August 25, 2010

Make video part of your Online Marketing Strategy

Posted by Virtual Viewing under content management, e-commerce, e-marketing, search engine optimisation, Uncategorized, web development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Video is making a real difference to our online viewing experience, and many companies are now exploring the best way to incorporate video into their online presence. Online viewing is growing dramatically, providing significant and unique opportunities to grow brand awareness, convey company missions, values and ethos, promote both products and services, drive web traffic and uplift sales in B2B and B2C marketing – an opportunity that Virtual Viewing, working in partnership with A2S Works, can help you to realise.

They say a picture paints a thousand words: moving pictures say even more. The following video illustrates just some of the points we make in this article (as well as introducing us):

So where do you start? – read on to find out more.

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August 16, 2010

From crowdsourcing to consultation – the web provides new opportunities to engage with a wider audience

Posted by Virtual Viewing under e-mail marketing, e-marketing, search engine optimisation, web development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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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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July 12, 2010

Lending a technological hand – Lumbers’ Celebrity Row

Posted by Virtual Viewing under content management, e-mail marketing, web development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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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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June 4, 2010

Pulling Together – using the web to support a charity fund-raising event

Posted by Virtual Viewing under e-mail marketing, e-marketing, hosting, web development | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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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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April 26, 2010

Recent client website launches

Posted by Virtual Viewing under content management, e-marketing, hosting, web development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |
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At Virtual Viewing, we work with companies and organisations of all sizes and in all sectors to develop websites that make the very most of the opportunities – and the budgets – that are available to each client.

We have worked with many of our clients over a number of years, building partnerships where we are able to combine our skills – not just in the technical aspects of development, but in using the in-built measurability of digital and online media to analyse online performance to offer recommendations that maximise the use of available resources – with our customers’ industry expertise to continuously refine and enhance their online presence.

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January 11, 2010

Are you weaving the threads together?

Posted by Virtual Viewing under e-commerce, e-marketing, search engine optimisation, web development | Tags: , , , , , |
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Despite the Internet having been very much a business reality for several years, we still see many organisations whose approach seems to be “we’ve built a website, the world will now flock to it”. We don’t like to be spoilsports, but the ‘If you build it, they will come’ may have made a great hook for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, but that was the movies – and what came were ghosts. Not big shoppers by and large, the dead. So can we suggest a more pragmatic approach that reaches out to the living without crystal balls or Ouija boards?

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