At Generate UK, we love to impart our knowledge. It helps other businesses with their online marketing and it demonstrates all of the great services that we provide.

June 30th saw us present yet another of our locally renowned seminars at the beautiful Donnington Grove Country Club, this time in the Kennet suite. Around fifty delegates from companies spanning a whole variety of industries attended, including people from CSC, Hyperbole, Verbatim and many, many more. We kicked off the seminar with some light refreshments and networking and with the excellent weather, the mood was fantastic. Once much of the coffee had disappeared, our attendees were ushered into our very own Mr Joe Baily’s introduction and presentation. Joe discussed the way in which we here at Generate UK operate and work with clients, as well as discussing the underlying foundations and technologies that should support a business’ online marketing activity. Will your CMS grow with your company, or will it stop working as soon as your growth explodes? Does your marketing roadmap include the latest social media platforms? Are you missing out on any key marketing activities, like e-mail marketing for example? This helped open some eyes and hopefully encouraged our attendees to look at the road ahead, why update your strategy now… When the wheels of the underlying vehicle will fall off in the near future? You might as well get both right now to save a lot of heart ache and expense in the long term!

Michael Robinson then took the reigns and went on to explain some of the jargon and terms commonly used in the Internet marketing industry. Many questions were asked and many were thusly enlightened on the subjects of ‘Black hat’ vs ‘White hat’ SEO techniques and ‘Google Bombing’ among many others. This demonstrated that in having knowledge of all the different SEO and Internet marketing approaches, we can better advise and improve upon our client s online activity. This put to rest many of the doubts our delegates had regarding things like Google AdSense, Pay Per Click, Keywords and link-building where they had bad experiences in the past when working with less experienced or ‘black hat’ agencies.

The seminar was then adjourned for another round of tea and coffee so that we could make our way around and speak to many of those who attended as possible. We found that our delegates had differing reasons for attending, but many were surprised by the planned scope of the event and were very much looking forward to seeing the rest of what we had to offer.

Having set high expectations with the first half of the event, it was then down to our guest speaker Mr Ian Summerfield from Optim IP to continue the trend. Ian presented on the subject of Cloud Computing, a technology that has been around for quite sometime, but is only just entering the mainstream. Ian certainly delivered; his presentation roused many questions as some of our attendees could not believe that they could compute with incredible power, on inexpensive devices through a service provided from half way across the globe. Ian illustrated that the use of Cloud Computing is not a question of if, but when. Microsoft is giving the cloud their full backing, and more and more charities rely on cloud computing as a cheaper, more flexible alternative to maintaining their own infrastructure. Not only this, but many other platforms will migrate to the cloud from film rental, to console gaming which will dramatically change the way businesses utilise their marketing channels and the way in which they manage their customer engagement. This gave our audience much to think about as they were about to be instructed on the use of design in marketing.

Matt Lewin and I presented on a number of related subjects that determine whether or not your website design is current. I began by introducing on-page SEO, navigation and web standards as well as their affects on accessibility and design. Many people do not give these points the consideration that they deserve and to illustrate their significance I showed how many larger organisations have been sued for ignoring these points. After all, in not adhering to these guidelines, you could be damaging your user experience for up to 48% of your audience.

I then handed the talk over to Matt so he could talk our audience through the importance of designing a website with their key marketing activity and priorities in mind as well as demonstrating how a company web page could be better built for user interaction through portals and social platforms.  The reason being that marketing is moving to a more integrated and interactive paradigm and some smaller companies are falling behind the trend and could potentially be losing business as a result. Matt also talked our delegates through the process of determining their site sizing and layout so that it engages the user in all the right ways, ultimately delivering better returns and conversions which should be a part of every businesses marketing strategy.

To top off an already brilliant event, our very own social media guru Mr Ian Fergusson began to convert our audience into becoming more social media savvy. Ian shocked our audience with impressive facts and creative figures on the sheer volume of social media users and then went on to tell us that if Facebook was a country, it would be the 4th biggest country in the world behind the US based on registered users alone! If that was not shocking enough, Facebook itself has seen a dramatic shift in demographic from 16-18 year olds to mainly 45-54 year olds! So it is certainly no longer a ‘kid’s thing’ which makes it a marketing tool to be considered much more seriously as part of an integrated marketing arsenal. This talk was well received all round with many delegates asking for training and tips on how to leverage these platforms properly themselves.

After the presentation, we took questions from the floor and explained some of our fields in more depth. We were then locked into deep marketing conversations with many of our delegates 1-on-1 to advise them on some of the marketing issues they had stumbled across quite recently. We talked these through with them and suggested ways they could perhaps revisit these activities and tweak their approach to better their results.

We love to help people and businesses with their online marketing and the feedback we received on the number of free tools we gave away and the advice we included in our seminar was astounding. So much so that we are currently planning another event to invite you all back to! If you would like to request access to the presentations from our great speakers, then please click here.
I look forward to seeing you all again in the future!

Kind regards,
John King.

Online marketing for businesses and marketing to end customers is different. A person buying a product for their company has different “buying standard” compared to a person buying something for himself. There are profound differences and one of them is the emotional experience. These points should be remembered when developing online marketing activities.

B2B and B2C marketing is used to differentiate the internet commerce business. There are companies that sell primarily to businesses while others sell primarily to end customer. Marketing programs are the same for each type of business but they differ in executions and the outcomes of the marketing activities.

B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing campaigns are concerned with the transaction. They are usually shorter because they need to capture the customer’s attention immediately. These campaigns usually offer special deals such as discounts and vouchers that can be used both online and in the store. Their goal is to get their customers to buy immediately. B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing process is longer and is more involved. Although its goal is to turn prospects into customers, a B2B company needs to focus on building long-term relationships with their clients. They use marketing to educate their customers about their products. In an email campaign, you usually see contact information for offline transactions and contain more information on the features of the product, benefits and the prices. This marketing strategy is usually the first step, and it usually includes direct mail, telemarketing, and newsletters and follows up by a sales representative who will discuss the business’ requirement in more detail and walk the prospect through the sales cycle.

The main difference between the B2B and B2C marketing comes down to the buyer’s emotional perspective about the purchase. Consumers buying decisions are based on status, security, comfort and quality. On the other hand, business buyers base their decisions on increasing profitability, reducing costs and enhancing productivity.

In online marketing, if you are offering products and services to businesses, it is wise to invest on a marketing budget that focuses on marketing programs and materials that offer your target market what they need in order for them to make a rational business decision. Help them determine the value of your products and services through quality materials, testimonials and other activities that builds your credibility. If you are offering your products and services to end consumers, understand the motivation of your buyer and the emotional aspect of the decision. It is best to create compelling materials that build awareness of your brand and project the quality service and best price. Always remember what is important to your target audience and create an online marketing program that will reach out to them and convince them to buy your products and services.

At Generate UK we can help advise you to optimise your Online Marketing Strategy to reach your desired target audience. Our consultants are specialists in online marketing and can help focus you campaign on either B2B Marketing of B2C marketing. If you would like to discuss your Online Marketing further please do not hesitate to get in contact with us, we’d love to talk with you.

The internet became increasingly popular in the late 1990s and turned into a mass marketing medium. The online advertising industry grew from nearly 1 billion in 1997 to a projected $147 Billion in 2012. Advertising through the internet has proved to be an effective marketing strategy for a lesser cost compared to the conventional ways of advertising. It revolutionised how businesses reach out to their potential customers as the number of internet users from around the globe continues to rise and connection speeds continue to go faster and faster.

Marketing online is a cost effective way to market efficiently and effectively. Some of these benefits can be seen right away while some tend to happen further down the line - benefits that build upon those that are already in place. Listed below are some of the benefits of online marketing;

1. One advantage of marketing online versus the traditional marketing such as placing advertisements on the television, radios, magazines and newspapers is that you can change them anytime. By keeping track of your ads’ progress, if it is effective or not, you can decide to change a part of the ad, any wording or graphic, or the whole ad altogether, without any problems.

2.  Marketing online gives you real time figures and statistics. This can help you in determining your marketing campaign’s performance to help you in making key decisions that could mean the success or failure of your business. Although there are ways to track performance of traditional marketing efforts, results could not be delivered real-time.

3. The internet is available 24/7. Your ads can be seen anytime, anywhere compared to the limited airtime available in televisions and radios and limited space in newspapers and other prints.

4. On the internet, there is a variety of methods to advertise. You can use email, audio, blog, video, social media and newsletters. You have so many options in just one venue – the internet. If you opt to use these methods in traditional marketing, you would have to select several different media outlets, which can be tedious and very costly.

5. Marketing online allows you to target specific demographics – gender, age, location. You can even target would-be customers from specific income levels, education levels and occupation. This can also be done in traditional marketing but it often requires more effort.

Increasing traffic in your website is essential for marketing online. The more that you are able to get those interested in your products and services to go to your website, the better your leads are to make sales. You will get to see additional benefits of internet marketing when your website stands out from the rest. If your customers find the information they need from your website and the website is easy for them to navigate.

If you have a website and are looking for advice on how to market it effectively then why not get in contact with one of our consultants. Generate UK are a commercially thinking online marketing agency. We advise our clients on the best online options to suit their business processes, resource and available budget.

Is Social media just a fad that has developed in the last couple of years, or is it the biggest shift since the industrial revolution?  To get a grasp on how huge Social media is think of Facebook as a country. If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest in the world just behind the United States of America. Watch the video below to try and get a grasp of just how huge this phenomenon actually is.

If you would like to further discuss how Social media can help you and your business please email us.
We also have a white paper on Social Media which is available to download for free here.

Tell me… Could you describe and explain social media and online marketing to your grandma, in such a way that she could confidently use it to potentially better a business? I know I couldn’t.

I did however go to a seminar today on this very subject that did exactly that! No the room wasn’t full of ‘grandmas’, but it did break down the mysterious lore that is social media and online marketing into easily digested nuggets of knowledge.
This seminar was hosted by Generate UK at the spectacular Donnington Grove in their ‘Cloud Suite’. The ‘Cloud Suite’ is a luxurious room lined with lovely old paintings, overshadowed by a fantastic painted ceiling. There was free tea and coffee, there was glorious sunshine and there was a friendly buzz as attendees began to arrive.

We were all seated in some rather fancy chairs and we covered a variety of things from e-marketing myth busting to the fundamentals of the ‘twitterverse’. I already knew some of the basics that were covered but it was nice to see that all the fundamentals were explained so that everyone else understood the more advanced things that were to follow. Overall it was very well presented and it left no one guessing.

Over the course of the morning I mentally noted a number of clever marketing devices for later use. I learned that no more are the days where one could simply post a few thousand identical links all over the Internet to rank their page from ‘unheard of’ to ‘the industry authority’ in a matter of weeks; nor can you purchase links on leading websites to boost your own rankings… Well, not without major repercussions anyway. The emphasis nowadays is on natural link building, quality and content with a hint of tweeting; although the ‘Tweeting’ is optional.

Natural link building is the activity that promotes the recommendation of your online presence by getting other online entities to refer to your site naturally via a link; this could be as a point of interest, or perhaps in the form of a recommendation of your products or services. This is done of their own accord. This is now necessary because the search engines have ‘wizened-up’ to those manipulative chaps that have previously gone out to the marketplace to spam every existing website with their own links and false recommendations; all in a bid to rank higher on the search engine results. The current digital marketing paradigm now dictates that it is better for a company ‘footprint’ to grow gradually over time as more and more web users begin to trust the site in question and recognise it as an authority in the field.  For those of you that didn’t know, an online footprint is the measurement of your own online presence size… Yet another vital thing I learned today that I have lovingly passed on to you.

Now, can you tell me of something currently going on in your life or workplace that you’ve told other people about? I bet you can. Yet, many companies with an online presence clam-up and communicate next to nothing. If you have some experience in a particular field, enough for you to generate money from, it must be worth shouting about surely?
This is where we come on to the subject of quality and content. I learned today that some companies are beginning to embrace this as a guideline for their online activity. Not too many years ago the majority of companies had a static website that was occasionally updated with some generic company news. Nowadays however, the early adopters of new digital marketing methods and technology are beginning to share their knowledge, views and information online. This interactivity allows users to communicate with the company in a dynamic fashion allowing the aforementioned businesses to stay firmly on the industry pulse; this is due to their grass roots interaction with the end consumer, so businesses are more aware of what these consumers are thinking right now.

How is this done? In a surprisingly simple way actually, it’s all a question of sharing targeted, interesting and relevant content with the web surfers you want to attract to your business.  This does require that you embrace some of the new social media platforms that have recently come to power though i.e. Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us etc. So although the process may seem straight forward, there is a significant learning curve involved which puts many companies off.
Let me give you an example. Imagine you and I run a fashion outlet for customised clothing and accessories. We could do our traditional market research, develop prototype designs and then hope that when these items finally go on sale they will indeed, sell. This is admittedly, a very short-sighted example but now imagine this; instead of doing our in-house research with a few participants… We opened up a website listing all of our latest designs. We could then use a platform like Twitter to ‘Tweet’ (post information about) those designs to the masses whilst linking back to the main site. This would then open the door to other ‘Twitterers’ (Twitter users) for them to offer valuable feedback on our designs and to perhaps make some valuable recommendations for change. Not only that, but by engaging with the fashion conscious community on Twitter, we could explore what other people in the field are talking about and then throw in our own ‘two cents’ on the subject. We have just outlined a way to improve our customer interaction, improve our market research and product design process as well as establish ourselves as an authority in the field of fashion by expressing our expert opinion in up-to-the-minute conversations on the subject; all the while building natural links and generating traffic to our sales website, hopefully earning some extra money. Of course such a strategy would require much more thought and planning, but such a scenario is not uncommon where clever individuals have managed to leverage this powerful technology to their own business benefit.

The basics however are centred on sharing relevant, quality content with other users in an engaging way so that these users will interact with your business. Got a new product line? Tweet it. Planning a big PR event? Set up an events page on Facebook. Little things like this as part of a wider marketing plan can really level the playing field when competing for business against larger faceless corporations. Consumers like to know there is a bit of humanity in the business workings somewhere, something they can relate to. This is what makes quality content sharing on these innovative platforms so damned powerful.

I’ve personally been involved with 3 fairly sizeable Sitekit projects in the last few months and I have to admit that the more I use it, the more I like it. I don’t always feel that Sitekit gets the recognition it deserves though. Strangely, you could not call Sitekit a cool product, it’s not web 2.0, it’s not built by a community, and it does not have a vibrant following….. Yet it does what it sets out to do, it is a really great content management system.

 I am now on a mission to make Sitekit the coolest CMS out there…. especially the latest version 9.

Ok, the title suggests 10 reasons why I like Sitekit, so here goes:

1. As a project manager, it’s nice to know that my back is covered when it comes to support. With the best will in the world, it is impossible to know everything about a piece of software. So it is reassuring that you’re only ever a step or two away from the chaps responsible for building and maintaining the software.

2. The audit trail functionality is very powerful. It is one of those features that appeals to larger organisations with extensive publishing processes. However, the ability to roll back to previous versions of content is a great feature for medium sized organisations too. Also, it’s always nice to know who made that fatal change!

3. We’ve built Sitekit websites with version 8 and version 9 and it is no surprise to know that version 9 is an improvement on version 8. What is surprising is how much of an improvement it is. The back end console and usability is a lot stronger and the time to make changes has been reduced. The objective was to go for a more Microsoft style backend that users are familiar with, which comes across really well.

4. Sitekit won’t mind me saying that their system is not for all customers. It has a price point that frankly can put smaller businesses off considering it as a tool, however larger customers with mature online strategies can do a lot with Sitekit. One area that helps to lower the total cost of ownership is the ability to manage multiple sites through Sitekit. With the right license you can manage your sites via one console, reducing your complexity and reliance on multiple systems. It also means you can train your staff on just one system.

5. The flexibility of Sitekit is very good, there are one or two quirks like the hosting and certain APIs, however in the main you can do pretty much what you need to do with the out of the box Sitekit license. I would advise you to check your requirements off with one of the Sitekit staff if you have a lot of bespoke work to do though. The other great thing about Sitekit is that you can create or migrate your existing Intranet onto the Sitekit platform and manage the pages through the system securely.

6. We were able to roll out a new website for an NHS customer within 8 weeks. This site involved nearly 200 pages, different templates for each area and unique imagery. The site was also set up for an Intranet.

7. So far, all of our customers with Sitekit have really liked it. Each customer is different and experience different reasons for considering an enterprise class content management system. Usually, the pain you’re experiencing with non-content managed website can be alleviated with Sitekit, we’d love to have a conversation with you about this.

8. Search engine optimisation is critical to the success of your website; Sitekit really helps you to set up your site in a way that is truly optimised for the search engines. Taking care of your unique page titles, search engine friendly URLs, keywords and meta. As well as integrating directly with your Google Analytics account.

9. One of the less sexy features is the file and image library. You would expect a file and image library in all content management systems, yet the way it is set up with Sitekit really makes sense once you understand the concept. The latest version extends the file and image library to an asset library, which is even easier to use.

10. The last and most important reason we use Sitekit is that is makes us look good. As a digital marketing agency, we’re keen to work with best of breed technology partners. This enables us to focus on our customer’s business objectives and really work closely with them to deliver a website aligned to their goals.

I’ve worked with many content management systems, from open source to big time expensive and most things in between. The criteria I use to gauge how good a system is, is how easy it is for the customer to manage their site and how flexible the site is once built. Sitekit does really well on both points, yes it has its quirks and you’ll need to do a bit of leg work to understand some of the Sitekit specific commands, but this is the same for any new piece of software.

If you’d like to learn more about Sitekit and how it might fit within your organisation, please do feel free to contact us. Depending on your business needs, there are some really compelling reasons for Sitekit both financially and technically. We’d be happy to discuss these with you in more detail.

I have decided to create a series dedicated to the best marketing campaigns of the 20th century. Each Friday for 6 weeks a different member of the Generate UK team will discuss one of their favourite campaigns explaining why it stands out against its competition and what makes it so successful. This series will reveal some of the most creative, successful and the just downright weird campaigns to have been launched in the last 10 years.

Name: Ian Fergusson
Position: Marketing Executive
Campaign of choice: McDonalds Billboard (2008)
McDonalds does not have a good reputation in the fast food world as being ‘healthy’! In fact it has been sued a number of times for its advertising targeted at kids and for promoting un-healthy living. During the ‘noughties’ we saw a massive boom in healthy living and keeping fit, in my opinion borderline obsessive with fitness videos and new diets advertised wherever we looked. McDonalds clearly felt that if they didn’t alter their reputation soon, profits could ‘dip’. They left it up to the wonderful Leo Burnett to get across to the public that McDonald’s salads really are fresh!

Leo Burnett created a Billboard that over time grew lettuce, to form the words ‘Fresh Salads’. Creatively I feel this is ingenius. In a sense we see here the first ever living billboard. This wasn’t the fastest campaign ever launched, the sign took 3 weeks to grow, but the message delivered is clear and strong, If McDonalds can get fresh lettuce on a sign, surely that leaf in my double cheese burger is just as fresh and healthy.  Creativity is the driving force behind a message; this innovative idea generated top class media coverage that lasted several months after the campaign had finished.  However, I’m not a big fan of McDonalds as a brand, so I felt the need to criticise at least one aspect of this campaign. I do not like the Green on a grey background. I feel this is a slip up on the art direction and I’m sure many creative’s were confused over that decision.  I hope you found this interesting and please post any opinions you have about this campaign. After all it is you McDonalds are trying to impress, has it worked?

Next week it’s Mike Robinsons’ turn to share his Marketing Highlight of the past decade.

The benefit of adopting the affiliate marketing model is that it’s an extremely low risk way to open up new sales channels. The downside is that it works best with a product or service that is more of a commodity than a bespoke solution.

Many of the world’s largest organisations operate their own network or belong to an affiliate one.  The main reason for this is that the cost to enter is minimal and the business method is simply that you pay based on performance. This means that as long as the affiliate meets your branding and quality criteria, you are in the beneficial position of only needing to pay once a sale has been completed.

There are two ways to approach affiliate marketing; either by joining a larger well established affiliate network, or by creating and managing your own program. Both have their merits and are worth considering in more detail.

Econsultancy.com recently predicted the UK market for affiliate marketing to grow to £4bn in online sales in 2009. This is an extraordinary figure and demonstrates the size of the channel available.

If you are considering an affiliate marketing scheme we would suggest:

• Create objectives for setting up an affiliate program.
• Identify products, services or solutions that could be used.
• Gap analysis on sales training material available and other sales tools.
• Explore your own affiliate network or join a larger established one.
• What are the rewards and criteria for being an affiliate?

Forums have been around since the birth of the internet and Wikipedia states that it is ‘the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board’. Forums can be useful and are much underestimated.  Meeting like-minded people and helping those out, through sharing content through knowledge, can be exceptionally powerful.

It certainly helps your perceived leadership position within your industries and often information is forwarded on.   Within forums, most people have a user sign off and this is the opportunity where you can leave a link back to your website.

Do you have a forum? Do you ever post on relevent business forums? Have your say by posting a comment below.

You’re currently reading Generate UK’s Top 20 Digital Marketing ideas. Over the course of the next month, we’ll be sharing our experience to help you marketed your business on the Internet.

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 which are contributing to this continued rise:

• The economic climate 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’s 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 and 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.

Understanding how to send correct and effective communications is critical if this channel is going to work for you, so we would seriously advise anybody to understand this market thoroughly and carry out your research first. Seek advice from the professionals as delivering bad communications can seriously damage you brand.  Data, message, timing, creative, response, analytics….they all count!

If you’d like help with your next email marketing campaign, let us know. We’d be very happy to show you our system.