b2b marketing

Yahoo! Online Advertising Campaign

2009-09-23T13:29:00.002+01:00

Yahoo! has today announced a major advertising campaign to coincide with the launch of its redesigned home page. According to Yahoo!’s executive VP and chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele, Yahoo! wants to be the place where an individual’s world meets the larger World. But Yahoo!’s vision of providing an all-encompassing wide range of interactive content has already been superceded by rivals Google and Facebook, Twitter and a range of emerging sites.

In theory Yahoo! is the most popular website in The World, but this does not seem to be reflected on the ground. Does anybody in the UK actually use Yahoo!? We manage Pay Per Click Advertising on Google, Yahoo! and Facebook among others and the volume of traffic available – and, in our judgement the quality – is way lower on Yahoo! than on Google. The only saving grace is that the volume of traffic is so low that many advertisers overlook Yahoo! altogether, reducing the competition for keywords.

In a key move, Yahoo! has now opened up its home page to rivals like Facebook and Hotmail – essentially admitting that these third party offerings for social media are in more demand than its own. This may yet bring a strategic advantage over Google, which allows users to customize their iGoogle home page but doesn’t provide any external links on the core home page until they are searched for.

But surely the battle is largely lost - they publish an analytics solution, but it can surely not compete with the dominant analytics tool on the market Google Analytics, for which we provide Google Analytics Consultancy?

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Online advertising policy change

2008-10-21T16:37:00.002+01:00

Last Friday - 17th October 2008 - Google opened up its pay per click advertising platform AdWords, which displays pay per click advertising listings on the page with natural search results, to gambling businesses provided they’re registered with the UK’s regulator - the Gambling Commission and to any companies in Europe that are registered with their own national gambling regulator.

Google AdWords pay per click ads will not, however, be displayed to Internet users in Northern Ireland as the policy change is only being put in place in England, Scotland and Wales. Google's new policy also states that users with their browsers set to safe search will not see the new online ads for gambling, although this will only in fact be true for users with Google's strictest safety setting.

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Cuil displays wrong listings

2008-09-29T12:05:00.002+01:00

Anybody involved with search engine marketing will have seen the launch of Cuil in June this year. It;s a search engine claiming to have a larger database of results than Google does. But if you look a bit closer at their search results you'll see that something is wrong. Searching for the term "Advertising Agency", which on most search engines will show a listing for this Advertising Agency, will on Cuil display the AdStorm logo, alongside a listing for a totally spurions advertising agency. Apparently this is a problem across the entier search engine, and not only on searches for "advertising agency". Some experts think Cuil are showing the wrong images, but I beg to differ. Surely they must be showing the correct images but the wrong listings!

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From accounting to advertising, develop the best content!

2008-08-10T16:08:00.003+01:00

An important method for attracting new customers these days, is bringing them to your web site. No longer does everybody go to trade shows and conferences to identify their new suppliers, collect details and maintain a brochure cabinet full of the best suppliers.

A popular selection process nowadays is simply to carry out a Google, Yahoo or MSN search, to visit supplier websites and to shortlist potential suppliers from there.

To make the most of this opportunity it's essential to advertise online and to develop the very best content you possibly can for your particular subject, in order to give yourself the best chance possible of appearing high in organic search results.

There are many techniques for doing this. For example, the business and accounting software vendor Lakeview Computers, based in Bexleyheath in Kent, provides an Accounting Software Glossary, which many Internet users working in the field of business management or accounting will find useful. At the agency where I work, we provide a marketing services companies directory, and the managers of Brochure Design recently introduced a range of online services, such as their Graphic Design Forum. This type of website content provides useful services to end-users, who discover the content through organic search, and end up developing a relationship with your brand. Then, when they search on the Internet, they already know your website and are more likely to visit it.

Google and other search engines are totally committed to listing only high value, relevant listings in their search results, so it's essential to build your website content with genuine end-user value in mind. Aim to make your site the very best site on the Internet, on its particular subject.

Rob, AdStorm Advertising Agency

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Free Online Advertising from BT Tradespace

2008-04-29T18:30:00.003+01:00

Here's a great new, and free service from BT. They let you advertise your company online for free. Here's AdStorm's entry by way of an example - Advertising Agency. It's called BT Tradespace and they offer companies the opportunity to publish a mini website advertising your business, the products you offer, you can write a company blog like this one - AdStorm Advertising Agency Blog - and various other details - great in particular for small companies or for designers / freelancers maybe who don't want to go to the expense of developing their own website but want some kind of presence to advertise themselves online.

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Sales & Marketing Analysis is Key in Accounts Software

2008-04-11T11:57:00.003+01:00

How do you actually know which customers you make a profit out of? This is key to making a profit in business. A customer of ours, Lakeview computers obviously recognise this as they recently introduced an integrated analysis tool to 'slice and dice' sales history, product and customer data as part of their accounting software. Details of the release can be found on PRWEB here - Lakeview Accounting Software - Analytics Solutions.

Other recent releases from Lakeview accounting software include;
Lakeview Launches Product Promotions Module in its Business Accounting Software
New Purchase Order Authorisations Module Within LM4 Accounting Software
Accounting Software Vendor Lakeview Provides Proactive Customer Support

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Gatekeepers to the mind

2008-02-01T19:59:00.000Z

According to Brand Republic, Microsoft has today offered $44.6bn to buy Yahoo!, representing a 62% premium on Yahoo!’s share price. The gloves have been off for some time now in the battle to be the gatekeeper to people's minds. The battle for the power to bombard consumers with information on the information superhighway. To this end, Microsoft is flexing its financial muscles, having recently acquired rights to third party advertising on Facebook and also recently signing a deal to manage advertising on the Wall Street Journal.
The question I am now asking is, how important will online marketing ultimately become? Can Yahoo! really be worth nearly half of the value of News Corporation, the biggest media company in the World?

See Also My Marketing Agency Blog

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Joomla or Wordpress for CMS

2007-10-12T12:07:00.000+01:00

Most developers using content management systems will know that Joomla is one of the leading open source technologies. But what about developing a CMS with Wordpress?

Wordpress is essentially an advanced blogging package, but we recently discovered it has a vast range of features suitable for content management and is ideally suited for customisation. Developing a customer website, which will soon be published here: Call Centre Recruitment, we found Joomla was nigh on impossible to customise to feature job listings all gathered together on a single page with an advanced search facility, but testing the concept with Wordpress proved it to be dead easy.

Once we evaluated the technologies and finalised the graphic design, the actual technical development of the final website took just two hours.

So appearances can be deceptive. The dedicated CMS failed to deliver, and the Blogging package suited our CMS needs better.

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Blogger vs Wordpress

2007-10-05T17:27:00.000+01:00

Is it just me, or have alot of SEO companies are now started using Wordpress to develop their blog content since Google took over Blogger?

Presumably SEO companies are skeptical about whether Google can be trusted with their user information and expect Google to use it to identify blog spam and blog-based link-building.

We have wordpress installed on a few of our b2b marketing customer sites and it's a good tool, but not as quick aand easy to get up and running as blogger.

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PRESS RELEASE: MOTORSPORT MARKETING – HALVE THE COST OF YOUR NEW WEB SITE OR BROCHURE

2007-02-16T10:39:00.000Z

AdStorm is a fast-growing marketing & advertising agency serving the motorsport industry, and as part of our drive for continued customer acquisition during 2007 we are offering to the first 10 new customers involved in the motorsport sector, a 50% discount on brochure or website design orders placed by 31st April 2007.

“We are a marketing agency that understands the particular needs of the motorsport sector. This means we get to grip with our customers needs quickly and develop communications that really work”, said Robert Frost, Director, AdStorm.

Due to our work in the motorsport industry we understand the need to respond quickly to the changes in your business, to take projects quickly and efficiently through to completion, and to deliver high quality results with real impact.

“Unlike many design agencies we have genuine marketing and industry expertise, and therefore we can contribute to the strategic thinking behind your marketing, in addition to offering cutting edge design and excellent understanding of printed and electronic media.

“We can handle all of your marketing communications – from exhibition stand design, advertising and media buying – through a single account manager, ensuring all your marketing communications are consistent and coherent.”

Customers wishing to claim their half-price web site design or brochure design, and to discuss their project should telephone AdStorm on 08456 444567. The half-price offer is limited to the first ten takers so don’t delay.

For more information about AdStorm, visit;

Ad Agency
Marketing Agency
Event Marketing

AdStorm is a trading name of Precis Marketing Ltd, registered in England & Wales number 4000153.

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West Midlands Business Directory

2007-01-10T15:51:00.000Z

While I think of it... We provide this directory of businesses in the Midlands. It's provided entirely as-is and without warranty but feel free to use the info:

West Midlands Business Directory

I hope it's helpful.

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New Advertising Agency Website

2007-01-10T15:36:00.000Z

We are re-branding Precis Marketing Ltd under the new name of AdStorm. "Ad" as in Advertising, and "Storm" as we are a dynamic agency who get in there and get the job done. Or it could refer to the storm of publicity we create. You choose.

The change from "Marketing" to "Advertising" also represents how the company has grown from a small marketing agency and can now provide media buying, PR and other such services.

We have also taken a .eu domain which reflects the wider reach of the company having undertaken several global projects for our clients in the past 12 months.

You can see the new website as it develops here:

Advertising Agency

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SWOT Analysis

2006-05-30T18:44:00.000+01:00

SWOT Analysis is a really simple tool to help you focus your thoughts on the issues facing your business, and as such is something I would strongly recommend any company carrying out on at least a yearly basis.

SWOT analysis can be carried out by a company director having little or no previous experience of the exercise, and can be completed in less than a day. A SWOT analysis can help you to re-think the way your company markets itself and make fundamental improvements to your business performance.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Quite simply, a SWOT analysis involves setting out the strengths and weaknesses of your company and the opportunities and threats your company is facing, as you perceive them. This can then be used to prioritise the issues and to focus your efforts on addressing those matters that are most important.

As an example, imagine a new company which has raised venture capital to provide a financial service to small businesses. Its SWOT analysis might look as follows:

Strengths
Well funded
Excellent management team
Expertise
Strong vision & good value proposition
Excellent marketing consultants
Good access to / experience in financial markets

Weaknesses
Lack of infrastructure & staff
Few or no customers
Few or no existing partners / relationships
No Brand Awareness / Preference / Reputation
Lagging others who are established
Currently unaware of what marketing strategies will work

Opportunities
Virgin opportunities in new territories
Potentially lucrative market
Growing market
Fully automated secure internet-based trading
Market share can only increase

Threats
Difficulty generating new business
Difficulty to respond to demand as it develops
Need to oust existing suppliers from
-affiliate relationships
-advertising relationships
-press mindshare / reputation
-loyal customers
Incorrect marketing strategy
Euro adoption

Prioritisation
Analysis of the SWOT then allows the company directors to prioritise the issues and ensure that all are addressed satisfactorily. Questions you might ask yourself, and the conclusions you might come to are:

Q: "How can we ensure we capitalise on our strengths?"
- e.g. by using our good funding to launch an aggressive marketing campaign.

Q: "How can we negate our weaknesses, or turn them to our advantages?"
- e.g. a perceived weakness might be smallness and having few staff. Turning this to your advantage, you can argue you have a low cost base, and can guarantee your customers they'll receive attention from senior mamber of staff.

Q: "How do we remedy the weakness of not knowing what marketing strategies will work?"
- e.g. analyse successful competitors' marketing activities and use that as a starting point. Or try a broad range of activities, measure the effectiveness of each, and concentrate future efforts on the most successful activities.

Q: "How do we oust existing suppliers"
- e.g. offer a one-off discounted or free service to your potential customers, so they have a reason to try you out. Aim to wow them with your superior product or service so that they switch to using you permanently.

Hopefully that illustrates sufficiently just how straightforard a SWOT analysis is, and how useful it can be for focussing your thoughts on how to address important business issues. If you require any marketing consultancy, I can be contacted via the precis marketing website.

Robert Frost
Director, Precis Marketing

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Robert Frost - Biography

2006-05-30T17:00:00.000+01:00

Here are some details about me. I work at marketing agency Precis Marketing and we specialise in business to business marketing consultancy.

Age 34

1991. Cambridge University
· MA (Economics)
· Wrote a paper on the effect of AMD’s cpu cloning upon Intel’s incentives to invest in R&D.
· Studied mathematics and statistics

1993. Hewlett Packard’s European marketing centre
· Implemented a system for monitoring the performance of all marketing activities carried out across Europe.
· Implementation of pricing for HP Direct catalogue across Europe.

1995. Greville Crowder Ltd, Direct marketing agency.
· Research Manager - Responsible for all market research
· Carried out projects for Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM, Dell, Coda, Fraser Williams, and many others.
· Managed the database administrators and up to 30 telemarketers at a time.
· Managed the marketing databases for all client projects.

1997. Glovia International, ERP software vendor
· UK Marketing Manager
· Full marketing responsibility including strategy & planning
· Launched the brand in the UK
· Built the marketing department from scratch
· Managed the international Glovia user group.
· Sat on the software user group committee.

1999. Apex Systems, SAP R/3 reseller.
· SAP Marketing Manager

2000 to 2004. Self-employed
· Live music marketing & promotions
· Largest promoter in Birmingham
· Working for main venues such as Carling Academy
· Working for brands such as Kerrang!

2004 Precis Marketing Ltd
· Director of marketing agency
· Commercial marketing specialist

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b2b marketing links

2006-03-30T09:23:00.000+01:00

Searching for b2b marketing advice on the internet I discovered just how few people out there really know what they're talking about. What's more most links claiming they'll give you what you're looking for lead to some annoying pop-up ad that disappears to behind your other windows only to return later, and the page you actually navigated to is flashing at you that your computer is corrupted and you need to install some spyware before it completely goes wrong. And when you finally get past all the popups and read the content on the page you actually navigated to, you find 99% of it is google ads and sponsored links to other useless sites like the one you're already at.

What is google playing at linking to all this crap? Well, of course all these sites have pay per view advertising on them and Google gets half a penny each time you view one, so they have a vested interest in sending you on a wild goose chase.

Anyhow, back to the point. We have uploaded a set of six business to business marketing white papers to our b2b marketing site so if you want some free b2b marketing advice they are there in pdf format for free, just follow the links below and download them.

Rob

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