Media company Archant is helping small businesses to wrap their heads around the ever-changing digital world.

A series of seminars entitled Digital Decoded aims to teach business owners the value of a co-ordinated digital strategy to boost public awareness and profit.

Covering an array of digital aspects from the power of websites and search engine optimisation (SEO) to online display advertising and use of video, the sessions will help lay the foundations of an appropriate – and cost-effective – digital marketing plan.

Jamie Brown, Archant's regional digital manager for Norfolk and Suffolk, said: 'One big way advertising has changed is that it is easier for people to go online to find out more about the things they want or need to buy. The internet has taken some of the casual browsers out of the high street.

'A lot of businesses struggle to make sense of the digital market place as there is so much out there that is hard to understand and you cannot see what the output will be.

'It is like they have got a toolkit with too many tools in it – sometimes they throw everything at the wall but sometimes, which is worse, they are not doing any digital marketing.

'This is aimed at SMEs, the one-man band or small business owner who does not have access to marketing advice and strategic input in regards to digital.'

The workshops in Norwich, Ipswich and Great Yarmouth will focus on the 'purchase funnel', a recognised marketing model which covers a consumer's initial contact with a company, to engaging their interest and finally making a purchase, and will identify specific digital marketing tools to employ at different stages of the funnel.

The idea for the seminar series was sparked by similar digital workshops run two years ago by Archant, publisher of the Eastern Daily Press, which were attended by more than 250 businesses.

The sessions will take place at Dunston Hall Hotel near Norwich on Tuesday, July 11; Wherstead Park in Ipswich on Wednesday, July 12; and Great Yarmouth Racecourse on Thursday, July 13.

Two sessions will take place each day, beginning at 8.15am and 11.30am.

To book, contact your Archant account manager or visit www.archanthub.co.uk/digitaldecoded