Advertising / Marketing Archives | Page 17 of 45

A day in the life of a digital marketing agency involves a smorgasbord of PR and digital marketing campaigns, supporting a variety of clients at different funding stages, levels of maturity and resources. On top of that, there’s staying up to date with the ever-evolving external platforms and game-changing algorithms, channels to market, media networks, opinion leaders and influencers. Together, these elements are part of the wonderful marketing mix that supports us in our ultimate mission to drive brand awareness, sales and growth.

Over the past year, we have found some key themes, challenges and opportunities to learn from, adapt to and educate ourselves on. And we’re using them to propel our 2023 missions for success.

When developing a content marketing strategy, it is essential to differentiate between the different elements or terminology in the digital content mix. This might include terms like public relations (Organic PR), paid content and amplified content via social and backlinks.

Each has a different but important purpose to raise brand awareness and support organic search engine optimisation (SEO) in order to increase and drive sales. Your organic SEO must be in order to complement any paid search engine marketing (SEM) activity.

If you use video, YouTube is one of the best places to boost both organic and paid content using SEO practices, as it is owned by Google and uses the same algorithms to rank content on the platform. If you want to know about organic SEO and SERPS results click here.

Organic PR raises brand awareness with the target press publications and audiences. This can be shared with known target audiences to reinforce your credibility and with target communities, and it also appeals to the Google algorithm for organic search. Sometimes publications will add backlinks to these articles, but that is not guaranteed. However, it is important to reinforce the fact that brand equity is not built on backlinks. It is created by communicating a clear understanding of what a company stands for, its core offering and how it is differentiated. Public relations (PR) supports brand development together with wider organic and paid SEO activities. To learn more about why PR should not be measured by backlinks, read our blog here. To look at an overview of Google algorithm ranking factors for 2023 please visit here.

There are different models with different publications which offer guaranteed placement of content whether digital or printed. Publications often have an editorial arm (organic) and a commercial division (paid or advertising) – they do, after all, have to pay overheads including employee wages. Banner ad placements can also be paid for where it is possible to manage budgets through a pay-per-click (PPC) model driving traffic through to a brand’s digital sales funnel. If this is a planned part of your strategy it is important to understand how PPC and bidding works. Read more here.

When heading down the paid ads or content route, Google is often aware that there is a ‘Do Follow’ ad-based link, which is considered in the algorithm preferences and prioritises organic content and user-based preferences. Here the backlink can be guaranteed, yet the organic value and perhaps the authentic content value may be affected if the content is too sales-led. But that is all part of the content marketing mix and the different formats should be A/B tested, monitored and optimised to achieve objectives. Learn five strategies for optimising your sales funnel here.

Publications use their readership to attract paid placement in digital publications. If a publication has a large print or digital readership it will also have the same social media following. Therefore packages can be negotiated to include social amplification across the publication’s social media pages. This can be increased further across brand or company social channels and, as there is a commercial agreement, this will not be blocked via the publication’s social media management. This is a great option if you want to drive and track leads into your sales funnels or loops.

Google has more than 90% of search engine market share, which is why organic SEO is so important for brands operating the in the western market. So you will need your organic SEO in order, including landing page and sales funnel optimisation, before launching Google Ads can be considered.

When setting up a Google Ads campaign, you pick a list of key phrases people might use when searching for your product or service. Google provides tools that help with this including setting the bid amount you want to spend – known as cost per click (CPC) – when someone visits your site or completes an action.

Whilst in set-up mode, Google tools can also tell you the ad quality score (matching keywords and content) and how your ad will rank compared to other ads. When you use Google ads you are essentially entering an auction for keyphrases or words, and the market that you operate in will determine how competitive and costly your keywords are. This is where competitive analysis comes into play and some tools can help you do this here.

Building backlinks is still an important activity in ranking factor but it should not be an isolated activity. A recent assessment of the Google algorithm ranking factors by Sage cited backlinks as having a 15% weighting, whereas at one point, this made up more than 50% of the algorithm. Backlinks are a relic of an era when Google’s AI wasn’t developed enough to evaluate the quality and trustworthiness of web content and needed other websites to do the job.

Now Google, prioritises content that is well-written, fresh and informative. It’s important to share content that people want to read and share.

Good trustworthy tactics to apply to good link-building practices could be by answering other people’s questions, and exploring partnerships with other relevant brands and companies by creating blogs, videos, or infographics, together with backlinks. That way, both collaborators benefit from linking to each other’s sites. This is similar to how brands look for brand matches with influencers based on the topics that they post about.

Also, be aware of firms offering paid backlinks on well-known sites. Buying links is not only a black hat SEO practice it’s an expensive one that could also land you in Google jail. A good practice is to create good quality content or get more traffic to existing content through paid ads.

Traditionally when we think of an opinion leader in public relations and digital marketing it was always the journalist or market analyst that came to mind. But now social media influencers are an essential part of that content creation and promotional mix. As found in the Influencer Marketing Hub’s Bench Mark Report 2022, influencer marketing has grown to $16.4 billion in 2022, so it is an avenue that should definitely be considered if your business channels are ready.

Brand fit, reach and content engagement is key to creating an authentic collaboration before the business models and contractual agreements can be considered. Influencers can be split into different categories based on their followers: Nano is between 1k to 10k followers, micro is between 10k to 100k, and macro 100k to 500k. Beyond this, you enter the realms of the brand ambassador which is a different level of negotiation and fee – some can command 70K for just one tweet. Some influencers will collaborate based on special interests close to their heart, others on gifting, but most work on paid or pro bono agreements. It is all about negotiation, which does take time and an understanding of the needs of both parties. Read more about the new wave of marketing influencers here.

When researching influencers across relevant social channels, a good starting point is to look at the hashtags, keywords, and topics the influencer is connected with. Of course, the number of followers is important, as well as how they fit with your brand positioning, product benefits, and shared brand values. The quality of content and engagement also needs to be considered when selecting and approaching your short list of influencers. Then it’s on to the negotiation of the contract and deliverables. Will it be gifted or paid, what will they share and for how long, and will there be a discount code for followers who engage with the campaign?

So depending on your business environment it is important to develop an integrated campaign which helps to evaluate and map out your route to market as well as your content strategy across the different owned and non-owned channels. First, your owned channels must be in order and ready for traffic that is driven to your site. Organic off-page optimisation comes next, followed by paid.

To get some ideas about how PR and digital marketing can be applied to your business check out some of OggaDoon’s work here.

To discuss your own marketing projects please get in touch with nicola@oggadoon.co.uk.

Getting traction online can be tricky without the right approach, but with a bit of creative thinking, generating online awareness can be done for even the most seemingly ‘stuffy’ brands.

Digital PR is very important when it comes to SEO, links are crucial to the algorithm for Google, and other metrics like social mentions and branded mentions are great for building your brand online.

Digital PR and creative content outreach is one of the key pillars of Varn’s full service approach to SEO, and covers a wide range of tactics and strategies around research and competitor analysis, content creation, and digital PR/link building.

Here we take a closer look at digital PR and why it is crucial if you weren’t your business to succeed online and your website to rank well in search engines.

What’s the difference between digital PR and traditional PR?

There are a few key differences between digital PR and traditional PR even though they are often two complimentary channels.

Digital PR is a term which typically applies to more online activities and covers but is not limited to the following:

Traditional PR can often work as a stand-alone push and in many instances targets traditional media like print and television advertisements and placements. The ways that you measure success are also more apparent than with traditional PR.

Whereas a television campaign or print media advert may have reached a certain target demographic, tracking the actual numbers of people that saw it can be difficult and tracking the revenue impact is often even more challenging.

Whilst the tracking and right KPIs need to be set up in advance, measuring success is often easier with digital PR.

Brand mentions social media interactions and link coverage are all easier to track and set key performance indicators against. Other follow-on metrics can also be used like ranking increases when looking at SEO and the potential increased revenue impact from these increases in SERP performance.

What is the process for digital PR?

Once you have content to reach out with (be it survey data, products, commentary or infographics) it is time to put together the target publication list. We work with the client to understand their ideal placements and tie it in with data on sites that we know move the needle when it comes to SEO value.

Before we start with the outreach, we ensure we have a list of ideal target rankings that we want to improve. You need to drive the right keywords to the right pages, which is why developing a proper keyword map is crucial, this is typically done as part of the Technical SEO onboarding process in the form of an audit.

Once we have developed the list we work through it in our quality control process then start with the outreach. Leveraging a tool like Buzzstream is great as you can scale the outreach and gain better insights into how each campaign is performing.

After that comes the outreach, email scheduling software helps you greatly scale up the efforts, from that we can then get a more targeted plan together to get placements on sites depending on the individual publications content guidelines and tone of writing.

After the outreach, we report on the links attained and over time are able to measure the impact on rankings. If we are working on an ongoing campaign, then these reports are more regular and can help build up a better picture when it comes to the digital PR impact on SEO in terms of rankings.

The diagram below shows one of the key differences in the method of outreach for digital and traditional PR. Whereas with traditional PR you want to get the content in front of the right audience straight away, with digital PR you are just as concerned with getting coverage on high-authority websites and increasing your rankings within Google. This way you are able to interact with potential customers when they are browsing content, but more importantly when they are seeking out relevant services that you want to rank for.

How to measure success?

When it comes to measuring success with digital PR, the following metrics are great to have within your reporting toolkit:

All of the above are great ways to measure the success of campaigns, of course the ultimate aim is to build revenue and grow the business in a profitable way, but with more top of the funnel activities like digital PR having the above metrics to benchmark against is a great way to show the value of campaigns to clients and senior management.

Some of our digital PR case studies

Digital PR is a great way to create noise in your industry whilst also benefiting your SEO, at Varn our approach to digital PR is as transparent as it is effective. We always report on campaigns, and some get amazing results, others a slightly more muted, but we are always up front with performance.

The above tactics are great for getting a large hit of links from news relevant sites and also consistent links to support your SEO over the long run.

Get in touch to learn more

Digital PR is a growing industry and is a very important part of a strong ongoing SEO strategy. If you would like to learn more about digital PR and the benefits it could bring to your business then get in touch with a member of the Varn team.

We have put together campaigns in the past which have driven great results for clients both in terms of coverage and impact on SEO. Our campaigns are set up with performance in mind, which is why we are trusted to deliver on our promises.

McCann ploughs ahead with next phase of campaign for Britain’s largest organic dairy brand

Yeo Valley Organic, Britain’s largest organic dairy brand, is set to launch a new above-the-line campaign as part of its carefully crafted masterbrand advertising activity, created by McCann Bristol. Leveraging the creative line “Yeo Got This!”, the multichannel campaign aims to give people the confidence to make good choices for themselves and the planet, every day.

The creative will be appearing in out-of-home channels, supported by a radio sponsorship with Magic Radio and social content. Further bursts are planned throughout 2023 along with exciting partnerships, experiential and in store activities.

Yeo Valley Organic Brand Director, Niall McKee said: “We’re delighted to see our masterbrand campaign starting to gain in momentum as we head into the autumn. We want this campaign to give everyone the confidence to make good choices for themselves and the planet every day. Our campaign is a little fist bump of encouragement.

“The latest activity is certainly timely for us as a brand. According to latest data from Deloitte, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people who have adopted a more sustainable lifestyle in the past 12 months. It’s therefore important that we actively demonstrate how we’ve been pioneering this movement for over 25 years, and it’s central to everything that we do.”

Talking about the brand platform, McCann Bristol’s Executive Creative Director Zane Radcliffe explains: “We landed on a truth that most of us have good intentions when it comes to making choices that are good for both us and the planet. But we’re not all Greta Thunberg, and it can be difficult to know how to make a positive impact. Yeo Got This! reassures us that we can all do our bit, even if it’s just popping an organic yogurt in our shopping baskets.”

The campaign builds on the insight that Yeo Valley Organic has been making good choices for over 25 years as an organic and sustainable business: prioritising nature friendly farming, animal welfare, and not using artificial fertilisers or chemical pesticides.

Radcliffe adds: “We’re helping people make positive choices in an effortless, fun and informative way.”

McCann Bristol won the work through a competitive pitch process last year, and it marks an exciting new era of growth for the organic dairy brand as it raises awareness of its regenerative organic farming credentials.

Share of voice is one of the most important things in the PR toolkit. It’s also one of the oldest principles employed by PR professionals.

Ever since we’ve been able to monitor mentions, be it print, digital, social and everything in between, PR professionals have had the ability to compare their clients to their main competitors.

But this is far from an exercise in ego measurement. It’s a way of benchmarking, setting KPIs and gleaning insight into the topics that really matter to a specific business or industry.

When it comes to share of voice, digital transformation has taken over, like it has in most industries. Now, traditional marketing and PR efforts have shifted into digital ones. There really is no way of getting around the digital revolution.

And when it comes to analysing share of voice, we now have a whole host of powerful tools to optimise the process and make what we do even more valuable to our clients.

While share of voice within media has its value, its results are ultimately a linear numerical outcome.

Also, if the quality of your brand mentions within any given media is low, or if coverage about them in unfavourable; then even if your share of voice is higher than your competitors it will be for all the wrong reasons.

Relying too much on that number on a macro level could be detrimental to your wider strategy. Your share of voice could skyrocket off the back of one crisis, so the percentage figure itself is something of an anomaly.

Instead, you need to look at the key conversation topics and how those are showing through your mentions and coverage.

To achieve this, every business should be an authority on a set of subjects. If a business doesn’t have this, then their approach to profile building and thought leadership will be a scattergun one.

With pre-determined topics and targets, you can hone in on the issues that matter most to your business and turn up the dial on your brand reputation.

The most likely way to turn that dial in the right direction – and for the right reasons – is to have a strong share of voice on the matters which really matter to your business. If you can demonstrate the right experience, on the right topic then you’re more than likely to find resonance with your target audience.

Riding the wave of trends is one way to drive converge and crease the volume and value of your business’s media mentions. Assessing these trends and knowing which ones to jump onto and which ones to leave is a critical task.

But, as much as you’d like to, you can’t go for everything. Just like Goldilocks, you need to find those trends and opportunities that are ‘just right.’

This is where PR professionals show their worth. Identifying the most appropriate and achievable opportunities and going after them. They may even land upon trends and areas which are completely untapped by you or your competitors, which would not have been discovered were it not for that share of voice analysis.

When it comes to ranking sentiment within your share of voice, there are three options: positive, negative and neutral.

Your business may have the largest share of voice within your industry and competitor set, but if three quarters of that coverage is overwhelmingly negative in sentiment, that really isn’t a good position.

Your competitors will gladly let you have the lion’s share of the media if it is to the detriment of your business. People will say all publicity is good publicity. Anyone who works in PR knows that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Negative publicity can be destructive, professionally and personally. Because of this, assessing the sentiment of coverage is critical to the wider assessment and strategy around profile and brand building.

While many third-party tools will claim to rank sentiment through automation, this really ought not be relied upon. Much of sentiment analysis lies deep in context of the wider piece. Automated services are programmed to pick out keywords which the programming deems as negative, cutting out all context and subtext.

While it is more time consuming, a manual approach is ultimately far more effective in gauging sentiment in share of voice.

If your coverage reports are filled with fleeting mentions within titles which are in no way relevant to your business, then really there is no value to having a high percentage share of voice, as the quality and relevance will be sorely lacking.

One well-written, topical, favourable piece of coverage in a title which is relevant to your industry is far more valuable than 50 low value mentions in irrelevant titles.

Where traditional media mentions can be seen through the filter of layers of editorial process, social media is raw and unfiltered. It might be hard to read, but often social media mentions offer the most useful insights

Whether you’re looking through the comments sections, your direct mentions or replies, social media networks are where we will find the true views on your brand.

A social media platform doesn’t have to conform to the same standards as a traditional media platform. This lends itself to being a source of, often unbridled, truth.

What is the first thing you do when you’re trying to find out more about a business?

A Google search is now the first thing any stakeholder does. That could be a potential customer, team member or even a detractor to your business.

The annals of the internet are infinite, as such anyone can unearth anything about you and your business. If negative information is coming up on page one of Google’s search results about your business then that’s not a great position to be in.

It should be added that this isn’t specifically linked to having the best media profile. We must now consider the whole picture and Google search and social media are now crucial tools and resources for businesses in the reputation building game.

Consider if you will, a potential candidate searches for your business and finds a litany of negative reviews on Glassdoor. Through share of voice activation you can assess the issues which may be causing this and remedy the situation in the long term.

Here are examples of the average price paid for a 30 sec TV advert on UK TV networks.

Good Morning Britain ads cost around £3,000 – £4,000. Daytime slots on ITV are between £3,500 to £4,500 and peak time slots can cost from £10,000 to £33,000.

ITV is a great place to show your adverts. Shows such as Good Morning Britain offer one of the best commercial opportunities in the UK. Whether you’re planning a massive TV nationwide advertising campaign or trying to target a region, ITV advert slots can be purchased flexibly. ITV also has a range of family of channels which help campaigns hit specific demographics.

A typical 30-second slot on daytime Channel 4 can cost between £1,000 to £2,000 peak. Rates for a popular show such as Hollyoaks is around £10,000 to £20,000.

Channel 5 is a less expensive option with a slot in the daytime usually costing around £800 to £1,600. Peak time ad breaks can be had for £2,500 to £4,500 for shows like Big Brother.

The cost for advertising on Sky is lower than ITV. An ad slot in daytime shows on Sky costs around £150 to £250. Advertising during the peak time costs about £600 to £1,200. Sky Adsmart allows advertisers to target their ads to a select group of viewers.

Other digital channels outside of the Sky family can also be a great place to advertise your brand: Rates for smaller digital channels can be as little as £50 to £150 for day time up to £150 to £300 for peak time. If you know your audience is watching those channels then it’s a good option for a small budget.

You find our more at our TV advertising agency and discuss how to go about advertising on TV.

We are delighted to have won the Best Use of Search B2B and Most Innovative PPC Campaign at the UK Search Awards 2022 UK.

The UK Search Awards took place at the Bloomsbury Big Top in London this month, November 30. The evening is the premiere annual event for the digital industry in the UK, celebrating the best of SEO, PPC and content marketing across the country.

The two awards were in recognition of our work driving global revenue for an ISO consultancy firm based in the UK. It follows hot on the heels of Launch winning PPC Campaign of the Year for the same client at the UK Agency Awards in October.

The judges said: “The Launch campaign had a great innovative approach with value-based bidding. They had clear, ambitious targets which were all achieved. Overall, an impressive and successful campaign.”

Jaye Cowle, Founder and Managing Director of Launch, was delighted with the award: “Our mission is to be the happiest performance agency. I believe that happy people do great work, and by empowering our team to do their best, we continue to get impressive results for our clients.”

As 2022 draws to a close we’re delighted to be ending the year with top-line growth of +40%. We’ve welcomed major new clients and projects including, Bristol Innovations, Loughborough School of Business & Economics, premium plant-based nutrition brand Vivo Life, Made Smarter Innovation, Medi-Tech innovator Radii Devices and law firm TLT.

We moved to a new home in Engine Shed in March, the natural location for our focus on scaling innovative organisations. From here we continue to support leadership teams in this enterprising region which recorded an investment flow of £1.1bn in 2021 – putting it into the top 20 in Europe.

Moving into 2023, we’ll continue to work alongside The University of Bristol, developing its commercial quantum offering, The Enterprise Sessions and other projects.

And our ongoing relationship with Vittoria, the world’s most advanced bicycle tyre company, has also flourished and we’ll continue to support the leadership team on global brand development. Notable achievements this year include supporting the launch of the 5-hectare Vittoria Park next to the brand’s HQ in Brembate Italy and advertising projects including the benchmark-busting OWN THE UNKNOWN campaign which brought about a collaboration with the Velosolutions team and percussionist Ian Chang.

We also captured the spirit of the brand for internal and external audiences with their Manifesto film.

“It’s been a fantastic year for Firehaus. We’ve worked with some inspirational people throughout 2022 who have maintained a visionary approach to the role of their organisation – even in these difficult times. Each of them is changing the world for the better and it’s great supporting them in that endeavour. We’re super-excited about what’s to come!”
Ian Bates – Founder and Creative Partner

saintnicks have promoted Finance Director Chris Price to company co-director, alongside Fraser Bradshaw and Steve Davies, as the company approaches its 10-year anniversary.

CEO, Fraser Bradshaw, said that “Chris will continue to oversee all company finance but also moves into a broader commercial role, including corporate governance and partnerships, as we expand the business.”

The move comes following a successful period for the company; with new business wins including Admiral, Akkodis and Ascot, and 9 new hires across all areas of the business.

Bradshaw added “Chris has been integral to our success over the last 4 years, always acting in the best interest of the agency, and joining us in making some of the more progressive decisions along the way. His experience and desire to grow the commercial side of the business will be invaluable moving forward”.

saintnicks is a brand agency with a strong reputation for its integrated strategy and creative campaigns, with offices in Bristol and London. The agency prides itself on being as commercial as they are creative, for their client partners. With a leadership team from client side and network agencies, the agency delivers huge expertise from an expert team. Recognised as a UK Great Place to Work this year and with B-Corp pending, the business believes in being a force for good.

Price, who has been at the agency for 4 years, has previously held the position of Group Financial Controller at Jones Knowles Ritchie, as well as spending 5 years across the WPP group finances with MEC and Grey.

Speaking about the new role, Price said “I’m delighted to join Steve and Fraser as a co-director of saintnicks. I‘ve felt a close connection to the guys since joining in 2018, and have seen a lot of changes in that time. We’ve got an incredibly strong team and brilliant clients; I’m very excited to continue working alongside them to help us go further”.

Natalie Howells, Armadillo’s Senior Conceptual Copywriter, recently spoke to Little Black Book about being creative within constraints, opportunities to make customers feel loved and why they don’t mind helpful use of their data.

LBB: What’s the number one question that clients are coming to you with when it comes to how they can better use data to enhance the creativity of their content and experiences?

Natalie: How to use data to enable connected, relevant customer experiences across channels and throughout the funnel. And how to use that data in a creative and compelling way to enhance the brand experience.

LBB: How can you make sure that data is elevating creative rather than forming a windtunnel effect and knocking all the interesting or unique edges off that make something distinctive?

Natalie: This is one of the areas I’m especially passionate about. I know some creatives worry that the data will create homogeneity and pull us away from the more interesting and unique parts of creativity. I disagree.

Data will absolutely give us a direction, but so will plenty of other things – clients will have a direction they want to follow, and laws and regulations impose barriers to what we can and can’t do. So, we should all be used to being creative within some constraints. But, more importantly, data doesn’t actually constrain us – if we’re clever in how we use it, it can spark new ideas, breathe life into old ones, and validate approaches we may not have been able to try before. It’s up to us as creatives to let the data inspire us rather than discourage us.

LBB: Can you share with us any examples of projects you’ve worked on where the data really helped boost the creative output in a really exciting way?

Natalie: We created an anniversary campaign for McDonald’s, where app-users would receive a personalised email celebrating their use of the app for the prior 12 months. We used data to identify the times of day that people preferred to order, the channels they used the most, and their most popular menu item.

Then we presented this is an interactive email where the user could expand content panels to find out how their results compared to the rest of the UK. An individual might receive an email dubbing them a ‘Night owl orderer’ and a ‘Drive-thru and thru-er’, along with an offer and personalised menu suggestions.

LBB: More brands are working to create their own first party data practice – how can a brand figure out whether that’s something that is relevant or important for their business?

Natalie: I think the question is ‘what brand wouldn’t want a first party data practice’? It’s relevant to everyone. Think about it – if you could create an audience of your most engaged and most valuable customers, what could you do with it?

First party data gives us an audience that have explicitly indicated their interest in a brand. The data gives us opportunities to make those customers feel loved and appreciated. It enables us to make media, across all areas, more focused and efficient. And it helps us develop relationships by giving real value to our customers.

LBB: We talk about data driving creativity, but what are your thoughts about approaching the use of data in a creative way?

Natalie: I think the possibilities are endless. One of my favourite books is Information is Beautiful, which presents data in visually stunning ways. It takes raw data and presents it in a way that is not only easy to understand, but is designed with a clever nod to what the data represents. Spotify uses its listener data in really fun ways – some of its billboard campaigns over the years have taken data and used it not only to create entertaining copy, but also create some personalisation even in a broad public setting. It’s not just about graphs and charts – data can create incredibly compelling stories.

LBB: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” – how can brands and creative make sure that they’re really seeing what they think they’re seeing (or want to see) in the data, or that they’re not misusing data?

Natalie: One way to have faith in the data is to continually test it. In fact, it’s one of the things that we at Armadillo have a whole workstream covering. We test our assumptions constantly, and often find the data comes out differently than we predicted. The more you experience that, the less likely you are to see what you’re looking for rather than what’s there. Plus, it adds the fun of trying to figure out what’s really going on and why your assumptions were wrong. Another key thing is to start with the data or at least start with a question, rather than trying to find data that supports an idea you want to pursue. That way, you’re looking for an answer that will tell you whether that idea works or not, or using data to spark an idea, rather than misusing the data to your own ends.

LBB: What are your thoughts about trust in data – to what extent is uncertainty and a lack of trust in data (or data sources) an issue and what are your thoughts on that?

Natalie: One of the great things for us about working in CRM is that our audience is made up of people who have opted to give us their data. The important thing after that is treating their data with security and respect. If data is misused or used in ways not agreed, then of course consumers will lose trust (as they should).

Appropriate data governance is vital – as is delivering on the promise you gave when you were granted access to that data in the first place. There’s a value exchange at play, and it’s absolutely imperative that any brands meets the expectations of that exchange to ensure consumers don’t lose trust.

LBB: With so many different regulatory systems in different markets regarding data and privacy around the world – as well as different cultural views about privacy – what’s the key to creating a joined up data strategy at a global level that’s also adaptable to local nuances?

Natalie: The key here is doing nothing in isolation. Most companies need an infrastructure that is joined up, but we have to always keep in mind that one size fits one, not all. Starting with a minimum viable product that works broadly, allows you to then use local experts indifferent markets to adapt that starting point to the needs of each activation market. Localisation is essential and working with local experts is key to getting it right. Never assume anything.

LBB: What does a responsible data practice look like?

Natalie: Secure, transparent, fair, ethical. The core of any data practice is security – best in class security systems from a technological point of view, and excellent data management from a personnel perspective. People should only have access to the data they need and nothing extra. Transparency is crucial, especially when consumers are rightly concerned about what is being done with their data. An easy to find and easy to read data or privacy policy is really important part of this.

LBB: In your view, what’s the biggest misconception people have around the use of data in marketing?

Natalie: That people hate their data being used at all.

There’s a line between being helpful and being intrusive, and when marketing uses data well, consumers aren’t against it as many think. If a consumer is interested in something on an ecommerce website and gets a discount code for that item, that’s using their data in a way that benefits them. People don’t hate that. What they hate is their data being sold to other companies, being spammed with irrelevant communications, and feeling like a commodity. The trick is in finding that balance. As I’ve mentioned, it’s about a value exchange. If someone gives you valuable data – like their email address or buying habits – they expect something equally valuable in return.

LBB: In terms of live issues in the field, what are the debates or developments that we should be paying attention to right now?

Natalie: The ongoing developments in regulations, particularly around privacy. Given that they’re continually changing, understanding what consent means at any given time is a development that needs to be monitored constantly. We know that passive opt in and implied consent are no longer enough, and that ‘legitimate interest’ is constantly being tested. Keeping up with these developments is vital, and each change to the regulations makes it clear that it’s becoming more and more important to have first party data.

Article first published on 21/10/22 by Little Black Book.

Henderson’s Relish is a Sheffield institution. A spicy table sauce made to a secret family recipe that adds spice and savour to any dish.

The brand wanted more people to discover their fantastic taste and try Henderson’s instead of perhaps another ‘well-known’ table sauce.

To do this, we set out to de-risk the purchase with on pack ‘Love It, or your money back’ activation. This presents shoppers with an additional, motivating reason to consider trying Henderson’s Relish by removing barriers to purchase. If they don’t love the product then they have the option to claim their money back by visiting loveithendersonsrelish.com and uploading their receipt as proof of purchase.

The attention-grabbing collar design is bright and vibrant with simple but impactful messaging of ‘Love it or your money back’’ to catch the eye of the shoppers.

The ‘Love it or your money back’ promotion is across their Original Henderson’s Relish product and is live in stores until 31st March 2024 so keep your eyes peeled and give this spicy table sauce a chance!