Just Think

With the recession continuing to bite and revenue hard to sustain, the need for a business to have an Internet presence has never been stronger. An ever-increasing number of are people going online to find information about local products and services.

Latest stats from the Internet Advertising Bureau, in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows a growth in online spend despite the difficult economic conditions.

Key figures are:

• Spending on internet advertising grew by 4.2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
• Paid-for search listings (the adverts that appear next to search engine results) were up 9.5%, display adverts down 4.4% and classified adverts down 5.3%
• The number of people online grew to 39.7 in Feb 2010, representing an increase of over four million active internet users in just 12 months.

We create, build and manage Google AdWords Campaigns to make sure our clients can benefit from this increase in business activity on the internet.

Choosing an agency to manage your AdWords marketing is difficult, especially when so many companies suffer from shocking customer service, defficiency and incompetence. Many of our clients come to us from agencies who have let them down; offering few keywords, poor results and a basic non-understnding of their business

We aim to impress because we’re passionate about our work, and enthusiastic for your results. We have developed ideas, techniques and applications which are totally unique, and often very powerful. We have worked within lots of industries and seen some great turnaround results.

AdWords is very much a number driven:

• The demand needs to be high enough to generate the clicks.
• The profit margins need to be high enough to afford the clicks.
• The conversion rates need to be high enough to make use of the clicks.
• The clicks needs to be cheap enough to bring in the conversions you need.

It’s not uncommon for a website to be unsuitable for AdWords. E.g. too low demand, too poor a website, too low a profit margin to be able to afford clicks, or too fierce competition to make it worthwhile. This is why its essential to discuss your situation with an expert beforehand – contact us for advice with no strings, pressures or nonsense!

So if you think your business is suitable for the next level of AdWords management, simply get in touch. We never go for the hard-sell – the service speaks for itself.

In July, Ford revealed their new car, the 2011 Ford Explorer in a new, and typically unconventional way for the car industry. They revealed their new car online, using social media.

Ford have used social media in the past, to great success, but they had never before used it to deliver the entire revealing of a new Ford car. The 2011 Ford Explorer, is however aimed at a target audience of young professionals, mainly young females (heightened by Victoria Beckham’s designing of the car’s interior). This age group (24-35) is part of the biggest proportion of social network users, and thus Ford saw this factor as the perfect opportunity to launch their new car as 24-35 year olds are their prime target group for the 2011 Ford Explorer.

The success of the 2011 Ford Explorer using Facebook as their prime launch-pad, is highlighted by the 57,000 people who have “liked” the group. Ford’s target “likes” for this campaign, was to reach 30,000 “likes” by the 26th July, before the launch, which they successfully reached, and have now almost doubled.

So, you may be wondering how Ford have managed this success, using social network Facebook as its main launch pad for their new 2011 Ford Explorer. Ford have five main key success factors, which have influenced their success within this new campaign:

1.) They understand their target audience

2.) They learn from past campaigns

3.) They set goals and measure

4.) They integrate

5.) They always look forward

If you have never thought about using social networks before, or the power that it can have to attract potential customers, then Ford is a brilliant example of how to implement a successful social networking campaign. Ford may be a well known, world-wide brand, but it still shows how much power is available to businesses all over the world, just by making themselves well-known on social networking sites.

Join the Just Think community on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

Our latest E-commerce website, Paddock Farm has gone live.

Paddock Farm are a Nursery and Water Gardens based in Darlington for over 15 years, with a great wealth of knowledge and expertise in horticulture, gardening and aquatics.They are fuelled by the production power and specialist knowledge of M & J Horticulture, with dedication to world class customer service and products of the highest quality in the areas of Pond and Indoor Aquaria, Garden Features, Plants, Shrubs, Trees. Their water garden centre extends to four acres on a site of 12 acres and features large cold water tanks of Koi carp and goldfish, an indoor aquarium with an extensive stock of tropical fish and a comprehensive range of outdoor ponds, liners, pumps, filters and indoor aquariums and accessories.

The wonderful new website for Paddock Farm has been developed using Just Think’s e-commerce tool U-Clicked. This great new tool enables companies to maximise their online sales, and is expected to be very popular with businesses looking for a simple way to manage, promote and sell products online.

UClicked offers you a secure and simple Content Management System. This allows you to update your website from anywhere in the world at any time of the day, and add products and an unlimited amount of images quickly and effectively. It also allows users to get detailed order statistics, show product reviews and ratings, and track every order you receive.

Visit our website to find out more about Just Think, U-Clicked, and our wonderful services.

Just Think.co.uk has recently launched its e-commerce tool ‘U-Clicked’. This powerful online tool helps companies maximise their online sales, and is expected to be very popular with businesses looking for a simple way to manage, promote and sell products online.

To find out more, read our article on Darlington Interface Magazine!

Just Think…take a look.

With more than 64% of the UK’s online population having their own online profile, it is important to make sure that you use social networking effectively and efficiently to make you and your business more productive and attract the right people to your networks.

Ten years ago, “networking” was done in meetings, bars, on phone calls, and in resteraunts. Now, the majority of “networking” is done online, on social networking sights such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn . This form of networking saves face-time and significantly reduces the amount of time to start a new relationship with some one. For businesses, online networking enables a large number of new contacts to be developed quickly and easily, reducing the time spent in face-to-face networking sessions, and enabling more time to be spent on the day-to-day running of your business.

The key to staying productive online, is to distinguish your personal time spent online, with your professional use of it. Knowledge is everything, and if social media is used properly, it can be used to find, consume and act upon the most up-to-date and relevant information, which you can exchange with new online ‘friends’ and reinforce their ‘friendship’ in the form of relevant information that they are likely to be interested in.

Make sure that you make the most of your tools- it’s not what you use, but how you use it. If you have Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, use them to your advantage, and make online ‘friendships’ that are relevant to your business, informing them of information that is likely to make them want to come back to you in the future for advice in a certain business area. Just Think…come to us if you ever need any help with internet marketing!

“Like” our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter. Be part of our online community!

10 things you ‘could’ do today to unlock the wealth in your business.

We have developed a top ten list to unlock the wealth in your business today. The top 3 tips are below, and we will be posting tips 4-10 on our blog and our facebook page. “Like” our facebook page to see the next 7 tips!

Number 1- ‘Do Something And Do It Now’

For those of you who are brilliant at planning, get out of your comfort zone- find any excuse to send a communication to your customers- mail, email, phone call, but action it IMMEDIATELY. It will remind a percentage of your customers that they meant to get in touch with you, and within minutes they will want to spend money with you again.

Number 2- ‘The Compelling Offer’

Send an email with a compelling August offer to your customers. This is an easy, cheap, quick way to bring in some serious additional revenue. Spend an hour or so writing an email and send it. Then think of another 11, one for each of the other months of the year.

Number 3- ‘Phone Ten Customers’

Clear one hour off your schedule and call ten customers. Don’t try to sell them anything, just call to thank them for their custom and see how they are. Now is a good time. Expect at least two of them to spend more money with you (this figure could be as high as eight or nine). Just think what this would do for your income if you did this regularly!

Check out facebook for the next 7 tips!

If your unhappy with your email service then you will need to read this article. As a company we have moved to the cloud and as an individual also and not looked back since. With Google apps I have securtiy, check my email, create reports, alter spreadsheets, make presentations, chat and store my contacts. There’s also the added benefits of google apps on your phone making last minute changes or that vital email to respond to.

At Just Think we are committed to implementing a Google Apps strategy and like lots of companies embracing cloud technology keeping ahead of your competitors. If your are a Virgin Media you will aready know that they have switched there email service to Google having seen the benefits.

Google Apps work on on multiple levels from free to corporate services contact us to learn more.

Google rules in the cloud. That’s the stark reality and that is despite Microsoft’s direct shot at Google’s heart with its cloud-based version of Office.

Word from CIOs and IT pros is that, suddenly, the momentum is on where companies, mainly still small but with increasing numbers of large ones, are switching to cloud-based office productivity apps for one simple reason: they want to save money. Cloud-based apps definitely save, in two ways. Per-seat fees are usually much lower than the charges imposed by Microsoft (typically $100 to $200 per seat, per year) and in some cases there are no fees whatsoever. The other, huge, money saver is in IT support costs. Cloud providers usually handle support for little or no cost.

Ready to join the stampede? You will have company. Google now claims over two million businesses using Docs with “thousands more” signing up daily. Here are the top 10 reasons to make the switch:

1. It’s free – Even the beefed up enterprise edition of Google Docs, featuring more storage and more bells and whistles (video hosting, Google Groups tools, and more), only costs $50 per user, per year. That’s an all-in fee, inclusive of cloud-based file storage and help desk services, but many get by fine with the absolutely free version.

2. It’s easy – No hassles, said IT consultant Jeff VanDrimmelen, author of Googlelize your Life, a book about the benefits of using Google. If you can type, you can use the Google suite, which emphasizes ease of use.

3. It does collaboration better – That is inarguable, said VanDrimmelen. When a team is working on, say, a PowerPoint show or a spreadsheet, it happens more smoothly in the cloud, with much less wasted storage. (There is no need to make a dozen local copies of the presentation, for example. One copy resides in the cloud and that is plenty.) Google Docs were built from the ground up to support 21st century collaboration, legacy desktop alternatives weren’t.

4. You don’t need the features Google Docs lacks – Word, Excel, PowerPoint are mature programs with literally thousands of advanced features apiece and, yes, Google Docs is not nearly so feature rich. And Word, for instance, does some things much better (footnotes, for instance), but does your business need those highly advanced features? Probably never, said Wade Beavers, CEO of DoApp, a developer of mobile phone apps that is standardized on Google Docs.

5. Free up IT to do higher-value work – Because Google Docs can eliminate IT’s involvement in the minutiae of productivity app deployment, “this frees staff to do more important work,” said Beavers. Like what? The stuff they have long said they wanted to do but were too bogged down with grunt work to tackle.

6. What me worry about security? – VanDrimmelen concedes that some businesses have held back shifting data into the Google cloud because of security concerns, but the reality is that Google’s security track record is good. Data stored with Google is probably as safe as it would be in most corporate data centers.

7. Google Docs are polished tools – Google’s word processor dates back to Writely, which debuted online in 2005 (and was bought by Google in 2006). Google put its own spreadsheet application online in 2006. In 2007 it debuted a presentation app. The tool set is tested, it’s had millions of users, and it has been thoroughly debugged, said project management pro Steven Savage, and that’s a key point

8. Any device, anywhere – That’s the mantra of the 21st Century mobile worker and no office productivity suite gives such seamless access as Google Docs, which allows users to access files via mobile phones, even the Apple iPad, and of course from desktop computers and notebooks.

9. Free off site back-up – With a built-in, robust auto-save feature Google Docs provides automated backup for documents as they are edited. There also are good tools for flipping through revision histories. But the real plus is the back-up: Losing work becomes nearly impossible when Google Docs is deployed.

10. Google will integrate telephony into Docs – There is no confirmation of that from the company yet, but with Google Voice and its purchase of VoIP player Gizmo5, experts are persuaded that telephony inside Google Docs is coming soon. Stay tuned. If this is true, it will give companies that want more and better unified communications a strong reason to adopt Google Docs.

The reasons are plentiful and persuasive for switching to Google Docs and, with continuing pressures on IT to contain costs, the velocity of businesses switching to Google Docs seems certain to accelerate.

There is one counterpoint to mull, however. There may be a better cloud-based office productivity suite than Google Docs already, at least for some users. “Zoho is robust and it has a good developer platform,” said Vatsal Sonecha, a VP at online security firm TriCipher. The Zoho difference is that under its umbrella are many applications — online meetings, CRM, a DIY wiki, in addition to the core office productivity apps (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation). Zoho, which prices applications per user, (typically around $12 per seat, per month) launched its Web-based apps in 2005 and although Google Docs gets the loud buzz, Zoho has a loyal fan base that insists it’s worth a look before plunging ahead with Google Docs.

Original article

Imagine your web address…yourwebpage.co

What do you think? No, I didn’t miss the m or the .uk, off the end of the .co.

.Co is the most recent domain name to hit the internet. They are expected to be popular with their properties similar to .com websites: they are available to anyone around the world. They also benefit from the fact that more than 20 countries around the world currently use .co within their domain name. Take a look at the UK: .co.uk and Japan: co.jp who are two of the twenty countries currently using .co within their domain name.

It will be interesting to see if .co can ever compete with the .com’s, but it won’t be long until we know how successful the new domain name has been.

Justthink…websites now just got more competitive- make sure you don’t miss out with your business, and talk to Just Think about website development and SEO.

…The click that can send thousands of e-mails to prospective clients at the drop of a second. If you have never thought about e-mail marketing before, then I will tell you more. You are likely to be impressed.

Every Tuesday and Friday, here at Just Think HQ, we create an e-mail that we send out to you! We vary the topics and keep them interesting to tell you things that you may find useful in business. This week we wanted to illustrate to you the power of e-mail marketing. If we show you what it has done for us, then you will understand how cost and time effective e-mail marketing really is, and what it could do for your business!

So, we recently set up an e-mail and sent it to you! We posted a few links in the e-mail, and one of them will have directed you to our blog…to read this article! You may then decide that you want to ring us to find out more about what we do, which happens often!

Our past e-mail campaigns have brought measurable success; after each e-mail campaign, we follow up with people who have opened our e-mails or who have looked at specific links from our e-mail. From these follow-ups, Just Think have found over 20 prospective clients, and are currently finalising business with 5. This number may not sound significant, but it really is! Think about how many direct mail leaflets you would have to send to gain 5 new clients…it could be thousands, and think of the cost of this in comparison to the relative low-cost of e-mail campaigns. Also compare e-mail marketing and direct-mail marketing in relation to the environment. With e-mail marketing, there is no paper involved, and no delivery vehicle emissions, making e-mail marketing much more environmentally friendly…killing two birds with one stone.

If you want to find out more about how e-mail marketing could work for your business, give us a ring…we are always happy to hear from you!

Justthink…Advanced thinking for profit.

It’s Monday again, and you may be feeling unsure about how to market your business efficiently and effectively, but I thought I would remind you how cost-effective and useful internet marketing really is.

Internet Marketing includes many mediums that you are likely to come accross on a daily basis, in your work and social lives. Think about websites;How often do you go online and shop, find out news or just browse websites? If like me that is often, then you will understand just how powerful having an up-to-date and relevant website is. If you are looking for something more specific, or don’t know how to find what you are looking for, you are most likely to use a search engine such as google to aid your search. If you type in ‘advanced thinking for profit’ in google, the top 5 places are occupied by the Just Think website, pages or blog. Just Think have been able to occupy these positions by using a successful implementation of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), with which Just Think has a team of skilled employees working behind and constantly up-dating. Once an effective website and SEO method are in place however, the traffic driven to your website is likely to increase and thus this relatively simple method of advertising is doing its job.

Another cost-effective method of internet marketing, is Social networking; Twitter and Facebook. I’m sure most of you have at least heard of these social phenomenoms of the moment and their popularity is only set to increase alongside the introduction of ‘Google Buzz’ and other social networks. They allow users to keep up-to-date with friends, family, colleagues and businesses, and create an easy way to stay in contact. Once you have created the first contact, you can build and strengthen relationships, and widen your networking reach efficiently. Take a look at Just Think on our social networks. “Like” us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and we will post new photos of recent work, news, and up-to-date information. Our blog will also keep you up-to-date with news, information and anything that we think you might be interested in. We would love for you to comment on any blog that you find interesting!

If you are struggling to find ways to market your business cost-effectively or innovately…Justthink

Justthink…Advanced thinking for profit.