17 May 2011

Miscellaneous

The Internet World Show 2011

On Thursday 12th May 2011 I headed south for the annual Internet World Show in Earls Court, London. Here, the best technology and the biggest names in the industry were on show to talk about all the interesting things that are happening in this lucrative sector. We all know the power the internet has on modern living and the vast sums of money companies have made through exploiting it. This is what interested me, how do we mortals do the same, maybe not to such a gargantuan extent but how does the average company increase their revenue through the internet - this is the main ingredient of the day, everyone is after a piece of the action.

This was my first business trip to London as a lone ranger, usually I have been with other colleagues who point me in the right direction, I have been to London many times and know the city well enough, but this was the first business trip, it made everything that bit more interesting for me.

The show is now in its 19th year, and as soon as I attached my pass to my suit and walked through the main entrance it hit me, 'there's a lot going on today' I thought. My first stop was to listen to an email marketing and mobile analytics seminar. The room was heaving and I had to make do with a spot standing up by the door, I didn't mind as it was an interesting subject. I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago about mobile marketing, something which as yet the team at FDC haven't had a project on - it seems like in the future a client will ask us about what we can offer them in terms of mobile marketing though so we need to learn all that we can. Email marketing is a huge part of our weekly work, and I read many documents about it when I began working for the company, I know how important a successful email marketing campaign can be to one of our clients, many of them are now reaping the awards.

Throughout the day I mooched around the show, I had a conversation with a very pleasant lady about her company and also about what FDC offer; I was taken by surprise at first because she seemed very interested what my job specification was working as a copywriter for a design agency. She said she hadn't come across a copywriter throughout the whole two days she had spent at the event, at this moment I felt like copywriters seem to go unnoticed in business these days.

I then watched another seminar on how to keep content fresh in 2011 - it hit me at this point, if the lady I had previously spoken to hadn't met another copywriter at the show, yet there was a seminar directly pointing out what a good copywriter can offer  a business in today's digital age, I felt like people were missing the point.

I have been thinking about it for some time, and my first couple of hours at the Internet World Show really highlighted it for me - there aren't enough copywriters around. Especially copywriters that work for an agency, who are always available to work with and talk to - content is irreplaceable, you look at companies such as Innocent, the UK based fruit smoothie maker. They continually have original content that is quirky and always up to date, their brand survives and is so recognised because of the unique content that they use on their packaging, website and in their adverts. 

There will be more to come on the Internet Show, but firstly I wanted to get this off my chest. Content needs to be taken seriously, the lady I spoke to said that in the future she will contact me about future work; this interests me because it's good to see that people are beginning to recognise the importance of sound copy in their digital marketing strategy.