New figures have revealed that the UK government is increasing its budget for online marketing and advertising at a time when the rest of its publicity initiatives are facing budget freezes and cuts.

The Central Office of Information (COI) published figures today showing that the year on year spend for government advertising and marketing budget was almost unchanged in the 12 months up to the end of March 2010, at £532 million. The previous year’s total was £540 million.

The COI is responsible for co-ordinating official advertising, marketing and communications, and its figures revealed that the budget for traditional advertising media, such as television, radio and the press dropped by 9.5 per cent to £193 million from £211 million.

However, the spend on online advertising and marketing increased by 9 per cent to £44 million, bringing the total up to 18 per cent of the government’s advertising and marketing budget.

The COI said that it was able to negotiate reduced advertising rates in the media markets because of its financial clout, and as a result had forced some £204 million in discounts – a 48 per cent saving – in comparison with government departments who handled their own campaigns.

It also saved an additional £52 million year on year by cutting spending on publications, PR and events – and by focusing on online marketing rather than the older, more costly and less effective media.

However, the COI faces a budget threat from the government’s austerity programme. Ministers are looking for cuts of up to 50 per cent, and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has already pulled the plug on most funding for the Change4Life anti-obesity campaign, according to the Guardian newspaper.

The alcoholic drinks industry association The Portman Group is offering its members the opportunity to learn how to undertake the responsible online marketing of their products.

The group, which oversees the drinks industry’s code of practice regarding the packaging, promotion and naming of alcoholic beverages, and operates the “Prove It” identity card system, is holding a number of interactive training sessions from the end of the month in London, Manchester and Edinburgh.

The sessions will explore the right and wrong ways to approach an online marketing campaign for drinks using a number of role-play and fictional scenarios dreamt up by marketing firm BD Network.

The Portman Group’s chief executive David Poley commented: “With over 18 million households in the UK now having access to the internet, it is critical that the drinks industry markets its products online in a socially responsible way.”

“The Portman Group provides expert advice in this area and these sessions will provide marketing professionals with vital information on how the code applies to digital marketing.”

The first step was taken last year, when the group published guidelines for drinks companies on responsible online advertising, and the dos and don’ts of promoting alcoholic drinks on social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. These guidelines can be found on the Portman Group website.

Any in-house drinks marketing departments or agencies working within the alcoholic beverage industry are welcome to attend the online marketing sessions. The first takes place in London at the offices of the Portman Group on 28 July.

A study eMarketer magazine has found that online advertising has remained strong during the global economic downturn thanks to the high value and “dependable” return on investment (ROI) that it affords.

The online marketing magazine said that although some firms have pulled in the reins on their advertising budgets, the amount of spending on online advertising has actually increased during the recession.

Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst, commented: “The UK is a mature market for online advertising and the internet is firmly established as an accountable channel that can deliver excellent return on investment.”

“If anything, the recession and the potential for further economic uncertainty make an even stronger case for the online option.”

Ms Von Abrams made her remarks after another report, by media investment company GroupM, indicated that the advertising market could be looking up – at least for online advertising.

The report noted that more and more sectors of UK industry are moving towards online marketing due to its unparalleled strengths when it comes to increasing the visibility of their brand and boosting their profit margins.

Yet another study, this time by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Internet Advertising Bureau, found that online advertising soared above an otherwise depressed advertising sector last year, with a 4.2 per cent increase in spending among companies, compared to 2008.

A report by Forrester Research has also concluded that online marketing can even boost offline sales. Forrester’s study found that almost half of all retail sales are influenced by a customer’s experiences online. Email marketing and special promotions via retailers’ websites are very good at directing customers to the retailer’s stores.

A new study suggests that online advertising in Britain will grow by 7 per cent by the end of the year and will eventually outstrip the amount of cash that companies spend on advertising via such traditional media as print and television.

A report by eMarketer, called UK Online Advertising Spending and Trends, discovered that online marketing had been spared the effects of the recession in a way that other kinds of media advertising had not been able to avoid.

Last year, advertisers in the UK spent a total of £3.54 billion on online advertising, which was 5.7 per cent more than in the previous year. Conversely the amount spent on advertising in other more traditional media plunged by 16 per cent.

eMarketer senior analyst Karin Von Abrams, who wrote the report, commented: “Internet ad spending continued to grow during the economic downturn, online marketers are well placed to capitalize on the recovery, whether this is slow and halting, or steady and more rapid.”

She said that the company expects spending on online advertising to level out next year, before rising yet again because of the enormous marketing opportunities presented by the 2012 London Olympics.

The extent to which online marketing has avoided the worst of the recession was underlined in a separate statement by the bosses of WPP and Publicis, both of who told the Cannes Lions advertising festival over the weekend that the advertising market was improving – in contrast to other sectors.

Mr Sorrell said that there are “no signs whatsoever” that European clients were reducing their marketing spending, although levels had yet to return to the peaks of 2008.

Mobile phone internet services firm dotMobi has recently launched a new application designed to help firms who wish to take their online marketing campaigns to mobile handsets.

The app is aimed at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and helps them to design and create websites that are specifically designed for smaller mobile phone screens. With online marketing – as with all marketing – it is always necessary to grab a user’s attention and hold it.

The goMobi platform helps SMEs to develop sites which are not only mobile-friendly, they also recognise which sort of device is being used to access them and reconfigure their content for the correct format.

The sites will be hosted in the dotMobi cloud to save SMEs the extra expense of hosting additional sites. The company’s chief executive Trey Harvin said that goMobi “connects SMEs to their customers significantly faster because a goMobi site delivers only the content mobile customers need, while making it easy for businesses to set up and maintain a unique mobile website.”

“Since a goMobi website works on all mobile handsets, it ensures a business is available on the complete range of mobiles available, not just iPhones and Android,” he added.

“Site owners can build a site in minutes and then focus on their business, while their mobile website works to bring in new customers.”

Mr Harvin went on to insist that one of the greatest strengths of goMobi was its simplicity and user-friendliness.

Although goMobi is currently only available in the US via name.com, the parent company is planning an international roll-out within the next few weeks. So UK-based businesses that wish to refine their online marketing will not have to wait long.

Twitter has become more and more popular over the year and as time goes by companies are realising its potential as a way of generating traffic to there companies websites. We have run several different tests on the effectiveness of Twitter and have found a wide range of positive results not just from our own twitter account but many other companies we represent.

On average each twitter post is generating 5 – 15 clicks of course the more followers your twitter account has the larger the chance of generating higher click volumes. Our research over the past 6 months has shown the importance of twitter being automated to a blog this way the account isn’t setup and left idle as many accounts are following the initial setup.

One thing we feel is important is creating the right image on your twitter page. The twitter background is a great place to tell people about your company and promote your company logo and brand. Not just that it looks really professional if you have your own personalised design which conforms to the correct resolution and dimensions.

Our twitter background has been live for the past 4 weeks and has already help generate a better response from twitter traffic and helped to increase followers. If you are serious about improving your presence on twitter then a personalised background is a must.

View our Twitter page – http://twitter.com/onlinemediadltd

Unless you have been locked up over the past 4 weeks you will have watched the build up and party leaders debates. Many people are tiered of the election process feeling it has gone on for too long. The countless polls being quoted showing the popularity of the individual parties going into the final stages of the campaigns.

One interesting poll is one that google has released via there homepage that shows the popularity of the leaders on searches on google. It certainly is very interesting and the graphs adds to the trend from the live leaders debates you can see a clear lift in the graph where Nick Clegg rose from obscurity.

Interesting is the massive number of searches Gordon Brown receives now is this a result of the pensioner in Rochdale that was called a “biggot” it could well be but getting close to the polling day could it show Gordons popularity coming through. The viral marketing as a result of the rochdale pensioner could very well of had a positive result in my opinion.

The party searches Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats emphasise the opinion polls from mori and the likes. A hung Parliament could very well be on the cards if Google searches are anything to go by. An interesting leap for the liberal democrats close to polling day could show an interesting swing of votes perhaps.

Online marketing analysts have revealed that search engine giant Google is currently testing a new feature which directs the attention of the user to certain brands or services, depending on the query in question.

The tests were uncovered on the Search Engine Land website, where news editor Barry Schwartz said that some readers had found that while searching for products – often electronics such as digital cameras or laptops – had noticed boxes containing “brands for” recommendations in the search results, which mentioned leading manufacturers.

The inclusion of a phone number among these recommendations makes the new experimental feature ideal for people searching Google on their iPhones or other internet-enabled mobile devices.

Mr Schwartz suggested that such a feature on Google would be of great help for large companies seeking to extend their online marketing, giving them “more exposure in the Google search results than possibly ever before.”

When contacted, Google admitted that “We’re currently testing a feature with a small number of advertisers in which a phone number can be included within the ad to help them more effectively engage with customers who prefer to connect over the phone.”

Mr Schwartz went on to suggest that companies wishing to take advantage of the new Google feature would have to work out how they could get their company name in the recommendation boxes.

He asked: “Are they reserved for only large brands? If so, what is the rational behind Google testing this feature?”

For its part, the search engine has been doing its best to keep business customers informed about the latest advances in online marketing, via its new site Ad Innovations.

Online Media Direct were please to help an innovative new site the Blue Ribbon Network website that offers a wide range of ground transportation services across the Uk. It is one of the UK’s only price comparison websites in this industry. The innovative design and feel allows prospective new customers the ability to sign up through the website and receive there desired information.    

The Blue Ribbon Services Include -

• Chauffeur Hire
• Limousine Hire  
• Coach Hire    
• Wedding Hire    
• Coach Hire UK    
• Coach Hire London   
• Coach Tours London

Improving the performance of Google Adwords

These are just a few of the different transportation options at a wide range of different events. The company already provide coach hire services to local football teams including Barrow football club. Our task was to improve the existing fortunes of the Google AdWords campaign which was already setup and running.

One of the common problems we find when taking over any adwords account is the amount of keywords being served from one single adgroup this was one of the first changes made. We have been able to increase the quality score and click through ratios on a large number of keywords. What this means in real terms to the customers is by having the more relevant ads that generate better Click through ratios you receive a reduction in cost over position on google.

So the more relevant your ads is to the keyword the better the performance. Adwords cpc loves relevant information irrelevant information in frowned upon by google as it effects the quality of there product.

As Blue ribbon also has its very own log in system we have been able to integrate the all important conversion tracking which will enable us to further fine tune the campaign and reduce those all important wasted clicks. If your company are looking for any further help with travel arrangements this year we would fully recommend the Blue Ribbon network experience a very hard working dedicated team who offer a excellent money saving service.

Optu say Media Training is here to stay

We were delighted to clinch the Rossendale based Media Training Company Optu recently as our latest high profile client. Optu have firmly established themselves over the past few years as a top ranking organisation and have served some of the world biggest celebrities and organisations. Optu have covered projects in the USA, China, Russia and the Bahamas.

Steve Ireland and Rob Hallam are both vastly experienced media professionals Steve was Head of News for BBC North West before becoming Head of Local Programmes, responsible for all regional television and four radio stations. As Controller, Regional Programmes, he helped Tyne Tees TV retain its franchise before becoming Director of Programmes. Moving into satellite TV, he was Director of Programmes at UK Gold and SVP, Programming, for the Showtime Network, part of the US giant, Viacom.

Rob in his spare time a stand up comedian has experience of presenting and moved into the TV industry in 1999 and has not looked back since. Working his way up the ITV production ladder, Rob set up his own company, ‘Bigtank’ in 2005 specialising in high octane, multi camera sporting events for the ITV networks. Rob is also an established presenter, actor and comedian and was a finalist in the 2002 BBC New Comedian of the Year awards

View the Optu Showreel

Who Optu have worked for -

German long jumper Sebastian Bayer

Usain Bolt – Triple Olympic Gold 2008 

Haile Gebrselassie – Olympic,World Champion long distance runner – Hugh honours list.

Our task was to create a fully functional Blog with SEO in mind. The blog setup enables Optu to keep the World wide web updated with the latest projects and exciting developments moving forward. The blog has enabled Optu to already achieve a large number of prime first page positions on google which are targeting local and national related keywords within there specific industry. Keep your eyes peeled and why not subscribe to Optu’s RSS feed and gain an insight and knowledgeable insight from decades of experience within the media industry.