The ice cream brand has decided to cut its monthly newsletter because the feedback it received from customers suggested that the majority would prefer to be contacted on social media sites. Email marketing has long been established as one of the most effective digital marketing channels and has become a standard marketing channel for most brands.

In a move away from established practice, Ben & Jerry’s plans only one email update to customers each year. Instead, Facebook and Twitter profiles will be used to engage and build relationships with customers on an ongoing basis.

Its final email invited them to connect with the brand on Twitter and Facebook.

For certain brands this could well become an effective channel to form relationships with customers, particularly with the younger audience who are beginning to view email very differently. This will only increase as email integrates with social media, take Microsoft who this week announced a Facebook plugin for Outlook and mobile platforms develop further applications in this area.

Not in the traditional sense.   We won’t make you promises to get you high up in the search engine rankings.   We just do it.  SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is something that we have been doing for years – we just don’t make a song and dance about it.  We know that good well structured code, optimised copy and relevant inbound links have a massive impact on search engine rankings.

As part of our 3D approach we will consider your current positioning, perform a competitor analysis, identify gaps in the market and optimise your site to perform as well as it possibly can…. But really – would you expect anything less from an agency?

Through a series of micro-sites we have increased online turn over for TV retailer “High Street TV” (Sky channel 648) 10 fold over the past 6 months. The last 5 sites we have released have gone straight to page one of Google.

Of course it doesn’t stop at SEO, we also use social media, targeted e-shots, offline promotions, affiliate marketing and Pay per click campaigns.  We consider every possible advertising opportunity and measure our results right down to the level of exactly how much it costs us to make a sale.

But everyone does that don’t they?

The popular social networking website accounted for 14.5% of all UK Internet page views during September 2009, equivalent to 1 in every 7.

During September Facebook was the second most visited website in the UK after Google UK but because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook is the clear leader in terms of page views, receiving more page views than Google UK, eBay UK and YouTube combined. With UK Internet visits to Facebook increasing by 86.1% between September 2008 and September 2009. 

Although it has fallen somewhat off the media radar in favour of Twitter recently, Facebook remains far and away the most popular social networking website in the UK, accounting for almost half (49.2%) of all UK internet visits to a social networking website. The web monitoring company Hitwise showed that its average visit time increased from 19 minutes 59 seconds in September 2008 to 26 minutes 14 seconds during September 2009.

Coupled with the targeting opportunities available through their advertising platform, brand and product pages and linking with client websites and microsites, the joined up thinking that was missing is now here. With some brand groups attracting in excess of half a million followers it offers brands unprecedented access to their core advocates.

Introducing further features such as Facebook applications further allows brands to virally spread their messages. If you’d like to talk through the opportunities Social Networking could offer your brand, please feel free to email steve@pcdagency.com

Steve

The number of online shoppers will rise from 26.9m to 31.8m by 2013 – over half of the UK population.

Although the recession has led to some interesting changes in online shopping habits particularly in 14-17-year-olds, as their parents curb spending.

Because this group still rely on income from their parents and have a general lack of direct credit themselves their discretionary spending has been curbed as families tighten their belts. Online buying will pick up again in 2011 as the economy improves for families.

Overall 72.5% of all web users are likely to shop online this year, with the proportion increasing to 75.7% by 2013.

Steve

New media will not go away and indeed it already accounts for about 30% of PCD’s revenues, but like television in the 60’s it shouldn’t been seen as the holy grail, it’s a channel that is appropriate for some and inappropriate for others, it’s about delivering choice.

To say that television is dead is clearly wrong, its share of the market will fall, but consumers will still engage with television, just in a different way, instead of the magic box in the corner of the lounge it will become mobile, with consumers already consuming their favourite programmes online – is this still television yes, just with a new prefix.

Steve

Never underestimate the power of the default option when persuading somebody to do something. That’s the message of a controversial new book called ‘Nudge’ which has been influencing politicians and policy makers up and down the country.

It’s a common sense concept but also a very powerful one. When you give someone a choice, and then you suggest an option for them to take, most of the time people will go along with the first choice.

And this is the philosophy that is powering businesses to invest in SEO or ‘Search Engine Optimisation’, the concept of getting your website to the top of the Google rankings. If you are looking for a vacancy in Leeds, chances are the first thing you will do is put the term “jobs Leeds” into Google.

The company at the top of this index will have huge competitive advantage over all the rest, even those in second place. It’s the reason why Google has become the world’s most powerful advertising force.
So how do search engines work, and more importantly, how do you get yourself to those rankings?
Well broadly it operates in two different ways:

Firstly it searches the appearances of keywords. The more a search term appears, the higher it will be up the rankings. A huge sprawling site with more pages is likely to have more occurrences of certain keywords.
However what makes Google clever, and the reason it has become so popular, is that it uses links as a form of recommendation. The more people that link to your page, the higher up the rankings you will be. The theory goes that if someone takes the time to add a link to your website, it must be good.

The search engine has taken the concept further though. If a higher ranked site links to you then it will carry more weight than if a lower ranked place does. In essence the more authoritative the approval, the better you will do.

All of that then can be very depressing if you’re a new company trying to compete against the big boys on the web. Google gives the advantage heavily to larger players in the industry, and naturally offers little to help smaller companies remain competitive. SEO is a concept of essentially trying to beat the system, to get your site higher up the index.

PCD offers clients real solutions to help boost your web traffic and sales.
For more information contact Steve Moncrieff at steve@pcdagency.com