Wolfgang Digital crowned Champions of Europe at the European Search Awards in Berlin.
The Competition:
The European Search Awards is an international competition that celebrates the very best in SEO, PPC, Digital and Content Marketing in Europe. The awards are now in their fourth year and attract hundreds of entries from some of the leading search and digital agencies from all over Europe. The Grand Prix Prix goes to the entry which received the highest scores from the judges across all categories. Prior to this year, there had never been an Irish award winner. It was a great night for the Irish, in addition to Wolfgang taking two awards, home creative agency “In The Company Of Huskies” won an award for best use of PR in a search campaign.
The Winning Campaign:
The Grand Prix winning campaign told the story of how Wolfgang Digital “the digital marketing scientists” utilised advanced adwords tactics and applied appropriate innovations to deliver record breaking results for UNICEF Ireland. Titled #JustLikeJoe there was a rugby analogy running through the entry to assist in telling the tale.
Wolfgang Digital have now completed an impressive domestic & european double having recently won the “Best Agency” award among others in Ireland’s Digital Media Awards in February 2015.
Product of the Wolfgang Academy
The Wolfgang Digital team behind the Grand Prix winning campaign were working in engineering, banking and law prior to joining Wolfgang Digital and are graduates of what is known as the Wolfgang Academy. The Wolfgang Academy traineeship program is designed to take people with skills in unrelated industries and cross-train them, utilising their existing strenghts and developing them into top drawer digital marketers.
“The Wolfgang Academy is a world class centre of digital marketing excellence smack bang in the middle of Dublin’s fair city. The Wolfgang Academy has a carefully designed curriculum, on-the-job mentoring and intimate ties with industry giants such as Google, all geared to creating great digital marketing teams who are relentlessly focused on performance. Although Wolfgang Digital looks like a digital marketing agency, you could say that making great digital marketers is actually our core activity. High perfromance campaigns are the byproduct of that.”
90% of the digital marketing team in Wolfgang Digital are graduates of the Wolfgang Academy traineeship programme.
The Wolfgang Mission
“In becoming champions of Europe we have demonstrated there is world class digital marketing being executed right here in Dublin. The renewed Wolfgang Digital mission is to help ambitious Irish businesses to enter and conquer international markets.”
91% of Irish SME websites cannot process sales
IEDR research finds majority of Irish SMEs not ‘e-commerce enabled’
IEDR’s OPTIMISE Fund 2015 launched to help SMEs be e-commerce ready
91% of Irish SME websites cannot process sales online, according to new research published today.
The initial findings of research commissioned by IEDR, the company which manages Ireland’s .ie domain registry, finds that the vast majority of Irish businesses are not equipped to take and process consumer sales online.
The research comes as IEDR today, 20 April 2015, launched its OPTIMISE Fund 2015, which supports Irish SMEs and Micro-Enterprises in enhancing their existing online presence and in becoming e-commerce enabled.
The IEDR research surveyed 501 Irish SMEs to examine their online presence, including their e-commerce capabilities. The research found that the majority of Irish SMEs’ websites are not e-commerce enabled, hindering businesses capacity to sell online to their customers.
Key findings include:
While 63% of Irish SMEs have a website
o 91% cannot process sales online
o 62% cannot (in the first instance) take sales orders online;
o 68% cannot process payments online
o 51% don’t have the ability to interact directly with customers through social media or web chat;
o 54% don’t have responsive website designs for tablet or smartphone;
o 66% don’t have video content on their website;
and only 4% have the capacity to run analytics on their website performance.
Commenting on the research, David Curtin, Chief Executive of IEDR, said:
“What stands out most is the mismatch between business owners’ acknowledgement of what’s important and their actions. Business owners know it’s important, but they haven’t (yet) acted to sell online, with 73% saying their website is “important/very important” as a driver of generating sales, yet 62% cannot take sales orders via that website”.
“In an ever more global economy, the absence of an online sales presence puts Irish businesses at a huge disadvantage to competitors. It acts as a major disincentive to attracting customers, for whom buying online is now the norm”, added Curtin.
Now in its fifth year, the aim of the OPTIMISE Fund is to encourage and enable Irish SMEs or micro enterprises to make greater use of existing web technologies and upgrade the e-commerce functionality of their websites.
The Fund is designed to help drive Irish businesses’ sales offering online. Since its’ inception in 2011, the OPTIMISE Fund has provided funding to 60 Irish SMEs and micro enterprises to improve their web and online sales capabilities. With the OPTIMISE Fund 2015 valued at €150,000, IEDR is confident that demand for funding amongst the business community will be significant again this year.
Commenting on the OPTIMISE Fund, Mr. Curtin said:
“The OPTIMISE Fund provides training and services to small businesses to help them to enhance their online presence, particularly their online sales capability. Our research has consistently shown that Ireland’s small businesses often struggle to develop an online sales presence to tap into new revenue streams and ultimately, to grow their business. The OPTIMISE Fund works shoulder to shoulder with businesses and seeks to give a helping hand to businesses to make the leap from digital trailers to digital blazers, who are savvy, successful online entrepreneurs.”
Francis Brennan, owner of The Park Hotel, Kenmare and Ambassador for the OPTIMISE Fund 2015, noted that “online sales are critical to our hotel business. They are now a significant and growing part of most successful Irish businesses’ sales strategy. While having a website is an important shop window for every business, its’ not enough if your customers can’t use it to buy your goods and services online. Today’s survey results clearly show small Irish businesses are falling short when it comes to selling online. Such businesses risk losing out on huge opportunities for growth, unless they improve their online offering.”
Businesses who want to improve their online sales capabilities and optimise their websites are encouraged to apply to the OPTIMISE Fund 2015 by logging on to www.iedr.ie/optimise for further information.
ENDS
Infographic of key findings attached.
For further information contact:
Amanda Glancy, PR360 01 6371777/087 2273108 amanda@pr360.ie
Dan Pender, PR360 01 6371777/087 2313415 dan@pr360.ie
SEO Bootcamp – Dublin 23rd April 2015 – Limited Places
Do you struggle to get a better SEO listing? Do you hear a lot of jargon when you talk to your web team? Attend this course, it is your first step to getting a better search engine ranking which will mean higher quality web traffic and more sales and leads.
Hosting Ireland Shortlisted for Chamber Award
Hosting Ireland has been shortlisted for the Waterford Business Awards which will be held on 6th March 2015.
The Waterford Chamber commented:
Following weeks of careful deliberation by an independent judging panel, Waterford Chamber is delighted to announce the shortlist for the Waterford Business Awards 2014.
The glamorous awards ceremony will take place on Friday, March 6th in Dooley’s Hotel, where some of Waterford’s top businesses will be celebrated for their extraordinary contribution to the economic life of Waterford City and County.
Speaking about the awards initiative, Waterford Chamber President Dr Derek O’Byrne said: “The Waterford Business Awards is all about showcasing entrepreneurial spirit, sharing success stories and supporting the business community in Waterford. We envisage these awards growing year on year and very much look forward to meeting and engaging with them as their business continues to prosper. Of course the awards wouldn’t be possible without the support of our category sponsors, media partners WLRfm and overall sponsors Waterford City and County Council and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them next year and into the future.”
Three businesses have been shortlisted for each of the ten categories and the winners of those categories will then go head to head in the hope of claiming the Overall Waterford Business of the Year 2014, sponsored by Waterford City and County Council.
Frank O’Regan, Chairperson of the Judging Panel, said he and his fellow judges were hugely impressed and faced some very tough decisions during the selection process.
“We had a significant number of entries, far exceeding our expectations. It is so encouraging to see such creative, sustainable and expertly executed business models out there. From what we have seen, the future of business in Waterford is very bright. This was by no means an easy process, there were plenty of discussions and debates and while some businesses may be left disappointed this year, we would encourage everyone to enter again for the 2015 awards.”
The shortlisted businesses were nominated by the public and also through self nomination for all ten categories. An independent judging panel decided upon the finalist shortlist after a rigorous judging analysis of each application.
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Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Networking gear is SEAI certified
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The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has approved Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise equipment for Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA). As the first and only enterpise grade vendor to qualify for the ACA, this presents you with the following opportunities for your business: · Write off 100% of the purchase value of qualifying equipment and associated services against profit in the year of purchase · Meet EU Regulations for Energy Efficient Public Procurement · Reduce ongoing costs of operating network equipment The certified equipment allow businesses of various sizes and networking needs to benefit financially from the ACA. The equipment includes some of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise solutions including, OmniSwitch 6900, OmniSwitch 6860(E), OmniSwitch 6850E, OmniSwitch 6450 and OmniSwitch 6250 families. For the full range of equipment, click here. |
Octave Digital Publish Social Media Trends 2015 Guide
Social media marketing agency Octave Digital, has published a new guide to the main social media trends in 2015. Produced by Paul McGarrity, Director of Octave Digital, the guide sets out the dominant trends in social media marketing use by small businesses, charities and major brands with examples of best practice campaigns.
The popularity of social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin represent significant opportunities for companies to improve core business areas including marketing, PR, customer engagement and business development. However many businesses across Ireland struggle to use social media effectively. The rapid pace of change in social media including the rise of new networks and the need to create effective content has created challenges for many businesses. The Social Media Trends Guide from Octave Digital aims to help businesses understand effective social media content on Facebook and Twitter in addition to future opportunities from rapidly emerging networks such as Pinterest and Instagram.
The guide is available to download via the Octave Digital website http://www.octavedigital.co.uk/digital-learning/online-guides/
Get 2015 Off To A Flying Start….
Get 2015 Off To A Flying Start….
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Seasons Greetings from Hanna Moore & Curley
Wishing all our clients and colleagues a very merry Christmas and every happiness and success in 2015.
Band Aid 30 Ice Bucket Challenge launched.
Animamoda Set Trends with New Fashion Website
Continuum recently launched an exciting new website – Animamoda.com. Founded by sisters Annaoliva and Vanessa Durigon, this fashion website presents the user with a network of clothing items, accessories and outfits, which can be customised to the user’s specific criteria. Animamoda allows its users to choose from a range of options specific to their physicality and tastes. The site then filters clothing articles from a vast range of retailers, best suited to that user.
Both sisters are highly knowledgeable about fashion and choosing the right clothing for specific body shapes. Annaoliva has worked in international showrooms and has been highly successful in one-on-one in-person fashion consultations while Vanessa will use her MA in scriptwriting and love for fashion to communicate with customers.
Animamoda is Italian for ‘soul of fashion’ and both sisters hope that their site can make fashion accessible and personal to each individual user, no matter their gender, height or body shape.
Continuum had the task of creating a website which could emphasise the sisters’ passion as well as create a clean and versatile site with a range of customisation options for the user. Like the clothing on the site, the website had to be inviting and straightforward with functionality front and centre. The site has two sections – the Digital Wardrobe and the blog.
The Digital Wardrobe allows users to scroll through and filter clothing items, sourced by Animamoda from a number of top fashion retailers and brands across the globe. The Digital Wardrobe’s layout is simple and versatile on the surface but allows the user to search more in-depth using the filtering options. The blog allows Animamoda to share their fashion knowledge and expertise with customers, allowing them to offer that important personal touch to their business.
Animamoda officially launched on 25th September. Both Continuum and Animamoda are eager to see how this fresh new site evolves over the coming months as it continues to grow in their partnership.
