Do you live on your iPad or tablet? Can you remember a time when you didn’t immediately reach for it first thing in the morning or last thing at night just to check the latest news, weather report, movie review, or Facebook? Be honest! This is typical behaviour for many of us and we’re not alone. Recent statistics about tablets are very interesting. 

Did you know?

• That in a study of 2,500 people aged 8-54, 15% of full-length television is now watched on a tablet, Viacom 2012
• From the same study, 49% say they manage their lives better with a tablet, and 40% even claim that their tablet “brings out the best in them”
• That 80% of tablet owners and 78% of smart phone owners in the UK used their device while watching television at least once during a 30 day period, Nielson 2012
• That consumers in their twenties switch media types a huge 27 times per non-working hour, Time Warner and Innerscope, 2012.

It shows how highly young consumers are engaging with their tablets. So, is your message getting across? If this is your target audience, you need to make sure that your communications messages are tablet and mobile compatible. This is a good rule of thumb for whoever you’re targeting, as reports show that most demographics are embracing new technologies.

Marketing Zone can create a tablet-friendly and mobile compatible website for your business. Call us to find out more.

Whether on your website, stationery or brochures, all of your communications should reflect your brand. Twitter is no different. Yes you can download templates and standard themes, but these are not custom designed and often don’t create the right impression.

With 100 million active users, 230 million tweets a day and 400 million monthly users, Twitter could be a great opportunity for your business. And a bespoke Twitter background from Marketing Zone strikes the right note as soon a potential customer arrives on your page.

For just £50+VAT, your Twitter page will benefit from:

• A bespoke design for your brand or business
• Incorporating your logo and website address if required
• Compatibility with all website browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome
• Suitable for viewing on smart phones and tablets
• Making sure your design adapts to fit any screen size
• Uniqueness – we don’t use templates so you won’t find your Twitter background on anyone else’s page.

Take a look at custom made designs we’ve produced for Polaroid Sunglasses and Marketing Zone. 

Call us today to find out more. And if you’re interested in achieving business leads through Twitter, Marketing Zone will develop a social media strategy for your business.

Marketing Zone had a great time as we celebrated our 15th year as a marketing agency with many of our clients and associates at our Crystal Anniversary Party on Friday evening. With a glass of champagne and a canapé or two, it was fantastic to mark the occasion and reflect on the success we’ve had over the past decade and a half.

It was great that many of our clients could join us and reporter, Ciaran Gold, from the Mercury newspaper arrived, keen to write an article.

We also enjoyed showing our guests the anniversary portfolio we had commissioned to showcase the communications projects we’ve delivered over the years.

Here are just a few on the messages we received from our clients.

“What a great achievement”
John Morgan, WMS Technology

“Surely it is more than 15 years!”
David Criddle, Chairman, Eudaimon Holdings Limited

“I wish you and everybody at Marketing Zone a very successful anniversary party”
James Fulton, DMG Delta

“Congratulations on your anniversary!”
Maxine Angel, Sightsavers

It was a fantastic occasion to toast our future. Here’s to the next 15 years!

We’ve been watching with interest to see if Pinterest, the pin board-style social photo sharing website from the US, would be a hit in the UK. And we’re pleased to see that it’s becoming very popular. Even Harrods is running a special Jubilee contest, inviting shoppers to compete for the opportunity to design one of their shop window displays, by creating a mood board using Pinterest.

We think it’s a creative way to share ideas and interests online as you can ‘pin’ image collections such as events, videos, hobbies and inspirations to share with others. You can even link it to Facebook and Twitter so you can integrate your existing social media sites, and it’s a real opportunity to display different areas of your brand.

It’s only launched a year ago, and its popularity is growing amongst ‘social’ products, including food and drink, wedding planning, shopping and photography. But we can see the potential for all sorts of brands and products to get involved – florists, accessories, video games, apps, designers – there’s a lot of potential.

Have a look at the Marketing Zone Pinterest and here are some others we’ve seen so far:

• Pantone inspired board
• iPhone’s home screens
• The Guardian news.

If you’re looking to kick start your social media, Marketing Zone can help, just get in touch.

Alex Seroge Ignatian and his girlfriend, Next Top Model star, Chelsea Tarbox.

With a variety of fashion and accessory brands boosting our portfolio, Marketing Zone keeps its finger firmly on the fashion pulse. We’ve just returned from Alternative Fashion Week, where we took an exclusive look at the new collection from Alex Seroge Ignatian, the British fashion designer who we support.

Alex caught our eye last year, and we were impressed with his creative flair. We worked with him to develop a portfolio style website to showcase his collections. The website regularly creates new opportunities for Alex, and fashion buyers and journalists know exactly where to go to find out more on his latest range.

Held at the contemporary Spitalfields Traders Market in London, Alternative Fashion Week gave Marketing Zone’s Robin the perfect opportunity to meet other designers. They were interested in our fashion PR services so we’re busy following up leads this week

The Seroge collection will soon launch in the online fashion boutique, ASOS. It’s fantastic to see Alex thought of so highly in the fashion industry.

Marketing Zone's Dee discusses projects with delegates.

Marketing Zone is back from exhibiting at the Best Business Expo in Stevenage. It was a good opportunity for networking with businesses and we’ve made some great connections.

The Expo had an Olympic and sports theme, and Derek Redmond, Great Britain’s Olympic Gold Medallist gave a motivational talk. Derek’s ethos is ‘sport is business and business is sport.’ His belief is that the determined and focussed mindset of a sportsperson can be applied in business. And there’s a lot of truth in that.

Hearing Derek speak about the teamwork necessary to develop Great Britain’s winning team in the 4 x 400 metre relay race in the World Championships it was clear to see that the team and responding to strategic tactics was key to bringing them success.

We also heard from business coach, Nigel Risner, whose presentation stressed the importance of good communication between businesses and their customers. “If you’re in the room, be in the room,” said Nigel. Which means keep your mind focussed on the task in hand, don’t allow it to become distracted.

 Wise words indeed.

I spent a week working at Marketing Zone to digest some very valuable and worthwhile work experience. I’ve always had an interest in marketing, and after thorough research on the internet, I came across this agency. For me, it was the perfect place to gain some first time work experience in an award winning marketing communications agency.

Joanna Dysangco enjoys work experience at Marketing Zone.

I was given a project for the week and worked on a top accessories brand, which I absolutely enjoyed doing. Some of the tasks included research into department stores for upcoming trends for 2012 to use as background information for promotional stories, and searching for images of celebrities wearing sunglasses to see what styles are popular amongst today’s A-listers. I also took part in PR activities by sending out celebrity and journalist sample gifts, and tracking the number of followers and tweets received on Twitter for the brand.

After spending a week at Marketing Zone, I thoroughly enjoyed my work experience. I worked with their welcoming and friendly team, and they devoted time in training me about the different aspects of their projects. Being self-motivatied I was able to learn and understand their work in such a short space of time – which was totally unexpected! 

It made me realise that I now would like to pursue a career in marketing communications. I also learned some new skills, which I am going to take away with me to use in my Marketing career.

Thank you guys at Marketing Zone!

Marketing Zone will be exhibiting at Best Business Expo on 19 April at The Novotel Hotel in Stevenage. We’re attending as part of our 15th Anniversary celebrations, and we’re expecting to have a great day networking with other local businesses.

The Expo has an Olympic and sports theme, and Derek Redmond, the GB Olympic Gold Medal winner from the Barcelona Olympics will be giving a presentation.

If you’d like to attend, you can register for free for the exhibition and speaker presentations.

Also at the event will be Business Magazine’s speaker of the year Nigel Risner who will be giving a motivational speech.

The Queen may be marking her Diamond Jubilee this year, but 2012 is an exciting year for Marketing Zone too. This year we’re celebrating 15 years since our marketing agency began! It doesn’t seem that long ago that our first client walked through our doors, and a decade and a half on we’ve transformed the marketing communications of countless brands and businesses. 

As an outsourced marketing agency, brands and businesses of all sizes come to us for practical solutions to boost their sales. Coming up with digital, web and print solutions with real bite sets us apart from all the rest, and we enjoy long standing relationships with our clients. What makes us different is our creativity, our strategic insight and our focus on results. And it’s this which has been paramount in the success we’ve had over the past fifteen years.

We’re planning plenty of celebrations including a Crystal Anniversary Party at our offices later in the month and we’ll be exhibiting at the Best Business Expo at Novotel, Stevenage on 19 April.

It’s going to another fantastic year.

With the competition for business heating up in the world of probate, Valued Estates needed a new website to give them the edge. So they came to Marketing Zone.

Their original website was useful and provided their potential customers with lots of information. Almost too much. When researching the website, we noticed that by offering detailed facts about the steps of probate, customers could nearly take on the process of probate administration themselves. But our goal was to increase the level of enquires for the company, so they could take on that service for their customers.

To solve this, we produced refreshed copy that was informative and engaging, and encouraged visitors to call Valued Estates for more information. By creating a sympathetic tone and emphasising the hassle free service, potential customers are seeing the benefits of accepting professional probate advice.

As part of their website development, we created a new design. We’re now incorporating this into their print materials. And by managing their on-page search engine optimisation, Marketing Zone has achieved first page Google rankings and a professional new look for them.