The specialist winter tyres company wanted to give the everyday driver an ecommerce website that would supply them with a range of winter tyres, from well-know popular brands to economy ranges, with winter and all-weather tyres available. The website also provides the user with an easily to choose wheel and tyres packages available from company the parent company,  wheelbase alloys, which is made by selecting their car to provide them with packages which guaranteed to fit their model.

Wintertyres also features advice for the car owners, providing them with detailed information on winter tyres. ‘Live chat‘ is available for the user to speak in real-time to a tyre and wheel expert, providing help and guidance for the user buying the correct tyres.

Winter Tyres prides itself on customer service and giving them the best deal possible, which is important with cold and winter weather sneaking in quickly. Brrrr!

View wintertyres.com

Need a Magento website developed? call Brave Creative on 01733 392978

The Moment Magazine was originally launched to celebrate and empower the residents of Peterborough, Stamford and the surrounding towns and villages -  a voice for the community, not a myriad of adverts or a PR stunt, but a thoughtfully written piece of communication which reflects the strong values of families who work hard, play hard and businesses throughout our region who are the backbone of our economy – past and present.

The website encompasses everything which the magazine stands for and allows users a way of reading it’s content within a technological medium which many of us use as second nature – especially the young who live by it and demand it.

Every possible functionality has been built into the site so as to inspire interaction and stickiness around the site’s rich content pages. Read our full article on how the site was developed and what techniques were used to achieve this masterpiece here.

Read the full article…

A ‘like’ on Facebook indicates to you that the visitor has an interest in your business and wants to hear what you say. It is similar to someone wanting to receive your newsletters or opting in on your email marketing campaigns. The informal nature of Facebook means that this can help you build a personal relationship with your customers and engage with them much more.

2. Engage with Users.

A Facebook user who ‘likes’ you, is more likely to be a much be active and Facebook claim the average ‘liker’ has 2.4times the amount of friends, than the typical social networker. They are 5.3 times more likely to click onto external links and are much interested in exploring the content that is shared on Facebook.

3. Email-like Marketing

Once you have built up a small amount of ‘likes’ you can think about using the built in messaging feature Facebook provides you. You can send out broadcast-style emails similar to an existing HTML Email campaigns you have running to all your fans, or you can narrow it down to specific type such as age, gender or others. It is important not to over-use this feature, but the occasional message to your fans is another way to keep your company in the minds of your customers.

4. Appearing on news feeds.

Once you have started to post content on your facebook page, it will appear on your fans news feeds. A full news story is displayed with a hyperlink to the source of the story, a thumbnail image, and text taken from the story itself. The posts can be ‘liked’ by your fans and as a result this will appear on their own Facebook wall, and be seen by their friends. This is a great way to spread the word and increase traffic to your page and also to your website if the original content was posted from there.

5. Website Traffic

A direct result of incorporating the like button to your website and posting on your Facebook, is more traffic to your website. Each time visitors do click the ‘like’ button featured on your web page, it is shared with all of their friends and this can encourage them to your own website.  It is also important to note that the Facebook social plug-in for your website is only a small amount of code and is fairly simple to implement to your site, even for those lacking the technical skills for this.

6. Become part of Facebook

If your post, or story is ‘liked’ by one of your fans, it can become a node on the Facebook graph, as a result this will allow it to start appearing in searches. A product, brand or service will also appear on the profile of your Facebook fan.

7. Effective Advertising

The advertising platform on Facebook keeps a record of all ‘like’ activity. Those who use this platform can access this data and as a result can produce targeted ads for your social media marketing. Therefore those who choose to use this platform can achieve a higher degree of relevance when it comes to their advertising. To beat your rivals to gain those important Facebook Fans, it could also be vital that you choose to create a your own Facebook page design.

8. Likes and Insights

Every Facebook Page has associated analytics alongside called Insights. Insights give you detailed data on fan activity on that page, along with a break-up of information on those fans, including age, gender and location. All of this information can be essential for market research and allow you to target the market of your Facebook fans much better.

Every small business needs a professional logo design

I recently visited a young business, still in its infancy after only been running for one year but now realising the importance of branding/logo design, approached us to look at completely redesigning their logo. This inspired me to write this blog as I felt small business really do need to consider their logo and brand positioning when they start to look at the bigger picture in terms of growth and market share. Large companies will spend huge amounts of money on branding, and some small business could be forgiven for thinking that branding isn’t for them, it is best to just get on with the job and move forward.

Your main priority when running a small business is to keep the revenue coming in and even if your do feel branding is important it may come low on your to-do list. As the day-to-day tasks will grow and revolve around keeping the customers happy it’s understandable.

Whether you’re a window cleaner, run a restaurant or a sole trader, your reputation is important to you, and just like reputation, branding is all about the impression you make. If you are hoping for your business to become a real success from the impression of your branding, then this should convey what is special about your business and it should also show you in a positive progressive light. Think of how successful you could be if you gave a good impression all of the time through your branding – Advertising, Stationery, Vehicle Graphics, Interiors, Website or Clothing.

The main parts to this process and brand development include deciding what your business stands for, what your unique selling points (USPs) are and who you are aiming your business at. It is important that all aspects of your business reflect this and there is consistency always – Don’t try and do too many DIY parts yourself, no matter how small, the consistency may show up far more than you think.

Creating the right impression for your business

If you don’t think branding is for you, your not alone.

Many people believe that branding is only for large business and companies and that only they can afford it. But your company name, what your customers say about your business and what it is like to do business with you, is all part of your company’s branding. It is not just the visual impact that has an effect on your company’s branding, and agreeing to the process of brand development for your business can alter your reputation greatly. A polished and unique branding can open doors for your business and an attractive logo design, business name, and overall impression of your brand can give leads to a higher profile.

Your branding as a business can be just as important to your relationships with your partners and suppliers, as it is to your customers who will bring in the revenue for your business. A well developed branding can set yourself apart from your competitors and can push clients in your direction rather than theirs. This will then show you that branding is not just for large companies and can be easily affordable with long-term benefits for your business and reputation, overall generating the most attractive part being a higher revenue.

If you are interested in getting either your existing brand/logo redesigned by professionals, call Brave Creative on Peterborough 01733 392978 today!

Waiting for the White Rabbit to knock on the door?

Junior Web Designer / Junior Web Developer Job

Brave Creative are looking to recruit a Junior Web Designer / Developer with good all round HTML and CSS skills.

You will join our small multi-disciplined Design Agency at our Peterborough studio as a trainee in CSS, CSS2, HTML and graphical web design.​ You will be working in a fast paced development environment.​ Your main role will be the rapid development of usability prototypes & web pages.

You will need to be already competent in CSS & CSS2/3, hand coding HTML, graphic design and show originality in your creative ideas.​ You will have developed for multi-browser and platform environments and you will have experience of web and accessibility standards (W3C)

Essential Web skills:

• CSS & CSS 2 (tableless layout)
• Hand coded, valid XHTML strict
• Cross browser optimisation
• Web & accessibility standards (W3C)
• Photoshop
• Flash
• Illustrator

Important:

Please provide examples of your own online design/​ frontend development work.Please contact us stating your interest: hello@bravecreative.co.uk

Here we will guide you through the step by step process to setting up a Facebook page for your business.

Step 1 – Acquire a Personal Facebook Account

The first step to creating your business page is the need for a personal account. This will be the administrator for your facebook page and it isn’t possible to set up your business page without one. This stage is simple if you do not have a personal account already (if you already have a personal account set-up head straight to the next step (2)). The only tasks consist of entering your details and verifying your email to complete this first step.

Step 2 – Create your Business Facebook Page

This step is as equally as simple as the first, and even if you are unfamiliar with the Facebook interface, it only takes a few clicks. Facebook pages are know by some as, fan pages, business pages or like pages, but they are all really the same thing. After you have created your personal account (see step 1), Just click on the ‘Create a page’ link towards the footer of the page. This will direct you to choosing the sort of page you want to create, whether it be a local business, company, brand or other. Enter the details for your desired page and you can ‘get started.’

Step 3 – Customising the Design of your Page

Here you can be as creative with your page as much or as little as you want. Facebook fan pages are very flexible and with some thought, you can create a unique and eye-catching design that will help you stand out in front of your competitors. If you wish you can leave your page to be very simple and stay with the default facebook style, or as we recommend you can expand your page into a imaginative design that fits in with your business and own personal style. Although this can be fairly complicated, the final result can only be positive and a creative facebook design, will definitely give up the edge in the market as shown by the likes of Skittles, Coca-Cola and Lacoste, along with ourselves Brave Creative.

Step 4 – Getting Fans

Once you have completed setting up your Facebook page and creating yourself a unique design, you now need to build-up your fan base and connect with the users. A large group of fans will allow you to share content with them all, and further to that, they could then begin to share your content with their friends, which is the perfect way for you to spread your business name. A well developed fan-base, ensures that your Facebook Marketing is reaching those who have already expressed an interest in you.

Step 5 – Connecting with People

A key part to creating a successful Facebook page is to create an online personality with your fans. Leaving comments and posting content is the best way for your business to interact with your fans, but it is also key not to flood people with irrelevant information, that your fans will ignore. So make sure what you post will relate to your business and to those who have ‘liked’ your page. It is also important that you show an interest in what your fans have to say, so if they leave a comment or post on your wall, make sure that you give them a reply and this can be an incentive for your fans to stick with you.

There you go, that’s all there is to it. A Facebook page could be the missing part to your online marketing campaign, and you may be missing out on a cheap and effective way to gain and interact with customers personally. Hopefully this guide will now push you to create your own, so what are you waiting for.

The Brave Creative Facebook Design Service provides strategy and design the build for your business, call us on 01733 392978

Brave Creative have a new Facebook page design, so we thought we would tell you about it and the importance of a well-designed Facebook page.

Love it or hate it, social media is apart of all our lives, and having your own Facebook fan page is crucial for reaching out to the public and customers. Like it, become a fan and poking, it may seem a bit too much for you and out of the reach of your business but it is become an integral part of branding strategy and promotional campaigns.

Giants of the industry such as Red Bull and Porsche are two examples to have shown to demonstrate the best use of a well-designed and informative Facebook page, stretching the creative limitations given to them by Facebook, as far as they can go. The trend from large companies like Coca-Cola and Starbucks, has seen that they are not only putting Facebook at the centre of their social media campaign, but also their entire online presence as a company.

About the Brave Creative Facebook Page

‘Like’ us

The first thing you will notice when coming to the new Brave Creative Facebook and many other large companies is the option to show different pages and exclusive content to ‘fans’ and ‘non-fans.’ This option to ‘like us’ before you have access to areas on the facebook pages, can be unpopular in some cases, but for a business seeking to reach out and create an online personality with its consumers, can play a large role in ‘spreading the word.’

Welcome to the camp

Our first page (after you ‘like’ us) ‘Welcome’ (on the left) is a creative showcase of what we do as a creative company in the areas of Peterborough, Northampton and Cambridge; Website design, Design & Print and Brand development are just a few to mention. Click any of these on the left column to link straight through to our full website, for a more indepth detailed description and more examples of our work. As you can see we also provide a ‘video of the month’ – this feature shows the latest viral videos we see to be a great example of powerful advertising media and sometimes videos we just find to be cool or funny.

Enter your email address into our newsletter subscription form and you will receive the latest news from us and information on what we are doing.

On twitter? Have a look at our latest posts here, and find the rest of our social media at the top of the page.

Get in touch

Click this tab and it will take to our contact form, allowing you to contact us personally straight from our Facebook page. So any questions you want to ask about us as a company, if you are interested in using us for your latest project, or if you just want to say hi, fill in our contact form and click ‘Submit.’

Videos

Continuing from our Welcome page, here you will find our back archive of our favourite videos. Month by month we will be posting new videos we find to be, engaging and creatively entertaining. Just click the video you want to watch, it will play right in front of you, and hopefully you will find these to show what is currently trendy in present creative media.

Flickr

The Flickr tab is an advantage to show you how Facebook has integrated ‘apps’ to display other forms of content. This integration with Flickr allows us to display photos and images, taken straight from our Flickr account. Here you will see further examples of our work and what we do, from Peterborough, Northampton, Cambridge and many, many more areas.

Shop

Click the shop tab and it will show another example of how as a Facebook user we can integrate content from third parties. You will find here some related products, and accessories that we think could be a necessity to any creative and media publisher.

Our new Facebook page design allows us to reach out to a highly paced growing target, and showcase of our self-promotion to the millions of Facebook users in the world. A well-design Facebook page could be the missing ingredient from your brand or business and it is could play a integral part of your promotional campaigns. So what are you waiting for, its now your turn to expand into the growing online presence of Facebook pages.

Strategic Social Media Communication

A communication framework is important to cover how you will plan on using social media marketing. You should look at how frequent you will use them, how to deal with specific queries, what should be deleted, who to escalate to, and how to manage any complaints. It is vital for those delivering the social media strategy, that they understand the communication.

Social media networks

With many different social networks, all with their pros and cons, it is a good idea to spend time on choosing which ones your business is suited to. What kind of social media would your customers use? You should also consider which would allow you to promote your business best. Do not try and be everywhere, but also do not stay within your own domains. It is essential that you choose quality over quantity when it comes to your networks and online communication.

Take a look at our FREE 2 minute Twitter Guide

Online Personality

Developing an online style is important to create a brand personality. Become “human” with a tone of voice through social media, is important to create a relationship with your customers. Think of your audience and choose the right personality for your business. If you are selling children’s toys, would a serious corporate tone be appropriate? Put yourself in your customers shoes.

Networking for the present

Technological changes and trends mean that the social network you choose now, could not be the right one for the future. Become flexible in which social networks you choose, look out for your customers trends and if relevant use them to your advantage.

Planning content and resources

Make sure you have the resources to keep up with the content you are planning for your social media marketing. Do you have the team and time to provide real time feedback? How will you monitor your work on social networks with other parts of the business.

Timing your networking

Do not overload your networks with content, swamping people with information and posts can result in a loss of interest. Most users on social networks view content from several other users, and not just you. Finding a balance that is right for you and your users, can vary on different social networks so make sure you get it right.

Your Competitors

Look into your competitors if they are using types of social media. See what they are doing wrong and right, and see how you can improve on it. Use your competitors networks as an advantage, by looking at customer interaction on. This can reveal to you anything you can add or change to your social media marketing in Peterborough. Don’t forget, they also send out HTML email Marketing – this can give a good insight into what they are up to.

Customer Feedback

Social media will allow users (whether you want it or not) the medium to give you feedback. Do not be afraid by this but embrace it, allowing you to build an online community. Treat the information you get from customers as gold dust, allowing you to know what to improve on or what your customers like. A vital part of this is always to be polite, if people say nice things about your products thank them.

In the last three months the number of consumers using their mobiles to search for retail information has quadrupled, according to figures obtained by the British Retail Consortium and Google.

A 216% year on year increase for mobile retail searches in the period has boosted total retail search volumes up 27%.

The large increase in growth in retail search, has also been driven by searching for pure online retailers, which has shown an increase of 21% year on year. This has increased outgrowing searches for multi-channel retailers by 14% in the second quarter.

The volume of searching for overseas retailers by UK consumers, has shown an increase by 76% compared to the previous year. Meanwhile the number of overseas consumers searching for UK retailers has shown a growth of 34% year on year.

The growth of Mobile has been described as the “star performer” for online retail, by the director general of the British Retail Consortium, Stephen Robertson.

He Added, “Consumers are always looking for more convenient ways to shop. Retailers are making m-commerce easier all the time by offering mobile optimised web design, apps and transactional mobile platforms.”

“Quarter two was an interesting quarter for retail searches online. Volumes were down in April as the warm weather and bank holidays took their toll, but picked up again in May with the return of cooler weather.” Google retail director, Peter Fitzgerald.

The growth of online retail searches are measured for the Online Retail Monitor report, by counting the retail-related terms entered into searches on Google.

Sainsbury’s is the latest to provide a new transactional mobile website design. Mobile Website Design is something that Brave Creative have now fully embraced and look to specialise. If you are thinking of getting a mobile website designed, please call Brave Creative on 01733 392978