The Red House, an independent pub and restaurant in Whitchurch, has recently been opened after an extensive refurbishment.

The Red House has been a part of the Whitchurch community for over 50 years and has now been sympathetically modernised, retaining much of its traditional charm. The original open fires are now complimented by a warm and friendly atmosphere, great service, an excellent menu and some very ‘fishy’ wallpaper! 

The Red House quickly realised that managing their online reputation was paramount in encouraging customers through the doors; local customers needed to be made aware that The Red House was again open for business and the venue needed to be found by potential customers from outside the area who may have never visited before. 

The Red House also wanted to focus on making their site as visible as possible in the search engine results through a campaign of search engine optimisation. This ensured that location based searches delivered ‘The Red House’ website as a result, raising the venue’s profile both locally and nationally. 

The results are clear; using web based review and directory sites, a significant growth in the volume of site traffic has been measured (an increase of approximately 270% since March 2009). In fact, 25% of all website visitors are currently from these sites. Traffic generated by search engine referrals has also grown and is now up to approximately 40%. 

This substantial increase in the number of unique visitors to The Red House website has not only generated more reservations and Internet enquiries, but has also promoted The Red House brand to a substantial number of homes and businesses. 

Generate UK look forward to a very successful year working alongside The Red House team. 

Sandra Bryant, Proprietor of The Red House Pub and Restaurant stated “The key challenge for any new business is letting people know that you exist. Generate UK were confident from the outset that they could build an online presence quickly that would help build our business reputation.  The work Generate UK are doing is brilliant; they are professional, always deliver their promises and have a very grounded commercial thought process. I’m very excited about the work that Generate UK and The Red House will be completing in the future.”

Click to view The Red House website 

If you would like to discuss how online PR or search engine optimisation could help your business please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431.

In the last few months we’re seeing more and more of our customers turn to Pay Per Click (PPC) as a cost effective route to market. In these tough economic climates companies want measurable results and through the use of on-page analytics, understanding the conversions rates versus the investment has never been easier to measure.

PPC is certainly the best way to make an impact and to be visible on the search engines, especially if your organic listings are not quite there yet. We advise clients with new sites to carry out some form of PPC activity while their organic listings mature. The problem most businesses face when approaching PPC is knowing how much budget to use and what keywords will bring the best returns.

Understanding what budget to use really boils down to how much you’re willing to invest and how much you’re prepared to pay for a prospect to click on your advert. As a company we always advise an initial test budget so that we can understand what keywords are providing the best returns.

Of course each keywords and phrase costs money, how much money is dependant on how competitive those keywords are. Understanding each keyword’s KEI (keyword Effectiveness Indicator) is really important as this determines the cost versus competiveness.  KEI is a measurement of how many times a keyword is searched for against how many times the keyword appears in other websites.  Ideally you want to seek out the keywords that are obviously relevant to your business, that are highly searched for and do not appear too many times, therefore making the KEI high. A simple equation is normally to divide the number of searches i.e. 100 by the number of time the keyword appear i.e. 30 equals a KEI of 3.3. The higher the KEI the better!

Often or not we find that a company’s keywords are too generic and industry related rather than user related.  Employees can be caught up within their own corporate bubble and the way they normally search for related products or services are not the way their customers do.

Research shows that people now search using two, three or even four words rather than just one so categorising your keywords into groups often helps structure your approach taking the more generic words and creating more targeted phrases from them i.e. mechanic > motor mechanic > motor mechanic Swindon . This also avoids people clicking on a generic keyword i.e. mechanic only to find that they are after an air-conditioning mechanic wasting your valuable budget!

However keyword research only provides an ‘estimate figure’ and through understanding actual result through a trial period will allow you to drill down and hone in on the keywords that are providing the most amount of traffic and the returns you seek.

It’s really important to keep a close eye on your PPC accounts and the statistics it provides. Often people new to PPC waste money in the early stages of their campaigns as they do not understand the processes involved. We also advise, certainly in the early stages to cap a budget i.e. if your budget is £30 per day and the budget is reached then the account automatically turns itself off making sure your spend does not become out of control.

In terms of the advert and relevance, we always ask our clients to think about the advert itself and landing page in which you are driving people to. The reason is that you’ve worked hard to position your advert in front of a prospect you must make sure that your advert stands out from the crowd and that the content is relevant to the advert i.e. The ad is not just taking the prospect through to your home page.  Most annoying and you’ll find that the prospect won’t stay around for very long!

To summarise; I like to think of PPC as the game of Poker, as it always takes a while to learn the game and to understand the hands (keywords- KEI) and your competitors, often you may waste a little but the rewards can be great!

When brainstorming for that ‘perfect marketing idea’ what is more important, strategy or imagination? In most cases, the answer depends on the personality type of the responder. In our world of digital marketing, we get different responses depending on whether the individual is a design type or a technical type.
  
There’s no real right or wrong answer, they both co-exist very well together. Imagination without strategy means that your ideas aren’t targeted. These ideas are usually very pure and very exciting. They can sometimes be recognised as more ‘art’ than ‘design’. 

Strategy and knowledge without any imagination doesn’t get you very far. It makes thinking of new ideas almost impossible, when the brainstorming process happens, you have to fall back on experiences you or somebody else has already had. You end up just recycling ideas that have already worked in the past. 
 
It’s at these times when strategy will get in the way of anything new.
Looking closely though, I believe there is a third facet, without which both imagination and strategy are useless - it’s the ability to translate ideas into action. That is, making an idea become reality.
 
Yesterday we looked at a top London design agency’s quarterly newsletter. The design is OK and the strategy easy to understand - it’s a collection of stories written by different members of the business.  

The difference is that the ideas are realised without any compromises - raw ideas. Reading the newsletter, it made us laugh out loud, some of their ideas that stood out are some of the best and most original I have seen. The funny thing was that that these were creative ideas that were not accepted by their customers. 

There are probably hundreds of design agencies that produce ideas of the same quality, but because their ability to translate ideas into action isn’t good enough they may never have that sort of impact. 
 
My younger brother is a Graphic Designer, he gets annoyed when he shows me his portfolio and so many of the original ideas are no longer visible because the client or account manager demanded so many changes. His ideas start as fresh and raw but then become increasingly strategy led as the evaluation process goes on. 

As a designer myself, I hate seeing my original ideas become watered down. That’s why it is important to have a well balanced team where everyone understands their strengths and roles in the ideas process. 

I do not think that there are many marketers or designers who have the perfect balance of imagination and strategy but the difference will always be the in the ability to translate ideas into reality. 

Generate UK can help you find original ideas that communicate exactly what you want to your customers. We draw on experience from our knowledge of marketing strategy and our tuned imaginations. Additionally, we can show you how to take your internet marketing to the next level, making it more targeted.  Call us now on 01635 550431 involve us in your next marketing campaign.

I’ve often wondered how any consumer-orientated business, large or small, can run a successful business without a web site. In this highly competitive, internet-based world, running a business without a web site is surely comparable to running a business without a telephone. 

And yet, as we conduct our daily lives we find business after business with no real internet presence. In fact, 44% of small businesses still do not have a web site. This is a staggering percentage given the advantages a web site can bring to your business and the relatively low cost of delivering a new site! 

For example, how else could a retail business sell their products to a global market or trade 24 hours a day, seven day a week without significantly increasing overheads? 

The anonymous nature of the Internet provides a huge opportunity for small and medium enterprises to close the e-business gap by competing at the same level as large organisations. The home-based office has become as important as a million-pound business park location. And of course, this has had a positive effect on the market for the customer by increasing competition and driving down prices. 

The message from the consumer market is very clear; the Internet is a necessity. In a recent survey completed by Plusnet, 92% of those questioned said they would keep their internet connection despite the current economic slowdown. In fact, 30% of UK broadband users would rather give up their magazine subscriptions, cigarettes and alcohol than their broadband connection. 

The availability of the internet across the UK is also set to improve with the governments Digital Britain report. Communications minister Stephen Carter laid out the government’s vision for the future of technology by pledging that every home in the UK will have access to broadband at speeds of 2Mbps or more by 2012. 

Consumer expectation has also had a major role to play. On the whole, if a business has a web site the consumer perceives increased confidence in that company. In fact, the opposite is potentially true. A web site is a much cheaper option than a retail premises with a high street shop front. 

When was the last time you made a medium (or large) purchase without thoroughly researching your product options on the Internet first? The research opportunities are almost endless: from consumer testing to forums, professional reviews to comparison sites, and that’s before you consider the manufacturers own web site. 

As more and more consumers research their purchases from the comfort of their home, I ask again; can your business afford not to have a web site? 

Can Generate UK deliver your new web site? If you would like to talk about our services and what we could do for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. Please feel free to post your comments.

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.

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An informed linking strategy for your web site will improve your rankings in the search engines and set you apart from your competitors. Most of the major search engines encourage web site owners to increase the number of back links a site has in order to encourage greater and more targeted traffic. 

In the democratic world of search engines, the more back links you have for a chosen keyword, the higher you will rank in the results. Of course, this implies that the process is very simple, which is certainly not the case. There is a myriad of additional variables to consider, not least the authority of the web site and the link relevance. 

We’re working on the principle that the vast majority of web site owners who are looking to improve the performance of their website care little for the technicalities of search engine algorithms; their interest is in the results. So regarding links; the general rule is that back links are good, as long as you concentrate on creating links to your site in the right places. 

The thought process you should go through when thinking about your back links is very important. For example, the keyword or phrase you would like your site linked with should be well researched. If your business wants to rank well for “Rental properties in Thatcham”, you should use that phrase as your link. 

If you’re an Estate Agent in Thatcham and “Rental properties in Thatcham” is indeed your chosen keyword, your first task would be to understand more about your competitors for this phrase. For example, how many back links do they have, who is utilising the local business results, what keywords are they using in their page titles. 

Once you understand all of this, you can start to build a campaign that takes into account their strategy for ranking for that phrase. You can identify how many links they have, which search engines their links are indexed in; if you know what you are looking for you can identify their whole search engine optimisation strategy. Of course, many companies have a list of targeted phrases, so you can begin to see how complex this task could be. 

This is a very simplistic way of looking and this has been done on purpose. I know we have some experienced SEO people who read this blog and I’ll be in the dog house for trying to simplify this process, however we have a larger number of marketing people, sales people and folk who do not want or need to lift the lid on complex algorithms, and instead just want a broad understanding of how search engines work. 

These are the people that we meet every day as part of our role as a digital marketing agency. They are looking for more information about link building, online PR and SEO because their business is putting them under pressure to ensure their web site is performing. This is where many companies are struggling; there could be 1,001 reasons why the site is not performing, with SEO being a small part of that. 

We believe that search engine optimisation is just a part of the online marketing strategy. It’s an ongoing process, where the rules and the competitive landscape changes almost daily. I don’t know a single senior marketing professional who has the time to monitor all of this. They need enough information to be able to satisfy their business that they are increasing the effectiveness of their online channel.

This is where a close relationship with a digital marketing agency pays dividends. By sharing the goals and objectives of your web site, your agency can come up with a detailed marketing plan that is designed to deliver against your business objectives. The great thing about online marketing is that it is measurable. What a great way to work; goal based objectives, regular analytics and no need to try and become a web guru in order to satisfy the demands of your business. 

What do you think? Please feel free to comment below, are we being fair to marketing professionals? Do you think they do have enough time to become experts in this area as well as experts in their businesses? If you would like to discuss this blog post or what Generate UK could do for you, please do not hesitate to call us on 01635 550431.

Due to being a nerd, I like to make a note of when a social media platform starts receiving brand recognition outside of their traditional user base. Usually it is when my mum makes reference to a particular platform or a story is carried in the Sun newspaper, as was the case with Twitter recently. The Sun were following up on famous Twitter users such as Barack Obama (who has the largest number of followers), Britney Spears and our soon to be unsuspended superstar; Jonathan Ross.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. So called because it allows you to send mini updates (about whatever you want) to your followers. You basically set yourself up as a user and woke up and I need coffee” (which begs the question about what is more important; Twitter or coffee) to general chit chat.

Is there a business benefit to Twitter?

As a digital agency, we’re often asked about the benefits of social media, and it is fair to say that it is not always clear at first glance. However, with Twitter we’ve identified quite a few uses for it.

• It’s a great way to interact with likeminded people, which is always handy. For example, we were recently let down at the last minute by one of our speakers at a seminar we were running. We posted on Twitter for a replacement and had six companies respond, all of whom would have done a great job.
• It’s a good way to get a heads up on new techniques and ideas. A lot of people use Twitter to share useful web sites. Sometimes these web sites turn out to be great resources, so it is a perfect way to stay informed without spending huge amounts of time researching.
• If you’ve not bought into the business benefits of blogging; then we’re not reaching you properly. From our perspective, we cannot think of many reasons why a business would not have a blog, there’s many reasons for this covered here. Micro-blogging is an extension of this and all of the benefits are the same.
• It’s simple to interact with Twitter via your mobile phone. In fact as one recent amateur photographer recently found out, it’s possible to become world famous in a matter of minutes. With this type of pulling power, the potential of Twitter is unlimited.
• If you are in a business where from time to time you have spare capacity such as hotels, restaurants, cinemas etc; then it is possible to use Twitter to communicate special offers and promotions to your followers. Twitter users are very active and conversion rates are extremely high for companies using this type of marketing.
• If you’re a larger organisation with a brand, you may find that you need to keep an eye on how your brand is represented online. If people are Tweeting about you, then you may as well Tweet about yourself and control the conversations. Otherwise, you should follow Tweetscan to see what is linked to your name/brand. As you can see, even Tesco is getting in on the act.
• We’ve already mentioned that Twitter is great for networking with likeminded people; if you take this to the next level, it is also a great way to reach out to them. Perhaps you’re looking for specialist technical skills? Need a quote for some printing? Or would like to post a link to a new position at your company? It’s all possible with Twitter.

I’m sure as more people begin to use Twitter; the business opportunities will grow. If you would like to Tweet with Generate UK, you’re more than welcome to follow us on Twitter also. We’re looking forward to your tweets.

Was this post helpful? Do you already use Twitter for your business, would you like to share your comments below? If you or your company would like to discuss social media, using Twitter or digital marketing in general, please call us on 01635 550431.

Wow, what a tough year it was in 2008 and if you believe the papers and all the hype, 2009 is going to be an even harder year!

Businesses are going to strive hard to try and increase revenues whilst keeping an exceptionally tight rein on their marketing budgets.

So if companies are slashing their marketing budgets where are they going to focus their spend and how can companies be assured that the marketing channel they use will give them the return that they want?

In a just-released survey from eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit more than 64% of respondents say the current economy probably won’t affect their overall marketing budgets, but most report plans to increase or maintain their budgets for Email (83.6%), Online Advertising (77.2%), Keyword Search Campaigns (75.5%), Social Media (61.8%), and Video Advertising (38.2%). eMetrics’ analysis states,

“34.5% of respondents’ marketing budgets are negatively impacted by the economy but only 10-15% of respondents are cutting budgets on online channels. This would suggest that confidence in online marketing effectiveness continues to grow.”

According to the survey web analytics have become increasingly important to senior management.

“Web analytics helps us maximize the effectiveness of our shrinking marketing dollars by pointing out our strengths and weaknesses and providing an actionable roadmap to our most impactful ROI channels online. Tough times really do call for tough measures.”

You can download the entire survey results from the eMetrics web site.

So it appears that digital marketing is the way forward as through the use of analytics it is 100% visible and that means 100% measurable!  However a question which many marketer asked themselves on a daily basis, which online channel is best for me?

Many companies through using the analytics will trial a number of different campaigns and then through the metrics work out the best return on the investment made.  As the statistic show email marketing is the most popular activity and this is because through past experience for many marketers (mine too!) email has been one of the most cost effective routes to increasing communication, prospect engagement and subsequently business.

Online Advertising and PPC is also up there in the stats and this is because again it’s so measurable. You spend a £1 you get £2 back, brilliant let’s spend £1000! Of course it’s not as easy as this and to gain the returns, you need to put some thorough research into finding the right environments to advertise and research the right keywords. This will provide you with some good solid traffic that is most importantly, targeted!

Interestingly social media and video advertising have both come a very long way in a relatively very short space of time. Companies are finally latching on to the power of social media and the advantages of video advertising becoming viral often through the social media sites and can often catapult a brand to a next level.

If I was a business owner (with a website that has been optimised) experimenting with digital marketing for the first time I would obviously do my own research, however  I would most likely start by delivering some small targeted email campaigns (researching the appropriate email marketing software to deliver my campaigns).  I would then, depending on my product/services use some of my budget to trial and deliver a PPC campaign (I would have probably employed a company to provide me with some extensive Keyword research in the first place so that I’m making sure I’m not wasting my precious marketing budget!). 

In conclusion; do your research, there are many ways to market your company and the online spectrum has multiple channels. However one thing is clear in my head as well as many top marketing executives; is that Digital Media is certainly the way forward through these hard times when budgets are being slashed but you’re still being pressured to produce the result! 

What do you think? Do you have any new ideas to add? Please comment below or add to the debate. Please do not hesitate to contact Generate UK for more information and ideas about how to we can help you with your digital marketing in 2009.

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Recently we were approached by a journalist and asked a number of questions that relate to digital marketing, in particular how it can help drive business for small, medium and large enterprises in the UK. It’s always nice to be asked for an opinion on the market and our views on different technologies; as a result we thought it might be useful to post the full interview on the blog.

[1] What would your key advice be to any SME that is taking its first steps with online marketing?

Don’t be afraid to become a Geek! Unlike traditional above the line marketing, online marketing is measurable and provides you with a wealth of stats, information and measurements. So our advice to any client in this situation is to analyse the data as much as possible. Identify trends and customer behaviours, drop what does not work and do more of what does work. For example, if you are using Search Marketing and have a high click through rate but low conversion rate, you know you need to work on making your landing page more compelling. The stats help you to make more informed decisions about your Internet marketing.
No SME should consider using online marketing unless they have access to statistics to analyse.

[2] Search marketing seems to have come of age over the last few years. How can even micro businesses take advantage of this kind of online marketing?

Search marketing is a great way to level the competitive playing field. By bidding on keywords that are relevant to your business, you have the same opportunity as any other business to drive highly targeted and qualified prospects to your site. For any micro business this is great news as it means the road to their prospects is significantly reduced, allowing them to create significant revenue streams quicker than would previously had been possible. The reverse side to Search Marketing is that it can also be an expensive waste of time if not done correctly, which often leads to micro businesses being burned and never using Search Marketing again, which is a shame because as a marketing tool it is awesome if used right. In our opinion, it is vital to the success of any campaign that you research your keyword/keyphrases thoroughly and have landing pages that help to deliver your campaign objectives.

[3] How can SMEs integrate their offline promotional activity and their online marketing?

This question largely depends on the market the SME is in. For example, if you’re an ecommerce store you could drive people to your web site with traditional flyers and brochures, using discount codes or coupons. We would advise consistent branding for both online and offline promotion activity, we would also advise any client to leverage their website traffic by collecting email information, which can be used in the future to send offers, newsletters etc to.

[4] Do you think the future of online marketing is mobile via smartphones? Will it become the mobile Internet that everyone is predicting, or a different kind of commercial platform that SMEs can use for promotion and advertising?

Smartphones are an additional channel, another way to reach your target market. I don’t think it is a replacement technology; instead it is something that you would use or cater to as part of your marketing objectives. If you’re building a new website now, you make sure that it can be viewed properly via a smartphone. So to answer the question, I don’t think the future of online marketing is mobile via smartphones exclusively, I think it is just another platform that people need to get used to. This is a great opportunity for innovative advertisers and there may be small niches where exclusive smartphone advertising works, for the majority it will be part of the digital mix.

[5] As consumers have become more Internet savvy how can SMEs position their enterprises to take advantage of this massive commercial channel?

Firstly, they should have an Internet Marketing Strategy. It’s amazing how many companies still do not have such a strategy in place, only by taking the time to understand the potential market available to the SME, will senior stakeholders make the necessary investments in terms of skills and technology. Next they need to identify which technologies will suit their business, for example can they streamline their ordering process by offering ecommerce? Following this they need to look at Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging and social media and understand why they should be taking advantage of these channels in order to increase their revenues, branding, leadership and online conversations.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies who are still not considering the Internet as a viable channel for increasing their sales opportunities. This is usually because of fear of the unknown or because of lack of skills, it’s a real shame as if they do not act soon, their competitors definitely will.

[6] No business can ignore the social networking space that has rapidly developed with Web 2.0 technologies. But marketing to this sector has proven very difficult. How or even should SMEs place social networking within their digital marketing? Or is it still too early to commercialise this space?

Web 2.0 and social networking should play a large part all SMEs digital marketing strategy. However, first they need to understand what Web 2.0 and Social Media actually are and what it could mean to their business. This is a major hot topic for us at the moment; we have covered it in the past on the blog. You might find these previous posts useful as a way to answer this question.

10 Reasons why companies do not adopt social media

10 most popular excuses UK businesses use for not having a blog

Business benefits of social media

This post defines (in our opinion) what social media is and how it can help businesses:

How social media can help your business

[7] Email marketing is the digital equivalent of direct mail but with spam still the scourge of the Internet, how can SMEs use this marketing channel effectively?

When we speak about email marketing with clients, we use the term “Enterprise Email Marketing”, this is because we think that email marketing has evolved in the last few years and if done correctly, is a hugely sophisticated form of marketing. The most important piece of advice we can give SMEs about how to use emarketing more effectively is to make yourselves aware of your legal responsibilities, love your data and analyse every single one of your email campaigns.We’ve got more advice about email marketing and using it effectively here:

Generate UK email marketing tips

[8] With masses of press display advertising moving online, the website banner ad seems to be the advertising channel of the day – at least at the moment. What are the key skills that SMEs need to master in order to get good ROI from their banner/display advertising?

Good ROI from banner advertising is dependent on your ad being clicked and the page that is clicked to being strong enough to convert the visitor. We advise our clients to think along the following lines:

Objective – What is it? Traffic, sales, special offer email signups? If you’re paying for a banner ad, what is it that you’re encouraging people to do?
Banner – Is it compelling enough to make people click, is it appropriate to the site it is being shown on, is it in a good position.
Landing Page – Will your landing page convert? Does it include a call to action? Is it easily understood what it is that you want your visitor to do?
Test – Move your banners, try different messages, try different sites, sizes, colours etc
Analyse – Analyse the data, which banners were more affective? Which sites were better for you? Most click throughs?
Repeat – If something works well, do it again.

[9] Viral advertising has seen some of the most successful online advertising of recent years. But as with social networking promotions, viral seems to need a special understanding of the target market to be successful. How can SMEs exploit viral marketing in their enterprises?

Yes viral advertising requires an understanding of the target market; however we would argue that this is the same for any marketing venture to be successful. Some of the greatest viral campaigns have been incredibly simple and no one would have predicted how successful they would be. There is no special ingredient or secret sauce to make something go “viral”, it happens because it is something engaging that is released to the right audience at the right time. You could argue that the skill is in knowing where to release your content and to which audience, which again would come back to knowing your target market. Once you go viral, hold on to your coat tails as it will be a roller coaster ride for a few days.

[10] Successful online marketing is all well and good, but how can SMEs effectively track their campaigns to analyze if they are giving the expected ROI?

There are many great tools out there that will help SMEs track campaigns and analyse their visitor data. Most email marketing systems come built in with their own tracking tools, which allow the user to measure open rates, click through rates etc. The same is available for your web site via technology such as Google Analytics.
In order to measure ROI, one must first understand a campaign objective and what it is that the SME is trying to achieve. We would argue that having access to the metrics and the data is the number one reason for taking part in online marketing.

[11] As the publishing phenomenon of the last few years, the blog has taken the Internet by storm. How can SMEs use the power of the business blog as a marketing channel?

We’ve made a few blog posts about this very topic. What are the benefits of blogging?

What now? Do you have any comments about this interview? Would you have answered any of the questions differently? Please feel free to add your comments below or contact us.