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Telecare Aware is going from strength to strength. If your company is not taking advantage of Telecare Aware, here are 8 ways to make up for lost time...
1) Free one-off postings of items in the run of Telecare Aware news storiesIf you have a relevant story, this service is free as it is part of my commitment to keeping Telecare Aware readers informed, which boosts reader loyalty. Some suppliers use this more effectively than others. Least effective is to wait until I pick up a press release or other story. More effective is if you send your press release to me. It's even better if it's an embargoed copy in advance so that I can plan posting days to align with the release date. You could consider writing some special, reader-friendly copy on your website for Telecare Aware, to which I can post a link. Although the news item postings are one-off, and therefore disappear into the archives as fresh stories are added, anything which helps readers remember it, and which helps me give them a better service, is to your advantage. So the most effective thing is to offer video that I can link to, or create a special offer for Telecare Aware readers. 2) Free links and paid website pages and linksFree links are likely to arise from the news item postings described in 1) above. However, the 'Useful Sites' section is, in effect, a directory of companies and organisations, split into different categories. Charities and other not-for-profit organisations have a free live (clickable) link, but suppliers and consultancies have a non-live listing. Now that readers (and search engines) are regarding Telecare Aware as an 'authority site' (a good source of information and therefore ranking high for telecare-related searches) then live links have an intrinsic search engine value, which I currently place at £75 per annum or, to save the transaction costs of yearly billing, £200 for as long as the site exists - it has been going since 2005, by the way. More importantly, suppliers have not only a live link, but a highlighted listing and their own page on the site which they can modify whenever they wish. See this example. Reciprocal links from sites to Telecare Aware are appreciated, but there is no obligation on anyone to do that. For a graphic and some preferred text for the link, see this page, which also explains how to add a feed of the Telecare Aware news items to your site. 3) Free publicity through Telecare Aware ‘Soapbox’ or by posting comments on news items By contributing a suitable ‘thought piece’ on a topic with an element of controversy to the ‘Soapbox’, suppliers can add to their presence on the ‘telecare scene’. I reserve the right to exert some editorial control here, to ensure that the right balance between information/opinion and self-publicity is maintained. (Besides, heavy-handed attempts at self publicity will be spotted and resented by readers.) Also, please note that I don't approve comment postings that report rumours that I cannot substantiate from other sources. It is better to email me if you want to tip me off about something.
4) Paid advertising in the sidebarThe site supports .GIF, .JPG or .PNG images for adverts with click-through links to whatever landing page you desire. To improve loading times and bandwidth usage it is good practice to keep the file size as low as possible. Adverts that look like text also work well. Price per week, in pounds Sterling, depending on size and placement. Value Added Tax is not applicable. Initial design and/or production help is available if required.
3 main pages = 'Telecare Aware Latest' and 'What is Telecare' plus one other to be agreed. Alternatively, costs can be based on the numbers of clicks or impressions. 5) Paid advertising in the email update alertsA simple text advert, with a link to your landing page, can be placed at the top of the alert email, before people read the update body. The number of click-throughs on these can be quite high. You can decide the number of mailings and whether the advertising appears in every mailing, alternating mailings or irregularly. It could be particularly good tied to a launch campaign. £25 per mailing, or five mailings for £100. 6) Sponsored Telecare Aware conference blogFor the cost of paying Steve's travelling and accommodation to attend a conference (these could be shared between two companies) you could sponsor a special series of Telecare Aware reports. Typically, these would be twice-daily reports on the conference content and on new products that will interest Telecare Aware readers. These would be in addition to the usual news postings. Conference blog sponsorship would therefore produce a concentrated blast of attention from readers over the days of the conference, and the reports and sponsors' banners would stay on the site permanently for future reference. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or phone Steve Hards (+44 20 8144 1643) to discuss. 7) Monthly sponsorshipCurrently, all monthly sponsorship slots are booked until December 2009. Please consider other forms of advertising. Sponsorship slots are limited to one sponsor per calendar month. Your banner - see size above - shares the Telecare Aware masthead space and runs throughout the site. Multiple banners can be rotated at random for visual variety for visitors. Clicks on the advert or alert email text links (see below) are arranged so that the click-throughs can be counted and reported to you. Sponsorship slots cost £240 per month (no VAT). I'm happy for you to provide the advert or to work with you to develop one. For reader goodwill, it is nice to incorporate wording along the lines of 'Telecare Aware is sponsored by...'. The sponsorship deal includes references to the sponsorship at the top of the 'Telecare Aware Updated' alert emails when (note) there are no email adverts, as in 5 above. If no one else is using that facility, the value of this alone often approaches the complete monthly cost. 8) Recruitment Advertising"I have used and found Telecare Aware to be a useful resource for recruitment of telecare professionals. It offers a professional and cost effective service and are able to reach the very skilled people one is looking for. I would recommend it"
Mike Orton MSc. Consultant Telecare and Assistive Technologist See Jobs Page Payment methodsI can accept payment by PayPal (which now includes all credit cards if you do not have a PayPal account), UK cheque, or electronic bank transfer.Telecare Aware Visitor profileI run Google Analytics on the site, which means that, if an advertiser wishes, I can set up access to view the numbers and geographic spread of visitors for themselves. Using Google Analytics you could, for example, see that between 1st and 30th November 2008 there were 4,040 visits from 63 different countries, visits made by 2,516 different people, half of which visited twice or more in the month. Between them they created a total of 8,637 page views. 32% of the visits were direct, meaning that they were probably generated from the news alert emails. 68% of visits were from the UK, 13% from the US, and 19% from the rest of the world, predominantly Canada, Australia, Netherlands, France, Israel, Spain and Germany.Email update alerts profileWhilst many visitors come from search results and some monitor Telecare Aware through their newsfeed readers and Twitter, I am having a constant trickle of people signing up to receive the email update alerts. As at 21 January 2009 the number is 736 (up 153 in two months). An analysis of the readership profile (sectors and countries) is available on request, but I can say that the majority of the 150 councils with social services responsibilities in the UK – key telecare stakeholders – are well represented. Although you may consider the numbers of readers to be small, they are highly targeted, returning visitors, and people who are often at the heart of their local telecare decision-making process. Telecare Aware is the only independent source of telecare news for UK readers and one of the few mediums to reach them in which you can pay to advertise. The international readership is also growing, particularly amongst supplier companies in this field who are using it as a source of market intelligence. Queries or questions, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ! P.S. Some other services that may interest youI can also provide help live and online, with drafting and distributing press releases, websites, PowerPoint presentations, proof reading/rewriting, etc. See my client list and visit my 'Buy my Expertise' page for details. |
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