Archive for category Thoughts & Opinions
Trip to the frozen north (Scotland)
Posted by Phil Page in Thoughts & Opinions, Web Development on December 9th, 2009
Fresh fruit (melon, pineapple, kiwi, grapefruit, dates, figs, strawberries, grapes, bananas), several types of cereal, yogurts, homemade marmelades & jams, vegemite, honey, toast, orange juice, cranberry juice and fried breakfast (bacon, eggs, sausage, tomatoes and mushrooms)
I’ve just spent the past few days in the wonderful little village of Cromarty, Ross-Shire. I was visiting one of our clients Large Holiday Houses (LHH) who we are doing website re-development work for. It was great to touch base with them and start setting things in motion for the launch of their new site in the New Year. While in Cromarty I had the pleasure of staying in a little B&B run by one Marjorie Watson. The hospitality was outstanding with spacious rooms and very comfortable beds, but all that paled in comparison to the breakfast that was provided every morning.
As you can see from the photo every morning was a feast, and at the time I was the only one staying there, so it was all set out just for me. I look forward to the actual launch period because I’ll get to go back but this time I’ll get some elastic trousers just so I can benefit more from the breakfast.
Online Advertising continues to grow
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Traditional Marketing on September 30th, 2009
It’s funny how coincidences occur on occasion. Yesterday I attended a useful course on the planning of digital marketing campaigns. As a company, we tend to focus on search and emails as the primary means of engaging with customers. We will suggest enhancing these more traditional routes through the use of social media when appropriate.
We tend not to suggest using online advertsising so much, as much as anything due to a lack of knowledge. I think we need to look at this again. The course, part of my MSc (nose to the grindstone now!), was largely about the use of various display advertising formats, CPMs, CPAs, CPCs and the like. It has to be said that for certain offerings, this channel should be used – in conjunction we would suggest with the more standard routes such as search and email marketing. That sentence in itself is contentious, as for some people their view of the world would be the opposite with displays being the primary focus. I will leave it up to you to decide on your own priorities.
The key point however is that online advertsing is continuing to grow http://bit.ly/2oqCxP. This is all good news for those suppliers involved in the digital arena. It is also good news for clients, as online promotion has one huge benefit over traditional media – MEASURABILITY! Whilst you will never know how many people see your ad in the paper you will certainly know the reach of your online promotions. If nothing else, we would recommend you review the allocations of your marketing budgets and check those pounds are working their hardest for you.
Radio 5 shows the way … for the social media doubters!
Posted by David Harrison in Thoughts & Opinions on August 25th, 2009
Having had a great day out yesterday at Chester Zoo, which I can really recommend by the way, it was a somewhat tired David who woke up this morning to the usual Radio 5 alarm call!
So what I hear you say – what is he on about today? There is a point actually. When Radio 5 kicks off in the morning you get the usual “Welcome to … blah … blah …” stuff that you get on all radio shows, but they then proceed to list their blog address, facebook page, twitter address and remind you that broadcasts are available though both the BBC I Player and podcasts … given that the BBC website is probably one of the best , and most expensive if reports are true, websites in the world I would suggest they know a little bit when it comes to using online media … if they told me to stick my head in a gas oven I doubt I would but their heavy promotion of online channels surely suggests there is some mileage in these channels.
As things stand I think that Twitter is probably the most useful – first job gained through it last week! – but that is simply because it feels more immediate in my opinion. Looking at my stats I can see that there are more people visiting our blog regularly which in turn is leading to increased traffic to the website, which over time will lead to enquiries I am sure.
If you want any help in setting these channels up and learning how to use them for your own business please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at Severn internet!
Online advertising taking over ….
Posted by David Harrison in Thoughts & Opinions on August 21st, 2009
We have been advising clients to switch their advertising and marketing online for some time now. We would obviously advise that wouldn’t we! – but it does seem that more people are following our advice http://bit.ly/3d1bku
Even if the recession has bottomed out, and we are not fully convinced of that, we would suggest companies should still be looking at how they allocate their marketing budget. The number of people we meet who don’t measure where their enquiries come from never ceases to amaze me! What is the point of spending thousands of pounds on Yellow Pages if you don’t know how much business it brings?
That is one of the key advantages of using the online medium – you can track and measure everything through Google Analytices – even your off line campaigns. This allows you to really determine where those vauable dollars or pounds should be being spent – they do still need spending of course and many would suggest you should be increasing the spend during tough times – we would not advocate that – just a redistribution to a more online focus.
Three Tuns Brewery goes from strength to strength
Posted by David Harrison in Client News, Company News, Facebook, Thoughts & Opinions, Twitter on August 19th, 2009
I make no bones about the fact that John from the Three Tuns Brewery is one of my best mates, but that doesn’t guarantee you a mention on this blog! Even if you are the oldest licenced brewery in the UK!
I thought I should write up a little post about how well the brewery are doing. I played golf with John last Friday and he tells me that they are even getting business from Twitter now – which of course I will claim full credit for putting him onto! The Shropshire Star wrote a good article on his tweets last week – click here to read what they said.
In my opinion a brewery, like any other business, needs to have excellent customer service. Having a number of John’s clients as clients myself I know that they are really good, but it is the fact that certain things others fall down on are considered “de rigeur” that sets them apart – if I was running a pub I would want to know that my beer would arrive on time – apparently this is not a given in the licenced trade, but it is with The Three Tuns Brewery who have never been late with a delivery since John and Bill took it over.
They are really busy and approaching capacity again – John even suggested there might be a waiting list soon! My advice therefore is get in touch with them sooner rather than later – my personal recommendations would be the XXX and Clerics Cure beers – excellent, if a tad too moreish!
I’m sure John would also agree that their website, designed and built by Severn Internet of course, has not done them any harm either!
Twitter vs Facebook … who will win? ….
Posted by David Harrison in Facebook, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on August 17th, 2009
One of the best sources for ongoing discussions and useful opinions relating to the whole social media space is Mashable in our humble opinion.
This is a really good article and we would recommend you give it the once over … http://bit.ly/100gn
Going back to school! … OMG!
Posted by David Harrison in Company News, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on August 5th, 2009
I am really pleased, if filled with a little trepidation, at the idea of going back to school. I have just learned that I have been accepted onto the MSc course in Digital Marketing Communications run by E-Consultancy through
I don’t know about you, but there is so much information out there at present that it almost becomes overwhelming, so this course should add a degree of structure – at least I hope so as it is a three year commitment on a part time basis.
I fully expect it to directly translate into helping our clients take advantage of all that Digital Marketing can offer.
David Cameron condemns Tweeters as tw*ts
Posted by Phil Page in Thoughts & Opinions, World News on July 29th, 2009
The Register’s recent article perfectly illustrates that people should be more careful about what they say regarding new technologies and the people that use them, especially if you’re trying to get into Number 10.
Cameron has definitely risked alienating a large demographic by slatting the people who use Twitter and it’ll be interesting to see what other foibles he can make in the future.
Pay your employees to leave!
Posted by David Harrison in Facebook, Thoughts & Opinions, Twitter on July 23rd, 2009
It is surprising what one comes across after a period of random surfing, but this one was pretty amazing to me. I ended up there from reading about Amazon’s takeover of Zappos, but the Zappos culture is surely one of the reasons why they are so successful http://bit.ly/T0pWt gives you more information, but in a nutshell Zappos gives people the option to walk away early with a $1000 bonus! Sounds crazy? As they say though, it does mean that you know everyone who stays is a committed employee!
At Severn Internet don’t go quite that far, but we do have relatively relaxed working practices with people working from home, coming in a bit later or other such things. I think a relaxed environment makes for a more productive environment – no doubt they will all be in here soon asking for tomorrow off! It also helps the environment of course so a good thing all round really.
Newspaper digests on your desktop …. and track your competition
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on July 15th, 2009
Paul wrote a good article on newspapers and their imminent demise yesterday … here is a slightly different take on the printed word …
I quite like my newspaper! Reading The Sunday Times over breakfast and through a lazy Sunday is one of life’s true pleasures in my opinion, but through the working week it is harder to achieve this due to lack of time – in my case I also live in the middle of nowhere so can’t have it delivered to read over breakfast anyway!
What to do?
I am a bit of a news addict – I listen to it on the radio, watch the TV news and also still read the papers. What I am doing now however is using technology to improve my news gathering and better satisfy my craving. I am doing this without any effort and also for free. I am focussing on the topics that interest me and can scan stories related to those subjects from a number of sources quickly and easily.
How?
I use Feedly which in my opinion is the best way to aggregate your news and any other data that you want to follow. It essentially provides me with my own personalised newspaper and it is free – rather than paying for The Times, Financial Times and Telegraph I now get all their stories, or at least the ones that interest me, in one place. I think it is great and would strongly recommend it!
In a business sense, as part of our research setting up social media campaigns and any online marketing campaigns we will research not only what our client is up to but what their competitors are doing. We do this through Google Alerts, which then feeds into Feedly. We obviously use this to see what our competitors are up to aswell! If you don’t have a Google account this is one good reason to have one for sure! Every time your competitor is mentioned in a new article or post you will know about it – which has got to be of some value, even if you are just a nosey parker!
Try out Feedly!
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