Member Blog

Norfolk-based creative office design company, Bluespace, have been working closely with Norwich City Football Club to transform their Player’s Lounge at the Colney Training Centre. When the company was approached by the football club, Bluespace were over the moon and snapped up the opportunity to work with the pride of Norwich and develop an area with the purpose of increasing team motivation and productivity. This is what the commercial interior design company in Norwich has to say about their experience:

The premises for Norwich City Football Club’s Player’s Lounge is a large conservatory. Our vision was to turn the space into a modern break out area where the team can rejuvenate after training. When planning this commercial interior design project, we had several ideas to achieve the homely, yet modern space they wanted to provide for the team. A soft colour palette to create a fresh look, warm lighting to increase the comfort levels and simple accessories to add a finishing touch, including; large televisions, mini fridges, and large drum light shades which draw the eye from the spacious conservatory roof.

By carefully selecting different pieces of luxury office furniture for the Player’s Lounge, we were able to incorporate a professional outlook for any team/business meetings that may be held here, as well as ensuring the room remained a communal and enjoyable area. With high-back gaming chairs, a staple corner sofa and a square picnic table; we’ve created a space where players can socialise and discuss match tactics, while letting off steam after an intense training session.

We already have plans to work with Norwich City Football Club again, as we start planning the design for the First Team’s restaurant and the administration offices at the training centre. We’re proud that Norwich City Football Club are happy with the work we have carried out for the training centre and look forward to continuing to build a professional relationship with them.

“It’s brilliant and Bluespace have done an extraordinary job. The lads now have a space to relax, and we’re really happy to have this opportunity. We want hard and professional work, but you have to keep in mind they are human beings. There is a lot of load and it’s important to have a familiar space where they can calm down that feels like home.” – Daniel Farke, Head Coach for Norwich City Football Club.

Tudor Lodge is pleased to be helped with the launch of Yu Life, a new innovative insurance tech company that aims to be the UK’s first ‘lifestyle insurance business.’ Companies are able to buy life insurance for their employees and promote their wellbeing by offering rewards through the Yu Life app. Employees will receive discounts and added benefits for keeping fit and completing a certain number of miles walked, helping employers demonstrate their care for their employees’ wellbeing.

What We Are Doing For Yu Life

The website Yu Life (https://www.yulife.com/) has launched in the UK this summer and the first priority is to help the company rank for its own brand name. With lots of PR generated, we have had to take a methodical approach to follow up each journalist and ensure that there is a link pointing to the site. This demonstrates to Google that the site is relevant and with good links from several sources, it shows that the site is worthy of ranking for its own name and indeed other relevant keywords.

In addition, we have aimed on bulking up the site with more content. Naturally, a site with 30 pages is going to perform better than a site with only 5 pages (generally speaking) and we have made sure that each page is optimised with the corrent meta-titles, descriptions, h tags and internal links to maximise SEO results.

Keyword Research and Content

With an overlap of life insurance, employee benefits and wellbeing, we have sat down with the Yu Life team to come up with a number of keywords that the website can target on Google. Specifically those that will help convert customers and employers to take out life insurance policies for their staff – not for the sake of just ranking on Google anyway.

Our keyword analysis has been achieved through a variety of tools including Keyword Research Tool and Keywords Everywhere and competitor analysis of other websites. Once we have determined the keywords to target, we then simply dedicate a landing page of around 500 pages specifically to target those phrases. One must be careful not to create too many landing pages or overlapping the keywords, but finding a very focused approached. 

Whilst it is still early days, the build up of links and content is starting to take place and no doubt we will be able to add value to Yu Life’s SEO and through their quest to becoming a household name.

Based on current trends, brand experience is expected to surpass price point and product as the key differentiator of brands by 2020. Contemporary markets have moved away from simply wanting a product or service, they want an experience. Claiming to be the ‘best’ or the ‘cheapest’ no longer has the same allure as offering genuine and immersive customer experience, whatever your industry. Cue experiential marketing, also known as engagement marketing or events marketing, this strategy directly involves clients and consumers in the development of a brand, products and the marketing itself. This strategy hinges on building genuine relationships between business and client, through connection. Proponents of this strategy suggest that it is in the live, shareable and intimate interactions with a business that clients develop this relationship, and when used effectively, it is this relationship that will drive brand loyalty and return business.

Live events lend themselves perfectly to this aim, providing a platform to cultivate relationships, share experiences and begin to nurture a three dimensional dialogue with clients. However as with any relationship, quality should be sough above quantity, with give and take a crucial aspect of engaging meaningfully with clients. A traditional sales approach may see a salesperson approach a client, inserting themselves into their experience often creating an intrusive and disruptive atmosphere. Experiential marketing is the opposite of this, it is understanding the experience of the client in a ‘customer-centric’ approach, communicating in meaningful, relevant and of course interesting way. By doing so, not only is the traditional 1D ‘shark attack’ style sales approach left behind, but the 2D dialogue has the potential to develop into a shared 3D experience which is less transactional and more about the journey for both provider & client.

In recent years there have been a growing number of great applications of the experiential marketing approach. As part of the Molson Red Leaf Project an illuminated sustainable dance floor was used to create an alluring spectacle which linked participants to a wider theme of sustainability. With each step generating 24 watts of electricity, crowds were encouraged to twist, tango and tap across the floor whilst branded digital energy meters tracked the energy generated and celebrated the achievement of targets. Jones Soda invites regular customers to send in photos which they feature on personalised packaging, or if particularly jaw-dropping can even make their way onto a limited run of mainstream packing too. Japanese snack company Tohato launched two competing snack flavours in an award-winning advertising campaign in 2007, calling on customers to engage in an online multiplayer game to decide the winning flavour. Experiential marketing strategy can clearly be implemented across many mediums, with technological advances increasing how far offline and online tools can be leveraged.

Live events have long formed the perfect touch-stone to consolidate relationships, with IoT and immersion technology bridging real and digital worlds simultaneously so no member of your growing community is left out. Since the 90s we have advocated strategies that are now recognised as experiential marketing. From the ‘terawatt challenge’ at The Energy Event to an award-winning build incorporating an ‘IT Disaster Recovery’ off-road safari at BCI World conference, we take pride in developing meaningful, inventive and relevant experiences for our clients. If you would like more information on how we can help you or how to bring experiential marketing into your events, let’s get in touch.

Do you want your Norfolk business to be commercially stronger and competitive?

Do you want to be an employer of choice who can both attract and retain talent?

There is copious evidence that businesses with high levels of employee engagement are more efficient and effective.  Employee engagement is about:

• Finding a deeper commitment from our employees so less leave, sick absence reduces, conflicts and grievances reduce, accident rates reduce and productivity and ultimately profit increase.
• Using our employees’ creativity, knowledge and ideas to improve customer service and products and the way we do business.
• Businesses behaving with integrity and acting in line with its company values.  

Surely this is what Norfolk needs to start addressing the skills gap and to retain and attract talent. As an employer located in a region with an above average aging population, how will you attract and retain the talented workforce you want? Are you offering what millennials want? Are you focussed on profits or process but not people? What happens when the people go elsewhere? 

We want everyone working in Norfolk to want, and be able, to give their best each day, so that each day is a great day at work, and that workplaces in Norfolk are thriving, growing and developing through the commitment, energy, and creativity of the people that work in them.

Join us on Norfolk Day for the launch of Engaging Norfolk, a new initiative linked to the Engage for Success movement.

This free event will:

• Kick start a movement in Norfolk  to address the skills gap by raising awareness of the benefits of an engaged workforce and through shared learning and practical insights from other Norfolk businesses help you make your business a great place to work.
• Share with you the four key drivers of employee engagement
• Demonstrate how engagement drives both sales and profit
• Offer the opportunity to network with like-minded Norfolk businesses.

Engaging Norfolk is being led by Cassandra Andrews, a Norfolk employee engagement specialist and is generously supported by Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, Birketts LLP and Pure Resourcing.

We are incredibly fortunate to have David Macleod OBE as our Key note speaker

In 2007 David co-authored ‘The Extra Mile: How to engage your people to win’. In 2008, David was invited with Nita Clarke to report on Engagement in the UK, resulting in the publication of Engaging For Success (also known as the MacLeod Report) in 2009 and the setting up of the Engage for Success Movement. David is co-chair of the government sponsored, employer led Employee Engagement Task Force launched by the Prime Minister at Number 10 in March 2011.  This follows an early career in marketing followed by becoming a CEO of a global business formed through the merger of an ICI and a Unilever business. He has worked at senior levels in manufacturing and in the services sectors. He has been an NED of three Government Departments and has worked for a year and a half in the Cabinet Office.

For more information or to secure your free ticket: https://www.cassandraandrews.com/engaging-norfolk

As a business owner, your ultimate goal is highly likely to be to have more people spending money with you – this means you need to start by building a customer base. To do this you will have to work hard to build awareness of your business with your target audience. By building brand awareness and letting customers know who you are, more people will know about you and what you do. I know this sounds like stating the obvious – that’s because it is, but it’s often overlooked. With a plethora of products in the market that offer ‘instant wins’ it can seem like investment in longer-term, brand-building advertising doesn’t stack up. In the long term, a business of any size needs loyal brand advocates. It is these people who become repeat customers and the financial base of your business. You can always find the odd quick win but a stable, loyal customer base takes focus, time and effort. Let’s imagine that your business sells garden furniture. It’s unlikely that the audience you want to target (probably homeowners, who live in properties with a garden) are all actively looking to purchase garden furniture on a constant basis. It is most likely that the majority of your audience are actually not buying, searching or researching garden furniture at all right now. This means avenues like AdWords/pay per click (although effective when people are active) won’t reach them. Simply put, if I’m not searching for garden furniture today I will never see your ad on Google. Don’t get me wrong, Mrs Garden Furniture Seller, your business probably does need ads on Google, but to reach the biggest part of your relevant audience and to get some of them to come to you before they get all the options that a search on Google can bring, you need ads or content in the gardening section of the magazine they read every month and a big poster outside the garden centre they visit in the spring. By putting the right message in front of relevant people you can make your Google pay per click ads work harder. Did you know firms with significant brand awareness get a higher click-to-conversion rate from Google? It makes sense, as we are more likely to buy from a business we know and trust. There’s more on how this works on our website. Find out more at www.archantlocalimpact.co.uk

Search engine optimisation (SEO) has in recent years become a fundamental part of countless business’ marketing strategy. There are a great deal of businesses whose entire business model relies on their SEO and organic search positioning and performance.

However, whilst almost every business up and down the country needs a comprehensive SEO strategy many simply do not know where to actually start. This can prove to be difficult though as not knowing where to start often leads to further problems in the implementation of an effective SEO strategy.

Your Industry and Company

Before you even begin to consider what the details o f the strategy required will be, it is crucial to take your industry into account as practices in SEO vary to some extent from industry to industry. For example, if a company works in financial planning and wealth planning, their industry will differ from for example a payday loans provider.

Ensuring Search Engines Understand

Critically, and before any new content or links can be worked on, a website needs to be made ‘friendly’ towards search engines and their basic and then more complex rankings criteria. For example, in the case of Google, heavy emphasis is placed by their algorithm on relevancy and originality of content. On a more basic level though, the content needs to be offered up to the search engine accordingly.

‘Crawling’ of a website refers to the reading and parsing of the site in question by the appropriate search engine. There are some basic rules and practices that all sites should follow here:

• Ensure none of the code making up the website are ‘hidden’
• Meta data; comprising titles and descriptions are a fundamental SEO factor that provide the initial details for search engines and these snippets of data should always be optimised
• URL structures for all pages should be relevant, natural and clean to ensure it is clear to search engines and users alike, what the page content entails

Focusing on Content and Users

As well as what most would term the ‘technical SEO,’ there are many other elements that make up the puzzle that is a fully optimised website. Principally, once the site is set up to be able to properly crawled by search engines, what is crawled becomes more and more important. There are numerous considerations here:

• Do not write content for the sake of it; each page and content piece should have a function and a clear purpose. No search engine likes pointless, thin content
• Websites should be fully optimised for mobile and tablet devices. With Google in particular operating a ‘mobile-first’ ranking algorithm, ensuring a site scales properly for mobile devices and can be properly interacted with by these devices is increasingly important
• Website speed is key. Ultimately, a slow website is more likely to end up causing users to leave due to impatience and an inability to properly access what they are in fact looking for and wishing to interact with

For several years, we have specialised in providing SEO for short term lenders, helping them compete on Google for competitive terms, in a very tough industry. Following our success with other lenders in the industry such as Cashfloat, we were excited about a new challenge when approached with a lender from a similar sector.

MYJAR is a short-term and long-term lending company who are committed to treating their customers fairly at all times. The loans industry is highly competitive, so approaching SEO in a very methodical and technical way is important to be successful. It is also of value to stand out from the crowd in a sea of online lenders.

Our aim for MYJAR was to create a well-ranking and good-looking website which was user friendly. Like with any website offering a product, it is of great importance that the target audience spends as much time on the site and engages with it.

Meta Data – If you want a website to perform well on Google and other search engines, meta data is fundamental to achieving this. For MYJAR, we analysed the current meta-data they had and updated it to make it more SEO friendly according to the current Google algorithm.

Meta Data includes meta-descriptions and meta-titles which feature target keywords, as well as alt-text being present on all images which are on the website.  Well optimised and carefully constructed meta data can be the difference between ranking on the first few pages of Google or ranking on the last few or somewhere in the middle. The reason for this is because the data with users will see on a Google search and is what Google will prioritise in its algorithm. 

Website Clean Up – For MYJAR, it was necessary to conduct a full clean-up of the site. This involves seeking out error codes and broken links in order to fix them. Having these on a site can seriously slow down how quickly it loads and broken links can affect the user experience if a person cannot find where they want to go on the site. Clearly, Google favours websites which are clean and have a good user experience in place. Google’s algorithm helps the user out but suggesting websites which are going to be the most helpful and easy to use for them.

Links – Having strong backlinks through PR is an essential part of the SEO process. Having such links helps to build up authority and trust for a website. In the case of MYJAR, we reached out to relevant businesses and companies and to our own partners to see what links could be provided. We used our SEO tools to see what links competitors in the industry who ranked well had, and approached the relevant companies who provided these to enquire about MYJAR. Google favours websites which have strong backlinks and rewards them by bumping them up in terms of ranking. This is because they appear to be trustworthy if other websites are providing a link to them.

Did you know that ‘How do I promote my business?’ is searched 880 times on Google every month in the UK? This means that there are a lot of business owners out there that need some help. These business owners, who have busy day jobs, are probably experts in their field but when it comes to marketing they just need a helping hand… Sound familiar? So where do you start?  Firstly, the most important thing is working out what you realistically want to achieve. All of us would like a million customers tomorrow, obviously, however the reality is that few of us could handle that level of custom and even fewer could afford the investment to achieve it. So for the sake of ease, say by the end of the year, you simply want to be making 10 more sales each month. To market your product or service effectively you must plan out your customer journey. Plan to make potential customers aware of you, be the expert they find when they are doing research, be the standout business when they are comparing companies to buy from and then (the important bit) convert them into a customer for life. This is obviously a fairly big subject – if you have a look at our website at www.archantlocalimpact.co.uk, you will find out more detail on this planning stage and even some video of yours truly explaining what goes into an effective marketing plan (hopefully without too much waffle). We feel now, more than ever before, that there is a real need from businesses to fully understand and effectively reach their customers. Next time I will focus on the challenge at the start of the process – building brand awareness for a small business. In the meantime if you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch. Contact Archant Local Impact on 03331 365390, [email protected] or at www.archantlocalimpact.co.uk

Complimentary alcoholic drinks are regularly offered by a wide array of businesses to incentivise customers. For example, businesses may offer a glass of champagne whilst customers browse their products or use their services. However business owners should be aware that if they are offering their customers an alcoholic drink, even free of charge, as part of the services they provide, they could be committing a criminal offence. It is therefore imperative that business owners who provide complimentary alcoholic drinks as part of their services obtain the appropriate authorisation to ensure they do not expose themselves to potential criminal liability and the applicable fines. This article provides information in respect of the authorisations required for the sale of alcohol, the process for obtaining the required authorisations and the potential offences that an individual can commit in respect of undertaking licensable activities without the required authorisations. Authorisations required to supply alcohol A premises licence is required to authorise the use of a premises for the supply and sale of alcohol. If drinks are provided free of charge as part of an overall service, for example complimentary drinks provided to customers, a premises licence is still required. Any person, provided that they are aged 18 or over, who is carrying on or who proposes to carry on a business which involves the use of premises for licensable activities may apply for a premises licence either on a permanent basis or for a time-limited period. “A person” in this context includes a corporate entity, for example, a company or a partnership. In the premises licence, a designated premises supervisor must be named who must hold a personal licence. A personal licence is a licence granted by a licensing authority to an individual authorising them to supply alcohol or authorise alcohol in accordance with a premises licence. In order to apply for a personal licence, the individual must be over 18 years old, hold a relevant licensing qualification (for example the BIIAB Level 2 Award for Personal Licence Holders), declare any relevant convictions (which may impact on whether the individual is considered suitable as a licensee) and must not have had a personal licence forfeited in the five years preceding the date of their application. Others serving alcohol at the premises must be authorised by the personal licence holder. Alternatively a person may acquire a temporary event notice (“TEN”) to authorise licensable activity on a temporary basis. A person may send an application for a TEN to the relevant licensing authority at least ten working days before the event. A number of statutory limitations are imposed on the use of temporary event notices as follows:

• the number of times a premises user may give a TEN is a maximum of 50 times in a calendar year for a personal licence holder and five times in a calendar year for other persons;
• the number of times a TEN may be given for any particular premises is a maximum of 12 times in a calendar year;
• the maximum duration of an event authorised by a TEN is 168 hours (seven days);
• the maximum total duration of the events authorised by TENs in relation to individual premises is 21 days in a calendar year;
• the maximum number of people attending at any one time must be fewer than 500; and
• the minimum period between events authorised under separate TENs in relation to the same premises (not including withdrawn TENs) by the same premises user is 24 hours.

TENs are therefore more suitable for one off events than as a permanent means by which to authorise licensable activities on a premises. Offence It is a criminal offence for a person to either carry on, or attempt to carry on, a licensable activity on any premises otherwise than in accordance with a premises licence or temporary event notice. It is also a criminal offence for a person to knowingly allow a licensable activity to be carried on otherwise than in accordance with a premises licence or temporary event notice. A person charged with the offence of carrying out a licensable activity otherwise than in accordance with an authorisation may rely on the statutory defence of due diligence the following criteria are satisfied the act was due to a mistake, or to reliance on information given to him/her, or to an act or omission by another person, or to some other cause beyond his control, and he/she took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence. Where a person relies on the defence of due diligence, the burden is on them to prove on the balance of probabilities that they had done all that could reasonably have been expected of them. The Court has provided guidance on what behaviour and acts are required by an employer in order for the defence of due diligence to apply. An employer must go further than simply instituting a preventative regime. It must also exercise all due diligence to ensure that the measures put in place are maintained, adhered to by employees and continue to be adequate in the circumstances. This means that an employer will need to demonstrate that steps were taken to implement a regime and that this regime was actively monitored by the employer. For such offences, a person is liable upon summary conviction in a Magistrates Court to an unlimited fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both. Given the stringent penalties which may be imposed, it is crucial for business owners to ensure that they do not inadvertently commit a criminal offence. If you would like to take advice on anything covered in this article, please contact our expert team on 01603 610911. Note: the content of this article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Specific legal advice should be taken in any specific circumstance.

Whatever else I do to earn a living, I am a software engineer at the core. Outside of work other things give me a reason to smile – heavy metal bands, science fiction books or my family – but when it comes to work, writing software is what gives me the biggest buzz. Even after 33 years! Recently I spent the weekend writing some software for a client. They have an app, which we built, that allows them to take photos and complete a questionnaire for installations so that they can record compliance. The software I wrote receives the photos and questionnaire responses from the app, generates a PDF document detailing the responses and attaches it to an email, along with the photos, to send to the client. Not a particularly exciting process most would agree. It’s a straightforward piece of software (despite the security concerns and image processing which took a little while to get just right) which delivers exactly what the client needs, but we wanted to be doubly sure. So, in the early days of the software running for real (i.e. the client is using it, not just us testing it) we got copies of the emails the app generated so we could check everything was working as it should. And that’s where the buzz of being a software developer begins. As developers, we’re not always able to monitor in what way or how frequently the software we write is being used by our clients. There are confidentiality issues to consider, as well as the practical aspects and cost concerns of implementing a suitable monitoring process. This means a lot of the time we rely on anecdotal responses from our clients, and of course feedback when something goes wrong (which thankfully, isn’t too often). With this particular client we knew each and every time they used the software as an email would appear and we could see how the app was working until we, and they, were satisfied with the process. Even though it was such a simple thing, every time an email pinged through from the app I got a twinge of excitement and a flush of pride. To see something I’d created from scratch work successfully and be used by someone was a small but genuine reward for me and reminded me why I love doing what I do. The buzz of seeing software work. What gives you that buzz every day and keeps you doing what you’re doing?

Sometimes it is difficult to explain exactly how we are different from our competitors and what working with us is like, so we put together a short video that says it all! Some of our lovely clients have kindly shared how they felt about working with Naked Element, the results they saw and the impact our software had on their business. In less than three minutes it is clear why we get such good feedback from our clients. Our specialised way of working and personal approach makes a big difference, and our understanding of each client’s needs is obvious from the finished product. As CEO Paul Grenyer says, we are driven by our clients, and that, combined with our years of development experience, means that we have helped companies large and small overcome processing issues. But don’t take our word for it! Take a look at our video and what our clients have to say about us, and get in touch if you think we can help y

Employee Voice is one of the four key drivers of employee engagement, which is why an Employee Survey makes a great starting point to understand your engagement baseline.

They are a useful tool to gather data on how engaged your people are and what is and isn’t working so you know where you need to focus your attention for continued business success.

There are a wide range of survey tools available, in fact a new industry has been created around them!  The Best Employers Eastern Region is an established employee survey that is completely free to businesses in the East and if you like an Award, there is also an opportunity to enter the Awards Categories!

Below are my five top tips when implementing a survey!

1. Establish a clear objective– In the early planning stage, ensure you are clear about why you are conducting the survey and how you are going to use the results.  These objectives should be developed by the management team and clearly communicated to employees to demonstrate the importance of the survey.

Ask yourself:What does the business hope to achieve and what are the implications for business performance? What does a successful survey look like?

2. Develop a communication plan – Prepare a comprehensive communication plan to support each stage of the survey. The plan should include an agenda of communication events. It’s critical that you think about how you are going to reach all employees (particularly important if all your employees don’t have an email address).

Ask yourself: Who is going to prepare and implement the communication plan? When should these messages be communicated?  How will you reach all employees?

3. Engage Managers and Team Leaders– It is essential that you have ‘buy-in’ from line managers and that they understand the reasons for the survey, this is so they can act as ambassadors or champions and encourage their teams to complete the survey.  In fact to ensure a high response rate develop a network of champions at all levels of your business to promote the value of the survey.

Ask yourself: What are you going to do to ensure line managers understand the importance and ROI of engaged teams?  How are you going to support your line managers?

4. Ensure a high response – You need a good response rate to ensure tangible data.  Make it a priority that your workforce know the survey is 100% anonymous (make sure it is!). Ensure your people know why you are doing the survey, how you’re going to feedback to them and what’s in it for them.

Ask yourself: How are you going to build trust and communicate the anonymity of the survey?  How are you going to communicate what you will do with the results? 

5. Results -The quickest way to disengage your workforce is by not feeding back the results or taking any action.  Ensure confidence in the survey process by providing swift feedback and by celebrating success and addressing areas of concern.  Take two or three drivers that will impact on employee engagement in your business and create a collaborative action plan with your management team and employee champions.  Make sure this is embedded in to the business and you provide updates at regular intervals. 

Ask yourself: How are you going to feedback? What can you do to ensure your success continues and what can you do to address your challenges?

By addressing the top tips above, you will engage both managers and employees in the survey process. Done right you will start a powerful journey of employee engagement which embraces ‘Employee Voice’.

Good luck!

For more information, feel free to contact me at [email protected]