Waikato Business News October/November 2018

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6 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS October/November 2018 From the editor Best performing words It’s awards season, a time to celebrate business success around Waikato, and you can read their stories in these pages. The start of October saw the Hamilton CBD Celebration Awards upstairs in the heritage Hamilton Hotel building. Guests milled around in the decked-out surrounds and, in her own moment of pure theatre, Hamilton Central Business Association general manager Vanessa Williams read a congratulatory telegram from the Queen, who had stayed at the hotel during a Royal tour in 1953. Later in the month, the We are Waikato Awards recognised outstanding contributions to the built environment. The national ADNZ | Resene Architectural Design Awards, also announced during the month, saw two Waikato winners, while Smart Waikato’s remarkable SSEP programme also won a national award. The month ended, or at least the new one began, with the Westpac Waikato Business Awards, a glitzy affair at Claudelands Showground with 600 guests. Montana Group was the Supreme winner, heading an impressive and richly varied field of businesses and business leaders. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists; we really do live in a diverse and innovative region. It is also a growing region, and our cover story this month reflects that. Hamilton Airport, which had been in the doldrums, has shown a remarkable turnaround in the last two or three years. It is well placed for future growth with the Waikato Expressway soon to sweep nearby and the Peacocke and Southern Links development will further boost it. All that, plus a smart management, is making a big difference. Smart management also marks out other stories in this issue. That includes Jimmy Ormsby and Waitomo, growing at the astonishing rate of five fuel stops a year, after they saw their opportunity courtesy of improved payment technology. Seventy years in the business has given them tremendous knowledge and a solid base to work from. Meanwhile, Smart Waikato’s Secondary Schools and Employers Partnership programme is proving its worth, with more schools joining and those ending their three-year term hoping to sta on board. Remarkably, there was no model in New Zealand for what they are doing; their literature search when they started revealed Scotland as the only place doing something similar. I hope you enjoy their stories and more in this issue. As always, feel free to contact me at richard@nmmedia.co.nz Ngā mihi Richard Walker identified from $60m in Ad spend If you were able to analyse the best performing ads across $60 million in Google Ads spend, do you think you’d find useful patterns? A recent report, released by software provider Wordstream, analysed which words were most commonly used in the best Google Ads across a total spend on USD $60 million. Funnily enough, the results reinforced what Dale Carnegie wrote in his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, way back in 1936. He wrote: “People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves - morning, noon and after dinner.” He taught strongly that advertising material should not start with the company as the focus, but the customer as the focus. And that is what the Wordstream study found too. The top ten performing words, in order, were: Your; Free; Now; Get; Online; Our; Save; Best; Shipping; and You. With “Your” and “You” both in the top ten, we can see that the copywriting age-old wisdom from Dale Carnegie still To write good headlines for ads, websites and offline marketing material, we need to think about what our customer wants. THE DIGITAL WORLD > BY JOSH MOORE applies today. People want to quickly see how you can benefit them. The same applies for the words “Get”, “Free”, “Save” and “Now” – these are customer focused words that dominate the list. “Shipping” is also in the list - most commonly used in the phrase “Free Shipping”. These words give hints at the underlying psychology of what it takes to get people to engage with your adverts and marketing. So, it pays to ask ourselves the question, is our marketing focused on our customer, or focused on ourselves? A horrible example I saw just recently was a Google Ad with the headline “We are [brand name]”. You can’t get any more self-absorbed than that! But this is nothing new. In the same book Dale Carnegie said: “Many salespeople spend a lifetime in selling without seeing things from the customer's angle.” A US-based company, Marketing Experiments, ran a split test for an ad for a forex com- Josh Moore is the managing director at digital marketing agency, Duoplus. josh@duoplus.nz www.duoplus.nz pany. The first headline read, “Why trade Forex with Forex- Trading.com?” The second headline read “Get your free, no risk, no obligation $100,000 Forex Trading Demo Account”. Notice that the second headline starts with three words from the top ten list: “Get your free…” The second headline produced a 99 percent increase in conversions. That means twice as many customers for the same amount of ad spend. The same copywriting guidelines apply to webpages. Far too often I see small business websites with the home page headline “Welcome to CompanyName”. When you see this, you know their marketing is failing to be customer-centric. To write good headlines for ads, websites and offline marketing material, we need to think about what our customer wants. If you find yourself writing a headline starting with “Our” or “We” it’s an indicator that you’re writing a company-centric headline. Change it to have the word “Your” in the first part of the headline, and you’ll be writing a customer-centric headline. Just like Henry Ford said: “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get (understand) the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.”
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS October/November 2018 7 Rocket man launches Kiwi lab It takes a rocket man to launch a rocket lab. Star Trek’s original Captain James T. Kirk, William Shatner, opened Rocket Lab’s new high-volume production facility in Mt Wellington, Auckland, on October 12. William, who performed Elton John’s pop hit Rocket Man at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards, was acknowledged by Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and US Ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown before unveiling a commemorative plaque and touring the facility. “I just have one thing to say: Elon Musk,” the actor quips. “So, he puts a rocket up ... he puts a car up there, a Tesla, incredible. “Now, here’s a suggestion that might be useful. The Prime Minister has a baby. So why don’t we put the baby as a payload? Get the baby up there, bring the baby back down, think how much better New Zealand’s space programme would be. Instead of a car a new born baby!” The starship captain actor was surprised to hear Rocket Lab could launch for $5 million, a fraction of the billions of dollars US launches cost. “What a wonderful place to be. On the cutting edge of this technology ... You’re sending rockets up for such a small percentage of the price it takes for us to do in America. What wonderful, innovative, work all of you are doing ... I’m glad to be here. You’re all very special and I feel special for being here. Thank you so much.” This is an incredibly exciting moment for the team, but also for the space industry The actor, joined on the tour by invited guests including Company-X director David Hallett and communications manager Chris Gardner, signed one of the Electron rockets. “This is an incredibly exciting moment for the team, but also for the space industry,” Peter says. The Rocket Lab chief MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Actor William Shatner, Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk, signs an Electron rocket at the opening of Rocket Lab in Auckland. executive says he is constantly asked why he’s established the company in New Zealand and has considered having the answer tattooed on his head. “It’s on the wall,” he says as he points to the company’s mission statement. “We go to space to improve life on Earth. That is the whole point of what we do.” The modern lifestyle is sustained by a network of satellites orbiting our planet. “Whether it be weather, television, GPS, or even just getting an Uber, it’s all coming from space ... The problem here though is there’s some 2,600 small satellites that require launch in the next few years and even America, as the great super power of the world with respect to space, only launched 28 rockets last year in total. “If you have got 2,600 spacecraft and 28 rockets you have got a little bit of a problem on your hands. So, this is really what we are trying to solve. “Today is one giant step towards delivering on that promise. This factory has been purposely designed and built to produce one [Electron] rocket every week ... that’s a phenomenal step change and of course not just building one but launching one from our multiple sites.” The new 7,500 sq/m (80,700 sq/ft) rocket development and production facility rethinks the way orbital rockets are built and brings Rocket Lab’s manufacturing footprint to more than 4.5 acres. Electron rockets are built in Auckland and launched from Rocket Lab’s private orbital launch pad, Launch Complex 1, on the Mahia Peninsula in Hawke’s Bay. All Electron launches, including the upcoming It’s Business Time launch in November, will be commanded from the new Mission Control at the Auckland facility. Award winning fastest growing company in fastest growing region A Hamilton-based software specialist won two top Westpac Waikato Business Awards after being named the fastest growing technology business in New Zealand's fastest growing technology region. Company-X won the Service Excellence and Global Operator accolades at the Westpac Waikato Business Awards and was a finalist in the Business Growth category. Professional services manager Michael Hamid received the Deloitte award after the Technology Investment Network (TIN) named Hamilton the nation’s fastest growing technology region with revenue growth in 2017 of $109 million (21.7%) to more than $1 billion. Hamilton grew at nearly twice the rate of the South Island region which came second with 11.8% growth. The Wellington region grew by 10.5%, Central region by 5.7% and Auckland region by 5%. IT Professionals New Zealand chief executive Paul Matthews said it was good to see regional growth led by the technology sector. “It’s great to see businesses like Company-X trailblazing and leading the way,” Paul says. “For a small city it’s pretty huge. “The Waikato is a fantastic growing region from the IT professional’s perspective there are already multiple well-established tertiary institutions.” IT Professionals New Zealand is working on adding to its professional development offering with free advice for corporate partners. We’re located in Hamilton, New Zealand’s fastest growing city for technology. We really like solving problems with software. FASTEST GROWING: Company-X professional services manager Michael Hamid, left, and BNZ corporate partner Jason Cowan, with the Deloitte award.
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Waikato Business News October/November 2018

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