e-mail marketing


measurementsMonitoring online performance brings to mind two clichés: ‘never mind the quality, feel the width’ and ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. As even the best statistics are measures of volume, the human tendency – to take the easiest path, by measuring what’s easiest to measure – is to monitor the width. Or in traffic terms, the volume.

That’s not wrong per se – you need to know which web pages are (and aren’t) being looked at, which email newsletters triggered the most clickthroughs – but it’s not the whole story. Like any kind of statistic, online traffic figures require interpretation.

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Given the recent economic turmoil, it’s easy to overlook the success of e-commerce in the UK. A recent Boston Consulting Group report highlighted figures that should give hope to those with e-commerce businesses or ambitions.

Even with broadband not yet nationally universal, the UK is a global e-commerce leader: we have the world’s highest online spend per capita. In 2009, the Internet contributed nearly £100bn – 7.2% of GDP – to the economy, and we have the second largest online advertising spend in the world.

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yourpeoplemarket.comBased in Milton Keynes and founded by a team of recruitment experts, yourpeoplemarket.com is a new fixed fee online recruitment marketplace that connects employers and recruiters. Designed to take advantage of competitive market conditions, their online recruitment marketplace puts employers in control of the recruitment process, posting jobs at a fee they set, engaging with a recruitment community based on performance and complete transparency, and achieving significant cost savings.

As a company that has not only put marketplace transparency at the heart of recruitment – employers can, for example, rate recruiters on a range of criteria based on their own experience of using their services – www.yourpeoplemarket.com has brought a new approach to the online market whereby easy, quick data capture and the effective management of client communications is key to maintaining competitive advantage.

Yourpeoplemarket launch campaign emailIn light of this, yourpeoplemarket.com has adopted the services of Virtual Viewing’s EMMA (Email Marketing Assistant) email campaign and newsletter management system. Indeed, their use of EMMA has been both critical to the success of this young business and sophisticated in the use of some of EMMA’s more advanced features.

After initial consultation, during which we provided analysis and review of the initial yourpeoplemarket.com system build (focusing particularly on usability and functionality), we developed an HTML email newsletter template design that reinforced the website branding, and created an EMMA account.

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From the outset, the world wide web was designed to be a medium for collaboration and interaction: indeed, one of the main triggers for its initial development was to allow scientists to share their information and research with each other online.  This line of thinking has been traced back to a historically significant essay, As We May Think, written in 1945 by Dr Vannevar Bush, the US Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (a copy of this essay is still available online). Having directed the American scientific community to support the wartime effort, he was concerned with the peacetime application of technology to more constructive means: his ideas included a (hypothetical) model for a ‘collective memory machine’. The video clip below shows an animation – itself made in 1995 – that shows how his machine, the ‘memex’, might have looked and worked: it’s hardly as coolly iconic as an iPad, but modern technology has still barely scratched the surface of some of the ideas his essay contained.

We usually accept that widespread take-up and adoption of different technologies can be unpredictable (we’re still using fax machines, for example, but the idea of micro-payments has been explored for at least 20 years with little sign of mass take-up), but the speed – or lack of it – with which we adopt them can still be surprising. Sci-fi writer William Gibson once memorably observed that “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed”, and a look at the invention dates of many everyday items does prove his point (sms messages, 1992; digital camera, 1975; GPS, 1978; credit card, 1950; mobile phone, 1947; microwave oven, 1946; robots, 1921; radio, 1895; battery, 1800).

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As you may have already read on our blog – or on theirs – our long-term clients, Lumbers Jewellers of Leicester, are undertaking an epic adventure to raise money for charity: they’re rowing – yes, rowing – from Lands End to John O’Groats. Or, as their strapline would have it, “1097 miles, 12 oars, 6 men, 3 weeks – and 1 boat!”. Celebrity Row, as the epic journey has been christened, is being undertaken in aid of four richly deserving charities: Rainbows Childrens Hospice, The Princes’ Trust, The RNLI, and The Samantha Dickon Brain Tumour Trust.

As one of the sponsors for this laudable endeavour, Virtual Viewing has been lending a very technological helping hand. We’ve set up a dedicated micro-site (click here to view in a new window), with its own blog (click to view), and its own Twitter feed. Since the crew set off on 29 June, we’ve also been sending out an email newsletter to over a 1,200 people to keep them up to date on their progress, and cross-referencing all this activity in Lumbers’ own email newsletters (compiled and despatched by Virtual Viewing, using our EMMA EMail Marketing Assistant service) and blog (also created and maintained by us).

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Virtual Viewing has always been proud of its long history of ‘giving something back to the community’: even the extensive list on our website can give only a flavour of the degree of our involvement.  We’re equally proud to say that some of our clients are equally committed to the life of their own cities, and to raising welcome funds for deserving charities. Indeed, we’ve been working closely with one such customers, Lumbers Jewellers of Leicester, to help them to raise awareness – as well as funds – for a forthcoming charity event that certainly represents an ‘oarsome’ challenge.

Dominic Gommersall, Lumbers MDStarting on 29 June, a team of rowers – including MD Dominic Gomersall (shown left) and Watch buyer Paul Bassett (shown right below), as well as prominent Leicestershire businessmen and sporting stars – will row from John O’Groats to Lands End. The title of their most recent press release gives you a hint as to the scale of their endeavour: 1097 miles, 12 oars, 6 rowers, 3 weeks. And 1 boat…

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360 Play website Home PageVirtual Viewing has already worked with local children’s entertainment centre, 360 Play, since their launch in 2008, designing and developing their original website and subsequently introducing them to the power and possibilities of our EMMA Email Marketing Assistant solution to help them manage email marketing campaigns to promote their latest events and special offers.

We are proud to say that our partnership continues with the launch of a completely redesigned website (now online at www.360play.uk.com). Virtual Viewing worked closely with 360 Play’s branding and design managers to redevelop the site, which vividly expresses the colourful and playful world that greets visitors to the centre.

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If you follow the media’s coverage of the media itself, you’ll be aware of plans for some daily newspapers – currently available to read pretty much in their entirety free of charge online – to put their content behind ‘paywalls’. There are complex business reasons at play: newspapers are struggling financially as more of us get our news from the web. Google and other search engines make it easy to browse not just the country’s but the world’s newspapers in an instant. Indeed, people use Google – making Google profitable – to access newspapers online, who make nothing from the transaction. Old business models are being outstripped not just by technology, but by the way we use it.

But listening to James Hewitt, editor of The Times, being interviewed on The Today Programme recently, he raised a point that is hugely relevant to all websites – whether or not they charge for access beyond their first page. That first page – usually your Home Page – is not just a gateway: it’s also a lure to tempt people to explore further, and an advertisement for what they will find inside. Hewitt drew the comparison of a newsstand: customers see only the front page – and usually just the top half of it. That view must tempt them to buy the paper, confident about its content.

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As a company that’s always been proud to play an active part in the community life of Milton Keynes – a city that has, in its turn, played a key role in our development – we have been sponsoring Marshall MK Lions, the city’s basketball league team, since 2003.

Like us, the Lions play an active part in the life of the city, sharing our concern for education and the development of future generations through their MK Juniors team and programme. The club has also established a network of Lions clubs that cater for adults and young children who want to play basketball beyond school level. This outreach programme includes both local leagues and tournaments, to give young players experience of competitive playing alongside developing their sports skills.

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