UK shoppers spend 17 pence in every pound online throughout the first half of 2008 according to a latest report from Capgemini.

The total online spend rose 38% for the same period last year bringing the figure to over £26bn, the report suggest that the key driver for this increase is the rising food & fuel bills amidst the recent credit crunch.

With web-based shopping continuing to outperform high street stores the future of ecommerce looks very strong. StrawberryDigital offer a range of ecommerce solutions that can be tailored to your organisation.  For more information please visit www.strawberrywebshop.co.uk or email Jonathan Leafe, jonathan@strawberry.co.uk.

Top level domains are the final element of your URL (website address) for example “.com”, “.co.uk” and “.net”. From 2009 you may be able to purchase your own unique top level domain - .hull anyone?

Although a £50k price tag may put some buyers off the idea these new top level domains may provide a frenzy when they are released next year.

Not everything is in a domain name however. Business.com sold for almost £4million, yet if you search on Google for “business” it is not on the first page.

As people search the web via the Google Search Box, we believe that having an effective search engine optimisation will be more important than a cool website address.

IAB and Price Waterhouse have released the latest advertising spend figures. 2007 saw an overall increase in advertising spend of 4.3% this equates to £756M online advertising grew by another 38% equating to £797M, so once again internet advertising grew whilst traditional advertising saw a reduction.

Why is this important to you?

More people are now transferring traditional budgets online this is increasing the competition and making it more difficult to secure a prominent position, over a period of time this objective is going to be harder to achieve and so we strongly suggest you review your promotional mix sooner rather than later.

StrawberryDigital can support you with every aspect of your online marketing activity including natural search listings (search engine optimisation) sponsored search listings (cost per click/AdWords) and email marketing. Give Paul a call on 01482 337145 for an informal jargon free chat about your organisation and the potential to develop your online presence.

Thank you to everyone that attended the Strawberry stand at this year’s Chamber Expo 2008. We found the event very enjoyable taking the opportunity to promote the value and need of internet marketing to maximise your websites return on investment.

Using an independent Sitescore analysis we were able to look at individual elements of organisations online presence and provide constructive feedback on what was working well and which areas require greater attention. These informative reports were receive extremely well and we would like to extend the offer of a free review to everyone who is interested in increasing the contribution their website provides.

If you would like more information or would simply like to request a Free Sitescore report please click here or contact paul@strawberry.co.uk.

24th May 2008 is an important date for two of our ecommerce clients, as Bristol City and Hull City walk onto the turf at Wembley in a bid to secure Premiership football there will be one guaranteed winner.

For a number of years, Strawberry’s Webshop has been at the heart of both clubs commercial activity. Great looking front end design is combined with an easy to use management and reporting system. Both sites are built using secure and stable technologies, to ensure that over 90,000 fans are kitted out in their respective colours.

If you would like to have a winning Webshop as part of your organisation, contact Jonathan Leafe: Jonathan@strawberry.co.uk

Hull vBristol Flyer

StrawberryDigital’s Website Development team have been very busy over the past couple of weeks producing a trio of great looking sites.

http://www.karaoke.cc/

Karaoke.cc is a digital download site for karaoke backing tracks. The difficult technical build of this site provided a challenge to our experienced developers however, the result is a great looking site that delivers the clients objectives.
Designer: Matt Nicolini, Development: Andy Russell & James Greenwood.

http://www.sittingeasy.co.uk

Sittingeasy.co.uk is a site designed for a local client specialising in high back orthopaedic chairs. The client understood the challenges the internet were creating for his traditional offline store. With a limited online knowledge the client worked in close partnership with our web development team creating a great looking and very practical website.
Designer: Mark Withers, Development: Andy Russell

http://www.leicester.anglican.org

The Diocese of Leicester new site was also made live this week, the site will become an integral part of their online communication. Ensuring the relevance and freshness of the content will be the most important element of the site. Leicester have also become the first client for StrawberryDigital’s professional content management service, formatting, editing and uploading fresh content on a regular basis.
Designer: Matt Nicolini, Development: James Greenwood, Content: Elizabeth Bottomley

The team are still busy and have another 4 sites going live in the next 2-3 weeks, including the new www.strawberrydigital.co.uk a fresh site built using our new version of SWAT 4 (StrawberryDigital’s Content Management tool) and new technologies including video.

For the second year running Google have topped Milward Brown’s list of the World’s most powerful brands. The Google brand was valued at over £43bn by BrandZ, showing an increase of over 30% last year.

This comes a week after UK media was suggesting that Google were on the verge of overtaking ITV making the search giant the UK’s leading generator of advertising revenue.

Both these stories highlight the increasing strength of Google within modern society, to find out what opportunities the search engine can provide for your business simply give us a call on 01482 337145 or visit www.strawberrydigital.co.uk

The eCommerce revolution shows no signs of a slowdown, the offline phenomenon of January Sales has now found it’s position online. The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) reported that £4.5bn was spent online throughout January 2008 which is a 75% increase over last year.

However including last years pre Christmas rush the growth in online sales over the last three months has more than double that of the same period last year. This years increases were seen across various sectors including the electrical sector which rose by 38%, clothing was up by 32%, health and beauty by 18%, and beers, wines and spirits by 9.8%.

Online bargains

A Further report provided by consumer group Which? Also found that high-value items. Its survey of internet car brokers found average savings of over 10% on the list prices of 15 new cars. Including savings of £2,994 on the list price of a Mercedes C-class and the Renault Clio 1.5 supermini was found to be £2,550 cheaper online.

Richard Headland, editor of Which? Car, said: “We found that shopping around online is simpler than negotiating with dealers yourself and, in most cases, we obtained a better price.

“Buying through a broker also means you don’t have to haggle with pushy salesman. But if you choose to buy from a main dealer, an internet quote can give you the upper hand.”

Adding the “clicks” to your “Bricks” will enable you to capitalise on the UK’s fastest growing revolution. StrawberryDigital can use the latest web technologies, online marketing techniques along with your industry expertise to provide you with an effective solution that delivers great results and ROI. For more information please give us a call on 01482 210701

Many thanks
Jonathan Leafe

The trip to London on Wednesday was very enlightening and full marks to Hull Trains for the great and efficient service.

Dan Cobley, Director of Marketing for Google UK gave a great speech on the future of internet marketing and the power consumers have online. Predictions of how technology will develop over the next decade where unbelievable however, looking at the progress over the last 10 years perhaps not. Look out for an iPod capable of holding all TV programs, Movies and Literature ever produced coming to you soon (well within the next decade).

Danny Meadows-Klue, gave an impressive demonstration of how web 2.0 has changed the way consumers react with brands, examples of the Wispa bar’s limited edition highlighted how web user power is changing a marketers playing field and how they should change their marketing tool box to accommodate.

So what did I take away from the event?

So what next?
Information and ideas that I have taken from London will be incorporated within our next Google AdWords Seminar at the KC, 10th April 2008. I will also be writing weekly blog posts highlighting different elements taken from the key note speeches and the exhibition master classes.

A final comment is that if you are a regular Blog reader and wish to find out more regarding the Google seminar please register your interest by emailing paul@Strawberry.co.uk. All emails received before the 29th Feb will receive a 50% discount off the registration cost of the seminar.

Many thanks for reading
Paul

We’ve not released much just recently - we’re in “Development” mode, which basically means we’re currently working on loads of new sites!

Keep an eye out as over the coming weeks and months, we have a number of sites which will launch.
And of course, all of our sites will validate, be accessible and use up to the minute development methodologies and techniques.

As well as all this, Paul is in London today (or as us Northerners call it, “The Big Smurk”), for an event on Internet Marketing - so check back later this week for a full report.

Thanks,

James