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It is tempting to consider digital marketing (websites, email, extranets, device marketing, and so on) as a separate marketing discipline, all on its own. It is, however, best considered as a classical direct marketing tool, tightly linked to other channels. Digital marketing relies heavily on database marketing and the techniques that direct marketing professionals have employed for years: profiling, segmentation, targeting, etc.

SBS have worked on digital marketing projects for a number of years and can advise on how best to integrate this activity with other marketing activities. As long ago as 2000 (a long time in digital marketing!) we have been winning awards for projects that combined email with telemarketing and direct mail. The richness of content and opportunities for customisation offered by digital media allow us to create effective, targeted, relevant and timely communications. Not only is digital marketing often a fraction of the cost of offline activity, it is now the preferred channel for receiving product information for many consumers.

For many brands, digital communications are as important (if not more important) than traditional communications. Service providers like SBS that can help to weave together digital and traditional communications to properly service customers and generate maximum opportunities for relevant sales messages.

An upgrade from Web 1.0, presenting, the User Generated, Application Integrated, Interactive and Heritage Undermining world wide web.

This is a very easy activity to get started, however, the targeted delivery of email communications is subject to numerous hurdles such as regulatory restrictions and software that filters for unsolicited communications (spam). SBS can design and manage email activity with massive customisation, accurately tailoring your message to different customers. With SBS Direct, it's more than firing out masses of emails, it's about engaging with customers through creative digital communications. Our campaign management and execution leads to improved open rates, improved up-take and lower cost per contact.

SEM is the process of marketing your brand's services on search engines such as Google or Yahoo. The key objective is to drive traffic to your website in the form of qualified prospects. Originally, SEM meant only improving your listing position on Google, etc. but now there are two routes: organic search, where your site is constructed to lead searches to your site, and secondly, pay-per-click advertising, where you list your services in prime positions in a search display and then pay when a prospect clicks through to your site.

This is achieved by listing your website in a search engine's top "free" search results or sponsored listings when people search on keywords targeted by your company's SEM strategy. One of the simplest things on the web, yet one of the most difficult things to master, search is at the heart of all web communication strategies. Too often considered an afterthought to site design, it should be embedded with the site on day 1. Whether organic search or paid-per-click, SBS Direct can manage this process to greatly improve your outcomes. Many providers deliberately increase the confusion in this area to create a fog that only they can navigate through. SBS Direct takes a more open approach, working with you to evolve your site and your search objectives through careful site management and development and tailored use of pay-per-click, as necessary. You cannot guarantee position #1 every time, but you can avoid being in position #1001. Let us help you manage your site for improved ratings.

Increasingly organisations are using their websites to provide some (or all) customer service options normally provided by branches or call centres. This can reduce costs by making the customer do some of the work, but also puts control into the hands of your customers. This is a key lock-in to improve retention and frees up call centre staff to actively engage with customers to improve up-sell opportunities. This requires tight integration with back-end systems and very good process automation. SBS Direct has worked on a number of such projects and can advise on the steps needed, ranging from simple enquiry management web resources to advanced video IVR facilities.

If you want to share information with a restricted community, e.g. registered users, suppliers, etc, talk to SBS about providing secure information resources. Extranets will make your organisation more efficient by placing forms, documents, processes, etc. in a shareable location rather relying on face-to-face or telephone communications. SBS Direct have helped many organisations to securely share information with suppliers.

As devices become more capable (such as 3G devices) content can be creatively personalised and more space is available for presentation allowing rich media applications to run on small portable devices. These devices represent a huge opportunity for digital marketing, and many brands are actively trying to optimise communications with their customers, direct to their devices. This becomes particularly interesting when combined with location base services, tailoring information not just by customer profile but also by current geographic location. SBS Direct is very active in this marketplace and can help you weave a path through the technologies and services to make it happen.

Once seen as simple banner ads at the top of search engines, web advertising now comes in many forms, including pay per click advertising and many different formats for digital display advertising. With SBS Direct running your web advertising, you get instant feedback about what is and what is not working and can instantly update creative or offers and re-launch. At SBS Direct we have the skills to maximise your return on web advertising and take away the hassle.

To XHTML or not, that is the question. Whether it is nobler to use external style sheets ... Building websites is so easy that anyone in the family can do it, building a standards compliant, accessible, easy to navigate site is much more involved. Building websites is easy, integrating with databases and other marketing communications is not. By automating data-dips into back-end systems we can create tailored experiences for different customers based on their history with your brand, which improves return on investment. This is where SBS Direct generally steps in to make the creative design work from a commercial perspective, taking your proposition to market clearly, creatively and profitably.