So now we’re all being told we’re in a deep recession, come on people…..it’s now time to start understanding how to make your budget work harder! 

Gone are the days when you threw as much as you could at the wall hoping for something to stick or you position your meta data and keywords in their rightful places and hope for the best, let’s start thinking a little bit beyond the stale old marketing techniques and start embracing the new online world. The quicker you do it and understand it the quicker you’ll get to where you need to be. Some might say you’ve already missed the boat? Personally I completely disagree, I speak to many companies daily and 70% of these companies are still nowhere near where they need to be in terms of technology, skills and knowledge so you still have time. 

We’ve reported in past blogs that online marketing is set to increase dramatically over during 2009 and the reason is ‘The Stats Don’t Lie!’ 

Let’s look at things in a simplistic manner, would you go out and buy a new Mini without test driving it first? Read a review or two? Listen to a mate who raves about how good his Mini is? No of course not, because you want to know that you’re not wasting your money and let’s be honest there’s obviously a few spare Minis out there at the moment so you’re bound to pick up a bargain. 

Thinking about the above scenario within the marketing spectrum any sensible business owner, marketing manager/director will want to be able test, track, analyse and basically understand the metrics. This will enable them to see if the activities they’re looking to invest into are going to provide them with the desired return which inevitably is sales, or switching back to the above scenario an enjoyable and reliable drive that’s not going to be a waste of your hard earned cash. 

I used to sell advertising and while I still love magazines and buy into the whole print media industry from a marketer’s perspective it’s a gamble. You can place numerous promotional codes on the advertisement however you can never really understand the full mechanics and your exact returns.  When I used to sell advertising I always dreaded the renewal process. Having to present to an advertiser, who the year before spent £30k with me on a repeat half page colour ad on page 7, why they should sign up for another year without any hard core facts and figures, barring the fact that our circulation had increased by 3000 was always a challenge. 

Spending money on marketing always represents a gamble however marketing online represents far less of a gamble as you can test and measure. I love that ability, test and measure! It makes everything a lot clearer and my decisions a lot easier. 

Online Marketing needs to be embraced and if you haven’t yet fear not, there is still the window of opportunity.  I spoke to a company the other day who basically was bragging that they had x amount of traffic to their site and x amount of back links which was true, however where this company failed in the online spectrum was the analytics and measuring part of equation. As, when we looked into the traffic 80% of it came from America and Google.com not Google.co.uk and the fact that they only sold to the UK was quite concerning and in relation to their links 60% came from one source which isn’t bad but isn’t really helping their SEO cause. 

Whatever online activity you feel is going to help your business, take a step and trial it as the Stats Don’t Lie! Good luck and if you need any advice call 01635 550 431 and speak to the Generate UK Team.

Email marketing is now one of the most cost effective ways to market to your potential customers; as a result it is no surprise that the UK market grew from a value of £221m in 2007 to an estimated £274m in 2008. Despite the economic doom and gloom, this growth is expected to rise further in 2009.

There are a number of reasons contributing to this continued rise:

• The economic doom and gloom is putting pressure on everyone’s marketing budgets, however at the same time there is a need for an increase in retention marketing, which email marketing is perfect for.
• There is an increased number of email service providers, which is bringing down the cost and adding value to the marketing department (in most cases anyway).
• We’re all beginning to see the benefit of email marketing from a return on investment perspective. This is certainly the case when measuring the cost of the campaign; however it is fair to say that many businesses need to go one step further in terms of measuring their campaigns with the amount of business it produces.
• Most businesses recognise that they have to work harder for their slice of the cake; as a result there is a greater focus on building email lists and encouraging email sign ups from webmasters and marketing managers.
• Email marketing offers businesses the opportunity to send highly targeted and very relevant email correspondence.
• Businesses in the UK are beginning to understand the benefits of autoresponders and trigger emails.

In general this is good news; companies recognise the benefit of email marketing and are using it for sales purposes as well as retention purposes. However there is a cautionary element of this blog; the more businesses that adopt email marketing, the more email competition there is out there. This means there will be an impact on your open rates and click throughs as people start to screen their mails more. A recent survey from MarketingSherpa highlighted the following 5 reasons for email recipients to hit the spam button:

• 52% hit their spam button after receiving emails they had not signed up to
• 41% said they hit the spam or junk option because the email was not of interest
• 25% said they went spam crazy because they receive too much email from the sender
• 20% of recipients hit their spam button because they receive too much email in general
• A final 15% of respondents to the survey hit their spam or junk button because they found the email offensive

This was quite an interesting survey and one that most marketers would find beneficial. Consider the case of over 50% of recipients who hit the spam because they had not signed up to receive an email. This is a huge figure and the more people who spam block your emails, the greater chance of a flag being raised about your email sending habits. In my opinion, this adds weight to the arguement that you should be doing everything possible to grow your marketing lists and encouraging people to sign up.

Once you have people signed up, it is all about sending them the right information. Think about your list, what their interests might be and send them emails that will appeal to them. These figures show that if you don’t take the relevancy factor into consideration, then as many as 41% will hit the spam button.  This is a huge waste as we all know how difficult it is to grow our lists.

Another thing to think about is how often you send emails to the same contacts; a daily email with a tip is very different to a daily email trying to sell something. It is important to get the balance with your list right, otherwise you could lose up to 20% of your subscribers.

So in summary, the marketing trend for email marketing is positive. The industry is continuing to grow, UK businesses are starting to realise the benefit from a cost and ROI perspective. However, like all forms of marketing, you have to enter it with your eyes open and be prepared to test and tweak your campaigns. Have a look at our 9 Steps to Enterprise Email Marketing for some ideas.

Also, don’t forget traditional postal mail campaigns. Going against the norm can often be an effective marketing strategy, and besides, when was the last time someone sent you a nice letter or flyer at your office?

This blog post was created with the help of E-consultancy.com and based on a roundtable discussion with some of the leading names in the industry. If you would like to talk about email marketing and what it could do for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. Please feel free to post your comments.

The Donnington Grove Estate is set in a delightful and secluded position on the outskirts of Newbury and is overlooked by the historic Donnington Castle. Donnington Grove is famous for its championship grade golf course, which was designed by Dave Thomas, designer of The Belfry.

Donnington Grove was keen to showcase their recently refurbished conference facilities and major investments into their restaurant areas and new menu. They were confident that once visitors had experienced these facilities for themselves, they very likely to return and share their experience.

The brief was to deliver an email marketing campaign; the objective was to raise the profile of Donnington Grove and encourage new visitors to come and experience their services. It was agreed that four emails would be sent over a period of four months and be used to support different catering experiences.

Generate UK worked closely with Donnington Grove in order to come up with a desired customer profile, this criteria was used to select the email recipients most likely to respond to Donnington Grove’s offer. This resulted in a more targeted email campaign, which increases the return on investment.

Using the 9 steps of Enterprise Email Marketing; Donnington Grove was confident of the project plan presented by Generate UK. And because there were 4 emails being sent, there was a lot of data to analyse, this ensured that informed decisions were being made to improve the response rate for each campaign.

The results of the campaign were well received by Donnington Grove, each email recipient was asked to print of a copy of the email they received in return for a free glass of wine. The results were very favourable compared to other local advertising methods. There was also an increase in the number of “conversations” about Donnington Grove, which bodes well for the future.

Christopher Strong, General Manager of Donnington Grove stated “We were thrilled with the response and will certainly repeat this initiative for other areas of the business” 

Click to view the Donnington Grove Golf & Country Club web site

If you would like to discuss what an email marketing campaign could do for your business please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. If you’re already doing email marketing, ask us about how our analytics system can increase your open rates.

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As part of our Web Site Health Check promotion, we’ve been doing a fair bit of web page analysis recently. We look at the web site as a whole and how it is performing against the objectives set by the business. It’s a really interesting exercise, not because most organisations have never thought about setting objectives for their web sites, but because it gets people thinking.

A web site project does not end when the final piece of code has been written, it’s an ongoing process. It is part of your kit bag as a business and is there to support your business goals. Like other aspects of your team, it will perform better when it is coached and trained. Which I know sounds a little bit fluffy, but to make the point; when was the last time you gave your web site a performance review?

For most businesses, the web site is a major investment. It is the proverbial shop window, and often the first point of entry for interested customers. Businesses that recognise and use the Internet to contribute to their sales and opportunities already appreciate the need to track and analyse web site traffic and referrals.

Just talking about a web site health check is a great way to encourage companies to look at their web sites in a different light. In these times of economic gloom, reviewing aspects of a business is not unusual; we’re all used to sweating our assets and trying to make our investments go further. So we should also apply this same logic to the web site. The trouble is, most companies do not know how to begin this process or indeed recognise the importance of web site objectives.

On the positive side, giving your web site a performance review is easier than carrying out a review for an underperforming member of your staff. You can be as critical as you like about your web site and not have to worry a knock on the door from the HR Director.

The place to start is at the end; what is it that you would like your web site to do? If you were building a brand new web site tomorrow, what are the major objectives of the site you would use to justify the expenditure? Once everyone agrees to the objectives, it’s time to work backwards and see what aspects of your site deliver against the objectives.

You’ll probably find that there are a lot of areas that could be improved upon, some of this will be simple content tweaks, updates and making your site more relevant; whilst, other areas might need specific skills and development. The great part about this process is that you’re talking about your site and hopefully getting excited about what it could deliver.

At this stage, you’ve got the basis for an Internet Marketing Strategy. You should prioritise the changes, speak with your agency and get their feedback about some of the more technical ideas and then begin work on the changes. If you’re working closely with your digital marketing agency, they should also be contributing to your plan.

So why not book some time in your diary for your web site review? To help you on your way, please feel free to take advantage of our web site health check promotion, as this will provide you with some good information to begin your review.

Was this blog post helpful? Please feel free to comment below, or alternatively if you would like to learn more about the web site review process or how companies are using the Internet to drive business during the credit crunch, please contact us on 01635 550431.
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