It’s the most wonderful time of the year for businesses producing great goods that get snapped up during the festive season. Whether you sell fabulous items that can be purchased and wrapped as presents under the tree, or you provide services that suit the holiday season, your website needs to be ready for the impending wave of customers. We’ve put together a quick guide for you to scan through to test whether or not your website might need maintenance before the silly season really kicks in. 

Ranging from the technical to the attractive and aesthetic, here’s our Christmas wishlist for a perfect website… 

A fast load-time and smooth scrolling 

Most web users decide whether or not they’ll stick around on a website in a matter of seconds. Usually between 6 and 15 seconds, to be exact. If your site doesn’t load within that small space of time, you’re practically guaranteed to lose that customer. 

Your website should load immediately, and scrolling should be smooth with all elements loaded and ready to be clicked and explored. Don’t give your audience an excuse to click off your site and on to your competitor’s – give them everything they’re searching for and more with a smooth, snappy web design! 

A logical layout 

In the same manner that we enter a grocery store and expect to be met with delicious deli meats and mounds of fresh fruit, your audience expects certain welcoming motifs from your web-store when shopping online. Generally, shoppers don’t want to be met with a landing page laden with fat paragraphs of wordy information. We want to see big, bold and beautiful images of your products, either in use or tastefully captured in crisp photoshoots. 

Once a user has committed to clicking on your site, be sure they’re rewarded with the exact amount of imagery and information they’ll need to lead them to the purchases they’ve considered making. 

A smart shopping experience 

From auto-fill address pages to intelligent carts that automatically apply deals or suggest additional helpful products, shopping websites have become wonderfully sophisticated. The myriad features available to you will knock your socks off. While it’ll take a few meetings with a Wellington web design expert to map out the perfect shopping website, you and your customers won’t know yourselves when the new feature-packed design is up and running smoothly in time for Christmas. 

Book a free consultation 

We’ll take a look at your website, at no cost, and give you some tips and feedback on how it can be improved to achieve its purpose. And if you don’t already have a website, we’ll help you (at no cost) determine the purpose your website needs to have, and give you some ideas on how your site should be built to achieve it.

The post Is your website ready for Christmas shoppers?  appeared first on Tailgunner.

Will it be seen? 

If you’re in the early days of launching your brand, products and services, your campaign should be focussed on reaching as many people as possible. You can be a bit more generalised with your desired audience, casting your net as far and wide as your budget might allow. 

Should social media be your fishing spot of choice, we recommend starting with a few simple Facebook advertisements. Invest in fantastic photography or footage to attract views, and pair that imagery with a snappy caption that’ll inspire clicks and curiosity. 

Veteran brands looking to widen their audience or thrill them with a new product/service or sale will need a more focussed campaign plan. You’ll need to know who you want to target, what sort of imagery will pique their interest, and how you can best translate your offer to them in the smallest amount of time. 

Competitions are another sort of campaign entirely, and we’ve written a few helpful blogs about preparing, launching and managing giveaways that you can check out here. 

Have you prepared all the appropriate assets and does everyone have access? 

Nothing is more frustrating in business than miscommunication and disorganisation. Several parties are involved in promoting a successful campaign, and it’s up to you and your campaign team to make sure everyone talks! 

Here are a few elements you’ll need to combine to create the perfect campaign: 

• A selection of key dates and deadlines 
• A collection of fantastic imagery (of your product, services, or eye-catching visuals relating to your campaign) 
• Key links (in case the promotion links to a website or product) 
• A selection of appropriate hashtags 
• A video/photo, font and design folder, stored in a cloud, that everyone can access 
• A wishlist of results you’d like to see upon the completion of the campaign

The best way to keep everyone connected and on track is to have a social media or web advertisement manager overseeing the project. Tailgunner can provide these services.

We can also manage the aftermath of your campaign launch, monitoring comments and questions as they come through, and analysing the analytics of your promotion while keeping you updated and informed. 

Is your website ready for action?  

Will your promotion or competition drive traffic directly to your website? Are you inviting people to shop for products or test a new feature you’ve painstakingly installed? Whatever the purpose for your promotion, your website needs to be ready to handle the impending traffic. 

The last thing any brand needs is a disappointing collection of customers who were unsuccessful in obtaining your product or unable to view valuable information due to your website being overwhelmed. If you’re not sure whether or not your server is prepared for your planned promotion, let the webdesign experts at Tailgunner take a look and test your site’s capacity for large quantities of keen customers.

The post How to handle a social media campaign like a pro  appeared first on Tailgunner.

We know you won’t want to waste any wonderful prizes, especially if your company is in its early social media days and you don’t have a huge budget to contribute to competitions. At the end of the day, you get what you give(away) with competitions, but a well-handled giveaway can make magic from even the smallest of budgets. 

In today’s article, we’ll help you understand how to host cool competitions that will win your brand some online interest and interaction. 

More is more 

A competition with more prizes (and the promise of more than one winner) is far more attractive to your audience than one big exciting prize. People feel more hopeful in general about multi-winner giveaways, even if the prizes on offer are of less value than a more flashy singular alternative. 

When considering a prize to offer for your giveaway, we suggest a handful of smaller items be awarded to 2-3 winners. 

Budget for the promo, not the prize 

We’ve seen our fair share of competitions here at Tailgunner ranging in value from $1000+ fireplaces to $5 exhibition tickets. If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years of comp-hosting, it is that the true value of a competition lies in its promotion. There’s no point paying for a great prize or offering up an expensive product if it isn’t going to be seen. Giveaways that don’t promote to a wider audience will run into the following issues: 

• Not enough comments/entries 
• Entries are from disingenuous ‘serial competition’ enterers who will sell your prize for a profit and immediately unfollow your page 
• Little to no interaction on your page, or little to no lasting Likes/Follows 

To reach a wider audience and ensure your prize pool has a healthy range of genuine entrants, be sure to set aside a reasonable budget for promoting your giveaway. 

The prize 

So shiny. So desirable. But what could it be? 

While most brands put their own products up for grabs in giveaways, we understand that not all products or services make suitable prizes. Let’s take a look at your options depending on what category your brand falls into: 

Services 

Depending on the cost and scale of your services, you might be able to offer vouchers as a prize in your giveaway. 

Pros: 

• Newcomers clicking on your competition will gain instant insight into who you are and what you offer 
• If your winner likes their service, they’ll tell their friends and gain you more customers 
• If your winner likes their service, they could give you a positive review and become a returning customer 

Cons: 

• Not all services are affordable enough to be offered as prizes (plumbing, accounting, car repair etc). 
• If you don’t prepare your post correctly (miswording, lack of boosting or complicated entry requirements) you might end up with only one or two winners to choose from, and either of these winners might not be appropriate (serial competition enterers, fake accounts). 

At the end of the day, there’s no pressure to offer a free service as competition fodder. You can always try a prize that falls in line with your service or your brand. For example, a mechanic might like to offer a free pack of car seat covers. A plumber might like to offer luxurious soap dispensers to add a touch of class to someone’s bathroom. 

Get creative and feel free to consult the social media experts at Tailgunner if you’re not sure what sort of prize you should be offering in your service-based brand’s competition. 

Products 

By far the easiest prize to put up for grabs is a sample of your product. We’ve given away everything from Christmas hams to boxed mattresses, BBQs to chocolate bars. You name it! 

Pros: 

• Newcomers clicking on the competition will instantly be exposed to your product
• This might encourage interest in your other products, and often leads to clicks that bring the audience member to your website, where they might just convert to becoming a paying customer! 
• For those that don’t like leaving things to chance (but still want your product), your competition might prompt purchases 
• As above, your winner might like the prize enough to promote it to their friends, leave you a nice review, or simply become a returning customer 

Cons: 

• You really have to keep an eye on who wins your Facebook competitions. There are some extremely devious people out there who make it their day-job to enter hundreds of competitions daily and sell their prizes to make a profit.
  
  It’s not fair or right for such nefarious folks to get away with reselling your top quality product.
  
  Plus, they won’t have sampled it, shared their experience with their friends, or become a returning customer. Most likely, they’d have unfollowed your page the moment they received their prize.

• Your product might be too costly to giveaway a simple competition
• Your product might be too costly or impractical to deliver

As we mentioned in our previous category, you don’t have to put your stock up for grabs in a competition if you aren’t comfortable doing so, or if it isn’t financially feasible to do so. In this case, you can talk to the Wellington social media management experts at Tailgunner and let our team come up with a creative competition concept that suits your brand while promoting your products in the process. 

The post Tips for running a successful Facebook competition appeared first on Tailgunner.

I hope you’re hungry, because in today’s article we’ve got some fresh EAT information for you to chew on. We’ll touch briefly on the new Google SEO ranking guidelines and how you can amend your site to meet them. 

Define EAT

Expertise — For this requirement, Google will assess the knowledgeability of the site owner or content author on the subject matter they talk about. Specialists such as doctors and lawyers will see the most impact from this update, so smaller businesses won’t need to fret too much on this subject. 

Authoritativeness — If your business has credentials, certificates and awards, now is the time to brag about them. Google will now assess the credibility of a website publishing content that it claims to be an expert on. Your reviews will also get assessed, so make sure you haven’t littered your site with false five-star raves. 

Trustworthiness — A site riddled with dodgy links, pop-ups and a known history of poorly kept customer information/passwords won’t meet this new requirement. If you’ve taken the time to invest in secure site creation and maintenance then you’re on the right track. Customers should feel safe when logging onto your site to shop, offering their email for newsletters and browsing through your content in general. Mother Google wants only the best for her web-browsing babies. 

Tips to amend your site to suit EAT 

Try not to take it personally 

At the end of the day, Google just wants to make sure its browsers are safe, secure, and finding the right sort of results whenever they search. 

Think of the EAT update like restaurant quality control. Folks aren’t going to eat at dodgy, windowless alleyway restaurants with no signage, vague menus and aloof waitstaff. We’d all prefer a restaurant with rave reviews, a lively atmosphere, an easy-to-access menu and warm waitstaff who welcome us at the door. 

With enough polished site design and clear, confident information, your site is on the right track to becoming the second restaurant in that metaphor. 

Talk to Tailgunner 

SEO is complicated, and that fact is probably by design. If you’re busy running your business and you haven’t the time to fuss over making sure your website stays EAT-able, why not leave it to an expert? Offering expert SEO services for small businesses, we’re Google-qualified and approved to assist in all things websites and rankings! 

If your website could use a makeover, both visually and in its SEO ranking, simply get in touch with Tailgunner.

The post Google is hungry for SEO and it wants you to EAT appeared first on Tailgunner.

How do fans feel about the status, and how might it benefit your small business? In today’s article we’ll explore the new feature and consider it from a marketing perspective. 

A bit of an ego boost

The first and most obvious advantage of this new feature is that you’ll feel a little bit special knowing (with somewhat official confirmation) that a portion of your audience are loyal to you and your page. They’re here to support your content, and have been active on your page longer and more regularly than most. 

Without having to trawl back through months of content and comments, Facebook has neatly assorted the ‘best’ of your audience members into a list that you can easily access from your company Facebook page by simply clicking the ‘Community’ button in the lower section of your menu (below your profile picture). 

Delicious data!

If you have a large audience that grows exponentially by the day, this can be a wonderful way to observe your ever evolving ‘target audience’. Just take a look through your assorted list of Top Fans, ranging from oldest to newest. Are they a majority male or female? What is the median age of these Top Fans? Where do they live and what sort of posts are they reacting to? 

It’s a marketing data gold mine!

Being a Top Fan in a tall poppy environment 

Some Top Fans might feel a little sheepish sticking out like a sore thumb among those who might scoff at their ‘achievement’. If the Top Fan feature truly irks a user, they can choose to hide this status from their friends and followers. 

Doing so might save a little face, but we believe it is more beneficial for your business to keep them around; to instil a sense of pride in those who belong in your page’s Top Fan group. 

Give them a reason to display the diamond by trying any of the following: 

• Do a ‘Top Fan’ themed giveaway or competition
  
• React to their comments and take some time to reply to them (maybe share a joke or answer in a manner that encourages further conversation between you and your ‘fan’)
  
• Perhaps mention publicly that you’d like to send them a ‘special treat’, and ask them to private message you for a discount or giveaway
  
• Post a tasteful ‘thank you’ status about your Top Fans.

If you don’t have any Top Fans yet, or you’re noticing that your current Top Fans are hiding their status, try hosting a few Facebook giveaways to encourage more interaction with a special focus on commenting. Need help hosting a Facebook giveaway or any other sort of social media special event? Let’s talk! 

The post Facebook’s new Top Fan feature is fantastic for small businesses  appeared first on Tailgunner.

If you’re looking to give your business its best chance online, you’ll need the right sort of support, strategies and tools for the task. It’s a competitive world out there on the web. There might be a sea of potential customers out there waiting for you, but it’s up to you to make sure they know where to find you, and what exactly you’re offering them.

Let’s make sure that your launch is worthy of a NASA standing ovation. Here’s how we’ll get you into online ‘orbit’…

Social Networks

Social media is an excellent place to start when launching a new business online. Here, you’ll be free to start building your audience and advertising your product/service without even needing to wait for your website’s completion.

To have a social business profile is to possess an online personality that represents your business to an audience of potential customers and clients. This sort of networking is social, by definition. There are a lot of benefits to this less corporate and more casual medium for marketing. You’re here to inform and entertain your audience; to interact with them and be awarded with their freely-given feedback and ongoing interest in your brand.

Got a product launch or event that needs advertising? Do so affordable and effortlessly with Facebook! Want to display your gorgeous range of stock without jamming everything into one dull online catalogue? Fill your company’s Instagram feed with expertly arranged photos of your best-selling items, taking the time to thoughtfully caption each and every one.

Social media is like marketing magic for small businesses looking to land a successful launch. While networks are constantly evolving, you’ll find them easier to navigate with a helpful co-pilot at your side. Check out our Social Media Marketing Services for more information on the marketing magic we can work for your business.

“If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.”

–Elon Musk.

Site

Alright, so your audience has spotted you on social media. Great! Now, where will their clicks lead them when they interact with your advertisements, your call to action buttons, and your website links? How will they find more information on you, your business, and the products or services that you provide?

They’ll go straight for your website, of course.

These days, the standards for a website are high. Nobody is prepared to sit around waiting for a slow site to load. Your audience will have neither the time nor patience to navigate a mess of complicated menu bars and vague descriptions. Whether you sell scented candles or provide emergency dental services, you owe it to your audience (and potential customers) to provide them with a fast, effective website. A website that achieves more online, providing you with results, and providing your customers with an excellent experience, be that on a mobile phone or a desktop.

Check out our Web Design Services for more information.

Support

Of course, after launching your social networks and website, you’ll need ongoing support to help you stay on course for growth and success. Should you need to update your website or run a successful social marketing campaign for an event, let Tailgunner be your ground control.

In addition to designing beautiful websites and marketing collateral, our team can maintain and cultivate your site and social networks so that you see ongoing success from your business. Start strong and continue stronger.

We look forward to working with you and your new Wellington small business!

The post Prepare for liftoff: launching your small business online appeared first on Tailgunner.

A social media marketing campaign is the best way for your brand to boost those numbers. A competent campaign will ensure that the right people know about your special event. Tools such as Facebook and Instagram advertising will help you raise awareness and let people know when and where to go, and what will be on offer for them when they get there.

Ready to give your special event its best shot? Start with social media! Here are just a few reasons why we recommend Facebook and Instagram for special event campaigning to our clients here at Tailgunner…

Serious scope

Marketing your event on social media is an excellent investment of resources. Social networks provide you with unbeatable reach. While your average event poster might catch a glance or two at your local bus shelter, a well-executed social media campaign can attract local, national and even international attention. You’ll reach wider demographics online than you might have through more traditional advertising methods. If you’re looking to attract attention for a special event, a social media marketing campaign is the way to go.

Keep track of the stats that count

Imagine if your special event billboards, posters, flyers and TV advertisements could tell you exactly who’s viewed them. Now picture that valuable information grouped into helpful charts and easy-to-read figures that you can access any time, even after your campaign has run its course.

With social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, you’ll have access to review helpful information about your audiences; understand and cater to their age group, gender and general location. Know when they’re online and ready to see and interact with your campaign posts. Keep your finger on the pulse with helpful statistics, updated regularly to keep you connected with your audience and the effectiveness of the content that you’re offering them.

One of the most effective ways to raise awareness for an event is to invest in paid Facebook and Instagram advertisements. A boosted post or paid advertisement will come equipped with live data telling you who’s seeing and who’s interacting with your post. You’ll know how many people you’re reaching and how many people are clicking on your link. Boosted posts and social advertisements are perhaps the most important part of any and all online event marketing, so be sure to bolster your post with great eye-catching graphics and catchy captions.

A greener option

We’ve worked with plenty of environmentally conscious brands here at Tailgunner. We’ve been challenged to seek strategies that cater to their clean, green values. Social media marketing, it would seem, has proven itself to be an excellent solution for stirring interest in these inspirational and good-natured special events with minimal waste and maximum reach. Without need of a single flyer, a series of simple and sincere social media posts can accumulate healthy interest in important events such as product launches, weekend markets, charities and health and wellness campaigns.

Got an event coming up? Let’s talk!

Tailgunner can help you get your event in front of the right people to encourage more interest in your event. We’ll be with you every step of the way, starting with an energetic meeting to understand your event, and eventually progressing to a strong social strategy that we can help you implement smoothly and successfully. We’ll keep an eye on your paid advertisements and boosted posts, ensuring your budget is being put to good use in order to gain and maintain interest in your event. When your event wraps up, we’ll run through the facts, figures and data with you in a helpful report that you can use to encourage attendance to your next event.

Ready to get social with your special event? Talk to Tailgunner!

The post Why you should go social for your special event appeared first on Tailgunner.

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Presenting your preferred examples

So you’ve found a glorious website that works in a way you would like for your own brand. Nice! We’ll certainly do our best to create your brand a website with similar style and functionality, but a few things are going to affect how well this works: your product/service, your budget, and your deadline.

The team at Tailgunner are problem solvers. We’ll do our best for your brand on the budget and timeframe you give us.

Where unrealistic expectations arise, we understand that this isn’t your fault. We wouldn’t expect you to totally understand the technical concept of web design, so we’ll shed light on what’s realistic and what’s less so in regard to your resourses.

Honesty is policy

We like to be upfront with our clients in the meetings we hold. If a task is looking a little unlikely, we’ll show you a few other angles in which we could tackle things. You might not get an identical copy of your favorite website example, but you’ll get the best possible quality version for your own brand within the timeframe and budget you’ve set for us. If things change, we’re pretty flexible…but it’s important to keep that communication open when such events arise!

Just like building a house

Like a totally jaw-dropping architectural project, more resources will produce better results. You wouldn’t get the exact same beautiful building built if you wanted it in less time and with less money – the same principal applies to your web design.

The post Getting the best out of your Web Design Brief (Part 2) appeared first on Tailgunner.

Whether you’re looking to start a website from scratch or to simply update a current one, we recommend reading this blog series before you get to the brief:

Expectations vs reality

In a magical Disney-esque dream world where everything ends in a ‘happily ever after’, you could expect a design brief to go as ‘a-b-c’ as this:

• Client gets in contact
• Client requests website
• Website is created
• Designer gets paid
• Website works well
• Everyone is happy

And then pigs fly, right? Here’s a more realistic look at that process, as experienced by most web designers today:

• Client gets in contact during/after a hectic (sometimes incomplete) pitching period
• Client requests website (either hugely visual-specific or completely ambiguous)
• Website is made (but not without a healthy dose of email exchange, edits and waiting games for board approval etc)
• Designer gets paid (often with delays, last minute negotiation, and a myriad of follow-up emails)
• Website is buggy (usually if the project has been rushed)
• There’s rarely a happily ever after…it’s more like a ‘happily ever- oh wait one more thing…’

No matter which side of the brief you’re on, client or creator, there’s always room for error, but also for improvement. For a project to run as smoothly as it possibly can, it’s going to involve some solid communication.

Effective ‘Coms’

Not to be confused with an endless stream of emails during the design process itself, effective coms between client and creator need to take place during your first project meeting.

Cue the Mission Impossible music and bring your game face, because the project rests upon how well this meeting goes!

At the brief meeting

Stay on target

There’s a time for brainstorming, and there’s a time for brief-building. In a small-business brainstorm meeting, we can chat generally and discuss marketing matters, target audiences, brand backstory – whatever you like!

In a brief-building meeting, however, it will save both parties a lot of valuable time if we ‘stay on target’. We’re here to talk about your website, and we’re really excited that you’ve chosen us to create it for you!

What to bring to the brief table

The best thing you can bring is a clear expectation of what content you want and where you want it. No clear content makes for a very obscure concept.

A shop (ecommerce) website, for instance, should have a clear description or set of products and some idea of how they’d like these sold. For clients needing a website to deliver information effectively, you could prepare a ‘priority’ list that arranges content in order of importance (what you want your audience to see first).

The speed of your project tends to rely heavily on how much practical info you can provide your website creator with in regard to the content and its arrangement. You can save yourself weeks of back-and-forth emailing with a few hours of practical prep before your meeting.

In short: specifics avoid guessing games and save money. Win!  

Keep an eye out for the next installment of this article where we’ll chat about presenting your preferred website design examples for your project.

The post Getting the best out of your Web Design Brief (Part 1) appeared first on Tailgunner.