Instagram & Facebook – Why?


A few hours ago I read that Facebook had acquired Instagram for $1bn… aptly enough, this news came to me via my Facebook feed. There’s also an official release here from Mark Zuckerberg My first thought once I checked the legitimacy Read more

Return On Influence: The New ROI


There is not a single activity in business which is exempted from a query regarding return on investment.  Focused strategic planning and expenditure to optimise your e-commerce mix is known to be an investment worth making for product and Read more

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Customers

Approach to Marketing a Website

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Mike in Customers, Internet Marketing | Leave a comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: One of the most interesting aspects of my job is that I get to meet lots of great people and interesting businesses. One such business that I recently met were the chaps from Predator MFG, experts in Stump Grinders. The design and manufacture their own machines and distribute them across Europe, what is unique about their product is that they are smaller in size whilst maintaining more power and precision through engineering. What was interesting about our conversation was covering the many different areas their products and services can be optimised for. The website is obviously a large part of that, however within that there are specific keywords and phrases that need focus. Then there is the consideration of the off-page marketing, for example Youtube! Facebook, Twitter etc… all of which require lots of hard work and content to work for them. With so much choice, it’s easy to be distracted, which is not good with a new website. It’s important to remember the reasons why a website has been built and the objectives for the website. In this case, it was all about 2 keywords and ensuring that their website is represented on the search engines for those keywords. My approach to marketing a website… If we know what the goal is, then we can put in place a plan to achieve the goal. In the early stages it is about information gathering and understanding what needs to be done. Benchmarking – With any marketing plan it is important to know where you’re starting…


2012 is looking great following a strategic acquisition.

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Kim in Blogging, Business Development, Customers, Digital Marketing, Events, Featured, Online Reputation, Other stuff, Social Media, Web Design, Web News | 1 Comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: In December 2011, Generate UK were delighted to complete on the acquisition of Web on High, an 11 year old digital marketing agency based in Newbury, Berkshire. Following this announcement, Generate UK will be moving to new premises at New Greenham Park. Following the acquisition; Generate UK now have over 20 digital specialists ranging from creative designers, an award winning development team, experienced SEO Experts and a wonderful team of Account Managers. When you make a big move like this, it’s hard not to look back and appreciate how far you’ve come. In 2008 the economy was at the start of the recession and whilst this scenario was a concern, the Generate UK Directors, Mike Robinson and Joe Baily stuck to their vision and took a giant leap of faith. They understood that despite the uncertainties, there would be a need for an agency who would help companies bridge the gap through expert knowledge and resource, offering measurable returns through emerging technologies. Our history and our ever growing client basis proves they were both right. It’s hard to believe that Generate UK began as a 2 man team, we’re now over 20 strong! Having a larger team is already proving successful with more ideas and expertise which can be passed on to our clients allowing us to be even more proactive then before. What about the new office? It’s brilliant! We have a nice big open plan office, flatscreen TV’s, a lovely big meeting room and the Director’s are keen to continually invest as they…


Fabulous Flowers Goes Live

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Kim in Blogging, Customers, Digital Marketing, Events, Other stuff, Web Design, Web News | Leave a comment

Earlier this year, Generate UK was contacted by a company based in Abingdon and Oxford, Specialising in Flower Displays and Floral Art called Fabulous Flowers. This was a project that instantly caught our eye, as we spotted a great opportunity to let our creativity run wild, creating a great looking website for an amazing up and coming company. Thanks to a great idea by the owners of Fabulous Flowers, Gary Cooper and Matthew Taylor, we split the website into 2 halves, 1 dedicated to the sale of Gary and Matthew’s handmade collections and bouquets, the other dedicated to the promotion of the events they have provided for and their best works. This demonstrated Fabulous Flowers passion to be set apart from the rest of the market, demonstrating their attention to detail and individuality. By using eye catching colours and large, vibrant graphics, Gary, Matthew and everybody at Generate UK agreed that the site could not have looked better. Why not check out the site for yourselves at: www.fabulousflowers.biz


Mobile Design and Website Optimisation

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Mike in Customers, Digital Marketing, Mobile and Apps | 1 Comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: One of the most frequently asked questions by our clients is whether their website should be optimised for viewing via mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPad or Blackberry. Organisations with a classic website interface should not only be examining how their website appears from an aesthetic point of view on these mobile devices, but testing the navigational layout of the site to ensure that information can be accessed easily. You have heard the saying “you only get one chance to make a good first impression” as it is applied to business practices.  This is most certainly true when designing your website.  The appearance of the site is only half of the equation.  What you want to accomplish is a formative redesign which focuses on a positive user experience which is interactive and easy to use on any size or type of digital device. How important is this redesign to the overall impact of your website?  Recent statistics show an overwhelming increase of web browsing by mobile devices.  Culturally the way that your global audience views content has changed overnight. According to Facebook’s 2011 statistics more than 350 million users access their site using mobile technology which accounts for roughly half of their user base.  What is more interesting is that the trend shows no sign of slowing down and organisations can expect a robust growth of mobile access and demand in the future. A…


The Poppy Factory Website Goes Live

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Kim in Blogging, Business Development, Customers, Web Design, Web News | Leave a comment

Earlier in the year Generate UK were delighted to be selected to design and build a brand new website for www.poppyfactory.org. For nearly 90 years, The Poppy Factory in Richmond, Surrey, has been making poppies, crosses and wreaths for the Royal Family and the Royal British Legion’s annual Remembrance Day appeal. Since 2007, The Poppy Factory has also been placing wounded, injured or sick veterans of all ages into jobs. Focusing on boosting employment prospects, The Poppy Factory has found and matched employers with clients, and in many cases, part-funded their clients’ first year’s salary, to allow for training into their new role. In June 2011, The Poppy Factory announced its plans to help 500 wounded, injured or sick ex-Service men and women into mainstream employment over the next 5 years. “A great year and all thanks to you…I feel stronger, fitter and more confident than ever expected entirely due to your kindness and help. I couldn’t have made it without you. The Cotswold Canal Project is just one of the jobs that has given me a new lease of life.” Paul , ex-Light Infantry To find out more about the fantastic service they provide visit thier new website at www.poppyfactory.org.    


Creating a Linkedin Account with Total Communication

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Kim in Customers, Digital Marketing, Social Media | Leave a comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: So Monday 10th October was the start of new and exciting time for me as I started my new role as Digital Marketing Manager at Generate UK, based in Newbury. Little did I know that come 9 O’clock I would be visiting my first client; BSL Interpreter Services. They are a team of highly and committed professional British Sign Language Interpreters and accomplished trainers in D/deaf Awareness. Generate UK designed and developed thier website which was launched 3 weeks ago.

www.totalcommteam.com

[/caption] The focus of this meeting was the task of setting up the staff with their LinkedIn Accounts. LinkedIn is one of the top 5 social networking sites with over 11 million unique visitors per month and over 42 million monthly visits. This social media website is the perfect place to build your business, find potential partners and create partnerships. Knowing how to set up a LinkedIn profile is an important task when setting up a business and can help expand your professional network. Setting up a profile on LinkedIn enables you to customise contact settings and career opportunities. To set up your LinkedIn account, you need to go to the LinkedIn.com homepage and on the right hand side of this homepage, is a simple sign-up form and it’s only a couple of steps which will help you to create your account. The first thing you need to do is to put in your first name, your surname, your email address and enter your password which can be a mixture of letters and…


Website Design and CMS for Carlisle Support Services

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Mike in Customers, Web Design, Web News | 1 Comment

Generate UK were recently selected to create a new website for Carlisle Support Services. The objective of the site was to bring together the range of different services offered under the Carlisle brand into one website where they could all be easily and quickly accessed by the variety of clients that they provide for. Following a scoping and web design process, Generate UK utilised the easy to use Sitekit CMS to create a brand new site which brought together all the services that Carlisle offer into one site. It has subheadings for each service while the clever use of rolling imagery also helps to draw the visitors attention to the range of people and services that Carlisle have to offer. We’ll be providing a more detailed case study on this shortly, until then please feel free to visit their website Carlisle Support Services Webdesign and CMS


A memorable night for the Poppy Factory

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Joe in Customers, Web Design | Leave a comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: It was a beautiful night in St James’s Square at the Naval and Military Club in London to host the first ever public event for The Poppy Factory. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness of this fantastic charity and to present the plans for the next five years. The plans include the aim to raise £4 million pounds and to help 500 ex-Service men and women  get back to work. A significant challenge considering the physical and mental health related issues wounded, injured and sick ex-Service men and women face on a day to day basis, as well as coming to terms with life on ‘civvy street’. Following drinks and delicious canapés in the court yard we headed up to the King Harald V room which was absolutely packed, surpassing its capacity, with people standing at the back. This only goes to show the enormous popularity of The Poppy Factory and its cause. The presentation opened with Mrs Sara Jones CBE, DL, President of The Poppy Factory talking about Charity, the changes which have occurred over the years and how The Poppy Factory is now undergoing its biggest and most exciting development.  Sara also read out some messages of good wishes, notably one from His Royal Highness Prince Philip welcoming the intention of The Poppy Factory to increase the amount of ex-Servicemen and women into work. Melanie Waters, the first ever CEO of The Poppy Factory, then gave an inspiring presentation about the history and the vision of The Poppy…


Case Study: Truck Auction World – Email Marketing Delivers Nearly 3000 Visits a Month

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Fayaaz in Customers, Email Marketing | 1 Comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: For the past few months Generate UK have been working with Truck Auction World to increase awareness about their bi-weekly online commercial vehicle auctions using email marketing. Truck Auction World are a specialist used truck and plant equipment auction website that allows companies to quickly and easily sell their ex-commercial fleets. When Truck Auction World first came to Generate they were looking for a way to increase bidder registrations and keep these bidders up to date with the latest auction offerings. Bearing this in mind Generate UK designed a bespoke, Truck Auction World branded email template. In order to do this the email template had to be visually appealing to get recipients to click through to the website. The template features: Images of featured lot Key specification/details of lots Links to the individual lots The campaigns are sent out to several mailing lists a few days before the auction and have managed to seriously increase traffic to the site. Between February 2nd and March 4th, 19% of all traffic to the website came from people clicking on links within the email newsletter. That is a total of 2998 visits, making it the second highest medium of traffic to the website. Generate UK also developed a second newsletter template that was designed to include more lots using text based links instead of images. We ran a split test to determine which template was more effective using Google Analytics & the Generate UK Email Statistics tool to measure click through rates and traffic. From this process we were able to…


Case Study: Mytreefrog.com – Bespoke Development of Carbon Calculator

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Fayaaz in Customers, Web Design | 1 Comment

Archived; click post to view.
Excerpt: The aim of Mytreefrog.com is to start a revolution in the way that consumers buy carbon producing products and services. Aimed at private citizens or small businesses, Mytreefrog.com have identified that we all emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through; Consumption of gas and electricity in the home/workplace. Emissions from our cars and other motor vehicles. Our travel habits with short/long haul flights and car, train or bus travel. Asking people and firms to be mindful of their consumption and emissions and where we can be more efficient in our domestic and travelling behaviour is essential, but we all know how difficult taking real action can be. That’s why mytreefrog.com believe we need to do the best we can to reduce our outputs, as well as offsetting what we produce from the activities we can’t or won’t realistically go without The Carbon Calculator The purpose of the carbon calculator is to create an indicative value for your carbon footprint. This calculator is not designed to be a scientific assessment of your lifestyle. In fact, Generate UK worked closely with mytreefrog.com to ensure an easy to use and rounded up estimation of the carbon emission values, based on the highest standards of research material available. The Carbon Account Once the user has found out how much carbon they emit they can use their individual “my carbon account” to purchase carbon credits and watch their carbon balance become neutral. The account can also be used to find and purchase services, such as car insurance, home utilities and travel offsetting from affiliate…


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