drumblog

 

Datadrum are proud to to present one of their largest ecommerce projects to date - www.passionauto.co.uk.

The Passion Automotive website sells a huge range of car parts and accessories for “people passionate about cars”, it includes a user friendly navigation system including a powerful search for customers to find their way around the extensive product range. A bespoke content management system allows Passion Automotive to keep the website products and content up to date, as well as assisting with the ordering and payment process and day to day running of the website.

Passion Automotive chose to work with Datadrum for their expertise and track record in producing successful ecommerce websites. The Passion Automotive branding and website was designed by Datadrum to appeal to a wide range of customers of all ages, the new website has just been launched so take a look at www.passionauto.co.uk.

 

Datadrum were asked by the Cambridge County Council Social Services team to help launch a new project aimed at Young People. The project is based around a debit card provided to Young People in Cambridgeshire which they can use to pay for positive activities such as sports. Each month they are provided with funds that they can only spend on these activities and the objective of this Government backed project is to help young people try new activities, especially ones who have low incomes.

We were asked to brand the card and produce marketing materials such as leaflets, mailers and a website, aimed at young people and others involved in the project such as activity providers, County Council staff and parents/guardians of the young people.

We wanted to involve young people as much as possible in the development of the new brand. The youth market is a very difficult one to reach so the new brand really had to appeal to them or it would ultimately fail. An all day workshop with over 20 teenagers produced lots of brand name and design ideas which were then developed down to one identity - g2g. g2g is used in texting and means “got to go”. It was seen in the workshop as relevant, easy to remember, simple and appealed to this age group.

Our creative team took design elements from the workshop that young people liked eg, colours, fonts, styles and created the new g2g identity. This was then used on the card, literature and micro website www.g2gcard.co.uk.

The g2g card was officially launched this month.

Our new media team have been working hard to enhance Datadrum’s email marketing tool – easydrum. After extensive research we have built an email marketing solution which we believe is one of the best on the market today.

By sending out branded emails with easydrum you can quickly and easily reach your clients and prospects. Whether you want to build anticipation around a product before its launch, promote new offers or drive more traffic to your website, easydrum enables you to cost effectively communicate your message to a large audience quickly and easily.

easydrum comes in 3 options so you can pick the one that best suits your companies needs:

• easydrum fast: sit back and relax! We do everything for you. Just supply us with a mailing list, we’ll agree on a design and before you know it your message would have reached everyone you want it to.

• easydrum creator: take control! we provide the software and the bespoke template, then you can send and manage your own email campaign!

• easydrum response: creator’s big brother! Not only can you track how many of your recipients opened your email, you can see who those people were, which links they clicked, how many times they clicked those links and so much more!

easydrum is already a proven product with clients including Norwich City Football Club and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Mark Ellaway, Commercial Director of Datadrum states “Many of our clients use email marketing as an important part of their overall marketing communications plan. They wanted solutions that are easy to use, meet legislation and give them control over the process. Easydrum achieves all of this and more. It is, without doubt, a powerful marketing tool.”

To find out more visit our website www.easydrum.co.uk or call us on 01603 484484.

Q Lawns had a requirement to relaunch their Enviromat website. Enviromat is a green roof, combined synthetic / natural sedum matting product that creates a healthy, nature friendly environment in urban and garden areas.

The brief was to redesign the website to appeal to consumers at the higher end of the market at the same time making it easy to navigate and buy online. The new website includes everything the customer needs to know about sedum roofs including a downloadable installation guide, where they can use Enviromat, picture gallery and an online purchasing facility.

To drive more traffic to the website, optimising the website for search engines was vital. Datadrum carried out key word research to identify the most appropriate search words to build into the site.

Email data capture is included along with Easydrum, Datadrum’s email marketing solution. This allows Q lawns to send out Enviromat branded emails to their email database to drive more traffic to the website.

Q Lawns are able to easily and regularly update the website through Datadrum’s Content Management System. This enables them to easily edit text and add new images and downloads such as PDFs.

See the results for yourself at www.enviromat.co.uk.

Newly opened Norwich Karaoke club, Sing Sing, required a website that was different. At Sing Sing customers privately book rooms where parties can have their own Karaoke nights. Using the latest software they can choose from over 6,000 songs and sing their hearts out to their faves!

Datadrum were commissioned to design the new website which needed to capture the Sing Sing brand and communicate it online through graphics, animation and sound. The website also has an online booking system, a picture gallery so you can see how much fun it is and a searchable list of all the songs you can choose from.

Enhanced with Drumedit, Datadrum’s content management system, Sing Sing can manage the website’s content themselves. Our team had great fun producing the website and are looking forward to singing their favourite songs at Sing Sing soon.

The Datadrum Top 10 Sing Sing Favourites
(in no particular order):

• Girls Aloud – Call The Shots
• The Beatles – Hey Jude
• The Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling
• Lionel Ritchie & Diana Ross – Endless Love
• Shania Twain – Man, I Feel Like a Woman
• The Turtles – Happy Together
• Bloc Party – Banquet
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – Freebird
• Muse – Invincible
• The Who – My Generation

Check out the Sing Sing website at www.singsing.jp.

Hethersett Old Hall School wanted to attract a greater number of new students from both the UK and overseas, improving their website was an important step in this process.

The new website design, which has been developed by our new media team, is fresh and appealing to reflect the friendly, relaxed and well-rounded nature of the school.

All content is managed using Datadrum’s content management system. This increases the website’s functionality and enables Hethersett Old Hall School staff to update images and text whenever and wherever they need to.

With pages specifically designed to make life easier for parents, the new website gives them the opportunity to download letters and diary dates to stay up to date with what’s going on. Parents can also have their say by filling in online feedback forms.

For more information about the school visit www.hethersettoldhallschool.co.uk.

All Datadrum websites are built with success in mind. If you want to step up a gear with your online marketing why not give us a call on 01603 484484.

Following a strategic review earlier this year we felt the time was right to re-brand Datadrum.

Over the past few years we have developed into a full service marketing communications agency offering our clients a complete range of services from traditional marketing campaigns through to digital solutions such as websites, email marketing and cd-roms.

We are one of the few agencies in the Norwich and Norfolk region who can offer this in-house and we wanted to reposition ourselves to better reflect this expertise.

The services we offer include:

• marketing campaigns
• exhibitions
• web design and build
• email marketing
• search engine optimisation
• corporate branding
• sales literature
• design
• pr
• market research

We successfully work in both business to business and business to consumer markets which can be demonstrated by our extensive client list and portfolio.

Have a look at the rest of our new website, especially our drumfolio.

Please let us know what you think in the comments!

If you would like to discuss anything, please call Mark Ellaway on 01603 484484 or use our enquiry form.

The Objective

Fläkt Woods are a market leading fan manufacturer and Datadrum were asked to launch a new warranty scheme that was unique to the industry. The target audience was Heating and Ventilating Contractors and we needed to quickly raise awareness of the new scheme.

The message

Our creative team developed the “Don’t Gamble with other people’s fans” message. We wanted the message to be simple and aggressive in an uncompromising market. We also wanted to state that only Fläkt Woods had the confidence in their products reliability to offer such a warranty. The dice imagery and message was presented to the client who didn’t need much persuading.

The delivery

An integrated B2B campaign was devised to cost effectively target the market over 3 months. The campaign was launched at the HV07 exhibition, NEC in March 07. The stand included a giant dice to gain as much interest as possible.

The “Don’t Gamble ” campaign was then rolled out across ads in trade press, direct mail to the top 200 contractors and distributors, trade press coverage and interviews and email and internet marketing.

The results

Enquiries have been flooding in and feedback has been very positive, The campaign has achieved a high awareness in the industry and has strengthened Fläkt Woods position as a market leader based on quality and reliability.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving a website to rank higher in organic search results (as opposed to paid listings such as Google AdWords).

This is a brief guide to the two main factors that affect your search engine ranking; your website’s content and links from other websites to your website.

Your website’s content

Also known as on-site content, this refers to keywords on your website that can be read by search engines. Choosing the right keywords is very important, it involves selecting the words and phrases that are relevant to each page and using them throughout the page. It also involves checking what words people actually search for as there’s no point ranking number one for a term nobody uses.

For best effect, keywords must be used in these places:

• Once in the HTML title. These are the words that appear in the top bar of your web browser
• Once in the HTML description. This is not visible on screen but is often used in search engine results
• Around once a paragraph in the page content and in headings and subheadings.

If you are linking to a page within your website you should also use keywords in the link. For example, if you make a link to a page about web design:

For more about web design, click here.
Find out more about web design.

Links from other websites

Good content only goes so far, to get into good rankings takes links from other websites. As a rule, the better the website, the more a link from it is worth. Also, where possible, the link should go to the most relevant page which is not necessarily your home page - this is called “deep linking”.

However, getting other websites to link to yours can be difficult – put yourself in their shoes, why would they want to link to your website? Therefore you have to give people a reason to link to you, preferably without you having to link back to them. The best approach to this varies a lot depending on your particular website and industry.

How can we help?

Datadrum can help with all aspects your search engine optimisation from the keyword selection process to ongoing link-building. Alternatively we are happy to point you in the right direction.

Our content management system is designed to make your website as search engine friendly as possible, including managing your own keywords in all the most important places.

Further information

This guide is the tip of the iceberg, if you would like to know more please feel free to contact us. You may also like to read some of these useful links:

• Beginners guide to SEO
  
• Glossary of SEO terms
• Discussion of search engine ranking factors
• 66 ways to build links

Download this guide as a PDF

If your website is not accessible you could be breaking the law, but more importantly you could be shutting out both customers and search engines.

Accessibility in website terms means making sure your website is available to everyone. There are accessibility guidelines (WCAG), they are mostly technical requirements but do require several manual checks. The main two areas that website accessibility fall into are human and technological.

• Human
  Your website should usable by all, regardless of ability. This is not limited to people with physical disabilities, it can be as simple as making sure that text is big enough to read. It also includes writing in a way that is easy to understand and using colours that contrast suitably with the background.
• Technological
  Website content should be viewable on all browsers and devices. This does not mean it has to look the same in every version of every web browser, or be the same on a mobile phone as on a PC, just that content can be viewed.

If you would like to learn more about accessibility, either to improve an existing website or to have a new accessible website developed, please contact us.