Blog

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Twice the skills, twice the benefit


As a specialist PR agency, Cheltenham-based Target is well accustomed to generating conversations about its clients – after all, that’s the nature of reputation building.


Sarah Bryars, Chief Executive of Target, explains why they are collaborating with Swimming Hippo, to bring a new dimension to its PR service.

Traditional media relations skills are based on marrying the client’s agenda with the news agenda, in order to generate newsworthy stories and interesting features, and providing well written copy that’s tailored towards a specific audience.

It’s these skills that place PR professionals in such a strong position to deliver the strategy and content for social media programmes, ensuring that the messages and tone of voice for each client are consistent and effective, whatever the communication channel.

But one of the many ‘added benefits’ that social media and online PR contributes to the marketing mix, is the direct impact it has on search engine optimisation, improving natural search rankings which in turn can help to generate leads, and sell products. And that’s what brings the discussion firmly back into the domain of a digital specialist such as Swimming Hippo.

We realised that clients need both the ‘content’ and ‘technical’ aspects of online PR and social media to work seamlessly, and decided the most effective way to achieve that was through collaboration with a specialist agency.

In my view the most successful business relationships thrive on a heady mix of ‘chemistry’ plus perfectly matched skills and experience. That’s certainly what we’ve found through collaboration with Swimming Hippo; a team whose approach to business strikes chords with our own.

Personable, knowledgeable, driven, and with a (rarely found) ability to explain technical functionality with no-nonsense language that is always centred on business benefits and results generation – that’s why we chose to work with Joe and his team. Whether building a new website, or developing an online PR programme together, we have great confidence in the quality, efficiency and integrity of the work they produce.

With two projects already under our belts, we’re looking forward to bringing our combined skills to many more clients, so watch this space. Or give us a call!

Friday 1 April 2011

Beaumont House refreshed website launched

Last month we were delighted to confirm a new two year contract with Beaumont House, a luxury Cheltenham 5 star guest house. Well the refreshed website is now live featuring Twitter, Facebook and the opportunity to sign up for email offers. Most of the updated work has happened behind the scenes with a new content management system installed, allowing for administration of the website to take place in-house.

Take a look at the refreshed site with a new gallery presenting the luxury rooms on offer.

Visit the Beaumont House website.

New website for the Speech House Hotel

Websites should not remain static or look dated, this is a reflection of the business a website represents. No more so is this true than in the travel and leisure industry. Peter and Gill Hands, owners of The Speech House Hotel, have recognized this and commissioned Swimming Hippo Digital to re-brand their hotel identity and re-design their website.

This new website will be the 3rd generation that Swimming Hippo Digital have produced. We are very pleased to be continue helping out this client.

Keep an eye out for the new website that will feature social media, blogging, email marketing sign-up and, of course, some excellent creative.

Do you need to update your website? Call 01386 764747 or email create@swimminghippo.co.uk

Selecting the right Digital Marketing Agency

Online marketing has become a bit of a jungle, making it very difficult to select the right digital marketing agency to work with.

Take the claims on guaranteed page one results as an example. Of course any SEO (search engine optimization) agency can get you on page 1 of Google, but for which terms? Gaining page 1 results for you business name should be a given and it is also reasonably straight forward to produce good results on specific product names.

But ask yourself, is anybody searching for these terms?

The first stage of any good Search Engine Optimization campaign should be the identification of search terms using software that generates a search term research report - taking a deeper look into terms that relate specifically to products and services that your business offers and reviewing how much traffic is being generated and how high the competition is for these terms.

This is only one area of a digital marketing campaign to consider, once search terms have generated, then a strategic digital marketing plan should be considered including web page optimization, link-building and an inclusion of social media tools.

Any company that is serious about it's online marketing needs to consider regular content and the source of that content. How will you feed all these online PR tools with content? Will you generate enough in-house news articles to Tweet each day? What kind of information should be blogged or added to your Facebook page? How do you encourage followers?

Swimming Hippo Digital specialize in helping companies with all these skills.

Okay, so it's easy for anyone to say they are good, but how about a few recent search engine optimization results to prove it?


If you are looking to include Social Media or Search Engine Optimization in your marketing mix, or just want to have a discussion with a company has the a successful track record in digital marketing, call 01386 764747 or email create@swimminghippo.co.uk