketing
4. Posters and leaflets
5. Facebook
6. Twitter
7. YouTube
8. Foursquare

Targets

To generate, let's say, £50k of ticket sales and £5k of merchandise sales through the museum website.

Each touchpoint will be responsible for its own share of this objective. So - let's say 50% of ticket sales will be expected to come from direct, unreferred traffic to the website; 15% from paid search; 10% from organic search; 5% each for Twitter and Facebook; 5% from scanning a QR code; 10% from email marketing. Perhaps 5% of all ticket sales will be targeted for the mobile version of the museum website.

These are all nominal figures. Your mileage may differ.

The objectives

• To sell tickets
• To spread the message about the exhibition across all touchpoints.
• To ensure that each touchpoint has a clear call to action.
• To measure the effectiveness of every activity
• To deliver a coherent and holistic campaign which focuses upon
• Delivering appropriate messages to appropriate audiences at the right time
• Consolidating the museum brand
• Pre and post-sale communication which makes a sale, makes an upsell, draws the patron closer to the brand and encourages future patronage
• Encouraging feedback, social share and peer review

Next >

-