With an estimated value of £17.8 billion, online sales accounted for 6.7% of retail sales in the UK in 2009 (Mintel 2010). Today, as online shopping is evolving, retailers that have expanded or completely moved online are seeing a healthy growth in their revenue. With market leaders such as M&S and Next increasing their margins through their multichannel strategy and visible online presence, it is safe to say that e-commerce is become a  key revenue driver for brands. As online sales figures continue to grow, fashion brands really need to focus on their digital marketing strategy and realise that  if they don't, they will lose money! Read the rest of this entry...

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I firmly believe that we will look back at Christmas 2010 as the moment mobile went from a really interesting topic to a serious tactic within all retailers' marketing mix, and what better way to assist retailers in the build up to Christmas than to put together a mobile wish list. Now what a present that is! Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration but below are my top 10 tips and considerations for mobile: 1. Don't think for too long! Mobile is still heavily in the planning stage and everyone seems to be talking about theories rather than proven conclusions. This has lead to many retailers waiting to see what happens with mobile before taking the plunge themselves. Read the rest of this entry...

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Outrage and then heated debate reverberated around Propellernet Towers yesterday when our daily news scanning found a story in the Metro generated by A&M University in Texas, about the University’s research on the effectiveness of brainstorms. The story claims that people get their best ideas when sitting quietly on their own and that brainstorms are counter productive. What rot! As Creative Director at Propellernet, reading the story fair made my blood boil and I felt compelled to answer these broad brush and ill considered claims! Brainstorming with a team is one of the most valuable methods we use to come up with the fresh and exciting ideas we do for clients and if they are prepared for, facilitated properly and focused, deliver creative yet realistic and achievable results. I absolutely accept that people’s brains are wired differently. Some of the team here are ‘creative perculators’ going away from a brainstorm still brimming with ideas and developing...

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This week saw myself and Stu Bowker presenting on behalf of Propellernet at the MDHub 100 SEO & Google tools seminar, at the Sussex County Cricket ground. Our presentation gave a basic overview of SEO, exploring some link building tactics and the role good online PR can play. We also touched upon the power of conversion optimisation and detailed lots of free tools available to get you started. One of the key themes that came out of the session was that Google wants to provide the most relevant search results to users, offering the best user experience possible, encouraging searchers to come back time and time again. So how does Google decide who gets the top spot and ensure results stay relevant...? Well Google's search algorithm looks at a host of factors, but particularly important ones include good and relevant on page content mentioning the keywords you are targeting, as well as relevant and authoritative external links to that content. Read the rest of this entry...

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Let’s face it, we all love Christmas. It’s a great time of year where we reflect on the year just gone, eat mince pies, watch the Queen’s speech, listen to The Pogues on the wireless (oops DAB Digital Radio) and laugh at Grandad as he drops his false teeth in the dog’s food bowl and farts as he bends over to pick them up. However, the build up to this festive event (Christmas, not Grandad’s farting), is a frenzy of activity for retailers as they fight for customers both on and off the high street. Christmas shopping online is becoming a growing trend. I for one plan on buying most of my presents online from the comfort of my own warm home, away from the crazed masses on the wet and blustery high street. But with so much choice online, how am I supposed to choose one e-tailer over another? Here’s a few tips to help online retailers stand out from the crowd and get those all important extra sales. Read the rest of this entry...

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It's a myth that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is ridiculously difficult and for the professionals only. Anyone who can build a website has the ability to implement basic SEO recommendations to make sure their site is optimised for both the search engines, as well as for site visitors from a usability point of view. Below are 10 recommendations which should be given some thought when building a website; however it's surprising how many of these basic recommendations are ignored despite many of them simply being best practice for making a website as user-friendly as possible. 1)    Title tags and meta descriptions Every page on the site should have its own unique title tag set which accurately describe the page's content using the most relevant keywords (ideally those that you want the page to rank for). The meta description tag also gives you the chance to write a longer summary, and while search engine ranking algorithms pay little attention to this, it is still shown...

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Whether it's PPC marketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing or natural search driving traffic to your website, your landing page is critical to the campaign performance - and it's your big opportunity to engage with a potential customer. So why do so many sites get it so wrong, and what are the most important things to remember? What's wrong with my landing page you ask? Well firstly, you have to realise everyone uses the internet differently - so don't try to pigeon hole all users in the same place.  Some users scan a whole page within a few seconds of landing on a site, while others focus on a block of text and read carefully - it all depends on the visitor. With this in mind there are 6 things worth considering to ensure your landing page is optimised to its full potential: Read the rest of this entry...

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Five ways to influence the minds of your potential customers - with web copy. Ok, so you've got a super-slick design for your website and your marketing campaigns are sending a nice number of potential customers to browse its attractive pages - but what happens once they've arrived? Just like a sales person in a shop can employ verbal sales techniques to convince someone to whip out their credit card, the words on your site (or web copy) can act in the same way, all year round - and you don't have to pay them a salary! Apart from applying some basic principles, such as good grammar (!), interesting and informative content and the inclusion of keywords, there are five clever, mind-bending tricks you can employ to tap into the minds of your potential customers and influence what they do on your site. Read the rest of this entry...

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