Great websites - Free quotes - Nice people to work with! Seven Creative is a successful full service design and marketing agency based in Sheffield, UK. We specialise in business design and web solutions such as web design, search engine optimisation, ecommerce and general business design services. Established in 2004, we. have grown to become a highly respected agency with customers all over the UK and Europe including Sheffield cathedral, Thomas Rotherham College, East Peak Innovation Partnership and Sheffield University to name just a few. The company was established by husband and wife team Chris and Clair Day who, after becoming increasingly frustrated by a poor general level of service within the industry, decided a new approach was needed. Their ethos is to empower the customer and provide a transparent, personal service, allowing the customer to be involved in all aspects of the design and marketing process. Prior to co-founding Seven Creative, Clair worked for Landrover UK as the marketing manager for the North of England. Chris, having originally studied art & design at College and then IT at university, came from a background in web design, sales and business marketing both in London and Sheffield.

Consider the alternatives when marketing your online business

According to IAB (2010), in the UK, the entire advertising sector contracted by 16.6% in the first half of 2009, however, the online advertising share grew by 4.6% to a record 23.5% share of the market.Obviously, in the midst of a recession, you'd expect advertising spend to decline, however, it seems as if many companies are realising that the traditional forms of advertising and marketing may not be the best way to reach customers and deciding rather to look towards the internet.Google dominates the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising world with a 65.4% market share (AFP, Feb 2010) and for most people, they're the only place they'll ever think of advertising online.There is, however, another way!The primary objective, when deciding your marketing approach, will be to give you the best return-on-investment (a.k.a. ROI) which, to put it another way, basically means get the most customers for the least spend.Google advertising is great for some businesses, but for others, it'll never work - potential customers simply don't use the internet to find some kinds of suppliers. Even for the businesses where it potentially works well, so much money is sometimes wasted through poorly researched and implemented key-phrases and badly-planned campaigns that they never reach their potential. Besides this, as the main player in the PPC world, competition for key words and phrases can be fierce!Social network advertising, on the other hand, has shown some fantastic results with campaigns we've run recently. One of the main problems with Google PPC is you are only able to target customers geographically. Social Network Marketing, on the other hand, allows you to also target customers demographically and psychographically! As a relatively new avenue, the current costs can be much lower than Google PPC and you have the option to also pay by impression if you'd prefer.Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as another way to boost your organic search engine rakings. Whereas the results can sometimes be much less tangible than the PPC campaigns; a well optimised web site can give a much better ROI over time.If you're certain that traditional Search Engine PPC is the one for you, consider Bing, Microsoft's search engine competitor to Google and Yahoo. Bing is currently gaining search engine market share from Google and Yahoo remains a force in the market.Whichever you choose, as ever, the key to getting it right is good planning.- - - - - - More information - - - - - -With many years experience of online and offline advertising campaign planning, setup and management, Seven Creative are perfectly placed to help your business get the best ROI by optimising your sales and marketing activityIf you'd like Seven creative to help you with your marketing strategy, give us a call on 0114 235 2002 (international: +44 114 235 2002) or contact us through www.sevencreative.co.uk

Protecting your online store

Owning an internet shop or accepting money for goods or services is common practice these days for many website owners; however, as we're all aware, criminals are forever finding new ways to defraud business owners.An example of a common scam is where a fraudster, posing as a customer, asks to have an item shipped abroad using their own preferred haulage or courier company. It usually goes something along the lines of this:- - The fraudster sends the payment up-front to the vendor in the form of a cheque or by Credit Card for the cost of the goods AND the cost of the haulage, then...- - The vendor arranges and pays for the haulage using the fraudsters requested haulage company which turns out to be a fake company, then...- - It later transpires that the payment to the vendor was made using either a fake cheque or stolen credit card details- - - - - - The signs of internet fraud - - - - - - The problem with payments made using stolen credit cards or fake cheques is that it may take several days or even weeks before this is spotted by the bank and the vendor is often liable for the money.In order to avoid falling for a scam, it's useful to be aware of the common signs of fraudulent activity, such as:- - Customer asks to pay using Western Union Money Transfer- - Customer asks to use their own courier or haulier- - Customer pays by cheque but demands the item be shipped immediately- - Customer asks for item to be shipped to an address other than the credit card billing address- - Customer attempts to place an order by email- - A single order placed using multiple cards- - Orders requested to be rushed or ‘shipped overnight'- - International recipient addresses - these need to be checked very carefully- - Unusually large orders- - Orders from ‘high-risk' countries- - Telephone number disconnected or wrongIf you have any concerns, please contact you bank before accepting suspicious orders. You may also want to request a fax copy of the customers' credit card together with another form of ID such as driving licence beforehandFor more information, Visa has a guide to protecting your online store on their website (www.visa.ca/en/merchant/fraud-prevention/fraud-warning-signs/protecting-your-online-store/)Of course, you're always welcome to phone us for advice if you have any concerns!

The importance of having a website

- - - - - - Introduction - - - - - - I was recently commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce to write a short article about the ‘importance of having a website for small businesses'.When I looked at the ‘subject' around which to write an article, I have to say I was a little stumped. The problem is that I just don't agree with that statement! You might think this is a little paradoxical seeing as I earn a living building websites; however, the reason I disagree is due to the omission of several important words.On the one hand, of course I think it's imperative that a business has a website. The problem lies in the fact that unless the website in question is built properly, they may as well not have one.In my many years in the business, I've seen countless examples of pathetic websites that are either invisible to search engines, don't communicate their message or are just so user-un-friendly that they will never fulfil any useful function whatsoever.For a website to actually fulfil its function it needs to be properly built, to allow it to be found on search engines, its keywords and phrases need to be properly incorporated in order for the site to appear in relevant searches, but most importantly, before a site is started, it needs to be properly planned to make sure that it actually does what its supposed to do!If anyone were to ask me for advice before starting a website, I would tell them that the first thing they need to do is sit down and list exactly what your website must do for their business and also what other functions they'd like it to fulfil. These are the primary and secondary objectives that allow you to properly evaluate whether or not your finished website site is successful.Obviously, I think that it is important for a business to have a website, but that website must be a successful website. If it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, its pointless. - - - - - - The importance of having a website - - - - - - Getting yourself a properly planned and well built website may be one of the smartest business decisions you ever make, and I should know: My entire career I've been involved in helping businesses with their sales and marketing from start-ups and sole-traders to large blue-chip organizations such as the BBC, National Geographic and Motorolla.A good website opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your business. It will work tirelessly for you, promoting your products and services twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. It'll save you money in print advertising and it'll even help you break through geographical boundaries to reach people you could never normally have hoped to reach!From a potential customer's point-of-view, the internet will often be the first place they look to check your credentials! Your website will help you to quickly differentiate yourself from the cowboys out there by providing customer testimonials and a clear and open means of communication. Also, having your own domain name and email address @ your domain will show people you're not a fly-by-night organisation.Businesses who think they'll be ‘just fine' without a website run the risk of being left behind. Every day, people become more and more likely to use the internet as the first place they look for products, services, tradesmen and suppliers. That ‘over-the-fence' recommendation is now an ‘over-the- internet' one and the convenience a website provides to a potential customer has become less of a luxury and more of an expectation.Over the past decade, business has changed, meaning traditional marketing methodologies have evolved. A website means there's a good chance you'll be there at the right time, when your potential customers are ready to buy. Without a website, however, you run the risk of being, effectively, invisible.- Chris Day, Seven Creative

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Trade Bodies / Associations

Member of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Trading Since

2004