Last weekend the Ph. Creative team spent their Christmas celebration in the very cold and snowy city of Oslo. Ten members of the team took a flight out of Liverpool on Friday night and we were greeted with over 5 inches of snow in the airport car park.

It was a first visit to Oslo for most of the team and we all agreed that the city was gorgeous despite being -15°. On arrival at the Hotel Continental, we were all snug in hats and scarves and we couldn’t have looked more like tourists if we tried! The Oslo natives were kitted out in gigantic fur coats and the women wore stiletto heels whilst the majority of the men stood well over 6 foot tall.

On the Saturday, the team donned their best corporate wear and went to watch the Nordic Masters, having done a website for the event last month. In the evening we decided to celebrate our Christmas night out with a meal in Hard Rock Café and a few tunes in a karaoke bar. Most of us intended to sing good songs very badly, that was until Siân took to the stage and we discovered that we have the X Factor winner 2010 amongst our team!

The festivities continued well into the early hours with only four of us left standing… well three standing, one left lying down in the lift.

Sunday was definitely not an early start but somewhere in the mid-afternoon we emerged from the hotel to do some sight-seeing. Unfortunately most of us only made it into a restaurant where the heating was on!

Despite a two hour delay, we were fortunate enough to get our flight back into Liverpool late on Sunday night. Compared to Oslo, landing in Liverpool felt somewhat like landing in Miami when you’ve just been to the Antarctic!

It is fair to say that everyone had a brilliant time and obviously, there are not many other people celebrating their Christmas with a weekend in Oslo – so a big thank you to Bryan for his generosity and another big thank you to Siân for organising everything… Oh and for looking after our passports!

We’d also like to take this chance to say a big MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of our clients and friends of Ph.Creative!

It’s that time of year again when we’re all finishing off our last pieces of work and heading for Christmas drinks in celebration of our two weeks off. Unfortunately though your website won’t be getting any rest this Christmas as it will be relied upon to provide great customer service while you’re enjoying your turkey and stuffing.

Providing excellent customer service online is essential and as you know, creating satisfied customers is they key to succeeding in any business. It is equally, if not more important to keep your customers satisfied when dealing with them online as it is when dealing with them in person.

So, how can you make sure your website delivers great customer service for you?

- Make sure you provide your customers with clear instructions

Customers do not like websites that are confusing and difficult when they’re trying to buy from you. Your website should provide clear instructions enabling your customers to shop easily. Make sure you give your customers concise details about the product, how to pay for their orders, how the product will be shipped and how the customer can track their order. If your website is providing a service, make sure you show your customers how to use your service and what it entails.

- Pay attention to customer’s questions and concerns

It is important for customers to know that they can contact you if they need to. Make sure you always provide a clear email address or telephone number your customers can use to get in touch. For times when you can’t personally respond to an enquiry, it is beneficial for you to provide a frequently asked questions page. This is an efficient way for you to provide answers to any questions your customers may have. The more efficient you are in responding to customer’s questions, the greater your customer satisfaction will be.

- Always ask for customer feedback

Asking customers their opinions on how they can be better served allows your business to improve your customer service. By taking customers suggestions into consideration you will be able to make necessary improvements. You will also provide your customers with the satisfaction of knowing that they are being listened to.

- Pay attention to returning customers

The more you know about your customers, the better level of service you can offer them. By paying attention to customer details you will be able to connect with customers on a more personal level. Give your customers the option of receiving email notices or send them personalised emails every now and then. By sending updates and special occasion offers, as well as notices regarding new products that may interest customers, you will make your customers feel important. Customers who are satisfied before, during and after the sale are customers that will return to your website.

I know I’ve already blogged today but the clever people over at Twitter have just decided to release their top trending topics for 2009 and I thought you might like to take a look at some of them.

The winners of the top 10 Trending Topics in the following categories are:

News Events
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

People
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)

Movies
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues)
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool !!!!!

Coming to a search engine near you… Google launches their real-time search.

Last week Google signed deals with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace which will allow your status updates to be indexed in their real-time news. The real-time news should be appearing anytime now, so you never know when you could be seeing your Tweet appearing on Google’s first page.

Before you start celebrating your new found fame, you should be aware that this real-time news is updated instantly, so without even refreshing your webpage, you’re likely to be scrolled down within twenty seconds or so.

From now on, when you search a word or phrase, you’ll receive real-time updates from a variety of social media sites, as well as the usual list of search results. You’ll be able to see comments that have been made with regards to what it is you are searching. These could be Tweets, a new Facebook group or MySpace photographs.

The real-time search will appear on first page of Google – a privilege that most companies end up investing a lot of time and money into. The pressure is now on top news providers who will have to update their news content regularly if they want their story to be included in the scrolling news.

This new development comes after searchers began to complain they could not find the latest updates on fast-moving stories.

For example, during the protests in Iran last summer, if you searched Google you would have been delivered the Wikipedia entry for Iran or a recent news article about the clashes at best. However, when you searched Twitter you were shown the latest news from people who were actually on the streets of Tehran at that moment in time.

So now you can see that Google needed to make a partnership with the likes of Twitter and Facebook in order to make their searches more relevant and faster.

For now, you can’t get your news any faster than Google real-time.

1. What’s your goal?

Make sure that when you redesign your website you keep what is important – not the colour or font but the increase in visitors, leads and customers. Focus on the RESULTS you want. So stop worrying about a colour scheme and start thinking up ideas to improve your online marketing.

2. Protect your assets

A website redesign can actually have a negative impact on your marketing results. There will be things about your existing website that your customers will actually like or automatically associate with you.  You need to find out what those assets are: great content, keywords you rank for, inbound links to individual pages, conversion tools? You need to protect these during the redesign, remember that you still have a say and "web design experts" are often just that; experts in design, not marketing.

3. Content that attracts and converts

To quote Seth Godin: "I'm going to go out on a limb and beg you not to create an original design. There are more than a billion pages on the web. Surely there's one that you can start with? ...Your car isn't unique, and your house might not be either."

If you have a tight budget, you’d be better investing in great copy rather than a fancy design. This is what people care about the most; this is how they find out about you and what you do. That doesn’t mean having a blank website; the design should still be good but not necessarily unique and expensive.

4.  Content Building

By putting an ongoing content building strategy in place you will be able to build and build your website and keep it full of fresh content.  A 100-page website is likely to attract more visitors than a 10 page website and therefore growing the business quicker. Obviously don’t throw in 100 pointless pages - make sure these pages are slowly fitted in and the content is interesting and relevant. If you don’t fancy writing thousands of words of content then blogs and news feeds are quick and easy ways to create more content.

5. Don’t forget the basics

Any website built today should always include the basics: a blog, RSS, landing pages, SEO.  They’re inexpensive, and they’re effective.  A blog is a great way to create content on an ongoing basis, RSS allows some content from your website to be automatically pushed out to other websites, landing pages actually get value out of your traffic and SEO gets your new website the attention it deserves.

 Apple has acquired digital music service Lala.

 iTunes is the leading music service in the United States with more than 70 percent of all digital music sales and it is the leading music retailer overall. The iTunes store offers more than 11 million songs. They have decided to purchase Lala in an attempt to explore new models for selling songs.

Newer music streaming services from the likes of News Corp's MySpace Music and Spotify have begun to win over music fans in the last year, which has given Apple the incentive to expand further. The Lala service allows users to stream from the Internet any tune in its catalog of more than 8 million songs once for free, and then sells unlimited streams for 10 cents per track and MP3 downloads starting at 79 cents.

A strategic move from the Apple conglomerate, so why not use their idea to expand your company further. Provide a podcast for your clients and allow them to stream your company information quickly. By Synergizing your company with the likes of Facebook and Google, you’re giving  yourself a greater chance of expanding your brand further and thus, target a larger audience.

One of the most important things about being a blogger is to make sure that you’re unique.

This a massively popular market, so you really do need to stand out. There’s no point in being a little fish in a big pond, you need to be the big fish.

To do this, you will need to get your readers to connect with you in a way that makes them want to visit time and time again. There may be plenty of other bloggers out there talking about the exact same thing as you, but it is your identity and style that makes you stand out.

Essentially, developing your blogging identity involves branding yourself to your readers and visitors. Your readers will immediately associate characteristics with you and your blog which means that people will actually read your posts; they will wants to see what you have to say.

Here a few tips on how you can find your own blogging identity:

 Don’t expect your blogging identity to be developed overnight. You have to work out what works for you and what generates a response from your reader.

 Think about what makes you different, what makes you stand out. Develop these features, emphasise them if you need to but make sure you stay consistent.

 Now you have to tell your readers that this is what sets your blog apart from others. Do you want to be the girl with amazing photography or the guy with the tongue-in-cheek content, when you decide - tell your readers.

 If you find it hard to differentiate yourself, ask the opinion of other bloggers, your readers or even friends who can be completely honest with you.

 What is the best thing about your blog – your quirky writing style, your amazingly designed blog or the huge amount of followers you have?

 Think about your potential target market and how they would respond to your identity. You have to keep them in mind at all times to make sure they continually fit together.

 Think about your long term goals, what is the purpose of your blog? Make sure your identity helps you achieve your goals, not the opposite.

 If you’re completely stuck then take a look at some of your favourite blogs, what is it that you like? The style of writing? Their unique approach? Don’t copy the blog but use it to help you find your own identity.

Visa Europe say that yesterday, Monday November 30th was the busiest ever day for online shopping in Europe. Over 3,000 transactions were carried out every minute on a Visa card across Europe yesterday alone.

The volume of transactions was also expected to increase by 13% compared with the same day of last year. This figure was in fact a whopping 16% growth rate for ecommerce, despite overall consumer spending being down to 7% in general.

Around 4.5 million transactions took place on November 30th, with the busiest period for online sales around lunchtime and another peak around 7pm.  Over the course of the day, approximately €220,000 was spent on Visa cards every minute.

Last year, December 1st was the busiest day for online sales with over €280 million spent on Visa cards across Europe. The continued growth in online spend is further shown by the fact that spend on Visa cards has already surpassed 2008’s peak on November 2nd, 2009.

Visa bases its predictions on up to the minute spending data and previous years’ Christmas spending trends. Over €1 in every €9 spent in Europe is on a Visa card, making this data one of the most reliable indicators of trends in consumer spending, Visa has said in a release.

On the High Street, the last Friday or Saturday before Christmas is usually the busiest shopping day but with Christmas falling on a Friday this year, Visa Europe predicts the busiest day will actually be Wednesday, December 23. Visa expects to process over 27 million transactions across Europe worth around €1.4 billion on this day alone. This represents a 9% growth in spend on 2008. The busiest time is expected to be from 11am to 12pm on Thursday, December 24 when Visa will process up to 850 transactions per second, compared to 731 in 2008.

Speaking with a Director at a leading credit card brand, it would appear that the trend for online spending is set to continue outweighing high street splurging.  Many individuals are currently being more savvy with their money, paying off debts and saving their salaries in the run up to Christmas.  It is now common for smart shoppers to head to the high street to assess and select luxury goods in the flesh, then return home to find a better deal online. With the vast array of comparison sites, options to negotiate and the comfort of shopping from our own home, it is inevitable that the trend to spend online will continue to rise.

Some people bite their nails, some people chew the end of their pencil and some people play with their hair… my annoying habit – my ability to zoom into the tiniest of spelling mistakes.

I don’t know why but somehow I can spot a spelling mistake a mile off, especially when it comes to other people’s work.

Everybody should take spelling and grammar mistakes very seriously, not because I’ll notice, but because their potential customers will.

A spelling mistake says that you don’t take care in your appearance and you’re not bothered what you look like. You’re not a perfectionist, you’re rushed and if you’re too busy to take pride in yourself why would a customer trust you to take care of them?

What is even more frustrating is that when you see professionally printed display pieces (like the one in the image above) not only has the graphic designer missed the mistake but so has the account manager, along with the client AND the printer.

This is why it is absolutely crucial that you find your very own office spell checker, who shares my annoying habit.

I say annoying because I notice every spelling mistake from online newspapers (would you believe I found a mistake in The Times Online,) to clothing descriptions and restaurant menus.

Chances are, I’m not the only one with the ‘spell checking ability,’ which means there are plenty of potential clients/customers out there likely to spot a mistake, so make sure you don’t make one.

My advice for you would be to proof read your content or whatever it is you’ve written out loud. Better still; get someone else to read it.

An even simpler tip would be to copy your content and paste it into Microsoft Word. Spell checker will instantly highlight all your mistakes with a red or green line. Simple you think? Yes, you’re right but seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many mistakes I’ve found this way in copy that I’m re-writing for clients.

Unfortunately for me, now I’ve claimed to be ‘the office spell checker’ I’m literally going to have to go through this with a toothcomb – damn.