The presentation can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97IyiVK1TEM

The presentation itself created much dialogue as the topic of Social Media and how it offers an ROI is still one that is not yet fully understood as far as B2B marketing strategies are concerned. However working alongside partner companies such as Google and G Shift , combined with our in-house Analytics team,  WSI M3 Social Mindz are confident that we can offer Web Presence Optimisation strategies that can not only deliver Goal based results but also can provide the data to prove an ROI on any companies Digital Marketing Strategies.

Some of the  companies we have worked with include

Islamic Relief Organisation

BBS Granite 

Life IT

KBVO

Basilico Pizza

Neil and Barker Jewellery

Bite Consulting

Dubai Silicon Oasis

and many more

The offer is still available to those companies that attended to receive a free Digital Marketing assessment by contacting either Michael Spence or Bal Butter on 01604 652006 or info@m3sm.co.uk

The following Companies were in attendance at this event

Environmental Treatment Concepts Ltd.
William Johnston & Company Ltd
Syrinix Limited
CSO Technik Ltd
Partech Instruments
Tynemarch Systems Engineering Ltd
Viking Johnson
Warden BioMedia
Chelsea
WPL
HPC Products
Portasilo
Utilities Valves Limited
Goodwin International Ltd
Conder Products
BHR Group
UKTI Strategic Trade Group

Michael is a fully certified WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, however his past 27 years work experience and qualifications in the  Industrial Automation Industry and 5 years specifically dedication to the water industry makes him the ideal person to speak at this educational event hosted by the British Water SME group

Whilst there, Michael will connect with each British Water SME Group member  offering them advice and guidance on their web presence optimisation strategies.

These strategies could include:

• Search Engine Optimisation
• Content Planning
• Content Marketing
• Social Media Engagement
• Paid Advertising
• Goal Determined Web Presence Analytics
• Conversion Architecture
• Online Reputation Management

A full strategic plan can sometimes take up valuable company resource, which is why companies often outsource one or two things on their list. After all, it is important to focus on your business, and leave the complexities of things like Digital Marketing to experts like WSI.

It’s all about Web Presence Optimisation.

You see, the search engines are looking for relevant information to show to its users, and when it comes to sites like Facebook and Twitter, the search engines allocate a percentage (around 10% currently) of search to these. They understand that when someone shares a post, or retweets a tweet, then that person is engaging because it is relevant to them. If it is relevant, then surely this is reason enough to show on the search engines when a search for a specific key word is queried.

It’s simple enough.

With this in mind, our question to you is, what percentage of your budget is allocated to Web presence Optimisation, and what percentage of that is dedicated to social media and engaging with your audience.

We would suggest 10% minimum is allocated to Social Media… this would keep you in line with the search engines allocation.

The process was very similar, but more formal this time, as the placement was as a part of a college course, where each French student had to find 4 weeks work overseas, somewhere to live and examine the cultural differences.

We agreed to employ Roland, and also agreed to provide bed, board and lodgings for him as a part of the package.

We were a little nervous to start with, as having a person who hardly knows us stay for 4 weeks can be intrusive. I expect Roland was just as nervous.

In addition we knew we would have to spend a lot of time training Roland to do our work.

How wrong were we.

Roland fit nicely into our home life, helping where he could and enjoying the lifestyle we offered. We took him to traditional English pubs and to listen to live music, to our favourite restaurants and to the local sports complex. He went swimming, shopping, hang out with people his own age… all the things a 20 year old does.

The first week of work, we trained Roland how to add content to content managed websites, and discovered he had a thirst for knowledge and quickly progressed to changing designs and amending HTML code and CSS Style sheets for clients too.

He got on so very well, in the end all we did was create a long list of clear tasks which he methodically worked through, not only helping us to keep on top of things, but giving us the opportunity to get ahead of ourselves as well.

He met with clients, and answered the phone too. In fact clients started to ask for him because they could see the interactions happening on our Project Management tool that we have for our clients to ensure they are informed on projects along the way.

Roland has since gone back to France, and we are hoping to see him again next month when WSI hosts its Annual European Excellence and Innovation Conference in Paris.

We really want to thank Roland for all his efforts and he is more than welcome to come back at any time.

At WSI we believe that a part of your marketing should be done online. A huge percentage of your target audience are already looking for your products and services using the internet, and you could be missing out on valuable leads for your business.

Take a look at our case studies to see what we can do for companies like yours.

We work with people and companies across all types of business, and of all sizes. Each company is unique and are treated that way.

It is important for us to really understand your needs as a business, and so we like to sit down and ask a series of questions in order to understand what your business goals and objectives are and this enables us to put into place measurement tools. These tools not only help us measure your progress, but also helps you to measure OUR progress based on your objectives.

Feel free to give us a call on 01604 652006 to see how we can help you grow your online presence and generate leads.

Give your Web Presence and Search Engine Rankings a Boost with Video Marketing

Online videos are a great medium to showcase your products and services, especially now since so many users browse the Internet on their smart-phones and tablets, which offer a rich video experience.

The great thing about using videos for marketing is that you can crunch in so much information that engages three cognitive channels – audio, images and text. Video content drives action to improve conversion across all points of the sales cycle; from getting found on search engines to lead nurturing through to closing the sale.

The sooner businesses get video content out to customers (via their websites, landing pages, brochures (via QR code), social channels, emails, blogs and other marketing channels), the sooner they will realise how clients will become engaged with video content to drive marketing objectives.

How can video marketing on YouTube benefit your business?

• You can use YouTube videos to promote your own business, products and for branding your business.
• Over half of the traffic on the Internet is now video, so video marketing gives you access to tons of valuable back-links.
• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Online videos can increase your exposure.
• You can create, optimize and share short, informative and entertaining videos. A “viral” video can become unstoppable once set in motion.
• Social media sites and video go hand in hand and most sites encourage video posting and sharing.

Leverage Video Marketing Using YouTube

Video is extremely powerful – not just because of the sheer number of people who view video sharing sites every day, but because it can be much more persuasive than the written word.

A fully optimised YouTube Channel containing engaging video content will not only provide a powerful, ‘followable’ link to your website, but it will also greatly increase views and drive more traffic to your website. If you have customers online, you should be on YouTube!

Optimise Your Video Marketing Campaigns

Professionally produced, high-impact promotional videos can keep your visitors glued to their screen the instant they arrive on your site. This can also help increase your conversion rate, which of course means more sales.

Hence, you need to optimize your videos to become an integral part of online marketing strategy. Here are some ways to achieve this:

• Trend your video content for current social themes. What are people searching for on YouTube/Google? Relate your video to what’s popular, and watch your viewer count go up.
• Add custom metadata tags to each video. This will help with search engine optimization, adding information about videos that can be picked up by search engines crawling the Web.
• Integrate videos with e-commerce. Explanatory videos showing step-by-step how to make a purchase or a reservation, or to send a query using the website can greatly benefit websites which have booking engines (like hotels) or shopping baskets (such as online retailers).
• Video marketing must be aimed at leads and conversions. Add calls-to-action, so viewers can be compelled to take some type of action at the end of the video.  Get them to sign up for your newsletter, go to your e-commerce page, leave a comment about your video or visit your blog.
• Re-direct video viewers to your website, by including your URL in the video. Add a text box to your video, where you can display your website address. For effective branding, have your company logo displayed prominently somewhere on the screen.
• Integrate with social media marketing. When your audience starts sharing and spreading them all over the Internet with social bookmarking, Facebook sharing and Tweeting, your videos will go viral.

Remember, YouTube is always adding new features. It’s a good idea to stay updated on the latest enhancements and use the ones that best suit your business.

Contact Us for YouTube marketing and optimization and achieve greater success with your video marketing campaigns.

Emphasising the Value of Content Marketing

A number of significant upgrades to Internet and search engine technologies have redefined the Internet as we see it today. With the recent introduction of Google’s Panda and Penguin search algorithms, the importance of quality content is now more relevant than ever. These latest updates have caused marketers to think of novel ways to create compelling content for users instead of resorting to tweaks and tricks to merely improve search engine rankings.

How Can Your Business Leverage Content Marketing

Is your business geared to conform to the new standards in content marketing? Here’s what you need to know:

• Line-up Your Business Goals with Google’s: Google’s aim is clear and simple – easy and effective search. And in its goal to ensure relevant search, Google will continue to adjust its algorithms to deliver more valuable and original content to search users. Develop effective content that is deserving of a superior ranking and serves your goal of adding value to your customers.
• Employ Unique Content Methods: Sometimes users want more than just text and images, no matter how exceptional the content may be. That’s why video and streaming visual content makes for a great addition. Correctly implemented, it can engage your target audiences and coerce them into taking positive actions.
• Solve the User’s Problems: In the e-commerce domain, almost every online store is akin to a digital product shelf, functioning on the premise that users only want to buy a product – not have to seek answers to a myriad of questions. Offer your products with detailed information and buying guides. Solve the user’s dilemma, and they’ll be glad to purchase from you. Compel them to collect haphazard details without direction and they’ll get confused or frustrated and leave.
• Devise A Long Term Content Strategy: Content is a powerful tool that can drive targeted traffic and increase sales; something link building cannot easily do. With link building, one can only hope for increased search engine visibility; not necessarily lead generation. Let link building become a result of meaningful, shareable content.

Creating Valuable Content

Creating good content precedes everything else in the world of inbound marketing. Better results are seen with premium content, and the more quality content you produce, the better the outcome.

• ‘Panda(e)-monium’ is Good: Although search marketers are frantically trying to bypass the Panda and Penguin guidelines and retrieve their lost search engine rankings, the fact is that future updates from Google will certainly be even more stringent. On the positive side, it means increased demand for quality writers, bloggers and original content creators! Develop outstanding, engaging and interesting content following SEO best practices and you’ve won half the battle.
• Over-Optimization is Dead: Enhancing ROI (Return on Investment) for your search marketing initiatives is crucial. Quality content goes a long way towards building repeat, qualified traffic to your blog, website and other online properties. You can generate revenue from web ads, e-business, affiliates, link-building, etc. But to ensure ongoing returns, you need relevant content that is always fresh.

Essentials of Online Content Marketing

Here’s a handy set of pointers to help you create meaningful and engaging content:

• Keep Adding More: If an older page is updated with a good amount of content, Google interprets your site as having a hard-working Webmaster and activates the “freshness formula”. How much content is updated on the site is crucial; simply adding new links to an old page can be damaging, and Google regards this suspiciously. Best practice is to write original, fresh and significant content, using a sincere tone that covers the preferred keywords in a natural manner.
• Increase Frequency: The more pages you add, the more frequently your site will be indexed. Being indexed regularly maximizes the potential for highly-optimized pages to be rated higher than your competitors.
• Get to know your Keywords: When building good, original content, pay close attention to the relevance of keywords. Cramming the content abnormally with keywords will not produce a good outcome for both readers and search engines.
• Understanding Interlinking – Always remember to link to related content. For instance, if your page talks about gum care, it’s important to link to sites on toothpastes, dental floss, toothbrushes, and mouth fresheners.

Be a step ahead of rapid changes in the world of Internet marketing and social media. WSI’s holistic Internet marketing services will deliver greater brand visibility for your business using cost-effective, sustainable methods such as content marketing. If you are looking to relate strategically, consistently, and in a relevant manner to users, contact us to discuss effective content strategies.

The sun was shining, but for how long?

We cooked a simple meal as soon as we got home, and our French guest was pleasantly surprised by English cooking. We have a reputation for delivering not so wonderful food in the UK, however in a lot of homes, we make a real effort to eat healthy, varied and cooked from scratch. We also have an allotment, so most of the fruit and vegetables are freshly picked and seasonal too.

A trip to a family member who provided a lunch in the sunshine confirmed this!

Planned trips for our French guest included a trip to a forest with a picnic, a shopping trip to Milton Keynes, swimming, a country house visit, a canal and lock trip and… as a special treat… a day at an Olympic event!

One of the things our French student enjoys is taking photographs. So, within her trip our daughter took her to a ruin. Not an old ruin as such, but a place locally that was partly raised to the ground in a fire many years back. It offers highly creative photographic opportunities and an opportunity to explore. This has proven so successful that it has become a repeat visit!

With a trip planned to the Newcastle area as well, so that she can indulge in different parts of the UK, our newest family member (as she really does feel like a part of our family) is thoroughly enjoying her experience, is learning new words and about the different cultures and we have seen a significant improvement in her already very good English.

We are looking forward to a repeat of this next year!

First WSI Student Exchange – Part 1

We drove as a family through France, and spent an evening together with Christine and her family. This was the very first meeting of our two daughters.

Christine was very warm and welcoming and cooked a lovely meal for both families. Christines’ daughter had spent the day preparing the dessert for us all, which consisted on macaroons, cake and chocolate fondant, all cooked to perfection.  I was really looking forward to spending more time with them!

We left our daughter with Christine, and the rest of us went to spend a little time together as a family. Christine took great care of our daughter and treated her to trips to a few Chateaux, and even organised for VIP treatment with a trip to the Cathedral, courtesy of the Tourist Office in Orleans, France (a WSI client). My daughter thoroughly enjoyed her stay, and we looked forward to looking after Christines’ daughter by way of return. With the Olympics being held in the UK, we hoped to deliver a very memorable trip.

WSI Student Exchange – Part 2

The event was in aid of the 3 Little Miracles Fund – helping saving babies lives. Please do click the link to read more about this very worthy charity.

This is the third in a series of competitions, and the previous two matches see a draw when Brixworth won in 2010, and Lashings came back to beat Brixworth in 2011. We knew it was going to be a great Cricket match as long as the British weather held off.

The lashings squad:

John Lever (Eng) as team manager – A brilliant Test debut in which he took 7/46 and 3/24 in Dehli marked a series in which he took 26 wickets and finished with an average of 14.61. A left arm fast medium seamer, he played for Essex for many seasons and moved into coaching following retirement.

Gordon Greenidge (WI) -

Having delighted the crowds last year when he showed that, at the age of 60, he could still produce his wonderful trademark pull shot to the leg side, whipping bowlers to the boundary.

Lou Vincent (NZ) – Lou has 3 test centuries against his name including a 224 made against Sri Lanka. He produced possibly the greatest ever knock in a Lashings shirt when he smashed 242 from just 93 balls against Woodhall Spa in 2010.

Saqlain Mushtaq (PAK) – A trend setter and master of the spin, he reached 100 international one day wickets faster than anyone else.

Imran Nazir (PAK) – an opener who is particularly strong on the back foot. An explosive 39-ball 57 saw him get selected for the 2007 World Cup squad.

Wasim Jaffer (IND) – A right handed opening batsman and an occasional right arm off-break bowler. He has test centuries against Pakistan, England, West Indies and South Africa.

Henry Olonga (ZIM) – Henry was the first ever black cricketer to play for Zimbabwe and regularly generated bowling speeds of 90mph he holds the record for the best bowling in a one-day international by a Zimbabwean, with figures of 6/19 against England in 2000.

Devon Malcolm (ENG) – One of Englands’ most iconic cricketers who played 40 tests and 10 ODIs for England, as well as taking well over 1000 wickets in a 19 year first class career for Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northants – a remarkable feat for a fast bowler. His most noteable performance came against South Africa in 1994 when he tore the South African batting to shreds, finishing with 9/57 – still the 8th best individual bowling figures in Test history.

Ian Harvey (AUS) – In 73 one-day internationals, accumulated in 10 Countries across seven years, the variations in his bowling were his special weapon, with one of the most lethal slower balls in the business. In 2003 he became the first centurion in England’s new Twenty20 Cup. He was named one of the Wiseden’s Five Cricketers of the Year in 2004.

Mohammad Akram (PAK) – ohammad is a fast bowler who has the ability to move the ball both ways. he is a great exponent of reverse swing and one of the most reliable bowlers at the end of an innings, which is no mean feat in the modern game.

Ian Butler (NZ) - Blessed with the ability to generate lift from seemingly benign surfaces, Ian Butler had to work hard to break through at international level, but injuries to Shane bond opened the dor for him, and he is still in the frame 10 years later.

Mark Ealham (Eng) - Eight Test appearances and 64 ODI caps between 1997 and 2001 were the reward for this outstanding all rounder – equally capable with bat, ball and in the field.His County career included a lengthy and legendary spell at Kent, where his father Alan also played.

The Event:

The day began with a lunch, Salmon and Creme fresh starter, with Jerk Chicken for mains followed by a Raspberry Crème brulle.
The table guests included Rob Parker from Momentum Consulting UK Ltd , Eddy Lambrick of of Freeman Finance Ltd, Chris Timm , Chairman of Brixworth Cricket Club and the pleasurable company of Ian harvey Lashings opening batsman.

Results of the Game See below: