August 8, 2011
Do pioneers really get shot in the back?
I learned this phrase when talking with someone about adoption of new technologies in the tourism and hospitality industry. And whilst it’s true that there is an inherent conservatism among these businesses I believe it’s born out of bitter experience of buying the “next big thing” that will “streamline your operation” and “integrate ALL your systems”.
Over the past year or so the next big thing has been Social Media and we’ve been involved in lots of discussion with our clients about ROI and the pro’s and con’s of adopting this new and disruptive technology. We are enthusiastic about it, we do think that it will fundamentally change the online customer experience (for the better) and we’ve helped most of our clients to establish their social presence and develop a strategy to make the most of their investment (we prevent them getting shot in the back).
In most cases this involves us establishing a presence for the client across most well recognised social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc, applying our knowledge of the client and their market and working out the best way for them to engage with guests / visitors.
So it probably comes as little surprise that we have been dabbling in “the next big thing in Social” Google+, it’s really early days but from what we’ve seen the user experience seems to take a lot of the good things from both Twitter and Facebook and leave behind a lot of the rubbish.
In particular the interface is really clear and clean with very little clutter and distraction, you can still attach links, images & videos to what you post and your friends / followers can “+1″ your content, this is the same as sharing on Facebook or Retweeting on Twitter. One of the things we like a lot is Circles, this is a really easy way to organise your connections into groups that you control, so you can have Friends, Acquaintances, Work etc, this is a really intuitive way to organise your privacy too as you can decide which circles to post content to and the other circles don’t see it.
Google+ is still technically in beta test so there are some things that need work, but so far Google seems to be quite responsive about listening to feedback and implementing changes quite quickly. The one thing that we’re most excited about is the launch of business / brand pages on Google+, we’ve built and customised lots of Facebook Pages for our clients and whilst they can be really good for interacting with your customers, there are some challenges and workarounds that always present a challenge.
It seems that Google have taken a decision to delay creating a business platform on Google+ to ensure that they make as few mistakes as possible and also integrate it as tightly as possible with its other business platforms such as AdWords and Analytics. We agree with this and we look forward to building some pages for our clients once it launches.
Tell us about your experience with Google+ so far, have you signed up? Or if you would like an invitation to use it just drop us a quick email.
March 23, 2011
Google Adwords Endorsement for POSH
Google Adwords Endorsement
This February the POSH Agency received recognition for their outstanding PPC account management and PPCdelivery for one of the POSH clients – the five star London hotel, the Royal Garden Hotel in London Kensington.
One of the Google Adwords Account Strategist’s reported to the POSH Agency in regards to the
PPC campaign that:
“the campaigns are very well structured using ad groups. Most ad groups have multiple ads. Deep-linked destination URL’s are being used. Ad extensions are being used. Most keywords are using advanced features by phrase and exact matching. I can’t see anything missing.”
Ouwei Cheng, Google Adwords Team
The POSH Agency SEO and PPC strategists are very pleased with this Google recommendation and continue to strive to deliver the best for our POSH clients
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
March 22, 2011
Google Analytics Specialist and Consumer Behavioural Reports
Google Analytics Specialist and Consumer Behavioural Reports
Online reporting and statistical translation are the core focus of our business. There is no point in ploughing time and money in to growing your hotels online bookings if you don’t understand where your bookings are coming from, how your site is converting and what is compelling your customers to find your site and convert.
At the POSH Agency our web developers will intricately tag your site with Google tracking tags (not just at a simple level as done by most web agencies) to every single page, link and button. We then set up detailed goals and funnels through your key customer journeys, enquiry forms and the full booking engine to ensure we know what your customers are responding to and why.
Strong website statistics are crucial to online growth and long-term stability for your ecommerce strategy. There is, however, no point in all these figures if you don’t understand what they mean and what to do with them. This is where our Ecommerce experts come in.
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
Hotel Website Development
Hotel Website Development
The POSH Agency have a team of web developers who assist clients with delivering new social systems/tools,websites and web pages.
We are loving having developers on hand to support our client websites with the slightly more technical updates and functionality improvements to keep their online strategies ahead of the competition. All work by our developers is defined by your online statistics and customer behavioural reports.
Our developers also work at creating social systems and sign up tools to help keep your customers engaged and to encourage word of mouth marketing; and we even have a games developer for those who are really serious at ensuring interaction with their cusotmers.
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
Online Graphic Designer and Email Content Specialist
Online Graphic Designer and Email Content Specialist
Yes we finally have our very own in-house graphic designer and content layout master. Coming from a backgroundof print and web design with bags of experience in online email campaign creation. As from the outset, we still don’t aim to re-design clients websites from scratch (unless this is what their customers reports are telling us they need). We do, however, recognise the need to have a website designer on hand to:
- Ensure content updates are delivered with the best online customer journey in mind,
- Email designs are kept fresh and inspiring, month in, month out, and
- That online marketing campaigns are brought to life with inspiring call to actions.
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
PPC Specialists
PPC Specialists
Poor PPC campaign set up and management was such a frequent bug bare of the POSH Agency that we decided tostart doing it ourselves in-house. Running PPC campaigns is so often done so badly with agencies, cheating their clients out of organic growth and damaging hotel seo strategies, to simply increase the ‘perceived’ ROI. What they don’t tell you is that a good chunk of that ROI would come for free and new markets could be brought in and conversion increased if they got their hands dirty and worked a little harder!
What’s more is that we were so right about this, and are so good at PPC campaign management we recently received a Google endorsement for our PPC campaign set up, structure and management!
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
Online SEO Specialists
Online SEO Specialists
We have a new seo specialist on board! Our new seo guru has excelled for big names such as the Hilton Group and bringsa plethora of experience, helping our clients make their content king and grow in search rank. From keyword research, metadata, online optimisted copywriting, link building and so much more…
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
Content Manager and CMS King
Content Manager and CMS King
As the POSH Agency have grown and developed it has become apparent that CMS updating and management is nota day to day task that all hoteliers want to own. All hotels want flexibility from their hotel content management system and the ability to quickly and easily be able to update their hotel website. But lets face it, CMS updates can be time consuming and often frustrating and time is something that most hoteliers struggle to find.
We help ensure that your hotels website content management and updates are completed in a timely manor, ensuring that all updates are optimised for SEO and your overall customer journey to ensure maximum possible bookings online.
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
Hotel Ecommerce Experts & Online Strategy Planning
Hotel Ecommerce Experts & Online Strategy Planning
Online strategy management for hotels and providing hotels with our online ecommerce expertise is where we beganand where the heart of our online agency lies. We have lived and breathed hotel ecommerce our entire careers, running websites like Hilton.com and MacdonaldHotels.co.uk; now working with small and large UK independents and hotel chains such as Crieff Hydro, the Royal Garden Hotel in London, and Apex Hotels. Our online expertise, customer dedication and marketing quirkiness sets us out from the normal online delivery agencies, along with our track record for hard results! We have never seen anything but exceptional growth for our clients from our efforts.
We make budgets work harder and have proof to show that if you spend a little, you will make so much more back.
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
POSH Agency Move Office and Grow Team
The POSH Agency have moved offices to allow for the expansion of their team of specialists.
Below you can see some images of our fantastic new 600 square foot offices, based in the trendy West End of Glasgow. This shows the unit prior to conversion through to our first days of setting up the offices ready for us to move in.
The New Team Structure
We have now brought all our online specialists under one roof to increase the POSH Agency productivity, skill set and customer care.
Select from the below to find out more about our online skills and the web experts we now have on board:
- Google Analytics Specialist and Consumer Behavioural Reports
- Hotel Ecommerce Experts
- Content Manager and CMS Kings
- Online SEO specialists
- Website Developers
- PPC specialists
Select from the above to find out more about each of our team members and specialities.
Contact US at the POSH Agency to find out more.
