Provoke Design

Provoke's Online Marketing Insight, What Would You Like To Know About?

Online Sales Reach Record High in December!

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e-Retail Sales Index figures just released show that UK shoppers spent £5.46 billion online in December – an equivalent of £88.93 for every person in the UK – 17% up on December 2008. No mean feat given the UK’s slow crawl out of recession and proof, if needed, that online is where the action is for future business growth in 2010 and beyond.

Business online is showing the way and the winners are clearly those companies savvy enough to quickly adapt their website design and online marketing to satisfy the demands and real requirements of how their customers want to communicate, engage and be served.
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iPad wants us to love taking our Tablets!

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iPhone’s big brother has arrived! Described as a ‘third category’, squeezing in between smartphone and laptop, its ability to let us watch films, play games and browse the web is another reason why website accessibility is more crucial than ever for business in the browser wars.

Being told that we can now, “hold the whole web in your hands”, by Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, who proclaimed that the touchscreen device, unveiled at an event in San Francisco, “…is the best browsing experience you have ever had”.
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SEO Keywords – Matching Visitor Search!

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You may think that you’ve researched your keyword phrases, but there could be a good reason why visitor word search is still not happening for your site. What is meant and choice of words do not always connect!

Establishing your brand identity is all about awareness, transparency, communication and connection.

Using the right keywords to match the way a user understands the topic, service or product, and chooses the way their question is phrased, is vital to the SERPS ( Search Engine Results Page) process. If a potential customer cannot match their search words to the way your words describe your products/services, then both search engine rankings and potential sales will be affected.
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The Power of great content & news

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“Content is King” is a phrase we are hearing more and more when it comes to online marketing, whilst it might be a cliche is still has the power to turn an average website into a great one!

Prior to Christmas the online dating site beautifulpeople.com was ranked as the 136th most visited dating site in the UK.

With the aid of some clever copywriting and stirring up some controversy they managed to achieve outstanding results. In figures from January so far show them as having been catapulted into the 5th most visited dating site in the UK and jump of 131 places compared to December.
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Website Usability – Visitors Vote On Which Sites Are Easiest !

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Expectations of website experience are rising all the time with the instant click deciding whether a visitor stays and converts to a user or immediately leaves. It’s becoming clear which business sites are succeeding and which are losing out.

A common cause of complaint, voiced by many site visitors, is to respond to an online marketing campaign, say clicking onto a PPC ad, or just wishing to check out a link to a promising blog or landing page from an email marketing newsletter, only to find the website is a nightmare to use!

The message appears to not be getting through to some business sectors that high Google PageRank and increased hits are worthless stats if there is a major issue with website accessibility and site navigation.
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Website Designers – Choosing the Right One !

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There are an endless number of website designers out there now, but choosing the one that really knows how to understand your business and achieve the results you need for sustained growth is based on more than the home page look!

Sure – you want your site visitor to be instantly impressed when they arrive at your home page but remember, a great ‘website experience’ is all about the level of engagement. Today’s website design has to satisfy many different criteria, the most important being firstly, website accessibility followed by easy to follow site navigation and information finding, for both visitor and search engines alike.
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Newsletter Not! – Have You Really Got News For Them?

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It’s your company newsletter time again! Unless you’ve got something really new, interesting or relevant to announce, is there any point sending them?

Ensuring long term company awareness by keeping in contact and maintaining close relationships with your customer database, current and new, is always an important online marketing essential. The strength of social media as a significant networking strategy for business relations has gained increasing importance in the last two years.

Alongside email marketing, sending a regular Newsletter to your opt-in subscribers reminds them of your existence – first in line when needed – and can be used to inform them first of latest offers, special prices and other exclusives.
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Email Voted Marketing Favourite!

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Hundreds of emails in your inbox waiting to be read? It may surprise many of you reading this to learn that a Direct Marketing Association (DMA) tracking study 2009 has revealed that email is the consumers’ favourite direct marketing channel!

In other words, it’s very probable that your regular customers do like to receive your regular email marketing news and latest offers! Over half ( 51 per cent) of those surveyed expressed an interest in receiving marketing emails about companies they know – and a further 38 per cent were happy to receive items of direct mail.
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Are Your Visitors Human or Spam ?

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In the endless battle against spam, ‘CAPTCHAs’’ – computer-generated images asking for visitors to type in copied letters and numbers to prove they’re human – may put potential customers off and prevent conversions!

Sometimes it seems there are just too many obstacles to think about, which lie hidden in wait, and prevent your site visitor from staying engaged long enough to complete a sales transaction! The CAPTCHA device attached to most form filling requests may yet be another one!
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Online Budgets – Better Bangs For Your Buck!

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Faced with a bewildering complex of online ‘must-do’ actions every business owner is told he must take to maintain the competitive edge, where do you make the best spend for effective results?

As business owners wake up to a new decade, they are also forced to open their eyes and put their hands in their pockets! If you’re not continually investing in your online presence then you’re not going to be in business in 2010.

Look at your history of online marketing campaigns. Have they been a little limited to date, mostly involving tired-looking and repetitious email marketing that returns fewer results each time?
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Nexus One Launch Heats Up The Mobile Web!

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From the phenomenon that is the all-conquering Apple iPhone to the Google launch of Nexus One, plus the many other smart phones already here and to follow, it’s safe to say that the mobile internet is poised to overtake laptop and Netbook as the must have, smart way to interact and organise your online life!

In a very short period of time, the availability of increasingly sophisticated internet-enabled handsets, smartphones and 3G networks, means more and more people are accessing websites through their mobiles.
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Online Orders 2009 End Of Year Up by 50% on 2008!

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Year end surveys spotlighting a 50% online trading increase on 2008 clearly demonstrate the unassailable power of eCommerce and the vital importance of ensuring your business website is tuned daily for maximum visitor reception!

Findings show that online sellers in the SME market had put in an impressive performance with many weathering the recession and reporting healthy increases in both order volumes and revenue. Only time will tell if this was mainly attributable to customers trying to benefit from the 15% VAT rate before its return to 17.5% in January.
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