Digital Marketing Blog | Allen Design Group | Design, Digital & Marketing Agency, Yorkshire

Once again we’ve played a pivotal role in supporting the Association of Train Operating Companies with their very successful London attractions 2FOR1 promotion. This summer the promotion is even bigger and better with over 150, London 2FOR1 offers at top attractions, theatres, restaurants, exhibitions, tours and museums.

With a large number of 28pp brochures being printed and distributed throughout rail stations in the south east area, it is sure to encourage additional off-peak travel to London by train plus increase the domestic visitors to many of the popular, and not so popular tourist venues. There is literally something for everyone! The promotion will also be supported by station posters and other line of route initiatives.

Take a look at the website: http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk

Yahoo! and Microsoft have now received regulatory clearance for their search transaction. This is a significant milestone and an exciting first step in their combined effort to help us all reach even more customers with greater ease and efficiency.

So how will the alliance benefit us? The word is that we’ll use a single platform, Microsoft’s adCenter, to manage our campaigns. With just one buy from one sales force, we’ll reach users on Yahoo! and Microsoft sites, as well as other premium partner sites. Yahoo! will deliver new features and innovations to the world’s favourite online destinations, content and web products, used by hundreds of millions of consumers to connect to the people and things that matter to them most. Microsoft will innovate the underlying technologies that drive high quality algorithmic and paid search results. Search ad inventory from both the Yahoo! and Microsoft networks will be joined in a new, unified search marketplace with the aim of giving us access to search volume increases in the UK and French marketplaces, and is predicted to give us up to 40% more search volume on a global basis than on Yahoo! alone.

So what’s ahead? There will be no immediate changes to our Yahoo! Search Marketing accounts. Both companies are committed to making this transition as seamless and beneficial to us as possible they claim. Their aim is a high quality transition for advertisers and partners in at least the U.S. prior to the Christmas 2010 holiday season. When we hear more we’ll let you know.

Having only just launched the latest release of our fantastic email marketing application - email™, we have yet another new account now signed up to use it on an on-going basis for their email marketing activities. Our first task is to help Wakefield College raise awareness for a number of free training courses available through the Train to Gain initiative.

If you’re fed up of using a clumsy email marketing application, paying monthly standing charges and expensive sending costs then get in touch with us to find out how email™ can transform the way you do your email marketing.

We’ve launched the next phase of the Mer Ultimate Car Care website and this time round we’ve added some really engaging features including; an expanded “Knowledge Centre” and “Ask an Expert” facility, an improved “Where to Buy” section that incorporates postcode search and Google Maps, an expanded “News” section that now includes industry news, and a “Newsletter Subscription” facility.

Part of the process also involved updating their pack imagery and included promotion of their two new products – Mer Fast Detailer and the Mer Carpet & Upholstery Cleaner Aerosol.

To encourage brand interaction through the social networks we set up a competition for consumers asking them to sign up to their new Facebook page for a chance to win £150 worth of products. Facebook from a commercial/brand point of view is a fantastic communication and consumer engagement tool. The idea behind creating the page is to build up a loyal following known as “Fans” to whom they can send communications of any type for free. It really is a great communication tool but most of all, their consumers can engage with their brand. It also helps them achieve their objective of targeting a younger consumer audience.

Today we’re super excited to announce a new mobile optimised version of email™ (our innovative email marketing application) that gives you quick access to great looking reports on any campaigns you’ve sent. It’s fast, looks great and is available now. Just head to your account on any popular mobile device like an iPhone or Android and the mobile version will be shown by default. You don’t need to install anything, because it is a web application, not a native phone application.

When deciding what functionality to include in the mobile version, we’ve been keeping a close eye on our customers. It turns out that the most popular section of your account accessed by a mobile device is campaign reporting, so that’s where we focused our efforts. More than 95% of all mobile visitors also come in on an iPod or iPhone variant, so we put a lot of work into making sure the experience was perfect on these devices in particular. It’s a really nice way to get the latest stats on a campaign you’ve sent in a couple of thumb presses.

One great thing about the iPhone is that you can launch web applications just like a traditional app you’ve bought from the App Store. By heading into your account with Safari and adding it to your Home screen, you have a dedicated button that will load your latest reports with a single click. We even provide a nice icon and loading screen for you while the latest stats are downloading.

While the mobile version is all about your campaign reports right now, you can still switch to the full version of email™ and access all the functionality with a single click. At the footer of every page is a link to switch to the corresponding page in the full version of the app. We’ll automatically switch you back to the mobile version the next time you log in.

We’ve got lots of our own ideas on other features that would be handy in the mobile version. With the first release now out of the door, we’d love to hear what else (if anything) you would like to see in future updates. If you don’t currently use email™ and would like to arrange a demo to see how it can transform the way you do your email marketing then please call us on 01226 292921 and ask to speak to a member of the faveoweb™ team. We’d be happy to show you what you’re missing out on!

We’ve been busy trying to set the mood for Valentine’s Day at the Market Place Shopping Centre in Bolton by creating the graphics used for their special dance display on Saturday 13th February 2010 between 9am and 4pm.

Twenty students from the Theatre Dance School at Astley Bridge will be showcasing their talents with a stunning repertoire of contemporary and street dance that will certainly set toes tapping. Whether you’re young or old, blissfully committed or happily fancy free, it promises to be an unforgettable experience!

If you’re a Shopping Centre and want to speak to us about making the most out of your marketing spend then don’t waste any time, give us a call on 01226 292921.

It’s all systems go for our award winning digital team with yet another new account win. We’ve been awarded the work after a rigorous pitching process and are the chosen agency from an initial short-list of 3. The work will include the creation of a 12 month digital strategy that incorporates; website architecture, UI and content planning, copy-writing, website design and build, SEO, and Social Marketing.

Calvis are a specialist IT and management consultancy focused on the professional services sectors, with offices in London and New York. They provide both strategic and technical services depending on the requirement, but above all they provide independent advice based on years of experience. Their long term success has been founded on understanding business process technologies such as document management and workflow and business intelligence. Put simply, they understand how technology can be used to meet business objectives.

The Rivergate Shopping Centre in Irvine, Scotland, has awarded our design team a contract to provide fully integrated design services for at least the next 12 months. The project will include a wide range of both traditional and digital design work across numerous campaigns throughout the year. Our award winning digital team have been tasked with the re-design of their web presence which is to also include; regular maintenance, email, search, and social marketing activities.

Take a look at: http://www.rivergatecentre.com

Our new website has won a Dope Award! Not a bad way to start the year hey? The Dope Awards are a collection of the best flash websites in the world, they are all about finding and awarding websites that are “Dope”, and it seems that the personality and impact that our website has delivered certainly ticked all the right boxes with the judges.

Check out the Dope Awards at: http://www.dopeawards.com

Poor Kirstie! Her raffling expertise from Pink Day 2008 have come back to haunt her on Secret Santa Day 2009 at Allen Design Group! Kirstie somehow organised a raffle that none of us could win, handing out tickets to the people who bought them but then binned the corresponding tickets rather than putting them into the pot for selection! However, don’t fear! For her Secret Santa this year she got a DIY Raffle Kit. Everyone’s a winner!