Sussex Coast College reskin

We are delighted to have played a small part in the launch of the brand new Sussex Coast College. The new, impressive building is now open for business and the town is rightly proud of its new multi-million pound facility.Diligence was asked to help with designing the new college website and you can see some of our work by visiting www.sussexcoast.ac.uk

What a cracker!!

Thanks for visiting us at Lets Do Business.

We had a great time at Lets Do Business on Thursday and we’d like to thank everybody who dropped by to talk to us and for all their kind comments about the stand.

The latest member of our team certainly caused a stir and the attention he received confirms our belief that he’s going to be a real headline grabber in the coming months.

The show proved to be a most successful exhibition for us, with many new contacts made and customers met during the day. The event not only helps us to raise the profile of Diligence but talking to our local business community also provides us with interesting ideas and feedback for improving our products and services even further.

We will be exhibiting at the Lets Do Business events in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings in 2010 and we hope to see as many existing customers and friends as possible.

Remember that Diligence is your marketing partner and we can help your organisation with:

• Website Design

• eMarketing

• Direct Marketing

• Advertising and Design

• PR and Copywriting

• Event Management

From our four offices in East Sussex and Kent, including a busy design studio in Hastings, Diligence can offer your business a vibrant and experienced marketing resource.

A resource that thrives on hard work.

If you’d like to find out more about Diligence, why not get in touch?

You can call us FREE on 0800 043 9815.

Online Shopping – You Shop, They Drop and We Build!

If you’re looking to build a business on the web? James Marchant, Diligence Creative Director, has some tips.

Diligence has helped many start up businesses to develop their first online store. We love the challenge that working with start ups presents; sadly we also see a number of them who don’t seem able to rise and maximise the potential offered by trading on the web.

There are a lot of myths surrounding online trading - not least of which is that all you need to do is build the website and the orders will start flooding in! With any business, either offline or online, you need a guaranteed 100% commitment to provide the appropriate marketing and sales support. A web based business is not an excuse to take your foot off the gas - you need to work long and hard at it to make the business a success and very few companies are lucky enough to see their new businesses take off without having to put an awful lot of blood, sweat and toil into it!

Unfortunately we see too many start up businesses who believe passionately in their product but have no customer or market research to back up their optimism. With over 1 trillion websites indexed by Google alone, the competition is fierce for your business!

Once you have your business plan in place and you are confident there is a market for your product then you need to think about marketing your site. Think of your website as a football pitch with the ball poised for the kick off from the centre spot. To make the whole experience work though, you need supporters in the stands and players on the pitch!

With any business you need a business plan and a sustainable business model.

You can start by asking yourself a few questions:

• Who is your target audience?
• How are you going to get your audience to visit your site?
• Are your products competitively priced in the market?

Think of the supporters as your target audience and the players as the marketing devices that will not only attract new supporters but also keep your existing supporters entertained – they’re great for repeat business.

So, how do you promote your brand new online shop? Well it helps to set a budget. Your major competitors could be spending millions on a variety of marketing devices - pay per click, banner advertising, Search Engine Optimisation and eMarketing. More recently we have seen an increase in companies using WEB2 devices, such as the social media sites, to generate prospects and sales from within these communities.

We work with many companies who have asked us to help with their existing online shops and help generate more traffic for them. Quite often we find that existing sites have no analytic programmes which is a basic function of any website. Without analytics, you have no idea how many customers are visiting your site – and without that it is difficult to develop marketing activity to increase your site traffic.

Here are our top five tips to online shopping heaven.

1. Make sure your site has an analytics programme – Google Analytics is free!
2. Make sure your site is optimised
3. Make sure your site is not out of date
4. Make it easy for people to shop with you
5. Make sure you get professional help before you build your shop

Happy Shopping!

Norway Nil Points?

We were proud to manage a conference and event recently on behalf of Statoilhydra.

Our guests – a healthy mix of Norwegians and Brits enjoyed a great day out in Rye, sampling some of the cultural delights of the town as well as some of the most interesting of Rye’s watering holes.

The Diligence-developed teambuilding product The Rye Adventure is now offered by The George Hotel to those of their conference clients looking for teamworking activities. In addition to The Rye Adventure Diligence offers a wide range of teambuilding and teamworking events suitable for organisations of all sizes and budgets – and for those looking for either indoor or outdoor activities.

If you’d like to find out more about how Diligence can help build key teamworking skills amongst your staff or your customers, contact our Events Team for more information.

Happy Birthday to us!!

It’s been a celebratory month for Diligence.

October sees us begin our third year and as well as relief at surviving the recession, we have a number of projects that have set our hearts aglow! Our client base and our turnover has increased ahead of expectations and we begin year three exhausted but full of optimism for the next year. We also welcome Adam Whitnall as the latest member of our creative team. As well as bring valuable additional web and HTML design capabilities, Adam also brings new skills including Illustrating and even Signwriting!

Diligence offers a comprehensive design, advertising and marketing resource. We thrive on hard work and believe that working better and working harder rather than working differently makes us stand out from the crowd.

The team is based mainly in our studio and offices in Hastings but we also have offices in Rye, Eastbourne and Maidstone, Kent. Whilst we work for some of the largest organisations in the South East, we also have wider business expertise and a range of low-priced marketing services are available for small business and start-ups.

Our Diligence eSuite of products, featuring low-cost websites is available for smaller businesses such as consultancies, pubs and restaurants.

We’d like to thank you all our clients for your support during our first two years and we look forward to continuing the good work into 2010 and beyond.

Remember that we are here to help your business – if you’d like to find out how we can help you, why not get in touch?

Press Advertising for Infinity

Infinity are a long-standing client and one of the leading e-learning companies in the country.

Diligence has just delivered three new advertisements which will be appearing in the October, December and Show issues of Inside Learning Technologies Magazine.

The ads are to coincide with the launch Infinitys new Learning Management System (LMS).All three ads are designed as teasers to intrigue the reader and in preparation for the ‘reveal’ of the product at the Learning Technologies Show.

The ads, in conjunction with a website banner ad, will raise awareness of the key product features and create anticipation amongst the audience for the product launch.

New Packaging for Heritage Chocolates

Not only have we been busy designing and developing a new e-commerce store for Heritage Chocolates (soon to be launched). But we have been busy designing their new point of sale container.

www.diligencegroup.co.uk

Brochure Bank Re-skin

Brochure Bank is a trading brand of BP Travel Marketing - a long established provider of specialist communication, distribution and direct marketing services to the travel and tourism industry. The company is part of the Orbital Marketing Services Group and employs over 400 people, operating from three locations in the UK.

They help their clients get the most from their marketplace by providing end-to-end direct marketing, distribution, online and offline communication services to Tour Operators, Airlines, Travel Agents, Transportation Companies and Destinations.

Diligence provides e-marketing support service to including re-designing some the company’s web presence and designing and producing a regular programme of HTML and postal client communications.

Diligence has also worked with a number of other Orbital brands including Next Holiday, Tradegate and Day Visits providing website, HTML and brochure design.

What we do

• Website Design
• Website Maintenance
• eMarketing

www.brochurebank.co.uk

Advocacy Training Website

Diligence designed and built a new Advocacy Training website incorporating an online booking service for a range of advocacy training events. The site offers training courses based on the qualifications in independent advocacy which are accredited by City and Guilds.

Visitors to the site can book and pay to attend training courses held at venues throughout the South East and South West. Diligence was asked to provide a dynamic site with an easy to use Content Management System allowing updated course information to be added on a regular basis.

SEAP and KMT are committed to quality and aim to offer first class training. The new site has been designed to compliment these high quality standards.

What we do

• Website Design
• Website Maintenance
• Online Booking
• Online Payment

www.advocacytraining.org.uk

Crazy Bags Marketing

Crazy Bags is one of the country’s leading suppliers of carrier bags and promotional bags to the promotion and incentives industry. Now, as environmental issues begin to dominate, they have seen a substantial increase in demand for more eco friendly alternatives to the traditional carrier bag.

Diligence provides a complete marketing support service to Crazy Bags including re-designing some the company’s web presence, producing a series of hard-hitting business to business ads and carrying out a number of client communications – both postal and by email. Our work has contributed to a substantial increase in business for the new range of eco-bags now available from Crazy Bags.

Exhibitions are a major source of new business leads for the company and Diligence is proud to have produced sales materials including a new company brochure.

What we do

• E-mail marketing
• Brochure design
• Advertising
• Direct mail and database marketing

BP Travel Marketing

BP Travel Marketing is a long established provider of specialist communication, distribution and direct marketing services to the travel and tourism industry.

The company is part of the Orbital Marketing Services Group and employs over 400 people, operating from three locations in the UK.

They help their clients get the most from their marketplace by providing end-to-end direct marketing, distribution, online and offline communication services to Tour Operators, Airlines, Travel Agents, Transportation Companies and Destinations.

Diligence provides e-marketing support service to BP including re-designing some the company’s web presence and designing and producing HTML client communications.

Diligence has also worked with a number of other Orbital brands including Next Holiday, Brochure Bank and Trade Gate providing website, HTML and brochure design.

What we do

• E-mail marketing
• Brochure Design
• Website design
• Online product development

www.bptravelmarketing.co.uk
www.brochurebank.co.uk
www.trade-gate.co.uk

EasyTrace

EasyTrace is the market leader in developing and delivering integrated card and biometric solutions for education. Having initially specialised in cashless catering, the EasyTrace suite has grown to now incorporate a range of integrated solutions - all linked to schools’ existing MIS and portal systems.

EasyTrace now has over 10,000 users in schools, colleges and academies across the UK.

Diligence provides a comprehensive marketing support service to the company including re-designing their website and designing and producing a range of marketing collateral. In addition, Diligence has also helped in a major rebranding of EasyTrace’s parent company AMI, producing websites, marketing materials, exhibition materials and presentation documents.

What we do

• Branding
• Website Design
• Website Maintenance
• Adverts
• Marketing collaterol
• Exhibition Banners
• Flash or Powerpoint Presentations
• Onsite photography at educational establishments

www.easytrace.co.uk

Is it your website’s birthday soon?

The start of the year is always a good time for a spot of navel gazing!

You probably have a website - but how many times have you checked to make sure its still performing well for you?

Its always worth making sure your site is still working for you and what it is you expect from your site. For isntance, is:

• To provide an online guide to your company’s services?
• To offer an online corporate brochure?
• To generate sales enquiries?
• To provide a profile for your company on the major search engines?
• To encourage visits and repeat visits to the site?
• To encourage newsletter subscriptions?
• To be search engine friendly?

Take a look to at your design objectives.

Does your site look slick and polished - or does it look dated?
Is it inviting? Or does it take some time and effort to navigate?
Does it use appropriate imagery?

Why not give your website an early spring clean? A new fresh look for your site could do wonders for your business.

Five Dollar Shake

Five Dollar Shake is one of the country’s leading providers of hand-made greetings cards. Based in Hastings, East Sussex, the company supplies exclusively designed hand-made cards to a number of prestigious retailers and specialist card retailers.

FDS has won numerous awards for its greetings card designs and is proud of the fact that it uses British designers and craftsmen to provide the raw materials for their exciting range.

Like a faithful pet, the company’s website had served them well for over 10 years but was in desperate need of an overhaul! Diligence has designed an exciting, contemporary website that not only shows off the company’s designs to the very best – but also incorporates a sophisticated e-commerce system to allow retailers as well as end users and collectors to buy their chosen cards.

What we do

• Website Design
• Website Maintenance
• eCommerce

www.fivedollarshake.com

Brakes - A new look for good food..

The Brakes Group is the UK’s leading supplier to the catering industry. Their thorough understanding of caterers needs is underpinned by 50 years experience and a passion for innovation, quality and service.

The Brakes Group’s unbeatable offering is supported by services to assist customers including providing educational resources.

Diligence designed and produced a promotional CD Rom aimed at the schools and education sector to help caterers with healthy eating ideas as well as information on the services provided by Brakes.

The project has been so successful that Diligence has been asked to design additional titles in the series.

We have recently created a CD-Rom for a Brakes new premier brand “La Boulangerie” plus a training support CD-Rom for Larder essentials and Cheese.

This is being closely followed by training CD-Rom’s for Meat, Potatoes and a promotional CD-Rom for Healthcare.

What we do

• CD Rom design and production
• Marketing collateral

The Wrightsure Insurance Group Case Study

The Wrightsure Insurance Group is one of the largest privately owned insurance brokers in the UK. The company specialises in a number of market sectors including hauliers, community transport and theatrical performers.

Diligence has produced a new corporate brochure for the company, together with a new suite of trade advertisements and magazine inserts. The company also attends a number of trade exhibitions and Diligence has designed and produced new exhibition hardware, exhibition stand concepts and support material. We have also helped create e-mail marketing campaigns and have developed a range of creative models to help raise the company’s profile in key market sectors.

This business sector demands high quality in product design and our client places similar demands for quality on its external creative resource. Our belief in providing real value for marketing spend helps companies such as Wrightsure undertake highly cost-effective marketing campaigns that enhance their brand and provide a tangible boost to their business.

What we do

• Trade advertising
• Brochure design
• Event management
• Exhibition collateral
• PR and media

Green Investment Guide Case Study

When writer and photographer Nick Hanna decided to create a new website to cater for the needs of ‘Green’ investors, he selected to Diligence to help him develop his ideas. The result is www.thegreeninvestmentguide.com – a specialist resource crammed with information on investing in the environmental sector.

The success of the site will depend on attracting a high volume of visitors and so the sophisticated and dynamic structure allows for a constant stream of new information to be added to the site – all under the control of Nick using our Content Management System.

A secure log-in facility allows registered users to access additional information on companies working in a variety of ‘green’ sectors – with each company entry also including individual inbound news feeds – allowing users to see up to the minute news on these companies.

The site also features the facility to attract advertising revenue and also carries all important links to the site owners own portfolio of books and photographs.

What we do

• Website Design
• Website Maintenance
• eCommerce

www.thegreeninvestmentguide.com

East Sussex Enterprise Hub Case Study

The Enterprise Hub Network is the lynchpin between entrepreneurial ideas and commercial success, helping to create new, innovative and prosperous businesses that can contribute to the economic growth and development of the South East.

Diligence has been working with the East Sussex Hub since its inception and is now an integral part of the organisation’s marketing resource.

We have helped develop an e-marketing strategy to help promote the range of events provided by the Hub to the business community in East Sussex. Our work in building and developing a database of key business contacts has borne fruit as a carefully planned and executed series of e-communications has helped to ensure their events are fully subscribed.

In addition to e-marketing, Diligence provides event management support, media, pr and editorial support.

What we do

• E-marketing strategy
• Direct and e-mail marketing
• Database building and management
• Event management
• PR and editorial support

www.diligencegroup.co.uk

Give your website a kick up the pants! Part 2

What else can you do to help drive more traffic to your site?

A Blog

A Blog can help you to position yourselves as a true expert. It also helps you to secure an additional presence on the web, by posting a substantial amount of additional online content, with a subsequent increase in the number of search results for the company.

You can position your Blog(s) as a forum for discussing issues that concern those in your industry. In addition to being stand alone sites in their own right, Blogs can be placed on a number of other internet platforms including popular and specialist trade Blog directories.

Backlinking

You should actively seek reciprocal links with other relevant websites – the more links you can incorporate, the higher the probability of appearing more prominently in searches and, of course, securing more referrals.

email address generator

Why not include devices to encourage visitors to your site to register their email addresses? There are a number of devices you could use ranging from a simple contact page through to more sophisticated and engaging devices such as offering Fact Sheets or a subscription to an e-zine/newsletter.

Updated news and events section

The facility to add updateable news, photos or event information will ensure that repeat visitors to your site will have new content to read. News of your attendance at events can provide interesting content for the site as can the introduction of new products.

Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance

Kent Air Ambulance is considered one of the most innovative and forward thinking of the UK’s Air Ambulance Charities. Central to their fundraising activities is their website and online marketing activities - which are handled by Diligence Media and Marketing.

“Every time Kent Air Ambulance has asked a question or sought a new direction for online awareness and fundraising Diligence has responded to that challenge. We expect high standards from our suppliers - and Diligence have never let us down”

David Philpott - Chief Executive

Diligence has also been responsible for the development of both the Sussex and Surrey Air Ambulance’s new ventures as they focus on purchasing Air Ambulances of their own.

The Air Ambulance charities fund their vital service entirely from charitable donations with no government funding. It is a source of great pride that our web design and marketing skills have contributed to one of the UK’s real charity success stories.

What we do

• Website Design
• Content Management System
• Support and online maintenance

www.kentairambulance.co.uk
www.surreyairambulance.co.uk
www.sussexairambulance.co.uk

Give your website a kick up the pants! Part 1

It’s a familiar story.

You like your website. It has some good features and looks really good.

But you are not achieving very good search engine rankings. And you don’t seem to get many enquiries.

What’s gone wrong? It’s almost certain that your site probably needs a little kick up the backside.

Your site may look a little dated and, if so, there are a number of techniques you could adopt to help boost your organic rankings on the major search engines.

Naturally, a redesign of your site would help to freshen up the look and feel of your brand. But you can also build in some additional features to help generate not just additional traffic – but additional repeat visits to your site.

The inclusion of additional pages and some more search engine-friendly content will also help to boost your rankings – for instance, more relevant product information, an up to date News Page, the inclusion of Fact Sheets or an online archive library – all these mean you’d have more relevant content that could be picked up by the search engines. More to the point, the information would help project something of the personality of your company, its heritage and its experience.

E-marketing the direct approach

Internet and email technology could be a key enabler of making all forms of marketing more direct, according to one expert.

Lisa Turner of the Institute of Direct Marketing said;

“Technology is playing an important role in integrating previously distinct advertising techniques and shaping them into the broader field of internet marketing.”

“Direct marketing used to be just one of these techniques: now with email and the web, everything has the potential to be direct marketing,” she explained.

One example of technology’s effect on the marketing industry is the fact that research shows that more than eight in ten television adverts carry a website address, while this trend is also prevalent in newspaper and magazine advertising Ms Turner added.

According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing is received significantly more positively by consumers than businesses tend to believe.

A study by the organisation suggested that such messages receive a 33% actual positive response compared with a 17.6% perceived positive response.

Diligence has many years experience of helping companies market their services direct to their customers. Why not get in touch if you’d like to know more?

Call 01424 447858 or e-mail martin@diligencegroup.co.uk

Online marketing soars

The online marketing industry grew by almost 40% in 2007 according to figures from the Advertising Association. With companies increasingly realising the benefits of cost affective e-marketing.

With any winner there`s always a loser and in this case its direct marketing. The industry saw a drop in year-on-year growth of 6.5 per cent.

The Advertising Statistics Yearbook 2008 confirmed that digital marketing has now overtaken direct marketing as the third largest channel by market share. Digital expenditure represents 15.6 per cent of advertising expenditure while direct marketing now accounts for only 11.2 per cent.

The direct marketing industry was worth £2.17bn in 2007. Press advertising was still the biggest channel with expenditure of £7.71bn, and a 39 per cent share of the market. This was followed by TV at £4.6bn and a 24 per cent share.

The UK advertising industry grew by 4.2 per cent in 2007 to a total of £19.4bn.

Diligence has a wealth of experience in e-marketing and offers a complete e-marketing service from website design to HTML e-mail campaigns. Talk to one of Diligences experienced professionals today on 01424 447858 or visit www.diligencegroup.co.uk and let us get your business moving in the right direction.

Data is King

E-marketing is a really effective way of reaching your customers – and it can also be the cheapest option for a targeted campaign.

Some of your targets may not like receiving unsolicited emails, so it is important that you structure your campaign properly – enabling those who wish to, to opt out of any future communications easily. If a data subject requests to be removed from your email list, you are legally obliged to do so to avoid contravening the Electronic Communications Act.

Whilst spam is illegal, you are allowed to send unsolicited emails to business email addresses on business matters only. If you want to promote consumer services you must buy an ‘opt-in’ list.

Renting or buying a list is not always the most effective way of communicating. Certainly you could expect a much better response by targeting those businesses with which you already have a relationship. That’s why it makes sense to ensure you always record your business contacts.

If you are nervous about managing your own email campaign there are a number of online services available to help you – alternatively why not talk to Diligence and let us manage your next email marketing campaign?

The Marketing Manager has many years experience of helping companies market their services - why not get in touch if you’d like to know more?

Contact us now at www.diligencegroup.co.uk

KPMG Team Building

The Diligence event management team has more than 25 years experience of managing and staging events throughout the UK and Europe. So, it was no surprise that when one of the leading divisions within KPMG decided to hold their annual conference in the south east, they chose Diligence as event managers.

One objective of the conference was to encourage a team ethos amongst delegates from all over the world. We have a range of team building and motivational events to offer - and our choice of a special KPMG Beach Olympics, together with an afternoon of nostalgic school sports helped to promote a real spirit of togetherness amongst delegates.

In addition to managing the outdoor events, Diligence was also responsible for venue and location selection, including the hotel, conference facilities and Gala Dinner.

What we do

• Event Management
• Teambuilding
• Venue finding
• Travel & logistics