Is Marketing Now Part of the Digital Agency World?

The web is now so much more than a marketing channel. In today's very digital world, it forms such a large part of an organisation's communications, that it really cannot be seen as something to be dealt with as a separate entity. Yet, rather surprisingly, many organisations still treat digital as a separate beast entirely.

I have lost count of the number of conversations I've had where the digital team and the marketing teams work independently of one-another, often seated in different parts of the building, or sometimes in a different building altogether! Yet, this seems crazy. When the digital world is now so much part of our everyday lives, are these organisations' marketing teams missing a trick?

The internet is where a large proportion of our social interactions take place, on sites such as Facebook and Twitter; it's where we often discuss, showcase or incubate our passions - think Flickr for photographers, Etsy for creative arts, online gaming - the list is endless; it's where we conduct our business networking on sites such as LinkedIn; it's where we learn about everything from industry advancements to how to bring up our children... you get the picture. Over the next couple of years we're going to find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between our on and offline lives.

So if all this happens online, why do many organisations still insist on having a separate digital team and marketing team? I think it can largely be attributed to the organic growth of digital, beginning as a niche channel, often viewed as a very techincal discipline (which to some extent it is) which required specialist digital knowledge. As the importance of digital grew, so did the digital team, separately from the marketing team.

Yet with the obvious prevalence of the online channels in today's marketing strategy, are marketers now doing enough to harness the power of the internet?

The importance of an integrated marketing strategy has been clear from the day we coined the phrase 'marketing'. Send out a consistent message through multiple channels and the overall benefits gained are more than single channels of communication executed independently. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We all know this. So what can marketers do to harness the true power of digital?

The first big step towards this is understanding that digital is no longer a separate discipline. Marketers should be versed in both on and offline marketing. If you have a big team, use specialists of course, but the over-arching view should be FULLY INTEGRATED. Yes, some campaigns may run offline only, and some may run online-only, but the overall view should be consistency across ALL channels. By investing in a campaign which hits the target audience at every possible touch point (and online there are many), the results could be astounding. It's just a shame that we don't see more of this.

Digital is not scary. It's amazing! It's a marketers dream - it's trackable down to the minutest detail, you can even track brand sentiment (that's another post entirely), ROI is easily calculable, your target audience can be engaged in two-way conversations, implementation and roll-out can be comparitively instant, multi-variant testing of campaigns can be done at the touch of a button. But possibly most importantly, the digital world is becoming increasingly entwined with our offline worlds - think iPhone apps like MapMyRun, Nike Plus, numerous augmented reality apps. As this merger continues, the importance of a multi-disciplined marketing team will become increasingly apparent. As will the importance of an integrated agency that really is an integrated agency. Bluhalo is lucky enough to be part of an integrated agency network - GyroHSR - where we work as a truly integrated team, harnessing the magic of digital and the power of offline media.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Marketing to Children & Advertising to Teens

With Brand Republic reporting Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob Diner Dash Lite game ‘king of the apps’ over Easter, and Hitwise reporting a drop in UK usage for social networking site Bebo, signs of children’s changing digital behaviours are everywhere, yet how can we predict what will be the ‘next big thing’?

The most popular websites for children are often websites with a commercial end, or sites surrounding TV or films such as Lego, Disney, Cartoon Network and CBeebies.

As they get older, communication and social networking become more appealing. An Ofcom survey found a quarter of 8-12 year olds have a profile on social networking sites despite them being under the minimum age for such sites. LimeWire and Frengo are popular among teenagers, showing the appeal of group messaging, mobiles, sharing music, images and videos.

One thing agencies and brands must be constantly aware of is that children are susceptible to advertising. The youngest can often struggle to distinguish between reality and advertising messages. Teenagers will turn off when brands try too hard to be cool, or fall into stereotyping their age-group.

Marketing or advertising messages that young people can personally relate to, will most likely succeed. The message should be clear, simple and specific. Vague terminology or representation can be a turn-off. Brands that reach out to young people through schools, local events, on the high-street or through celebrities will often hold a lasting impression. They are more likely to remember you if they understand exactly what you do and how you relate to them.

Marketing and advertising to children can be an ethical minefield, but with companies such as McDonald’s spending $2billion a year, it’s big business. Bluhalo’s advice would be to do your homework, know the regulations, ask an expert and assume nothing!

Laura Hannan
Business Development Manager
Twitter @bluhalolaura

We're Loving: Augmented Reality Viral Campaigns

Last year Augmented Reality (AR) was in its infancy, but this year is proving to push the boundaries producing creative and engaging features. AR spans across various mediums, iPhones, maps, games, websites and even tattoos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XSB70J6a98).

This blog is a continuation from @JocelynKirby article, “The Future of Mobile – apps, AR and more”, concentrating on creative and intuitive AR virals. Virals need to be engaging and unique to spread the word of a brand. AR is an exciting technology and can create a great buzz.

Here is a collection of my personal favourite creative and fun viral augmented reality pieces (in no particular order):


Adidas Augmented Reality Sneaker – http://www.arvertising.com/news/2010/02/adidas-originals-arvertising/



Adidas turn their Sneakers into an Augmented Reality device. Adidas are introducing AR into their products, by embedding the AR barcode into the tongue of the sneaker. The user can then use the AR to play games and share their winnings with their friends.


Cadburys Creme Egg - http://www.cremeegg.co.uk/

Cadburys, (despite now being part of the American plastic cheese empire, known as Kraft), are well renowned for their campaigns and are utilising AR to promote Creme Egg specifically for the Easter period. Not yet live, the AR piece encourages the user to launch the Creme Egg into Newtons Cradle. The user can then enter a competition. Definitely one to keep an eye out for.


Doritos Sweetchilli - http://www.doritos.com.br/sweetchili/site/



To promote Doritos new flavour, an AR symbol is printed onto the back of the packet. When activated on the site, a 3D monster is born. The user can interact with the character and share with friends. A great example encouraging consumers to visit their website.


Eminem - http://www.therelapse.co.uk/3dartcomp/#/elapse



To promote Eminem’s new album, an AR based competition was created. Competitors use AR to graffiti a giant E, and the best artwork wins a prize. This is unique as the user can customise the object by drawing onto its surfaces.


Burger King $1 Campaign - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhSc9TlCDBI



Who says AR has to remain in websites? AR is starting to emerge in banner adverts. Burger King $1 campaign is the first in its kind, not only because it is integrated into a banner but the AR device to activate the banner is a $1 note. Impressive stuff!


Esquire Magazine - http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality



Augmented Reality magazine. Impressive use of combining both AR and video.


BMW Z4 - http://www.bmw.co.uk/bmwuk/augmented_reality/homepage?bcsource=vanity



This viral supports the vibrant Z4 TV advert, allowing the user to control the car leaving colourful wheel markings. Who knew driving a 3D Z4 leaving paint trails would be so much fun!


So there you have it! This is no means a definitive list, but shows what is currently out there and provides food for thought for future possibilities. Augmented Reality is a powerful tool to increase awareness of a brand.

Richard Fenn
@rfenn
Designer/Motion Graphics

Twitter Gaming - valid marketing or ethical minefield?

Twitter gaming – one of the hottest topics of recent weeks and one that appears to have caused a divide of opinion in the digital world. As a sure-fire way of gaining large numbers of Twitter followers; and fast; is Twitter gaming just another valid marketing technique that gives brands a great way to reach their target markets with their latest message? Or in a digital world where consumer engagement is built around the ethics of authenticity, genuine interaction and the sharing of useful information, is there still room for the traditional ‘push’ marketing message?

A topic of much contention, and one that our very own Spencer Gallgher, will put to the Digital Loungers at this month's Digital Lounge event next week. If you fancy joining the debate, you can find out more and book online by visiting the Digital Lounge website.

To keep up to date with all things digital, you can follow Spencer on Twitter @spg4.

Coca Cola Social Media Guidelines

This week one of the world's largest brands has released its social media policy. And how many pages do you think it takes to steer such a huge ship in the social media world? 20? 50? 100?

No. Only three.

So is social media really that simple? Maybe not. But a company's approach to it can be. Keeping your corporate social media guidelines simple, concise, clear and easy to understand makes it far easier to mobilise your organisation in the social media world.

Empowering your staff to embrace social media and engage your audience on behalf of your brand gives you greater reach, increased touch points and most importantly increased share of top of mind. Couple that with a social media strategy and you are on your way (at the very least) to tapping into the great potential that social media now offers us as a way of life and not just a communication channel.

If you don't believe Coca Cola can fit their social media policy into just three pages, take a look for yourself below...

Coca-Cola Company's Online Social Media Principles

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Augmented Reality - a marketer's dream?

Augmented Reality! You can practically feel the air buzzing at the words! As a self confessed geek, I think it is pretty cool – it’s one of those things that seems to say “the future is almost here”.

As big an advocate of Augmented Reality (AR) as I am, would I call it a mature technology? Well, the answer to that very much depends on what exactly you want to achieve with it. We have seen the iphone apps, for example, in which someone is looking at a street with useful little notes indicating the location of things we cannot live without (mmm, McDonalds…) such as http://www.metroparisiphone.com/index_en.html.

However, in such a case, what exactly are we seeing? When people look at AR, they often think along the lines of “well, it’s recognising what it’s looking at. Obviously.” Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. In the case of the above app (as well as the majority of similar apps), this would not work on earlier models of the iPhone, since it uses the hardware to determine your location and the angle of the phone as opposed to actually 'recognising' the location based on visual features.

This is still an impressive achievement, and useful, since it does exactly what it says on the tin. However, it’s not doing it in the manner in which many people expect. This distinction is beginning to artificially raise expectations of what the technology is capable of; to unintentially misrepresent the current state of image recognition technology.

Image recognition basically works by using a database (dictating shapes and appearance from various angles etc) in conjunction with algorithms to isolate visual objects that correspond with the stored elements. This combination allows the application to recognise a “familiar” feature and determine its’ position, angle and distance; this is then used to determine matrix which can be applied to whatever virtual elements are to be added.

For this implementation of the technology, the quality of the recognition can be hampered as much by the breadth of the database as the algorithms themselves. The target also plays a large part. For example, if we wish to recognise an arm, we could suddenly find ourselves with positive matches on (relatively angled) lamp posts. Context would mitigate this (the need for an app to differentiate between lamp posts and arms is unsurprisingly quite low), and tweaks to the algorithms and database could overcome this.

The point I am trying to make is that to accurately pick out and track non specialised or relatively featureless objects is tough. There are ways to cheat this. In as much as the mapping applications make use of additional information to enhance their reliability, we can use markers or patterns in image recognition applications. This is becoming quite common already. For example, many of the proof of concept application that have been developed (most based on the same open source code) rely on a small square containing an arbitrary pattern.

These two approaches to augmented reality are quite different, and I have read of several people suggesting that different phrases / names be coined to differentiate between the different types of the technology in order to manage expectations (http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/09/resetting-expectations-some-augmented-reality-links.html discusses this and more). This is unlikely to happen; instead as the technology improves, it will likely get rebranded or tweaked (as with HD television).

It certainly doesn’t mean it can’t be successfully used now to great effect. A nice commercial example would be Lego, who recognise their packaging and use it to apply a rendered image of the built product (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGu0N3eL2D0). A similar example is the Bluray release of Transformers 2 – it includes an AR element using the disc packaging.

The key then is to carefully consider what you are trying to achieve, beyond simply looking cool (gimmick for the sake of it tends to create fairly short term buzz and appeal to a limited demographic). For best results, you need to determine a way to augment your Augmented Reality – as much as it may seem limiting, you risk doing more harm than good marketing an unreliable demonstration. Some projects will lend themselves to this more than others for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=628ruDBA6Jg&feature=player_embedded – facial features themselves can act as markers. This obviously won’t be appropriate everywhere (context again).

Other recognition based projects may necessitate markers (such as the card). But if the benefit is sufficient, the user will be more likely to accept the additional inconvenience. For example, on an ecommerce site it is common to include pictures of the products. We could perhaps supply a printable pattern which is then used to display high resolution 3D models of each item – this allows the user to examine the product from a much wider range of angles than the standard 3d “click-to-rotate” style wrap around. If done properly, the user can better gauge, for example whether the dress they are about to buy will make their bum look big. Hooray!

It would then be easy to suggest expanding on this – for example why not have it wrap the clothes on the person themselves? Here we start pushing the boundary of the image recognition / inconvenience trade-off. If a person has to wear certain colours while shopping online, and only in front of a certain colour wall-paper in order to use the feature reliably, they are likely to deem it too much hassle.

That’s not to say it is unworkable – some US shops have introduced “virtual mirrors” that allow just that – however it is in a “controlled” environment (the benefit of context again). This may get people into the store for novelty, but provides a tangible benefit that might induce sales (no waiting in line for changing rooms, etc).

Leaping back to location aware applications, there are a number of smart phones out there that would allow such applications. The iPhones “app store” allows for easy deployment, and tends to appeal to the same demographic that would be most impressed by such technologies, hence the proliferation of augmented maps and sky charts.

To leverage this technology then isn’t a massive departure from current marketing thinking – you just need to carefully consider who you are aiming your campaign at and exactly what requirements it will place on the target user, versus what gains you are hoping to achieve.

While the location aware aspect of the technology is definitely the more mature, with real world 'useful' applications already out there, the image recognition element definitely has much further to go. However, there is tremendous potential in the technology as a whole and it is only a question of time…

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Marketing Magazine Top Digital Agency

Bluhalo/GyroHSR has featured strongly in this year's Marketing Magazine Digital Leagues, ranking 19th largest digital agency, showing 28% growth on the previous year's digital activity.

The ranking follows closely on from Bluhalo/GyroHSR's recent ranking in New Media Age's Top 100 report, highlighting the company's dominance as the largest digital agency in the South of England and 8th largest digital marketing agency in the UK.

The continual growth of the agency means that there is a continual need for top digital talent, which you can find out more about here.

Crowdsourcing - genius from the masses

Crowdsourcing. The term is cropping up all over the place, but is it just a short-lived ‘buzz’ phrase or is it a genuinely useful business tool?

In a world where it is increasingly difficult to achieve cut-through – both from a marketing perspective and a product differentiation point of view, anything (within reason of course) which can set you apart from the crowd is a good thing. So how can crowdsourcing help?

Firstly, what is crowdsourcing?

Brought into the spotlight by Dell’s innovative use of the concept, crowdsourcing is a technique that empowers your audiences to help solve your business challenges, innovate in product development, evolve the business to meet consumer needs and much more. It draws upon the input of the ‘crowd’, posing questions, requests for ideas and general input. The crowd could be made up of a group of brand fans, subscribers or followers who have a level of interest in the improvement of a product, offering or service. By gaining input from the masses, the brand achieves a great number of viewpoints and inspirations in a short space of time and potentially covering a wider selection of viewpoints and abstract ideas.

So, we know what crowdsourcing is, but does it work?

Crowdsourcing does require investment for it to be of value. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be financial. You could begin with a simple approach to crowdsourcing and empower a member of your marketing team to create and then leverage a following, for example, via Twitter. Communication is real-time and you can generate a relatively large number of followers fairly quickly if you have a known brand.

Many brands are now investing in crowdsourcing for a variety of reasons, some of which are cited as examples above. And many are finding great successes from doing so. A recently publicised and unintentional crowdsourcing example comes from Air New Zealand, with its latest ad campaign inspiration being taken from a customer tweet – you can read more about it on Brand Republic – it’s a nice idea, and a different take on the usual airline ad messaging.

There are a host of other brands successfully using crowdsourcing for various benefits – check out the list below (courtesty of Open Innovators) for examples of real brands making embracing crowdsourcing:

• Dell IdeaStorm - external idea sourcing
• P&G Open Innovation Challenge - external idea sourcing in Britain
• Ideas4Unilever - corporate venturing
• BMW Customer Innovation Lab - in german
• Staples Invention Quest - idea contest - site no longer live but you can read more about it here
• Kraft - innovate with Kraft
• Vocalpoint - P&G’s network for women
• Betavine - Vodafone’s mobile app community
• My Startbucks Idea - shaping the future of Starbucks
• Nintendo Wiiware - nintendo embraces crowdsourcing
• LEGO Factory - LEGO co-creation tool
• Nespresso - design contest for coffee machines
• Muji - improving and suggesting new designs
• Fluevog - open shoe design

So is crowdsourcing for you?

This may well sound obvious, but it depends on your brand, product/service and objectives. Crowdsourcing brings a number of marketing benefits such as brand awareness, consumer engagement, the building of a community and potential press coverage. Alongside this, it also brings with it genius from the masses – it is effectively a giant brainstorm. If these benefits work for you, then you should probably consider investing in a crowdsourcing programme…

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @ JocelynKirby

Ensuring Clarity in Digital Communications

As a company, you are a complicated and sometimes confusing entity to get to grips with, especially for someone looking in from the outside. You have clients, distributors and many products, or maybe just one product and many distributors, many products and one distributor...you get the idea.

So you want a new digital strategy, an inspiring online campaign and maybe a shiny new website too; you come to us (hopefully) and we do our thing – more about that in a moment. One of the first and most important questions we need to ask is; “Who do you want to visit your website?”

A good agency will take the time to understand your brand, its positioning, your target market, your competitors and much more, before even beginning to advise you on a recommended strategy and approach. At risk of sounding like I am stating the obvious, these are all areas of your business that you ought to already have a good understanding of, and if not, it’s definitely worth spending some time on this before you engage a digital agency.

It can be a delicate balancing act condensing such disparate information into a coherent online presence. You can be too business focused; too client based or caught up in including the latest ‘must-haves’, with little idea of how they will deliver a return. It is all too easy to lose sight of the real purpose of your digital presence, the client relationship and what you need to do to service the needs of all your stakeholders online. Without a comprehensive understanding of the bigger picture, it is almost impossible to ensure you get your digital strategy and online presence right – unless you just happen to get lucky. Personally, we prefer not to leave things to chance!

Our work for NFL UK is a great example of putting this into practice. The NFL UK website objective was to strengthen the brand’s UK presence, without alienating new or current brand ‘fans’. We chose to present the information in a very user-friendly way, with a strong focus on the Information Architecture and User Experience of the website. We didn’t want an NFL-newbie to be bombarded with information, but we still wanted to be able to provide the dedicated fan with everything they could possibly desire and more.

Another example is our work for Hi-Tec. We were tasked with creating a digital channel to support the global launch of Hi-Tec’s new ion-mask footwear range. We created the microsite WetisDry.com and focused heavily on the communication of information at a variety of levels, giving the basic footwear consumer simple enough information to get an understanding of the product and its benefits, whilst also providing the more technically-minded visitors with enough depth of information to demonstrate the science behind the product.

So to sum up the message I’m trying to get across here (this is the clarity of message part!) – whether a website, like the two projects above, a campaign or a global digital strategy; any digital project requires a significant investment in planning and research before pen is even put to paper in the creative department. It is this step change that will see the delivery of increasingly impressive ROI from digital. Digital IS marketing and much like above the line communications, it’s the messaging that is key. Fail to carry out sufficient research and planning and you will end up with the same results as a poorly prepared offline campaign!

Paul Windust
Digital Project Manager

Digital Agency in a Marketing World

With the unquestionable fact that digital is now firmly rooted in the marketing strategy of any half decent Marketing Director, there has been a definite shift in the way digital is viewed in the marketing world.

Historically, just another channel to communicate an offline campaign, digital has struggled as the underdog to ATL agencies. But finally, things really are changing.

Digital agencies have spent many years implementing the great ideas dreamt up and brought to life by ATL agencies, with little more creative input than the interpretation of the ATL campaign to a digital format. And before this gets too much to sounding like a rant, let me assure you that it really is not.

The point of this post is to highlight (and celebrate) the fact that digital has finally got its feet firmly under the top table.

Digital agencies have grown up in recent years, with increasing investment in their planning and creative departments (meet our new CD here) and the development of a commercial understanding of the applications of technologies. No longer are we simply trying to fit an offline campaign into an online world, frequently a campaign idea is now being driven by digital, with awe-inspiring new technologies often leading the way.

The Doritos Augmented Reality campaign is a great example of an integrated campaign with digital technologies at its heart - you can watch the video below:



Equally, we love the Nike+ Men vs Women campaign – a great early example of the successful application of the pervasive web, the legendary comparethemeerkat.com and BMW’s Z4 in 3D augmented reality campaign.

So it looks like digital is at the top table and here to stay. And as for being a digital agency in a marketing world? I think we can safely say that we are fast moving towards a role reversal, with the marketing agency existing in a digital world.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Gold Star to M&S for QR Campaign

A gold star goes to Marks & Spencer for trying to engage more with their customers with the trialling of mobile QR codes on their ‘Food to Go’ freshly squeezed juices.

What, you may ask, are QR codes?

Not as it may appear a weird layout for a new type of puzzle, but a neat way of offering consumers product information and money off future purchases that has proved to be very popular in Japan. All you need to do is scan the QR code on the bottle with your phone’s camera and you will be directed to a ‘Food to Go’ mobile site which features a range of content and a voucher code to claim against your next bottle of juice.

It’s not the first time it has been tried in the UK; The Sun used them last year to drive traffic to their mobile site via an eight page pull-out section in the newspaper. This was then followed by campaigns from brands like the BBC, Pepsi and Volvo. However, there has been a small hitch in the development of the format over here due to a lack of QR code readers that are automatically embedded in UK phones. Small but potentially significant problem. It will be interesting to see how it works for them. If you’re an M & S freshly squeezed juice fan, you could save yourself a fortune so it might be worth checking your phone does have it!

Consumers may be a difficult target in the short term but one area that QR codes should take off in is at the good old trade fair. Maximising the huge investment that it takes to attend these shows could ensure that B2B clients think about providing mobile QR codes on their stands as a novel way to provide a direct link to mobile phone formatted information with order forms and product information. It would certainly make you stand out from the crowd! Keep an eye out for future QR developments as they may well be the key to the success of your campaign…

Jill Thater
Client Services Director

Recession? What Recession!?!

If all the news of the credit crunch is getting you down and boring you to tears, why not buck the trend and show off your spending skills.

And I don’t mean spending wildly out of your depth! I mean controlled, well thought out spend – where the pennies go up in value once you’ve spent them rather than going to ‘newspaper ad’ heaven.

Science of the rocket variety, it is not!

Spending approximately £1,500 on a quarter page ad that will only appear once in a small area of the country, is not dynamically generated and is clouded by other adverts…hmm – [refer back to rocket science comment here!], may not be the best investment in the current climate…

Spending online however, opens up a world of opportunities for digital marketers including the ability to quantify actual results from campaigns, giving you full accountability and justifying that ‘crazy spend suggestion’ to your boss, all the more easy.

We need to reference the ‘crunch’ here but it will be with positive connotations. Money is tight, let’s face it we’re all scrimping and saving where we can. But we do still need to spend.

Particularly in marketing, because if you don’t keep reminding people, then they forget about you - not good! This also gives me the perfect opportunity to reference one of our previous articles – Cut Spend, Damage the Brand.

Not only more cost effective, marketing online allows for highly effective targeting and tracking – making it far easier to quantify your return on investment. You can receive up-to-the-moment reports detailing exactly when someone visited your ‘spend’ – this could be a full website track from page to page or a simple advert on another site.

So if you’re stuck with the million-dollar question – do I put my money offline or online then bank that thought online and save the quandry.

Don’t find your advert lining next week’s fish and chips portion. Come join us all online, there’s plenty of room!

Katherine
Account Manager

Use Digital to Beat the Recession

Shhh! Don’t mention the ‘R’ word! But with all of the talk of economic doom and gloom, the impending recession and our first quarter of 0% growth, what is the best way to ensure your business survives?

We only have our previous experience to go by when it comes to predicting what will happen during a recession; but there is one major element of our economy that didn’t play a part in our lives in the late eighties…. digital.

The speed of the transfer of information has increased dramatically in comparison to our non-digital years, some report contributing to the speed of our economic decline. This speed of information transfer is also predicted to cut the length of time we remain in a recession.
But how can digital be used to help your business in harder times?

For starters, anyone that is able to continue spending on promoting their business whilst their competitors cut spend is set to gain two-fold – see our article ‘Cut Spend, Damage the Brand’ for more on this topic.

So how else can digital create competitive advantage during a recession?

- Quicker reaction times

React quickly with a relevant proposition. By continually gleaning valuable customer insight from digital channels and quickly reacting to changes in consumer behaviour and the economic climate by using the flexible nature of digital, you can tailor a highly relevant offering, maximising your success.

- Stay current

Regardless of economic climate, it is important to remain up to date with current consumer trends. The increasing popularity of online shopping, price comparison and social media is unlikely to be affected by the economic climate. If anything, the financial squeeze will drive more consumers online in their quest for the most competitive prices. By staying current, you’ll ensure you stay at the top of your game when others in your market may be cutting back to try and protect their business. You’ll come out of the other side streets ahead of your competition!

- Measurability

With increasing demand on justification for your budget spend, digital is set to see an increase in spend transferred from other more traditional but less measurable marketing techniques. Digital offers full measurability and ROI across a huge variety of channels from PPC through to email marketing and banner advertising. This accountability, complimented by its flexibility and ability to react quickly to market changes, means that the already fast growth of digital marketing techniques are set to see continuing strong growth in the coming months. Don’t forget though the importance of the integration of digital with offline marketing techniques to ensure a balanced and effective communication with your audience.

So there you have it. Just some of the reasons why digital is going to prove key in ensuring your business’ success and longevity despite the approaching recession. If you’re feeling really positive, you could even approach this recession as an opportunity rather than a threat and see it not simply a case of ‘the rich get richer’ but more a case of ‘the clever get richer’!

If you want to talk to us about how we can use digital to secure your business’ online success, then give us a call on 01252 70 11 11.

Jocelyn Kirby

5 simple ways to increase your website traffic

The mantra of a website owner is that increased website traffic should equate to a more successful website. However, remember that it’s not just about how much traffic you receive, it’s also about converting that traffic into leads and sales. There is no point investing in getting people to your site, only to find when they get there they don’t know what to do! So, before you dive head first into your online marketing campaign, make sure you get your website right! If you are not sure, speak to one of us at Bluhalo and we will be happy to conduct a free review of your website.

1. Tell people about it

This sounds like an obvious thing to do but many companies don’t! Make sure that all of your outgoing communications contain your website address – that includes business cards, letterheads, advertising and press releases! The more people who are subject to it, the more people are likely to visit your website. It’s an easy thing to implement and can make a big difference!

2. Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC has been around for years, it’s no secret! So why include PPC? The reason that PPC has been around for years is that it works! If you are thinking about doing it yourself, don’t! It is possible to do your own PPC, but you risk wasting valuable resources for little return. PPC is an art form, therefore getting the right strategy and the right people to implement it, is vital for maximising ROI potential!

3. Online directories

There are thousands of online directories, some of which are great, some that are not so great! Find the ones that are relevant to your business and get listed! There are lots of free directories available so it needn’t cost anything more than your time. If you want to find out whether a directory is worth your time, browse the other companies that are listed and see if there’s an affinity with your own. Check out the Alexa ranking of the directory (a ranking of 300,000 or less could mean it’s worthwhile). Not only will you benefit from traffic that comes directly from the directories, but you’ll also get SEO benefits from the directory sites linking to your site – Google likes sites that are well connected.

4. Email marketing

Another marketing tool that’s been around for a while, email marketing can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. From a simple text email to a nice looking HTML email newsletter, regular communications with your customer base will build a relationship with your clients, encouraging repeat business and raising brand awareness. Email also provides a channel for you to promote special offers, new products and your latest news.

5. Social media

Social Media is covered in more detail in a few of our other blog articles, but the long and short of it is Social Media is fuelling online growth. If you are not sure what Social Media is read our article – What is Social Media? For more ideas on how to get involved in social media read our article – Top 5 ways to make social media work for you. Ideally you’d approach it with a full social media strategy – if you want to find out more about this, get in touch.


To continue with our marathon of web tips, click on one of the following articles:

Make social media work for you
Hot 5 design trends
Blog successfully
Must-have website features

Digital Marketing in 2008 - 10 Things you should be doing

What a year 2007 was!

In the digital arena, most critics are saying it was the year of Facebook, and I’m inclined to agree. They were by no means the first to market however their intuitive, easy-to-use interface and clever information sharing tools meant that it was adopted by millions of people in a very short space of time. Facebook did what no other social network has ever done particularly well – they made it easy to network and share information. Such was the ease of use that viral word of mouth was one of the key drivers in making the site the success that it is today.

However, Facebook is only a tiny slice of the pie; there are thousand of other ways to share, syndicate and market key information and messages online, all of which with their own merits, so here’s my list of the things you should be doing in 2008…

1. Embrace social media

We’ve all heard the buzz about Web 2.0, Social Media, Facebook etc, however these new channels should already be part of your online marketing mix.

2. Write a blog

You’re reading this one, so that’s proof enough that they work! Blogs are a great way of informally communicating with your audience, and they cost nothing more than your time! They’ll also improve your SEO, which is always a good thing!

3. Keep your content fresh and interesting

Regular updates and site content is the key to the success of any website today – consider outsourcing your news to a specialist agency who will be able to provide daily news releases for your site. Content forms a key part of your SEO strategy, the more frequently you update your website, the more frequently search engine will index it.

4. Get into Social Bookmarking

Add social bookmarking tools to all of your news and product pages which will allow your visitors to easily bookmark and share your content with their own networks. Sites such as www.digg.com and http://del.icio.us/ are a good starting point.

5. Know your enemy

Regular competitor analysis is key to keeping ahead, look at how many sites are linking to your competitors, how regularly they update their sites, keep track of their special offers by subscribing to their newsletters.

6. Start regularly emailing your customer base

Build an opt-in email list and start sending regular emails out to your customers to keep them informed of your offers and promotions – from experience, one-off emails rarely get good results – the art of a good email campaign is to regularly broadcast to build affinity and a relationship with your customers.

7. Create a search engine strategy

Pay Per Click or Search Engine Optimisation? Ideally you should be doing both, you’ll see instant results with PPC however long-term, you’ll see more for your money from SEO – however seeing results can take many months. Look at multi-layer marketing; don’t just rely on one channel for your promotions. Look at clever ways of tying in your on and offline activities to better communicate your offering.

8. Use your own website

It’s amazing how many people don’t use their own websites on a regular basis. It may sound silly, but it’s an important thing to do – look at your site from the point of a customer and see if there are things that stand out in terms of usability – are your buttons clear enough? Is your shopping cart easy to use? Does your search engine return accurate results? If you’re answering no to these questions, you might want to look into the reasons why and correct them. Visitor to customer conversions are key to the success of any online business, therefore making your site as easy to use as possible is paramount to their success.

9. Measure your online performance using Google Analytics

It’s free and incredibly good at what it does. The web is the most measurable form of marketing, you should constantly assess your web stats, understanding where your traffic is coming from, what visitors are looking at, where they may be potential problem areas on your site and look at how to improve your content based on these results.

10. Get the right agency

Even if your agency is brilliant technically, they might not be experts at marketing, advertising or PR – it’s not uncommon for many companies to outsource different areas to different agencies, to get the best of both worlds.

To see what Evolve can do for your business online, please drop me an email: oliver@bluhalo.com

Cheers, Oliver