Small businesses given a helping hand in becoming digital ready

A free digital marketing seminar for local SMEs was held by digital marketing service, Digital Kitbag.

The service, owned by Johnston Press, ran the seminar aimed at improving digital engagement of small businesses, in collaboration with The Yorkshire Post.

Chris Brake, Digital Kitbag’s managing director, was on hand throughout the day, offering valuable information and handy tips to help SMEs improve their online presence and win more customers.

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The presentations were followed by one-to-one sessions where Digital Kitbag staff discussed the current digital marketing performance of participating businesses and provided advice that was specific to their needs.

Around 70 local businesses attended the seminar held at the White Cloth Gallery in Leeds.

Mr Brake said: “Leeds is a fantastic city with enormous potential so it was great to meet with so many local businesses.

“Many of these businesses understand the importance of digital marketing but it can often become overwhelming with so many new technologies and buzzwords.”

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Mr Brake added: “Our seminar de-mystified the industry to remind local businesses of the fundamentals, which was of huge value to the attendees I spoke with.”

Research carried out by BuzzBoard for Johnston Press found that 71 per cent of the country ‘s small and medium sized businesses were incapable of handling mobile shoppers.

Around 44 per cent of SMEs didn’t even have a website, with 93 per cent failing to provide a local contact number on the home page.

The study, commissioned byDigital Kitbag, looked at seven “digital readiness” indicators like website and search engine readiness, online marketing and multiscreen compatibility, across 960,350 SMEs in the UK.

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Mr Brake said that the survey showed “shocking” levels of digital unreadiness which was holding back UK SMEs.

Digital Kitbag is a one-stop-shop which provides a fully integrated digital marketing solution for local businesses keen to reach an online audience for the first time or ensure that their business website is unique and stands out.

As a Premier SME Partner of Google for the internet giant’s search engine marketing with Google AdWords service, Digital Kitbag was recently named winner of Google’s 2014 EMEA Premier SMB Partner Awards – Largest Increase in Active Advertiser Base (Emerging Partner) champion.

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