Signum Media

graphic design; marketing & pr; creative web design; internet services

Archive for category Website Design

Use Professional Photography to Prosper

Nov 11

Posted by info in General, Graphic Design, Marketing & PR, Website Design | No Comments

From the invention of photography in the Victorian period we have used it to record the world around us. In the beginning photography was very technical and time consuming and to be honest the results weren’t that good. Thankfully things have improved and now all of us carry a reasonable quality camera around in our pockets courtesy of mobile communication.  Photographs are now easier to create and can be seen everywhere. Millions of images are sent and received everyday via email, mobile phones and social networking sites and make up a very colourful part of our daily lives.

.

Professional photography is vital to business success. The ability to clearly show what you do and get your message across visually is crucial and in business the better you do it, the better you will do.  The better the marketing campaign imagery, the better the results. Many a well-designed website has been let down by its lack of professional photographic images. Photographs are an aid to marketing and it is proven that professional photography can help you sell more products, grow your business and make more money.

.

A client who sells retail bathroom products via an eCommerce website recently took a picture of some products using her mobile phone and listed them on the site. After several weeks she reported poor sales. Subsequently, she commissioned a professional photographer to re-shoot the product with props in a simple set. The result?  they began selling like hot cakes, one order had totalled £2500 alone!  Coincidence?  I don’t think so. The customer wants to clearly see what it is they are buying, even more important when purchasing remotely via mail order or on the Internet where a product cannot be viewed or touched.

.

Trust your work to an industry professional and you will get the results. The money you spend will be worth it. And remember there is a bit more to being a photographer than just having a camera. Your mobile phone will also add up but you wouldn’t use it to do your tax return! In short everyone now has the ability to take a photograph but a professional photographer has the ability to make a photograph!

.

Composed and submitted by Marcus Pomfret, who has worked for Signum as a professional photographer serving business and industry for over 12 years and has had work published internationally.  You can view his work here.

Contact Signum on 01437 781333 if you’d like to employ Marcus’ professional services or require new marketing and promotional materials.

Tags: , , ,

Target your market for maximum success

Nov 9

Posted by info in General, Graphic Design, Marketing & PR, Website Design | 1 Comment

When it comes to marketing your products and services, the first thing you should do is define and target the right people. This would seem to be the obvious thing to do but you’d be surprised how many companies fail to carry out this simple task. However, it’s the most important strategy of all - no matter how brilliant your product or efficient your service, if they are marketed to the wrong people you are wasting your time!

.

Effective marketing is based largely on this principle – that is, carefully identifying and targeting the people and companies that actively need what you have to offer. Yet, as we have already stated, most companies fail to implement this fundamental first step before they approach the market.

.

The obvious result of this process is that you will be identifying ‘niche’ markets for your products and services which are easier to reach than a mass market approach and what’s more will cost less to reach. In addition, results are likely to be quicker and easier to identify than a ’shotgun’ method.

.

Now you may say: ‘if I only target a niche market I will not be dealing with as many people as I could’ and this, of course, is true. However, in today’s economic environment it makes clear sense to concentrate your resources for maximum effect. If this means your potential market is limited to fewer but more realistic customers, this focussed approach will allow your more money to spend on each customer rather than it being dissipated across many. Alternatively, you may find you spend less because your market is smaller.

.

The ultimate aim is to seek to place your company in the position of being THE company your customers turn to – because they know that it is you that really understands their wants and needs. If you succeed, it will be to you they return to and not your competitors.

.

For advice on marketing matters and corporate design contact Signum or call on 01437 781333.

Tags: , , , ,

Choosing your Domain Name (Part 1)

Nov 3

Posted by info in General, Website Design | 2 Comments

One of the biggest problems when it comes to building a website and getting online is what domain to register. It’s often the case that the domain you desperately want and crave has been registered by someone else, forcing you to think of alternatives. Here are a few pointers when it comes to choosing that all important domain name:

.

1)      You don’t necessarily have to register a domain that mentions your company name. Instead, why not choose a generic domain name that says exactly what you do in terms of your products and services? Not only is this likely to be more memorable to your clients, it will help with your search engine ranking too. For example, if you were to register the domain www.widgetsforgadgets.co.uk then this gives you an immediate advantage over your competitors if someone searches for ‘widgets for gadgets’

.

2)      You are allowed up to 63 characters between the www. and the domain extension (e.g. .co.uk) but you don’t have to use all of those characters. In fact it’s good practice to keep your domain name as short as possible. If it’s too long then customers are less likely to visit your site and this also increases the risk of your domain being mis-typed and you lose a potential customer.

.

3)      Also, don’t forget that your domain is likely to be used for email purposes too so you’ll have to give out your address as whatever@yourdomain.co.uk and if your domain is long to start with then your email prefix will only lengthen this, meaning people won’t visit your website and they won’t email you either! This is obviously something you will want to avoid!

.

4)      Some tips on shortening your domain are the use of numbers and dashes. For example, www.widgetsforgadgets.co.uk could become www.widgets4gadgets.co.uk.

.

5)      Remember, you’re only allowed to use letters, numbers and dashes in your domain name. Spaces and special characters are not allowed. As a general rule you should replace a space with a dash or replace an amperes and with just the word ‘and’.

.

Part 2 of ‘Choosing your Domain Name’ will be published on 4th November. Be sure to return. Or if you’d like to register a domain for your company right now then why not contact us on 01942 225900 or email to check availability and obtain a price?

Tags: , , , ,

Cutting Down on Spam (Part 2)

Nov 2

Posted by info in General, Website Design | 1 Comment


We continue our advice on how to beat spam (see Part 1 here if you missed it)

.

6)      You should also try to avoid listing your email address on things such as message boards and social networking sites as this also means that your email address is freely available online for spammers to pick up on. If you feel you must list your email address then why not consider using a free email account like hotmail, yahoo or gmail, as mentioned in point 3 above?

.

7)      A lot of people make use of ‘catch all’ email addresses whereby they have one email address that catches emails addressed to ANYTHING@yourdomain.co.uk. If spam is a real problem for you then it’s advisable to get rid of the catch all facility. There is quite a lot of spam sent out by spammers who only know your domain name and not your email address but because you have the catch all facility they can put anything before the @ sign and it will land in your inbox.

.

8)      We’re getting into desperate measurers territory here now but one fairly modern method of preventing spam is to list your email address on your website in such a way that spammers cannot find it. The majority of spam you receive will be as a result of spammers scanning your website for an email address without actually visiting your website and then adding you to their lists. Why not change your email address online to display like this: youaddress [at] yourdomain [dot] co [dot] uk. Yes it may not look normal but it will protect you from spam as it doesn’t contain the @ sign or the dots that feature in everyone’s email address and so the spammers will leave your site and look for someone else to hassle.

.

9)      If you believe you’re the victim of a spam campaign and are receiving an extortionate amount of junk email then you can report this to your ISP. Your ISP is the company that provides your internet connection. They will be able to take a look at the types of emails that you’re receiving and could potentially blacklist certain IP addresses from sending emails to you or anyone else for that matter. So by reporting emails you believe to be spam you could be helping other victims of spam into the bargain.

.

10)   Finally, the company responsible for hosting your website and email should be able to install spam filtering software onto your mail server. Software such as Spamassassin will scan each incoming email and give that email a score as to how likely it is to be spam. You can set the software to then block emails of a certain score or higher, thus preventing large amounts of spam from arriving in your inbox. If your website is hosted with us here at Signum then this is already the case.

.

We hope you found this article useful. If anything mentioned above is of interest to you and you would like some further help or advice please email Signum or call 01942 225900.

Tags: , , ,

Cutting Down on Spam (Part1)

Oct 30

Posted by info in General, Website Design | 1 Comment


Spam is increasingly becoming the bane of our lives. A recent study by Microsoft claimed the figure to be around 120 billion emails per day (around 85% of all emails in circulation Worldwide) are spam. Below are some measures you can take to reduce this unwanted intrusion:

.

1)      Make use of the junk mail filter in your email software. If you use Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail check the ‘Help’ menu in your software to find out how to activate and configure the junk folder. Once up and running you should check every now and again to make sure genuine emails aren’t going into the junk folder. If they are, your settings are set too tightly and need to be adjusted. Likewise if you’re still getting a lot in your inbox then you’re settings are not set high enough.

.

2)      Avoid signing up for to mailing lists, forums and generally giving your email address freely online unless you feel it’s essential. ALWAYS read the small print near the submit button when signing up to things online but be careful, some companies are clever and may make it difficult to see whether you need to tick the box or leave it unticked in order for your address to be added to their mailing list.

.

3)      If you feel you have to sign up to forms and mailing lists online but don’t want this to affect your main business address you should consider signing up for a free account with the likes of hotmail, yahoo or gmail and use that address for your forms and mailing lists. This way you can check the emails as often or as little as you like without worrying about the spam arriving in your inbox along with your business mail. The likes of hotmail, yahoo and gmail have good junk mail facilities so when you login you should mainly see the emails from the mailing lists you signed up to, the rest will be in a junk mail folder.

.

4)      If you have a contact enquiry form on your website it’s possible that spammers will be able to submit blank enquiries from your form, even if you’ve got systems in place on your site where certain fields are mandatory. The best way to prevent this is to add an image verification field to your website, known as captcha. This is where you see an image display beside the submit button and you’re asked to enter the letters and digits in the image before submitting the form. This should prevent the majority of blank form submissions you’re getting.

.

5)      Never reply or forward an email from someone you don’t really know or trust or if the sender is someone you suspect may be contacting you for the wrong reasons. If you reply to a spam email it’s just proving to a spammer that your email address is active and so the spamming will continue. Likewise if you forward chain emails to your friends you lose control over who is seeing your email address online as the chain increases, which can also lead to an increase in the amount of spam you receive.

.

That’s all for now but be sure to return to our blog on 2nd November for Part 2 of our advice on how to combat spam.

.

Call 01942 225900 or email Signum for further information.

Tags: , , ,