www.matamata-info.co.nz

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Our free click-through in the newsletters of www.matamata-info.co.nz - www.tearoha-info.co.nz - www.thames-info.co.nz - www.morrinsville-info.co.nz goes to the following town websites - www.matamata-info.co.nz/jaggers (summer is in full swing at Jaggers) - www.thames-info.co.nz/temata (take a summer break at Te Mata Lodge)

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This month we show the Usage by Country stats - Visitors from 53 countries have checked out www.matamata-info.co.nz ...

Top 30 of 53 Total Countries
#	Hits		Files		KBytes		Country
1	12149	39.53%	5491	28.68%	68101	28.60%	US Commercial
2	9172	29.85%	7106	37.11%	88290	37.08%	New Zealand (Aotearoa)
3	3164	10.30%	2350	12.27%	30367	12.75%	Unresolved/Unknown
4	2660	8.66%	1811	9.46%	22161	9.31%	Network
5	1045	3.40%	780	4.07%	9308	3.91%	Australia
6	403	1.31%	219	1.14%	2597	1.09%	Netherlands
7	260	0.85%	136	0.71%	1526	0.64%	United Kingdom
8	160	0.52%	123	0.64%	1186	0.50%	Germany
9	153	0.50%	114	0.60%	1174	0.49%	Japan
10	133	0.43%	107	0.56%	1244	0.52%	Canada
11	105	0.34%	38	0.20%	502	0.21%	Norway
12	81	0.26%	66	0.34%	688	0.29%	US Educational
13	78	0.25%	70	0.37%	1131	0.48%	Sweden
14	75	0.24%	56	0.29%	500	0.21%	United States
15	71	0.23%	61	0.32%	882	0.37%	Non-Profit Organization
16	71	0.23%	20	0.10%	174	0.07%	Taiwan
17	68	0.22%	60	0.31%	663	0.28%	Brazil
18	67	0.22%	58	0.30%	452	0.19%	Poland
19	66	0.21%	47	0.25%	448	0.19%	Denmark
20	66	0.21%	54	0.28%	552	0.23%	Mexico
21	64	0.21%	44	0.23%	494	0.21%	France
22	62	0.20%	52	0.27%	598	0.25%	Switzerland
23	58	0.19%	45	0.23%	672	0.28%	Malaysia
24	50	0.16%	40	0.21%	393	0.17%	Austria
25	45	0.15%	37	0.19%	323	0.14%	Italy
26	38	0.12%	20	0.10%	168	0.07%	China
27	37	0.12%	34	0.18%	432	0.18%	Belgium
28	34	0.11%	18	0.09%	195	0.08%	Singapore
29	29	0.09%	26	0.14%	309	0.13%	Hungary
30	27	0.09%	21	0.11%	245	0.10%	Russian Federation

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Not 100 Percent Perfect

Is perfection the best characteristic for a brand? Until recently, many might have said yes. Martha Stewart fans certainly would have agreed. Year after year, the ever-perfect Martha concocted one perfect piece of decorating advice after another. Her brand-building was perfect ... but repetition of such reliable perfection made the occasional mistake glaringly obvious.

The ultimate brand is like a real person. The more human the components associated with a brand, the stronger it is. The most successful brands will often exhibit human qualities. Instances of brands that offer extraordinarily good service usually coincide with those brands that have a human touch.

Most of us have emailed or phoned questions and/or complaints about brands. When replies have a human voice, they've generally addressed our concerns. Such replies typically exhibit the writer's authority and credibility ... the authority to write as a credible individual.

As customers, we demand brands deliver on expectations. It's a minimum standard to expect a brand to reply to inquiries within 24 hours. That's probably about as far as we allow our expectations to go. So minimal are expectations now, a response that deviates from a standard automatic reply and provides just a glimpse of a person behind it adds equity to the brand.

The human touch has enormous value. A brand that exhibits that quality it is likely to become a favourite.

To achieve this, a brand must develop human behaviour. And human behaviour is rarely perfect. To err is human. Slips, quirks and idiosyncratic behaviours define our unique personalities. Brands should attempt to do the same.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about messing up your account status or filling email messages and letters with spelling errors. Make a brand's behaviour real. Consistency is a valuable trait. But mechanical perfection and artificial sameness can alienate.

Take huge banking corporations. Edifices in steel and glass line our main streets, plastered with huge corporate logos and filled with people uniformly dressed. How uninspiring.

Corporations don't need sterile predictability to maintain a professional image. Adherence to conformity can reflect senior level insecurity.

Imagine if Martha had a cake flop ... if a painting hanging on her wall wasn't straight ... what if she admitted to a terrible hangover. Chinks in the image would reinforce it, not weaken it. They would inspire empathy with her.

Chinks in the armour only appear to be faults to the wearer. From a distance, a consumer sees reinforcement. A few chinks in Martha's brand could have armed her against the day a real mistake happened.

Project a perfect image to the world and the world expects perfection. Such expectations may not work to your benefit. Before re-designing your website, TV campaign, shop decoration, or whatever generates traffic and revenue, consider the level of perfection you want to maintain. Maybe perfection is not all it's cracked up to be.

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A great way to improve your link popularity which is directly related to your search engine ranking, is to take advantage of our FREE classified advertisement offer. We have "classifieds" on our four town websites (www.matamata-info.co.nz/classifieds.html - www.morrinsville-info.co.nz/classifieds.html - www.tearoha-info.co.nz/classifieds.html - www.thames-info.co.nz/classifieds.html) and they receive an enormous amount of visitors - if you're not there you're missing out !! All you have to do is forward us 25 words about your business - a breeze surely!! Your classified advertisement will be linked to your website and also have an email link on it if requested - www.matamata-info.co.nz/classifieds.html was the 6th most visited directory on the site during December!!

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Site of the Month is Jellicoe Road Stables - Farmstay - Bed & Breakfast - and they receive a free direct click through and feature image from www.matamata-info.co.nz to their website.

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Trust you're all enjoying the holiday season and we look forward to working together with you during 2007!!

Leanne Taylor
:: www.wwwdesign.co.nz ::
Award Winning Website Design, Hosting & Maintenance
Phone/Fax (09) 817 9656 ~ Mobile (0274) 701990