Online Marketing Strategy

An Orange a Day Won’t Keep Fifa Officials away

Picture this; a group of beautiful women, glowing the colour orange, surrounded by a group of footballers and boisterous men.

Don’t be mistaken I am not talking about a night out with my fake tanned friends, I am talking about the latest ambush marketing stunt at the 2010 FIFA World Cup by Dutch beer company Bavaria!

It was not instantly obvious that the 36 women wearing tight figure hugging bright orange dresses at the World Cup game between Denmark and Holland on Monday 14^th June 2010 were advertising for the Dutch Brewery.

(And let’s not forget ITV pundit Robbie Earle who is said to have provided Bavaria with the free tickets to the World Cup Match who has since been fired!) more…

An Overview of the Creative Industry

The economic growth of any country comes from the government and the private sector. I do not need to tell you about the state the British Government has been left in after thirteen years of Labour Governing. But let’s take a look about the state of UK creative industries:

I speak on behalf of those working in creative industries throughout the UK that many of us have seen a drastic cut back in Private Sector spending – huge cutbacks in client budgets since 2008 particularly in the advertising, public relations and graphic design industries. This being attributed to the massive government spending which has had a negative impact in private sector consumption and investment. When business directors and shareholders do not understand the true importance of marketing these divisions of the business are usually the first to see a slash in budget.

Lucky for those of us in the digital industry we have not suffered so much at the hands of the public sector over spend. In fact we have seen an increase in online marketing spend with more organisations and companies starting to embrace and understand the value of marketing their business and products online. In fact, 66% of companies are planning to increase their digital marketing budgets during 2010 (Marketing Budgets Report, econsultancy 2010).

Creative SME’s have competed for public sector contracts

In attempts to further conserve profits many SME’s have turned to the public sector to sustain their business. This has proved a good strategy in some cases but has generally not been the case for creative SME’s due to the rigid procurement processes which prevent smaller private sector providers from competing for public sector contracts. Sam Allen, search expert at Zeta wrote an excellent post about public sector organisations using private design agencies.

Labour ‘spin’ has resulted in a negative reputation for Marketing and PR

PR is often said to be about reputation management yet through poor and ineffective attempts to manage themselves the UK government has damaged the meaning of PR. more…

At least that is the message denoted by the latest high court ruling which places website and blog owners at risk of liability from the user generated content displayed on their sites.

The verdict was delivered after Labourhome.org owner Alex Hilton was sued by Johanna Kaschke. Kaschke was objecting to a libellous comment which appeared on the labour home site which was written by a user.  The content was accusing her of having had links with Baader-Meinhof, a German terrorist group.

Although Hilton did not write the comment or make it live, the fact that he actively moderated other areas of the website by …”exercise(ing) some editorial control on parts of the website and in particular on the homepage.” held him liable.

more…

The busiest online trading period of the year is now upon us, reaching its peak earlier than the high street, around the beginning or middle of December. Another important date for many online retailers is the 25th December when eager bargain hunters will be ready to make the most of the sales whilst high street shops stay closed.

Figures tell us that online spending is continuously growing despite the country’s economic slowdown. The trend seems to be that we may be spending less money on Christmas presents but more people will use the internet to purchase their gifts. With 76% of the adult population now using the internet and 64% of those users having made a purchase online (figures from Office for National Statistics), today’s e-commerce sites need to accommodate for a more diverse customer base within a very competitive marketplace.
more…

If used correctly, Twitter can be a great communication tool for your company to get its message out to clients and customers.  It can also have a negative effect if not used correctly, especially if you don’t check your profile regularly and post frequent tweets. In this article I will give you a simple guide on how to set up and successfully manage a Twitter account for your business. more…