by Michael Cropper | May 20, 2014 | News |
It seems like the fun never ends! After recently being shortlisted in the finals for the Lancashire Red Rose Awards 2014, the Prolific North Awards 2014 and The Bibas 2014, we have now also been shortlisted in the finals in the Chartered Institute of Marketing Northern Awards 2014 in two categories! The two categories we are through to the finals for are, Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year along with Northern Agency of the Year.
The category for Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year recognises the work from an outstanding digital campaign that has successfully met objectives and delivered excellent results. The Northern Agency of the Year category is an award to celebrate the best marketing agency in the North of England.
The Chartered Institute of Marketing Northern Awards recognise and reward the creativity and success of companies participating in digital marketing in the North of England. The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the leading international body for marketing and business development with over 40,000 members. CIM provides marketing qualifications, training for marketing professionals.
Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year
To be shortlisted in the finals for the Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year award we had to clearly demonstrate a successful campaign we have worked on. Thankfully, we have several of these which we can choose from. As part of the entry we outlined the clear objectives set for the campaign including the target audience for the campaign.
This allowed us to create a strategy that would meet those objectives. Talking through the implementation of the campaign and the creative elements that went into the campaign clearly showed how every action was linking back to the main objectives.
The campaign we ran led to a huge increase in traffic and sales which far exceeded the targets we had.
Within this category we are up against the likes of the University of Huddersfield, one of the UK’s leading PR agencies along with a large agency with over 170 members of staff and revenues in excess of £155,000,000 in 2013. Getting through to the finals against such large and well established companies within our first year of trading is something we are extremely proud of.
Northern Agency of the Year
To be shortlisted in the finals for the Northern Agency of the Year award we had to outline how amazing we are. We’ve always got a lot to talk about, so this was our opportunity to do exactly that. As part of the entry we had to talk through our objectives for the previous year, or for us this was since we launched back in August.
We then talked through what we have been doing over the past year for our clients and in the community. As you may imagine, our recent campaign work was also included in this area. In addition, we talked through our recent achievements as a business, which since launching has been quite a few including the other awards we have been shortlisted in recently too.
Following on from this, we talked through the key challenges we have faced as a business in the past year which have been around external factors with the digital industry moving at such as phenomenal speed. This meant continual innovation was essential to stay ahead as a business.
Within this category we are up against other digital marketing agencies with over 60 members of staff, which again highlights the achievement getting shortlisted in the finals against such large and well established companies.
Judges
The judges for the awards this year are from senior marketing positions ranging from local universities, marketing companies, local councils and the Recommended Agency Register. The judges who decided that we have what it takes to get through to the finals are; Steve Antononwicz, Managing Director at Recommended Agency Register; Giovanna Battiston, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Sheffield Business School at Sheffield Hallam University and Chair CIM Yorkshire; Yvonne Dixon, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Sunderland and North East Regional Board Member at the CIM; Diane Earles, Network Manager at the CIM; Dave Edmundson-Bird, Principal Lecturer in Digital Marketing & Enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School; Duncan Frazer, Visitor Economy Marketing Manager at Marketing Liverpool; Scott Hadden, Marketing Manager, Aaron & Partners and Vice Chair CIM North West; Sarah-Jane Howitt, Director of Marketing at Weightmans; Sandy Lindsay, Group MD at Tangerine PR; Charlie Nettle, Head of Marketing at North East Chamber and Vice Chair CIM North East of England; Ian Ratcliffe, Head of Corporate Communications and Public Involvement at Stockport Council; Dawn Southgate, Head of Knowledge at the CIM; David Teale, Chief Executive at North of England Excellence; Graham Webb, Managing Director at Yorkshire Sales & Marketing Developments.
Wish us luck!
by Michael Cropper | May 5, 2014 | News |
We’ve been rather busy over these last few months working away in the background getting things in place so we can offer our clients a full range of digital services. As always, our focus is on increasing traffic, sales & enquiries through our clients’ websites with digital marketing activities.
Why we have expanded our services
Before we look at the new services we have on offer, I’d like to explain the rationale behind this change. Since launching only 9 months ago we have spoken with a large number of companies within the East Lancashire area, from start-ups to multi-million pound well established businesses. One thing above all that we keep hearing in the discussions we’re having with businesses is around need for a wide range of high quality digital marketing skills.
Businesses we have spoken to have been struggling to find the right skills and experience to fulfil roles and requirements in a wide range of digital marketing areas. Requests from clients vary hugely and requirements often cover multiple disciplines. This is the reason we have expanded our services to support our current and new clients with a full range of digital services to suit their needs.
New Services
We see digital marketing breaking down into five key areas which are design, build, traffic generation, tracking and optimisation. We are now able to offer our current and future clients a full range of digital marketing services to suit their specific needs. Find out more about each of our key service groups below.
Design
We believe that design feeds into all digital marketing activities from website development, search engine optimisation and email marketing. Design should be an integral part of all digital marketing activities to generate maximum engagement and response from campaigns.
We use creative design through everything we do including creative design, photography, video production, copywriting & content marketing.
Build
We understand the importance of building scalable and stable platforms for your customers. That’s why we work with you to build websites and mobile applications that your customers love. With so many options available for developing websites and mobile applications, we recommend the best solution to suit your needs.
Whether this is a simple WordPress website or a large Magento ecommerce platform to sell your products. Save yourself time and money by working with enterprise level content management systems (CMSs) so you can make the changes to your website with ease by simply logging into the administration area and making the change.
Find out more about our website development and mobile application development services.
Traffic Generation
Traffic generation is essential for all businesses operating in the digital world. An increase in traffic to your website, mobile applications and social channels leads to an increase in sales and revenue. With so many options for generating traffic and sales through your website, we will create a clear strategy for your business to grow.
Find out more about our traffic generation services including search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, social media strategy and email marketing.
Tracking
Tracking digital marketing campaigns is essential for brands serious about growing their business online. Tracking is at the heart of everything we do to ensure that all campaigns are performing well along with seeing where improvements can be made. We use advanced tracking solutions to provide detailed insight into your business to allow you to focus your marketing budget on areas that are going to provide a return.
Find out more about our tracking services including Google Analytics and call tracking.
Optimisation
Continually improve your website and the user experience for your customers to increase sales and revenue. Find out what your customers really think of your website and identify areas for improvement. Using a mixture of a data driven quantitative methods along with user driven qualitative methods allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your customers.
Find out more about our optimisation services including customer reviews, live chat, user feedback, marketing automation, user testing & conversion rate optimisation.
Training
We also offer training across the range of digital marketing services which are suitable either as a one-2-one intensive training session or as a group based session for your internal marketing teams.
Summary
If your business is looking to increase traffic, sales & enquiries online then get in touch to find out how we can help. To make sure you are working with the right digital agency, we offer a free proposal tailored to your specific needs so you can try us out before you commit to working with us.
by Michael Cropper | May 2, 2014 | News |
Wow, wow and wow!! That’s right, we are in the finals for 4 separate categories for the Lancashire wide business awards, The Bibas 2014! This is such an amazing achievement within the short space of 9 months since officially launching.
The Be Inspired Business Awards is the largest business awards in Lancashire designed to showcase leading companies in Lancashire. This year there were over 1232 applications from 576 companies. Lancaster University Management School prepared the judges for the awards who undertook rigorous training. The research project from Lancaster University examined the world’s leading business awards to gain insight into how to judge the best companies. Based on this, they established a set of criteria to evaluate the large amount of applications to create a shortlist of excellent companies.
Dr Ellie Hamilton from Lancaster University Management School said;
“I promise you, if your business makes it to the interview stage, you have done very well indeed.”
The awards are being backed by leading companies including;
Here are the four award categories that we have been shortlisted for.
Creative Business of the Year
Companies shortlisted for the finals of the Creative Business of the Year award category had to show how their creative expertise delivered innovative products and services to their clients. We showcased how we balance both creative and commercial development for projects with clients and the strategies we use to ensure both work in harmony.
We are a creative company and are always looking for new opportunities for our clients. Within the application for this category we had to explain how we nurture creativity within the business and how we achieve excellence as a company by providing solutions to our clients to suit their individual and unique needs. You may have seen earlier in the year, we became an official HootSuite Solutions Partner.
E-Business of the Year
We have been shortlisted in the finals for the E-Commerce Business of the Year. This category was open to businesses that have significantly grown their business or that of a client. This may be achieved through e-commerce, communications and mobile technologies.
As part of the application, we demonstrated how we have used the internet and technology in an innovative way to enhance commercial performance for our clients, and identified opportunities for growth.
Given the pace of change, it is a constant challenge to respond with meaningful actions and strategies for our clients. There have been several major changes within the digital industry that we have had to adapt to stay ahead since launching only 9 months ago.
We are always looking ahead at what the next big thing is going to be and we strongly believe that digital is on the verge of changing everyone’s lives in ways we can’t even imagine. With the rise of superfast broadband throughout the country along with physical computing and wearable devices gaining ground, this really is going to be an interesting time ahead.
New Business of the Year
Another award category we have been shortlisted for is the New Business of the Year award. This award was open to businesses that have been operating for less than 3 years.
We had to explain how we identified key opportunities within the digital and creative sector and innovations we have brought to the market. Since launching in 2013, we have grasped huge opportunities and continue to grow the business further.
Stay tuned for how this start-up company grows over the next few years!
Most Inspiring Business of the Year
Finally, we have also been nominated for the Most Inspiring Business of the Year award. This category wasn’t actually open for applications like the other awards.
Instead, the judges looked at the 1232 applications from all 576 companies and decided that we were a company worthy of the finals and one to watch for the future!
Wish us luck!!
by Michael Cropper | Mar 14, 2014 | News |
We are really pleased to announce that we have got through to the finals in the Prolific North Awards 2014 within the SEO & PPC Agency category. This has come from achieving outstanding results with our clients, driving huge increases in traffic and sales through their websites.
The Prolific North Awards celebrate excellence, recognise leading companies and reward outstanding campaigns and exceptional talent in the creative and media industries across the North of England. The Search Engine Optimisation & Pay per Click Agency category is for companies who demonstrate consistently high standards of work, have identified and exploited new markets, income streams and opportunities for clients along with demonstrating exceptional search results for Search Engine Optimisation campaigns.
SEO & PPC Agency category
Find out more about the awards and see who we are up against. We’re up against some much larger and well established companies with over 250 members of staff, which is a significant achievement and huge recognition for us within our first year of trading. We have also recently been shortlisted in the finals in the prestigious Lancashire Red Rose Awards.
The judging panel for the Prolific North Awards 2014 include Andy Barke the Industry Head at Google UK, Russ Brady the Group Head of Public Relations at The Co-operative, Leanne Buchan the Culture & Sport City Development Directorate at Leeds City Council, Mark Dickinson the Chairman at Prolific North, Dave Edmundson-Bird the Principle Lecturer for Digital Marketing & Enterprise at MMU Business School, Richard Frediani the Programme Editor at ITN, Jim Hancock a Journalist & Presenter, Dee Marshall the Director of Communications at Welcome to Yorkshire, Neil Roscoe the Communications Officer at Jaguar Land Rover, Sally Sykes the Executive Director for External Affairs & Strategy at the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman plus many more.
by Michael Cropper | Feb 5, 2014 | News |
We are really excited to announce that we have got through to the finals in Lancashire’s most prestigious business awards, The Red Rose Awards within the Ecommerce category. This has come from achieving outstanding results with our clients, driving huge increases in traffic and sales through their websites.
To see the full list of finalists, head over to the Red Rose Awards website.
by Michael Cropper | Jan 28, 2014 | Digital Marketing, News |
We are really pleased to announce that we are now an official HootSuite Solution Partner!
We believe social media is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy which is why we have become a HootSuite Solution Partner. This enables us to offer a best in class service for our clients with social media strategy and management to help your business grow online.
HootSuite is a social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. Key social network integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, plus a suite of social content apps for YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, Yammer, Tumblr and more.
In 2013 HootSuite surpassed 8 million users, including 750 of the Fortune 1000 companies. HootSuite is quite simply an extremely powerful tool that allows you to manage your social media channels effectively, leaving you more time to spend on creating some awesome content for your business.
Sign up for a 30-day free trial of HootSuite Pro now and see how valuable this tool can be within your business.
In addition to Contrado Digital becoming an official HootSuite Solution Partner, I have also passed all exams and become a Certified HootSuite Professional, so we are well placed to help with all your social media strategy needs. Get in touch if you would like to find out more about how we can help your business utilise HootSuite and the many social media platforms available.
Michael Cropper, HootSuite Certified Professional
We are now officially launching our social media strategy service to help grow business take advantage of one of the fastest growing channels in digital marketing. Finally, to celebrate we are already tucking into the delicious cake you can see below;
Contrado Digital HootSuite Solutions Partner
Om nom nom!
