Entries by Darren Stevens

The end of an era

It was with more than a little sadness we heard on Wednesday of the decision to stop publishing The Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen as daily newspapers and instead to publish them as a weekly paper. Now to put this into context I am of a generation that I still recall as a child rushing […]

Come and see us at the Gloucestershire Business Show

The countdown is well and truly on for this year’s Gloucestershire Business Show on the 17th and 18th May at The Centaur, Cheltenham Racecourse – 9.30am-4pm each day. This has got to be the biggest and best business event in the county now in its third year – with over 140 exhibitors, a number of special themed areas, workshops, seminars and a number of networking opportunities.

You can book free delegate tickets here. A full programme for the event can be viewed here.

We will be exhibiting at the show and you will find us on stand GD4. Why should you come and visit us at the show?

A great opportunity to meet the team.
Bring your Marketing or PR questions or problems for FREE advice on the stand.
Take our 20 point Marketing healthcheck to see how fit for purpose your marketing is. To avoid disappointment, please book your slot in advance through the Contact Us form on this website specifying a preferred date and time.
Enter our FREE Business Card Draw to win either a FREE half day of Marketing Consultancy or a Hamper packed full of Gloucestershire food and drink items – celebrating the county’s rich heritage in this sector.
Pick up a FREE Prestbury Marketing pad and FREE Chocolate Orange bar (well our brand is orange!)

Did you know?

Prestbury Marketing came up with the idea for the Gloucestershire Business Show due to a growing annoyance amongst its business to business clients that to attend a business exhibition, they either had to to go Swindon, Bristol or even further afield. Having planted the seed of the idea with Pete Allison at a Circle 2 Success event at The Daffodil, he picked up on the idea and ran with it.

Come and see us

So what are you waiting for? Book your place and call in and see us on stand GD4.

What to do when Marketing goes wrong ……

In the ideal world, everything you ever do on the Marketing front will be a rip roaring success. But from time to time things can go wrong for even the best marketers – but then is the time for a calm head and to ask yourself some questions (or ask somebody like us), to help […]

You have a website, so what …………. next?

Our top 10 tips for making sure you make the most out of your website and what it can do for your business. The chances are that if you are reading this and you either work in a business or run a business yourself, then that business will have a website. The possible exceptions might […]

Our Marketing predictions for 2017

As we approach 2017, here are our 12 predictions for the Marketing industry in 2017. 1. The percentage share of Marketing budgets devoted to some form of digital marketing will increase. 2. There will be a rush to make website https as Chrome rolls out its planned changes to mark non secure websites as insecure. […]

2016 – a month by month guide to what happened

In a year of such major political events, it is all too easy to overlook some of the main events in the world of marketing. We list here a light hearted look at twelve marketing things that happened in 2016 – one for each month of the year. January John Cleese returned as Basil Fawlty […]

The power of Social Media

Social media isn’t just there to grow your brand and connect with old friends, when done correctly, the big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram can play a key role in creating new business leads and attracting new customers. Let’s take a look at how Trumps triumphant yet surprising win in the USA presidency […]

HTTPS – Is the answer for you – Yes, No or When?

Last month Chrome came out and announced that all websites that are not HTTPS, will from January next year start to be flagged by them as not secure if the sites either require passwords or take credit card details. The move has been designed to “encourage” firms with HTTP sites to turn them into HTTPS ones.

The motivation for this announcement was to quote Chrome to “help users browse the web safely” and part of “a long-term plan to mark all HTTP sites as non-secure.” So in time this will affect all HTTP sites and not just those that take passwords or credit card details. Below is how Chrome will eventually flag up all HTTP pages.

So exactly what is the difference between a HTTPS or HTTP site? If a website is not HTTPS, it is not secured and it is possible for someone else to interfere with the website before you see it. For a long time, only websites with serious security concerns bothered to get a certificate (which is what sits behind a HTTPS website) – for example businesses taking payments or banks allowing people to log into their accounts, but HTTPS sites have become increasingly common.

From enquiries we have been making to web companies on behalf of clients, changing your site from an HTTP site to become HTTPS is nowhere near as big a deal as it was for example to make a non mobile site, mobile friendly. It is an additional cost however and yet another thing to add to your growing “to do list”.

Is it worthwhile making it the change? We think so. No-one yet knows how the general public will react to these changes, but it is likely to put many users off and that cannot be a good thing for your website. If that were not reason enough it is a widely held view in the Search Engine Optimisation community that making your website HTTPS will give it a google ranking boost as well. So all in all, it probably is really a question not of yes or no but when.

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