Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

A new year, a new look and lots of new opportunities…

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

First Impression celebrates 16 years in business in 2012, a good time to refresh our company brand and values. We felt our name no longer reflected what we do, we are not just about ‘first impressions’, we offer so much more!

Our new name, Fig Creative incorporates the old (Fig stands for First Impression Group) but celebrates the new. It’s fresh, modern and represents our team of creative sales and marketing professionals. We will still offer the services you might know us for, print and design, websites and email marketing and our customers can still choose that we provide these services.

But, if you are serious about achieving real results you need regular, targeted marketing activities which is why we are formally launching our Marketing Partner Programme.

It’s having incredible results for some of our clients, one has seen a ten fold increase in business in under a year and another has achieved £1 million pounds in just 6 months. As a Marketing Partner with Fig Creative we deliver all or part of your PR and Marketing requirements, effectively becoming your ‘outsourced’ marketing department.

Our newly refreshed website is now live http://www.figcreative.co.uk/ and take a look at the pages on our Marketing Partner Programme and some of the testimonials of customers already benefiting from this service.

On the twelfth day of Christmas First Impression sent to me…

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

” A marketing partnership that will help grow my business in 2012!”

 

Final day today, day 12 of our marketing tips and annoucement of what is happening at First Impression in the New Year!

Today we launch our marketing partner programme, something we’ve been working on all year in 2011 and is having some incredible results. Click your free tip to find out more and you can get access to all the other free tips. Click here>

Everyone at First Impression wishes you all a Happy Christmas.

On the eighth day of Christmas First Impression sent to me…

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

“Effective PR that will raise my profile”

Click here for advise about PR and our top tips for writing a press release>

You can still get access to days 1 to 7 top marketing tips as well if you’ve missed them. Still four to go before we announce the exciting changes happening at First Impression in the New Year.

What is a QR Code?

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

QR Code stands for Quick Response Code and they are those square black and white boxes you may have seen recently on magazines and adverts. The simplest way of explaining it is like a barcode because like a barcode it encodes data within it. The biggest difference between a barcode and a QR code is the amount of information they contain. A QR code has both horizontal and vertical planes in a grid of tiny squares which means you can fit a lot more data on it and you can embed information in the code itself.

When you read a QR code with the appropriate software it can trigger the opening of a website or it can download a file. QR codes are read with a mobile device. If you are using an iPhone you need to download one of the free QRReader apps available from the iPhone App Store. Most Android, BlackBerries and some of the newer Nokia handsets can read QR codes automatically. Windows Mobile users can download QuickMarks. With the appropriate software all you do is point your phone’s camera at the QR code to activate the contents. Although QR codes are relatively new in the UK, they’ve been around in Japan, where they were invented, for over a decade.

How do they work?

You need a QR Code Generator to create a QR code. Sounds complicated but it’s actually very simple. There are a number of sites for generating QR codes which are all free. A quick Internet search for QR code generator will give you a lot of choice. Most are pretty simple, such as www.qrstuff.com where you simply put in the date you want to put on the QR code, for example a website address, an SMS text message, email address or link to a file, and the QR code is created automatically for you to download.

What are they used for?

The potential for QR codes are endless. Today you can see them on magazines, adverts, brochures business cards, packaging, menus and even on the side of vehicles. Be targeted, don’t jus send them to your website, send them to the relevant information, even if you have to create a dedicated page for that special offer for example, add something of value to encourage more downloads.

Scan the QR code above with your smartphone to view the Old Hall at Christmas Mobile Website

With the growing use of mobile technology QR codes are going to be seen more and more. Get using them in your marketing mix.

Contact us on 01457 857111 or contact@firstimpression.co.uk for more information.

The benefits of creating a mobile version of your website

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

  • Wider reach- As of August 2011 mobile browsing accounted for 7.84% of UK internet usage. Can you afford to miss out on making the experience an enjoyable one for these visitors?
  • Quicker load times – The majority of mobile visitors will be browsing your site over the 3G data network. While this method suffices for small tasks like checking email etc, loading a full website can take a long time. Therefore, serving an optimised and more efficient version of the website will help to reduce load times and potential frustration (waiting for websites on your phone can be a pain), especially if they are on a PAYG data plan.

    Speed test examples for www.christmasattheoldhall.co.uk…
    mobile site = 2.3secs
    desktop site = 5.7secs

  • Design/presentation – After spending hours designing and perfecting your website, it can be disappointing when you look at it for the first time in a mobile browser. The trouble is, the built-in browsers on iOS, Android, and modern Blackberry devices can display full desktop sites, but this doesn’t always have the desired effect and your desktop site which looks great on a laptop can look out of place and are often hard to comprehend and navigate. Offering a mobile version of the site optimised for mobile browsers will allow you to incorporate an improved design which is more user-friendly for visitors with a smaller screen size and appropriate navigation.

How we created a mobile version of the Old Hall Hotel’s “Christmas 2011″ website..