As part of our exciting expansion plans, from Monday 16 November, Reedus Design has moved to new offices, at Severo Ochoa 28 6° C 29603 Marbella Málaga, Spain. Our phone number remains the same.

The new location gives us better facilities and more importantly the room we needed to expand.

For our local clients, the new offices (which are on the sixth floor of the Single Home building, the blue glass tower near the marina) have plenty of free parking and more room for meetings. Feel free to pop in for a coffee and a look around!

When times are tough, we all know marketing is a must. Glancing through local lifestyle glossies, it is clear that many businesses have rightfully concluded that to survive, they need to advertise. We agree. We advertise in magazines and newspapers too.

However, we also advertise online, and we find it hard to understand why some of the companies we see advertising in magazines and newspapers all the time  – and we’re talking smaller restaurants, bars, independent shops and so on – are so reluctant to repeat the exercise with online advertising.

We know what they spend on those magazine and newspaper ads because we spent it too, and online advertising needn’t cost any more. Either to complement or replace offline ads, advertising online has a lot going for it.

Google leads the way
You won’t be surprised to hear that Google has the lion’s share here. Google AdWords pay-per-click adverts are the right-hand side ads that appear when you look at a Google search results page. Targeted, measured and effective, they are a great way of getting your message in front of potential clients at exactly the time they are looking for your products.

How does it work?
Say you own a restaurant in Marbella. You could have an advert appear every time somebody types “restaurant Marbella”. Is it a French restaurant? Then go for “French restaurant Marbella”. Do you see? Your ad appears at the precise moment someone is looking for a French restaurant in Marbella!

It gets better. You don’t pay unless that person then clicks on your advert. Displaying it is free. Can you say the same about newspapers and magazines?

Remember I mentioned measurability? The system will tell you how often your ad showed, what people typed in, how many clicked – it can even tell you how many enquiries to your business came directly from your online ads. Can the local rag tell you that?

So what’s the issue?
We think it’s a case that people need to be shown how this works, and given advice on how to make sure when someone does click on their advert and land on their website, they are properly encouraged to do something positive – ring to book a table, buy a product, enquire etc. Then, they need help setting up and monitoring the campaign. It’s not just a case of “set and forget” with real-time online advertising.

The online help offered by Google is good, and books like “AdWords for Dummies” – while Americanised – are easy to work through. Or alternatively some web agencies can set campaigns up for you at reasonable rates – including our own Pay Per Click Taster offering.

But however you decide to try it out, we think almost all businesses can benefit from adding this form of advertising to they “marketing mix”.

by Phil Morse

I recently blogged about how Virgin Atlantic reinforced their brand values when they messed up. In this case, their brand was portrayed as caring.

I have flown Ryanair, many times. Unlike Virgin Atlantic, making its clients feel cared for is certainly not top  of Ryanair’s list.

What your brand is not can be as important as what it is
However, Ryanair is undeniably both cheap and punctual. I have not had a late Ryanair flight yet (and they make it blindingly obvious they’re on time by playing a fanfare when every punctual flight lands). Ryanair is also among the very cheapest to fly with.

This is not by mistake. It is a truth of business today that the very best businesses sell you the brand, not the product. With Ryanair, you are buying flights, but the brand leaves you feeling uncared for, but richer – and on time! They know this; it is their brand.

They want you to learn to do things their way, which in return keeps costs low and flights on time.

I will continue to fly Ryanair… and just as they want me to do, I will pay by debit card (keeping their booking costs down), have a small piece of hand luggage and not eat on board (helping them turn their flights around faster by not cramming on excess luggage before the flight can take off, and not having as much mess to clear up before the plane can take off again later on).

What is YOUR brand selling your customers, aside from your product or service?

by Phil Morse