The Placemaking Consortium includes seven universities and 16 practitioners with support from 26 placemaking partners. The Universities included:
The University of Melbourne
Curtin University
University of Technology Sydney
The University of Adelaide
University of New South Wales
Notredame University Australia

Over the past few years Digital White Space has worked with The University of Melbourne to develop the Brand and digital platform for Place Agency. In 2017 Digital White Space won the tender against a suite of other businesses, due to their approach backed by a team of strategic digital marketing and creative expertise.

Over a the years Digital White Space worked very closely with the leadership team at Melbourne University in order to support their growing needs.

Focusing on delivering a range of strategic tools including;

• A unique brand proposition,
• digital strategy, website,
• Marketing and digital communications plan
• Creative assets
• Photography
• Videography

The Digital White Space addressed the opportunities by delivering a bold and differentiated brand positioning and building an intuitive platform that engaged with the key stakeholders from Students, to community members, local government and Industry practitioners. This was all tailored to support the administration process of the Place Agency Brand across the 7 Universities and their practical studio learning projects. The platform was integrated with social media and seamlessly supported the very small administration team.

Place Agency looks beyond the classroom by bringing our learnings to the industry and wider community. Place Agency provides engagement opportunities by participating in national and international conferences, as well as hosting events including;

Place Agency is a successful offline and online project, that has been responsible for delivering 12 stand box studios- that have allowed students to gain and practice their placemaking skills with the support of practitioners. With now two books being published, the strong educational modules and sandbox studio methodology incorporates a process of continuous analysis and improvement.

• Regional training events hosted by consortium Universities involved
• Community activities across Australia, lead by Sandbox studios
• Updates of Place Agency programmes
• Events and work with practitioner partners
  -Regional placemaking week events

Digital White Space mirrored the approach to continuous improvement through ongoing engagement and supporting of the Place Agency team, workshopping new opportunities, cataloging the successes of the studios and consumer behaviour and reporting all Analytics and reviewing brand growth. Creating monthly reporting and tracking user behaviour Digital White Space was able to respond accordingly by including more relevant content, restructuring content, menu’s, created new sections and pages. The following results recorded between 1 Jan 2018 and 30 July 2019 include;

• Receive on average 200% uplift in unprompted inbound testimonials per month, that recognise our brand recall and customer service approach
• Returning users have increased to 92 from 12 in July 2018 which demonstrates a positive impact on brand recall and recognition that has been created.
• The site has achieved 247% growth in average sessions per month, from July’18 to July ‘19.
• Read the full case study here- https://helloexanimo.com/portfolio/place-agency/

See the website https://placeagency.org.au/

PLACE LEADERSHIP AWARD 2019
WINNER: Place Agency & The University of Melbourne for Place Agency
THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2019 @ QT CANBERRA. Place Leaders Asia Pacific is delighted to announce the recipients of the 2019 Place Leaders Asia Pacific Awards

The Jury recognises the significant contribution of the Place Agency in building the capacity of new urbanists in the field of placemaking with a world-first tertiary national placemaking program.

READ MORE https://www.placeleaders.com/post/2019-place-leaders-awards

“We are absolutely delighted for the team at Place Agency for taking out this global award, their hard work and dedication to see communities come together and focus around sustainable practices, developing closer communities and providing robust education for master level students is a world first.

Angela Mellak Founder Digital White Space

READ MORE ABOUT US
https://helloexanimo.com/

CONTACT US
EMAIL
angela@helloexanimo.com

ADDRESS
Level 5,
171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

PHONE
0466 619 631

The post PLACE LEADERSHIP AWARD WINNER: Place Agency 2019 appeared first on Ex Animo.

These shifts, which might have impacted your business, giving you a new perspective on the power of digital marketing and most importantly your brand equity. This time could have potentially damaged your company’s relationships with customers, particularly if they believed your brand should be slowdown-proof.

How do you know when it’s time to re-branding or reposition your business? If your company name is generic and similar to that of other businesses, you’re hurting your brand. If you have shifted focus and you need to now reset the future trajectory.

Rebranding can help your business stand out from your competitors’ by showcasing the things that make your company different and better. Even the best companies change their brand identity.

For example, did you know that Google started with the name “Backrub” or Accenture started out as “Andersen Consulting”?
Rebranding gives new life to outdated branding. Even the most successful businesses do.

Most recently we have had the pleasure to re-brand Performance Medicine a physiotherapy hub and Studio who supports performing artists across Australia and internationally.

If a company wants to outgrow their poor reputation. If your business is struggling to overcome a negative reputation, it’s time to give it a fresh start.
Sometimes, a business gets the opportunity to expand or target a new market. When that happens, the company needs to make sure that customers can still connect with the brands. Learn how we launched Multitap – a brand new product line from the giant American kitchenware Insinkerator into Australia market.

There’s a good possibility that your organisation would benefit from looking at your brand positioning and/or possibly re-branding, especially to improve your market position later this year.

Which is exactly what our client Verticali has just done, through their rebrand.. To be revealed June 2020!

Fortunately, we are experts in helping companies unlock the power of their brand position and the possibility of re-branding. But, first and foremost, we should explain why brand positioning should be a part of your core marketing strategy and be widely expressed in your digital communications arsenal:

What is brand positioning?
Please understand this term concerns the “how-to” of crafting marketing messages to fit well in the minds of your target market. You want consumers to think of your brand every time they need a product or service in your category. When you seek to define a brand, the goal is to create a distinct brand. The key is providing continuity via digital marketing techniques to drive awareness and maintain your position over time. Your brand’s unique selling proposition should be authentic, sustainable, and agile to support the future direction of the business and withstand major shifts in the economy.

Why is your brand position so important?
Over the years, we’ve helped many companies with repositioning their brand in the market and at times where appropriate re-branded companies. You want your target audience to understand why they should buy from your company. The brand selling propositions implanted in consumers/target market must be strong enough to help your brand increase its market share over time. The alternatives to growth are reaching a sales plateau or, worse, a decline in brand equity and sales.
If you don’t have a strong position, brand association, robust marketing strategy and or understand your customers, then you don’t have a secure business and or customer base. By a strong brand proposition, we mean that, when your buyers think of sneakers, they immediately picture your company’s athletic shoes. When there’s a weak brand association, consumers think of shoes manufactured by other firms.

Brand Equity
A common problem occurs when a business/firm or company doesn’t understand its brand equity. This term refers to the economic value of its brand perceptions. These differ from the real value of each good or service that a brand produces. Equity is earned over time by being market focused and customer focused. If the business doesn’t invest sadly all that hard work can be lost, take Kodak for example.

Revise Your Brand Strategy, Refresh, or Re-Brand
We’re here to help you revise your multi-brand strategy for the remainder of 2020. This means you can take this time to understand more about your customers, their perceptions of your brand, and the equity you own. This study provides you with the opportunity to either reposition, realign, or refresh the company in the minds of consumers. This is achieved through assessing existing messaging objectives and or through the evaluation of your brand position. It’s vitally important to get the consumer insight and formulate a strategy of how to increase your brand association if it has been damaged by COVID-19.
If your brand was already in trouble before the economic slowdown, then we might conduct new research into the current brand and map out the ideal brand territory. We are happy to share brand strategy examples that have worked for other companies. Just get in touch.

The Challenges of Creating a Brand
We understand it’s challenging to create a brand that holds up during economic uncertainty. We felt the effects on our own company. When we evaluate your current position and help you identify how to increase your market share with new initiatives, this process will include updating your brand positioning statement. This document helps everyone in the company as well as external stakeholders to understand how to strategically market the brand for higher economic returns. Brand positioning includes aggressively increasing consumers’ perceived values and real values of products/services.

We Can Help You Tackle Your Branding or Re-Branding Goals Today
At Digital White Space, we are focused on creating sustainable brands that are customer centric. Our marketing team has a long and successful history of refreshing brands, repositioning brands, and re-branding companies. Please get in contact with us to understand how we can help your business.
Learn more about our brand creation process here

READ MORE ABOUT US

DIGITAL WHITE SPACE

EMAIL; angela@helloexanimo.com

ADDRESS; Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

PHONE; 0466 619 631

https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelamellak/

The post Have You Unlocked the Power of Re-Branding? appeared first on Ex Animo.

As of April 7, 2020, approximately 66% of businesses in Australia have reported a decrease in cash flow in the short time since the pandemic began.

The big question is, how are businesses going to get back on top post-Covid-19?

They will need to focus on their digital approach and most importantly, their website and digital marketing to transform their brick and mortar business to online e-commerce store.

Websites: Why Do You Need a Good One?

Since the onset of Covid-19, businesses in Australia have had an uphill climb. Nearly 40% of businesses now rely on the internet to satisfy their customer’s needs. More than ever before, they deliver products and focus attention on online services.

If you had to close your doors, you can still adapt your business, transforming the way you deliver services and create new opportunities. Starting with a clear digital marketing strategy. There are many simple strategies with the most simplest way you can focus on initially right now. This includes setting up your company information on Google My Business and Yelp. This is the most common and free tool to set up your business online. The goal is to guide people to your website rather than your brick and mortar storefront. It will demonstrate that you are doing your part to keep customers and yourself safe from COVID-19.

The trick is, you must have a website that is user-friendly enough for people to navigate. They have to be able to find the information that they would seek in your business setting, whether it is the products they need or the services they depend on. So what is the best practices for a good website development?

The Value of Good Web Development

When a customer visits your website, they are not there to waste the day. They are there with the hope that you can provide for their needs during this time when they are physically distancing. Your website has mere seconds to convince them that you are there for them. As a business, you have to understand that online, they are not restricted to your products or services. They have thousands of options. You have to focus on what will make your website best for them and best for their journey while there.

There are several factors to consider when building a user friendly and search engine optimisation website. They include:

• The Speed of Your Website. Does it load quickly enough? Or will the user have to deal with unresponsive web pages?
• The Usability of the Website. Do you have all the information they seek labelled clearly? Can they search for the information quickly?
• The Aesthetics of Your Site. Branding is key.
• The digital face of your business is so important to keep continuity. Bright flashing advertisements or wrong colour choices can make a potential customer click the other way. The website needs to be nice to look at if you want to keep clients happy.

Small Business Trends, reported that 93% of buyers say they focus on visual appearances of a website and 85% claim that the colour often influences their purchasing decisions.

Content Matters.

A content strategy is key to the success of a business online future. It flows from your customer’s journey- providing key information for people before and when they visit your website.
Your Contact Information. In a “brick and mortar” setting, people can get a sense of who they are dealing with through physical, face to face contact. They can ask for recommendations or advice from your employees or you. Today, that is not an option. To keep the experience personalised for customers needs, you can still invite them to contact you with questions or concerns. Covid-19 has not slowed phone calls, emails, and other contact options such as chatbot or message window.

Mobile Friendliness.

Even though people are at home, they still rely on their mobile devices. Can they view your site’s content easily with a mobile device? You can also test how friendly your website for free

If you are unsure of how to build a functional website that is A. aesthetically pleasing and B. provides an enjoyable user experience, whilst C. driving consumer sales, you can ask experts for help. It may be the key to staying ahead during and post this pandemic.

COVID-19 OFFER; For a limited time, get a complimentary social strategy when you bring your business online with us. Find out more now

How Much Do Websites Normally Cost?

A solid website that offers a good user experience is not usually cheap. Packages from many digital marketing companies and/or website agencies can range from $15k up to $100K. If you find someone or a company offering to build you a cheap website, you should know that they are likely inexperienced. This is not good when you depend on it to keep your head above water during these troubled times. In Melbourne, a good average cost for a high-quality website build ranges from $15-$30K. This is a fair price, but it is important to understand that the cost could go up depending on the complexity of the website you need.

The Best Practice for Website Development

When your business website matters most, you should choose a premium website approach and consider consulting with an experienced and proven Digital Marketing company with a key strength in web design. The company will know what it may take for you to get ahead and become relevant. The team should have a methodical process of creating an online experience for your customers and clients. A good website agency can help you with things like:
Accessing the Digital Opportunity for Your Business -Aka Customer Analytics
Website Design
Customer Journey Mapping
Digital Marketing Strategies
SEO and Google Analytics
Website Traffic
Conversion and Marketing Automation
Content Strategy and Creation
Photography and Video
Social Media Strategy
and More
With web design companies like Digital White Space, you will get everything you need to get on the path to digital success, even if you are on a limited budget. Simply contact us to learn more.

Case studies and examples of businesses with great websites:
We have compiled a list of businesses that we have successfully worked with over the years to launch their websites. You can find inspiration and learn a few tips and tricks to plan for your website projects:

• Properties and Estate industry websites
  
• Retail Website
  
• Education

WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK WITH US? FIND OUT HOW WE CAN POSSIBLY HELP YOU?

READ MORE ABOUT US
https://helloexanimo.com/
EMAIL
angela@helloexanimo.com
ADDRESS; Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
PHONE; 0466 619 631

The post Post Covid-19: Websites Are More Important than Ever! appeared first on Ex Animo.

According to Wikipedia, Influencer marketing is a form of marketing in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers.

In simpler and modern words, influencer marketing is a form of testimonial advertising where the influencers rather than the brand recommends a product/service and hence is more believable to the audience.

Who is an influencer?

In today’s digital world, an influencer is an online persona with a huge following, mostly on social media and who has the power to “influence” his followers’ purchase decision.

Influencers have been around for centuries, even before the internet existed and largely as popular celebrities endorsing a brand. The scenario today, however, is completely different. An influencer has become more realistic and approachable than ever before.

Where do you find them?

On social media of course! Some of the bloggers and vloggers with millions of followers today have risen from being just ordinary internet users but with focus, determination and discipline. Thanks to the growing popularity and power of social media and blogging. Instagram, for example, is the goto for fashion lovers and thus poses a large opportunity for fashion brands to create an influencer market by hiring top style instagrammers who already have a vast network of admirers.

Why is it beneficial?

Influencer marketing is beneficial merely because of our human instinct which makes it easier for consumers to be convinced about a product from a person they admire, rather than by a brand they have never heard of. When you advertise through an influencer, you already have a warm audience. Moreover, every other brand is turning to online influencer marketing. So while a startup who has a running campaign of influencer marketing has the attention of a million prospective buyers, another startup with no campaign would still be struggling to build their online presence.

How to start your own influencer marketing campaign

• Identify the influencer most relevant to you – If you are a new business and bucks are dear to you, you may want to start with identifying bloggers who will settle for free products rather than monetary rewards. The hunt usually begins with the business themselves having a social profile and actively engaging with influencers. This may include familiarising yourself with their offering, commenting on their posts etc. Once you’ve listened to what they have to say, it’s time for you to start a conversation
• Start a conversation with your influencer – This is where you need to convince your influencers that your product is really worth their time. When you write that first pitch email/message, make sure to sound human, and not automaton.
• Start campaigning – Boom! Work out a solution best suited for your business as well as the influencer and you are ready to go.

How to track a campaign

Once you’ve finally landed an influencer and started campaigning, it is necessary to track results in order to measure ROI. While conversion tracking can be a combination of several tools and methods, here are a few that anyone can implement

• Post impressions and engagement – Impressions are the very first indication of how successful your campaign is going to be. And social influencers are a sure shot way to gather maximum impressions and engagements to your post. Higher the number of comments and shares you get, higher the chances of your post going viral.
• Using Google Analytics URL builder to tag campaigns – Google Analytics allows to build custom URLs with parameters like campaign name etc that you can add to your social posts. It is then easy to track conversions from these URLs via GA reports
• Specific campaign promo codes – Giving out campaign specific promo codes is another great way to create a sense of urgency and hence gain increased engagement.

Conclusion

To cut the long story short – Influencers are here to stay. The sooner you take the plunge the better. Ask us today to know what is the best campaign for you.

READ MORE ABOUT US

EMAIL angela@helloexanimo.com

ADDRESS; Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

PHONE;  0466 619 631

The post Influencer Marketing for beginners appeared first on Ex Animo.

We aim to do this through connecting digital leaders, brands, products, startup’s and innovators with focused event content. The space we create, enables our members to discover the latest and most powerful tools, platforms, businesses, employers and accelerators within Australia and beyond.

With a growing base from 30 women to now over 35,000 members and counting were proud to be behind such a fantastic initiative For more information on up and coming events head to;

www.digitalwomensnetwork.com
email hello@digitalwomensnetwork.com and or head to the meet up page or eventbrite page.

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

PROUD PARTNERS AND SPONSORS OF DIGITAL WOMEN’S NETWORK

DIGITAL WHITE SPACE
READ MORE ABOUT US
https://helloexanimo.com/
EMAIL
angela@helloexanimo.com
ADDRESS; Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
PHONE; 0466 619 631

The post We are delighted to launch Digital Women’s Network appeared first on Ex Animo.

Branding is not just about being seen as better than the competition.

It’s about being seen as the only solution to your audiences problem.

You need to allocate time to work on your business – shift gears to thinking about how you solve customer problems.

Start with a micro-review, an audit, to outline what do you do well? SWOT! Then Macro, who is your audience and how do they like to be engaged?

You must also be aware of what is happening in the marketplace and your competitors. Once you have defined what you do really well – Invest in that message, invest in branding and use all the right forms to demonstrate how to solve your customers problems.

Let us help you on your journey, we are a boutique digital marketing and creative communications team, we assist businesses to devise their strategy to market, we help find their unique selling points and then integrate and capitalise on digital marketing + communications.

Here is some of our work,
https://helloexanimo.com/portfolio-category/case-studies/

Let’s work together,

https://helloexanimo.com/

EMAIL

angela@helloexanimo.com

ADDRESS; Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

PHONE;  0466 619 631

The post How are you helping your audience? appeared first on Ex Animo.

Good marketing drives revenue in most successful businesses and doesn’t just happen overnight.

The right strategy, approach, creative and plan will guide the expenditure and investment.

Traditionally there are three ways to approach setting a marketing budget.

• 1. Strategic Investment,
• 2. Percentage of sales or margin
• or
• 3. Review of last year

Strategic Marketing Investment

This approach begins with understanding the current value of a customer. Then assess the current cost of acquisition, retention budget and the dynamics of the sales funnel.

We all know it’s on average 10 time more expensive to gain a new customer than retain a current customer. Hence marketing really is an investment and it is vital to look at all aspects of the prospect nurturing process and consider;

• How new potential customers enter in the top of the funnel?

• How much you need to invest to find those new prospects? – How long a potential customer/prospects need to be nurtured before they become sales leads?
• How can we help move prospects through the sales cycle? – How many leads are required in order to drive a sales opportunities? and, finally, how those opportunities are won?
• Then understand how to keep customers with us and build repeat purchases and loyalty?

This analysis, combined with a calculation breakdown will greatly assist the investment/budget process to and accurately devise targets and project expenditure to drive sales and return.

Percentage of annual projected sales, or gross profit.

If using projects sales or gross margin approach is preferred, before setting the percentage look for; companies similar in size, business maturity, stage of the business/products, level of competition to your company. IDC International Data Group records that on average;

• 46% of companies spend less than 9% of overall revenue.
• 24% of companies spend 9 to 13% of overall revenue.
• 30% of companies spend greater than 13% of overall revenue.

The rule of thumb suggests the majority of successful businesses spend between 10 and 12 percent of gross margin.

Previous year spend

Sadly an approach is a process that just looks at the previous year’s spending and simply deciding where they want to add more or less spending. While this seems to be a logical tactic, it’s the wrong approach since it positions the marketing budget as an expense, and marketing as a cost center. It isn’t strategic nor will it enable growth or opportunity to test and trial new media or communication tools.

The best way to develop a marketing budget, is to treat the budget as if it’s an investment in-order to deliver an expected, quantified return over time. 

Let’s work together, contact us today

EMAIL; angela@helloexanimo.com

ADDRESS; Level 5, 171 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

PHONE;  0466 619 631

The post Marketing cost or investment ? appeared first on Ex Animo.

We pride ourselves on assisting our clients tell their own unique Brand Story… Let’s work together! #digitalwhitespace

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