August 06 Newsletter

  E-Commerce Club Update

As mentioned last month, we will be launching our new e-commerce club in October - an exciting new concept that we hope will bring like minded businesses across the region together, to discuss each others experience and knowledge of e-commerce.

As more and more businesses are turning to selling online, many operating exclusively through their website, we feel the club will act as a great platform for people to share experiences and resolutions to grow their own business.
With guest speakers each month and an open discussion forum facilitated by experts in their field, Studio 2 are offering an opportunity to sign up as a member and benefit from the wealth of experience and expertise in the broad spectrum of e-commerce businesses operating in the East Midlands area.

Some of the topics being covered include:

These events are members only and places are strictly limited. To register your interest please call Mechelle Harcourt on 0116 2425811.

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Case Study: Whitehouse Construction

Whitehouse Construction is a £15 million a year turnover company based in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. They approached us to create a new coporate website, impressed with a previous project we had created for one of their competitiors. Their brief was to design the new site to be visually very appealing, with a particularly striking homepage. Whitehouse were keen that the site depicted a clean look with none of the traditional construction images of holes, diggers and 'messy' construction images.

"We found the team at Studio 2 helpful and professional – the look that we had in our minds, they were able to transpose onto the web’" Steve Mckeown, Managing Director

www.whitehouseconstruction.co.uk

----- TIME OUT ----- The Google Maps Flight Sim

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This month we are pleased to announce a new member has been added to the Studio 2 Online team!

Mechelle Harcourt joins us as our new Marketing Assistant, and will be in charge of future events, marketing and PR for Studio 2.

"I am very pleased to join the Studio 2 0nline team, and see their commitment to service and investment in their staff and local community as an opportunity to be a part of something innovative and exciting."

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  New Free Seminars

Due to the success of June's free technology workshop, held at The Marriott Hotel, we are pleased to announce we shall be running the event again on 18th October, for those that missed out the first time. This will be held once more at the new Marriott Hotel.

This will cover the same topics as before, again with our partners RDC Communications and Aurora Technologies.

Previous to this event, we will also be running a brand new seminar, in assocation with ABC Training on an important topic – "How to generate more sales for your business".

  Christmas e-cards

Seeing as we've had such a short and generally cold summer, we didn’t think there would be any harm in mentioning Christmas e-cards so soon!

A great cost effective way of sending out branded cards, our own Christmas card e-game by the end of the festive period had a high score table of over 5000 entries!

It's a great way of bringing your past and present customers back to your brand.

Studio 2 '03 e-game	Unbranded '03 e-game
Studio 2 '04 e-game	Studio 2 '05 e-game

Typical Cost of Postal Campaign 2,000 custom design and printed cards - £750 Time to label 2,000 cards - £450 2,000 2nd class stamps - £460 Minimum cost = £1,660 With the recent changes in how Royal Mail's pricing structure works, the size of your card will now also have an effect on your costings. With our campaigns starting from just £475, just think of the savings!

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  Update on new CRM Project Module

Studio 2 have always felt that it was their commitment to their clients that made them stand out from the crowd.

With the knowledge that poor communication and project updates is a frequent complaint during IT projects, Studio 2 have always endeavoured to ensure this is an area in which we don't make the same mistakes as many other agencies. To improve our service still further we are investing in a bespoke project management module, complete with client portal. Not only will this increase the efficiency of the Studio but it will allow clients 24 hour access to their project information, including schedules, key milestones, deadlines for anything they need to provide and the current progress of their project with predicted launch dates.

This should be installed in September with the client portal becoming live shortly after.

----- TIME OUT ----- Websites as Graphs

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Industry News – What is Web 2.0?

A name banded about these days in the web circles is the term 'web 2.0'. But what is it? The name hints at an improved version of the World Wide Web, and this is partly true. What’s starting to change is the websites work. Sites are becoming less and less 'static' as new sites let people collaborate and share information online in a new way – e.g wikis, blogs and bittorrents. To find out more about how web 2.0 is slowly growing, and how you could be benefiting from it take a look at this excellent article by O'Reilly Media – the creator of this new buzzword.

Read the full article here »

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Case Study: RDC Communications

RDC Communications deliver high quality, cost-effective voice and data communications. Based in Leicester, RDC are the only Siemens Accredited Partner in the Midlands. Studio 2's solution is a slick and graphically rich site, complete with updateable product pages and a customer login area for users to download catalogues and brochures.

www.rdccom.co.uk

  Upcoming Exhibitions – come visit us!

We will be exhibiting at the Northants Business Showcase on Tuesday the 12th September. This promises to be a showcase of companies, exhibiting a wide range of diverse products and services.
Entrance is free, and is on throughout the day 10.00am to 7.00pm.

B2B Midlands, taking place at the Ricoh Arena on 10th - 11th October, is part of B2B Portfolio broad-based business events designed for owners, directors and entrepreneurs running small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with between 5-250 employees.

The format of these event offers access to ideas, information and inspiration to help business growth all under one roof, allowing time-poor companies everything their business may need within a one-two hour travelling time.