A Spotlight the Grouptrader Member My Energy Buyer

This edition of the Grouptrader spotlight focuses on My Energy Buyer Energy. 

So who are My Energy Buyer and what do they do?These are the first questions that entered my mind when I was first introduced to them.

Simply put they supply low priced energy to businesses, from anything such as a small fish & chip shop to multi-site factories and beyond.

I suspect some of you may be thinking
“Well that doesn’t sound really that exciting does it”,
I know I was when they first mentioned it to me. Aren’t there already loads of companies doing exactly the same thing? Well yes, and no.

Firstly, they get their pricing from the same source that over 1500 energy brokers use. A heck of a lot of energy gets bought through this platform, which results in very, very competitive pricing.

Well great, but what makes them any different from any of the other 1500 brokers pedaling “cheap energy”, that you just mentioned? Well this is where it gets interesting. 

The team at MEB are focused on delivering the right energy solution for their customers, not the solution that offers the most commission. Whilst many energy brokers can see prices from the whole market they often only actually offer the supply tariffs that pay the most and or quickest commission. The My Energy Buyer team absolutely do not do this, they offer tariffs from the whole market and work with their customers to match them to the most beneficial energy tariff.

My Energy Buyer are doing something that could genuinely become revolutionary. They are happy to show their customers how much their energy actually costs and how much income MEB are receiving from the deal.

This may not sound like anything earth shattering to those of you that are unfamiliar with Business-to-Business energy market, but in a world that more closely resembles the wild-west than a world of ethics and transparency, this is a big deal.

One of our members spoke with My Energy Buyer and found they could save them a small fortune. They highlighted that over £178,000, yes that’s right £178,000 of their contract was just commission that went to various parties!

My Energy Buyer clearly lay their cards on the table. Not only are they happy to show you exactly how much money they are making on the deal but they also state that

“We will not be beaten by a price from another 3^rd party”.

If you are not a business owner and are questioning why you are reading this, don’t worry you haven’t wasted your time. If My Energy Buyer’s model goes the way we think it could, the next logical step is to do the same thing in the consumer market.

The next time you flick the kettle on wouldn’t you like to know just how much that energy actually cost and who is lining their pockets at your expense?

I know I would. This really could improve a whole industry that for too long has operated with questionable ethics.

So if you own your own business or know someone who does, click here myenergybuyer.co.uk and see how much the business could be saving. You may be pleasantly surprised.

If you don’t have any links to business just watch this space, they may just go on to benefit us all.

From Grouptrader’s point of view, it’s fantastic to be able to bolster the Grouptrader Energy Saving Deals with the addition of My Energy Buyer into the membership.

We hope you enjoyed the spotlight.

How do you Win or Lose?

On the day of the UK election 2015 we take a light and inspirational look at winning and losing and how to best prepare oneself for the outcome.

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

Lyndon B. Johnson

The question on everyone’s mind is ‘Who will be taking those seats around the country and around the table?’ This as yet is undetermined, but for those who don’t make it to the winners’ enclosure – will they ask of themselves ‘could I have done more?’ Is it enough to give 100% of yourself? Can you ask more? Well, technically yes according to Economist Stephen Shmanske, ‘It's all about defining what counts as 100% effort. Let's say "100%" is the maximum amount of effort that can be consistently sustained. With this benchmark, it's obviously possible to give less than 100%. But it's also possible to give more. All you have to do is put forth an effort that can only be sustained inconsistently, for short periods of time. In other words, you're overclocking’. 

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

Vince Lombardi

Is there a price to be paid for being in the race and winning?  Well you’ve won so that’s what it was all about – now to work! Onward and upward etc.  But what price failure? Well it’s ‘gonna be emotional’ – what a let-down, the dashing of dreams, the ‘what ifs’. However there is a great body of work out there to support failure as part of a process, so many high achievers cite failure as one of the things that helped shape them. There are thousands of quotes on the internet about failure being as important as winning.  Whose to judge?  But certainly how one has fought the battle must have an impact not only on us but those around us.  

Has this election been a fair fight? Certain election hopefuls and their supporters will shout ‘no!’ Surely it is all about the win, yes?....No? Fans of the recent American TV series, House of Cards will know just what it has taken for Francis Underwood to reach the No.1 position.  Sometimes it almost feels too worryingly real to watch. The question I find myself asking is ‘How does he sleep at night?’ ‘How can he live with himself?’  I haven’t quite finished the box set but I imagine him saying ‘whatever it takes’. 

Whoever said, 'It's not whether you win or lose that counts,' probably lost.

Martina Navratilova

So tomorrow will be D-Day for these hopefuls, the energy that has carried them through will now find a new outlet, fear. ‘Did I/we do enough?’ Well should things not go well, there’s always next time and life does go on.

Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.

Imelda Marcos

 Author: Fiona Dinning-Cole – Comms & Content Manager

Read more at:

Brainy Quote

Kottke

Net.Workspace

Mobilegeddon is here!

Google Turns Its Attention To Mobile User Experience… And So Should You!

Our friends at Jungle-Media give us the low down.

Quality of the searcher experience when using a website should always be an important consideration. Google is renowned for rewarding websites which deliver the best quality results for the searcher. This has always included relevance to the search term, content, on-site security and even page loading speed amongst others. And now how it performs on a mobile phone becomes part of the Google algorithm.

Google estimates that over 50% of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices and this is continually rising. To address this websites are already being given greater ranking when they cater for this growing market.

As early as 2013, Google began to penalize sites which simply redirected all mobile users to a standard homepage instead of their chosen page and these penalties could now become far more severe.

Google is now viewing websites through the eyes of the user.

The Google algorithm bot has traditionally indexed and analysed pages by searching directly through the code on the page.

Since May 2014, these same bots have been uprated and have been rendering pages to see exactly what the end user sees. This is for all devices whether it is a desktop, tablet or mobile phone and this alone presents some serious implications for webmaster and the way sites are constructed.

Websites that do not display well on mobile will lose ranking!

Already Google is tagging websites “Mobile friendly” on mobile phone search result pages. This will immediately reduce click through rate for those websites without the tag. 

However, from the 21^st April Google will give a ranking boost on mobile phone search result pages for websites that are mobile friendly, thereby having a negative impact on ranking for non-mobile friendly websites. 

There are a number of factors which will raise a flag for the Google bot; potentially bringing a ranking  demotion for the website.

Pages which display perfectly on a desktop may render on a mobile device with small or illegible fonts, badly sized page layouts and text blocks. The Google bot will simulate the full mobile user experience and where users have to excessively pan and zoom just to navigate a page Google will mark down the site accordingly.

Test your website here to see if Mobile Friendly

Google Is Doing Everything To Protect Its Reputation.

The search engine giant has always been fiercely protective of its reputation for delivering optimum search results to the end user. At the same time, this brings positive impact and reward to those websites which do everything to follow this quality code of practice.

The positive ranking factors of relevance; quality content and originality are still in place. But these are effectively being reinforced when the actual appearance of the page is also factored in for mobile phones.

Google has calculated that 61% of users will not revisit a site which offers a poor browsing experience on a mobile phone. This alone will have a big impact on how successful your website is on conversions, especially when you consider that the majority of searchers will only engage with a website on their third or fourth visit. 

The early part of browsing on the internet is the short list selection process, if your website does not make it onto the searchers short list then there is no chance of winning the sale! 

The quickest way for Google to encourage webmasters to upgrade their sites for mobile use is with the carrot and the stick or in other words increased and reduced rankings accordingly.

What You Should Do NOW!

The mobile experience for the end user is now factored into the UK search rankings on mobile phones. 

At present it is impacting page by page, not site wide. It is best practice to upgrade all mobile pages now to gain advantage over your competition before more changes are brought into effect.

This way, the experience for your visitors will increase dramatically and you will see an instant increase in user satisfaction and conversions from mobile phone search traffic.

For most websites, becoming mobile friendly can be a simple process. Our Search Marketing experts are here to help. Call us for a chat or drop us a line with your questions. We will be pleased to help!

www.jungle-media.com

Are you on top of your online presence or underperforming and feeling overwhelmed?

How do brands thrive in their digital habitat? - Fiona Dinning-Cole, Web Content Manager at Grouptrader talks to Jungle-media.com

In our second of the series of Member spotlight profiles, I talk to Howard Jones, Director at Jungle Media - a digital agency specialising in Search Marketing. I wanted Howard to shine a light on his industry as well as give his professional view of two Grouptrader products that his company recommends to clients.

What is Search Marketing?

You may or may not be familiar with the term ‘Search Marketing’ if not, it is very likely that in time you will be if you don’t want to risk your business missing out on making the best from being online. But what exactly is it and why is it relevant to businesses within the Grouptrader network?

Whether you’ve been taking an active role with your online activity or are just starting to wonder how social tools can apply to you or your business, the ways in which people are interacting online are growing almost exponentially. From the devices we use such as computers, tablets, laptops and mobiles to the options by which a business can position itself online, SEO, PPC, Display, Social Media etc. how do you decide what’s best for you?

It's a jungle out there

Jungle Media have been creating innovative internet marketing strategies since 2007 and put their success down to helping companies thrive rather than just survive in this ever-changing digital landscape.  Says Howard, “We'll never ambush clients with jargon, we simply create a digital marketing strategy that delivers on results. These results can mean higher search engine rankings, increased website traffic and improved conversions.” 

Howard continues, “We work seamlessly as part of our clients team, sharing their objectives and being ruthlessly single minded about what we’re trying to achieve.  We deliver clear, hard evidence about the work we complete and its effect on the clients bottom-line.”

As part of this advice Howard and his team provide some really useful and interesting blogs which are definitely worth a read. They can be found on the Jungle website at http://jungle-media.com.

Since joining the Grouptrader Network, Jungle have been assisting businesses to put in place measures and systems that improve online business performance.  Two products receiving positive reviews are The Virtual Receptionist and Digital Audit.

The Virtual Receptionist (Annie)  is a 24hour service which is easily installed and helps to increase the leads a  website generates by up to 64%.  Says Howard, “We have just taken a call from a client who began using Annie a few weeks ago and already he has taking an order that he would have missed without her.  Annie has paid for herself, the client is thrilled.”

The Digital Audit is a bespoke website audit, highlighting recommended actions and quick fixes needed to maximise a websites visibility and reach online.  Howard says, “One of the best parts of this audit, from a customer’s point of view, is the ability to receive an insight into their competitor's performance.  It can provide for very interesting reading. This audit is a great tool to understanding how your website is performing for you.  From here we can develop a strategy to put the measures in place to make great improvements. Often these aren’t big costly things but logical and effective steps to really make a difference.”

So there we have it folks, a brief dip into the world of online marketing kindly provided by industry experts Jungle-Media.  If, like me,  you feel the future is rushing towards you and you really would like to be in a position to welcome it and make the most of all it as to offer, you might want to pick up the phone and talk to top banana Howard or one of his bunch.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun!  

Contacts:

• www.jungle-media.com
• For the Grouptrader YouTube videos of The Virtual Recpetionish & Digital Audit click here

Chunking

Faced with a big project or daunting task? - In this week’s blog Grouptrader’s Fiona Cole discovers how to make molehills out of mountains through chunking!

Over the past week spring has evidently been settling down to business in my garden. So at the weekend armed with my secateurs, gardening gloves and a heavy heart I stood at the edge of the patio, overwhelmed with the task at hand.  Where to start? ‘There’s just so much to do’ I inwardly wailed.  As I stood there, a pathetic soul feeling like one of the party on the boat in Katsushika Hokusai’s fabulous painting of The Great Wave off Kanagawa I was a sway away from looking up a local gardener.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai

Then I recalled a piece I had recently read about ‘Chunking’ and in particular in relation to David Blaine the American magician, illusionist and endurance artist.  For his ‘Frozen in Time’ expedition Blaine had been standing in a block of ice for 56 hours with 8 hours still to go. ‘According to Colin Robertson’s article for ‘Willpowered’ Sleep deprivation was causing Blaine to hallucinate terrifying images and characters doing unspeakable things. The unseasonably warm weather in New York had caused part of the ice to melt, resulting in a cold dripping on his neck similar to Chinese water torture’.  

So how did Blaine make it through those last hellish hours?

Well according to Colin’s article it was by using the chunking technique. ‘Chunking is the process of taking a large task, goal, dream, etc. and breaking it into manageable chunks’.  

David Blaine – Above the Below

For Blaine ‘It was impossible for him to fathom having to stand in that ice block for the equivalent time of a full working day. However, he knew that he could make it through the next two hours, so that’s what he focused on. This same method is used by long-distance runners to help them endure the long hours of exerting themselves, as well as productivity consultants to help people break their long-term goals into short-term, manageable chunks’. 

In business it is often a challenge when you are faced with a large and demanding project but by using the chunking method – you may already be doing this – small achievable goals become the target.

My goal was to get the garden looking amazing, the image was there in my mind, a surge of spring flowers the sight of which fills the soul with hope, a perfect baton relay crossover to summer planting, the birds singing through the long grasses edging the water, hot summer days, lazing on a lounger with a magazine and a cool drink with a cottage garden backdrop of impossibly gorgeous blooms and finally balmy summer nights, the air filled with the sweet smell of my climbing roses - currently in plastic bags -  filling the air with luscious aromas.

So by 'chunking' my problem I got over the near paralysis and began. I picked a small patch and focused on that one area, shifting from the larger goal into smaller chunks and progress was made.  Now I may not be David Blaine quite yet but I certainly have earned my lounger, magazine and ice cold drink – and no need to chunk relaxing.

Sources: Colin Robertson - Willpowered

www.willpowered.co/learn/chunking

Blogging for your business

Social media expert, Louise Thomas, reveals how blogging can help your business in a variety of ways

Do you want to bring more traffic to your website, increase sales, rank higher on Google, increase customer loyalty and brand awareness? And no – this isn't an online marketing scam – it's called a blog, and if you do it well, it has the possibility to bring you all of the above!

Blogging is hands down one of the most valuable forms of social media marketing, but is quite often one of the lesser used platforms. Presumably, this is due to its time consuming nature. It's far quicker and easier to send a 140 character tweet, or post a quick Instagram post, whereas posting a blog on the other hand, can take a fair bit more planning and time.

Although time is our most valuable asset, I'd definitely advise you not to discount blogging as a form of online marketing. Instead, here are some tips to ensure you get the absolute most out of the hours you put into blogging, so you can ensure you're spending your valued commdodity wisely!

1. Pick a platform that works best for you

The two most popular platforms are Blogger and Wordpress. Blogger is ideal for the hobbyist or relatively small business owner, whereas the latter is the more professional of the two platforms. If your business' website is already set up, simply talk to your web designer about building a Wordpress blog into your website. It's a fairly simple process that will save you a lot of time setting up yourself! However, if you're looking to start a blog on your own, there are plenty of helpful beginners articles online.

2. Decide on your angle and a rough schedule

Formulate a brief outline of what you plan on sharing on your blog. Go back to basics – remember how important it is to give your readers something, whether that's information, entertainment or a freebie. If readers can see that you're an expert in something and have great advice to lend, they'll instantly 'trust' your business and, psychologically, this can seriously work to your advantage. Once you've decided on a general structure, it's now a good idea to realistically decide how often you can commit to posting on your blog, once or twice a week is ideal to hold your readers interest and keep them coming back for more.

3. Keywords are key!

If you haven't heard already, Google pretty much run the internet and everything you do on your website should be geared towards gaining higher search rankings in Google – otherwise known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Blogs are a great way to gain a higher ranking on Google, just ensure that you use keywords to optimise your blog and make the most of this. When writing a blog post – particularly the title – try to imagine what the average person would type into Google to discover your blog post, we tend to Google questions such as 'What is SEO?' – this is a great rule to follow when titling your posts. Rhetorical questions also make for interesting reading, and help you build up a relationship with your reader by asking for their interaction.

4. Don't give up too soon!

It takes around 30 blog posts before you start noticing an effect on your business – whether this be a surge in visits to your website, a following of readers starting to grow or a direct increase of sales or business enquiries. But quality is of course more important than quantity – so don't rush through a blog post just to build up an archive of posts, write something informative and helpful and work on getting it shared as much as possible online on other forms of social media.

If you decide to take the plunge and start a blog for your business, then best of luck! Let us know how you get on and send us a link to your blog – we'd love to take a read.

Follow The Sneak magazine on Facebook and Twitter @thesneakmag 

Follow Grouptrader on Facebook and Twitter @TheGrouptrader

The Grouptrader Member Spotlight – Prezzybox – the complete online gift solution

James Armitage chats to the owners of Prezzybox

I had the pleasure of meeting the Prezzybox team in a snowy Atherstone, near Tamworth, in early January. Whilst at times the journey through the country lanes to reach Prezzybox HQ resembled the bobsleigh run from Cool Runnings, when I arrived, the team certainly didn’t disappoint.

What is Prezzybox?

Prezzybox is an online marketplace of gifts for every occasion, be it your parents anniversary, partners birthday or even a secret Santa, they have it covered. I’ve previously purchased a couple of gifts from the site and have been really impressed, particularly with the personalised bottle of red wine and gift box. It also got a rave review from the recipient of the gift, who stated that the quality of the wine far exceeded the standard they expected for a novelty bottle of wine.

A gift for all

So we’ve established Prezzybox has lots of cool options for any gifting occasion, but they have to make sure that they get their product offerings right. How do they decide what to sell and what not too? The answer to this is one of the keys to the success of the businesses. Here’s how they ensure the right products:
• Attend every trade show they can physically get to
• Trawl the internet for ideas of what could be the next big thing
• Scour through all the data they can lay their hands on to find market trends
• They also meet with the 300 plus suppliers they regularly deal with, to see what’s new in their box of tricks

That it? Nope, that gets you a big list of possible products but now you need to whittle them down with focus groups, customer engagement and there inventive new solution kid pundits. That’s right, children doing video reviews of products with the utter honesty that only kids can deliver, watch this space for some inevitable comedy gold!

Now that sounds like a lot of really hard work, so the Directors of Prezzybox must be the serious, driven work, work, work types right? Well eh not exactly…

Meet Barney & Zac Edwards

The business started back in 1999 from humble beginnings when Zac was working in product distribution and saw first hand the amount of successful businesses sprouting up in the dotcom boom, and decided he wanted in on the action. Prezzybox was born and has come along way since those early days in borrowed office space. It now boasts a stand a lone office, equipped with its own pack of goats (Yes, I said goats. Why goats? Why not?) and a separate facility for storing and distributing their products. You can tell a lot about the type of people who work at Prezzybox by the response when I asked, ‘What has been your most satisfying moment at work to date?’ The answer was, the day one of their staff, who suffers with cerebal palsy – who they’ve been supporting was signed-off by doctors – no longer needed regular botox injections. What a fantastic reply! Another significant milestone for the business was the first time they gained 100,000 visitors to their website in a single day.

Fun times

So, how did they get from borrowing an office space in 1999 to regularly getting hundreds of thousands of visitors to their site daily? Like many businesses, the answer is by building a great team. Zac and Barney’s know that they’re very fortunate to have a really committed team, which means they can squeeze every penny out the marketing budget available. They make a conscious effort to empower the staff to keep on top of technology, which means they can compete with businesses that have far bigger budgets. 

You may think that this dedicated bunch that work under Zak and Barney are the serious business ones… well, not exactly. There’s no shortage of fun amongst this eclectic bunch too. The team is made up of friends, partners, family members and people who are great at what they do, but certainly enjoy themselves along the way. The teams outside interests include playing in bands, stand-up comics, music journalists, music photographers and the newly promoted netball team named ‘Hoops, I did it again’! I recommend experiencing the mayhem first hand by following them on twitter twitter.com/Prezzybox

Personalised bottle of red wine in gift box, £19.95
Retro Slush Maker makes delicious slushies and soft ice cream! £64.95
Skull Shot Glasses X 4, £9.95

Word  hard...

The Prezzybox mantra is pretty simple, deliver great results whilst having a great laugh. Zac and Barney ensure that this is happening by asking themselves a simple question ‘Is this a place we would want to work ourselves?’

The aim of the business is to be the number one gift site in the country, whilst having great deal of fun along the way.

That is all great but are these bunch of fun seeking goat enthusiasts just kidding around (Oh dear! – Ed). The fact that they’ve just agreed a deal to be one of the key partners in the McDonalds Monopoly 2015 game, suggests they have plenty of business smarts too. They are also one of the latest members to join the Grouptrader Pointsback Club too www.grouptrader.com

So in summary, Prezzybox has two shrewd businessmen at the helm, with a dedicated bunch of staff, who don’t take themselves too seriously and don’t see going to work and having fun as two separate things. But most importantly Prezzybox is the home of great gifts that you should definitely visit www.prezzybox.com