The register of recommended agencies is collated from research carried out by RAR for the London/South area.

RAR independently research the UK market every year for the best of the UK agencies across different disciplines. They talk to over 1500 client marketers and ask them to rate their agencies for account handling, creativity, strategic thinking, value for money and overall professionalism.

Proof that it’s not the most expensive agencies that make the list.. but the ones that are best at what they do!

Indigo Sky built a dedicated flash microsite at www.simonellismusic.com, which included a live Twitter feed from the controversial Britney Spears ‘Circus’ World Tour Australian leg. Indigo Sky is also running a comprehensive social media strategy across Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, as well as SEO and Google pay per click ads

Simon Ellis was the Musical Director for Britney Spears ‘Circus’ Tour. Also a ITV & BRIT Award winning pop songwriter/producer/ musical director for artists like SClub7, Spice Girls & Jamelia

When asked what he would do do if he was starting out in todays industry he replied:

“I would probably build a site, a home for my music, a destination where people could come and see me and what I do and what I’m thinking about.

“And then I’d probably assemble a team of kids that would go and bug the hell out of advertising agencies and marketing companies to use my music.”

(see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8478000.stm for the full story)

It’s an interesting, but yet obviously practical point of view – and one which we here at IndigoSky agree with wholeheartedly. As digital specialists we can help bands build a professional image along with an engaged community of fans, as well as help them to effectively distribute mp3s, video and other media across the web. Between these specialist digital services and the extra avenues for music distribution available through more traditional ad agencies a band can get the proverbial ball rolling without ever going near a record label.

Why is this any different to before though? What has changed?

The answer is simple: both making music and marketing it has become cheaper and simpler than ever before, creating affordable options where before there were none at all.

On the music side the availability of increasingly cheap and accessible recording facilities/equipment, and a more technologically savvy generation of musicians allowing for DIY recording/mixing (its amazing what you can learn to do on the internet these days…) means that the average band can produce high quality recordings on their own.

On the marketing side, Digital Marketing is more cost effective and demonstrates a greater and more immediate return on investment than traditional print media meaning that less money is required and the bands will see immediate results directly attributable to different aspects of their marketing. In short a digital agency (a relatively new concept) opens doors which until recently didn’t exist.

If you’re in a band and you’d like to know more then just drop visit our website dedicated to online promotion of music and bands or drop IndigoSky an email hi@indigoskydigital.co.uk

Indigo Sky launch clients include Britney Spears’ musical director and BRIT award winner Simon Ellis, and Image Foundry who recently won a BAFTA & EMMY award for their CGI studio work.

Founder Matt Thompson spent 2 years as Account Director at US-based digital agency, Booyah, where he led digital accounts for Coca Cola, Dish Network, Dominos and Thomson Gale.

Matt Thompson said: “The United States is the leader in online marketing and we have brought these developments to the UK market. There is a knowledge gap in the UK of US digital marketing innovations like video ad networks, cookie exchanges and search re-targeting and it’s our intention to fill that gap. US marketers are profitably employing tools & technologies which are still relatively unknown over here to extend audience reach, leverage their online data and ultimately drive sales. UK agencies simply aren’t talking to their clients about them. Indigo Sky are here to prove that the old ‘2 year technology lag’ myth of US innovations crossing the pond is a thing of the past.”

London-based Indigo Sky has already attracted attention as an innovative, forward-thinking agency in the areas of display/rich media planning & buying, e-commerce marketing, and social media.

Indigo Sky is a Google AdWords Qualified Company, a Yahoo Search Ambassador, Google Analytics Consultant, and member of TopSeos.com

1.) If any of your pages have the same title, change the titles to reflect the content of the pages. This is good for SEO because the search engines prefer pages with different names, and people are less likely to click on a search result if it has a generic title. Avoid using titles over 60 characters long.

2.) Add brief, descriptive “ALT text” tags to your site’s images. Internet users with text-only browsers will see this text in place of graphics. Its good for SEO because search engines can use this text to interpret the subject of an image, giving them a better concept of the page’s content.

3.) Test each of the links on your site to make sure they still work. If any produce errors, either replace, update, or remove them. This is good for SEO because some search engines will downgrade your site’s search ranking if it has too many outdated or incorrect links.

4.) If any of your pages contain information on more than one distinct subject, divide them into separate pages. For example, a page that lists every product a company offers should instead be split into multiple product categories (unless all of the items are very similar).

These SEO tasks can be accomplished in less than 2 hours for many web sites. However, they do not address other important SEO issues like keyword density, META tags, link building, and site maps. If in doubt consult i) an experienced search engine marketing agency, or ii) an internet marketing agency with experience in search engine marketing.