England’s Metafocus opens up a “green” channel for products in Chongqing

Reporter: Liang Ling

Source: Hualong Network – Chongqing Business News

Last updated: 3^rd March 2008

Without setting a step outdoors, Chongqing’s local products like preserved meat, Jiangjin’s (a city in southeast Chongqing) mihuatang, a kind of dry glutinous rice sweet, and other local specialities will be sold to overseas markets through the Internet.

Yesterday, the famous Metafocus Internet Marketing Company from England came to an agreement with Chongqing’s Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Commission (COFTEC) to cooperate in building a “green” Internet channel to sell Chongqing’s auxiliary agricultural food products abroad.

In mid-March, COFTEC will also work with the British Consulate General in Chongqing to hold a seminar on the Internet and Foreign Trade titled “How the Internet can Change Foreign Trade, Marketing Creates Prosperity”.

Read the news report on the Internet Society of China’s website here. (Chinese)

A full Chinese version of this slideshow was first presented at the exclusive seminar on How the Internet can Change Foreign Trade, Marketing Creates Prosperity on the 14 March 2008 at the Empark Grand Hotel in Chongqing, China. Read more about how we can help you improve your Chinese online presence.

View the Metafocus Presentation on Global Online Marketing. Keep checking back for more exciting news of Metafocus in China!

For any E-Commerce website, there is one thing that really matters…conversion. With so many things influencing conversion from simple web browser to customer, it is no wonder that web-site owners and Online Marketers’ are so focused on this. So what are the important factors to affect conversion? As I could write a whole white paper on the subject I’ve decided to concentrate on one area, the use of incentives such as Voucher Codes.

As any retailer knows too well, giving customers an incentive to buy from you can really make a difference. Competition online is fierce and sometimes the all-important incentive is what matters. Internet shoppers are the savviest shoppers around and there are a majority of sites devoted to promoting vouchers and discount codes for online stores. By creating a voucher code for your site you can give reason for people to shop at your store. A voucher code is simply a series of letter or numbers that are used by shoppers on a checkout to gain a discount on the goods. This is also used in conjunction with a promotional offer to stand out from the competition as a simple example shows;

Buy Sweets online today!

Buy Sweets online - 10% discount

Which would you click on?

Vouchers can then be promoted on a number of dedicated websites to discounts or directly to the customers by means of an email promotion. Here at Metafocus we are great believers in this method to increase conversions and have recently promoted one of our sites www.yoursweetshop.com on vouchermania.com. Yoursweetshop have recently created a 10% off voucher code for their customers to save money and increase conversions. Have a look at both sites and see if you think this method of increasing conversions can really work for you.

For the past few weeks there has been a big wheel down in the Market Square. At around 200 feet tall, a tip on the Nottingham Eye can offer a 360 degree panoramic view of the city centre.

The official Nottingham Eye website can be found here. The site doesn’t look too appealing, if your website needs some design work then give us a call on 0115 9470011 or email info@metafocus.co.uk.

Some examples of our recent sites can be found here:

Aspetto
Your Sweet Shop
Bournes Debt Solutions

Another one of our customers has launched their website this week, this time its Aspetto, selling male grooming products online.

Aspetto joins the competitive and growing marketplace for male grooming products such as shaving equipment, facial washes, moisturisers, hair care and accessories. The site carries a large number of ranges from well-known brands such as Clarins, Clinique and Boss and some lesser-known brands such as Nickel Spa for Men, Cyril R Salter and P8N8.

This site has been built using our Web Manager 2 Content Management System and benefits from our fully featured system which allows all pages to be editted, products and ranges to be managed and customer and email lists to all be managed through a single interface.

We’re also working hard using SEO, PPC and Online Promotion to get the name Aspetto out there and recognised all over the internet. So keep your eyes on the site as we’re predicting big things for 2008!

Metafocus will be holding a seminar on Global Online Marketing in mid-March with our partners in the municipality of Chongqing, China. The seminar will be held in the Banquet Hall of the Empark Grand Hotel and will be hosted by the Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Commission of Chongqing.

For further information, contact our team or have a look at our Chinese website www.metafocus-china.com

(Tianfu Square, Chengdu)

We began our trip in Chengdu with a hotpot dinner, a speciality of the Sichuan province. This would prove to be almost a staple for the rest of the trip with many opportunities to try the different degree of spiciness of Sichuanese food! Alan very quickly learnt to pick out the fiery and tongue numbing hua jiao pepper, translated as a type of “Chinese prickly ash”, which is mixed into breakfast, lunch and dinner foods! In Chengdu, we had the opportunity to meet with various small and large businesses with varying demands, including a Chinese travel company who wanted to improve their Chinese website for the west in order to attract more enquiries and orders. There was also a meeting with a professional software company that could help us to outsource software and the development of complex technical websites. We also had the opportunity to visit the EU Project Incubation Centre at Chengdu’s new Hi-tech Business Centre, a sprawling and new technology park dedicated entirely to helping up and coming IT and software companies.

There was an immediate contrast to the laid-back atmosphere of Chengdu as we arrived to the spectacular neon light extravaganza that lit up the Chongqing nightline. We spent the weekend in Chongqing sightseeing, which brought us to the thousand-year-old rock carvings of Dazu county, 3 hours drive out of Chongqing city. Although the weather was permanently foggy upon our arrival, we also managed to enjoy the ancient town of Ciqikou and hot springs on the outskirts of Chongqing, which seemed a world away from the hectic and bustling city centre.

(Chinese New Year and Olympic Celebrations in Chengdu)

Metafocus have just returned from another successful 10 day trip to the East with very exciting prospects for the future of Global Internet Marketing. We visited two southwestern provinces in China – Chengdu “Home of the Pandas” and Chongqing (formerly Chungking), one the most populated municipalities in the world with 31 million residents!

We met with many companies both in Chengdu and Chongqing with the aim to find suitable companies to help with developing Chinese websites for western companies who want a presence in China. As globalisation continues to affect companies all over the world, the demand for websites in Chinese will only continue to grow. Together with our partner, a well known advertising company, Metafocus can help to design and develop your website in Chinese and search engine optimise it for the Chinese market. 

As a result of discussions with a number of companies, Metafocus has learnt a lot about the differences of SEO between the west and in China. We are confident we will be able to provide your company with a website in Chinese to target the booming Chinese market as well as make it searchable so that your potential clients will be able to find your Chinese website.

October 15th is Blog Action Day. This years theme is the Environment, where people are asked to blog about something relating to any environmental issues. We’d like to take the opportunity to tell you about an environmentally friendly event which is taking place in Nottingham this weekend.

Planet Nottingham is an event focussed on raising some of the most important environmental issues that affect 18-30 years old today. Not only the major worldwide issues of climate change and global warming but more individually pertinent issues such as recycling, reducing consumption and local environmental issues

Nothing new you say? Well this event is going to put its money where its mouth is and in doing so will become the world’s first ever green club event.

Aims of the Event:

1. To be carbon neutral (using carbon offsetting)
2. To be advertised using recycled materials and more non-paper based methods
3. To showcase artwork of all descriptions from green inspired artists
4. To showcase film shorts with an environmental theme
5. To promote major issues that affect 18-30 year olds and inspire them to change
6. Recycle or reuse all materials used on the night
7. To sign up people on the night to make pledges to improve their eco-footprint
8. To show that is it possible for young adults to have a great time and make a positive difference at the same time.

All of the profits from the last Planet Nottingham event that took place in June were donated to green community projects working in deprived areas of the city.

The plan is replicate this event across the UK in the near future in the hope of raising awareness of environmental issues, helping people understand what they can do to make a positive difference and also to provide finances for interesting local environmental projects.

This time the ante is upped in spectacular fashion with one of the UK’s most recognisable DJs. Famed for his “How to Cut and Paste Series” and his awesome audio visual projects we have the mighty DJ Yoda for company.

Friday 12th October2007 Planet Nottingham @ Marcus Garvey Ballroom

DJ Yoda
Pete Jordan (Spectrum)
The Chosen Ones
Sliders from Mars
Spamchop

Advanced tickets (on recycled paper) are available at: UNU Box Office / Bag of Nails / Café El Gordos / Happy Return / Golden Fleece / Funky Monkey / Selectadisc / Planet Nottingham Reps

For more information please see: myspace.com/planetevents

The Online Marketing Team at Metafocus has expanded this week with the addition of Edward Lewis in the role of Online Marketing Executive. Ed will be looking after our customers currently engaged on monthly SEO programmes and will be providing reports and analysis on a month-by-month basis to ensure that all our clients’ sites continue to grow and develop.

Welcome aboard Ed!

Corporate blogging is a real growth area and one which a growing number of our clients are embracing as a method of developing their website’s search engine optimisation but also as a way of developing a relationship with their customers.

Globus Worldwide are taking this to heart with their new blog. Globus is a Russian language school based in Moscow that offers courses to both business and private clients, teaching the Russian language along with Russian culture and tradition. To develop this further, they are using their blog to offer regular, free and easy to follow Russian lessons. Very nice.

So if you’ve ever wanted to learn a little Russian, click HERE.