Welcome to the Escape Blog

Does your Company Belong in the Blogosphere? is the question that Katherine Heires asks on the Harvard Business School website.

Heires identifies that an effective corporate blog can :

• Influence the public "conversation" about your company
• Enhance brand visibility and credibility
• Achieve customer intimacy

When we speak about enhancment of customer loyalty, honesty and authenticity count for a lot. Invitation to respond directly to you by the way of comments not only allows people a sounding board, but could give you valuable insight to what people really think - not what you think they think!

Craig’s Seminar on Effective Web Marketing on Tuesday was well received with some excellent overall content in the day.

If you were a delegate and looking for the seminar details, you can find them here. Please note that the FREE book offer is only available to delegates who were registered.

If you want to learn more about the e-marketing forum, you can visit the web site here as they are planning future events around the UK.

The latest changes to the Google Ranking System have well and truly kicked in. 

webpronews.com have a great article on this by expert, Ken Webster.

If you’ve wondered why your site disappeared on Google recently, this article may hold some answers.

When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) it is very much a game of cat and mouse; a game that doesn’t end. You may get the odd breather but you need to be very much on your toes.

That’s why we have a strategic partnership with Web Results Direct. That’s their job and that’s what they do - nothing else, just SEO. And they love it!

If you are spending any money on Google Adwords, or you are looking to drive more search engine traffic to your site, then these are the guys we recommend.

Make a note in your diaries for the following:

Contract Sorted Standard Mail

25th November 2005 - Africa, Asia, Australia, Caribbean, Far East, New Zealand, South and Central America

2nd November 2005 - Canada, Middle East and USA

Airmail and Contract Sorted Priority Mail

9th December 2005 - Africa, Asia, Australia, Caribbean, Far East (NOT Japan), Middle East, New Zealand, South and Central America

12th December 2005 - Canada, Eastern Europe, Japan and USA

14th December 2005 - Western Europe

For further information go to Christmas Post

Permission-based e-marketing is one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. As long as you have something worthwhile to tell them and, more importantly, they have asked to receive it.

"Tesco is blitzing the nation with 16-20 million e-mails per month" -  source BBC but are they getting it right?

One of the key aspects of direct-marketing using e-mail, in our opinion, is not to annoy the person who is being sent the e-mail.

There are four easy ways of doing this:

1. Make sure the person asked for the e-mail in the first place (opted-in). Many companies ask you to opt-out (tick here if you do not want to receive any further messages).
2. Make it very easy for the person to opt-out. (click here to un-subscribe). Tesco failed miserably here making me log into an account that is so old I couldn’t remember any of the details (it’s only recently that they have been emailing me), find the section where I have to ‘opt-out’ on a web site that kept crashing. (maybe I was just unlucky).
3. Send your e-mails on a regular (but not too regular) basis. They may want to hear from you but not every day.
4. Make the information relevant. You have the power to categorise your customers and the beautiful thing about e-mail is that it can be personal. You could send each of your customers one of a number of e-mails each month that are more relevant to THEM.

Our conclusion is that e-mail marketing is can be very powerful and caution, and a long-term strategy, need to be applied before actually starting to use this tool. It is a long-term form of marketing. If you need proof of what we are saying imagine this: Sending 1000 direct message for less than £50 that show you who opened your e-mail, how many times, and if they clicked on any links. Not only that, but people can add and change their details at any time. How much time and money could this save you?

We have a lot of experience at implementing these self-managing systems. Click here to get more details or to see a demonstration.

These are real internet domain names which perhaps might have required a second thought!:

"Who Represents", a  database for agencies to the rich and famous: http://www.whorepresents.com

"Experts Exchange", a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views: http://www.expertsexchange.com

Looking  for a pen? Look no further than "Pen Island": http://www.penisland.net

Need a therapist? Try: http://www.therapistfinder.com

Finally we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales: http://www.molestationnursery.com

In all seriousness your domain name is very important. You could be losing business with the wrong one, especially if it is a tough one. A client recently bought two domain names when reworking their site. One which was the full company name, and one which they could easily give out over the phone.

If you aren’t sure about yours and wonder if you are losing visitors, why not contact us now.

Legal aspects aside (in the shape of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)), the answer is a resounding yes.

Andy Hagan from ‘A List Apart’ explains why…

At The Escape, we only build accessible web sites - not only do they make you legal, but your search engine rankings suddenly start soaring. Want to know how we do it?

Using a Mac, and not having had a significant update for Explorer for about 4 years, I have been forced to use other browsers.

However, it would seem that many people are feeling a little disgruntled with the lack of Microsoft activity over the past few years with the migration of many internet users moving to other technologies such as Firefox. See BBC report on Browser useage.

Whereas Google, Linux, and even (thank god at last) Apple seem to be developing and delivering like mad, Microsoft have  been doing, well I’m not sure really.

Explorer still holds 93.37% of the UK market, mores the pity, but surely they can’t rely on being the biggest forever, especially if their innovation is none too inspiring.

I read a stat a couple of years ago, whereby Hewlett-Packard made 80% of their revenues from products that had come to market in the preceeding 24 months. I also read a quote once from Bill Gates stating that any company, especially Microsoft, was only ever six months away from going out of business. His glasses must be steaming up right now!

Innovate or Die - a message for all businesses.

Craig Killick will be delivering a seminar on ‘Effective Web Design and E-mail Marketing’ at the Madejski Stadium on 22 November 2005.

The E-Marketing Forum, run by McLean Events Europe, is a full day programme costing just £95+VAT and also covers Permission Marketing, Driving Relevant Traffic To Your Web Site, and practical advice on utilising the days learnings.

Escape clients may be able to get a discount, please speak to Robert Jones.