EquatorLive. WeBlog, therefore we are.

Isn’t everyone always fighting that ferocious ROI monster? At Equator we know the importance of making every marketing pound work to deliver the best possible ROI. However we also know that involving every piece of the marketing puzzle is important for a strategic sales and branding drive. Like Spring’s blossoming blooms we hope the following misconceptions around media buying will open you to the possibilities this channel can generate for your business.

1. A small budget won’t buy enough exposure. FALSE! You don’t need a Coca Cola budget to effectively market your brand with display advertising. Even a conservative budget, when applied to properly chosen placements (and with good negotiation!), will deliver what you’re looking for, exposure, leads or sales.

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Posted on April 29th, 2010 in We're talking about with no comments

In recent months, the question of social media marketing keeps coming up. So much so that I’m tempted to say that social media is the new viral. I say this not to suggest that it’s a waste of time or a flash in the pan; just that we all need to be careful about what we really want to do with this medium. Rather than jumping in because everyone else is.

The social media space is absolutely huge online. There are statistics upon statistics that prove this (Facebook’s population famously overtook that of the USA at 350million active users) but the fact is that it’s easy to underestimate the reach of these sites. After all they don’t look that big.

So in a generous move, to help us avoid mis-using the opportunity these environments offer, I’ve put together what I think are the top 10 Social Media Marketing opportunities. Here goes…

1. Better brand engagement – By simply making sure you have a basic presence in appropriate social environments, you are inviting people to actively engage with your brand. Last month the Harvard Business Review did a quick experiment to discover whether simply having a presence on Facebook increases emotional connection with a brand by setting up a page for a local coffee shop. It turned out that Facebook did indeed change customer behaviour for the better. Facebook fans generated more positive word of mouth, they visited the outlet 20% more often, they gave the store the highest share of their dining out dollars and were most likely to recommend the shop to friends.

The lesson here is to make sure you have a presence, tell your loyal customers about it and make sure you have the resource to keep your content up to date and relevant.

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Posted on April 29th, 2010 in We're talking about with 1 comment

Last month, we told you about the top 10 mistakes you can make in Search Engine Optimisation. Thanks to the power of analytics, we learned that you enjoyed that article lots.

So, to ensure we keep delivering you what you want (and deliver more readers for us); we’re pleased to bring you our Top 10 PPC mistakes. Don’t say we’re not good to you… this is free advice. Your home is not at risk if you do not keep up to date with this knowledge but your paid search profitability may well be…

We’ve tried to keep these points as simple as possible. However, if any of this hurts your head and you’ve got a PPC campaign, why not give us a call? We’ve got an excellent team of Paid Search experts at your disposal that can help with bringing solid ROI to your PPC. PDQ.

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Posted on March 10th, 2010 in We're talking about with 1 comment

At Equator, we’ve been managing Search Engine Optimisation campaigns now for over 10 years.

In that time, we have seen many things change. “Back in the day”, there was no such thing as Google Analytics. Google itself had a rather more simplistic view of sites; people still used FRAMEs in their site and, well the world was a lot simpler – even if to the average person SEO didn’t seem that way. Fast forward to 2009 and everything is a lot more complex, Google has smartened up and everyone knows that SEO is one of the most important channels in the online mix.

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Posted on December 1st, 2009 in We're talking about with 1 comment

Are merchants missing out by opting out of the increasingly popular cashback sites?

In the current economic climate, consumers are so much more price sensitive and in becoming so are increasingly looking for a bargain, and why not if they are there to be had? With this change in consumer buying behaviour cashback sites (which have in fact been around for years) have seen an upsurge in popularity, however we are seeing an increasing number of merchants throughout the affiliate community choosing not to work with them.

So why is this? We are all aware of how cashback sites operate, merchants are promoted by the cashback affiliate in the usual way, but where the affiliate would normally keep the commission paid by the merchant for any completed sales, the affiliate gives some or all of the commission to its members. So far so good, merchants see an increase in sales and consumers effectively receive some money in their pockets.

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Posted on December 1st, 2009 in We're talking about with no comments

Quite a long time ago, a chap called Marshall McLuhan said a couple of very clever things. He was born in the early twentieth century and, I guess, by the sixties, he’d grasped the big changes that we’re feeling the culmination of today.

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Posted on September 15th, 2009 in We're talking about with no comments

Roll back to around 2004 and Microsoft ruled the roost on pretty much everything to do with computers. They had the most successful operating system, internet browser, office suite, development suite and so on. Bill Gates, their creator and CEO was the world’s richest man by some margin and every major government body was squeezing them over what seemed to be an unstoppable monopoly. But they needn’t have bothered.

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Posted on September 15th, 2009 in We're talking about with no comments

All too often the decision to implement a Content Management System (CMS) for a website comes down to the question “How much extra does it cost?” rather than “What benefits will it bring to my business?”  Focusing on cost is always understandable when making an investment in a website, but understanding the real cost of not implementing a CMS at the start of a new project must also be given full consideration.  Here are some of the common questions we at Equator are asked by clients regarding whether or not to go with a CMS.

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Posted on September 15th, 2009 in We're talking about with no comments

Behavioural targeting (BT) has got a bad rap.  Plain and simple, we’ve got this advertising method that can give extraordinary value by targeting people with behaviours that we like and we’re ashamed if we’re using it.  To understand why advertisers employing behavioural targeting are being shamed we must address how BT works.

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Posted on September 15th, 2009 in We're talking about with no comments

In the last sixteen years I’ve worked across the entire agency spectrum with agencies who described themselves as above the line, below the line, through the line, integrated (no line!) and now of course,  online. What’s been interesting is that consistently during that time the wider industry conversation about approaching the development of strategic thinking for a brand or campaign has been about ‘Big Ideas’, ‘media neutral’, ‘customer centric’, ‘integrated’ thinking. However, it has been my experience that despite all ideas being good ideas, and the noticeable demise of TV spend in marketing campaigns, still the big brand, core campaign ideas tend to emanate from an ATL agency initially.

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Posted on September 15th, 2009 in We're talking about with no comments