INDUSTRY TALK  From time to time, our clients will decide to take their entire digital marketing strategy, or perhaps certain activities, in-house. As an agency we have no problem with this. We accept that relationships built on transparency and trust will inevitably see some clients learn enough from our team, and develop the confidence, to eventually feel they can take things forward without the use of an agency. Where this is the case, we like to help clients on their way by ensuring they fully understand the range of required skills, technology and resource to manage their online strategy to maximum effect. We do this by working with them to assess their capability and capacity through a series of questions, often with a workshop tagged on for good measure. Read on

WEB  Just before Christmas I had the honour of being best man to one of my life long friends. Of course with that honour came an equal measure of paralysing fear as I considered how I would deliver a best mans speech to remember; fear that was compounded further by an earlier showing as best man a few years ago where I still to this day cringe at just how much I fluffed it. Read on

INDUSTRY TALK  I'd like to start by wishing everyone a very Happy New Year! And what a start to the year it has been. Wherever I turn recently I am being bombarded with news that many of the UK's largest retailers enjoyed a roaring, and in some cases, record Christmas trade. The likes of Next, John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Gap and House of Fraser are just some of those reporting some mind boggling trading figures. Whoop whoop and high fives all round because after a year of doom and gloom it is both a joy and relief to hear such marvellous success stories. And the even better news, especially if you work in digital, is that the Internet played a defining role for most of these businesses. Read on

WEB  I explained in a recent post that just three simple words should be at the heart of your online marketing strategy; acquisition, conversion and retention. Focusing on these three key stages of the customer lifecycle ensures your attention (misplaced obsession for some) moves well beyond that number one ranking on Google to instead building a much more holistic understanding of your prospects, what it takes to turn them into customers (conversion) and vitally how to keep them (retention). My theme of threes continues with this follow up post. I'll explain why, beginning with a bit of background: Read on

WEB  I dont know if you saw it but there was a great episode of Property Snakes and Ladders on Channel 4 a couple of weeks ago, which saw Sarah Beeny working with a couple who seemed determined to ignore all her good advice and do things the hard way. They made one mistake after another and only at the last minute did they do a U-turn and finally follow Sarah Benny's advice to turn their property into a number of flats as opposed to the swanky LA pad they had in mind (next to a derelict tube station in a somewhat run down area of Rotherhithe, East London!). Unfortunately this U-turn came far too late in the day and the couple looked set to lose almost half a million pounds on the project. Eeek!! Read on

WEB  At the turn of the year I wrote a post predicting that the impending recession would see many of the aptly named 'snake-oil SEO salesman' go out of business as buyers become more aware of what is required to succeed in search engine marketing and in particular, demand that companies have both the ability and track record in delivering ROI. Unfortunately, the reports I am hearing suggest that this is not the case. If anything even more companies and individuals appear to be popping up offering 'guaranteed top search engine rankings' and 'top website ranks'. I said back at the turn of the year and I repeat it again now; sometimes I just want to find these people and wring their necks. They prey on the naivety of what remains a relatively uninformed audience, they rarely deliver, don't even pay up on their 'guarantees' when they don't deliver (due to their cleverly written contracts), devalue the better agencies and ultimately inflict great damage on the reputation of the search industry. Read on