2011 was a highly eventful year at The Lively Crew, so put your feet up and get a cup of tea as we look back over the year that was 2011:

January
 January saw two new staff members joining the team. Andrew Lawn joined as Marketing Manager, following working on the campaign to keep Tesco out of his hometown of Sheringham. Andrew was joined by Robert Ediker who started a year's Apprentice scheme while he completed an NVQ in Customer Service from Broadland Council Training Services. During the coming 12 months, Robert would prove a very driven, talented and ambitious member of the team and will be joining the team permantly in 2012.

February
In February we were delighted to win a contract with South Norfolk Council to supply the area with a dedicated Online Business Directory, similar to those we were already managing from Breckland and Broadland District Council's. The new Directory was officially launched in June with a free business networking event, which also kicked off a year of quarterly Business Breakfast Forums for the area.

March
During March we undertook the official reckie ahead of the Disabled Motoring Alps Challenge in June. The reckie highlighted just what a mammoth undertaking the Alps Challenge would later prove to be, but was invaluable as a result.

April
During April we oversaw the official rebrand of national disabled motorist charity Mobilise, to Disabled Motoring UK. We were delighted to have managed the re-brand from start to finish, including developing a long-term business plan to re-model the charity, appeal to a younger generation and reverse declining membership numbers. We were also responsible for designing the new logo and accompanying stationary and managing the process of re-branding. Since the name change we are delighted that member numbers have increased and we have been able to attract new celebrity supporters and ambassadors to the charity, including motor-racing star Nicolas Hamilton.

May
May saw another permanant arrival to The Lively Crew staff, with Jodie McGill joining as Business Development Executive. Jodie has taken on all aspects of the BOLD Group and our Online Business Directories and has become an integral part of the business communities in Breckland, Broadland and South Norfolk.

June
The month that saw the Alps Challenge. Joined by celebrities including Ade Adepitan, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Nicolas Hamilton, we managed the challenge from long before the official start line at the Queen's House in Greenwich, down through England, across France and over the Swiss Alps, before returning North, through France once more and up to the finish line opposite the House's of Parliament in London. The event was a huge success and generated huge awareness of the charity both at home and abroad.

June also saw us launch the third of our Online Business Directories in South Norfolk.

July
In July we were delighted to launch our new logo and website, to better reflect our sustainable, environmental and socially responsible company ethos. To celebrate the new website we are continuing to offer a free marketing diagnostic to all businesses looking to ensure their marketing is measurable and working for them.

August
To help spread the message of sustainability and cutting waste, our Director Valerie and Business Development Executive Jodie McGill headed to the Peterborough Green Festival to talk to businesses and consumers about our environmental products in Fresh Pod and Enviro Pod.

September
In September we oversaw the official Disabled Motoring Awards Ceremony at the Goodwood Revival Festival. The Awards were to celebrate and recognise the achievements of disabled people and organisations, who have contributed to a better day-to-day life for disabled individuals across the United Kingdom. Winners, which we helped judge, came from right around the UK, including Scotland and Northern Ireland and included motor-racing star Nicolas Hamilton, Cambridge City Council, Peatlands Park and mobility scooter display team the Red Wheelies.

October
Two Business Breakfast Forums kept us busy in October with both Thetford and Broadland business leaders meeting to discuss the latest business news and developments in their respective regions.

November
During Movember our Marketing Manager undertook Movember and raised over £100 for Prostate Cancer whilstmaking himself look seedier than a flower in Spring. The whole team got involved, partly through their generous sponsorship efforts but primarily by making sure Andrew felt as ridiculous as he looked and pointing this out to all they could

December
Throughout December we ran Light for Life events for our Charity of the Year; Star Throwers. By attending numerous Christmas light switch-on events across Norfolk, we helped raise a massive £1,115.43p for the cancer charity based in Wymondham.

 The last thing any organisation should be doing in tough economic times is reducing their marketing activity.

Utilising the skills of a professional outside company on an ‘as and when basis’ can fill the gaps left by reductions in budgets or staff which could be out of your control; if you choose carefully, enlisting the help of an outside specialist, will be very cost effective solution – so much so, that in many cases it can actually make money for you. 

At The Lively Crew we have been delivering measurable marketing and sales activity for organisations of all sizes and across the public, private and third sectors for 10 years. Working locally and nationally we provide a results driven marketing service, always with cost considerations and without ever skimping on quality.

We only deliver marketing activity that is right for you which means we have seventeen different marketing tools in our toolbox. We firmly believe that what is right for one company is not necessarily right for another.
 
We create opportunities and drive them to exceed. Recently we delivered £120k of media publicity for a client including coverage on BBC TV, ITV and Sky News using an allocated budget of less than 2% of the coverage gained.

We organise events on small and grand scales and we also deliver branding and design work of national and international class. We have a sales team for those who need to attract numbers whether through making one-to-one appointments or through getting large numbers through doors and we are not afraid of risk taking, selling tickets and stand space if its needed.

As consultants we have sourced funding and worked on projects to deliver outcomes.

One of our strengths is our database management systems which mean we have access to thousands of businesses for communication purposes.

We have a very strong track record working with public, private and third sector organisations across East Anglia and beyond.

Why are we letting you know this? You may have dropped some of the marketing and event work you have done in the past through business pressures or you may have a new idea which you need help with.  It costs nothing to talk and who knows we could resurrect some of your past successes or be able to assist you in moving ideas forward.

Please let us know if you would like to meet up for an informal chat about what The Lively Crew can offer you. Telephone 01603 702374 or email andrew@thelivelycrew.co.uk

 Google is a fascinating proposition.

If you discount for a moment the beautiful simplification of the idea in the first place. Discount, the fact that at the last estimate, it dealt with over 400,000,000 different queries EVERY day (that's over 4,600 a second). Even discount just how much knowledge (and skating boarding animals) Google gives us - Google remains fascinating.

As a result of the above; the science behind how Google determines who should sit top of their listing for any request is big business. Numerous companies, in numerous guises, pledge to send you to the top of Google in the blinking of any eye. Some of them may even do it. But the beauty is, no-one can ever guarantee it, because what puts you there, evolves as fast as the internet itself and remains firmly under lock and key at Google HQ.

Long ago, keywords were essentially (but not entirely) the be-all and end-all. The more your website said the words "marketing agency" the higher Google placed you. As such, clever SEO specialists would fill your site with invisible keywords (i.e. in white text on a white background) which Google would swallow up. Unsurprisingly, it did not take Google long to see through this cunning rouse and adapted their ranking criteria accordingly.

Today, the mix is much more subtle and designed to ensure that the user gets the most relevant information out of any search. As such Google looks far wider than keywords and in a far-more intelligent way than merely reading and counting. Now Google looks for everything. All the content on your site is judged by it's accuracy and relevancy to any given search. Therefore, unlike before, if your site says "we outsource to a marketing agency" and a user searches "marketing agency" Google will recognise the context of the keywords in that sentence. As such the quality of your sites content is more important than ever. No longer will it do to just say (or be a) "marketing agency".

Google will do the same thing with links. Both internally and externally Google will look at who is linking to your site and why. Not only that, bu the more illustrious Google deems those who link to you, the more your site will bask in that reflective glory. (Incidently this is why membership of our Online Business Directories is so valuable...).

Google manages the same trick with it's adverts, both on searches and in services such as Google+ and Gmail. Try it out for yourself - send an email to a friend and say you fancy a trip to the cinema and Google will populate the side panel with cinema listing websites. Say that you can't afford the cinema and Google will give you adverts for DVD rentals. The software is so advanced that in a recent research project I discovered Google can pick up on the emotion of an email and stops putting adverts in emails which talk about sombre subjects such as terminal illness or death.

In our opinion, all of the above makes Google the closest thing to artificial intelligence that we have produced - use it in your business and if you aren't sure how, speak to us as we could talk about it all day.

In an era when just one internet search engine; Google, handles over 400 million searches every single day – it is more important than ever that your business is represented professionally online.

Having no internet presence whatsoever is no longer an option, with search traffic increasingly forsaking traditional forms such as the Yellow Pages and heading online to locate potential service providers.

That said, an unprofessional, slap-dash website can be just as bad as no presence at all. A recent article by the BBC quoted entrepreneur Charles Duncombe’s an analysis of website figures, which he says shows a single spelling mistake on a businesses website can cut online sales in half. The problem was that poor spelling would put off consumers, by prompting concerns about a website's credibility. The problem is brought sharply into focus when you note that online sales in the UK are currently around the £527m per week, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. This is proof to Mr Duncombe that untidy, poorly constructed websites could be costing the UK millions of pounds of business each week.

Website Management and Search Engine Optimisation can seem a bewildering proposition to some, but it needn’t be. Whilst it may not be scary, it certainly is vital to the future success of any business. At The Lively Crew we can take all the fear away from the online world. We understand that people don’t wish to be baffled by jargon. Instead we can build a site, as simple or complex as you want it – be it merely a professional signpost showing just who you are, what you do and where to find you – through to a full catalogue of all the products and services you offer – including the option to buy online. We can also help out with increasing your website's rank on search engines, such as Google with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques and Search Marketing - designed to make your website as visible as possible in an increasingly crowded online world.