We were catapulted online for business and personal last year. It was our only way of connecting and communicating with one another, and users turned to social media to replace day-to-day interactions. The number of users and the time they spend online has increased during the pandemic, with some studies reporting a jump of almost 10% from April 2019 to April 2020.
Social media was still very relevant in people’s lives in the modern age pre-pandemic, but the platforms then took on a wholly different purpose, and the way they’re being used is changing.
Social media platforms’ shifting role in the community
Tom Keiser, Hootsuite’s CEO, says that the role of social media has changed fundamentally during the pandemic.
It’s now the primary way that people interact with their loved ones and the wider community, including businesses and meetings.
It’s developed to be more than just a fun way to share photos and status updates; especially as we didn’t have much to take photos of. Because of this, users don’t just want to pull the spotlight onto themselves (and those who do are often pilloried online). People are seemingly wanting to replace that lost aspect of “social” in social media, by generating meaningful dialogue.
Brands can’t lead the conversation
Brands must be careful interacting with customers when trying to generate a real, meaningful conversation online. Being too direct, pushy, and blatantly obvious selling does not go down well at all. Brands that are used to being in control and leading the conversation need to change how they communicate. Rather than being the driver, they need to be the passenger helping and influencing the driver to its decisions.
Any brand that wants to make social media work for them needs to adapt to this new way of interacting online.
Keiser puts this into perspective with an analogy from physical retail: “When you walk into a store, the sales assistant doesn’t come up and tell you about all the products they’d like to sell you. They ask what you’re looking for, and that’s how brands have to think on social media.”
Brands shouldn’t be looking at what they have and figuring out how to sell it; they should be looking at what people want, and how they can provide it.
Brands need to learn to listen
Make social media work for you! You will come to realise that the beauty of social media is your customers will tell you what they want – you must be listening to them. Brands need to be looking at the way their audience interacts with each other, and this will help gauge what people on a wide scale want from you. This is because few people will try and have a conversation directly with a brand.
Firstly, understand what it is your audience is talking about. Let’s look at an example: Clarins, a beauty and cosmetics brand. They saw that as the pandemic set in, their audience shifted away from makeup (as no one was going out) and into skin and self-care. Their audience wasn’t discussing their newest products for a night out; instead, they were sharing tips for keeping well during another month inside. Their marketing team identified the change in their audiences’ discussions and needs so they began to create social media content around self-care and self-love.
It’s also important to look at how your audience talks to each other. Especially through memes and satire posts, if you keep an eye on these and play it right, it can gain traction. Yorkshire Tea is a great example of this, with social media content that’s playful yet safe. There were memes circulating about the ‘perfect shade of tea’ which was starting natural discussions, they jumped on board of this at the perfect time for their audience. It might sound effortless, but you can bet they thoroughly looked at how their audience spoke to each other before settling on a tone of voice.
How to reach out to your audience
It might sound strange but you, as a brand, aren’t just here to sell – you’re here to participate in a dialogue and contribute something useful to it. If it ever sounds like you’re pushing a product, all your hard work will be undone, so don’t just post links to your sales pages! A brand that’s listening to its audience knows what it can offer them, and now it’s time to reach out!
So, what can you offer your audience? A how-to guide on making the perfect brew? A new competition to ‘win your pet as a hat’? Just something to make them smile? Position your brand to be relevant and a part of the conversation within your audience. This is essential for engaging new customers and retaining existing ones as part of the digital customer lifecycle.
Investing in your social media platform strategy
A social media platform strategy is vital for a brand, it enables them to be successful online. A brand that can pivot quickly and follow the conversation will excel as this is a hugely important sector for marketing. All too often this is left to relatively junior staff; Keiser talks about how his daughter has been made the ‘social media manager’ for the last 3 restaurants she’s worked at simply because she’s the youngest member of staff. Brands should take social media seriously – teams should have senior marketing staff onboard not only for their experience and insight but because of the large impact it has on a business.
Social media needs to be done properly, it is the ultimate tool for reaching and engaging your customers. So, remember listen, don’t lead! Take the time to understand what you can do to help your audience – this is the foundation of a successful social media strategy.
If your brand could use a little social media power, contact us today to see how we can help you.
Bristol based digital marketing agency, DNRG, previously Digital NRG, has had an exciting brand update. The graphic ‘D’ brings together 8 triangles that represent the company’s eight solutions. When reorganised together, the triangles form the split hexagon – denoting the top to lower marketing funnel. Combining DNRG’s solutions, through the consumer journey when all used together, creates a robust, smarter digital marketing strategy.
With its Head Office in Bristol, DNRG encompasses 53 team members with some of the most powerful brains in the business. DNRG’s rebrand has been driven by the desire to always be leaders in digital marketing and offer a strategy-led approach, rather than off-the-shelf solutions. The company’s business model is built on tailor made integrated digital solutions for any sized business, creating a competitive digital presence for SMBs to support lead generation and local sales to complex National brand led campaigns or Nationwide ecommerce solutions.
As Google Premier Partners, Facebook Business Partners and Microsoft Advertising Elite Partners, DNRG is always implementing the latest advancements in automation, AI and reporting with the support of their partners. DNRG has developed solutions accessible for businesses who do not have the budget for in-house experts or depth of knowledge within a marketing department. With a 96% retention rate in the last 5 years DNRG is clearly getting something right for their clients.
Along with the rebrand DNRG has responded to the digital evolution following the challenging period that the pandemic has presented by adding to their client product portfolio. To support its Website, SEO, Paid Media and Social propositions DNRG will be launching Smarter Performance, Rapid Talk, LinkedIn Accelerator, NRG Connect and a CRO proposition in July 2021.
With a strong focus on their team’s learning and development, DNRG has also set up an in-house academy which devotes 10% of hours a month for each employee to grow their knowledgebase and skills, so that they’re always ahead of the curve. Employing several apprentices, members of their team have made it from ‘The Apprentice’ to director within that five-year period. This all filters through to an enriched client experience.
Neil Rogers, DNRG’s CEO said: “Our rebrand is representative of our continuous growth in services, clients and team members. We offer our clients strategy-led solutions that are driven by their business goals and objectives. DNRG has developed award-winning campaigns that utilise technology, automation and highly skilled digital professionals to increase the return on our clients’ investments. It is our DNRG team players’ incredible support and adaptation to their clients’ goals alongside the delivery of effective digital strategies that has made DNRG the successful agency that it is today.
We truly have become the outsourced marketing department for 1000’s of UK based businesses and we know how to match the right digital solutions to their incredibly varied briefs and objectives. For the agency it is about building partnerships whilst delivering proven value results led by data driven decisions.”
DNRG is proving to be one step ahead of the game with the implementation of new techniques and operational processes in this rapidly changing industry. It is difficult for any business to stay abreast of digital updates, consumer demands and the online experience digital users expect, but DNRG offer extremely competitive solutions to ensure their clients can adapt to these requirements.
Cookie acceptance pop ups might be driving us around the bend, but since the requirement to ask permission was introduced a couple of years ago, businesses and marketers have built their marketing strategies and systems around them.
Now things are all about to change again. It might have been predictable, but with Google telling us that 48% of consumers actually stop a purchase if they don’t trust the company to collect and manage data on them, it’s no surprise that Google are following the likes of Apple and Mozilla, and have announced that they were stopping third-party tracking in 2023.
This leaves businesses having to reset their marketing strategies, relying solely on any first-party data they hold, with many businesses, particularly in e-commerce, having to go back to more traditional marketing and brand building, but in a more digital world than before.
Any that fail to do so will find themselves simply giving their marketing keys to the tech providers with no real insight on their client base.
The option of doing nothing is a dangerous one, yet whilst Pimento research tells us that most marketing professionals intend to ‘do something about it’, 19 out of 20 acknowledge that they won’t be prepared for the great switch off.
Marketing will no longer be about stalking people across the web. We now have the opportunity where digital marketing can mature to become a real weapon to help brand building in a more meaningful way.
So, what’s the action plan? And what should all businesses, large or small, be lining up to do right now?
Action 1.
Do the gap analysis now. Work out what you currently use and need to achieve marketing penetration, and what will you have post the demise of third-party cookies. That’s the gap that needs filling.
Action 2.
Focus on the business infrastructure and get back to basics.
If you need support in doing the analysis, and in building the strategy going forward, make the move now to find it. Closer to the time, resources will be limited and remedial time scales will be longer.
Action 3.
Cement the data you have and get your consent strategy robust for the future, building the new approach around it. Undertake a cookie audit now.
Action 4.
Take a relook at customer experience and contextual for scale, so that you stay completely in touch with your customers’ buying triggers in the post cookie era.
This isn’t just a marketing challenge. It impacts the whole business spectrum, from SMEs to multinational corporates. Mid and large corporates will use their in-house resources to reposition, but small businesses will struggle in the absence of teams they can fall back on, and budget.
Pimento is well placed to be the surrogate team to look to though. With over 200 independent marketing agencies, covering most marketing disciplines, bespoke solutions are close at hand irrespective of size and sector.
This is not an issue for selective blindness. Businesses who fail to act will see their markets slowly dwindle away.
We all know how important it is to encourage equality through our culture in the workplace. But it’s no secret that women are underrepresented in senior leadership positions.
It’s everyone’s shared responsibility to become not only advocates, but champions of women from diverse backgrounds within their organisations – and in their lives at large. And in the creative sector, if we want to truly do our part to help women stake their claim, it means businesses taking ownership of their own equality scores in a number of ways – not least, by appointing women to the senior leadership positions we need them to be in.
At Proctor + Stevenson, we’re one of the UK’s longest-established independent marketing agencies. Despite this, we’ve never been conformists, and we’re a good step ahead of your traditional London-based agency in more ways than one.
Our Founder and Chairman, Roger Proctor, has always been an outspoken industry figure. He’s championed diverse young creative talent from the South West of England and Wales – an often neglected region for the arts – throughout his career.
Back in 1979, he laid in our bold and independent foundations in Bristol. And the rest is history. We’ve been challenging inequities and hiring diverse talent ever since – such as through hosting the South West Design + Digital Student Awards (which saw a particularly high volume of entries from young female designers this year).
In short, the talent is there. So what changes are being made?
At the start of 2021, Roger and the senior team restructured Proctor + Stevenson by splitting the larger brand into three companies: P+S Creative, P+S Technology and P+S Strategy, all overseen by the P+S Group (you can read more about these changes here). And this change marked a new milestone for the P+S team.
Our restructuring was the perfect opportunity to progress our own equality targets across the team at Proctors. It was at this point in our journey that we ensured the P+S Group met a target of 50/50 male-to-female directorship.
So, without further ado, meet our board…
· Joy Locke is our Company Secretary. She applies her 20+ years’ experience with us to take lead of everything operations, finance, accounts, and administration. She ensures that we were keeping on track with budgets.
· Ailsa Billington is one of our Directors. She leads our client services operations and takes charge of directing major global campaigns for our multinational portfolio of clients. She directs over all teams in the P+S Group to make sure that we deliver the best campaigns to transform our clients’ businesses for the better.
· Nikki Hunt is our Financial Director. CIMA-qualified, Nikki brings a wealth of experience in management accountancy, HR, payroll, and health and safety to our business, keeping us running efficiently and safely.
· Roger Proctor is our Chairman. He founded P+S in 1979 and has continued to lead its transformation ever since. Under his leadership, the business has grown from 2 people to more than 70, plus a network of freelance talent, and has won a global portfolio of clients such as Panasonic, National Grid, Saudi Arabian Airlines, and much more. He is passionate about the power of creativity to make positive change and is also heavily involved in strengthening the links between the creative industries and education.
· Mark Jamieson is another of our Directors. He helped establish our presence in the Middle East and is an expert in developing, building, and maintaining positive client relationships in across all sectors.
· Steve King is the final member of our current team of Directors. He leads our large-scale digital projects on everything concept creation, development, and project delivery. He’s worked on many innovative and world-first technology projects.
At Proctors, we’ve always taken equality and diversity extremely seriously. Because when we celebrate and empower women in business, it benefits everyone.
We strive to nurture careers amongst our female talent, building them up into more senior roles within our business. And we want to continue to progress further. We’re currently building a broader, transparent picture of our teams, our diversity, and our biases to discover how we can do better.
There’s lots more to be done to help narrow the gap between women in leadership across the UK. It’s a fact that only 5.6% of women in the UK run their own business and women only account for 33.8% of positions as directors on business boards in the UK, with only 16% of creative directors reported to be female.
We’ve just launched the first instalment of our Women in Business interview series. In it, our own Marketing Manager, Becca Peppiatt, sits down with Peaches Golding OBE CsJT, Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the County and City of Bristol. This interview, like the rest of the series, delivers insight into the female perspective of working in business, so aspiring young women can see themselves represented in leadership roles. Stay tuned for more instalments of the series, coming soon.
We can all do our part to progress the important conversations which need to be had about an industry that is in many ways stuck in the past, ignoring some of its blatant inconsistencies. There’s lots more to be done and we intend to continue to work hard to narrow some of the gaps that exist. We need to think intersectionally about how we hire, and how we can create healthy, fair environments for women to succeed in.
For more information about Proctor + Stevenson, or to discuss our services or teams in more detail, please email us.
Leading Bristol–based digital marketing agency, DNRG, is working with AI search company Yext to provide businesses with modern solutions to boost their discoverability in search and stay ahead of the competition.
The UX focused platform, NRG Connect, is easy to do business with, offering a central cloud-based system to manage and update business listings. Google, Facebook, Yell, Apple Maps and Waze are a few of the 100+ apps, search engines, maps and directories customers can access. This generates opportunities for businesses of all sizes to be digitally competitive and present their company to potential customers searching for their services.
DNRG is supporting their existing customers, as well as independent businesses, with a solution that saves time, increases efficiency, and allows for excellent reporting and measurement. NRG Connect forms as part of a larger digital marketing strategy for businesses. The platform interlinks with other digital solutions such as user experience–led web design, SEO–focused content, Conversion Rate Optimisation and more, to offer a complete digital package.
Marketing agencies can partner with DNRG to receive access to a white-labelled platform, where they can offer the solution as their own to their clients. DNRG provides comprehensive training and support to the agencies and their end-users, ensuring they are fully equipped to make the most out of the platform.
In an age where digital reputation is more important than ever for businesses, DNRG customers will have access to view and respond to all their customer reviews, as well as edit company details all in one central location. This saves hours of trolling through different sites adding listings, responding to reviews, and making updates.
We’ve spoken to Joe Reid, Account Services Director at DNRG, “We’re delighted to announce our collaboration with Yext, which presents us with a unique opportunity to work with like-minded marketing agencies and offer an additional solution to our direct customers.
“In 2021, we all search online for products and services, so making sure that our customers can be found, wherever they are searched for is essential to us. This product forms as part of a much wider digital marketing solution, to allow businesses of all shapes and sizes to be competitive.
“It’s so important for all businesses to have the ability to be digitally competitive. At DNRG we specialise in offering solutions to SMBs who may not have unlimited budgets or the option for in-house digital marketing expertise. We believe in allowing smaller businesses to compete with the bigger companies and build them a digital presence in order for them to do that.”
“For SMBs, a solid strategy for managing and optimizing listings is vitally important — it can mean the difference between appearing on the search results page and not showing up at all, between winning over a customer and losing them to a competitor,” said Luis Baptista-Coelho, Executive Vice President, Global Partner at Yext. “We’re excited to team up with DNRG so that even more SMBs can tap into Yext’s modern, AI-powered platform — the same technology that the biggest brands in the world trust — to keep their information up-to-date across platforms, improve their discoverability, and win more business.”
I joined Armadillo in November of 2020, very much in the thick of pandemic stress and lockdowns. It was a strange experience starting a new job at such a time. Despite the fact it was an experience I shared with so many others, it felt incredibly lonely and daunting at times. New job nerves are bad enough without not being able to meet your colleagues or head into the office!
Remote onboarding is never going to be easy, but I was lucky enough to work for a company that worked hard to make it as positive an experience as possible. I cannot stress enough how difficult it feels to build relationships and connections with people you’ve never met in person. And yet I’ve absolutely loved my first six months at Armadillo because they did everything they could to make it work.
Here are five things you can do to make onboarding remotely a positive experience:
We’ve all experienced Zoom fatigue, and I completely understand that feeling, but it’s so important to ensure you have cameras on policy during work meetings. Being able to put faces to names was massive for me as a new starter. Video was pretty much the only contact I had with my new colleagues and so it was so important for human connection’s sake that I was able to see faces.
When I started at Armadillo, I had a lot of video meetings with various people across the business. It helped me understand each different aspect of the business better and how it worked as a whole. It was also a wonderful opportunity to meet everyone and introduce myself to the team.
In the office, it’s common to tap someone on the shoulder and ask a quick question or pick their brains at the coffee machine. It’s difficult and nerve-wracking to be new to the business and not be able to ask those questions or get that quick clarification. So, encourage questions! And if that means hopping on a quick call then go for it.
Informal time to build relationships with colleagues is just as important as formal meeting time. As a business, try to help facilitate this. At Armadillo, we have virtual fitness club on Thursdays. I was nervous and reluctant to get involved at first since I didn’t know anyone particularly well, but had such a lovely time when I joined in.
It was a great opportunity to meet people within the business that I wouldn’t get a chance to interact with on the day-to-day, and a unique activity to enjoy while stuck at home.
Armadillo offers staff individual business coaching with the fantastic confidence coach Jo Emerson. This has been an absolutely brilliant resource and I wish I’d taken it up even sooner. Jo not only helps with personal challenges but really supports you in working on your approach to the workplace.
Initially, I didn’t want to book my sessions, telling myself I would do so when I’d settled in, but Jo has been paramount to that process and has helped me take initiative to embrace opportunities to engage with others in the business.
Though working from home can be lonely at times, especially when you’re starting a new job, remember that you aren’t alone. It’s worth looking into if there are any other new starters within the business, or if there is anyone who joined the team fairly recently.
Jo encouraged me to reach out to a member of the client services team and we had a regular weekly catch up together. Yes, we talked about work, but we also got to know each other on a more personal level. When we were allowed, we met up for a coffee and took a walk. I built a friendship with a colleague who understood the strange experience of joining remotely.
I was lucky enough to start at Armadillo during a brief break in lockdown, meaning I was able to spend some of my first days with Armadillo Innovation Director, Rob Pellow. We met in a coworking space, and he ran me through what I needed to know. That initial meeting eased me into the job role and allowed me to properly meet a member of the Armadillo team. It made all the difference to the onboarding process.
It might not always be possible given restrictions and lockdowns, but if you can, it’s definitely worth meeting at least one other person face to face during your first week or so at the business.
First published on Digital Donut June 2021.
By Rachel Pyke.
When you think about the negative connotations surrounding the word “persuasive”, you can understand why a lot of us in the industry are afraid to use persuasion to influence the customer journey.
We’ve seen this first-hand. Brands will avoid persuasive design as they are under the impression it uses “dark patterns”, which is a term used for a type of design that manipulates the unassuming customer into completing a call to action for financial gain.
This is simply not the case.
Persuasive design is not about manipulation, it’s about catering to your users’ best interests and anticipating the needs of your customers from discovery to purchase. You are essentially guiding your customer to make a decision that will, in the end, be beneficial for both you and your customer.
In short. Throughout the entire customer journey.
Once you understand the different types of customers that could be attracted to your services, you should use persuasive design or “nudges” across various parts of the online experience to subtly steer their judgment resulting in a successful conversion.
You should always try to make the customer journey simple… but not too simple. You want to create a seamless experience, but you also don’t want to illicit self-defeating behaviour, as this could impact customer retention.
If you’re still unsure how to use effectively use persuasive design, there are four key elements to think about when designing a journey your customers will not be able to stay away from.
A persuasive experience is more than one linear journey. Customers can connect with your brand in more ways than ever before, and you need to see each initial interaction as an opportunity to build a rapport and create an emotional response.
Failure to recognise these points of interaction leaves you with no indication of how your customers are feeling before, during, and after they complete their journey.
Whether your customer begins their journey through Google Search, social media, or even through a newsletter you should always map and follow the customer journey to see if and/or when their emotions change.
In just one journey a customer can fluctuate from excited to frustrated, or from hopeful to disappointed, and a map will allow you to see what caused these sudden changes. With this information, you can add positive reinforcements to parts, which caused the greatest emotional response.
If you wanted to keep a high retention rate, sending a “thank you” message or a reward to your customer after they’ve completed a purchase can be very effective.
For customers that you want to reassure, you could add a “final check” before purchasing, which allows them more time to finalise their details.
Persuasive design is not about deceiving the customer, it’s about helping them reach their desired end goal in the quickest and most efficient way.
There’s a great deal of truth to this, especially for eCommerce brands, as almost every customer will use the website that allows them to successfully complete a purchase in the shortest amount of time.
To ensure the transaction process is kept to a minimum, brands need to allow users to feel they are in control by stepping aside and giving the user the freedom to do what they want.
For this type of journey to be successful, your usability and UX hygiene needs to be on point! Slow loading speed, illegible fonts, and too many advertisement pop-ups can dramatically decrease your conversion rate.
You should always run thorough tests into what is not working on your website and fix it quickly before your customers turn to your competitors.
At the end of the day, your users are not just a number, they are human beings with ranging emotions and needs, and if you don’t grasp that concept then opting to use persuasive design is pointless.
The needs of a person looking to book a summer holiday abroad are going to be different from a person looking to take out a loan, so we can’t expect their experiences to conjure up the same needs or emotional responses.
When it comes down to it, the main reason your persuasive design will fail is if you haven’t anticipated your customers’ expectations or considered how you can cater to those specific expectations.
The more you can tailor the experience to your customers’ goals, needs, and frustrations, the better the retention rate.
Take the time to research your customers and use this data to create core personas, which will help you design a more targeted customer journey. If you don’t have these personas in mind, your design won’t be relatable to your desired users, and will not trigger the emotional response you desire.
When thinking about persuasion there are three things that are applicable to all brands: USPs, reassurance and incentives.
To start you need to show your customers what makes you unique and more appealing than your competitors. To do this you can highlight your benefits clearly on your website, so users will be able to quickly understand your value.
Next, you need to reassure your customer that you are the best option. If users do not trust you, then they will not convert. To demonstrate your value and trust as a company you could include positive customer reviews, ratings, third-party testimonials, and logos from trusted payment providers on your website.
The final thing you need to consider is including some form of incentive, and this could be the difference between losing a customer or successful retention.
When customers feel like they are getting something for free, they are more likely to complete a purchase and buy from you again. For example, offering free delivery or a gift if they spend over a certain amount will always be an enticing offer.
While the idea of persuasion and persuasive design may sound deceptive and difficult to get right, the reality is that this form of marketing is all about trying to understand and empathise with your customer.
When you understand what makes your users’ tick you can create a seamless customer journey that meets their needs. Once you have achieved this, what follows is a customer journey that users will trust and return to again and again.
It’s as simple as that!
If your attention span is anything like mine, it takes little more than the buzz of a phone to kickstart an afternoon-long procrastination episode.
One moment, you’re replying to a quick text. The next, you’re three hours into a doom-scrolling session that’s somehow left you four years’ deep in Gordon Ramsay’s Twitter timeline.
Of course, businesses know this about the general public. And advertisers are more than happy to capitalise on it. But in the golden age of social media, most businesses are missing the most basic trick in the book – a ‘distraction-proof’ website.
One of the dominant trends in web page building is the ‘omni page’. And it’s existed since the internet began.
Just as it sounds, ‘omni’ describes a singular webpage structure. And each page contains content.
But between relevant content, imagery, videos, copy which tries to hit certain word counts in a misguided attempt to improve SEO rankings, not to mention the input of internal business stakeholders who want to promote their own departments, websites are becoming increasingly bloated.
Often, each webpage ends up hundreds – if not thousands – of words long, and takes minutes, rather than seconds, to scan. With multiple menus, widgets and pop-ups, it all ends up proving distracting and frustrating for your visitors.
In essence, web agencies are being asked to include more and more content into every page of a website they’re building, often for the purpose of ticking certain boxes, rather than thinking of the user experience (UX). And the result is akin to building an entire website on every single webpage.
You’d think, given our doom-scrolling habits, that one long, jam-packed page of information would lend itself to today’s consumer. However, the complete opposite is true.
Research conducted by Microsoft has shown that we have an average of between 7 and 8 seconds to catch our website visitors’ attention. That’s because many – if not most people – are in the habit of scanning a page for information before reading the detail.
If you’re looking for a paper supplier for your business, and you need to know that they meet the right sustainability credentials, how long would you spend trying to find that information on a page that’s endlessly long, filled with videos, links to download a whitepaper on the merits of different paperweights, photos of the team, a social media widget and a few case studies?
My guess is, not very long.
Because, like most users, you’d probably rather visit a page that leads with the header ‘Your local sustainable paper supplier’, followed by a list of sustainability credentials.
Maybe you then see a link to ‘Our recent case studies’, which you could choose to visit and dive into more info, if you’re interested. Or perhaps you’ll explore the site’s menu to find out more about the team via the ‘About Us’ page.
But if your boss is breathing down your neck, and you’re performing a search for ‘sustainable local paper supplier’, the chances are you won’t spend more than those precious initial 7 seconds to find the right info.
Web agencies like ourselves aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed this trend of over-complicated page structures.
Google has also noted a large detrimental impact on page performance, particularly when it comes to how it the mobile device experience.
Google Page Experience is a new measurement for a webpage’s UX – specifically, how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value.
It includes Core Web Vitals – metrics that measure real-world user experience for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of a webpage – and also includes existing Search signals: mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines.
What this means is if you want a webpage that’s built for SEO, it can’t be overstuffed with keywords – something we’ve talked about before. Any page you consider important for your business needs to score highly on these additional metrics and be valuable to your visitors.
In short: Don’t overstuff your pages with content. Only provide the information that’s truly useful to your customers, and you’ll gain the most value from your website.
It’s time to more thoughtfully consider what’s actually needed on each webpage. This is what will help keep your visitors focussed, engaged, and more open to valuable cross-selling and up-selling opportunities – without the opportunity for distraction.
Ready to talk more about how your website could more skilfully direct prospects through your sales pipeline? Talk to Proctors, at [email protected].
During a recent panel discussion, TMW CEO Chris Mellish made this statement on gender balance in leadership: “We shouldn’t just be talking about this on International Women’s Day, it needs regular dialogue.”
Yep, I went there – I opened with a quote from a man. But it may well take male support, particularly from those in leadership, to help push the agenda for women – and get all genders on board with it. According to leading scholar and anti-sexism educator Jackson Katz, the mere mention of the phrase ‘gender issues’ can lead men to switch off as they often see gender-related conversations as ‘women’s issues’, rather than anything to do with men. But genders don’t operate in isolation.
“We shouldn’t just be talking about this on International Women’s Day, it needs regular dialogue.”
– Chris Mellish
Put simply, because it makes businesses more effective. In 2019, Credit Suisse researched 3,000 companies across 56 countries to find that shares of companies with more women managers delivered higher returns, while a greater number of women executives also correlated with stronger revenue growth and higher profit margins. This was echoed by a report from consultancy The Pipeline:
“Companies on the FTSE 350 index would generate 195 billion pounds ($250 billion) of additional pre-tax profit if their margins matched that of the firms with greater female representation.”
But aren’t women hardwired to be the primary caregiver in the home? Cognitive neuroscientist Gina Rippon analysed the data on ‘differences by sex’ in the brain – and found there to be none. If gender alone has no impact on brain functionality, Rippon concluded that what we deem as typical male or female traits are, as she describes, the result of a “gendered world” – so nurture, rather than nature.
And yet LinkedIn research suggests a staggering 60% of female marketers have left or considered leaving the profession because of Covid-19. That’s more than any other industry. In heterosexual partnerships, women have taken on more duties in terms of caring and homeschooling, in addition to their careers, and are left feeling overwhelmed.
“60% of female marketers have left or considered leaving the profession because of Covid-19.”
There are signs of change with studies worldwide reflecting a shift in the balance of housework and caregiving from pre-pandemic times. But mothers still spend about twice as much time on caregiving and household labour, even as they’ve rapidly increased the number of hours they work outside the home – and even when they’re the primary breadwinner.
For International Women’s Day, Unlimited ran a panel discussion with women in leadership roles from across our group, joined by our male representative, CEO Chris Mellish. The panellists shared personal experiences of difficulties faced in getting to their position. Yet on the point of children, the panel questioned their own choices on who in their family took the role of primary caregiver. Some voiced concerns of being left behind during maternity, and recounted being judged as “not ambitious enough” for wanting children – or being seen as “too ambitious” for not having them at all, as if the two options were mutually exclusive.
“The panel shared . . . the general expectation that women must be better, sparkier, more articulate – and work harder than their male colleagues.”
But motherhood is not all that impacts a woman’s capacity to succeed in the workplace. The panel shared experiences of their confidence being damaged in all-male environments, having to use humour to ‘handle’ comments on their appearance, being asked to consider how men would feel if women were promoted over them, and the general expectation that women must be better, sparkier, more articulate – and work harder than their male colleagues.
These experiences are not new, and many echoed a 2019 report from the Government and Equalities Office. The report cited barriers to gender balance as lack of transparency in pay and promotion supporting biases that disadvantage women. Hostile or isolating organisational cultures, and a conflict between external responsibilities and current models of working – compacted by unpredictable work demands and alternative ways of working do not always offering parity of opportunity. Many women reading this post will be able to relate to each one of these.
The Unlimited panel covered a range of ways we can start to shift the dial and work towards gender balance in leadership. There are practical considerations around flexible working, recruitment processes, and transparency on pay and promotions, allowing more unbiased access to a seat at the table. Mentorship, coaching and workshops can serve to build confidence and address what holds women back.
“There are practical considerations around flexible working, recruitment processes, and transparency on pay and promotions, allowing more unbiased access to a seat at the table.”
But a theme that came out strongly from the panel is, as Chris said himself, to keep talking. That is the ambition we must work towards as an agency – for all genders to play their part. We want to create space for getting into the awkward stuff we don’t like to talk about. The often-cited reaction to the Me Too movement from men is fear, being nervous of saying the “wrong thing”, but this doesn’t serve any of us. I’m often struck by how even my most supportive male friends are simply unaware of the challenges of walking in my shoes as a woman. One positive that may come out of the tragic events surrounding Sarah Everard’s death, is the heightened awareness of the daily challenges women face. We can’t afford to maintain inertia. We deserve better for ourselves and future generations of women in the workplace and beyond it. And this is the challenge we have set ourselves – to continue the conversation, and back it up with action.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Yes, another man – but what a man.
Written by: Emma Woodrow, Group Account Director
Illustrations by: Paloma Kaluzinska, Junior Designer
Mr B & Friends has scored a hat trick of wins at this year’s Transform Europe Awards.
At the event, held on Wednesday 23rd June, the agency won Gold and Bronze awards for its work with Accsys, as well as a Young Contender award for designer Kieran Hawes. The awards recognise and celebrate the best of the best in brand strategy, development and transformation- how a company, brand or product’s visual identity, story and proposition can make an impact.
The Gold award for the ‘Best Visual Identity from the engineering or manufacturing sector’ and the Bronze award for the ‘Best rebrand of a digital property’ reflect the work that Mr B & Friends has done with Accsys over the last year for its sustainable wood product Accoya. The new positioning, branding and best-in-class website connect business and consumer customers to both the product and each other, making the decision and purchase easier and smoother than ever before.
Midweight designer Kieran was awarded Distinction in the Young Contenders category, which recognises the best up and coming creative and strategic talent in the business.
Members of the Mr B & Friends team attended the event with the client team from Accsys.
The full Accoya case study can be found here.
You need to load content from reCAPTCHA to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information