At butterCloudHQ, we pride ourselves on offering a unique, total, holistic approach to your online information needs. We really do go where no website design company has gone before!

Look around! With major retailers (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s – the list is endless) now betting on the internet as the way forward, you can be confident that building an online presence is also right for you.

No two businesses are alike. You have your own unique ideas and aims! That’s why we take an empathetic approach, formulating a brand new online strategy tailored specifically to your business. Not only do we provide the ideas that will make you shine – we may just as likely guide you away from any strategic elements which, in our experience, are unlikely to work for you!

Here is our 5-point plan for putting together a fabulous showcase for your business.

1 LISTEN: First, we listen. We sit down with you to learn about your business, and assess your needs.

2 EXPERIENCE: Second, we use our experience to identify what will work best for your business and you.

3 DELIVER REAL BENEFIT: In this, we focus on what will get your message over, what will deliver real benefit to your company and to your bottom line.

4 AN EFFECTIVE PLAN: Only then do we propose a coherent and effective plan including concept, design, and professionally-written content, again with a constant focus on what is suited to you.

5 MORE THAN JUST ONLINE: And by working with our sister businesses PrintItForMe.com and our creative design company Pencilcase, we can, if desired, extend your marketing strategy beyond the internet, and into print as well!

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 71365300

Further proof this month of the growing importance of an online presence, as Tesco confirms that building its Tesco.com online service will be more important than opening new stores in 2012/13.

The company has now allocated £150m for this initiative to develop its online channels. Tesco’s Chief Information Officer, Mike McNamara, has indicated that much of this will go into Tesco’s website, and also to a new section entitled Marketplace.

On Marketplace, consumers can buy from third parties via the Tesco website, in the same way that they can buy a contract with a mobile phone company instore. Tesco now plans to build the number of products available on Marketplace to 200,000. McNamara also indicated that an eBay-style section could be added in the future, so that customers could sell as well as buy, through the Tesco website.

With the success of Tesco.com, the online shopping and home delivery service (with the snappy motto ‘You Shop, We Drop’), Tesco is now introducing a new concept called ‘Click and Collect’.

‘Click and Collect’ is what it says: you shop from your PC, laptop or mobile phone in the comfort of your living room (or in the office when the boss isn’t looking), and call to your local store a few hours later, to find your goods all bagged and ready for you.

With the unbounded scope of the internet, the development of Tesco online dovetails well with the company’s strong drive for international expansion.

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 7136 5300.

Are you an ostrich, burying your head in the sand? Is your business still weak or invisible on the internet? As one of the last surviving dinosaurs, are you simply hoping that the e-commerce revolution will go away?

Well, with a nod to the great Fred Flintstone: ‘lemme tellya buddy, it ain’t likely’.

Regular readers of this blog already know that, for many retail majors, the centre of gravity is shifting (or being dragged, kicking and screaming) away from the high street and into the online world.

The list of biggies now betting on e-commerce as the way forward reads like a who’s who of the shopping mall: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Dixons, Mothercare, Next, and all of the big banks.

In the UK we spent an estimated £5.75bn online in April alone, compared with £5.23bn in April last year. Thanks to this surge in online spending, the UK is now the European leader in e-commerce. And this gradual transfer towards online shopping and information-gathering is gaining momentum.

Ireland, although a relatively small market compared to the UK, is not that far behind its neighbour: 43% of Irish citizens made an online purchase last year, making e-retail worth €3.5 billion to the Irish economy.

The way we shop online is evolving too. We no longer think of internet shopping as a deskbound thing. We are more mobile as we shop. UK sales via mobile phones and tablets have more than trebled (up 353%!!) in the last year. Time on the train and time over coffee has now become time to browse and time to buy.

Some retail executives have noted that, while they used to view their online store as an extension of in-store, it has now moved centre stage, and is part of core sales. And you need only read this week’s news story about Tesco to see that, in terms of investment plans, they really are putting their money where their mouth is on this.

Online shopping is the modern-day Tyrannosaurus Rex, a predator stalking the high street and carrying off many who still dare to venture downtown.

If you are an ostrich, with your head in the sand and your butt in the air, you should be considerably worried.

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 71365300.

 Comrades, the online revolution continues!

Another major retailer is moving ‘from brick to click’ by recognising that the future of business growth lies less in the high street store, and more in the website, and internet sales.

This time it’s the Mothercare group, who will now follow Dixons, TK Maxx and Dublin’s Arnotts group, by ramping up investment in e-retail. The strategy reflects the relatively wide reach and low overheads of e-retail, compared to the crippling rents payable on high street stores, especially in an environment of international expansion.

Mothercare closed 62 of its UK stores last year, and is now planning to close a further 111 over the next 12 months. This will leave the maternity and toy retailer with 95 out-of-town stores and 105 high street shops. The majority of closures will be Early Learning Centre stores, which the retailer believes will result in a £13m profits boost by 2015.

The closures form part of a three-year turnaround strategy for Mothercare.  In order to facilitate this growth strategy it is an e-retail expert, not a ‘bricks and mortar’ specialist, who is now joining the team.

Simon Calver, the former boss of online movie rental giant LoveFilm, will now join Mothercare as chief executive. He will drive forward the launch of new combined online and in-store customer services, a new UK website, as well as 30 international websites.

Mothercare’s UK like-for-likes plunged 6.2% in the year to 31st March. This included a particularly disappointing 8.2% fall in the fourth quarter, which the group said was due to clearing excess Christmas stock. There was good news too, however, as international sales soared 16% during the year, pushing total group sales up 0.7%.

Proof yet again that, not only is the word mightier than the sword – but the website can be mightier than the store!

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 7136 5300.

A new milestone in the growth of social media has been reached this month, with the latest figures on doing business and marketing on Twitter.

There are now 140 British businesses paying to actively promote their products on Twitter.

However, their potential audience is huge: Twitter broke the 100m users barrier in September 2011, and has rocketed  in the 8 months since to an incredible 140m users today.

This massive audience, combined with the still relatively modest business community fully utilising Twitter, underlines the vast unused potential of Twitter and other social media for internet marketing.

Twitter has been used for business networking since it became available in the UK 6 years ago, and some concrete numbers are now emerging to measure its potential for winning business.

Brighton entrepreneur Jonathan Markwell became Britain’s first Twitter user in 2006, using the medium to follow new business setups, and offer consultancy services to them. He now claims he can attribute £50,000 of work directly to contacts made on Twitter, and says it now plays a part in most of his business relationships.

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 7136 5300.

In the press this week comes a report that singer Mariah Carey has set up a website dedicated to her two 1-year-old children, Monroe and Moroccan.

Fans of the singer can see her son and daughter’s nursery at the mansion she shares with husband Nick Cannon, and even view the photo-shoot of their first family Christmas, by checking out ‘dembabies.com’.

The purpose of the website is to provide an additional string to the bow of fan contact, and while the primary intention is undoubtedly to celebrate her family, a secondary momentum will be to attract media coverage, and dovetail well with the other efforts of the Mariah Carey marketing machine.

Mariah’s new site is, of course, just the latest example of how numerous celebs are now using websites and social media for blogging and fan contact.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘Goop’ website and blog offers a regular dose of lifestyle advice to her adoring fans, although with a strong New York focus, while many other glitterati and twitterati turn to social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, to address the nation and the world.

The two channels are very different, in both scope and feel. It is often said that Twitter offers direct contact with celebrities to a universal fan base, while Facebook has a more personal, intimate feel of a conversation taking place within a chosen circle of friends.

The record shows that the potential for making connections on Twitter in particular is massive.

Stephen Fry was arguably Britain’s first member of the ’Twitterati’ in October 2008, and he now has more than 4m followers worldwide.

Fans themselves have turned to Twitter as the vehicle for universal outpourings of emotion for celebs – the site carried 100,000 Tweets of mourning, for instance, in just the first hour after Michael Jackson’s death.

As the London Olympics approach, it is appropriate to note how Twitter can be the platform for national pride, centred on sporting events: a soccer match between Japan and Denmark in the World Cup generated an incredible 3,200 tweets a second.

The latest celebrity record-holder among the Twitterati is Lady GaGa, who now has over 20m followers – more than the population of Australia!

from butterCloudHQ

Do you still have a black and white TV?

Of course not. They went out way back in the 70s!

Most of us have owned a few TVs since then, and today we’re watching one of the latest flatscreen high definition sets, and perhaps even thinking of a new TV to watch the Olympics!

In other words, technology moves on, and we invest to keep up with the best available today.

But what about your company’s image? Is it still looking a little black and white – as if it also got stuck back in the 1970s?

When we flit around the internet ‘window shopping’ on various websites, there is no greater turn-off than to find an unimaginative, colourless website that looks like an advert for The Land That Time Forgot.

It reminds me of that sinking feeling you get in the hairdressers or in the doctor’s waiting room, when you pick  up a paper only to discover you are reading yesterday’s news.

As we’ve said before in this blog, a website is a journey, not a destination. Internet shoppers compare you to the competition, so you have to keep the ‘Wow!’ factor. You have to continually renew your site, and strive to dazzle your future customers by staying one step ahead of the competition.

The best example of this is the tale of the two businessmen out hunting for grizzly bears!

One takes aim at the bear, but his rifle jams. The second takes aim and fires – but misses. Hearing the shot, the grizzly flies into a rage, and begins to run towards the two hunters.

The first hunter sits down on a log, opens his backpack, takes out a pair of Reeboks, and calmly pulls them on.

The second hunter exclaims: ‘What’s with the runners? You’re never going to outrun a grizzly bear!’

The first hunter smiles, and says: ‘I don’t have to outrun the grizzly bear – I just have to outrun you.’

The moral of the story is: one step ahead is all it takes, to make sure you get the business!

from butterCloudHQ

“You can tell when it’s summer in Ireland – because the rain gets warmer.”

This may also be the reason why you need to build a great website, and make full use of social media, to sell your products and services.

Why? Because, rather than trudging around town on a ‘grand soft day’, Irish shoppers are now running to the internet faster than a herd of ponies at the  Ballinasloe Horse Fair.

And it’s not just in Ireland! Both Irish and UK consumers now gather information online, whether they are checking out training courses, seeking medical advice, or ordering tangibles such as groceries, books, and DVDs.

This new generation of “information shoppers” are heavily influenced by what they find. A recent survey of 4,000 UK consumers by Interactive Intelligence revealed that 41% of us do feel influenced by online comments about a service, a retailer, or a brand.

In other words, your online presence on your website, on Facebook and on Twitter, are decisive in drawing consumers to you – or in driving them away.

You decide which it’s going to be!

The message is clear: if you want to find new customers, and grow your business these days, you cannot ignore the internet market. It is crucial to be beautifully presented online.

Still not convinced? Take a look at the numbers. As a nation, we certainly seem to be keeping out of the rain!

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) tells us that an Irish person spends 18 hours online each month, including almost 3 hours on Google and just over 4 hours on Facebook.

Last year, 43% of Irish adults made an online purchase – and the trend is upward. E-commerce is now reckoned to be worth €3.5 billion to the Irish economy. However, even these figures are dwarfed by the UK situation, as Britain has become Europe’s No. 1 e-commerce market.

Social media are now an integral part of Irish life. Approximately 70% of Irish internet users are now on Facebook, and there are 350,000 Irish Twitter accounts – with most Facebookers and Twits checking their accounts daily.

So what are you going to do? Build a great website and tap into the awesome power of social media – or hope that climate change will dry up the soft Irish rain?

from butterCloudHQ

Next has just been saved from a bad year of high street sales by a boom on the e-retail side, as eager online shoppers showed strong demand for its fashion clothing and interior design ranges.

The rising power of the web is also good news for food retailers. With the phenomenal success of its Tesco Direct online service, Tesco has become the 3^rd-largest online retailer in the UK, and 2 more of the ‘big 4’ grocers (Asda and Sainsbury’s) have made the top 25.

Meanwhile TK Maxx, a relative newcomer to the virtual mall, has also  made impressive gains in the past year.

The shift towards the internet has not been good news for all, however, and this week sees one major casualty on the high street.

Clinton Cards has gone into administration, amid claims that the growth of online greetings had harmed card sales. The UK’s biggest card retailer, which employs over 8,000 staff and operates 628 Clintons and 139 Birthdays stores, had also been accused of appearing overpriced and out of date, in comparison to e-retail competitors.

Lord Alan Sugar highlighted the failure of the company to exploit online opportunities when he commented: ‘Clinton Cards is expecting its largest supplier to place it into administration. Wow! End of an era where the internet kills another retailer’.

The fate of Clinton Cards seems to emphasise the growing need for a strong internet presence in order to compete – whether in retail, or in marketing any product or service. 

There is a TV ad for a website dating service, that says 1 in 5 relationships now start online.

It’s likely that this is representative of the bigger picture: today we are embracing the net for all our activities. We’re shopping for everything online – not just for a partner!

All this has put a broad smile on the faces of the cardboard box makers: over 1 billion parcels were shipped to fulfil online purchases in the UK last year.

The latest figures show the awesome power of e-retail, and the business potential you gain by having a great website.

UK e-retail sales rose 16% in 2011, and are expected to rise 13% this year, making the UK the largest e-retail economy in Europe.

Last year, online shopping accounted for 17% of all UK retail sales.

Online shopping is now happening through a greater variety of channels, and is no longer an evening-at-home activity. Increasingly, we are using our drivetime to shop online. We take our phones and iPads to browse on the train, in the car, on the bus. Shopping via mobile devices has risen from 0.4% of total e-retail to 5.3% in just 2 years.

We seem to be particularly happy to do our food shopping online. No more drives to the supermarket, no more Saturday morning push ‘n shove, no more trolley with a wonky wheel and a mind of its own!

It all goes to show that an eye-catching and well-designed website is an investment that pays for itself – many times over!

from butterCloudHQ