For an online retail store the top spot of a search engine results page for any product you sell is the holy grail of online marketing, it is like having the prime spot on the high street or the biggest and best shop in the mall. Of this lucrative cherry there are also two bites, organic and paid listings.

One online company seems to have achieved this lofty goal in fairly short order, namely one worldstores.co.uk.

In an apparently shrinking market of home and garden furniture Worldstores.co.uk is thriving and last year boosted revenue by 70%. So how did they do this?

First some background information.

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We have a rule at Red C.  If you attend an event, seminar or conference you must share your learnings and experiences with your colleagues and clients via a blog article.   So here is my report on Day 1 of the ECMOD Direct Commerce Show.

Power Panel – Where is the growth?

Speakers; Aamir Ahmad, MD, Dwell; Gerald Dawson, CD, Long Tall Sally; Kevin Hague, Partner, M8; Joe Murray, Founder, Worldstores; Nigel Swabey, CEO, Scotts & Co; Nick Wheeler, Chairman, Charles Tyrwhitt

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We’ve covered Google Doodle’s off before on the Red C ‘We Like’ section, so it’s clear we’re a fan of the sheer brilliance of these little drawings. Today, though, the doodles have gone to another level and embraced the sheer showmanship of Freddie Mercury who would have been 65 today.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a massive Queen fan. Although I have to admit they do a mean Greatest Hits compilation… none of their albums that I have listened to have ever grabbed me. Regardless of that, even I can appreciate that one of the greatest front men ever to have graced a stage is Freddie Mercury and the stories of his hedonistic lifestyle are legendary.

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What's not to love!

Monopolies are a bad thing, we all know that. It is a universal truth that greater consumer choice creates competitive pricing, innovative products and a fairer world for all. Giant corporations that merge, acquire, undercut and annihilate their way to total domination are looked upon with fear and distaste. I remember, as a student, reading ‘No Logo’  by Naomi Klein and being enraged by the plight of the independent coffee shops, delicatessen’s and family run enterprises that had been crushed by the giant corporations.

As a result I, like most people, have an instinctive predilection to root for the plucky underdog as a response to the dominance of a competitor. It is this basic human instinct that companies like Virgin, Apple and Airbus have used to their advantage to become the global corporate giants they are today. In all areas of my life I will always give the little guy my business, even if it takes more of my time and comes at a premium. All areas, that is, except for the search engine I use. When I’m looking for anything online I’ll always choose Google.

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On a recent scouring of the web for marketing news, I stumbled across this fabulous story about copywriter Alex Brownstein. Fed up of not being able to get in front of some of New York’s finest Creative Directors, he devised a PPC strategy to get himself noticed by the likes of Scott Virtrone and Ian Reichenthal… by playing on that egotistical moment when these guys would Google themselves!

Marketers have for a long time now realised that by focusing on long-tail keywords that have less competition, not only will you pay less per click, but you will also have a higher conversion rate. In fact this conversion rate can be as high as 200% when compared to short-tail, or generic, keywords.

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Have visitors to your site added items to their basket only to abandon it before checkout? Has someone gone to your ‘request more details’ page only to leave before requesting said details? Has someone rung your doorbell and run away before you could answer?

Well Google can help. Maybe not with the doorbell thing, for that get a dog, a BIG dog… either that or sit behind the door for hours on end just waiting, patiently waiting for that foolish doorbell ringer. For the other problems Google have added a ‘Google Audiences’ tab to your AdWords account.

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We've come a long way baby!

TV ads. I have to say… I love them. They are the main reason I got into this business in the first place… to create some arresting TV Advertising that my mates might talk about down the pub. One thing that has always infuriated me about TV Advertising, however, has been the inability to really effectively target them like you could other forms of advertising.

Well, it looks like those little niggles I have could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to the thing that has been nicknamed Smart TV. Its real name is Targeted Substitutional Advertising (TSA) and it looks like it could be the thing to deliver accountability and personalisation that digital media advertisers have enjoyed for years.

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The search engines are always trying to find ways to tempt the user into using their specific site. After all, they are in it to make money, lots of money, buckets of the stuff in fact. Mark my words and mark them well. In the future we will all live and work at the whim of GoogleCorp… until that day, there is some competition in the shape of Microsoft’s oddly named Bing!

Now last year amid much fanfare and cries of invaded privacy (who can forget the poor guy caught leaving a house of ill repute) Google launched ‘Google street view’ a thoroughly marvellous piece of photo tomfoolery that allowed you to walk a virtual mile through any major city in the U.S. and then the UK and Europe.

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When it comes to Eye Tracking, there isn’t much that we don’t know. Which is why Marketing Week approached Red C’s Client Services Director, Rosemary Walton, to help out on an article about this fascinating subject. here’s what Rosemary had to say on the subject:

For Rosemary Walton, Client Services Director at agency Red C Marketing, fast eye tracking means clients can make changes to campaigns in real-time. In a world where people Twitter their thoughts to the world, brands expect to be able to find out insights immediately and communicate them back to base. Real-time analysis is vital.

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Contrary to myth, Bing is not a recursive acronym ‘Bing is not Google’, nor is it slang for cocaine (as I found out when I presented this to the agency!). It is in fact, the reincarnation of Microsoft Live search, a much publicised, heavily advertised step by Microsoft to finally get it right and rival Google. Bing is actually an onomatopoeic name, designed to represent the sound of the ‘moment of discovery and decision making’.

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