PremiumPayrollCard.co.uk

Posted in portfolio) on Friday, January 8th, 2010 by admin

Our first venture into the world of EpiServer, PremiumPayrollCard.co.uk is one of a number of projects completed for our client Accor Services. Designed to communicate the benefits of the company’s new pre-paid payroll card to both employers and employees, the site follows tight corporate guidelines but still manages to incorporate a little style.

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Christmas Mailer Campaign

Posted in portfolio) on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 by admin

And Digital produced a series of email campaign for Manchester United’s conferencing and events team at Old Trafford in the run up to Christmas. Sharply designed and impactful, the campaigns helped to promote the ground as a venue for Christmas parties and events.

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ESB Motorcycles Website

Posted in portfolio) on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 by admin

And Digital was commissioned to design a fresh looking site for this Bolton based motorbike dealership. The design we created is totally different to any other dealer sites out there that we’ve seen: modern and exciting but still retaining a mechanical, petrolhead feel.

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B3 International Corporate Website

Posted in portfolio) on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 by admin

Sometimes a company comes to use just needing a good website: no social media, no campaigns, just a clear and credible online presence. We produced this site for B3 International, a cosmetics and toiletries manufacturer, and managed to inject a little fun along the way.

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RentSmart Microsite

Posted in portfolio) on Monday, December 7th, 2009 by admin

How do you make your proposition stand out when it is wrapped in the website of someone as big as The Phone House, the international brand for Carphone Warehouse? That’s the challenge that faced RentSmart, the smart finance provider. Our solution? A sharp little ’site within a site’ that walks the browser through the benefits of taking a finance option, and on to the application process.

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OldhamBusiness.com

Posted in portfolio) on Monday, December 7th, 2009 by admin

How do you bring together all the stakeholders in a business community and get them to share best practice and useful information? OldhamBusiness.com is an experiment in multi-contributor business blogging commissioned by Oldham Borough Council and its partner Winning Pitch. Designed to capture information from all the key agencies involved in supporting businesses in the Oldham and Rochdale area, this soon-to-be-live site will eventually have hundreds of contributors adding content via WordPress, YouTube and Twitter.

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Social Media: Digital PR vs Digital Marketing

Posted in Tom's ramblings ( blog) on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 by admin

Incredibly, 40 years since the inception of the internet, the digital marketing goldrush continues. Today (still) everyone wants a slice of the social media pie, which is leading to some interesting conflicts and collaborations between marketing agencies.

PR agencies are laying claim to social media as being naturally their space. On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense: social media is an ideal way of conducting ‘public relations’ since it provides a powerful medium for conducting conversations between a brand and its audience.

But most PR agencies are not in the business of public relations. They are in the business of media relations.
This is an entirely different – though no less valuable – skill set, focused on building up influence with a small group of professional advocates/advisers within a given sector – usually journalists and analysts. Creating stories for this small group of people with the aim of having them share those stories with their audiences is very different to managing a large audience directly.

The skills required for a more direct approach to the audience/prospect have much more in common with the skills of advertising or direct marketing. Sure the message has to be made appropriate to the medium, but it is hard to argue that PR agencies are better placed to handle this challenge than their marketing agency counterparts.

More important is the skill to manage the reaction and interaction with the audience, and shape that interaction to drive specific outcomes. This is where a sales-focused marketing agency really has the edge.
An effective social media strategy requires a combination of talents, creative, practical and operational, and with the space still evolving, no-one yet has the definitive answer. But as a general rule I would propose this:

If you are looking for help to manage your brand’s interaction with key influencers in social media channels , you probably want to talk to a PR agency. If you want to leverage social media channels to talk to your audience directly with clear outcomes in mind, talk to a digital marketing agency (ideally, us).

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If You’ve Got It – Launch It!

Posted in blog ( company news) on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 by admin

Going Out In Style: And Digital at the Launch of go-style.co.uk

Here at And Digital we’re celebrating the successful launch of go-style.co.uk. This stylish online fashion magazine was commissioned to promote the retailers of Golden Square Shopping Mall, Warrington.

The main feature of the site is the Style Builder, allowing users to create outfits online from the collections of all the different fashion stores at Golden Square. With the ability to mix and match from different lines, we expect the site to fast become a one stop shop for fashion lovers – especially once they get hooked on the editorial content: fresh articles on current fashion trends, photos of Warrington’s most stylish and constant promotions.

The aim is to build a real community of fashion lovers that grows organically through social media. Social media remains a hot topic but there are many disaster stories. With go-style.co.uk we placed an emphasis on interaction at the earliest design stage. The social media aspects are not merely add-ons but an integrated part of the strategy. Through these campaigns, we are able to begin conversations with users directly and develop campaigns that are responsive to their requirements. While this may not be a quick-fix route to success, it lays the foundations for a lengthy and mutually fulfilling relationship.

The launch party for the site is a great example of the benefits to this level of interaction. We ran an extensive on and offline campaign for the event and invited stylish ladies of Warrington to get dolled up and celebrate with us. The result was a great success – lots of users signed up, the retailers bought-in and there was a real spike in site traffic.

Most of all though, a good time was had by all.

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I measure my value in Google rankings

Posted in Tom's ramblings ( blog) on Monday, October 12th, 2009 by admin

People like the digital world for many reasons. One of them is its measurability. You can put a fairly definite number on the impact of most digital campaigns: how many clickthroughs, how many emails opened, how many Facebook fans etc.

But how meaningful are these metrics?

Check out this guy: http://www.baronseries.com. He calls himself the “#1 Wealth Coach”. His justification? In brackets alongside this statement: “Google and AOL.”

That’s right. His justification for this bold statement is that he ranks highly for a given keyword on Google and AOL. Their search algorithms are so powerful and authoritative that they can bestow market leadership on a person.

Back in the real world, this is of course nonsense. But it’s a lesson: it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers of the online world and begin to measure yourself on increasingly abstract metrics. But there’s only one metric that really counts: success, usually measured in pounds and pence.

Measure the direct impact that digital marketing campaigns have on your business and you’ll never go far wrong.

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Social Media: Not ‘How’ but ‘Why’?

Posted in Tom's ramblings ( blog) on Monday, September 21st, 2009 by admin

Lots of organisations are coming to believe that they ought to be engaging with social media in some way. The clamour around Facebook, YouTube and Twitter has led bosses and staff alike to believe they need a presence on these popular channels, and others.

I’m all for this new-found enthusiasm, but it is raising some problems. Because social media channels are fairly straightforward to set up (by design), many groups are leaping in with both feet, starting up pages here and feeds there before they’ve asked the crucial question. Because the answer to ‘how do we do this’ is so simple, many groups are failing to first ask ‘why should we do it?’

Without answering this question, it is impossible to set objectives. Without objectives it is impossible to decide on an approach, or to measure the success of that approach.

We believe there are three fundamental reasons why you might consider social media from a campaign perspective.

• Reach: Create content that is ripe for sharing and you will increase your reach beyond the prospects you know about to their friends and family that you don’t. Incentivise prospects to share content by ensuring that it adds value to their day through entertainment or education.

• Reinforcement: As any good PR will tell you, your message has a lot more impact when it comes from an independent source. There’s all sorts of stats out there about this, but suffice to say I trust recommendations more than I trust adverts. If you can achieve ‘Reach’ the chances are that your message will also be reinforced.

• Reaction: Social media tools are by definition about two-way communication. Anything you share can usually be responded to or commented on. If you want to know what your audience thinks of you, or of your partners and competitors, you should at least be listening to social media channels.

Before you set out on a social media journey, decide which of these outcomes you are seeking to achieve. Put some metrics against them, and then design your strategy and your content appropriately.

If you’re stuck, you can always give us a call.

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