Northampton Archives - Evolve Marketing agency, Northampton & Milton Keynes

Happy New Year

January 2, 2019 By Sharon French

Happy new year to you. The team at Evolve Marketing hope that 2019 is a fantastic year for you and your organisation!

We are looking foward to continuing to help local service and manufacturing organisations across Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire attract new business and keep their brand and communications fresh and up-to-date. Managing Director, Dr Mark French says: ‘As we go into our 13th year of trading as a Google partner and RAR listed agency we are excited by developments in digital and email marketing that allow businesses the opportunity to maximise their return on their marketing investment.’

If you would like to see how Evolve Marketing can help your business in 2019 call us today on 01327 810003.

RAR Accredited Again!

August 3, 2018 By Mark

We are delighted to announce that we have once again retained our place on The Drum’s RAR’s Recommended Agency Register. Our inclusion demonstrates our ongoing commitment to customer excellence as well as our marketing expertise at a both a strategic and tactical level in the B2B professional services arena.

Evolve Marketing has been highly rated by our clients for our services in the following areas: B2B Brand Strategy, Website Development, Copywriting and Social Media Content

To find our more about our expert marketing services and how we can help your organisation please call us on 01327 810003.

Thinking about a Brand Refresh?

April 5, 2018 By Sharon French

Spring is often a popular time for organisations to consider a brand refresh so their offering looks up-to-date and professional. After all a well-branded business not only attracts more prospects with less effort but also helps fuel self-confidence.

While a brand refresh can really be the equivalent of giving your company a fresh lick of paint, for example a new set of branded images or new corporate brochure. It can also provide a useful opportunity to look at the key elements that make up the foundation of your brand. So, check out our handy pointers below to make the most of your next brand refresh.

Brand Refresh Pointers…

So, to ensure that your efforts remain effective and relevant, we suggest as part of your brand refresh you also take time to look at the following:

Assess your competitors. Are there new players in the market? Have your existing competitors evolved their offering? And importantly when your company or service is not chosen, who or what is and why is it perceived a better choice?
Revisit your target market. Have their needs changed and are you still offering them what they need? Have new customer segments emerged?
What’s your story? Are your differentiators positioned, verbally and visually, in a compelling way? Do all your internal stakeholders know how to represent the brand? Is this positioning enforced and reinforced?
Brand touchpoint review. Does your brand cascade consistently through every stakeholder touchpoint? Is it consistent with your core brand identity?
Marketing channels. Are the channels you use to deliver your brand messages still relevant? Are you where your prospects are?

In conclusion…

If you are considering a brand refresh, talk to the brand refresh experts we can help with all your brand requirements. Call us on 01327 810003 or online via contact us page

Overview of Organic vs Paid and Search vs Display

November 17, 2017 By Sharon French

A brief overview of the main ways your website could be found online.

1. Organic – not paying to be found online

If you want your website to be found organically you need keywords that match what people are looking for. When Google decides whether to include your website in the search results, it does so using its ever-changing algorithm which looks at 200 odd ranking factors (website load time, domain authority, number of links etc).

Content marketing and optimising your website (or SEO) can help you to be found in the relevant organic search results. Generating website traffic organically should be a cornerstone of any marketing plan, assuming your website is up to the job of nurturing and encouraging action.

Other ways that your website could be found that aren’t considered paid include via links from social media content or from third-party referral.

2. Paying to be found – search vs display

If you are paying to be found there are two places where this online advertising can happen:

2.1 In the search network.

This is where you pay for your advert (via an auction) to appear when people are actively looking for goods / services / information. The auction has 2 elements: your bid price and the quality score your advert is given (i.e. how good a match it is for a particular search query). These combine to determine your as rank which dictates where on the page your ad is placed and how many ‘impressions’ it gets – you don’t pay for impressions only clicks i.e. when somebody clicks on your advert.

For example, a search network like Google or Bing would allow a wealth management company to serve an ad that targets people searching for “wealth management firms London”. Some search terms can be very competitive with high bid prices, in these cases looking at long tail search phrases that have fewer monthly impressions may worthwhile as they may generate a better ROI.

2.2 In the display network.

The Google display network allows you to use targeting to show your ads by auction in particular contexts (like “outdoor lifestyles” or “ft.com”), to particular audiences (like “young mums” or “people shopping for a new yacht”) in particular locations.

This network is more passive in the sense that people are casually browsing websites where your ad is served i.e. it’s not as targeted as the search network.

However, it is generally a cheaper than the search network. There are however many more targeting options (by context, by website, by topic, by interest and by remarketing) and a variety of formats (including text, animated image, rich media and video ads) and sizes.

Then there is also paid on social networks which are probably better at targeting as their users are more ‘known’ to them. Different social media platforms have a plethora of advertising options available.

Lastly, remarketing is worth a special mention, it’s sometimes called retargeting or stalker advertising. It deposits a cookie on the computers of the visitors to pages on your website. Google will then display ads specifically to those people whenever they visit sites on the Google Display Network. Again, you only pay for click through and as people don’t tend to click on these ads – this makes it a very cost-effective brand awareness tool, much like a billboard.

You also can upload a customer email list and then target customers or similar target audiences via Google Search, YouTube, TrueView and native ads in Gmail. Do note that no purchased email lists are allowed.

If you would like to discuss digital advertising, remarketing or content marketing please call us on 01327 810003 or get in touch via the contact form.

How quickly does your mobile site load?

March 1, 2017 By Sharon French

If you don’t know how quickly your mobile site loads then use Test My Site, a free Google tool, to see how you score on mobile friendliness and mobile page speed.

Google research in January 2017 reveals that the average time it takes to load a mobile landing page fully is 22 seconds.¹ However, over half of mobile site visitors (53%) leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.

Speed and Size Matters in Mobile…

In other Google Adwords research last month, they analysed 900,000 mobile ads’ landing pages spanning 126 countries.⁵

They found that 70% of the pages they analysed, took nearly seven seconds for the visual content above the fold to display on a mobile screen, and it took more than 10 seconds to load all visual content fully above and below the fold. Not good at all.

Speed and size are important when it comes to loading mobile pages. So, review your mobile content. Is it bloated? Can it be leaner? An easy win on this front is image size – simply compressing images size can make a big difference in reducing size – see this BBC explanation of compression or for a more comprehensive explanation of image optimisation from Google.

If you would like to discuss any of the elements raised in this article, please do get in touch via our contact form or call 01327 810003.

¹ Google Research, Webpagetest.org, Global, sample of more than 900,000 mWeb sites across Fortune 1000 and Small Medium Businesses. Testing was performed using Chrome and emulating a Nexus 5 device on a globally representative 3G connection. 1.6Mbps download speed, 300ms Round-Trip Time (RTT). Tested on EC2 on m3.medium instances, similar in performance to high-end smartphones, Jan. 2017.
² Google Research, Webpagetest.org, Global, sample of more than 900,000 mWeb sites across Fortune 1000 and Small Medium Businesses. Testing was performed using Chrome and emulating a Nexus 5 device on a globally representative 3G connection. 1.6Mbps download speed, 300ms Round-Trip Time (RTT). Tested on EC2 on m3.medium instances, similar in performance to high-end smartphones, Jan. 2017.

Marketing ideas for restaurants

January 25, 2016 By Sharon French

Regular communication is key to remind patrons of your offering and entice them to choose your restaurant for their next dining experience. Here are some marketing ideas to help boost trade…

Email updates provide a cost effective way to keep in touch and drive bookings to your restaurant. Ideally you should build you own email list through opportunities to sign up in your restaurant or on your website. Regular email updates with interesting, relevant content can boost business. Share news, views, events and offers in a pithy, soft touch way.

Email Automation is a series of personalised automated emails that can be sent to customers at specific times or in response to specific triggers. It can also be a great way to reward loyal customers, for example a discount voucher or free drink on their birthday. Just make sure you ask for their birthday when they sign up.

Social Media is a great way to keep in touch with existing customers and raise awareness of your offering to prospective patrons. However, different customers prefer different social networks. Focus on the platform(s) most relevant to your existing customers and then measure your effectiveness in terms of elements like conversations (replies and comments), applause (likes) and amplification (shares and retweets) rather than metrics like followers.

Your Website is a great place for new customers to find out about you. For new customers, your website will set the tone and determine whether they will choose your venue. In particular, you should provide contact details, directions to your restaurant and a booking form. Regularly update your website with news, events and current menus. Your website also needs to be mobile responsive so that it works as well on a smart-phone as it does on a traditional PC or laptop.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Spending time optimising your website so that it ranks higher in google search results will enable new customers to find you and raise awareness of your restaurant. Free SEO checking tools like Woorank are useful for providing a to do list to improve your SEO whilst the Yoast plugin for WordPress can help optimise your website.

Google Adwords and Remarketing Paying for Google Adwords can promote your business to new customers whilst remarketing, or stalker adverts as they are commonly known, are a cheap, effective way to keep your restaurant front of mind for potential patrons after they have left your website.

Google Maps Ensure your free listing on google maps is up-to-date and reflects your offering. It will ensure that new customers can find you using Google Search and the Google Maps smart-phone app.

TripAdvisor and Google Reviews Love it or loathe it, online reviews are an important tool for new customers to find out about your restaurant. Embrace it and manage it. Set up robust processes to deal with dissatisfied customers, and make improvements from the feedback provided.

If you do not have the expertise or time to spend on these activities please give us a call on 01327 810003 or fill out our contact form and we will be in touch.