It’s that time of year where we seem to always end up doing a number of exhibitions, seminars, presentations etc – and if anything – this year we’re doing even more than normal…

This week we’re down in Ayrshire – exhibiting at the North Ayrshire Council’s e-Biz Expo taking place on Wednesday at the Menzies Hotel in Irvine.  The seminars (aimed at small and growing businesses) at this event include ecommerce, SEO and social media, so we’re looking forward to chatting with the audience on all these matters!

Then on Friday and Saturday we’re once again doing the “New Start Scotland” exhibition at the SECC – Scotland’s biggest event aimed at new-start businesses (although it attracts many established businesses too!) with a wealth of exhibitors, seminars, workshops and business advice clinics.

I’m actually delivering our popular “Embrace the Space” seminar as part of the New-Start Program, so please drop by if you’re in the area and want to hear me on the subject of positive business use of Twitter etc.   More info on this, as well as times can be found at our Social Networking page.

Then next week, we’re in Edinburgh with a short pitch at the TTOM Innovation Partnering Event followed by a talk to the Students at Abertay in Dundee about starting a creative business (always good fun!)…

If you spot any of us as we take this show on the road, then please come and say hello!!

Bookmark This Post

Hide Sites

We’ve been fortunate to have Sean Forsyth with us this week – on work experience from Gryffe High School.

I asked Sean to sum up his week with us, and am delighted he’s letting me share it on the Blog:

I have really enjoyed my week of work experience here at NSDesign even though at first I was not sure what to expect. I feel like now I have a greater knowledge of the web design business and would like to follow it as a career path, although I still have a lot of learning to do before I can do anything that all the staff here can. Also I am very interested in other parts of the business too like ‘Embrace the Space’ and never realised how Social Networking sites could be used for business purposes and so effectively. Everyone at the office has been very helpful in getting me started and making sure I get the most out of my week. I thank everyone here for making the effort to give me the chance to work here as I’ve had a great experience!

On behalf of the team, I’d like to offer a big thanks to Sean for all his efforts this week, and we hope to keep in close contact as he continues his career.

Bookmark This Post

Hide Sites

The article below was featured in the January 8th Edition of the Drum Magazine. 
Please consider downloading the full PDF version (and admire the beautiful artwork from Paul which accompanied it) .

One of Glasgow’s original ‘digital’ agencies, NSDesign is predicting 300% growth in coming years

Now in its 11th year, NSDesign is one of Glasgow’s longest standing digital design agencies. 

Founded by Gary Ennis in 1999, the company has three distinct, but overlapping service divisions Design & Development, Domain Registration & Web Hosting, and Consultancy & Training – setting it aside from others in the industry.

Managing Director Ennis said:

“Each of the services we provide benefits the others. We know that if we exceed the expectations of a £25 hosting client, then we’ll be their first choice for the redesign of their website, or to provide their business with social media consultancy etc.”

With close to 10,000 web hosting clients – including some well respected industry figureheads like Bruce Lawson from Opera – and over 60 new design clients this year alone the company has proved it can last the distance.

NSDesign also benefit from partnering with many of their so called “competitiors” – providing the likes of web hosting to other web design companies, and bespoke design and development to other design agencies – particularly those without an in-house digital division.

Ennis said:

“We get to work on some really fun and challenging projects – we recently worked with the Guardian Media Group to design and build their dedicated web portal for the Download Music Festival, and for the past two years have built the bespoke booking system for Santa at Braehead!”

While their order book includes some big names such as Highland Spring, GMG, Greenock Morton and the Glasgow Rocks Pro Basketball team, it is with their smaller clients that NSDesign feel they make the biggest difference:

Ennis continued:

“There’s no better feeling than helping a new-start business take an idea and turn it into an online revenue-generating business, helping them grow, and providing the full range of services they need along the way.

“We’re proud to still have our very first ever customer, at the time a small one-man band but who has now grown to be a successful organisation – something we like to think we helped play a part in. He came to us originally based on a recommendation, and we’ve not once let him down 11 years later.”

For many of the websites that NSDesign build, their clients are given full control through their acclaimed “NSBuilder” CMS and Site Builder software which was a finalist in the Scottish Software awards in both 2007 and 2008. The fi rm was also named “Most Outstanding Small Business in Renfrewshire” in 2008.

Ennis said:

“The most important achievement and the one that ensures you continue to win new business is 100% client satisfaction. That is what we strive for, and we’re getting close!! Our last annual customer survey resulted in a confirmed 98% satisfaction rating – levels almost unheard of in this industry. Outstanding personal service and support is the one item above all others that we prioritise. Anybody can deliver a good product or outstanding design – but it’s the people behind it that ensure the long term relationship with the client, and the repeat business that comes as a result”.

NSDesign is showing no sign of a slow-down, and is predicting growth of 300% over the next few years. The company is confident the combination of a strong repeat-revenue customer base and new business development will ensure this continues in the months ahead.

Bookmark This Post

Hide Sites

We’ve been running some great Social Media Workshops lately, introducing the business benefits of the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and Twitter.  Of them all, it’s Twitter that most companies want to discuss, with many businesses unaware of the true power of Twitter, thinking it’s just a hyped-up instant messenger type utility which generates a lot of “noise”.

And to be honest – they’re right – Twitter is full of useless noise – much of it fun and amusing noise, but noise nonetheless, and certainly not the most obvious resource for “proper” business use.  But with a little knowledge on how to get the best from Twitter, it’s possible to filter out that noise, and get easy access to powerful information about what your clients are saying – about you, your brand, your competitors, their wishes, desires, likes, dislikes and more.  With gazillions of people worldwide already on Twitter, and unheard of growth rates, surely even the most skeptical business owner can see the value of tapping into this mind-set.

If Google is a search engine to people’s websites – then think of Twitter as a search engine to their thoughts.  And knowing what people are thinking is one serious business advantage. 

So give it a try – Follow the 7 steps below and get tweeting (sorry – but I didn’t make up the stupid terminology).

1 – Signup

Ok – fairly obvious really, but head over to www.twitter.comand signup – it takes seconds.  Choose a suitable username related to your business name, but don’t stress to much over this – it can be changed later.

2 – Customise

Before you do anything – add a little customisation to your Profile page.  Why?  Because if you don’t, you’re just another faceless twitter account – similar to the countless spammers, con-men, phishers and idiots (sorry – but they do exist) that sign up to Twitter just to cause problems for the rest of us. 

Be proud of who you are – add your name, your biography, your logo (avatar) and customise the background.  Stand out from the crowd, and have a profile that gives people reason to trust you – understand who you are, and maybe they’ll find value in following you.

3 – Post a few Tweets

Next you’ll want to post a few tweets, to let the world know you’re alive…  again, do this before announcing your twitter page to the masses, and before you start following anyone…  it’ll help establish you as a credible (albeit new) twitter user, and with a few posts to read, then any potential follower will know what to expect should they choose to follow you.

4 – Follow Others

Start by Following other people you know that use Twitter..  search for them via Twitter’s  ”Find People” function,  and click the Follow Button.  Easy as that…  now browse to the people they follow, or browse their other followers.  Recognise any of them?  Worth following them too?  You can also use Twitter search to discover other users of similar interests etc, or people talking about certain subjects.

Don’t follow everyone for the sake of it – there’s no value in this whatsoever, and you’ll appear like a twitter spammer simply building up a target list!  Choose suitable people that are related to your business… your clients, your suppliers, your competitors (yes – they WILL know you are following them) etc. 

5 – Attract Followers!

Ultimately, you want people following you, otherwise you’re marketing to nobody!  Some methods to gain followers (other than many of the people you follow, following you back) include:

• Announce it to your clients via your online newsletter, your email footers and your website.  Take any opportunity to tell people your Twitter URL.
• Encourage people to “retweet” your tweets
• Flag up important keywords with the hashtag – makes it easier for people to find it – see here for help understanding what a twitter hashtag is
• Use it, but don’t overuse it – don’t be one of those Twitter users that floods my tweet-stream with 100’s of pointless tweets. 
• Consider using an image in your tweet – statistically, tweets containing a link to an image are re-tweeted more than most other tweets.

6 – Get Serious

 After you’ve used Twitter for a while, and are following a few people, the limitations of the Twitter.com website become clear – which is why anyone who’s serious about twitter ignores the twitter website, and actually uses one of the many 3rd party Twitter tools.  And the one I’d recommend is Tweet Deck.

WIthout giving a full tutorial on the many excellent features of TweetDeck, suffice to say that it makes it possible to filter out all the noise in Twitter, and allows you to easily and quickly find all the important tweets posted by your followers, as well as datamine the thoughts of the twitter masses, search for relevant business information, exploit potential sales leads, and much more…  Need more help? – Give us a shout, or come to one of the workshops and we’ll spend time showing you really how powerful a tool this is…

7 – Monitor and Evaluate

Like any form of Marketing, knowing your return on investment is vital to help understand the impact it’s making.  I’m confident that after a short time, Twitter will certainly be a “fun” elemnt in your marketing strategy – but is it actually delivering for you?

Monitorring your activity and success on Twitter isn’t difficult, but depends on “what” you want to measure.  For example :

• How many “Followers” (and the growth of new followers).  – http://twittercounter.com
• How many clicks back to your website – you can use your own web hosting statistics (assuming they provide you stats), or, even easier, you can use a service like www.bit.lywhich is built into tweetdeck
• How many of your Tweets are being “re-tweeted”
• Are your images engaging your followers?
• Understand why people “stop” following you – “was it something I said” ?

Follow these 7-steps, and let us know how Twitter works for your business..  It’s not a silver bullet – it won’t magically turn your product or service into this year’s must have (especially if it was poor to begin with!), but used properly – Twitter can improve your customer service, your PR, your repeat business and your word of mouth, not forgetting the business benefit that comes from reading the minds of millions!  Have fun!

Bookmark This Post

Hide Sites

Published in .net magazine, issue 187, April 2009

Deciding to work for free for one day only in December 2008 proved to be one of the most controversial decisions we had taken at NSDesign for a long time!

In one fell swoop we managed to upset the Design Business Association (DBA), were the subject of a two week forum thread in Design Week, and gained several column inches in the process.

We were accused by the DBA of de-valuing the work we do on a daily basis in the e-commerce, digital and design field. Was it genuine concern for our industry or complete over-reaction? I know which side of the fence I am standing on, and from the majority of online comments from others in this game, it appears I’m not alone.

I think that rather than taking away from the work we do, we actually opened up our service to a much wider audience who now realise a lot more the true value of our work and what it can add to businesses.

We did not intentionally set out to upset anyone or diminish the service that our industry provides. Nor did we intend it to be seen as a sinister or cynical stunt or ploy. It was simply a light-hearted idea, aimed at helping other SME’s and raising our own profile.

The idea (first suggested by our Head Developer Martin Sarsini) was to spread a little festive cheer helping out companies who were maybe struggling with the credit crunch or who were just looking for some advice on how to improve their web offerings.

The debate which raged in the weeks after the announcement initially took us by surprise, however I stand by the decision and am happy to announce that in just one day we helped out over 30 individuals and organisations (a few of which were existing clients) and had a seriously good time doing so.  

In this industry a lot of the work we get depends on pitching to potential new clients and showing them what can be achieved. If you look at what we did on the 19th December you could say it was simply a day of showcasing our work to prospective customers – no different to what we do an a regular basis, albeit highly focused into one day of this and nothing else!

The actual range of work carried out was pretty varied, with us doing everything from adding some festive sparkle (custom graphics and backgrounds of a Christmas nature) to a handful of websites, to general “spam advice” and consultancy on bulk-emailing and ensuring legal compliance with regard email communications.

In addition we conducted a number of site reviews, providing recommendations on improving design, usability and SEO, designed new logo concepts for a mobile-disco operator and online video production company, and setup a blog for a Cricket Club!
 
We also helped out several more companies with their various queries and not once did any of our team feel we were selling ourselves, the company, or the industry short. What we did feel was that we were opening up many new potential business opportunities for ourselves.

We may not benefit from any immediate “paid work” as a result of the efforts we went to, but those companies we helped out will certainly have us at the forefront of their minds when they do need the services we provide.

In this current economic climate small companies like ourselves need to be more flexible and creative and stand out from the crowd more than ever before, and I for one will do everything within my power to ensure that NSDesign continues to be the success it has been in the last few years.

2009 sees a decade in business for us and we are aiming to build on the strong foundations we have developed over the last ten years which culminated in us winning the “Outstanding Performing Business with less than 25 Full time Employees” – ROCCO Business Award.

There are many challenges for us (and indeed all design companies) in the year to come but no matter how tough a year it is, when Christmas is approaching next year, I would not hesitate to offer another “work for free” day – and unlike the DBA, do not expect our industry will crumble as a result!!
 

Bookmark This Post

Hide Sites