As more high streets see the demise of shops, consumers are increasingly turning to the internet to purchase their goods. Evident from the latest BRC[British Retail Consortium] statistics, overall high street sales have fallen by 0.8% over last year compared to online stores which are continuing to outperform traditional retailers with a 7.6% rise in sales over the last three months.

Today, consumers want to shop and find information easily and from anywhere in the world. You don’t even have to leave your sofa to do your grocery shopping, and it even gets delivered to your kitchen!

With the current economic climate studies have shown that consumers are still spending, but looking for the right product at the right price. eMarketing is a proven form of advertising that gets your message to your customers at the right time. Sending consumer’s information, whether in a monthly newsletter or as a promotional email will prompt them to act on the offer and become interested in your business, rather than waiting for them to actively search for it.

Convenience is what consumers are looking for and the internet fits that need. If you have a service to offer or a product to sell re-evaluate your marketing budget and invest in a website. Investing in such a powerful business tool isn’t just cost effective but increases customer awareness of your business, reaching thousands of potential customers, worldwide. With so many companies vying for business a website is paramount in today’s market.

Marketing and public relations, they’re the same thing – aren’t they? This is a question I get asked all the time, and my answer – No, public relations and marketing are different. Marketing is interested in the market – consumers and demand. Public relations is interested in relationships and reputation.
I think the confusion comes as they both deal with communicating an organisations message to its public. This is true, but public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour, while marketing is more ‘in your face’ to grab attention, such as advertising campaigns.
However different their functions and how they are perceived, marketing and public relations do and must work together towards one goal. Good public relations create a healthy environment for marketing.
Hopefully that has given some clarification to marketing and public relations and the differences between them. Both components are important and should be used to support each other as part of a management tool.

In the years I have spent writing for journalists and reporters I have discovered that writing for the web is a completely different ball-game.
Information is consumed differently online, from the readers’ attention span, navigation behaviour and scanning habits, not to mention how a website is ‘picked up’ by search engines and the important key words that they look for. Good writing for paper needs to be effective writing for the web.