Brand Agency | Design | Marketing | Web | Social Media | North East & Yorkshire » Events

Winning New Business: E-Marketing – Developing Your Digital Footprint

Better Brand Agency — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:16:45 +0000

Tweeting; hash tags; mashable; SEO; tiny url’s – these are all terms that a few years ago didn’t even exist, yet today they play a fundamental part in organisations’ marketing strategies.

Service Network are hosting an event that will take you through the step by step process of developing a digital footprint for your business. A digital footprint is a collection of activities and behaviours recorded when an organisation interacts in a digital environment. It includes the recording of activities such as clicks on e-newsletters, visits to a web-page, tweets and Facebook updates.

Date: Thursday 21st October 2010
Time: 9:00am – 12:00pm

Location: Wynyard Park, Wynyard Avenue, Billingham, Tees Valley, TS22 5TB view map

Mark Easby of brand agency Better will expertly guide you through the key areas you need to understand in today’s digital world:

Why you need to develop your digital footprint.

How to listen to the internet – how to find out where your audience is and what they are talking about.

How to join in – what choices you have to make, how to think strategically and why you have to be committed to the task.

What to do when your audience talks to you – you need to learn how to develop a conversation.

How to measure your channels.

How to drive your audience to your database – how e-mail marketing, search engine optimisation, campaign planning and public relations all link in to your digital footprint.

How to stay ahead of the competition.

After this event, you will go back into your business and start listening, engaging, interacting, recording, sharing and discussing digital information in a very human way. You will come away with an understanding of how social media can work for your business and will be empowered with the energy to create a successful digital footprint for your organisation.

Better is an agency specialising in brand, design, marketing and social media campaigns. Mark is heavily involved with clients ranging from start up businesses through to national brands.

Cost: Free to Service Network members, £35 + VAT to non members.

Please contact Sarah Willan on 0191 244 4031 or book online at http://www.service-network.co.uk/events/34

To avoid a cancellation fee of £35 + VAT please inform the Service Network team in writing at least 48 hours before the event if you register but can no longer attend.

Social Media – Obstruction or Opportunity Event

Better Brand Agency — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:35:05 +0000

Social Media – (Trivial) Obstruction or (Terrific) Opportunity – 15th April 2010

Date: 15th April 2010
Venue: Wynyard Rooms, Wynyard Avenue, Billingham
Time: 6.30pm – 9.30pm

Open panel event with Tarek Nseir, Chief Executive of TH_NK, Mark Easby, Partner with Better Brand Agency, Derek Curtis, Managing Director of Bond Solutions and Sarah Kadhim, Managing Director of Back 2 Front Animation

Are you baffled by blogs? Does Twitter leave you in a tizz? Maybe flummoxed by Facebook? Are you not even linked up, never mind Linkedin? It could be argued that adding social media to your marketing strategy isn’t just an option anymore. For some businesses it’s now become a necessity, and for most they need to understand what it is and what impact it might have

It’s also a potential opportunity too! So what steps have entrepreneurs taken to maximise the power of social media and how have many of them been able to generate new business opportunities through social media marketing?

Many of our members understand the significance of social media – its potential and its problems. Our panel of entrepreneurs, who each use social media in different ways, will share their experiences around this “hot” topic as we debate the good and the bad!

Is it a threat or an opportunity? Can you harness it to help provide better customer service, improve customer engagement and retention? Can you use it to raise your profile, create more customers and opportunities? Which tools are best for your business? How can you maximise these tools and techniques to compliment your other current sales and marketing activities? Should you use it in conjunction with search engine optimisation?

This will NOT be a technical or IT dominant session – it’s about making real business development improvements and the panel will be under strict instructions to minimise (even avoid) jargon! So if you have little or no Social Media knowledge or experience, if you’ve ‘dabbled’ a little, or if you’re already making it work well for you, this is a great opportunity to hear how to do it, or do it better, from a panel of experts and adopters.

Introduced and facilitated by Andy Hanselman, whose undoubted skill lie in drawing out and exploring the key issues in any debate.

Andy Hanselman
Andy Hanselman is a recognised expert in improving business competitiveness. With over 20 years experience advising and helping entrepreneurs and business leaders improve their personal and business performance in a wide range of sectors, particularly in approach to finding, attracting and keeping customers, whether it’s ’offline’, ‘online’ or both.

Andy’s practical and pragmatic approach will help us explore, discuss and debate those key issues that face us all (even if we don’t know it yet!)

Tarek Nseir
Social media is not just an optional extra anymore – for most businesses it has now become a necessity and someone who knows this more than most is Tarek Nseir, founder and Chief Executive of award-winning digital agency, TH_NK.

Since establishing TH_NK in 2002, Tarek has led the company to achieve exceptional success in the digital world. In the last few months alone, TH_NK has been named as one of Europe’s fastest- growing digital agencies at the Media Momentum Awards; a ‘Top 100′ agency by NMA; and has achieved a top spot in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for the third year running. TH_NK has also recently received £1m of growth capital funding from international venture capital company, Beringea, to drive forward their next phase of expansion and add greater value to their business proposition.

Tarek has been the recipient of various personal awards in recognition of his passion, dynamism and achievement, including Young Business Achiever 2002, Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006, North East Young Business Executive of the Year in 2006 and the David Goldman prize for Business Innovation from Newcastle University Business School. He was also awarded a distinction at the Boston Entrepreneurship Development Programme at MIT and was a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2008.

Newcastle-based TH_NK opened its London operation in 2008, which brought with it a growth in TH_NK’s portfolio of blue-chip accounts, including, Bupa, NHS, bmi, TNS, Hays Recruitment and Blackberry to name just a few.

Consistently looking to the future of new technology, TH_NK is a member of W3C – the World Wide Web Consortium – which sees the team collaborating with some of the most influential organisations in the world such as Adobe, Google, Microsoft and IBM to define new Web standards and guidelines.

Mark Easby
Since establishing the business with his three partners in 2008, things have moved rapidly for Better.

Better, based in Stokesley, is a brand agency specialising in brand, design, marketing and social media campaigns and recently scooped both the ‘Best Social Media Campaign’ at the North East Digital Awards and ‘Internet and ICT’ Award in the North East Business Awards.

Mark has worked closely with clients across numerous public and private sector industries, providing consultancy and scoping support on brand development and digital integration, advising on new digital channels and mapping audience’s needs and touch points with client brands.

Mark is heavily involved with clients ranging from start up businesses through to national brands. He has been a conduit for creating systems and platforms that connect clients to their related audience groups using digital technology. Mark has also spoken regularly across the northern region on subjects relating to the leading topics within his industry such as social media, digital and traditional media convergence, as well as supporting a number of business, education and enterprise organisations in their start-up business support programmes.

Mark, and the team at Better, are keen users of social media including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr both individually and for the benefit of the business on a daily basis.

Within the first 18 months the team has expanded to 7 staff and is proud to have established a client base including NDI, Freshfayre, Philippa Gregory, SASDA, Codeworks, Onyx Group, Teesside University, The Enterprise Team, MPI Offshore and Northumbria University.

Derek Curtis
Derek Curtis is the Managing Director of Sunderland-based Bond Solutions -a leading provider of business management software.

He has spent 15 years working in High Street banks, working with customers and also implementing early Back Office technology which helped the banks understand their customers better. This gave him an appetite for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and in 1998 he began working for a company in the South of England implementing such systems. In late 2001 he moved back to his native North East to set up Bond.

Derek is a keen user of Twitter and LinkedIn and is beginning to see the benefit of Social Media. He has found quality partnerships and staff, and Bond is benefitting from improved Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which is leading customers to Bond.

He believes social networking is here to stay and should be embraced alongside more classical methods of communication to ensure businesses reach a wide and diverse audience.

Sarah Kadhim
Sarah studied stop motion animation at the University of Central Lancs and graduated in 2004, where she met her husband Talib. Following two years of working in the industry they returned to his hometown and set up Back 2 Front Animation in 2006, producing animations for TV commercials, websites, games, apps, educational resources, video, presentations and Christmas e-cards.

A self confessed technophobe, Sarah quickly recovered, taking Twitter, Facebook and forums on so easily.

The company has recently created 6 short animations for the children’s TV channel Nickelodeon. The Nickelodeon team were so impressed with a taster animation they found on a clip hosting site that they commission the series.

Sarah said: “It’s funny; we’d just been talking about approaching Nickelodeon because we’re both massive fans. It was a wonderful surprise when they contacted us after seeing our online taster.”

Speaking about her use of social media, Sarah commented: “Twitter has been the main tool for us and its definitely helping us to create brand awareness. I’m always telling my clients that if they can spare even 5 minutes then they can’t lose; it’s a free resource that’s a great tool to help spread the message about your business and stay in touch with contacts, clients and potential freelancers. I wish it had been around when we started.”

This highly charged panel is guaranteed to stimulate discussions and answer queries from anyone interested in or affected by property. We urge you to book as soon as possible to secure a place.

Attendance for Forum members is included in your membership package and costs £15 + VAT for members’ guests. Non-members are charged at £35.00 + VAT per person. Please note that cancellations for guests, received within 24 hours of the event will be charged in full

A light supper will be served following the main panel discussion, allowing further time to chat with our panel members and event guests.

North East Golf Network launched

Better Brand Agency — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:57:44 +0000

The North East Golf Network (NEGN) is brought to you by a few partners (including us) who enjoy making contacts and making birdies, so that the region’s business executives who enjoy golf can combine two of their keen interests in one day.

With a full calendar of events from April to October, NEGN’s season will provide plenty of opportunity for members to make new acquaintances, develop new business relationships and also to introduce and entertain clients. The NEGN Launch event will take place at Close House on 22nd April.

For an annual fee, members can enjoy numerous benefits and features on offer:

7 golf events annually across some of the best north east golf clubs (from April through to October).
Prizes and fun guaranteed.
End of season dinner with league position and other season-long prizes.
Access to PGA golf professional through North East Golf Network partners.
Opportunities for sponsorship.
A rare opportunity to invite clients and customers and say thank you through some low key corporate hospitality.
A chance to broaden your business networks and horizons.
Obtain a recognised society golf handicap.
A chance to shape the future of NEGN.
On line registration and access to member profiles so that you can request to play with someone else in particular.

The founders, of which we’re proud to be one, are committed to run the organisation for the members, and will be keen for ideas and input to continually improve the events.

If you are interested in joining, or for more information on the North East Golf Network (NEGN) please visit www.northeastgolfnetwork.co.uk.

Entrepreneurs Forum

Better Brand Agency — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:30:51 +0000

Click to view Project Slideshow

Project Details:

Brand Development, Marketing Campaign Design, Marketing Literature, Direct Mail, Website Design and Development, Social Media Support.

Website: http://www.useyourloaf.info

Following on from the success of our student conferences over the last 4 years – which have attracted speakers including Bob Geldof, Tom Hunter, Tre Azam and Ian Livingstone, in February 2009 the Entrepreneurs’ Forum held its first Youth Conference, which attracted a staggering 1,300 budding young entrepreneurs.

Aimed at ambitious young people from the region’s schools and colleges Use Your Loaf will follow on from the success of the first Youth Conference, promoting enterprise by bringing students out of the classroom for a day of inspiration, opportunity, knowledge and sharing between young people and entrepreneurs.

The Use Your Loaf Youth Conference will combine an unrivalled speaker program alongside a number of interactive elements to develop the spirit of an entrepreneurial community.

VIEW ALL LATEST CLIENT PROJECTS.

Take a look at some more screenshots…

CIM Your Marketing Show for SME's in the North East

Better Brand Agency — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:17:37 +0000

As a tribute to the late Ken Atkins, a committee member, former Chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and tireless marketing advocate, the CIM Your Marketing Show North East event is aimed at helping SMEs in the North East improve their businesses.

With a combination of both inspirational and practical speakers including our very own Marketing Director Declan Metcalfe, Your Marketing Show will provide delegates with worthwhile tips and suggestions on improving their own marketing.

The event will also mark the start to the “80 Days around Marketing” programme to celebrate the 80th birthday of the North East branch of the CIM.

Your Marketing Show will be held at The Radisson SAS Durham in the North East on 3rd March.

If you would like to book for the Your Marketing Show 2010, please book online using the CIM Events Booking System. Alternatively please call The Chartered Institute of Marketing Region and Branch Events team on (0)1628 427340 or by email on cimevents@cim.co.uk.

Chance to Change event in the North East

Better Brand Agency — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:28:14 +0000

Better are proud to be supporting the Entrepreneurs Forum’s Change to Change event which will take place in the North East at the Civic Centre, Newcastle on 22nd February.

The Change to Change event is your Chance to Change your life. An inspirational and informative conference, funded by One North East, for those looking to escape the world of employment and create their own job or venture – whether through necessity or choice.

Lots of the best things that happen in life, happen by chance. But you’ve got to embrace opportunities as they come along and make the most of them. So if you can find a way to increase the likelihood of the chance encounters that could make a real difference to you, then why wouldn’t you jump at it.

Chance to Change is the perfect opportunity to think about what makes you tick and where your passions, ambitions and opportunities lie. Chance to take stock.

Chance to make the most of your skills
Change the way you think about your career.

Chance to speak to people who’ve already done it
Change your thoughts on what you’re capable of.

Chance to do something you’ve always wanted to
Change your life to fit you and your priorities.

Chance to work through the barriers
Change your view on what it takes to start a business.

Chance to make the right connections
Change the rules – make your own.

For more information please visit the Chance to Change website.

CIM Event: Facing the future – Is there space for social networks in your business?

Better Brand Agency — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:23:46 +0000

Is social media a flash in the pan?
Is it relevant to your business and should it be at the heart of your marketing strategy?
Or should we get a (second) life and stop the twitter?

As a marketing practitioner, you may feel that you need to be using social media, or simply want to keep abreast of developments in this area. This presentation will explain the explosion of social media; exploring winning case studies, when it goes wrong and outlining implementation strategies you can begin to adopt today.

You will leave inspired and armed with the knowledge to begin applying social media principles to your own business.

Speaker: Mr Declan Metcalfe
Date: 16/09/2009
Time: 08:00
CPD Hours: 1.0

Venue:
The Old Brewery
Castle Eden
Durham
TS27 4SU
United Kingdom

Host: Durham Tees Valley

Book Now at: http://www.cim.co.uk/Events/EventDetail.aspx?ObjectID=28902

More about the Speaker: Declan Metcalfe, Marketing Director, Better Brand Agency.

Declan began his marketing career at KP Foods (UK) where he worked as part of the brand team responsible for Discos, Frisps and Roysters snacks. Declan was responsible for taking the company’s portfolio of brands online in the late 90′s, before moving across the desk to work with some of the region’s biggest digital/brand agencies. Declan is now a partner in his own brand agency Better, which focuses on growing profitable brands, using the team’s mix of experience across marketing, digital and social media to bring a brand and its audience closer together; a vital undertaking in the current economic climate.

This event is kindly hosted by The Old Brewery – now a business centre with meeting rooms on the restored site of Castle Eden’s historic brewery.

Registration:
Registration for this event begins at 08:00 to allow for breakfast and networking. The event begins at 09:00 and is expected to finish at 10:00.

Price information:
Member:     £0
Studying Member:     £0
Student:     £4.90
Guest:     £24.50

Breakfast included.

Alternative Pay Details:
Please book online for this event. If you cannot do so please call The Chartered Institute of Marketing on +44 (0)1628 427340.
Contact: Region and Branch Events Team
Contact Email: cimevents@cim.co.uk

North East's TyneTwestival gets support from Better Brand Agency

Mark Easby Managing Director - Better Brand Agency — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:50:57 +0000

We’re all excited. There’s a Twestival coming to the North East and we couldn’t resist getting involved to support the event. The TyneTwestival is taking place at 7.30pm on 12th February at The Other Rooms in Newcastle City Centre.

We have been working on some graphics and web buttons to help spread the word, and these will be online very soon. For more information the TyneTwestival please visit http://newcastle.twestival.com where you can buy tickets online, or follow @tynetwestival on Twitter.

Better Brand Agency is a brand agency offering brand, graphic design, marketing, social media and social networking, web and digital services based in Tees Valley, North East and North Yorkshire.

Thinking Digital Conference in the North East is back

Mark Easby Managing Director - Better Brand Agency — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:13:37 +0000

After attending this event last year I would recommend this to anyone!…

Thinking Digital is an annual conference where the world´s greatest thinkers and innovators gather to inspire, to entertain, and to discuss the latest ideas and technologies.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s9XN76zhlU

Defining exactly what to expect at Thinking Digital isn’t easy. The conference prides itself on the eclectic nature of the schedule. One moment you’ll be experiencing a first UK appearance of Live Mesh (as attendees where treated to at Thinking Digital 2008) and the next you’ll be hearing about the science behind love from the world’s leading expert.

But what you can always count on is getting the chance to hear talks by, and build relationships with, some of the most thought provoking, influential and inspirational figures you’ll ever meet.

The conference is run by Codeworks, a centre for digital innovation based in North East England.

Its all about Survival

Better Brand Agency — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:48:22 +0000

Event Date: October 16 2008, Time 12:00 PM to 06:00 PM

The Better Brand Agency team are looking forward to attending the this years Service Network Annual Conference. The theme is all about ‘Survival’ and key speakers include Ray Mears, Fabulous Flournoy, David Hall and Tony Flinn.

The Service Network Annual Conference is the North East’s leading conference for anyone involved in the service sector in the region. In the current climate of economic uncertainty, Service Network will explore the theme of survival. This prestigious event delivers high profile speakers, valuable insights, and a dynamic networking forum. With an established reputation in delivering exciting and inspiring events, Service Network’s conference this year will take as its theme “Survival” – a topical one given the current economic climate.

Scheduled for 16th October (12 noon until 6pm) at Northern Stage, we are particularly delighted to have as our keynote speaker survival expert, Ray Mears, with what promises to be a really lively and engaging presentation!

The line up also includes Newcastle Eagles basketball star and head coach, Fabulous Flournoy, sharing with us his story from childhood in the Bronx to becoming the most successful player/coach in British basketball history. Entrepreneurial guru, David Hall, described as one of Europe’s leading facilitators in creativity, adaptability, and solutions thinking. Alongside owner-manager of leading-edge drugs company, Onyx Scientific, Tony Flinn, who successfully returned to take his business to new heights after a cycling accident left him permanently paralysed.

For more information or to register please visit the Service Network North East Website.