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Sustaining B2B Reach And Engagement Over The Longer Term

“How soon do we get to see some positive results?” – the ultimate question that all site owners will anxiously ask whenever investment into an upgraded online marketing campaign is being discussed.

At a time when B2B brands might be finding that their traditional sales cycles are stretching out, the need to more accurately target and cultivate lead relationships over longer periods of time becomes increasingly acute.

Investigating a company’s dissatisfaction with their current marketing strategies can uncover some pretty basic reasons…
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Tweeting In A Meeting Could Be Social Self Defeating!

“It’s finding the time, isn’t it?” tends to be the usual response from SMEs under pressure to get through their busy daily schedules by fitting in emails, tweets and updates where they can, i.e. on the way in to work, inbetween meetings, during meetings…

As more companies take to social media messaging, dashing off a quick tweet might not be wise…
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Social Media Connects And Cultivates – Cold Calling Intrudes And Irritates.

New research has found that more than half of eCommerce marketing professionals claim that social media is now more effective than cold calling for customer engagement.

There’s no doubt that online marketing strategies have become the predominant way to develop business traffic, along with the use of social networks for direct audience engagement and CRM.

That still leaves around 4 in 10 business owners who, presumably, are yet to be convinced…
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Avoiding The Drop In Google Ranking By Thanking Your Lucky Content!

We may be living in a search and social media networking age but many eCommerce siteowners are still concerned over Google page ranking as a chief source of their customer traffic.

It’s perfectly understandable for those SMEs reliant on SEO keyword, link building campaigns.

But today, we also inhabit a Panda Penguin controlled internet where Page ranks seesaw as Google gains a better picture…
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b2b

Personalised B2B Is Vital To Social Media Marketing Strategies

Helping B2B to grow their social media wings to fly with the changing jet stream of online behaviours and marketing strategies tends to be a recurring theme.

At the start of 2013, some estimates suggested that still around 4 in 10 of eCommerce B2B under-used the social networks and a quarter were baffled or unsure of how to integrate and operate an effective search and social approach.

With email marketing especially, much confusion focused on getting personalisation right while still wearing their professional business hat!
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content

If Content Is The Catalyst, Engagement Is The Activist!

The hunger for content – the need for big data – engage or die! Businesses have been getting these ‘right on the money’ online marketing messages – but how or are they acting upon them?

It’s not unusual for site owners to dismiss much of what they hear or read about social media as the latest ‘internet’ fad. Or if they do “find a moment” to catch up and post the odd item on a blog, the quality leaves a lot to be desired.

It can be assumed that a post is unlikely be read or there’s always the temptation to revert to the ‘generic’ or use sales jargon to just fill a blank space because they can’t think of anything to say…
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user_experience

Buying Into The User Experience Comes Before Buying!

Three quarters of businesses “believe user experience is key for improving sales”, according to the latest EConsultancy survey roundup. Elsewhere in the report, nearly 40 per cent say they plan to increase their digital marketing budgets in 2013.

But how truly reflective of current thinking among SMEs, eCommerce and other online businesses are ’on the spot’ replies when one only has to check out their websites and social media presence to see a more depressing truth?

Even within the survey itself, a lack of conviction in the benefits of improving user experience becomes apparent…
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brand

Selling The Big Issue Of Trust Is A Brand Identity Must!

Trust and credibility is the big issue, online – as it is in the world, offline. It’s the reason why word of mouth marketing underpins today’s increasingly search and social internet.

Of course you will trust the advice and recommendation of family and friends over brand ad and promo advertising.

Yet new research shows that consumer trust in top brand websites and search results are still as important as social media networking in overall online marketing results.

It’s not hard to guess why…
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social

Study Reveals Surprising Hits And Myths Of Social Media Networking

The effectiveness of social media content and networking engagement in a company’s business development plan is always likely to be open to cynical debate.

Everyone has their own viewpoint and likely to carry a few cherished myths about who uses which channel and what’s being shared. We’re all used to hearing the one about Twitter users – that’s 500 million of them – just login to let everybody know they’re eating a cheese sandwich – or worse!

New internet research reveals evidence, which flies in the face of some long held beliefs…
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B2B

Will Changes At LinkedIn Make B2B More Search And Social?

LinkedIn gets more search and social! The networking site for business professionals, launched in May 2003, has recently updated its search functions and algorithm capability, aimed at providing a more relevant search experience.

The update is also intended to encourage those signed up to LinkedIn to broaden their search interests beyond say, job recruitment and checking out profiles of those they already know or “putting on file” those people they meet but unlikely to contact anytime soon!

Will the changes work? Will subscribers surprise themselves and find the people and content they seek?
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target

Attribution, Content And Engagement – A Real Social Policy Of Customer Conversion

Who is your audience? What are they interested in and what are they looking for?

Is your brand, website and social media presence ‘doing the business’ for them – for you, for Google…?

Yep – the big questions that only get bigger on today’s search and social, multichannel internet.

With the focus firmly trained on providing a ‘quality customer experience’ just to attract eyeballs and sufficient trust before any engagement is likely to take place, ‘knowing thy audience’ is all about attribution – or getting the bigger picture.
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panda

Avoiding Google’s Daily Panda Patrol Ranking Penalties

News that Google plan to send Panda out on a constant rolling refresh instead of on major periodic assaults is obviously aimed at sending a clear message to site owners.

By integrating Panda into the search engine’s daily algorithms to act as poor quality content police, the aim is to do constant battle with spammers.

What can SMEs do to keep their online marketing strategies ethical and ensure they will not suffer daily fluctuations in ranking, now likely to increase as Panda gets to visit daily to chew content over?
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