Marketing Week recently ran an article stating that charities were missing out on 665 million in donations each year; due to their lack of engagement with potential supporters.

Charities are failing to effectively evidence and explain how their donations are being used and the impact a small donation could have.

Digital platforms such as online video and social media are great methods to promote a charities cause. Online video and social media are highly shareable are relatively low-cost; however according to industry observers charities are failing to capitalise on these channels and engage with potential supporters. The Charities Aid Foundation found that donations fell 20 per cent last year, due to pressures on disposable income, highlighting the need for charities to do more to encourage donations.

Benefits of Online Video:

Last month YouTube found that 1 billion unique users were visiting the website every …

Vine is a new mobile video service developed by Twitter, Vine lets users capture and share short looping videos (6 seconds or less) inspiring creativity challenging users to create something short with impact. Vine has been designed to see and share life in motion, giving users the opportunity to share moments and content in unique ways.

The development of Vine illustrates the growing importance of Video both socially and as a marketing tool; a six second Video clip is highly portable and shareable and an excellent way to engage your audience and get people talking about your brand.

Video provides great opportunities for marketers and companies to show users short, easily-digestible content; that can be fun, experimental and innovative. To make Vine and other video platforms work it is important not to bore users with irrelevant, dull content. For further information on …

Let me start by explaining something, up until very recently my girlfriend was convinced that if she ignored the advent and explosion of technology and communication (namely, the Internet, laptops and mobile devices), that it would all simply go away as quietly as Beta-max in the 80’s, and she would be left with the smug look of “I told you I’d never needed to learn how to attach a sodding image to an email”.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not as if she doesn’t have the intelligence to master any of these technologies, it’s just that she has never connected with them as a positive part of her life. Even on-line shopping was a fraught with rage and frustration as sessions timing out and poor payment gateways which fail to confirm clearly whether you have in fact purchased the product or not.

Unfortunately for her …

If you’re a professional person looking for connections or a person looking to find work in a certain field you probably will be using LinkedIn. The recruitment site now has millions of members and is probably the most popular professional site in the world. However, only a proportion of people use it to its full potential. So, we’ve compiled some tips to aid you make the most of LinkedIn.

Google

LinkedIn is highly favourable to Google’s search and so optimising your profile for the sort of work you do, will see you returned in search results. As a significant amount of recruiters will use Google to search for people, employees and suitable people for employees – apt profiles are a necessity. Updating and adding to your profile can see you returned in these results and provide innumerable more opportunities than you may …

According to the Royal Mail the recent price hike in postage is largely due to falling postal volumes, and of course the higher the price goes the more we switch away from the traditional letter! Even at its current level postage charges are very reasonable and compare favourably with other countries but if you are sending our large numbers of invoices, sales leaflets or catalogues the costs soon add up.

There are alternatives to Royal Mail, companies such as TNT and UKMail have offered a service for the business user for a number of years and with sufficient volumes saving of up to 30% are achievable. Royal Mail offers a range of packages including the excellent Door-to-Door service, great value if you want to target postcode zones, rather than named individuals. But the most commonly used alternative is of course email.

When …

I sat down to write an article on ten things to look for when choosing and advertising agency but quite quickly realised there is a more fundamental question to be asked first – do I need an advertising agency, at all?

After all thanks to new technology and the Internet you can do so much advertising and marketing work yourself, or in house these days, especially as organisations like Google go to great lengths to provide you with the tools you might need, free of charge.

So why do organisations use advertising agencies?

Creativity

Probably the main reason people will quote for using an agency, it is also the main reason people change agencies. Of course there is no reason you can’t employ your own creative in house, but in my experience the very best creatives want to work in an agency environment where …