Imagine if ten years ago, someone had told you that in the future you would be able to communicate directly to your customers or potential customers; sending them any message you choose and that it was absolutely free. No paper required, no printing, no envelopes, no brochures, no stamps. In addition, that message could be sent to anyone anywhere in the world. And as an added bonus, instead of having to wait 24 or 48 hours, it would arrive with them within seconds.

It would have sounded too good to be true, right?

Welcome to the world of the internet and Emarketing.

The key to successful Emarketing is not to think of Email as a out and out selling tool, but more as a powerful communication tool. Use it to add real value to your customers' lives and to keep them informed on your activities. Make your emails creative, different, fascinating, irresistible, funny - anything that sets you apart from the rest. from the rest.

Why not get in touch with us and see the sort of work we do?

Until recently digital agencies have been the guardians of the interactive world, delivering innovation to clients and taking real swathes of advertising revenue for online deliveries. Ad agencies on the other hand have been either buying up effective digital agencies or outsourcing digital campaigns to deliver solutions for their clients. But neither of these approaches has been effective for agency or client.

Both approaches have let clients down because solutions have been proposed with no reference to digital teams and outmoded content delivery has made things look well, outdated (being polite).

The approach taken by sbw in Bristol, is to have a digital team sitting within its studio so that brand consistency and excellent economies of scale are achieved for the client. sbw’s team can offer anything from simple ‘shop window’ web design and build to full cms (content management systems) websites, online marketing, optimisation and adwords campaigns all depending on the demands from the clients. With all resources under one roof, response and turn around times are also managed from a single point – the account director.

Why not get in touch with us and see what we suggest.

Let’s start with the simple stuff. If you are running advertising that is not working, please stop it!

This applies to you whether you're running ads in newspapers, magazines, or on radio, television, billboards, posters, taxis or buses.

There are two types of advertising – direct response advertising and brand advertising. My suggestion in these tricky times is to concentrate on the former whose only purpose is to produce a clear response.

The type of response may vary depending on the type of business you are in and your overall marketing strategy. You may want the response to be an immediate purchase. You may want the response to be for someone to contact you to ask for a brochure. 

The great thing about direct response advertising is that you can instantly tell whether it is working.

You will obviously need some sort of system for asking people who contact you for the first time where they heard about you. If you have a larger business, you may even want to set up a separate phone line with a number that only appears in your ad. If you’re directing people to a website, you may want to set up a special web page that also only appears in your ad. This will ensure that you can clearly identify when people are responding to your advertising.

Why not brief sbw and let us construct a plan for you? Click here to contact us.

During times of recession, brands re-evaluate everything that they do, and part of what they re-evaluate is the very thing that they are - a brand. Display advertising - be it print, tv, or online - will always be an incredibly important tool towards the end goal of brand development. It's important for manufacturers to align themselves with various consumer groups, create a buzz about their products and, at the very end of the chain, sell products.

Brand development, though, is a medium to long term strategy for most businesses. During a recession, brand benefits won't be seen for quite some time so, depending on the product or service they provide, brands turn to direct marketing. And online is the perfect medium for that.

Looking through the list of affiliate programs that have launched over the last few weeks, one trend sticks out more than most - retail. High street retailers have stepped back, had a look at their most important goal - selling product - and have quite rightly elected online direct marketing as the answer to their prayers.

It's not just affiliate marketing though. Adwords/pay per click advertising has surged too. I know Christmas will account for much of this, but there has been a massive surge in both search volume and earnings per click over the last number of weeks. The leading search engine has relaxed its rules about brand bidding which only served to fuel the demand for Pay Per Click advertising, with competitors not just bidding on generic key terms, but competitors' brand names too.

The sum total of all of this? With UK ad spend expected to drop 6% in 2009, now is a very good time to bring in the professionals and let us evaluate your brand and help you plan for the next year.

Why not get in touch with us for a FREE brand audit and find out what we suggest.

• Telephone Marketing
• Direct Mail
• Internet
• Email marketing
• Direct Sales
• PR
• Strategic Alliances
• Lead Response Marketing
• A multi level Referral system

Have a look at this list. How many of these are you implementing in your business? More importantly, what would happen to your business if you could start to combine some of these extra marketing approaches? How would that affect your profits? What would that do to your financial freedom?

Here’s another thought. At least four of the items on this list will cost you either nothing or very little to implement.

Why not brief sbw and let us construct a plan for you? Click here to contact us.

Effective online advertising is all about visibility. Sites that feature online advertising provide instant visibility, but it is the responsibility of the individual advertiser to take advantage of it and use it correctly. Developing a logo and a business slogan are both crucial steps, since these provide visual cues about the nature and message of your business, but it is also important to develop an advertising strategy, and to take the time to learn how to use online advertising to your advantage.

Focused advertising campaigns are the most effective, so rather than focusing on advertising on as many sites and across as many different mediums as possible, focus instead on creating an effective and compelling ad. Contrary to popular belief, the goal of advertising is not to sell your service, product or business, but rather, to gain the attention of the public.

Internet users do not want to spend an excessive amount of time reading. They are searching for fast and easy information, so the best strategy is to keep the copy of your ad down to no more than 5-9 lines with double spaces after each line. Repetition is also key, since ads that only run once are quickly forgotten. Be sure to repost your ad frequently, and again, keep them short and to the point. The goal, after all, is increased traffic and visitors to your website, and with any luck, an increase in sales as well.

When managed and executed properly, online advertising campaigns can be highly effective. If the site that you are advertising on allows it, why not try adding a short video to your ad. This is one very easy way to catch the eye of potential customers. Remember, developing a great advertising strategy is a learning process, so don't become discouraged if you find that you must try several methods and approaches before you stumble upon the right one.

To find out more email Paul Tagent at simonwright@sbwadvertising.co.uk

Websites are an essential eSearch Engine Marketing tool and are primarily constructed to boost sales or showcase a company and its products/services. Here are a few tips which will help you acheive better sales.

In order to make sure that your website is performing correctly, it is necessary to keep an eye on the design of your site. As a matter of fact, all other internet marketing strategies like article marketing, email marketing, banner advertising etc., depend on the creativity displayed in web designing. The more attractive and interactive a website, the better its marketing results. Given below are a few web designing tips, which will help make your website more useful, and at the same time, attractive to the visitors.

The first thing that you need to realise is that your website is more in demand than the fancy decoration that you do around it. This means that it is more important to pay attention to the real website than spending unnecessary time on adding things like splash pages. The splash pages are those pages that appear before the real website is seen. They are normally flash creations or java script images clubbed together to create an attractive intro to your website. They can look attractive but they can actually be counter productive. So why waste your visitor's time with unnecessary showing off?!

Another unnecessary hindrance which might affect the performance of your website is the addition of too many banner advertisements as most web surfers have now learned to ignore these. Thus, you will be actually wasting a lot of space in web designing for these banners. It is rather more useful to utilise it in some other way which will highlight a few features of your website and attract traffic.

An essential aspect of web design is to ensure that your visitor has a smooth journey your website. Do not confuse the surfers by taking them round and round the website. Keep the navigation such, that the surfer is able to move from one page to another and is also able to track their movement back.

It is said that images can speak better than words. Yes, you can add images in your website pages to make them more meaningful and attractive. But it is also important that you don't over do it! If there are too many images in your webpage, it will not only clutter the look of your website, but will also increase its download time making your website slow. So make sure that you edit all your image sizes in a photo editor to a convenient size before uploading them in the site.

These are just a few of the many web designing tips and ideas which will make your website an attractive and impressive creation.

To find out more, please get in touch and find out what we would suggest for your site.