There is no reason to doubt this prediction. Smartphones are less expensive and more ubiquitous. Smartphones (that will eventually mean all phones) are much more accessible and portable and than PCs (laptops included). They are certainly becoming just as capable, at least as far as surfing the web is concerned, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of iPhone, Android, and Blackberry apps available.

The technology behind Apple OS devices (the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) has improved faster than any other technology, including AOL and Netscape in the early days.

Take the experience in Japan where social networking on mobile devices rapidly took over from the desktop about three years ago and now accounts for 84 percent page views for Mixi, Japan’s largest social network. Facebook is preparing for the same..

Dragos Perca

1. Make sure your app covers all smartphone platforms.

• iphone

• Blackberry

• Palm Pre

• Windows Mobile

• Symbian

• Android

Apple continues to dominate the market, and with the iPad its share will continue to increase. However, if your customers are mainly business users then you may have more Blackberry than iPhone users.

2. Release platform by platform

Be cautious. Each app solution for each platform should be tested and reviewed prior to developing for other platforms.

3. Don’t rush

Ensure you have developed the feature set that will excite your customers and make your app resident on the home page of their phone. In the app rush, too many businesses suffer from providing a poor user experience or worse, a slow or buggy app. This can damage your reputation with your customer base, and you will lose later opportunities to impress.

4. Website Consistency and Integration

The users of new mobile app may have been users of your website for years. Make sure that their mobile experience is consistent and integrates with their web experience.

5. Critical Path of Releases

You can’t release new incremental versions of an app every week as you would with your website, so we recommend an app roadmap that clearly identifies and prioritises future functionality, with regular (bot not too regular! Release updates.

6. Analytics

Like your website, you need full analytics on your mobile app. Make sure you’re at a minimum tracking the following analytics:

•  Number of app downloads and installations

•  Number of app removals

•  Number of app starts

•  Average usage time

•  Where the app is being used (GPS data)

An infection clamped beneath that molar with nowhere to go shakes the very foundations of your jaw and teeth. That innocent tooth, which has taken years to grow and countless tubes of toothpaste, will probably have to be removed. An infection at the core – at the nerve ending – can destroy all you have grown.

If your marketing strategy is infected with poor information, it will eventually destroy everything you proceed to develop. As any good dentist will say, prevention is better than cure. Although I believe my dentist, Malvern’s Chris Bocking, is the world’s best, I would not hesitate to agree!

Solid information provides sound roots from which a successful marketing campaign can grow. Without this, you risk infection and a costly extraction.

Decisions over potential opportunities, target market selection, market segmentation, planning and implementing marketing programmes, marketing performance, and control should all be underpinned by market research.

These decisions are complicated by interactions between the controllable marketing variables of product, pricing, promotion, and distribution. Further complications are added by uncontrollable environmental factors such as general economic conditions, technology, public policies, competitor activity, and social and cultural changes.

As if this does not provide enough headaches, we need to add to the mix the complexity of consumers. Relevant information can at least help us more reliably predict consumers’ response to marketing initiatives.

I am not arguing that marketing is a complete science. I would not be so passionate about marketing if it was. However, these are essential questions to ask before committing to any marketing campaign:

Your Customers
What are their locations, age, gender, buying behaviours and motivations?

Competitor information
Do you know their identities, marketing strategies and customer relationships?

Product information
How do your customers talk about your brand, products and service and likely impact of technology developments?

Industry information
What is the big picture? What are the future demand and supply trends and patterns?

Competitive opportunities
What are the under-served consumer segments and unmet consumer needs?

Qualitative research using depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, field tests and observations, supported by primary research yielding new, relevant and specific information will answer the above questions.

The Value of The Smile
I write this from a hotel near our Romanian office where the staff appear friendly and smiling. Last week I stayed at London’s Soho Hotel (a converted multi storey carpark!) where the staff were also exceptionally happy. It seems a rarity in hotels these days, but smile and world smiles with you.  It costs nothing and is a great marketing tool! And lest we forget, a good smile requires healthy teeth!

Matthew Rymer, Managing Director, The Marketing Farm Limited

The Marketing Farm are preparing to double the capacity of The Software Farm in the next 12 months to meet the demands of existing and future projects. Plans will soon be unveiled to build offices to accommodate our continued expansion.

A website’s success is dependent on the quality and levels of visiting traffic. However, too many businesses fail to have an ongoing online promotional strategy in place, and far too many have been stung by the false promises of so called ‘SEO specialists’ who promise big and achieve little. In this context, we have launched low cost and fully inclusive Search Engine Optimization packages to provide the necessary monthly maintenance, adjustments and assessments to increase online traffic to client sites.

We offer a choice of 12 month packages to ensure a website is successful across all major search engine and social networking sites. All our retained SEO accounts are reviewed by our full marketing team and supplementary recommendations provided free of charge. For smaller businesses that are mostly focused on a local geographical area we will create customised local SEO plans targeting a particular area (town, city, state, country) depending upon objectives. Please contact us for further information and explanations.

Package 1 On Page Optimization

This is executed within the website itself.

• Website Content Analysis

• HTML Code Optimization
• Competitors Analysis - assessing the website’s strengths and weaknesses through deep competition analysis
• Meta Tag Optimization – to identify keyword tags, key phrases and description tags necessary for placing websited at the best position with monthly and seasonal rotations
• Alt Tag Optimization – image word rotation
• Page Title Placements – monthly rotations
• Broken And External Link Report – to make sure website doesn’t have any “dead links” or “broken links”
• Keywords And Key Phrases Research
• Image Optimization And Anchor Tag Optimization
• Robot File Maintenance
• Google Sitemap Maintenance
• Statistical Traffic Reporting And Analysis

Package 2: On Page And Off Page Promotion

These additional services are executed outside of the website.

• Social Networking and Bookmarking – creating and maintaining accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Subscribe To Communities
• Business Directory Submission – subscribe to available business directories to help keep businesses at the top search positions
• Article Creation And Submission
• Blog Commenting –posting links to and from blogs, sharing links
• Forum Posting
• RSS Feed Directories – creating  RSS feeds (blog entries, news headlines, audio, video)
• CSS Submission
• Blog Creation – starting and maintaining blogs

Advertising

The Media Farm can also advise on concepts, media planning, design and production for:

• Banner and skyscraper advertising

• Contextual advertising

• Behaviourial targeting

• Semantic advertising

• Floating, expanding and wallpaper advertisements

• Pop-ups and pop-unders

• Video advertisements

• Map advertisements (Google maps)

• Mobile advertisements (SMS texting)

Our team comprises of cherry picked talent working as a highly motivated team in our Bucharest office. Our programmers possess considerable experience in web-based application development and the creation of scripts, programs and interfaces. The software talent in our Bucharest office, overseen by our Director, Dragos Perca, is underpinned by our creative and strategic resource in the UK. This means that we are able to understand and specify the perfect solution from the simplest of briefs.

We will brand and integrate solutions into a front end to meet client requirements and provide communications and support where necessary. Our server bases operate in the UK and the US with contingency systems in place in Romania. We are also able to provide global 24 hour technical support for the systems we develop, in which automated error messaging systems are embedded. All our systems are security audited to safeguard against all possible fraud scenarios.

Case Study

An example of our ability and success is highlighted by our Financial Portal Platform Software, developed in conjunction with New York based EMS Financial Services. This 18 month project was developed to budget and to schedule. It is the world’s most advanced and automated escrow system in operation and securely controls millions of dollars of trades every day across the world and around the clock.

Member Benefits

EMS members can easily setup, track and manage all of their telecom trading transactions in real-time from anywhere and anytime and in any currency.

Members set up a new project by inviting a buyer and/or a seller to transact telecom services. The details of the project are clearly defined (region, rate, increment, invoicing cycle and settlement period) and terms and conditions of agreement are all confirmed automatically.

Upon the acceptance of project terms and conditions by invitee, the buyer is able to allocate and lock funds from their general holding account to the specific project, thereby securing the transaction and activating the project. The buyer is able at any time to increase the amount of security, as may be required.

Once the agreed billing cycle has been reached, the provider simply selects the specific project they would like to invoice, enters the total amount of minutes used into the designated field and an automated invoice is issued to the client for review and approval. Upon acceptance, funds are released from the project holding account and are moved to the provider’s general account.

Members can easily and simply access to all their projects, financial and corporate data with the simple click of their mouse. From simple summary overviews to detailed downloadable reports, members have full control and complete visibility to all their activities, transaction and status.

In the event of a billing discrepancy, the client has the ability of issuing a dispute for a specific invoice, where the disputed amount is held and secured in lock box until a resolved while the remaining balance is released.

Administration benefits

The administration console role reduces administrator input, risk of human error and reduces administration and accountancy costs. It provides complete transparency over all realtime online statements, automatically flagging up unusual or suspect activity.

No activity is unrecorded and a virtual and easily accessible footprint archive of all user, project and fund activity is catalogued. Any account can be frozen and locked and user accounts and instant detailed activity analysis.

All contacts recorded online with the ability to contact customers easily at any time. All data can be downloaded into various user-friendly formats for offline purposes.

Ongoing Support and Upgrades

The Software Farm supports long term maintenance and support contracts. In this case we have released a series of upgrades:

• The administration and optimisation of a database of tens of tables, containing hundreds of thousands of records
• The optimization of modules and improvements of the user interface (quick access, new features), both within the user’s Portal and administrator’s Panel
• The creation of animated charts and reports, based on user input parameters (date range, etc). Export results to offline files.
• Incorporation of extensive use of Ajax, enabling results page content to load faster and ensure form validations are instant
• The use of new new javascript libraries and plugins (jQuery) for date picker widgets, form validation, and canvas manipulation
• The opimisation of the website for quick load, CSS and javascript caching
• The installation and renewal of SSL certificates
• The use of CPanel for daily server updates, security audits, and modules management

URN FMCG promotions

Bob Paxman (left) on This Morning show

The Marketing Farm are very proud to be supporting a  new charity, helping them to gain substantial media coverage and promoting their brand.

Talking2Minds, a charity which aims to eradicate symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, was set up by ex SAS veteran Bob Paxman who himself suffered with PTSD for over 12 years.

After ploughing all of his savings into the charity, Bob was on the brink of losing everything – even his home was at risk when he came to The Marketing Farm for help. Working on a pro bono basis, we are helping them to strengthen their brand and give them the recognition they deserve. Currently The Marketing Farm are helping Talking2Minds to re-brand, designing them a new website and launching a media campaign.

National headlines

So far, it has been a huge success. We have managed to gain a considerable amount of media exposure without charge across local and national TV, radio and newspapers.

Highlights include coverage in:

• The Daily Mirror
• The Independent
• The Sunday Times
• BBC Radio
• Channel 4 News
• BBC Inside Out (feature documentary)
• This Morning (couch interviews and docu-film)

The new website The Website Farm have created is due to go live next month, featuring our new brand identity, but in the meantime please do visit their current website, www.talking2minds.co.uk to find out more about the charity and how you can help Bob and his fantastic cause.

Open Up Your Business Online with  The RingLeader^. It leaves the flock standing!

There are a flock of online shopping systems available online. But we didn’t like any of them, so we challenged our software team to develop The RingLeader. The result? A very friendly total ecommerce solution we believe is easier to operate, more powerful, affordable, flexible, and customer friendly than the flock.

Our software team work hand in hand with our marketing team and we can provide you with all the marketing and design support you need in addition to ongoing software support and advice to grow your sales. We are able to consider joint ventures on a case by case basis.

Here are our four key points to help you select and protect your Trade Mark……

1). Make it original!

The best Trade Marks are invented and not descriptive of your goods and services (think Google®, Daz® or Kodak®). Remember – the more distinctive your Trade Mark, the stronger your registered protection will be.

2). Search!

As a first step, use the internet and the UK Intellectual Property Office website to search for Trade Marks that are identical or similar to your proposed Trade Mark.

3). Seek professional help and register it!

A Trade Mark Attorney will advise regarding more detailed searching and registration – it is not simply a question of filling in boxes. To obtain robust protection, careful consideration must be given to various factors, including the format of the Mark to be filed and the specification of goods/services.

4). Think of the future!

In the six-month ‘priority’ period after the filing date of your UK Trade Mark Application, corresponding Trade Mark Applications can be filed aboard, claiming the filing date of an earlier Application. Since most Trade Mark systems operate on a first-come-first-served basis, it is important to secure the earliest possible filing date.

Remember that a UK Trade Mark Registration is prima facie evidence of your ownership of the Trade Mark in this country. Although unregistered rights do exist (under the common law tort of Passing Off), these rights are not immediate and only arise after substantial use/advertising of the Trade Mark.

For more information or help and advice on protecting your brand, please contact us.

Attraction is in the suggestion, not the obvious. When we flirt with the opposite sex,  we are tantalizing, exciting, challenging and inviting a response. We are certainly not baring all!

Generating successful media interest in a product, service or business reflects the very best of a successful flirt.  The moment a press release joins all the dots and tells the story it is doomed. It will be too long, too opinionated, too obvious and too advertorial. The best press release pinpoints seductive facts and suggests investigation and exploration.

If you had a six pack or a rather ample bosom, you would not bare it and label it (at least, I would rather hope you would not!)?  However, your sense of fashion might suggest it. Ask any copywriter or journalist for a little advice and more often or not, they will advise you to write, then shorten it, then shorten it further and then condense it.

We just staged the initial, and regional launch, for our client The Pembrokeshire Pasty & Pie Co. They are opening a small pasty and pie shop in Tenby on 1st March. Our release was short but signposted the greater story. Within 24 hours, it was headline news across Wales – on radio, TV and in the press. The Pembrokeshire Pasty is to battle The Cornish. Every paper picked up on two lines in our background notes: that the Pembrokeshire Pasty recipe might have been invented to feed the workers building St David’s Cathedral in 1181. Had that been our headline, it would have been questioned. As an understated possibility, it was not. There is certainly circumstantial evidence to suggest this is true, but no hard evidence as yet. That is the successful flirt.

Media relations excites me. The journalists, freelancers, producers, researchers and editors all want a story and I strongly believe there is a story behind every business. Just akin to flirting – everyone can attract someone.

And So To The Marriage!

Now, onto the inevitable consequence of successful flirting… Marriage! I believe too many businesses struggle alone. In these difficult economic times, there is more reason than ever to look for strategic alliances (marriages!) for the greater success. There was recently an article in The Sunday Times exposing a well known author for plugging a rather delightful holiday resort in her latest novel in exchange for a rather expensive holiday.  As the publishing world reduces advances and prepares for the ebook revolution, authors will increasingly look to manage their own affairs more acutely. Her novel will be judged on its merits. Why promote a resort by accident when one can create a viable alliance?

Small town shopkeepers are suffering more than most in this current climate. More than once, I have seen a pair of neighbouring shops – both suffering – and wondered if they knocked out a side door they could reduce and share staff costs. We may regard ourselves as a nation of small shopkeepers, but I do wonder whether our lack of community spirit reflects itself in business too?

I challenge any business to look again and ask themselves: Who can we ally with? To share customer databases, to endorse each other and to generate news stories, profit share and piggy back exposure?

A successful business may flirt with and marry as many as they are able to. So why be celibate?!

Matthew Rymer