Studio 2 Online
    February 2008

Happy belated Valentine's Day! I trust those of you suitably attached remembered to mark the day in an appropriate way which did not involve 1. Last minute wilting flowers from the supermarket garage forecourt 2. Blagging it in the morning when you forgot, and then finding the card shop only had 'Happy Valentine to my Mistress / Toyboy' cards left 3. Panic buying of the first perfume / aftershave you saw in Boots only to find it's the one she / he hates, or worst of all 4. Buying an intimate item of clothing which was a size too big!  On the business front markets are still volatile and consumer confidence deflated, but as our Newshound continues to find, online trading is still buoyant. Studio 2 Online remain committed to not only providing our clients with the very best in website design, development and ecommerce propositions, but also enhanced client service. Read on to find out more! - Giles

 Contents
Newshound Nuggets - Online trading still rocks!
Despite ongoing concerns from high street retailers our Newshound continues to find encouraging signs that online trading is going from strength to strength.
21/02/2008 - Metro
We splurge £4.5 billion on the internet
  • Interactive Media In Retail Group announced that online shoppers spent more last month than any previous January.
  • The total of £4.5 billion in January was a 75% increase on last year.
  • Electrical goods and clothing showed the biggest increases.

 19/02/2008 - eMarketer.com

The UK Internet Boom

  • Almost 37 million people (60% of the population) went online in an average month.
  • eMarketer's Senior Analyst said, "Britain has one of the most experienced and active online populations in the world. Confidence in ecommerce is high."
  • Most ebuyers in the UK have generally had satisfactory experiences with online commerce.
  • B2C ecommerce spend in 2007 was £42 billion up 39.1% from 2006.
  • Average spend per online buyer has been increasing steadily. In 2007 it was £1,591 up 30.6% from 2006.
  • 76.3% of internet users are online buyers.

20/02/2008 - eMarketer.com

UK Consumers Want and Trust Online Reviews

  • A December 2007 Jupiter Research and Bazaar Voive survey showed that UK consumers want online product reviews and generally trust them
  • 70% of respondents said product reviews were most helpful, followed by comparison tools (57%) and product images (51%)
  • Trust was at its highest when both positive and negative reviews were shown.
  • Online reviews were five times more influential in getting product quality and performance information than TV advertisements.
     

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SEO Teleconference Success
Studio 2 Online recently held our first teleconference on the subject of Search Engine Optimisation.
 
Feedback from those who dialled in was both positive and complimentary. Lasting an hour the format had Marketing Manager Andy Kinnard as host and facilitator, and our SEO guru's Elaine Clay and Matt Broadley answering questions and providing essential advice and guidance on many aspects of SEO.
 
Participants simply registered and dialled in on the number provided to listen in. The only cost was that of their own telephone call, which for the full 60 minutes equated to only £4.77 inclusive of vat. "Extreamly good value" as one participant put it. "Highly professional", "Very informative" and "It answered so many of my questions about SEO" are a selection of other feedback received.
 
This has encouraged us to plan for another teleconference in the near future, so watch out for further news and information - we would of course be delighted for you to join us.
 

Website of the month
If you have an interest in family history, try this one ....... and it's free!

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Enhancing our client service 

The past six months have been a time of accelerated growth and development for Studio 2 Online. This expansion has enabled us to enhance the service we offer to our clients. In addition to improved benefits such as our online 'Cases' system, more robust servers and a dedicated Project Manager, we are now delighted to announce the appointment of Matt Strickland as a dedicated Client Account Manager.

Matt has already been with us for nearly six months and now takes on the role focussing on providing the consistency of a named contact and dedicated support solely for our existing clients.

This move is part of the ongoing process of improving benefits for our clients and we will be providing information on further developments in due course.


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Client Forum Update

This is a premium date in the Studio 2 Online calendar, so it was with regret that we needed to postpone this event.

An influx of business means the whole Studio 2 Online team are working flat out at what we do best, designing and implementing top quality websites. However, it meant that we felt we could not devote the time needed to ensure the Forum was the quality event that our clients deserve.

Good News! We have now rescheduled this important date for Thursday May 22nd and will be sending personal invitations to all our clients to join us on this new date. If you want to book your place(s) now just ring Andy Kinnard on 0116 249 5314 or email to andrew.kinnard@studio2online.co.uk

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Client Training - March Special Offer

Following on from the details in our January newsletter this is a reminder of the great value for money offer we have on client training in March.

The offer covers all of our training courses with discounts of between 25% and 40%.

Incredible Value!

For SmarterStats / E-marketing the price for 1 person is reduced from £175 to £131.25

For Content Management System the price for 1 person is reduced from £275 to £165

For Online Store Builder the price for 1 person is reduced from £375 to £225

Further reductions are available for additional people attending.

SmarterStats - learn to understand and interpret the wealth of valuable information provided by your website reporting system, including SEO and PPC statistics, essential in making sure you're getting the best value for money from your website.
 
Online Store Builder (OSB) - find out how to make the most of the fantastic business opportunities of being able to use e-commerce as part of your website to drive up profitability. This includes adding and maintaining product details in your online store as well as how to set up special offers and sales.
 
Content Management System (CMS) - learn how to use the incredible flexibility of being able to change, amend or update the content of your website yourself, providing you with real time updates and significant savings on the cost of content management.
 
E-marketing - understand how to obtain repeat business and increase the profitability of your existing clients through the use of email and e-newsletters.
 
The dates in March are:
Content management System - Wednesday 5th March
E-marketing - Wednesday 19th March
SmarterStats - Wednesday 26th March
Online Store Builder - Contact us for further details
 
Places are restricted to 8 for each training session so book your places now to avoid disappointment.
 
Simply ring Andy Kinnard on 0116 249 5314 or email andrew.kinnard@studio2online.co.uk  

 

 Anorak Corner - Techy Update

New uptime server proposition

I'm no techy wizard (I grew out of my anorak years ago!), I leave that to the likes of Gareth, Kevin , Kieran et al, but even I know what ticks off website owners, and one of those is when your website goes down. Well Studio 2 Online have been working hard to make further improvements to our current robust server proposition.
 
Coming soon to a server near you!
 
We will soon be announcing a significant upgraded server proposition that will provide almost 'fail safe' uptime on a website. We say 'almost' because it is impossible to provide 100% guarantee of uptime, but this will come within a gnats whisker of it.
 
A further more detailed announcement will be made just prior to launch.
 
 

 Sacha's Web Tips

I was sniffing around with some friends the other day when one of those 'know it all' characters (a yappy Pekinese as it so happened) let drop what they obviously thought was a pearl of wisdom.

"Did you know it costs up to 8 times more to get business from a new client than from an existing one?"

"Interesting," said I, "but do you know which is the most effective marketing tactic in increasing your profitability from new and existing clients?"

I could tell by the way it decided to start digging up the flower bed that I had posed a question the little yapper didn't know the answer to. I decided to press home my advantage and thought you might like to know as well.

The answer is email marketing, and here's some facts to back up my assertion.

  • Research from the Direct Marketing Association in 2006 and 2007 showed that email marketing generated better ROI than any other direct marketing channel examined.
  • A survey in July 2007 by management consultants McKinsey put email marketing second only to pay per click in terms of marketing efficiency.
  • A survey by B2B Marketing Magazine revealed 87% of marketers considered email marketing critical, important or very important to their B2B marketing strategy.
  • In their July 2007 survey, marketing researchers MarketingSherpa found email marketing to a list of existing clients, customers or enquiries, was voted the single most effective and profitable marketing tactic.  

The bottom line is that if you are ignoring the power of email marketing your competitors are probably not!

Best of both worlds

The beauty of email marketing is that you can target new and existing clients, but importantly you need to use a slightly different approach.

  • Use sales emails with promotions or discounts to acquire new clients.
  • Use regular newsletters to retain existing clients.

So, if your website doesn't currently have email marketing capability, I suggest you do something about it, and quickly.

To make life easy (a dogs life in fact) just ring my mates at Studio 2 Online who are experienced in setting up an effective email marketing system. A call to 0116 249 5314 will do the trick.

After all that good advice, what was rather annoying from my point of view was that the yappy Pekinese ended up finding a rather juicy bone buried in that flower bed. Sometimes, there is no justice in the world! Talk of that juicy bone has got me thinking of food again. Giles! Giles! Where is he when I need him?

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 New Website Launches

A warm welcome to the following as the join the Studio 2 Online family. Once again, these sites reflect how experienced the team at Studio 2 Online are in providing well designed and effective websites for clients from a variety of business sectors. Further examples can be found on our website at http://www.studio2online.co.uk/our-portfolio.php
 
Broad Court Property Management
 
 
One of Birmingham's largest and well established letting agencies with over 300 properties on its books, Broad Court specialise in letting to students and young professionals in the Selly Oak area.
 
 
 
BluSky Marketing
 
 
Established in 2003, BluSky Marketing assists small to medium enterprises to develop and implement cost effective and creative marketing solutions linked to strategic objectives.
 
 
 
Grahame Gardner Schoolwear Shop
 
 
This is the third website Studio 2 Online have recently launched for this well established and highly successful Leicester based clothing designer and manufacturer.
 
 

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  And Finally ........

With all the talk and rumours about Microsoft getting into bed with Yahoo! perhaps it's worth considering what impact such a merger might have. As a salutary lesson you might recall Bill Gates once took a swipe at the US motor industry, and this is a selection from their response:
 
If Microsoft built cars:
  • For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
  • Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
  • Occasionally your car would just die for no reason. To rectify this you would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all the car windows, shut it off, restart it and reopen all the windows before you could continue.
  • Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio aerial.
  • The oil, engine, petrol and battery warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
  • We'd all have to switch to overpriced Microsoft petrol and lubricants, but the packaging would be superb.
  • The air bag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

It's all too frightening to consider!!! Ciao!
 
Studio 2 Online Ltd, The Crescent, King Street, Leicester, LE1 6RX
Tel: 0116 275 8456    Fax: 0116 293 8090      Web: www.studio2online.co.uk

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