Digital Industry Guide
Welcome to the Netimperative Digital Industry Guide 2008, an online directory showcasing companies in the digital sector.
Divided into categories, this guide is a handy one-stop tool, helping you quickly and easily find appropriate contacts within the digital industry.
Each category is introduced with a sector summary to show how the listed companies fit into the bigger digital picture.
We have endeavoured to make the guide as comprehensive as possible by including every company's basic details. The guide also includes paid-for listings carrying additional information on companies.
We hope you find DIG 2008 useful and if you have any feedback regarding this guide please contact us on DIG@netimperative.com.
To view the DIG guide in full, you can download the PDF version here.
Categories
Ad Sales Networks
Digital ad sales networks provide a link between media owners and advertisers. Media owners can turn to ad sales networks to outsource their digital sales activities, who will then negotiate with advertisers and media buying agencies on their behalf.
Ad Serving & Ad Management tools
Ad serving refers to the technological processes and services involved in placing adverts on sites. Managing ads can be a complex task, with special software needed to select, place, and track various types of adverts within the pages of a site.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing involves the use of publishers or affiliates to promote your goods or services on a pay for performance basis. It is especially popular with retailers and gaming sites.
Content Management
Attracting users to your site is certainly a challenge, but trying to keep them there can be just as trying. Keeping your site fresh with regularly updated content, while using a flexible structure to incorporate emerging technology is vital to ensure your digital business prospers in the long term.
Content Production
With all the technological advances in the digital industry, it's worth remembering that sometimes the most effective means of communication are the simplest. A poorly worded site can confuse and frustrate potential customers, while good copy placed in the right part of a site can go a long way to helping secure a sale or desired transaction with a visitor.
Digital Consultants
Digital consultants work with clients and agencies to help achieve their business goals through a combination of raining and operational changes. Often companies need guidance developing their digital services but need to do so without considerable investment.
Digital/Advertising Agencies
The digital age has revolutionised the concept of advertising, offering a raft of new ways to connect businesses with potential customers, who in turn can interact with advertising in a variety of new ways.
Direct Marketing / List Buying / Telemarketing
Direct marketing refers to marketing messages that are sent directly to the consumer, negating the need to use another media as a 'middleman' to reach its audience. While email marketing can be an effective form of direct mar- keting, on a larger scale the practice includes 'offline' methods including the mail and telephone.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a digital offshoot of direct marketing, and as a result has much the same advantages and disadvantages. Done right, it's a highly effective, fast and cost efficient way of advertising and building customer relationships.
Gaming
Online gaming has been one of the major dotcom success stories of recent years, fuelled by faster broadband speeds and emerging technology.
Industry Bodies
As the digital industry comes of age, an increasing number of trade bodies are cropping up to help represent and define different sectors in the industry.
ISPs / Hosting
Internet service providers (ISPs) and Web hosting companies help firms build a solid foundation for their new media operations. ISPs offer consumers and businesses access to the Internet via dial-up connection or high-speed 'always on' broadband connections.
iTV/IDTV
The rise of digital services has seen TV transform from a passive one-way medium into a highly interactive media hub, connecting viewers with the action via the red button, as well as via the Internet and mobile phone.
Lead Generation
The practice of lead generation involves the matching of target consumers with corporations, in a bid to boost efficiency and sales.
Media & Site Owners
In the digital industry, media owners could be defined as any owner of a destination site that produces content, but it is often used in a more specific sense to refer to large scale destination sites and portals that generate high volumes of traffic and offer advertising or marketing opportunities.
Mobile Marketing
The mobile phone is fast becoming a primary means of communication, not only for voice but also for digital services, such as email, video, music and photos.
PR Agencies
Public relations refers to building relationships between an organisation and its target audiences, in a bid to create awareness and project a positive image of the brand.
Professional Services
The term 'professional services' refers to infrequent, technical, or unique functions performed by independent con- tractors or consultants.
Recruitment
Despite its growing influence, work in the digital industry can still be regarded as something of an emerging sector, with less academic qualifications and vocational skills available than more traditional media.
Research
To stay ahead of competitors, you need to be prepared for future opportunities and setbacks. However, being able to accurately predict future market trends is not a simple task, as the process requires a vast amount of time and resources.
Rich Media / Streaming
In its broadest sense, rich media refers to any digital media that exhibits a dynamic motion, be it through video, audio or the scrolling text of a news ticker.
Search Technology
The ability to search for specific subjects online has always been a great time saving tool for users, media owners and advertisers alike. The practice has become so ubiquitous that users often expect a search function as navigation standard for all websites.
SEM (Paid Search)
According to the Office of National Statistics, search is the most popular activity on the Internet bar email, and search engines are often the first port of call for Internet users.
SEO (Organic Search)
Search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to the process of altering the structure, content and code of a website to increase its 'visibility' to search engines, and therefore appear higher in organic search results.
Survey Tools
No matter what business you're in, knowing your audience is of paramount importance, and market research has long been used by companies to form the basis of their business strategies.
Usability & Accessibility
An easy-to-use website is a vital tool to help maintain relationships with customers and clients alike. Any frequent Web user has at some point encountered a site that fails to meet their needs.
Web Analytics
Web analytics refers to the measurement of the behaviour of visitors to a website. Unlike passive audiences using TV, radio and print, interactive audiences are constantly leaving their 'digital fingerprints' on the media they interact with, which can make it easier to measure the success of any project.
Web Design & Build
Web design and build usually refers to the combined graphical and technical side of Web development, in which a website is created using a combination of images, style sheets or nested tables and computer coding.