Big Chip Award Winners

Last week, the company I work for, PushON won the Big Chip Award for ‘Best Use of Search’ – the event is the most prestigious digital award ceremony in the North West, and is judged by experts within the industry.  The category we entered, ‘Best Use of Search’ encompasses both Pay Per Click and Organic Search Engine Marketing.

It was for a project very close to my heart – The Little Greene Paint Company.  I’ve worked on this account from the beginning, and we’ve worked closely with their web development team to implement changes which give them the best possible chance to rank in search engines, and also convert the traffic they receive into sales.

I’m happy to say, that since we entered the competition – a number of significant further improvements have been made – for example, the launch of The Little Greene Blog, improvements to their paint finish listings, and a development which is soon to launch – a tagging system for paint colours which helps people find related paint colours, types of colours or styles (helping users find what they want both from search engines & when they are on the site).

I feel that this year, we got the groundwork right, and I’m looking forward to the progress over the next year, where we can work on some exciting and engaging projects which will help push the brand forward online.

Edited: July 2nd, 2009

Marketing With Video

At PushON we have worked on a whole range of different video projects and recently won the contract to help K3 promote their brand new video series. This exciting opportunity has given us the chance to play with some excellent new tools and engage with a vast array of different audiences. The projects scope is essentially what has excited us most. The company markets worldwide so we are not confined to UK audiences and so far we have been able to build up quite a following.

I think its exciting to see companies especially in markets which often limit advertising to the ‘tried & tested’ attempting new and innovative marketing strategies. The aim here for example is to build the K3 brand online and promote the company as a fun, innovative and exciting company. The series has also been created in such a way that it can appeal to a large general audience although we are targeting IT managers, manufacturers and people involved with IT.

It will be interesting to see how the series continues to grow and it has also been nominated for an award at this years Big Chips. All very exciting.

Edited: May 14th, 2009

Google Launch Interest-Based Advertising

It looks like Google are updating their AdWords/AdSense model to take into account behaviour and personal preferences of their users.

It is astonishing when you look at how much data Google has, and in real terms, this will affect at least 80% of people in the UK (whether they know it’s happening or not!).

Anyone who uses the Google search engine for a start, but then there are the other properties that the big G owns – meaning anyone who uses iGoogle, Google Docs, Gmail, Blogger, Feedburner, etc will also be affected.

Google says that this new Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to display ads based on a user’s previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. “marketing”).

It looks like this will apply to the content network (i.e. anyone who displays Google AdSense on their website), but I’m sure they will be using it for search.

So… other than privacy, can you see any other issues that you would be concerned about here?

Well, what if you share a PC, and are buying a present for your spouse, or you have an ‘adult interest’. Your partner notices the adverts are a bit more risky than normal, and she now knows what you plan on getting for her birthday.

On the other hand, and the reason I am happy that this privacy nightmare is coming into place -

1. As a user, I get more relevant adverts shown to me
2. As a marketer, I waste less money

Fingers crossed, Google isn’t evil…

Edited: March 13th, 2009

Marketing To Young People

I was uploading a presentation to slideshare, and I stumbled upon this great piece of advice:

It’s often easy to generalise based on your vision of your target audience – without actually asking them.

For example, I was helping out in my dad’s framing shop recently, and many of his customers were in their 70’s. It must be about 6 years since the last time I was helping out, and based on my experience then, I assumed that most of the elderly customers would not have had email addresses. However, on asking – there was only one person I spoke to during the day who didn’t have one – and he was only in his 40’s.

This highlights the dramatic changes in lifestyle and adoption of technology, but it also highlights that even when you research your target audience, you may still be wrong about them if you’ve not spoken to them recently. Because the data you have about them today may be different in the next 6 months.

Edited: December 3rd, 2008

Manchester Digital Event

Manchester Digital are hosting another social gathering in Manchester for those in or interested in the industry.

I’m gutted I’ll miss this one as I’m away at the time, but I would encourage anyone in the area to go.  They’re always interesting events with nice people in a related line of work/study.

The party starts in Bar Ça on 8th October, and you can get tickets from the Manchester Digital Site.

Edited: September 24th, 2008

Referral Programs To Publicise Your Website

I’m pleased to have recently been accepted to Blogrush, which is a referral program for bloggers. I say “pleased”, because this is my second attempt!

Initially I was disheartened that I didn’t cut the mustard, but the filtering does mean that the chances of links to poor quality blogs shown on your site are reduced. And to be honest, I hadn’t published many quality posts at the time of my first application.

I’ve been a member of ‘my blog log‘ for some time. This is a similar service, which has been recently bought by Yahoo. I have to say it does generate traffic and subscribers from people with a similar interest. It’s quite nice to see the faces of your readers too!

So far, I like Blogrush – some of the links in the sidebar have sent me to some interesting blogs, in particular this one from Unlocked Profits – How To Get Free Web Site Traffic In 2008. My New Years resolution will be to write some guides for work’s website available for download…

If anyone has any opinion let me know…

• Is it easy to use?
• Does it generate traffic or subscribers for you?
• Do you think it looks spammy?
• Have you used other services to better effect?
• Is traffic not important for your blogging?

Edited: January 11th, 2008