The Brand Surgery - Branding Agency, Graphic Design and Website Design in Worthing, West Sussex

From left: Vicky Vaughan, Elaine Sola and Sally Windsor (Worthing & Arun Mind) at the Value of Lived Experience Conference.

The above photo was taken at the Worthing and Arun Mind Peer to Peer Conference. The event showcased a number of clients who had successfully mastered the art of managing mental health problems. It was amazing how brave the clients had been and how they are helping others now.

Worthing and Arun Mind is one of the The Mayor of Worthing’s charities and she was there to hand out certificates for students who had completed the course. The Brand Surgery provides a number of services for Worthing and Arun Mind including website maintenance, strategic marketing consultations and graphic design services. Worthing and Arun Mind take advantage of our special charity rate, so if you know of a charity that could do with some help, please call Vicky on 0903 824229.

The Brand Surgery works with a number of charities, including Worthing and Arun Mind. Below is the agenda we designed for the Peer to Peer conference which was showcasing the wonderful progress of those with mental illnesses.

Look what Worthing and Arun Mind say about our marketing consultations: “During our time with The Brand Surgery, we have developed a good working relationship with Vicky who has quickly understood our needs. Her friendly and can-do attitude has made me feel completely at ease and that we are in capable hands. These consultations have been invaluable, leaving us feeling empowered and confident to put her advice into action – despite us not having a technical background!”

PEER2PEER - THE VALUE OF LIVED EXPERIENCE

Meet Nick. Our newest web developer. Nick joined our branding agency a few weeks ago. Nick lives in Worthing, and when he is not working, he loves Hiking, Photography and developing iPhone Apps.

Naturally, we grilled Nick to find out his loves and hates, and here are his replies:

VV: So Nick, when you’re not working on websites or up a mountain, what do you like to do?
NC: I am a member of the National Trust and love visiting their historic properties.

VV: What kind of music do you like?
NC: I listen to lots of lounge, ambient and electronic music; basically anything that I can have in the background while coding.

VV: So what is your food?
NC: Authentic baked NY Cheesecake, om, nom nom nom!

VV: So what was your degree all about?
NC: I graduated from Portsmouth University with a degree in Computer network management and design. Whilst there I studied a wide range of subjects including networking, web development, programming etc.

VV: So what will you bring to our customers?
NC: Fresh ideas and my expertise in web development, iPhone and Moodle. My work will compliment your award-winning branding agency.
VV: Sounds Great!

VV: Tell us, what exactly is a Moodle?
NC: Moodle is an open source e-learning platform that enables educational organisations, companies etc create online e-learning courses.

VV: What is your favourite website?
NC: I recently joined 500px, a portfolio site for Photographers, the site’s usability and design is one of my favourites.

VV: Any last words?
NC: All the website development projects I work on are naturally W3C standard compliant, paying special attention to semantic mark-up to ensure our customers websites make more sales.

VV: Welcome to our team Nick!

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. The Brand Surgery’s speciality is branding websites combined with good functionality. So if your website is letting you down, don’t fear. Call us on 01903 824229 to have a no-obligation chat about your website. The Brand Surgery, branding agency in West Sussex serves Brighton, Portslade, Shoreham, Worthing, Littlehampton, Arundel, Chichester, Portsmouth, Horsham, Crawley and the Gatwick Diamond area.

The Flying Wok - shop rebrand

We are excited about the brand new Flying Wok noodle bar branding. Have you seen it yet? It looks spectacular at night! It’s located at 2 South Street, Arcade Buildings, Worthing, opposite Worthing Pier. The menu is delicious and also very healthy, and naturally dairy free!

As part of the relaunch, you could also win £100 of Flying Wok vouchers! All you have to do is send us a photo of you making a funny face eating noodles! You can upload your photo to www.toysflyingwok.com.

As you can see from the photo, there is now outdoor seating which means you can eat your noodles in comfort and catch some rays in sunny Worthing at the same time.

If you know anyone who has a shopfront that needs a new lease of life, you know where to come. The Brand Surgery will look at your current branding and enhance it to ensure your shop grabs attention. After all, you don’t want shoppers going to your competitors! Call Vicky on 01903 824229 for further information.

Claire Martin, OBE is coming to Worthing for a one-off spectacular night at Carabao Restaurant in Warwick Street, Worthing.

Claire Martin, OBE is coming to Worthing for a one-off spectacular night at Carabao Restaurant in Warwick Street, Worthing.

Claire was awarded an OBE for services to Jazz Music by HRH Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace in December 2011. She has worked with with Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney and John Martyn and is the only European singer to have reached Number One for two weeks in the Gavin Jazz Charts with her fifth album, Make This City Ours.

Claire normally appears at venues such as Ronnie Scotts, National Concert Hall in Dublin and Buxton Opera House in Derbyshire so we are delighted that Claire has chosen to appear at Carabao.

The evening will be compered by Simon Osborne of Splash FM and will be packed with goodies including a complimentary welcome glass of champagne at 7pm, followed by a three course set menu of Carabao’s fantastic Thai food (vegetarian option available). Steve Robbins, Carabao’s resident pianist will provide music through dinner. Claire will take to the stage at 8pm providing two 45 minute sessions of the breathtaking music.

Tickets are only £45 each which is amazing value for an event of this quality.

To book your tickets, email Iain Flitcroft at reservations@thepanasiagroup.com. You can learn more about Claire Martin and listen to her music at www.clairemartinjazz.com

This will be the penultimate fundraising event before the end of Cllr Ann Barlow’s reign as Worthing Mayor. Cllr Ann Barlow said:  “It’s an amazing opportunity to listen to this great artiste and it is fantastic that Carabao are doing this for the Mayors charities. The money raised will make a huge positive difference to people who live here in Worthing.”

….‘A class act’ Jazz UK

….‘A voice of pure quality’ The Sunday Times

….”In an era when young jazz singers tend to sound far too much like their idols, there is no mistaking the voice of Claire Martin who combines a cool, burnished tone with the ear of a born musician”. The New York Times

For further information please contact Iain Flitcroft on 07733 121005 or Vicky Vaughan on ?07909 693172.

The Brand Surgery has dealt with all the press and marketing for this event. If you have an event you would like to promote, call Vicky Vaughan on 01903 824229. We can help you with advertising it on Social Media (Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook), and also design posters, design event logos, write blogs and general event management.

The Brand Surgery Tailored E-marketing Solutions

The way to get a good response from your emarketing campaigns (and all your marcomms) is to segment your target audience so you can write to each segment in a tone that they engage with.

Some questions you should consider:

• Who do you send your e-campaigns to?
  If you send one e-shot to all your customers and potential customers then do not be surprised if you don’t get a healthy response. If you are sending a campaign to existing customers, then write something to appeal to them. Make them feel special and reward their loyalty with a tailored email and not a mass marketing email. If you are approaching a customer base that you haven’t worked with before then find out about them so you can tailor your emails next time around.
  We recently spent two whole weeks dissecting our mailing list. We went through each email address and researched the customer, so we could place them in an accurate segment. The results were amazing! It is well worth investing the time in getting to know your mailing list.
• What is the objective of your e-campaign?
  If you don’t know what you want out of your campaign, how can you expect to get a a good result? If it is a sales promotion, then ensure your message is clear and concise and includes a deadline in the offer. If you are writing a newsletter, ensure the content is relevant to the market. If you don’t know what to write, then call us on 01903 824229 and we can help you.
• What was the response rate of your last email campaign?
  Do you know who read your emails last time? Do you know what links they clicked on? If you don’t know this information, then you can’t continuously improve the success of your campaigns. Our digital marketing system allows you to see who has opened your newsletters so you can tailor them each time.
• Did you get a sale from your last campaign?
  If you didn’t, then you are doing something wrong – your campaign is confusing. It is important to integrate your brand assets with your sales message, and ensure that you are sending the campaign to the correct audience.

The above seems like common sense and it is. These days our in-boxes are filled with endless information. Our filtering systems are becoming tougher because our time is valuable. If you want people to read your email and make it stand out above all the other noise – send relevant messages to the right audience – you need to match demand.

Our email campaigns get results because we have the strategic marketing knowledge as well as great design skills. If you want more success from your campaigns, then call Vicky on 01903 82429 or email vicky@thebrandsurgery.co.uk, Sussex’s No 1 marketing consultants – CIM qualified marketers.

Springtime Offers from The Brand Surgery

Spring is definitely in the air and has put us in an even more generous mood. Therefore, we have three Springtime offers which are up for grabs if your project is booked in before the end of March.

1. SPRINGTIME OFFER ONE:
Website refresh. From £100 (ex VAT)

This offer has proved so popular that we have decided to repeat it. Quality Services took advantage of our offer and look what the MD said about it:

“We asked The Brand Surgery to undertake their ‘Website Refresher‘ service on our website and the transformation in design of our website is incredible, you can barely recognise it.  It’s like having a brand new website. The Brand Surgery has been helpful and professional throughout the process and we will be using them for any further web related work we need completing in the future. Our website was ranking high in Google searches, but performing low when it came to converting visitors to sales. The Brand Surgery gave us practical advice and suggestions about the importance of emphasising the security and legitimacy of the website, and also ensuring that the website functioned as customers expected.”

See the before and after for yourself by clicking here. This offer is for new customers only.

Phone 01903 824229 to book your website refresh.

2. SPRINGTIME OFFER TWO:
Free strategic marketing consultation, when you book five consultations.

“What’s in it for me?” I can hear you cry … Here is a little exercise for you to complete. Do you have a corporate plan? Do you have a marketing plan? Do you have SMART corporate objectives? Do you know your corporate brand values? OK. So if you have replied “no” to these four questions, then you would hugely benefit from strategic advice.

OK. Now for the smarty-pants among you. For those who answered YES to the above questions. List ALL your promotional marketing communications (including social media)  down one side of an A4 page. Now add three columns:

• In the first column header write “Are our brand messages consistent with our differentiation?”
• In the second column header write: “Are our messages delivered to the desired targeted segments? Does our choice of media align with customer reception?
• In the third column header write: “Do our messages & media work together meeting our corporate objectives?”

Now complete the table using crosses and ticks. Be honest! Many people are surprised by the answers. If your business is failing to meet it’s objectives, the chances are that your current marketing mix is not adding value to your business or it’s products and services offered, and therefore not giving your business the competitive edge it needs to succeed.

Your customers may only be one click away from you, however, they are also one click away from your competitors.

Our consultations are lead by Vicky Vaughan (qualified to Level 6 of Chartered Institute of Marketing) and take place in the comfort of your own offices, and can include up to five people. Hourly rates are £85 (ex VAT) per hour for one person, £95 (ex VAT) up to three people, and £105 (ex VAT) up to five people. You choose how long you want the consultation to be. Most businesses like two hours per session. Our spring offer means if you book five two-hour sessions, the sixth session will be free. If you book ten two-hour sessions, the eleventh and twelfth session will be free.

“During our time with The Brand Surgery, we have developed a good working relationship with Vicky who has quickly understood our needs. Her friendly and can-do attitude has made me feel completely at ease and that we are in capable hands. These consultations have been invaluable, leaving us feeling empowered and confident to put her advice into action – despite us not having a technical background!” Worthing and Arun Mind.

This offer is open to new and existing customers.

Call 01903 824229 TODAY to book your strategic marketing consultation.

3. SPRINGTIME OFFER THREE:
25% off Graphic design prices for March

Graphic design is used for all elements of your marcomms including – website design, logo design, newsletter design, poster design, leaflet and flyer design, exhibition design. The list goes on. If you book your design project in before the end of March, you will benefit from a 25% discount. Our normal hourly fee is £75 (ex VAT) per hour. £56.25 (ex VAT) per hour. This offer is for new and existing customers.

Please call Vicky on 01903 824229 TODAY  to take advantage of this amazing offer.

The Brand Surgery is looking forward to its imminent Chartered Marketer status. We will be continuing our study and hope to begin it’s Masters in Digital Marketing in September. We want to continue to improve our skills and expertise in order to offer the highest quality strategic marketing consultations.

Mega Monkey concept for Stagecoach South by The Brand Surgery

The Brand Surgery were recently asked to create a new concept to help increase ticket sales of Megarider bus tickets in the Stagecoach South area.

Vicky Vaughan, Creative Director of The Brand Surgery said: “We came up with the idea of a joint promotional arrangement with local attractions and restaurants. Customers would sign-up for a Mega Monkey discount card on www.megamonkey.co.uk which they would then present alongside their Megarider bus ticket at a participating attraction or restaurant. In the present economic climate –  if the monetary saving that a Megarider ticket brings isn’t  enough temptation, then an exciting discount may be!”

Here is a brief summary of the project:

First, we created the concept of Mega Monkey, including the slogan “Cheeky Deals for our Favourite Customers”. Then once approved, we created several monkey concepts and logos – the one in the photo (left) was chosen. Part of the concept was allowing local attractions to add their logos onto empty stars on the artwork so everyone benefited from this promotion. Then the Mega Monkey branding was applied to a range of mediums – bus livery, bus stop advertisements, and discount cards.

We also set up the promotional deals with attractions and restaurants including Giraffe Restaurants, Bowlplex, Fire & Stone Restaurants, Pyramids Leisure, Bluereef Aquarium. Stagecoach South already had an arrangement with Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

In January 2012, the bus was launched in Portsmouth with it’s funky new design and we went to Portsmouth for The Big Reveal. One brave Stagecoach South member of staff dressed up for the occasion in a Mega Monkey costume. On the way home, Vicky dared our Mega Monkey to purchase a bunch of bananas -  click here to see what happened!

Feedback is that the campaign is going very well. If you have a product or service that needs more sales, look no further. Vicky Vaughan has completed her CIM exams and is professionally qualified to give your business advice on strategic marketing. Call Vicky at The Brand Surgery, CIM qualified marketing agency in Sussex, on 01903 824229 for further information.

At The Brand Surgery, we like to practice what we preach, and we have been saying for several months now, how important it is to ensure that your website is easy to use and navigate on different devices, cross-platform and cross-browser. That’s why, we have been working away producing a ‘mobile-friendly’ version of our website, for mobile phone users.

Mobile Website Pages

The mobile website provides an easy to use layout, with controls that mimic the styles of your mobile devices operating system. Our website is excelling in search engine search results due to our secret recipe SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and blogging skills, not to mention the huge catalogue of pages thebrandsurgery.co.uk has archived away. The mobile website does not affect this though, it simply switches into place if a mobile phone user is detected. This is extremely important, so if you are in a similar position, your fears can be relaxed, implementing a mobile website with The Brand Surgery will not affect your SEO.

Now, the mobile website is considerably smaller than the full website, with only our key services and information available, as well as the most recent etchings from our portfolio and our news. However, if visitors wish to view our full and main website (including our extended portfolio), they can do, simply by clicking the link at the bottom of the mobile website.

To give you an idea of how both versions of our website look on a mobile phone, look at the screenshots below:

As you can see, its extremely hard to read the text on the desktop site (when viewed from a mobile phone) and would be even harder to click on the right links. Yes, most mobile phones allow you to zoom in and out, but doesn’t the mobile site look that much easier to use? We think so, and we’ve had some great feedback already.

If you would like to make a mobile friendly version of your website, contact us on 01903 824229 or use our online contact form to arrange for a FREE no obligation quote or meeting.

Quality Services Hygiene Supplies came to The Brand Surgery after they saw our email campaign about our ‘Website Refresher’ service which we were offering at a reduced rate throughout December and January. They came to us with a website, which despite performing excellently in search engine rankings, wasn’t converting as many visits to sales as they wanted.

The Brand Surgery analysed the website, and despite the obvious outdated design, there were several other key areas we highlighted to Quality Services for improvement, which were unanimously agreed upon and our website design and development team got to work on a brand new look and feel for the website.

First off, The Brand Surgery tidied up the navigational system, which was set into two separate nav bars, providing a confusing and untidy user experience for any visitors to the website. This was altered to provide a consistent set of navigational links at the top of every page.

The main banner across the top of the website was holding the design of the website back, so after a few tweaks of the Quality Services logo, a fresher logo was produced which in place provided a cleaner, more attractive banner to greet all website visitors.

After introducing some rounded corners and complementary colours to the left-hand column and ensuring that the same left & right-hand columns appear on most pages, the website looked completely transformed. The Brand Surgery design team then added a faded background colour and a simple animated image on the home page to complete the look and the Quality Services website looked brand new.

From a more practical view, the ‘Powered by RBS WorldPay’ image and the images of accepted cards were moved towards the top of the website, to install an air of security and safety with the visitor/customer as we felt that perhaps conversion rates were low due to people not trusting the website.

You can view the website by clicking here and take a look at a side-by-side comparison below of the websites before and after The Brand Surgery undertook our ‘website refresher’ work (click the image to see an enlarged version):

Quality services said: “We asked The Brand Surgery to undertake their ‘Website Refresher‘ service on our website and the transformation in design of our website is incredible, you can barely recognise it.  It’s like having a brand new website. The Brand Surgery has been helpful and professional throughout the process and we will be using them for any further web related work we need completing in the future. Our website was ranking high in Google searches, but performing low when it came to converting visitors to sales. The Brand Surgery gave us practical advice and suggestions about the importance of emphasising the security and legitimacy of the website, and also ensuring that the website functioned as customers expected.”

If you feel that your website needs some work to it to release it’s full potential, but don’t want to invest in a brand new website, then get in touch with The Brand Surgery by calling us on 01903 824229 or by using our online contact form. Alternatively, if you think you could benefit from a brand new website, then get in touch as well, just check out our web design portfolio to see some examples of our work.