Simon Pardoe - Marketing & Business Development

The Consultancy’s role, for most clients, focuses on strategy, gained from over 10 years experience designing and implementing websites.  Indeed, we developed our first website in 1997 and in 1999, for example, were closely involved in designing the online strategy (and pratical implementation) for Cannons Group plc with their 120,000 members across 35 clubs.

Since then we have developed numerous sites for clients in the UK, as well multi-lingual sites for clients in Germany, Italy and Belgium.

We work with clients to develop their online strategy and then, if required, can handle or manage all aspects of its delivery.  We have excellent relationships with several web site development companies and can call upon the appropriate expertise as necessary to suit our clients’ needs.

We’ve worked with clients whose entire business model is predicated on their success on line, whilst others utilise the internet as ‘just’ an additional factor in their business mix.  Remarkably, even today, some businesses fail to fully exploit the potential of the internet for attracting new business or maintaining / developing on-going relationships.  The Consultancy has extensive experience of all aspects of these processes.

We can assist you with some or all of the following:

Strategy  •  Site Design & Content  •  Google Analytics •  Adwords  & Banners  •  Search Engine Optimisation •  Social Networking •  Email Campaigns  •  eNewsletters  •  Reservations  •  Payments  •  Blogs

Ipsos research for insurance company Europ Assistance shows that internet-savvy Britons are the group most likely among Europeans to book their holidays online.  Produced by Ipsos and involving a sample of 3500 European consumers (see Technical Note below for more info), this leading survey, which this year is being published for the 10th year running, details the behaviour and trends of European travellers in addition to the factors influencing them, their chosen holiday destinations and the types of breaks they are planning.

The research found that:

• 68% of British travellers now book their holidays online
• British are the most likely to go on multiple breaks this year with 34% taking more than one holiday
• Only 28% of British travellers will stay in the UK for their holidays
• British spend on travel increased more than their European counterparts with the average spend on the travel in the UK being £2,710 per year – a rise of £229 on 2009
• 2010 is the first year climate overtakes weather as top criteria in influencing holiday decisions
• Rest overtakes discovery as a preferred holiday pastime for Brits, with 64% stating it as themost important factor of their holiday

Europe, which accounts for 80% of stated holiday intentions, is the favourite holiday destination for European consumers once again in summer 2010. The ranking of the various countries within Europe has remained unchanged, with a continued preference for the Mediterranean: Italy (19%, -2 points), Spain (16%, -1 point), and France (16%, unchanged).

48% of Europeans stated that they will be remaining in their own country. While 60% of French consumers will be spending their holidays in their own country; only 28% of British travellers intend to holiday in the UK this year.

To mark the publication of the 10th Ipsos-Europ Assistance “barometer” survey, interviewees were asked to state those factors which they feel have marked the history of tourism over the last decade.

The possibility to select and book your holidays at home using the Internet accounted for more than half of the votes (59%), well ahead of the other factors mentioned.

This was followed by the growth of the low-cost airlines, mentioned by 35% of respondents, followed by the increasing number of “all-inclusive” holiday packages (27%), the increase in the number of weekend and short stays (25%), and the rise of last-minute bookings (24%).

British consumers, who stood out from the rest, are those most in favour of online reservationswith 68% of holidaymakers booking their purchases online (+8 points).

Technical Note

On behalf of Europ Assistance, Ipsos conducted a study among a sample of 3,500 Europeans aged 18 years and over (French, German, British, Italian, Spanish, Belgian and Austrian), from February 14th to March 28th, 2011. The study was conducted by phone at the respondents‟ homes and using the quota method (gender, age, profession of head of household) after stratification by region and size of agglomeration.

Click here to see full Ipsos report

The company that the Consultancy uses to build and manage the majority of our client sites has recently undertaken some research into online reservations.  Whilst this is for only a handful of travel businesses, selling straight forward packages, the results demonstrate (at least for the companies monitored) that a very high percentage of holiday bookings are convenience bookings.

1.       55% of visitors book on their first visit to the website

2.       73% of visitors book on the first day they visit the website

3.       Wednesdays attract the highest conversion rate at nearly 3%

The analysis was achieved by implementing e-commerce Google Analytics.  This is an extension to the standard Google analytics. These statistics can track the order value from whatever entry point a user has made to the site, thus tracking where your marketing works.

On one of the sites monitored, bookings rose substantially when the website was enhanced to allow online bookings.

Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. The product is aimed at marketers.  It is the most widely used website statistics service and we highly recommended using it.  It’s a simple case of adding the GA code to each page of your website, and then capitalising on the valuable data that it produces.

GA can track visitors from all referrers, including search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click networks, email marketing and digital collateral such as links within PDF documents.

Integrated with AdWords, users can review online campaigns by tracking landing page quality and conversions (goals). Goals might include sales, lead generation, viewing a specific page, or downloading a particular file. These can also be monetized. By using GA, marketers can determine which ads are performing, and which are not, providing the information to optimise or cull campaigns.

GA’s approach is to show high level dashboard-type data for the casual user, and more in-depth data further into the report set. Through the use of GA analysis, poor performing pages can be identified using techniques such as funnel visualization, where visitors came from (referrers), how long they stayed and their geographical position. It also provides more advanced features, including custom visitor segmentation.

We use GA as a matter of course on all client websites.

Known as SEO, this is arguably the single most important aspect of creating a successful online presence for your business.

In a nutshell, SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.  Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine.  And, assuming your website is attractive, ‘user friendly’ and designed to suit its purpose, the more business you are going to attract.

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website web presence.

As an internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for.  Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another important SEO tactic.  As is regularly updated or ‘fresh’ content.

Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may should ideally be incorporated into website development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.

To be honest, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.  But, one thing is for sure, if you don’t apply serious attention to everything relating to SEO, then your online presence will not be achieving its best results.