Should I Buy This?

This week’s blog is related to our web site again. I’m not writing about technical stuff though - more about the business side of things and getting buy-in from our team because I want them to embrace a new strategy. The new website is ripe for development which could seek out new opportunities.

Some people think a new web site is an online presence but for me it is the start of something big. It fits in to a strategy targeting a different type of customer and market place. In respect of this we need realigning at DrivenByQ so everyone understands the key decisions being made.

A while ago I met someone who worked for a global printing firm. He travelled the world helping teams who fragmented and lost their way with projects. He did this by bringing people together and aligning their focus. So how did the guru manage to get them back on track so effectively?

He helped set simple, clear and understandable goals. This way people make decisions for the greater good. Take someone at Pepsi questioning if new equipment is required. Rather than thinking in isolation they should revert to the goals and ask: Will this help us ‘Beat Coke’?

The Social Media Marketing Strategy

For the last few weeks I have been banging on about our new website and how Google rankings work. The truth is you cannot build a simple web site and then just expect it to work for you. You have to drive traffic to your site and justify its position in the search results. The best way to do this is by engaging with people. That engagement however needs time, effort and a bit of thought to disseminate the right message or values associated with a business or brand.

Quite a while ago we established social media pages on Google+ and YouTube. We even added the logos of Twitter and Facebook to our business cards so people could see we were forward thinking. In all honesty we did not invest much time in to the social media channels back then because our web site was under-developed, our understanding was primitive and it would have been too time consuming.

Now we have a new desire to attract business through our web site, it is time to revisit our social media channels and devise a strategy for utilising them effectively. Previously when we were looking for corporate business in the local area we focussed primarily on groups within LinkedIn to establish DrivenByQ or we used my blog to differentiate ourselves from our competitors – some of which do not even have a web site.

Our old marketing plan was to use offline, old-fashioned methods for business-to-business engagement like cold-calling. Now however we need to consider business-to-consumer engagement with people far away. The recognition of what is valuable and useful to the customer as content is ever more important. Furthermore we need to think about engagement with both B2B and B2C customers separately.

For a while now I have been interested in the theory of attraction marketing and how it fits in with a digital strategy. The two go together hand-in-glove if understood correctly. What really needs development is understanding which channel is most appropriate for B2B and B2C engagement while somehow reinforcing the brand values we are developing – either way I believe once this is defined our growth potential is not only huge but it is also very much achievable.

The Hummingbird Update

Right now I am focused on the new DrivenByQ website. It has taken a while to get it up and running because it is a marketing tool rather than a brochure site. We want to receive traffic and rank highly on Google for key terms like ‘Manchester Airport Chauffeur’. To do it successfully and consistently a lot of things need consideration. You see, when I first played with Google ten years ago, websites and search engine optimisation were relatively simple things. You built HTML pages, added good quality content with headings, keywords and META tags then submitted to DMOZ.

These days, things have changed because lots of people recognised how simple it was in the early years and they embarked on elaborate schemes to spam Google and influence the results. To combat the spammers Google rolled out numerous updates using their algorithm like Caffeine or Panda or Penguin. When they did this a site could bounce all over the place in the rankings (known as the Google Dance). As rankings changed so did the traffic a site received. This made Google unreliable for us and is why I went off and developed DrivenByQ as a local business.

I always planned to revisit the Internet and build a business which could market to a distant customer. Anyone else reading up on Google or Internet marketing knows the word ‘Hummingbird’ is a big thing right now because after ten years of updates to the algorithm used for listing search results, Google replaced it with a completely new algorithm. Google has become a lot more sophisticated these days and so has the way we use the Internet too. Now you have to have a presence on social media channels; you have to qualify as a trusted author by writing a chauffeur blog and you have to embed video from your YouTube channel.

On top of this you should constantly add fresh quality web pages for Google to devour and these days, mobile phones account for over 50% of Google searches. This is leading to typed search gradually being replaced by voice enquiries spoken to our mobiles. In response Google favours web sites which are adaptable and mobile friendly; built in HTML5 (so they are compatible across modern browsers) and they like to focus on long-tail searches rather than just simple keywords.

I am hoping all this will make Google more reliable and worthy of attempting a strategy of utilising their organic rankings. With the likes of Google+, Google Maps, Google Places, YouTube and Blogger being introduced, this time around we might stand a better chance! There again though, for anyone who has seen Project Glass you will know that Google thinks mobile phones will soon be replaced by wearable technology. No doubt we will have to go through it all again but at least for now, we are on the button.

Perspective

Just before the end of last year, I wrote a blog about my first venture in to the private hire market. It was titled ‘A History Lesson’. It is important because it was my first taste of success with a business even though it eventually faded away due to being too erratic as a business model.

I’ve written other blogs too like ‘Jam Butty Ahead’ which talk about building on our current business model. In fact, if you read the original DrivenByQ business plan our intention was never to remain just a local business. It was never to be regional either.

The plan was to take the business in two different directions. The first would depend on local custom to build volume airport transfers around Manchester Airport and the second would depend on the Internet for bookings from passengers coming to the UK.

Now we have effectively taken eight years to complete part one of our plan, it is time to crack on and start building part two. The first tangible step of that plan began this week with the launch of our new web site www.drivenbyq.com.

Unlike the last time we revamped our website, this time we did it properly using a professional developer. We introduced a content management system; HTML5; adaptive content for mobile devices and it considers our branding and social media strategy too.

Catch Me If You Can

I am still taking time out you know. I haven’t really been involved in the day-to-day running of DrivenByQ since the middle of December. In retrospect it has done me good – I have been able to spend quality time with my baby son and in the process I have learnt a lot about my leadership style.

When you say to people I am taking an extended break, the first thing they ask is ‘how are you affording it’ – well, if you really want to know, I am selling some shares back to the company and in the process, rebalancing the ownership. My majority share always reflected the time spent building our booking system long ago, cashing in now is well timed.

I can’t really switch off from the business completely though. I am always tinkering with something somewhere and one of those things lately has been the development of a new web site. Look at me now, blogging away about it too – I get a kick out of it I suppose.

It reminds me how competitive I can be sometimes. I like being ahead of the competition. It excites me to bring something out before anyone else. It should reflect well on DrivenByQ too and help new customers recognise why we are the market leader delivering such outstanding customer service.

So what exactly am I going on about? Well, to support our new web site with Google we really need a lot of content and it helps to be an (original) authority on a subject for good rankings. So just as well I started this blog four years ago and have updated it weekly ever since. Lots of people thought I was mad all those years ago. Not quite so eh?