Category: Volume in the Press

- by Chris Sykes

Volume Acquires Inovare Learning

VOLUME ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND E-LEARNING SPECIALIST INOVARE

Volume, one of the UK’s leading integrated communications and innovation agencies has bolstered its instructional design capabilities with the acquisition of the staff and assets of Inovare, a leader in interactive online media programmes and e-learning solutions.

Inovare creates bespoke interactive programmes that can be applied to end sales, end-users or partner training. In contrast to ‘off-the-shelf’ packages and catalogue services, all Inovare products are made-to-measure for each client and brief. This ensures any solution reflects business culture and values, features appropriate content, is relevant to the audience and can be consumed in both a time and device-convenient fashion.

The acquisition further strengthens Volume’s Total Channel Solution – helping global clients to ‘gain’, ‘train’, ‘empower’ and ‘retain’ channel partners in over 140 countries. The Inovare Team will remain in the company’s South Devon offices and will represent a specialist hub for the creation and development of anytime, anywhere e-learning content.

The news follows the expansion of Volume’s Technology Centre based in Colombo, Sri Lanka in March; Volume’s first regional hub outside of the UK.

Chris Sykes, CEO at Volume, comments:
The acquisition of Inovare is a major coup for Volume, further strengthening our capabilities in the e-learning field. We’re excited at the possibilities not just within e-learning, but exploring how these principles of instructional design could be applied in a broader marketing and customer engagement context too.

Phil Wood, Managing Director at Inovare, comments:
The discipline of instructional design coupled with engaging, interactive content is one that is quickly becoming the secret weapon for forward-thinking businesses. We’re delighted to join Volume, a company that shares and embodies both our core values, and our multi-disciplined, collaborative approach to business, to develop even more sophisticated and innovative methods of learning content development and delivery.

For all media enquiries regarding Volume please contact:

Eulogy!
Dan Bryant / Radhika Popat
Volume@eulogy.co.uk
0203 077 2000

About Volume

Volume is one of the UK’s leading integrated communications and innovation agencies, with a strong expertise in B2B marketing. The business delivers integrated campaigns, technology and innovation, content creation and delivery, and socially connected marketing.
www.volumeglobal.com

About Inovare

Inovare is a communications company that creates engaging, interactive online media programmes and e-learning solutions. Our work has been translated into every major language in the world and has consistently delivered outstanding results for our clients since 2000. We value long-lasting business relationships and are proud that we’re still working closely with so many of our original clients.

Further Reading
For more information on e-learning take a look at our latest blog post: “Is interactivity in e-learning key to successful channel partner relationships?”.

- by Amanda Phillips

Meet Volume`s New Managing Director

Hello, I’m Amanda. I have just joined Volume today as Managing Director.

When I say I joined today, actually I ‘joined’ about 4 years’ ago when I was asked to become one of Volume’s advisory board, an initiative set up by founder Chris Sykes to start to raise the game of what was, even back then, a very impressive digital marketing company. That role then lead to me becoming a regular coach to the senior management team, which both helped me understand Volume better, and allowed me to effectively become one of the ‘gang’.

So, it felt an entirely natural move to become more of a permanent fixture, especially when Chris outlined his ambitions for the next 3 years for the company, and knowing what I already knew about its innovation in technology and the depth of skill and talent within the agency.

My role will be to build upon the agency’s strengths by introducing a strategic planning component to our offering, to attract clients both within the tech sector and outside into new areas for the business, as well as supporting the team with their existing clients, and lead the operational management within the agency.

In terms of strategic planning, my perspective on this has changed over the last few years. As competition has become more fierce for clients, planners need to find better customer insights to help brands stand out from the marketing cacophony and to deepen the relationship bonds. How I do this is to apply what I learnt about behavioural psychology from my academic studies, to marketing communications and planning. We have to understand the human, not just the customer, if we are to create innovative insights. This then aids the creative process and the subsequent outputs.

I also feel passionately that B2B marketing should have the rigour, creativity and originality that B2C has enjoyed all these years – and I intend to work with the teams, and Max our new creative director, to further develop the agency’s marketing activities on behalf of our clients, both to increase the return we create for clients, and to enhance the agency’s excellent reputation.

But that will all start tomorrow. Today, I am meeting the new faces that I don’t already know and finding a little place for my packed lunch in the fridge. After all, I’m the new girl.

View Amanda on LinkedIn

- by Chris Sykes

Print Ain’t Dead!

In this digital age, the print industry has taken a hard knock. In adversity however, there is always opportunity and print, as a marketing medium is once again claiming its niche.

The new generation of digital printers allow businesses to personalise their mailings and printed collaterals. Highly personalised mailers can be created based on an individual’s personal preferences, purchase history and/or location.

High-end digital print is now more economical and affordable with the ability to match the quality of traditional litho presses. The biggest advantage though is the ability to print ‘on-demand’. Businesses no longer have to hold stocks of brochures or leaflets, they can simply call off the quantity they need for a specific campaign, event or meeting.

Volume’s print production facility in Reading is a seeing resurgence in print and direct mail. If you or any of your family is a Reading FC season ticket holder, you’ll have received a personalised mailer inviting you to renew your season ticket for the 2012/2013 season. These were printed on Volume’s 7-colour digital press. It allowed RFC to ‘talk’ one-to-one to its fans delivering a more informed and intimate experience. So successful was the campaign, RFC will be adopting this tactic in future communications.

Breathe life into your marketing communications

If you want to know more about digital print and how it can add value to your business’ marketing tool kit call Chris or Derek on 01189 393838 or email print.team@volume.co.uk

- by Suki Johal

Volume’s Chief Exec, Chris Sykes, to speak at Social Media in Action conference

Chris Sykes, Volume Chief ExecOn the 28th September, Volume’s Chief Exec and founder of SociView™, Chris Sykes, is speaking at CorpComms Magazine’s conference on making the most of your social media ‘real estate’.

CorpComms Magazine is a specialist magazine for corporate communications professionals and lists most of the Fortune 500 companies amongst its readership. We’re thrilled to have been invited to speak and will be discussing the challenges of harnessing new and emerging social media channels within a corporate environment.

In his talk, Chris will recommend ways of controlling, governing and influencing your social media ‘real estate’ in order to get the most out of it. He will explain how modern technologies, like SociView™ – the world’s first social media mapping tool, allow you to geo-map, rank, categorise and analyse all your social media accounts, official or otherwise, to discover how your brand is being received by consumers, partners and shareholders etc.

For large organisations this couldn’t be more important. It’s vital to know what you are saying to your various audiences but also what your people are saying about you.  Chris will explain how understanding your social media landscape forms the basis for an effective social media strategy, and how this can be harnessed to createa platform for interaction between your customers and your brand, which will help increase your lead generation, sales performance, brand and reputation.

We could tell you more,  but to find out the rest you’ll have to see Chris talk on the 28th. The final few tickets are still available at www.corpcommsmagazine.co.uk/conferences, but spaces are extremely limited, so act quickly to avoid disappointment – it’s sure to be an entertaining and educational affair.

- by James Gardner

Defining an integrated marketing communications agency

The Volume offices at Buckhurst Court

David Ogilvy once described Integrated Marketing as “one-stop shopping” – setting up your agency to deliver all the functions a client might want to buy, and managing them together.

That’s not a bad way of looking at it, but how many agencies really deliver this effectively?

Back in less complicated times, ‘integrated’ was much easier to define and to deliver. Today, agencies need to offer so much more if they are to meet their clients’ needs. The digital revolution has created an explosion of new communications channels and customer touch-points. Suddenly it’s not so easy to be ‘integrated’.

Specialist agencies – the bane of marketing managers?

This revolution has divided agencies into myriad specialist shops – digital agencies, activation agencies, social media agencies, shopper agencies, creative boutiques and more, with clients often using three or four different agencies to create their campaigns.

Delivering integrated marketing campaigns has changed from a “one-stop” convenience to a mall-style outlet.  This can often prove counter-productive as each agency fights to get its voice heard in what amounts to a committee approach to the whole process.

So why are clients choosing the hard way – is it because integrated agencies have lost their way?

The truth is that the kind of integrated approach clients want isn’t the kind of integration most agencies are offering.  Clients are left with a complicated task; first, work out for themselves what media channels they need to use and then the best specialist agency for the task.

However, there is a new breed of integration emerging – an integration that simplifies marketing, improves client experience and delivers better solutions and results.

True integration

At Volume, we pride ourselves on being a truly integrated agency; that’s why we’ve made a bold claim.

We provide creative, innovative work across all media, and also the means to provide the deliverables for every campaign, from digital content creation, online platforms, mobile and even print.  Put simply, it enables us to think holistically about your campaigns, address your challenges, and ultimately measure the effectiveness of everything we do.

If you would like to find out more about our services, please get in touch. In the meantime, here are ten things you probably don’t know about Volume.

Ten reasons why we are the truly integrated marketing communications agency

  1. Our HQ is a12,000 sq. ft. Digital Campus with its own digital photography studio and digital theatre
  2. We have a Technology Centre in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that supports our Technology Innovation Team here in the UK
  3. We host and manage over 75 websites and applications for our clients
  4. We developed the world’s first social media mapping tool www.sociview.com
  5. Our Creative Team has been here for 27 years, collectively
  6. We develop and deploy mobile applications across all the major mobile platforms, including Apple, Android and Blackberry
  7. Our digital press not only prints onto paper, but all kinds of substrates including plastics and magnetised stock
  8. We manage clients’ databases each with thousands of unique records and millions of transactions. Our biggest contains over 200 million
  9. Our Client Services Teams work with contacts in more than 140 countries
  10. We regularly translate into 17 different languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and simplified Chinese