JMPUK take on their biggest kit campaign yet, working with the RFU and Umbro to launch the new season England Rugby Kit for both men and women.
We were delighted to embark on one of our largest projects yet, working alongside Marketing and Brand experience agency, CSM, to introduce England Rugby’s kit in an atmospheric “It’s Time” digital campaign.
As a creative content and communications agency working largely within the sporting sector, we have worked closely with the RFU, the EFL and other major sporting bodies and clubs on a range of video and photo campaigns.
More recently, we were delighted to begin a relationship with Umbro – one of the leading sports brands of today. After having previously worked with the well-known sporting brand on various stills campaigns for the Bristol Bears kit launch and a Umbro fan wear shoot, we were recommended by Umbro to CSM, a creative agency the brand work with on a range of their campaigns, to help deliver on the production side of things of the hugely-anticipated launch of the England Rugby kit.
As Callum, Senior Communications Manager at CMS explains:
“We were recommended by Umbro for JMP’s work on last year’s supporter lifestyle campaign. They have recognised the expertise that JMP have got. We had also worked with JMP on the launch of the Ospreys Umbro kit launch, and we really wanted to tie in the ‘It’s Time’ narrative.
“Having a production crew, videographers, and photographers who understood the campaign and were able to roll it out over a number of different campaign touchpoints was really beneficial. JMP had experience of shooting Umbro in the past through a number of supporter campaigns through England rugby, so it felt natural to continue that cycle with them.
The “It’s Time” campaign was created and scripted by the talented team over as CSM, with the crew at JMPUK onboard to help bring this to life via photography and video production.
“‘It’s Time’ focuses on the performance and preparation that athletes undergo leading up to a matchday. It really focuses on the final hours, minutes, and seconds before they go onto the field and perform for 80 minutes,” explains Callum.
“But lots of work has gone in behind the scenes through photographers, and videographers at JMP, everybody at Umbro, all of us at CSM, and I’m just hugely excited to see and see all the assets and the artwork around Twickenham Stadium, across social media, and on publications as well.”
The shoot was spread over two days, located at Twickenham Stadium. The aim? To capture video and photography content to promote the England Rugby Home Kit, the England Rugby Alternative Kit, and the England Rugby Training Kit, for both men and women. What’s pretty special was that a first for the professional era, the Red Roses’ team kit was bespoke to the women’s team.
The location provided a brilliant backdrop for the campaign stills and video, with the use of natural light and the industrial feel of the metal gates, creating a truly atmospheric visual.
The stills were led by the talented photography arm of the business – JMP Sport – with Rogan Thomson, Robbie Stephenson and Ryan Hiscott and Creative Director, Joe Meredith, playing a crucial role in delivering the launch campaign. You can check out the case study containing more detail on the photography shoot here.
When it came to the video campaign, we went for the same mood as the campaign stills, located at the concourse of Twickenham Stadium.
The video edits for the alternative and training kit was led by JMPUK’s Head of Post Production, Rob Latham, and edits by JMPUK’s newest recruit, Molly York – who, just two weeks into the new role, has truly wowed us with her talent and skill. Find out more about the video shoot here.
The shoot wasn’t without its challenges – Covid restrictions alongside player availability and kit confidentiality meant that we had to plan the shoot schedule down to the T to ensure smooth sailing.
Jason Fairclough, Marketing Director at Umbro UK explains,
“These shoots are very challenging at the best of times. It’s a very unusual time at the minute with all the COVID restrictions. Working with JMP last year on a few projects, they seemed to be able navigate their way around a lot of the issues thrown up by COVID.
“They did exactly the same with the latest RFU shoot. It’s an incredibly modular shoot, there are so many moving parts, so many people to consider, so many organisations to consider. You don’t just have the RFU to consider, you also have to consider the protocols from all the clubs that loan their players to the RFU.
“It can be a logistical nightmare. As a team, we seem to have managed to navigate our way through all of that. JMP have played an enormous part in that.”
In relation to kit, we shot on a gimble, shooting on the DJI Ronin 2, Sony fx9 and sigma art lens on camera 1 and the fx6 with a 200 m on the 2nd camera, utilising a longer lens to ensure we were able to abide by a two-metre distance between the crew and talent at all times – while still capturing the intimate detail of the kit, the players and it’s environment. Different stations for video, studio portraits and campaign stills were also organised.
Hats off to the heroic Callum Shephard at CSM for captaining the ship when it came to ensuring everyone was in the right place at the right time, which was essential given the small window of time we had.
Overall, we are incredibly proud of the final assets produced by the team, helping in the delivery of an impactful campaign to mark the launch of a stunning product. What, perhaps, makes it even more special is that in our 10th year of trading as an agency, we have produced one of our best projects yet – one in which the OG’s of the JMP team who have been with us since inception (Joe, Rogan, Dougie, Alex and Rob) all come together to produce something spectacular for one of the biggest players in the sporting sphere.
“It’s a high profile project, one we are all very excited to be involved in. It shows how far we’ve come as a business to even be considered to produce a campaign for Umbro / The RFU. It was really quite challenging circumstances at times, but the team we’ve got managed to turn everything around and create some incredible content. It’s been incredible.” – Joe Meredith, Managing Director at JMP UK
Check out the full case study with photos and video here.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of brands demonstrating their social stance. And today, these brands are choosing to buy their media from a diverse range of creators and ethical sources.
However, businesses are under pressure to show they are a brand of integrity and fear their advertisements might feature next to other content that could be detrimental to their reputation.
Brand integrity is of the utmost importance. 54% of consumers said they would think negatively of a brand that runs ads alongside content designed by others whose morals don’t align with theirs.
You can see why brand safety is such a hot topic in marketing, and this is especially apparent in the programmatic world.
If you’re unsure of what brand safety includes, it essentially encompasses all the measures advertisers implement to protect their brand from the potential backlash they could face by running ads next to harmful content.
Over-blocking content can actually be doing more harm than good. A vast majority of businesses still adopt a cut-throat approach when it comes to protecting their brand’s reputation.
However, this overprotective approach has led to a great proportion of content being excluded, even when it’s safe and suitable for your brand. We’ve seen this happen in many negative keyword lists and blocklists.
Industry-standard blocklists contain a vast array of terms related to race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. So, it’s clear to see that…
“Industry standard advertising practices [are] unfairly penalizing content creators within various groups, including the LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and API communities, as well as content relating to important aspects of the human experience, including social issues, mental health and wellness, and identity.”
[Taken from Channel Factory, Conscious Project, 2021]
In 2019, CHEQ’s ‘How Keyword Blacklists are Killing Reach and Monetization’ report looked at what type of content has been excluded from an industry-standard blacklist of 2000 keywords.
The report found that 57% of articles that were safe, were incorrectly flagged and blocked from serving ads. This was taking place because brands had been using overprotective negative keyword lists and blocklists.
These lists are incredibly harmful to creators and publishers, as they are unable to monetise their own content.
Other statistics the CHEQ study uncovered included:
Most companies do not update blocklists regularly, which is why a great deal of suitable content is deemed harmful.
Times are changing and have been changing quite drastically over the past few years. Our lists of negative keywords may have been necessary in 2017, but today they could be absolutely pointless.
Unfortunately, these outdated blocklists are harming marginalised communities across the globe, which is unfair, to say the least.
And this is a problem that needs urgent attention from our industry.
This overwhelming fear has led brands into the trap of unethical exclusion. What we mean by this is that brands and agencies are blocking all content related to marginalised groups and communities.
Therefore, content related to gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, social issues, identity (to name a few) should be monetised.
Positioning yourself in the market as a diverse and inclusive business has never been more important. Today, 60% of consumers prefer to associate themselves with companies that actively show they are committed to creating an online experience that is inclusive for all.
Of course, it’s important to focus our attention on brand safety. But as an industry, we need to think of new ways to implement brand safety without excluding creators based on their sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity.
This new approach needs to be one that can monetise positive content, which will, in turn, benefit the wider society.
Your blocklists and negative keywords need to be tailored to your brand and checked frequently. Don’t just keep adding new words, remove the unnecessary ones.
It’s always worth checking over your brand safety processes. You can then remodel a new brand strategy that encourages inclusivity.
You should always search for and connect with brands and creators that share your values. Once you have added them to your whitelist, they can assist in the monetisation of positive and inclusive content.
Working with a third-party brand safety and brand suitability partner can help with your brand safety measures. These third-party partners usually opt for human input, which ensures content is categorised with diversity in mind.
As an industry, we need to get embrace the needed changes to brand safety measures to ensure we are not excluding words, phrases, or languages that could exclude minority groups.
All voices should be represented in your content, not just a select few. By monetising your content, you can create new and improved content, which highlights diverse and marginalised communities.
It’s time you move forward with your approaches to brand safety because when you do, you will be actively creating an online world that promotes positivity and inclusivity.
Aardman Animations is the latest brand to join the speaker line up at the Digital Gaggle conference, taking place at Bristol’s Watershed Cinema on Thursday 28th October.
Gavin Strange, Director & Designer at Aardman Animations, will kickstart the conference with his session titled ‘Trying To Get Ahead Before We Get A Headstone’.
In this GIF-filled talk, Gavin will share his tips for finding the time, inspiration and energy for creativity. He’ll also move around quite vigorously and gesticulate wildly the whole time. It’ll be loud, silly and hopefully energising.
Gavin joins an already stellar lineup with speakers from brands including LinkedIn and Caring in Bristol on the bill for the digital marketing event.
This is the 12th Digital Gaggle conference, organised by digital marketing agency Noisy Little Monkey and supported by t&s creative communications, Somerset Design, and Launch Online.
The purpose of the event is to provide professional marketers with the skills and inspiration they need to improve their digital marketing strategy; fueling them with the knowledge and creative fire to make sure that their online activity has an impact on the bottom line of their business.
Sessions at the next event will cover a variety of topics, including: content strategy, SEO, crisis comms, conversion rate optimisation and creativity. The content of the talks at Digital Gaggle are best suited for marketers working in B2B, Professional Services or eCommerce industries. But all are welcome!
The conference is being run both in-person and online and ticket prices vary depending on how you choose to experience the event.
For more information about the conference and talks, visit the link below.
https://www.digitalgaggle.co.uk/conference/digital-gaggle-october-2021/
JonesMillbank, Bristol-based video production company, have been appointed by VisitBritain/VisitEngland to their marketing production services framework.
The multi-supplier framework is made of 190 creatives across 8 lots spanning disciplines such as research, photography, editing, casting, styling, illustration and copywriting.
JonesMillbank are one of 15 suppliers appointed as video production professionals, requiring a proven experience of managing small to large scale video briefs that require a detailed level of planning, casting, producing and production.
The framework will be an enabler of VisitBritain/VisitEngland’s strategy to “make tourism one of the most successful and productive sectors for the UK economy.”
“Like many video production companies we’re passionate about travel and tourism, not just because it’s a privilege to travel with our work, but because of the real impact and influence our films can have on destinations and their audiences” said Russell Jones, Co-Founder at JonesMillbank.
“We already travel across the UK with our work – we’ve literally filmed in all four corners – and so to be appointed by VisitBritain/VisitEngland as one of a select few video production companies is a fantastic opportunity to show off what the UK has to offer to a global audience, particularly as a rebound following COVID-19.”
Running for an initial period of 1-4 years, the framework will be accessed by VisitBritain/VisitEngland staff and partners, and follows JonesMillbank’s work with VisitBristol and other independent travel brands.
***
JonesMillbank are a passionate full-service video production company
They work exclusively in-house with a talented team of multi-disciplined creatives, all the while telling authentic stories long before it was cool for a range of clients such as University of Bristol, Battersea, The Royal Mint and IDLES.
jonesmillbank.com
01173706372
[email protected]
The internet should be accessible for everyone. Sadly, this is not the case.
Globally, around 500,000 new websites are built every day. However, a huge 70% of all these websites do not meet the basic WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
Today, there are one billion disabled people around the world – 15% of the global population.
This means that a huge proportion of the world wide web is inaccessible to millions of users who have visual, hearing, motor and/or cognitive impairments.
When in the production stage, website designers and agencies might also have to start considering another growing demographic – the aging population.
Loss of sight, fine motor skills and cognitive function can all greatly impact how well the older generation can interact with a website.
It can be incredibly tempting to create websites with unique layouts, personalised fonts and flashy graphics, but doing so means excluding thousands of potential customers.
Taking ethics out of the equation, there are two major benefits to creating an accessible website.
First, creating an accessible website will shine a positive light on your brand’s identity and firmly position yourself as a trustworthy company.
From an economic standpoint, brands that take the time to create accessible websites are the ones that are profiting.
Take the U.S, for example. Around 54 million people are living with some form of disability according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
This community alone represents approximately $1 trillion in aggregate income, which translates into more than $220 billion in discretionary consumer spending power!
There’s a great deal of misconception around the difficulty of designing an accessible website.
With a few alterations, creating a disability-friendly website can be simple. Here are 6 tips for designing a website that’s accessible to all.
This is often overlooked by designers, but it’s so important to ask people with disabilities to try out your website. If you understand your users’ needs, you can design a functional website with minimal issues.
You should also include people with disabilities on your marketing team, as they will be able to tell you first-hand what hurdles they run into when navigating websites. With this information, you can eliminate these obstacles before it goes live.
Siteimprove is a great online tool that allows you to check the accessibility of your website.
At Adapt, we have used it to locate and rework website features that are deemed inaccessible. Websites are scored with an A, AA, or AAA ratings, with AAA being the highest score. Most digital marketers aspire to have an AA rating.
Using Serif fonts or your own branded fonts can cause a lot of problems for people with dyslexia or visual impairments.
You should try to use Sans Serif fonts where you can as these fonts are much clearer and stand out on most images and coloured backgrounds.
The size of the font is also incredibly important. You should opt for a minimum size of 16 pixels for a Serif font and 14 for a Sans Serif font for easy readability.
To check if your choice of font is meeting the mark, try downloading the WhatFont browser extension.
Most websites that include pictures will use alt tags.
Alt tags are the words you see when you hover your mouse over a picture. They are extremely helpful to those using screen readers.
These tags would be a great addition to your website as you can add detailed descriptions to all your pictures. However, when writing these descriptions, you need to keep them concise.
Adding subtitles to your videos is essential, as they are extremely helpful for people with hearing disabilities or those with ADHD.
Some online platforms like YouTube are programmed with software that adds subtitles automatically. However, if you are producing your own videos, it’s important to take the time to create subtitles.
You should also consider writing transcripts and captioning for your videos, which covers all bases.
On most websites, you’ll notice a great proportion of them use the “click here” button to help you navigate to other pages. While this seems like an effective navigation system, this short description makes life incredibly difficult for those using screen readers.
For those who may not have used screen readers before, these programs scan your website for links to help users with visual impairments navigate around your website.
Short, generalised navigation links are difficult for screen readers to process. So, your users may get stuck on one page of your website, which is not good!
Instead of opting for the standardised “click here” link button, it’s worth writing a descriptive link. This will allow the screen reader to process what you’ve written and will allow the user to understand the content of your pages with ease.
For example, it’s better to write “to learn more about our job opportunities, check out Adapt’s careers page”, instead of “to learn about our job opportunities, click here”.
To help your web links stand out for those with visual impairments, underline them and add colour contrast.
The size and range of your links are incredibly important. Ensure the font of the link is a larger size and has a wide range, as this will be helpful for those with mobility difficulties.
Many people are unable to use a keyboard or mouse to trawl through the web, and instead use speech recognition software, screen readers, head wands, adaptive keyboards and trackball mouses.
These inventions are a great resource to those with visual, hearing or mobility impairments, but they will not work if your website fails to support them.
To ensure your website is easy to navigate for all, program your website to be keyboard-friendly. Adding visual indicators on tabs allows users to know their location on each landing page.
If you have a page that has a lot of content, it’s best to divide it into smaller sections, and the easiest way to do this is to create jump lists.
Another design aspect you need to think about is video. For those of you who already have or are considering adding videos to your website, you need to ensure they don’t play automatically as this can make life difficult for your people using screen readers.
Everyone deserves an easy user experience, and right now we are not doing enough to ensure our websites are accessible.
Taking the steps towards reworking the design of your website can seem challenging at first. But by following these 6 easy steps, you’ll have an accessible website up and running in no time.
What is inclusive marketing?
Inclusive marketing happens when companies represent the diverse communities they’re serving. It’s simple, really. When you speak to all your target audience, you aren’t just “doing your bit,” you’re boosting your business. Extending your reach and more customers will buy. And your ROI? You better believe that’s going right up.
Not convinced?
Here are just a few stats that show why inclusive marketing deserves your attention:
Remember that all-important Millennial market? 77 per cent of them favour brands that are inclusive
The LGBTQIA market spends £6 billion a year and are willing to switch to more inclusive brands
Consumers from ethnically diverse communities in the UK have £300 billion a year to spend and rising.
Find out more about inclusive marketing on our blog
The workplace is rapidly changing, but workplace practices, norms, infrastructure and management is struggling to catch up. Digital transformation is estimated to be worth over $400 bn in 2021 and is projected to continue to grow by 25% year-on-year.
This rapid change has left businesses in disarray. Is their digital infrastructure prepared? Which employees are struggling to work digitally? Whose remit does this transformation fall under – the CHRO’s, the CIO’s, or the CEO’s?
Enter Actual Experience.
Luckily for all of us, the Actual Experience (AE) team saw this digital mega trend approaching a decade ago. Having built their business on 10 years’ worth of academic research, they’ve engineered a comprehensive patented algorithm which, minute-by-minute, captures and analyses the real-world, human perception of digital applications and services.
In other words, they help businesses ensure that the digital tools, systems and platforms they’ve invested millions in are actually making work easier for employees, and providing a better experience for their customers.
Currently, many businesses use tools such as employee and customer surveys to find out the answers to those questions. But there’s a problem: employee and customer surveys are subjective and are often inaccurate or inconclusive. But when used in conjunction with Actual Experience’s algorithm, it is possible to glean objective, actionable insights from survey data.
ActualExperience’s Human Experience score provides businesses with an objective analysis showing which specific employees are struggling, and with which specific aspects of their digital infrastructure, so they can focus their time and resources on these issues – and keep up with the ever-shifting digital curve.
So, following on from a successful Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaign and digital brochure, AE were keen to put their money where their mouth is, and upgrade their own digital offering to reflect their progressive business.
The AE team approached us to upgrade their website from Hubspot to Webflow: a no-code flexible website solution that doesn’t require complicated set-ups.
Our first step was for Actual Experience to take us through a thorough wish list. Here, we put together a full feature list, created high-fidelity wireframes and new digital design styles using their updated brand guidelines.
This process meant that when we transitioned the website over to Webflow, both parties had a very clear picture of what it would look like and how it would function. So we could push for tight deadlines in line with AE’s objectives without having to go back and forth to check small details at every stage.
One of the highlights of the website is the design-led navigation that adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes including phone, tablet and various desktop sizes. This was quick and easy to build with Webflow’s online visual editor. This platform is the perfect application for creating visually stunning, easy to use designs that don’t require massive amounts of coding, which AE in this instance, didn’t.
The navigation is not only designed to draw the user in, but allows different audiences to access different content that suits them. For instance, a HR professional will seek different information to IT professionals.
In the end, we created a future-proofed, design-led website under a demanding timescale, migrating 200+ content types seamlessly from Hubspot to Webflow. Check out the full AE case study here, along with the all-important, client feedback.
To find out more about Webflow, and our other digital design services, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
Develop your narrative skills and write rich, engaging games.
A strong story is key to engaging and retaining players in video games. Held over 7 weeks, this online course teaches the story-structure essentials that will help you craft richer and more compelling games.
This is a professional development course for anyone who works – or aspires to work – in the gaming industry as well as writers and designers seeking to develop their interactive storytelling skills.
The course has been created by the UK’s foremost expert on narrative structure John Yorke and Caroline Marchal, founder of British studio INTERIOR/NIGHT and Lead Designer for Heavy Rain.
In this training course, you’ll investigate the relationship between player and protagonist, discover how to merge story and gameplay, and find ways to use those skills in a real-world development team. Working in a small group, you’ll receive weekly one-to-one feedback from the tutor team.
By the end of the course you’ll have written an industry-standard story treatment for an original game.
On successful completion of the course, you will receive a certificate of completion evidencing your learning and study hours. You will need to set aside 4-5 hours per week to complete the assignments.
Read a review of the course on Polygon.
Exclusive 25% discount on the £1,200 published course price. Just £900 to Bristol Creative Industries members for 35 hours of intensive learning.
MORE INFORMATION HERE or email [email protected]
In our previous blog, we explored a joint report from LinkedIn and the B2B Institute, ‘5 principles of Growth in B2B Marketing’ to find out how businesses make their purchasing decisions.
In the second part of this series, we’re exploring the case for brand memorability – or mental availability – and why you should consider a route to B2B fame.
Expanding your customer base
Acquiring new customers is expensive.
Many B2B companies believe increasing loyalty is the most profitable way to grow their businesses. Others focus on acquisition strategies, targeting new key accounts they want to penetrate.
The jointly commissioned report ‘5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing’ by LinkedIn and the B2B Institute shows that campaigns which talk to both new and existing customers – also known as reach strategies – are the most effective.
In fact, the report’s data reveals that those relying on a loyalty strategy alone showed a zero-success rate. Loyalty tends to be a side-effect of market share, and brands with a high penetration tend to have better loyalty rates.
Please see original article for picture: https://www.proctors.co.uk/knowledge-hub/b2b-marketing-masterclass-part-2
So that’s the science behind B2B decision making. But is it rational or emotional? The answer, according to psychologists, is that we’re all human. and our thought processes follow the same basic patterns.
One of these is our tendency to use mental shortcuts to reach a decision. NobelPrize winner, Daniel Kahneman, famously put it this way:
“Human beings are to independent thinking as cats are to swimming. They can do it, but they prefer not to. The brain is largely a machine for jumping to conclusions.”
Essentially, when presented with choices, or asked a question, we usually prefer to select the answer which comes to mind easiest. You may have experienced this yourself when put on the spot. Psychologists call this ‘mental availability’.
For brands, ‘mental availability’ has two levels.
The first level is awareness.
Your brand will have lodged in your customers’ memories, and they’ll recognise your name.
However, awareness will only get you so far, and the most you can expect is to be shortlisted from the long list of potential choices. To reach the top of your customer’s mental availability, your brand will need to level up.
The second level is fame.
Take IBM, for example.
Everyone knows their name, and I probably don’t need to remind you of their famous line: Nobody got fired for hiring IBM. This single creative line was repeated over and over again, forming an emotional connection that made it easy to make the choice. Long after they campaigned it, we still remember it, talk about it, share it.
And here’s the data which proves the point.
Please see original article for picture: https://www.proctors.co.uk/knowledge-hub/b2b-marketing-masterclass-part-2
Success isn’t a contest between lead generation and brand in B2B marketing. We can see that winning B2B companies apply both in their marketing mix. But if your Sales Director still isn’t convinced by the data, perhaps this story will help.
You’ve successfully launched your lead generation campaign. In fact, it’s been so successful that your sales team have followed up with an excellent meeting with Key Prospect Biz. Your salespeople do a great job of pitching the benefits of what you offer, and your brand makes it to the Key Prospect Biz’s shortlisting stage.
But now, your salespeople have left, and things go quiet. Key Prospect Biz’s decision goes to committee, and you’re not in the room to influence the conversation.
It’s been a while since your guys’ presentation, and human memory is short. This isn’t the final stage, but you know it’s more than likely they’ll use the easiest route to jump to their conclusions. This is where brand awareness will likely drive their mental availability and get you on the shortlist. Great news!
Now it’s a three-horse race. You’re each invited to pitch to a panel of C-suite decision-makers and the influencers who got you this far.
There may be an upstart challenger brand in the running for comparison, but the other two will be recognised brand names.
Now no-one doubts your abilities to work the room as a great salesperson. But it’s a fair bet that the famous brand amongst the pack will already have had an impact on the C-suite. In fact, they’ve probably already jumped to a conclusion before you enter the room.
So, which of the three would you rather be?
Ah yes, your Sales Director says, but our ABM campaigns have made sure that everyone in the room knows who we are and what we stand for.
True. ABM is by far the most effective B2B sales activation tool in your armoury, and a good campaign will have got you this far. But it won’t have made you famous.
Fame takes time to grow. The famous brand will have been imprinted in the minds of those executives consistently over and over again. Talked about with colleagues. Acknowledged as leaders in their sector. Collectively famous for what makes them great.
It will have made them the first name that springs to mind.
Your sales director still doesn’t buy it? OK, here’s a final question for them. Why is it that when successful salespeople move jobs, they’re usually tempted to work for bigger brands to advance their career?
If you’re still not getting anywhere, maybe it’s time you thought about moving jobs to a bigger brand yourself! (Only kidding.)
If you’d like to talk about supercharging your brand strategy with the latest industry data, or to discuss your creative marketing requirements, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
Using a content agency for your case studies can make your life a lot easier. If you get it right, this hard-working and authentic bit of comms will become a secret weapon for winning new customers. But no matter how eloquently expressed and beautifully packaged they are, a case study is nothing without customer buy-in. What could’ve been an invaluable marketing tool can become a resource-draining flop if you fail to get customer approval or ongoing engagement.
Here’s how engaging your customers could be the key to your case study success.
Hubspot calls the case study “one of the most powerful strategies for showcasing your marketing skills and attracting future customers”. However, an inauthentic case study that overstates your involvement isn’t going to do you any favours. Make sure you do your level best to capture the relationship accurately and use clever language to enhance its appeal, rather than overt exaggeration.
Remember – your clients need to be happy with what you’re saying about them. And if they’re not, it could sour your relationship and mean they’re not happy for you to use the case study to promote your brand.
Although you’re producing the case study as part of your marketing efforts, your customer could also benefit from its publication. That benefit could be more impressions on social media when you post the content or a quality backlink from your site for their SEO strategy. Emphasising these shared benefits could help win their buy-in. But it’s important to be honest about the benefits you’ll be getting, without trying to make it sound as you’re doing them a favour.
Don’t spring a case study on your customers. It’s important they know you’re planning to leverage the relationship you’ve built as a shining example of professional synergy. Or, in less pretentious terms, that you’d like them to say nice things about you that will make future customers want to do the same.
Being upfront and transparent about your intentions will stop your request from feeling opportunistic and cheeky.
There’s no exact science to it, but here are a few rules to keep in mind:
Do what you can to make the process as simple and effective as possible. For example, make sure you’ve identified the most relevant person to interview, provide clear questions beforehand and maintain control of the interview to keep it as concise and focused as possible. This is where drafting a third party like a content agency to conduct the interview and summarise your client relationship can make the process simpler and more efficient.
An expert interviewer and writer knows how to ask the right questions and extract relevant information without taking up hours of your client’s time. And once they’ve got it, they can produce a solid draft that’s easy and enjoyable for your client to review and approve.
Let’s imagine you’ve captured all the lovely feedback, shaped it into a glowing case study and polished it to within an inch of its life. Next comes the approval stage, where you get your client to sign off all the pleasant things they’ve said. Surprisingly, this stage can be the trickiest to get past, as it can feel like an endless wait to get the final sign-off from your busy client.
You might feel tempted to skip it altogether. After all, your client has agreed to produce a case study and chatted to you about what you’ve done well. Surely that means they’re happy, right?
Perhaps, but it’s a naïve and potentially costly assumption to make. Let your client know what process you’ll follow to get their input and approval, and make sure you stick to it.
It’s always sensible to make sure you haven’t misinterpreted any of the nuances of your conversation. For example, your contact may have been charmed by the interviewer (writers are a charming lot, after all) and admitted something that’s better kept off the record, meaning they’re no longer willing to stand by the published case study.
To make sure your hard work doesn’t end up unloved and unpublished due to delays in the final step, you need to stay focused on how you can speed the process. This is especially crucial if you’re in a fast-paced industry like tech, where it’s important to prove your credentials quickly.
To get your case study over the finishing line, you need to make it as easy as possible for your client. Simplify the review process with templated response forms so people can easily record feedback. You can also offer to take work off their plate by tidying up feedback left as tracked changes or utilising the services of a content agency to bring all parties’ thoughts together in a coherent, engaging way.
When we produce content for clients, we know our job isn’t over the second it’s signed off. We want our clients to win with words, and that can’t happen until they’ve been published in all the right places. So if you’re setting up a case study programme for the first time or feel like yours could do with a boost – get in touch.
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