Dominos Pizza
Posted by admin on March, 31st 2011According to the Daily Mail last week, Dominos pizza add a 900% mark up on a large margarita pizza. Without going into a discussion about how much of your £11.99 is pure profit for the takeaway giant, in the JPR office we got thinking about Dominos pizza, our late nights in the office and voucher codes, how they can devalue your brand.
Over the last few years, several voucher code and cashback websites have popped up over the internet offering a range of discounts for certain retailers. If you know your stuff about internet marketing, you will be aware that these voucher code sites are actually affiliates who get a cut of the sale if a customer uses the voucher code given to them by the retailer.
This is great for the savvy customer who has the time and the inclination to trawl the internet for voucher codes, and at
Read moreIs your website’s shopping experience on Brand?
Posted by admin on March, 28th 2011
Whether you are a discount retailer or an exclusive luxury brand, you will be aware of how your customers’ shopping experience is a vital part of your company’s image and branding strategy. In your typical clothes shop, a retailer would take into consideration lighting, the number of mirrors, staff uniforms, the shop floor plan, point of sale displays and even whether the clothes cut smaller or larger than standard. Online retailers can’t use these subtle sales tactics so the journey a customer takes from landing on your website to clicking ‘make purchase’ is a vital consideration if you want to convert browsers to customers.
Using an Internet Marketing company to attract traffic to your website is a large part of winning over visitors and wooing them into becoming regular customers. Our sister
Read moreGetting Value From Your PR Agency
Posted by admin on March, 25th 2011When you hire a PR Agency you will understandably be excited about all the good things that are going to come out of your new working relationship. If your PR Agency is working on a retainer basis, then you will be expecting to get great coverage every month that either shields you from negative attention or getting people talking about you for the right reasons.
It’s great to look at all the cuttings of all the press coverage your PR Agency has got for you every month, but did you enter into a contract with your PR company just to rack up some column inches? The question you need to ask yourself regularly is: am I getting value for money?
What we have found time and time again is that a one size fits all approach to a PR campaign hardly constitutes a strategy. Less talented consultants will suggest all kinds
Read moreWhy you should be “Vlogging”
Posted by admin on March, 23rd 2011
It might sound a bit like the latest fad, but “vlogging” or video blogging is here to stay. This is because Google bought Youtube in 2006, showing that the search giant had video search firmly in it’s sights five years ago and now videos appear in search results.
Video blogging has its disadvantages, but with the right support the benefits could be lucrative.
Let’s get the disadvantages of video blogging out of the way first: visitors with a poor internet connection may struggle to view your content and leave your website before they view your content. Also, if you’re new to video editing, it can be a time consuming task, plus poor production values can look unprofessional, defeating the object of video blogging! Some people feel very shy and self-conscious in front of a camera
Read morePress Release Tips
Posted by admin on March, 22nd 2011If you have hired a PR Agency to handle your media image then the chances are that the first thing they will do when you have some news to announce is write a press release.
Press releases are a great tool for issuing news to the media. A good PR Agency can write and issue press releases very quickly, meaning that if your news has a short shelf-life then the media will soon know about it.
Journalists get their news sources from a huge range of sources, tip-offs from the public, diary events and PR people are just a few. Getting news from a press release issued by a PR Agency helps journalists who are over-worked and working to tight deadlines, so we have put together five tips to help you get press releases noticed.
- Always write an attention-grabbing headline but avoid caps and exclamation remarks as your release could
Read moreWhy You Should Be Guest Blogging
Posted by admin on March, 21st 2011As a PR Agency, one of the areas we advise clients on is blogging. Not only is blogging great for your website’s SEO as Google loves fresh and unique content, but it is a great way of building relationships with customers who visit your websites.
When we discuss blogging with a client, if we feel it is right for the client’s area of expertise we may recommend that they trial guest blogging. This partly involves approaching other bloggers and asking if they would publish a post you have written for their blog. It isn’t right for every client but in certain industries where relationships are just as important as the knowledge you have, it can be a valuable tool. We have compiled five reasons why you should consider guest blogging.
1. Build relationships – it isn’t always competitive with other businesses!
2. Reach new audiences – not everybody uses search engines
Read moreInterlinking Social Media Profiles, Good Practice or Mistake?
Posted by admin on March, 17th 2011
If you follow a lot of people on Twitter then you will have found that Twitter lists has revolutionised your experience on Twitter. All the noise made by the people you follow means that the key tweets from the people you really want to hear from are often missed. By creating lists you can separate tweets from your friends, from celebrities and then again from the professionals you follow. But what about the noise you make yourself from syncing up your social media profiles?
More and more people are inter-linking their social media profiles, believing that they are saving themselves time. Do your Facebook friends want to know about your company’s latest blog? Do the professionals you are connected with on Linkedin really want to know about something impossibly
Read moreBaby Gaga – Breast Milk Ice-cream
Posted by admin on March, 16th 2011Over the last three weeks, you might have been aware of a PR stunt that has started plenty of discussions across social media channels.
An ice cream parlour based in central London started selling ice cream made with human breast milk. An advert had been placed on the popular parenting forum, Mumsnet and women came forward to sell their breast milk for the project. Called ‘Baby Gaga’, the ice cream consisted of breast milk, vanilla pods and lemon zest, selling out within two hours of the launch… but this isn’t the end of the story.
A further 200 women came forward to donate their milk but health officials in Westminster put a stop to the operation, deeming it unsafe but didn’t appear to be entirely sure what made the product unsafe.
Cue the hand-wringing from PRs across the country with some declaring that stunts such as this one may give a short term
Read moreProduct Placement
Posted by admin on March, 15th 2011
Advertising has taken quite a journey in the last 150 years. Not only has it lived in print, video, online, radio and even subliminal, the UK has finally come into line with the US and on 28 February 2011, media regulator OFCOM updated the broadcasting code and permitted broadcasters to use product placement as a form of advertising in the UK.
ITV led the charge on their This Morning programme, with the Nescafe Dulce Gusto netting the coveted spot as the first product in the UK to benefit from the updated broadcasting code.
A spokesperson from ITV said: “The editorial integrity of our programming remains ITV’s priority and any introduction of product placement will strictly adhere to Ofcom rules.”
Other programmes are also set to follow suit with Come Dine With Me being rumoured to be in talks with
Read moreOnline Reputation Management Strategy
Posted by admin on March, 14th 2011
Carrying on from our last blog post about online reputation management and how to monitor online chat about your brand, we are posting a quick blog about responding to discussions about your brand.
With social media, the purpose is to engage with customers and build relationships. However, companies that get it wrong can end up making things worse with customers who have a grievance. Here are a few platforms internet users may use to write negative things about your company and what you may be able to learn from the mistakes of others.
Reviews – Trip Advisor in particular is a massive reviewing engine. Reviews can even be indexed into Google and show up on Google Maps. Businesses are offered the right of reply but this could play out badly. If you respond to every negative review
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