Member Blog

5 Benefits of Face-to-Face Networking

Whilst we digitise more of our everyday communications, the idea of face to face networking can be daunting. As technology becomes ever smarter and efficient at ensuring we’re connected all the time, it’s odd that actually making a real connection with a real person strikes fear into the heart of many. Not that there is anything wrong with connecting online, in fact such digital connections have impressive power to nurture and grow businesses (the irony of this being posted online is not lost on us). However,ahead of our attendance at the  Norfolk Chamber of Commerce B2B event, we reflect on the benefits of unplugging how we connect once in a while. So here are our ‘5 Benefits to Face to Face Networking’…

1)      Being Human

As with so many things, sometimes it’s not what you do, but how you do it…or in this case, say it. All too often messages shared online can be lost in translation. Unless you are a real Hemmingway of the web, messages shared in person tend to incorporate voice, body language, facial expressions and add much greater depth to what is being said. In turn this depth is communicated in your brand and how your business is perceived by others as more interesting, more genuine…and more human.

2)      Escape the Online Vacuum

Digital marketing and the use of social media have been transformative tools in business interaction. However for most of us, business does not only exist in a vast online universe, it has to come back down to earth, with physical interactions important to get right. By networking face to face you are able to show off your personality that could otherwise struggle to breathe in the online vacuum and develop the communication skills key to business growth. As a result, face to face networking goes hand in hand with a joined up online & offline approach to networking, marketing and even general communications.

3)      No Time Like the Present

During a conversation, you can tailor your message to an individual or group and receive feedback immediately. What you say to one person or group, may be very different to how you engage with another. Often within digital marketing, such as emails and social media, the same message can go out to everyone, whereas when you are face to face with potential clients and collaborators, you can tailor your message. You are able to respond to the feedback, be it verbal or indeed non-verbal in real-time. Not only does this make discussions faster, but often results in those involved feeling more valued too.

4)      Real Becomes Digital

Once you have used the character of face to face networking to your advantage by showing off your glowing personality, communicating a deeper brand identity and perhaps shovelling warm pastries and coffee into your face…get digital. You’ve broken the ice and made a connection or two, and can add to your online profiles to continue the conversation online. There is the added benefit of bringing together the greater intimacy achieved in a face to face introductions with the ease of further communication online, nurturing your new contact even if you do not see them again in person.

5)      Concrete Connections

Like. Retweet. Share. Repeat.

Sound familiar? Often this can be the level at which online engagement remains, and it can be handy. However people we meet and form bonds with in person will reliably yield working relationships with greater longevity and robustness to stand the test of time. It can also be hard to hear a genuine voice in an online sea of likes, thumbs up and tags that would drown out even the most booming voice. Why only fight for a quantity of attention online, when you can have the quality face to face attention that could put you ahead of competition who don’t unplug from time to time?

So there you have it our ‘5 Benefits of Face to Face Networking’, we hoped you enjoyed reading & we will see you at B2B! 

Our client, Choose Wisely, is a lending company which offers business loans, guarantor loans, credit cards and bad credit loans – to name a few. It basically covers all financial products and holds a brilliant reputation for doing so.

In our work for Choose Wisely, one of our main aims was to reflect their expertise and their company culture as young, fun and vibrant. We wanted to do this through creating a site which was altogether informative, attractive and user-friendly whilst remaining professional and clear.

Keywords & Links

To boost a websites SEO, an effective approach is to seek out relevant keywords and target them on the site. So, for Choose Wisely, we reviewed all their current keywords and aimed to get a few quick wins to get the ball rolling.

External links are also very beneficial to the performance of a site on Google or Bing. We reached out to those in the business and finance world for links on their website which were directed towards the Choose Wisely homepage or a particular landing page which they were aiming to promote.

To conduct link outreach, we used the tool Majestic to reveal what links their competitors and those who held the top spots on Google for the same targeted key words had obtained. We then approached the same website and asked about featuring Choose Wisely. We also searched Google for places in which Choose Wisely was mentioned online, but no link was provided. Here, we simply got in contact and asked them to add a link where their name was mentioned.

Revamping the Site

In order to help Choose Wisely to rank well, we reorganised their landing page’s content to appear clearer, target stronger key words and to improve the overall user experience.

We added loans eligibility calculators above the fold, forms and worked to optimise their headings, meta-data and keywords on each page. 

Put simply, hard coatings are specially formulated materials which are applied to plastic substrates in liquid form and cured usually using heat or UV energy. They can be applied using many different methods such as spray, flow, roll or dip coating.

Hard coatings offer plastic materials greater abrasion resistance, giving very strong and versatile material such as Polycarbonate a harder surface, enabling the material to be used in a wider variety of applications.

Such coatings also offer increased chemical resistance to plastic materials, which generally are easily damaged by harsh chemicals.

Other properties can be included within hard coatings such as UV resistance, Anti-Microbial properties and Anti-Glare.

The level of abrasion and chemical resistance can vary depending on the hard coatings formulation. Some coatings offer a lower abrasion resistance but in doing so offer an extended life under external weathering conditions.

Hard coatings can be applied to many substrates such as Polycarbonate, PMMA, PET, PVC and PETg in sheet form or mouldings.

Hard coatings can also be applied to some printed (digital and screen) or painted surfaces.

At Peerless we use UV technology to cure our coatings.

Our brand is Peeraguard and we currently offer the below coatings:

·        Peeraguard Clear Coating – Our most popular coating, high abrasion/chemical resistance, with a high gloss finish.

·        Peeraguard Optical Coating – All of the properties offered by Peeraguard Clear but with superior optical quality.

·        Peeraguard Anti-Glare Coating – A matt hard coating, perfect for light diffusion.

·        Microguard™ Coating – An Anti-Microbial coating that has been developed and formulated to give protection against bugs such as MRSA and E-coli.

·        https://www.peerless-coatings.co.uk/coatings-for-plastic/ or call 01842 750333

Website speed and responsiveness are factors which are increasingly important for all websites across the world. There are many reasons why it is important to have a site that functions and responds properly and according to users’ needs and requirements. Whether your website sells clothes, payroll software or simply a service such as consultancy, engaging users and search engine ‘spiders,’ which crawl [read and analyse] all websites is fundamental to your online and sometimes even offline success.

There are various factors to consider with regards to the speed of your website and understanding this could be the difference between your business ‘breaking even’ and potentially thriving and becoming an unrivalled success.

Speeding Things Up

How you address site speed issues will very much depend on which content management system (CMS) your website uses, who, how and where your website is hosted and whether or not you have the knowledge and knowhow to implement the various actions needed to speed things up.

Content Management System (CMS) – Different CMS’ allow for different permissions for everyday users when it comes to sitespeed. For example, WordPress allows you to do more than Wix or SquareSpace, but with the right development input, Drupal can thrive too. Consider speaking to a website developer before choosing your CMS

Hosting – Your website needs to ‘live’ somewhere and where it lives will be a strong factor for how it performs. Many websites find themselves hosted on huge and commercial platforms which work well for very small sites such as personal blogs but which are not suitable for businesses’ needs and websites. Consider researching dedicated server space which could help propel your website’s speed to new heights. Not having to share server space with other websites will mean that your site can make use of all of the server space it needs for things like images, videos and content.

Page Loading and Rendering – As well as where the site loads from (in the case of hosting), how and the precise nature of how individual pages on your site load is an equally important factor. Many websites retain render blocking on their sites which often slow things down. Render blocking is only really needed for sites that do not have much server space. this blocking of page rendering means that pages will loan slower and in layers to allow for the server to respond in cases of slower hosting. However, removing this script [code] makes for a much faster page loading experience

Error Pages – All websites will, at one time or another play host to 404 response pages. These are pages which are effectively dead ends; links point to their URL, but there is no page existing with the URL label in question. Easily fixed using 301 redirects and implemented via your website’s htacess file, consider redirecting the broken links [URLs] to their closest equivalent page. By pages not being flagged as ‘broken,’ users will enjoy a much better experience on your site and will be able to naturally follow a user journey, rather than reaching unfortunate ‘dead ends’

Pensions are the main way most people will pay for themselves once they’ve retired from the working world. You save for decades to build up a nice pot of money to keep you going. 

Now, imagine the money you accumulated during all those years of saving disappears. How will you support yourself as a retiree? 

Pension scams are on the rise in the UK. Fraudsters are scamming victims out of tens of thousands of pounds of their hard-earned savings. 

How to know if you are being scammed

Scammers are now creating convincing websites and an online presence which means it might not be immediately obvious that they are up to no good. There are, however, a number of signs that you can look out for to keep you safe from the scammers. 

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself if you are suspicious:

1 – Is the company regulated by the FCA? 

The easiest way to tell if you are in contact with a genuine financial company or a scammer is to check whether the caller is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). These companies are regulated so are able to offer sound, professional financial advice. You can find a list of all registered companies on the FCA website. This should always be the first place you check. 

Most pensions companies will not directly contact you about your pension without your permission. The best thing to do if you get a cold call about your pension is hang up. If you get emailed or texted, ignore the messages. 

The government is currently working on a scheme that will ban pension cold calls. So soon it should be easier to spot when someone is attempting to scam you.

2 – Are you under the age of 55? 

Be wary of people encouraging you to release cash from your pension before the age of 55. This can be called ‘pension liberation’ or a ‘pension loan’. 

Should you take money from your pension pot before the age of 55 you could face a large tax bill of 55%, plus other charges, on what you withdraw. This is definitely not in your best interests!

3 – Do you feel pressured or is it a limited time only offer?

A reputable pension adviser will never pressure you into making a big decision there and then. So, if you are feeling under pressure to commit to an offer you should just walk away. 

4 – Does it sound too good to be true? 

If the answer is yes, then it usually is! Be suspicious of anyone who is offering high/guaranteed investment returns or ways of avoiding paying tax.  

Once you have transferred your money across to the scammer it is unlikely that you will get it back. If you use a firm who is not FCA registered you will not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FCSC).

If you think you have a scammer on your hands, check the FCA’s Scamsmart website where you’ll find information on any known scams and firms on their warning list. Always report a scam if you come across one. Help others avoid becoming a victim. 

It is always recommended to get independent advice when you are considering doing anything with your pension. Get that advice from a reputable, FCA authorised company and you will be in safe hands. 

Until quite recently, starting a business of almost any nature meant having to account for and arrange high-cost expenses and overheads which without, the business would simply not be able to take off in the first place. This was likely to include business premises, stationary, computers and office equipment and much more. More recently, the business owner may have had to remortgage a property or consider a second mortgage to fund these costs.

However, nowadays, it is entirely possible and feasible to start up a business purely online; massively reducing the overheads and start-up costs incurred from the outset. It is important though that the most important aspects of the business are accounted for and taken care of first as there are various considerations to be made when starting a business up purely online.

The Nature of the Business

The first thing you should consider is whether or not your business will be able to survive being totally based online. Some businesses, for example many retailers, need business premises in order to store their stock before purchase and delivery. Hence, whilst a business that sells goods online without retail premises will not need a ‘shop,’ it will need storage facilities to store the goods.

Therefore, the business owner will need to account for the renting or leasing of those premises that are needed. There will however, be savings made compared to a ‘traditional’ retail business as the running costs of a warehouse or other storage facility are likely to be considerably less than those required for retail premises.

Your Website

Being based online, by its very nature requires a website to enter the online world of business. When planning and creating a website there are a number of things to consider to make sure that your website reflects the values of the business and offers something appealing and useful to prospective customers. Therefore, consider the following:

Type of Website – You should consider whether the website going to be used as an e-commerce website, where customers can make purchases online and whether the website will securely accept payments. If this is the case, you will need to invest in a secure card payment provider such as PayPal or otherwise. Alternatively, the site may be used as brochure site that showcases your work and promotes contact by customers. In such cases, you may be able to design and build the website yourself.

Build of the Website – There are many different platforms upon which you may build the website. This includes the likes of Drupal, SquareSpace and WordPress, three of the most popular content management systems (CMS). When picking which CMS to use for your site, you should consider which is better for each type of website. WordPress very often works out as the most cost effective as well as the most customisable and functional.

Marketing your Website Online – You will need to market your website to the online world in order to be discovered and for the website to generate leads, interest and business. There are various different online marketing channels that incur different costs, but all of which are likely to drive traffic and customers to your website. These include:

• Pay-per-Click
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing

It is important to note that some businesses, for example those targeting much older demographics, are likely to see only limited success via social media marketing, with older audiences possessing a lesser presence on social media channels than younger audiences.

After a great turn-out for our training session on successful event marketing & exhibiting with Norfolk Chamber, we are delighted to see some of the diversity in local businesses preparing to exhibit at Norfolk B2B!

With just over a month to go until B2B opens its doors once more, it’s the perfect time to make sure your stand, stands out!  From a simple banner or display plinth to bespoke portable systems, we have a huge array of products to suit any size project or budget, with our in-house design team on hand to bring your ideas and your brand to life.

Get in touch today for more information on any of our products or services, plus if you’re disappointed you missed our training session, we can offer informal advice to anyone looking to make the most out of their experience at B2B.

www.image-display.co.uk/exhibition-shop/ 

The company behind ResourceSpace, Montala, has received Royal Warrant of Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen – one of the few software providers to be awarded the honour.  ResourceSpace is the web-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) software of choice for leading commercial, academic and not for profit organisations, offering a convenient, productive and easy to use solution for organising and sharing files. ResourceSpace is available as open source software, meaning that there are no license fees to pay and no vendor lock-ins. A highly sought-after privilege, the Royal Warrant is granted to companies or people who have regularly supplied goods or services to either the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh or the Prince of Wales for no fewer than five consecutive years. Montala is one of only 14 companies to be newly appointed a Royal Warrant by the Queen in 2018. Warrant holders are required to demonstrate that they have an effective environmental and sustainability policy. Dan Huby, Managing Director of Montala and ResourceSpace Project Lead said: “For our work to be recognised in this way is a huge honour and I’m very proud of the team here at Montala in providing consistently first class service to our customers.”

Welcome to our Youth in Tech issue – just in time for the new term! It was no coincidence that our August issue is all about younger developers, but we’ve also included articles about how it is important to never stop learning, even when we might think we know everything!   The world of tech is always evolving, sometimes it feels difficult to keep up with new developments and technologies. It’s important to spend some time investing in ourselves and staff to make sure we keep abreast of this ever-changing sector. We hear from Luminous PR and netmatters about the importance of learning in their articles.   Of course it wouldn’t really be a Youth Issue without the view of an actual young developer, and we knew just the chap. Teenager James kindly gave us his opinion on the best bits of being into technology and where he thinks the future of development will be and student developers Emily and David were also kind enough to give us a developers view of their university project ‘Theia’, which aims to use machine learning to help students.   On the lighter side of things developer Adam sent us an amusing code piece (just try not to spit your tea while reading!) and we were also lucky enough to have an insider view from the recent Apple conference in San Jose, California, so if you’ve ever wondered what actually happens inside Apple, see inside!   Download now: https://www.norfolkdevelopers.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/norDEVmagazine-201808-e05.pdf

Our client, Auerbach & Steele are a leading luxury optical and eyewear store based in London. It was very important that every aspect of their website design and their search engine rankings reflected their luxury brand. 

In order to achieve what we wanted for Auerbach & Steele, we had to make sure we fixed all website errors and provided optimised meta-data and images. In more detail, here is how we helped Auerbach & Steele with their SEO and website.

Meta-data

One of the main focuses when aiming to boost the performance of a website on Google or Bing is to make sure that the meta-date is optimised and written well. We analysed the current meta-data and identified where it was missing. Then, we updated it to make it more SEO friendly with the current Google algorithm in mind.

Meta-data consists of meta-titles and meta-descriptions which should all feature target keywords such as bespoke glasses and boutique glasses, and also alt-text should be present on each image used on the website so that Google can read them. Carefully constructed and well written meta data can quite literally be the difference from ranking on the first couple of pages on google and on the last few or just lost somewhere in the middle. Google will prioritise pages dependant on optimisation, relevance to the search and how well written it is.

Website clean up

Like with all of our clients, we conducted a full clean-up of their website to make sure it was optimised and all errors were removed. A site clean-up involves identifying the errors and broken links and simply redirecting them to a page that works.

Having broken links and crawl errors present can seriously affect the speed and the user experience of the website, since the user may not be able to find where they want to go and give up. Furthermore, Google favours a website which is considered clean and ideally not showing errors to their users.

Adjusting to the new algorithm update

Google will regularly introduce new algorithm updates to continue to clean out the web search results and ensure that the most authoritative and useful sites are ranking. The most recent update was introduced in early August 2018 and the key points including making sure the mobile version of the site is readable and easy to use and ensuring good site speed to aim the user experience.

We have rigorously tested the Auerbach site to ensure that every page works on mobile effectively and have used a range of techniques to ensure that the site speed is effective. Using Google’s Pagespeed Insights Tool, they provide suggestions so you can stay on top of speed including image compression, browser caching, js compression and more.

We are delighted to see Auerbach and Steele ranking in position 1 and 2 for all their main keywords in the Chelsea and Kensington area. We continue to work on more competitive terms such as bespoke glasses, luxury glasses and boutique glasses and expect these to rank on page 1 within 3 to 6 months.

Barista Training, why it’s important…

Here at Green Farm Coffee, we get a lot of people through our doors just starting up a coffee business, be it a cafe, mobile coffee shop or catering.  More and more people are lacking the important barista skills that are essential to success in the market.  You can offer all the trendy new fads, and the latest fair trade, green, eco-friendly and all around good to the planet coffee but if your barista skills are not up to scratch then you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot every time you hand over a barely there latte or overpowering mocha.

We run a full barista program here at Green Farm Coffee, to ensure that everyone understands not only the importance of good barista skills but also where coffee comes from and the roasting process. Through our time of being a base for barista training in Norwich, we have discovered also that even well-established businesses need a refresh and hone in on their skills.

Fully trained and confident baristas ensure the smooth running of the establishment and can transform customers visit from an everyday one to something special.  Every cup of coffee is important, it’s what we stand by. Having your staff take this feeling on board too and really put their soul into coffee. If you have a friendly good barista experience you are more likely to return there for your daily coffee.

You may be completely underutilizing your staffs’ skills, and improving the quality of your drinks will ensure your ingredients work a lot harder too towards success.

 Long queues with well-trained baristas will not phase them, as they will have the confidence behind them to whizz through each drink and still produce the best quality.

Training on the traditional espresso machine staff use daily can easily be done, or we invite you into our HQ where you can also see the roasting process. Adding another level of knowledge to your skills.

Our training includes everything from coffee production, espresso styles, milk texturing, latte art and troubleshooting.

You may have seen our work with The Feed in Norwich, an amazing charity who help vulnerable people gain skills and training in the food industry and help them get back into work, houses and better lifestyles.

We have been working with them to offer trainees days at our head office to learn about coffee, how to be a barista and tonnes of skills they can take away with them for future employment. Our training is always well received, and we have a fantastic time delivering and giving them the resources they need to succeed in their next steps in training.

Skills and training is so important, this could help yourself and your business stand out from the crowd of coffee shops.

Offering perfect and skilled barista coffee each and every time.

Barista Training

Most businesses want repeat custom. OK, for some like funeral services it probably doesn’t really happen, however, generally a business will want to deal with the same customer several times. For this to happen a business needs to have delivered what the customer expected to even stand a chance of a second sale. Let’s assume that has happened – what then? Keeping your brand front of mind with great display campaigns, making sure you are visible in search and being generally active in a market will all help, but sometimes you need to take direct action to keep a customer loyal – especially if the competition is keen. By asking for permission from customers to keep in touch (keep the GDPR rules in mind here, folks) any business can build lists of interested, active and relevant people to re-market themselves to. How many customers do you deal with on a weekly basis? If you can engage just one-third of them and send them super-interesting, exciting and useful content that makes them love your brand, you stand a better chance of getting them to buy again. Repeat customers are valuable – social media, email and direct marketing are just a few ways you can keep in touch. What is crucial here is the content. Don’t just send waffle or sales bumph: people have seen it too often and it doesn’t work. Invest time and effort (and if need be money) in generating really useful, engaging content for your customers. Send useful how-to videos, send stories giving advice and inspiration, send humour and insight, send something quirky and different but don’t just send offers… 10% off the thing I just bought isn’t going to make me like you, let alone buy from you again! We know how to use this kind of customer re-marketing, and we have some very smart people who can create this kind of loyalty-driving content and even help deliver it to your market. If you are interested in finding out how, have a look on our website: the email marketing to turn contacts into customers page is a good place to start.