This New Year, branded “the year of austerity”, will no doubt be hard for many but will also come with highlights for others. You might think that the world of advertising will be hit from reducing budgets and a general belt tightening. However many major brand owners have spoken on record that they will be spending similar amounts, and more in most cases, to last year but spread over a greater number of channels and initiatives. Three areas to look out for in 2011 will be local coupons, product placement on television and location based advertising on mobiles.
Local coupons and vouchers have become massive in the US over the last year with Google even trying to buy the US company Groupon for $6bn. These will become a new vehicle for local companies to create new business and innovative local companies like tickles.co.uk are already offering daily deals to thousands of registered users across Norfolk and Suffolk.
Product placement on television, which I have lost count of the number of times I have written about, finally starts in the UK at the end of next month. Placement is nothing new in the states and with our channels filled with US imports, viewers are already well used to the sight of bottles of Coca Cola and Pepsi looming large. By the end of this year you can expect this to change. While you may not see pints of Fosters across the bar at the Rovers Return, you will start to see placements of other kinds in programs on commercial channels as they try to claw back recently lost revenues.
By this summer mobile operator Orange has announced it is launching location based ads with O2 expecting a roll out by the third quarter of 2011. What this means is that if your phone works on those networks you can opt in to receive ads sent to you based on where you are. So you could be walking down your local high street past a Starbucks and you would be sent an offer such as 50p off a cup of coffee to tempt you into the store to purchase. This may sound intrusive but the key point is that these will be opt in ads i.e. you have to sign up to the service to get them.
Despite all these new and wonderful ways of being inundated with adverts there is no guarantee that the adverts themselves will be any good. So I would like to leave you this month with the results of a recent poll in Marketing Magazine of the most irritating ads of last year. In top position was that affront to music the Gocompare series of ads with that opera singer. The number two slot was taken by the frankly terrible webuyanycar and number 3 was injurylayers4u . All definitely irritating ads, but through people remembering them they have all done their job. If you have any other candidates send them to me via twitter @timyoungman. Happy New Year readers!
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant – follow him on Twitter @timyoungman
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Monday, 6 December 2010
To review or not to review that is the question
There are many ways to tell when an issue or topic has gone mainstream. You could look at press clippings or even Google it and see the number pages. If it’s very current you could even just see how many people are discussing it on Twitter. However I have created a new monitoring tool which I like to call “the one show test”. The One Show, long lost child of Nationwide and the Blue Peter for adults is now famed for the varying topics it covers. So when something is picked up by them you know it has reached a critical mass. So it was with the debate about the pros and cons of customer review sites.
The piece in question was regarding the rights and wrongs of the tourism review site Tripadvisor. Over 40m people a month log on the site to read what others have said about hotels and activities to do when on holiday. The coverage on the One Show stemmed from the class action that Tripadvisor is facing in the US from some US hoteliers who claim that negative reviews are defamatory. As the reviews can be anonymous, the hoteliers say there is no way of verifying that the reviews are genuine and from people who have really experienced their hotel or service. I was recently a judge for the recent EDP Tourism Awards in the online category and at the awards night last Friday I asked some of those present their views both on TripAdvisor and reviews in general. Most were positive but also voiced the ease of potential abuse.
As the web becomes more social focussed and less a big data warehouse,e so this move to reviews will continue. Ten years ago most of what was said about a business was probably put there by the business themselves, now, most has come from others. Research firm Forrester recently published a European survey that showed that 54% of respondents stated that what others say about a brand directly affects their shopping basket.
Argos took the brave step of allowing open reviews against all its product lines online a few years ago. This is a business that last year posted sales from its website of £1.4billion and that is set for another step change this year. Not all the reviews are positive but overall they view their openness as only a positive for the perception of Argos and helps enforce buying decisions on positive products and stock decisions on poor reviewed one.
Locally, Naked Wines, the Norfolk based online wine retailer, also uses reviews as a key part of its offerings. My last purchase from them was driven from an email offering a discount on wines in return for reviews, and reviews and customer ratings are an integral part of the Naked Wines online offering.
As I have said in previous columns this trend will only continue so the choice is to exploit it to your benefit or ignore and potentially miss out to others who don’t.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant – follow him on Twitter @timyoungman
The piece in question was regarding the rights and wrongs of the tourism review site Tripadvisor. Over 40m people a month log on the site to read what others have said about hotels and activities to do when on holiday. The coverage on the One Show stemmed from the class action that Tripadvisor is facing in the US from some US hoteliers who claim that negative reviews are defamatory. As the reviews can be anonymous, the hoteliers say there is no way of verifying that the reviews are genuine and from people who have really experienced their hotel or service. I was recently a judge for the recent EDP Tourism Awards in the online category and at the awards night last Friday I asked some of those present their views both on TripAdvisor and reviews in general. Most were positive but also voiced the ease of potential abuse.
As the web becomes more social focussed and less a big data warehouse,e so this move to reviews will continue. Ten years ago most of what was said about a business was probably put there by the business themselves, now, most has come from others. Research firm Forrester recently published a European survey that showed that 54% of respondents stated that what others say about a brand directly affects their shopping basket.
Argos took the brave step of allowing open reviews against all its product lines online a few years ago. This is a business that last year posted sales from its website of £1.4billion and that is set for another step change this year. Not all the reviews are positive but overall they view their openness as only a positive for the perception of Argos and helps enforce buying decisions on positive products and stock decisions on poor reviewed one.
Locally, Naked Wines, the Norfolk based online wine retailer, also uses reviews as a key part of its offerings. My last purchase from them was driven from an email offering a discount on wines in return for reviews, and reviews and customer ratings are an integral part of the Naked Wines online offering.
As I have said in previous columns this trend will only continue so the choice is to exploit it to your benefit or ignore and potentially miss out to others who don’t.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant – follow him on Twitter @timyoungman
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Gap and its logo 360 turnaround
This month saw one of the more embarrassing about turns in the last year and I am not talking about RooneyGate. No this comes from that well know purveyor of clothing Gap. Gap actually started in 1969 in San Francisco and since then has grown to its current position of owning 5 leading store brands including Banana Republic and Old Navy and now turns over $14bn a year.
Gap, as you may or may not know, is also quite famous for using its own name and logo splashed over its clothing. Of course many clothing brands do that but Gap has always been known to do it in a very American way and sometime in your life you have probably seen someone wearing a sweatshirt with GAP in large letters on the front.
Its name and indeed its logo, with Gap in white text sitting in a blue box, is one of the more recognisable logos in the world. So much so that I was surprised to see that it was considering changing it. I was even more amused during the following 7 days of extreme embarrassment for the Gap board.
On October 6th Gap announced it was changing its logo, removing the blue box and changing the font. Within hours the new logo was universally panned with some descriptions not right for this family newspaper. The kinder ones related it to something created in 5mins in Powerpoint or that it was more geared towards a new piece of accounting software, ouch!
Social media sites were flooded with comments, virtually all negative. Within 3 days Gap’s senior management announced that the new logo was being retracted and that they had decided to start a “crowdsurfing project” to come up with better ideas. Now I had never heard of that one either and presumed that they came up with it while in a more lenient coffee house considering the current debate in California to legalise marijuana.
Most commentators renamed its “crowdsufing project” to what it actually was, an embarrassing u-turn. However that’s not where it ended, on October 12th just 6 days after it started and 3 after the announcement of its first change of policy, the president of Gap North America announced that it was withdrawing its “crowdsurfing” strategy and returning to its original logo.
This spectacular 360 degree turn of policy quite rightly attracted large amounts of media attention. Interestingly many commentators concluded that this was all an extremely clever piece of press manipulation designed to create large brand awareness. They simply could not believe that a company as large as Gap could make such an almighty hash of such a big thing. I could almost buy that argument if they had just stopped at the “crowdsourcing” point and ended up shortlisting some of the thousands of received logo suggestions for a worldwide integrated campaign using a social media driven vote on a new logo. But they didn’t, they turned face again and went back to the old saying they had “learned a lot in this process”.
In my opinion this was a simple case of a very public mistake that they took too long to correct. Logos are an emotive subject and often overplayed. Take Tesco, its logo has been subtly tweaked over time, but it’s pretty much the same as it has been since I had hair and it hasn’t stopped it taking over the world. Changing your logo will not turn your business round. Understanding your customer needs and delivering products solutions to them will. I hope in Gap’s case the management has learnt its lesson.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant – follow him on Twitter @timyoungman
Gap, as you may or may not know, is also quite famous for using its own name and logo splashed over its clothing. Of course many clothing brands do that but Gap has always been known to do it in a very American way and sometime in your life you have probably seen someone wearing a sweatshirt with GAP in large letters on the front.
Its name and indeed its logo, with Gap in white text sitting in a blue box, is one of the more recognisable logos in the world. So much so that I was surprised to see that it was considering changing it. I was even more amused during the following 7 days of extreme embarrassment for the Gap board.
On October 6th Gap announced it was changing its logo, removing the blue box and changing the font. Within hours the new logo was universally panned with some descriptions not right for this family newspaper. The kinder ones related it to something created in 5mins in Powerpoint or that it was more geared towards a new piece of accounting software, ouch!
Social media sites were flooded with comments, virtually all negative. Within 3 days Gap’s senior management announced that the new logo was being retracted and that they had decided to start a “crowdsurfing project” to come up with better ideas. Now I had never heard of that one either and presumed that they came up with it while in a more lenient coffee house considering the current debate in California to legalise marijuana.
Most commentators renamed its “crowdsufing project” to what it actually was, an embarrassing u-turn. However that’s not where it ended, on October 12th just 6 days after it started and 3 after the announcement of its first change of policy, the president of Gap North America announced that it was withdrawing its “crowdsurfing” strategy and returning to its original logo.
This spectacular 360 degree turn of policy quite rightly attracted large amounts of media attention. Interestingly many commentators concluded that this was all an extremely clever piece of press manipulation designed to create large brand awareness. They simply could not believe that a company as large as Gap could make such an almighty hash of such a big thing. I could almost buy that argument if they had just stopped at the “crowdsourcing” point and ended up shortlisting some of the thousands of received logo suggestions for a worldwide integrated campaign using a social media driven vote on a new logo. But they didn’t, they turned face again and went back to the old saying they had “learned a lot in this process”.
In my opinion this was a simple case of a very public mistake that they took too long to correct. Logos are an emotive subject and often overplayed. Take Tesco, its logo has been subtly tweaked over time, but it’s pretty much the same as it has been since I had hair and it hasn’t stopped it taking over the world. Changing your logo will not turn your business round. Understanding your customer needs and delivering products solutions to them will. I hope in Gap’s case the management has learnt its lesson.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant – follow him on Twitter @timyoungman
Friday, 1 October 2010
Tablet Wars - iPad vs the Playbook
The problem with brand new shiny toys is that after a short while they are not so new and not so shiny. This is pre-built into all of us when as children we realise that our new toys from birthday or Christmas within a couple of weeks are not so new and not so shiny due to excessive use. After that something else invariably catches the eye and becomes the next object of desire.
Some have argued that this is what keeps the world economy turning and they may be right but its especially true with technology. A couple of years ago you could sit in a coffee house playing with an iPhone and feel the envious stares at you. Today there are no stares as everyone is playing with their own smartphone from various makes and the iPhone seems, dare I say it, a bit old.
Luckily I have had the pleasure of feeling the stares again for the last few months as I have sat working on my iPad. I have even happily given people demonstrations of the shiny toy as I do truly love it. However, as with all new shiny toys, when one stands out other toy makers up their game to get a piece of the action.
First against the iPad were the Galaxy Tablet from Samsung and the amusingly named Streak from Dell, although its 5 inch screen puts it on the small side. Last week however a more serious contender was announced; the Playbook from Blackberry.
Blackberry is a major player in the smartphone market. In the US in July, according to figures from research firm Comscore, they lead the marketplace with a 39.3% market share followed by iPhone at 23.8% and Google Andriod phones at 17%. Blackberry has also traditionally been the business smartphone of choice and its this market, rather than the consumer market, they have targeted this new tablet computer at.
The new Playbook comes with a 7inch screen and front and rear cameras allowing video conferencing and has been geared for the high security network systems that businesses like. Unlike some of its competitors it has no 3G capabilities but does have wifi and Bluetooth. Although they have not announced a price it is expected to be high especially as they described it as “professional grade” which means “we are going to charge a lot for this”.
Some analysts are predicting that sales of the iPad will reach 12m by the end of this year. Hewlett Packard CEO Todd Bradley said last week in a speech announcing its own tablet effort, that they believe that the tablet market will be worth $40bn a year in a next few years. So its pretty obvious why manufacturers are looking at how they can get a slice of the pie. Blackberry is hoping that its business relationships will help them gain a big slice of that pie. Calling a proposed serious business machine the Playbook rather than the rumoured Blackpad or Blackbook I would argue however was one big mistake.
Still whatever happens, the coffee houses of the UK will soon be filled with people surfing the web and checking emails on screens large enough to actually read what they are looking at. It is even rumoured that Aldi are going to launch a branded version. You could argue these are just toys but if you are a website owner you should be quietly pleased that more people can access your site wherever and whenever they want. More importantly on a screen they can actually see what you are offering.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant
Some have argued that this is what keeps the world economy turning and they may be right but its especially true with technology. A couple of years ago you could sit in a coffee house playing with an iPhone and feel the envious stares at you. Today there are no stares as everyone is playing with their own smartphone from various makes and the iPhone seems, dare I say it, a bit old.
Luckily I have had the pleasure of feeling the stares again for the last few months as I have sat working on my iPad. I have even happily given people demonstrations of the shiny toy as I do truly love it. However, as with all new shiny toys, when one stands out other toy makers up their game to get a piece of the action.
First against the iPad were the Galaxy Tablet from Samsung and the amusingly named Streak from Dell, although its 5 inch screen puts it on the small side. Last week however a more serious contender was announced; the Playbook from Blackberry.
Blackberry is a major player in the smartphone market. In the US in July, according to figures from research firm Comscore, they lead the marketplace with a 39.3% market share followed by iPhone at 23.8% and Google Andriod phones at 17%. Blackberry has also traditionally been the business smartphone of choice and its this market, rather than the consumer market, they have targeted this new tablet computer at.
The new Playbook comes with a 7inch screen and front and rear cameras allowing video conferencing and has been geared for the high security network systems that businesses like. Unlike some of its competitors it has no 3G capabilities but does have wifi and Bluetooth. Although they have not announced a price it is expected to be high especially as they described it as “professional grade” which means “we are going to charge a lot for this”.
Some analysts are predicting that sales of the iPad will reach 12m by the end of this year. Hewlett Packard CEO Todd Bradley said last week in a speech announcing its own tablet effort, that they believe that the tablet market will be worth $40bn a year in a next few years. So its pretty obvious why manufacturers are looking at how they can get a slice of the pie. Blackberry is hoping that its business relationships will help them gain a big slice of that pie. Calling a proposed serious business machine the Playbook rather than the rumoured Blackpad or Blackbook I would argue however was one big mistake.
Still whatever happens, the coffee houses of the UK will soon be filled with people surfing the web and checking emails on screens large enough to actually read what they are looking at. It is even rumoured that Aldi are going to launch a branded version. You could argue these are just toys but if you are a website owner you should be quietly pleased that more people can access your site wherever and whenever they want. More importantly on a screen they can actually see what you are offering.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant
Friday, 3 September 2010
Social Media and the art of public speaking
It’s a long time since I have delivered a presentation to local businesses here in Norfolk but I recently was asked if I would present at its upcoming Digital Simple conference on September 16th (www.digitalsimple.co.uk). The invite left me thinking long and hard on what would interest 150 people enough to listen to me for a half an hour.
The last time I gave some presentations with the chamber was over 8 years ago. Then I asked the audience how many people had booked a flight online or did their banking online. Only a few raised their hands. Today these seem daft questions as the internet is now such a common part of most people’s lives. In the last 8 years the internet itself has not changed that much. What has changed however is how many people use it, how often they use it and through what devices and what they are using it for.
It was only a few months ago that I wrote a column about privacy issues with Facebook. Yes I did gloat when I read Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google earlier last month talk in an interview about the dangers of releasing too much personal information on social media sites. However when there are 500m worldwide Facebook users and 26m in this country that is a difficult message to get across. There is a danger in sharing personal info but there is just as much being shared online about brands and businesses, as there is drunk photos that may come back to haunt. Eight years ago the internet was a tool to find information. It is still that but today just as much time is spent sharing experiences as finding info.
People are not just finding out where a restaurant is and what time it opens but sharing reviews of the food with their friends and complete strangers. If you are a business, the change in the way people use the internet is important. You need to understand that people are now online talking about you, not just finding info about you. You can either choose to ignore that or participate in the conversation.
It’s by no coincidence that the largest single driver of mobile internet access is social media as people want to share views and information from wherever they are. With the huge growth in internet enabled mobile phones it is now commonplace to see people sharing their thoughts right from where they are, from the restaurant to the shop floor. Customers now have the tools and technology to share views both positive and negative right at the point they have them and if they are negative this instance access means no time for cooling off or reflection.
However this change in internet behaviour driven by the growth in social media should be seen as a blessing not a curse, an opportunity not a threat. The different social media tools allow businesses to create real engagement with existing and potential customers. It probably will not immediately increase your bottom line and will take up time. That investment in time though will bring you a deeper relationship with some customers and introduce others to you and your area of expertise where you can then direct them to your website where the real selling should happen.
The way people use the web and how often they do has fundamentally changed over the last 8 years and there is no going back. So I decided to name my talk “the changing face of the internet and the new rules of engagement”. Not the catchiest of titles but if you are free on the 16th come and see me at the Open Bank Plain Norwich at 2:20pm. There may even be a quiz!
Tim Youngman is Head of Digital Marketing for Archant
The last time I gave some presentations with the chamber was over 8 years ago. Then I asked the audience how many people had booked a flight online or did their banking online. Only a few raised their hands. Today these seem daft questions as the internet is now such a common part of most people’s lives. In the last 8 years the internet itself has not changed that much. What has changed however is how many people use it, how often they use it and through what devices and what they are using it for.
It was only a few months ago that I wrote a column about privacy issues with Facebook. Yes I did gloat when I read Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google earlier last month talk in an interview about the dangers of releasing too much personal information on social media sites. However when there are 500m worldwide Facebook users and 26m in this country that is a difficult message to get across. There is a danger in sharing personal info but there is just as much being shared online about brands and businesses, as there is drunk photos that may come back to haunt. Eight years ago the internet was a tool to find information. It is still that but today just as much time is spent sharing experiences as finding info.
People are not just finding out where a restaurant is and what time it opens but sharing reviews of the food with their friends and complete strangers. If you are a business, the change in the way people use the internet is important. You need to understand that people are now online talking about you, not just finding info about you. You can either choose to ignore that or participate in the conversation.
It’s by no coincidence that the largest single driver of mobile internet access is social media as people want to share views and information from wherever they are. With the huge growth in internet enabled mobile phones it is now commonplace to see people sharing their thoughts right from where they are, from the restaurant to the shop floor. Customers now have the tools and technology to share views both positive and negative right at the point they have them and if they are negative this instance access means no time for cooling off or reflection.
However this change in internet behaviour driven by the growth in social media should be seen as a blessing not a curse, an opportunity not a threat. The different social media tools allow businesses to create real engagement with existing and potential customers. It probably will not immediately increase your bottom line and will take up time. That investment in time though will bring you a deeper relationship with some customers and introduce others to you and your area of expertise where you can then direct them to your website where the real selling should happen.
The way people use the web and how often they do has fundamentally changed over the last 8 years and there is no going back. So I decided to name my talk “the changing face of the internet and the new rules of engagement”. Not the catchiest of titles but if you are free on the 16th come and see me at the Open Bank Plain Norwich at 2:20pm. There may even be a quiz!
Tim Youngman is Head of Digital Marketing for Archant
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
ITV 2010 First Half Profits and Move to Online
August is usually a quiet time in Britain’s favourite pastime, TV land, before the adventures start all over again. No sooner as we realise that the nights are drawing in, so we will see the long run in to Christmas start with the return of the X Factor. This normally brings cheer for ITV bosses looking forward to better ad revenues but they have had better fortunes this year.
2009 was a bad year for ITV. Advertising revenues slumped massively and I suspect that Adam Crozier, previously of Football Association and Post Office fame, probably wondered why he took the job. Luckily for him however, by the end of 2009 ad buyers started to remember the reach of primetime television advertising, allowing 30 slots in the final of X Factor last year to be sold for upwards of £250,000 a go.
This year it’s a very different story and ITV have just announced pre-tax half year profits of £118m which you can compare with a loss of £4 in the same period last year. This is an impressive turnaround in any business especially one that is supposedly under massive competition, not just from the expansion of available television channels, but also from ad spend moving to other media especially the internet.
ITV has made some big changes in a small amount of time and are now concentrating on growing audience share, selling more of its shows to the international marketing and exploiting its programme content across multiple channels.
It is the last of those that has created the most media hype as its first move is a deal with Sky to put its high definition channels on Sky’s paid for platform. It looks as if ITV1 HD will continue to be available through Freeview but if you want the HD versions of ITV2, 3 or 4 you will need a Sky subscription. This is designed to help ITV become less reliant on your traditional TV ad revenue and moves it into the subscription TV market, albeit using a massive partner in the form of Sky.
During the first half of this year video views on the ITV Player, its equivalent of the BBC iPlayer, fell 14% but it did have 4% more people watching. This will also be a key area for them as unlike the BBC they can put ads all over web TV viewing. Crozier has put on record this is an area for growth and that they are “subscale given the size of the online video market”. He has backed this with a £75m investment over three years in online. So look out for more promotion of ITV Player and the probable introduction of pay per view micropayments.
So all very nice for ITV but what does this mean for the viewer? Well hopefully it should be good news. If ITV looking to boost its online presence and international presence can only do that by generating good content and by that I mean quality programming. I hope that ITV’s new management team will recognise that to grow it has to make more shows that people want to watch. A turnaround in fortune gives it a real chance to create the programming that it built a worldwide reputation for and be grow it profits at the same time.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant
2009 was a bad year for ITV. Advertising revenues slumped massively and I suspect that Adam Crozier, previously of Football Association and Post Office fame, probably wondered why he took the job. Luckily for him however, by the end of 2009 ad buyers started to remember the reach of primetime television advertising, allowing 30 slots in the final of X Factor last year to be sold for upwards of £250,000 a go.
This year it’s a very different story and ITV have just announced pre-tax half year profits of £118m which you can compare with a loss of £4 in the same period last year. This is an impressive turnaround in any business especially one that is supposedly under massive competition, not just from the expansion of available television channels, but also from ad spend moving to other media especially the internet.
ITV has made some big changes in a small amount of time and are now concentrating on growing audience share, selling more of its shows to the international marketing and exploiting its programme content across multiple channels.
It is the last of those that has created the most media hype as its first move is a deal with Sky to put its high definition channels on Sky’s paid for platform. It looks as if ITV1 HD will continue to be available through Freeview but if you want the HD versions of ITV2, 3 or 4 you will need a Sky subscription. This is designed to help ITV become less reliant on your traditional TV ad revenue and moves it into the subscription TV market, albeit using a massive partner in the form of Sky.
During the first half of this year video views on the ITV Player, its equivalent of the BBC iPlayer, fell 14% but it did have 4% more people watching. This will also be a key area for them as unlike the BBC they can put ads all over web TV viewing. Crozier has put on record this is an area for growth and that they are “subscale given the size of the online video market”. He has backed this with a £75m investment over three years in online. So look out for more promotion of ITV Player and the probable introduction of pay per view micropayments.
So all very nice for ITV but what does this mean for the viewer? Well hopefully it should be good news. If ITV looking to boost its online presence and international presence can only do that by generating good content and by that I mean quality programming. I hope that ITV’s new management team will recognise that to grow it has to make more shows that people want to watch. A turnaround in fortune gives it a real chance to create the programming that it built a worldwide reputation for and be grow it profits at the same time.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Digital Tourists
We may have limped out of the World Cup, but like most of the £100k a week so called players, many of us will now be looking forward to our holidays. We are lucky in this part of the UK to be so close to some fantastic places to stay, visit and enjoy. Tourism is vital to the East Anglian economy, for example in Great Yarmouth the local council estimates the value to its economy to be £480m and it sustains 30% of the local workforce.
So while the sun lasts I thought it would be interesting to see how some local tourist attractions and businesses are using new digital marketing techniques to grow their own businesses.
A good example of this is Centre Parcs, which has its Elevedon Forest Village destination at Thetford, and now uses the internet as a fundamental tool to grow its visitor numbers. Centre Parcs uses a range of digital marketing techniques to attract both new and returning visitors. As well as Google PPC and an ongoing programme of search optimisation, Centre Parcs now use innovative digital display advertising to drive people to its website. Interestingly these ads are not just placed on the major portals but also on more targeted sites such as Mumsnet.
They also have an extensive email CRM program which starts from 16 weeks before your visit to welcome you and encourage you to book activities. This forms part of an ongoing communication both before the holiday, giving information about your stay, and after the holiday, with newsletters and offers encouraging you to come back again. According to Jo Button, Centre Parcs e-commerce marketing manager, 4 years ago 30% of all bookings were done via its website, this has now grown to around 70% showing the effectiveness of what they have been doing.
Another local holiday village company, Richardon’s, have also seen the benefit of increasing its online activity. They worked with Norwich based search marketing agency Further who re-designed its site and concentrated on improving its search rankings. This has seen 75% of all visitors now come from search engines and a strong growth in bookings.
An example of an attraction using digital marketing effectively comes in the form of the BeWILDerwood adventure park which links with tourism websites including Visit Norwich, Visit Norfolk and Visit East of England as well as national family and days out sites. Jo Artherton from BeWILDerwood said “We consider online activity a really important part of our marketing strategy and referrals from these sites alone account for a substantial 21% of the traffic coming to our website”.
It is clear that our local tourist industry is becoming more digitally focussed and indeed now more reliant on digital marketing techniques as tools to grow business and visitors. So much so that this years EDP Norfolk Tourism Awards will for the first time include a new category “Most effective use of online marketing”.
It is great to see an industry so important to the East Anglian economy embrace and indeed benefit from a well thought out and well implemented game plan. Shame our footballers could not have learnt some lessons from them.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant
So while the sun lasts I thought it would be interesting to see how some local tourist attractions and businesses are using new digital marketing techniques to grow their own businesses.
A good example of this is Centre Parcs, which has its Elevedon Forest Village destination at Thetford, and now uses the internet as a fundamental tool to grow its visitor numbers. Centre Parcs uses a range of digital marketing techniques to attract both new and returning visitors. As well as Google PPC and an ongoing programme of search optimisation, Centre Parcs now use innovative digital display advertising to drive people to its website. Interestingly these ads are not just placed on the major portals but also on more targeted sites such as Mumsnet.
They also have an extensive email CRM program which starts from 16 weeks before your visit to welcome you and encourage you to book activities. This forms part of an ongoing communication both before the holiday, giving information about your stay, and after the holiday, with newsletters and offers encouraging you to come back again. According to Jo Button, Centre Parcs e-commerce marketing manager, 4 years ago 30% of all bookings were done via its website, this has now grown to around 70% showing the effectiveness of what they have been doing.
Another local holiday village company, Richardon’s, have also seen the benefit of increasing its online activity. They worked with Norwich based search marketing agency Further who re-designed its site and concentrated on improving its search rankings. This has seen 75% of all visitors now come from search engines and a strong growth in bookings.
An example of an attraction using digital marketing effectively comes in the form of the BeWILDerwood adventure park which links with tourism websites including Visit Norwich, Visit Norfolk and Visit East of England as well as national family and days out sites. Jo Artherton from BeWILDerwood said “We consider online activity a really important part of our marketing strategy and referrals from these sites alone account for a substantial 21% of the traffic coming to our website”.
It is clear that our local tourist industry is becoming more digitally focussed and indeed now more reliant on digital marketing techniques as tools to grow business and visitors. So much so that this years EDP Norfolk Tourism Awards will for the first time include a new category “Most effective use of online marketing”.
It is great to see an industry so important to the East Anglian economy embrace and indeed benefit from a well thought out and well implemented game plan. Shame our footballers could not have learnt some lessons from them.
Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant
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