Noisy Little Monkey has won a HubSpot Impact Award for the design and build of a new website for global communications agency, Indicia Worldwide.
The international HubSpot Impact Awards recognise HubSpot partners for client work which goes above and beyond – hundreds of HubSpot agencies apply for one of these awards every year and Noisy Little Monkey are over the moon to be awarded for their web design project and CMS migration with Indicia Worldwide.
The judges feedback said, “The results are fantastic. It’s clear from Indicia Worldwide’s video testimonial that you were a true HubSpot partner to their business. Indicia had already purchased HubSpot, but worried they wouldn’t get the right value out of it. They brought in experts to fill their gaps, and were shown the power of HubSpot’s platform. This is a perfect example of how HubSpot partners bring value to their clients.”
Helping clients get the most from HubSpot is Noisy Little Monkey’s mission. So when Indicia Worldwide approached the team for help migrating their CMS from WordPress to HubSpot, Noisy Little Monkey jumped at the chance to reimagine the site and focus it on the inbound buyer journey.
This approach generated brilliant results for the client; in a six month YoY comparison, Indicia Worldwide saw a 200% increase in organic traffic and a 1250% increase in new leads through their site.
You can read the full case study and view the testimonial here.
If you’re a HubSpot customer, or considering HubSpot, and would like the support of an award-winning agency to help you unlock more from the platform, get in touch with the team today.
Several times a year, Google makes significant and broad changes to their search algorithms and systems. These ‘core updates’ are designed to ensure Google is delivering on their mission to present relevant and useful content to searches. Whilst the latest instalment has gone under the radar, the updates are a pretty big deal, with many websites having lost rankings, engagement and revenue as a result. So, what are the latest changes and how will they affect how we produce content?
At YS, we’ve pulled together a checklist of questions to ask yourself in the new year, focused on Google’s key factors needed to create killer content in 2021.
For those of us generating content everyday, it can be easy to forget that it’s purpose is to serve the genuine interests of visitors to the site, rather than attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines. Carefully formed content provides value to your audience by solving their problems and in doing so, it positions you as the Go-To for your particular area of expertise.
By asking yourself the questions above and by asking others who you trust, to give an honest assessment of each piece that you produce, the quality of your content will be improved remarkably. If you’ve noticed some of your pages drop in search ranking, consider looking closely at these questions to understand why and how you can improve.
At YS, our goal is to maximise the value of your content to engage and re-engage your audience, bring new customers to your business and help get your message out there.
Whether you’re looking to build and maintain a blog for your brand, drive traffic through ranking across core terms or get the message out through press, social and distributed marketing YOURS . SINCERELY can help.
If we learned anything from 2020, it’s that the world is changing faster than expected and that new trends are shaping our realities.
For businesses, this means increased pressure to adapt and remain relevant to their customers.
Here are three top social media trends we’re expecting to flourish in 2021.
Memetic Media, or memes, act on 4 levels:
In 2020 users engaged with memes as a form of escapism. From August 2019 to July 2020, the mention of memes increased by 26% (Talkwater).
Although they are most popular among younger audiences, brands like Pryvate, a secure communications app, demonstrate memes can be very successful among all age groups when used in the right manner.
Memes work better on social media than branded content, because people want to be entertained on social media.
That’s why a dog meme will always be more engaging than a corporate post, as long as the meme is, in some way, relevant for the brand. Plus, memes are usually memorable, and they tend to create brand associations.
In the context of Covid-19’s work from home and partial or full lockdowns, many of us have missed connecting with real people in their natural environments.
The chance to get to know someone beyond their corporate title is something that social media users showed increased interest in during 2020.
Behind the scenes content humanises brands, giving them a face, a smile, and a personal story.
Symantec, a security products enterprise, or Crowdstrike, an internet company, capitalise on this approach to generate more engagements for their posts. This translates into increased brand awareness and more opportunities for finding leads, converting them into sales from social media.
Users are creating and uploading pics and videos on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat daily. In fact, Snapchat has included e-commerce brand integration since June, allowing brands such as Nike, Jordan, Gucci, and most recently Levi’s, to showcase their products.
Like this, snappers can use these cool brands to style up their avatars, and then post photos or videos of them wearing branded items.
User-generated content can be highly effective for brands. Look at Ocean Spray, where a user recorded himself enjoying the drink while skating and listening to the Fleetwood Mac song, ‘Dreams’.
The video went viral, the song (popular in the seventies) came back into the charts and the person taking the video created a trend, as many other users began replicating the clip.
Want to find out more top trends for 2021? Our new Digital Trends report features another seven social media trends for this year. Download our full report today.
The premise of influencer marketing is pretty simple. Choose someone with clout in your target market – someone trusted, admired or looked-up to – and associate them with your brand, product or service. Awareness goes through the roof, positive perception is sent soaring, and you achieve cut through that’s otherwise hard to find.
Although not a new strategy, influencer marketing is growing and has been proven to be effective: a survey by Mediakixs revealed that 80% of practitioners have found influencer marketing to be an effective tool. And it’s a real money-spinner – according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2020 Benchmark report, Influencer marketing is estimated to be worth $9.7 billion, with the market growing by 50% each year since 2016.
The same report reported that brands are recognising this growth, with 66% of respondents saying they will increase their Influencer marketing budgets next year. Although most commonly used for B2C markets, we’ve all clicked on a social post or read an article simply because we recognise the face in the thumbnail, so why shouldn’t it work in a B2B environment too?
We had the opportunity to put this theory to the test last year. Our clients at Panasonic TOUGHBOOK (the world leader in rugged computing) wanted some means of elevating their brand beyond its already-lofty position, and we believed an influencer strategy could be the way to go.
As we were approaching a B2B market, it was clear from the start that this wasn’t a campaign to be built around the audience reach an influencer has. What was more important was finding somebody who was a perfect fit for the TOUGHBOOK brand, and someone we could build a credible, engaging story around.
We needed someone who matched the ruggedness and strength of the TOUGHBOOK devices, someone who could match the brand status of TOUGHBOOK as world leader in rugged IT, but also someone that could offer more than just audience reach. Luckily, we were able to secure the services of global rugby icon, former Wales and British and Lions captain and absolute giant of a man, Sam Warburton.
We used the formidable (but endlessly friendly) presence of Sam to create a multi-channel campaign, incorporating the more traditional B2B marketing channels, such as LinkedIn and display ads, but also exploring newer territory, such as YouTube ads. Using a combination of campaign keywords and razor-sharp targeting, we ensured that our ads would capture the attention of a new audience for TOUGHBOOK, as well as engaging with the more typical audiences in a different way.
Despite a month or two of delay due to the pandemic and national lockdown, we figured out a way to finally come together for some socially-distanced filming days. This allowed us to capture some amazing footage of Sam doing his thing on the rugby pitch, but also displaying his well-honed studio skills, discussing leadership and parallels between sport and business leadership with Panasonic TOUGHBOOK MD, Kevin Jones.
In five short weeks, following the film shoots, we were ready to go live with a whole range of assets; a mini-series on Leadership, seven videos for YouTube pre-roll ads, a campaign specific landing page, blog content, downloadable digital guide, a selection of display and LinkedIn ads, and social material for Sam to share on his Instagram and Twitter feeds.
As with most things Sam Warburton touches, the end results have been pretty impressive. We set ourselves a simple goal of raising awareness of the TOUGHBOOK brand, which we achieved very quickly. The landing page is the fourth-best performing landing page Panasonic have ever created, with over 18,000 visits in the seven weeks that the campaign has been live. Over the first three weeks, we were even outperforming the main TOUGHBOOK site in terms of website sessions.
This was an experimental campaign, with the simple goal of gaining increased brand exposure in a niche market, made possible by the courage of a client who was willing to push boundaries and try something different. And from such a positive start, we’re looking forward to more of the same in 2021, building on the high levels of awareness we’ve established and turning that into a raft of bottom-line boosting sales leads.
Let’s just hope Sam keeps his boots clean for us…
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business reach its potential, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
It’s almost five years since Carnsight Communications opened its doors, over ten years since I switched to PR and almost twenty years since I started in marketing. It’s a time for reflections, so here’s one of mine. Looking back, working in marketing was a fantastic grounding for great PR. It continues to be as the two roles move ever closer.
One of the things we regularly get asked is ‘what is the difference between PR and marketing?’ In simple terms, PR is about earned media – earning your place in publications. Whereas marketing is generally about paid-for placement – such as adverts, sponsored pieces or what we used to call advertorials.
But the lines are continuing to blur. It’s no secret that the media sector has struggled this year, with publications closing their doors and a number of job losses. There are far fewer staff roles (permanent positions) and many more freelancers. We try and do our part as a PR agency by subscribing to many of the publications we pitch to. We’ve also given support by donating and contributing this year, as well as working with journalists as freelance consultants.
We pride ourselves on pitching in quality editorial content and products to relevant titles. But we also know that alone is not enough to keep publications up and running. So, we also encourage clients to get involved by subscribing, considering sponsored opportunities if the opportunity is right, and getting involved with events and awards.
We also work closely with marketing and media teams to see if they’re planning to run ads and where they might be placing them. This is particularly pertinent for local press and smaller publications where editorial and commercial are more closely aligned. We wouldn’t ever expect editorial placement purely because of advertising, but it’s important to understand how it all fits together. And that’s not to mention the rise in influencers which takes this to a different place again.
Starting out in marketing gave me a great grounding for understanding commercials. Managing budgets and managing spend comes in a lot earlier – especially if you’re in client services. In my experience, commerciality isn’t a big part of PR training, but I think it should be – especially now.
Understanding messaging and brand and campaign propositions has also been key. Advertising campaigns start with a brief and key message: a line or two that everything can be boiled down to. What’s the essence of the product or service? That is something that’s at the very heart of PR, which is why we often start with a Three Lens Messaging Session in our client work.
A journalist once asked me to give my pitch to him in 10 seconds during a phone call. Scary, but actually a really excellent idea. If you can’t get across what you’re trying to say in that time, how can you expect it to be an idea they can buy into? We spend a long time crafting press releases and accompanying emails to make sure the essence can be communicated quickly and simply. We use that approach over the phone or in person, too (or we used to!)
Working closely with marketing agencies such as Sharp Thinking Marketing and Rapport Digital makes for a really effective, joined up process. For example, PR and marketing often work to different timelines, and while messages could be led by advertising, they’re likely to be interrogated more in the PR process.
So, being able to understand marketing’s role and approach and ensure it fits alongside ours makes for the most successful campaigns. We can also share resources, such as information on the target audience, tone of voice and good, high res photography.
PR is very much about relationships. Relationships with your team, your clients, journalists and influencers. It’s about building trust, being respectful, delivering and helping each other out. The power of building relationships was definitely something I first learnt in the world of advertising. It’s relationships and connections which make for the best results.
We work with a range of creative and strategic marketing agencies, helping to promote their work and profile their key people. I still have a very special place in my heart for the advertising world. And having worked with the sector press for over 10 years, it’s a landscape I know very well.
Advertising is something I’ve loved since I was little – I actually used to fast forward programmes on my VCR to get to the adverts! I remember the great campaigns from Levi’s, Guinness and even the Green Cross Code (!) word-for-word to this day. I hope I’ve passed that on to the wider team. As we’ve seen this year, good advertising can be pivotal to creating movements and changing lives.
So, starting in marketing and advertising has been invaluable for me, and continues to be as we move into a brand new year. I can echo everyone’s thoughts in saying I’m hoping for much better things for us all in 2021.
AMBITIOUS has recently delivered a national campaign for PillTime, working with Dr Hilary – securing 11 TV and radio interviews, with the total reach of the campaign over five million.
About the campaign
PillTime is an NHS certified online pharmacy and their mission is to make life more manageable for people who take multiple prescriptions every day.
They do this by providing pills in a pouch with the time of day stamped on the packet. This prevents people from taking the wrong medication and most importantly not taking too much.
The aims of the campaign were to raise awareness of the added pressures on non-professional carers as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and inform the public about the tools offered by PillTime to make caring for loved ones easier.
Our activity started by commissioning a piece of research amongst unpaid or non-professional carers to see how they were feeling – and if they felt they were getting enough support. We set about creating a news story to primarily secure broadcast coverage because we wanted to get people talking about unpaid carers on International Carers Rights Day – a key awareness day we had identified as an platform to secure media coverage, an opportunity for newsjacking and a PR platform to use these findings to create newsworthy earned media content.
PillTime already had a working relationship with the nation’s favourite GP – ITV’s Dr Hilary Jones – and AMBITIOUS were able to offer interview time with him to radio and TV stations. With his medical background, Dr Hilary was able to articulate the stressors on unpaid carers and highlight how people who are worried about a loved one taking the right medication might be able to get some peace of mind.
AMBITIOUS launched the campaign on International Carers Rights Day to further highlight the worry, stress and anxiety carers in the UK are facing. PillTime also wanted to show support of the awareness day in a meaningful and genuine way and offer people who are worried about taking the right prescriptions a solution.
Campaign results with national reach
AMBITIOUS introduced PillTime to a range of regional and national media platforms and were able to secure some fantastic interviews with Dr Hilary talking about the research on a day of significance for the brand.
Quality earned media coverage was achieved across 11 TV and radio interviews, with the total reach of the campaign over 5 million. The flagship coverage on International Carers Rights Day was ITV Borders who used the interview in their early evening bulletin which reaches close to 100,000 viewers per week.
Paul Stonuary, Head of Marketing, PillTime, added: “AMBITIOUS are not only a team of great minds and fantastically creative thinkers, they are also an endearing group of people to work with. They took the time to really understand my business and what I hoped to achieve. The results were far beyond what I might have expected.”
For more information about this campaign or our PR, content, social media or digital marketing services, please contact AMBITIOUS via our website or at [email protected].
Bath-based digital media buying agency, SearchStar, and London-based multilingual digital marketing agency, Adapt Worldwide, have announced that they will now operate as one company, retaining the Adapt name while launching a new-look brand and proposition for 2021.
Both agencies had previously been acquired by international localisation company, Welocalize, with SearchStar the most recent acquisition in 2018.
Together, SearchStar and Adapt become a global Digital Performance Marketing Agency, with an expanded list of services focusing on delivering growth for ambitious clients domestically and internationally. Adapt’s service offering now includes: Paid Search, SEO, Programmatic, Paid Social, Content Marketing, Conversion Optimisation and Web Analytics.
Importantly for Bath and the wider area, the new launch of one of the South West’s largest agencies brings with it new and exciting employment opportunities in the digital sector. With growth ambitions of its own, Adapt will continue to hire aggressively at all levels a it seeks to expand its teams across its entire service offering.
Speaking of the merging of both agencies Managing Director, Jon Greenhalgh, said:
“The integration of SearchStar under the Adapt Worldwide name, and launch of a new agency brand is a huge milestone in an incredibly positive period of alignment within the wider digital marketing operation of our parent company, Welocalize.
“It’s the culmination of two years of progress – the coming together of two highly talented teams of digital marketers into an agency capable of delivering ‘growth without boundaries’, domestically and internationally.
“And it’s not only the growth this move will be able to deliver for our clients that excites me – it also creates fantastic opportunities for the team. An opportunity to truly broaden their horizons and take further steps in their careers.
“Importantly, retaining our identity as a distinct digital brand means we have been able to preserve the agility of operating as an independent. And one able to take full advantage of the truly multi-market nature of Welocalize to assemble teams specifically aligned with each client’s needs globally.
“It is with that support that we find ourselves in a unique position to meet the expectations of today’s most ambitious brands, whatever they want to achieve – be it to launch internationally, bolster growth in existing markets, or identify opportunities for global expansion.”
The launch of the new Adapt brand and integration of SearchStar is effective from 13th January 2021.
Welcome to the third and final blog in our series on Augmented Reality (AR).
In case you missed it, our first segment introduced AR technology and its impact on markets across the globe, while our second blog explored AR’s potential when it comes to marketing, today. Today’s final instalment delves deeper into the practical use-cases for AR today, along with some of the loftier examples of where its tech could take us.
If you had one, you were of course, lucky enough to be able to afford an extortionately expensive high-end smartphone. You were also probably unlucky enough to be pestered by people who wanted to ‘have a go’ for themselves.
Arthur C. Clarke said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ And touchscreens certainly had enough magic to magnetise the masses. Now, AR is taking a similar step from the realm of the mystic, into reality. And the timing couldn’t be better.
From the everyday, to the extraordinary: there are opportunities for the world’s biggest brands, most digital-savvy marketers and forward-thinking businesses.
In the age of the smartphone, you could be forgiven for thinking business cards have largely become redundant. But if the line ‘Are you on LinkedIn?’ doesn’t set you on fire, an AR business card could be a stronger opener when encountering potential business contacts in the wild.
Upon scanning your business card, the recipient could be greeted by a showreel video of your products, a short introduction to your business, a tour of your office locations or even live and up-to-date special offers – in fact, there’s limitless potential.
And best of all, creating an AR business card could be a lot simpler than you think. Prototypes already exist which simply work by the recipient scanning a QR code on the card with the camera on their smartphone – no special apps or software necessary!
It goes without saying: this tech doesn’t need to be contained to your business card. Product catalogues, service leaflets and even your quarterly reports can all be brought to life with some clever AR, making your brand not only more appealing – but more engaging, too.
For those of us who treat clothes shopping like a competitive sport, aiming for a new P.B. each time we hit the rails, life could become simpler with the introduction of augmented reality.
One option, which many of us will already be aware of, is ‘virtual try on’ – both online, with the assistance of your laptop or smartphone camera, and in-store through specially-AR-activated mirrors.
L’Oreal was one of the first businesses to introduce AR ‘smart’ mirrors at beauty counters, offering consumers the option to try on cosmetics with ease – and my guess is this will only become more prevalent after the hands-OFF-your-face impact of the pandemic.
Virtual try-ons aren’t just for people, either.
If you’ve visited the Ikea website recently (who hasn’t during lockdown?) you can now ‘try on’ furniture, wallpaper, tiles and more to visualise products in your home. And the same principles can be applied to commercial premises, too.
So if you’re selling high-end office furnishings, commercial signage, or even an air conditioning unit, you can easily make your products more impactful by introducing them directly into your customers’ lives – even if it’s virtually.
This doesn’t need to be just about chasing Pokemon. You can create a treasure hunt for adults which introduces a new level of interactivity between your brand and your customers anywhere you have a physical presence.
For example, if you’re attending an expo, you can place AR locators around your exhibition stand to deliver information about your individual products and services. You’ll stand out from the other exhibitors at the event, and be able to engage your visitors more effectively, keeping them attentive for longer so your employees can follow up the conversation too. And, again, it’s a great conversation starter.
If your business has a retail presence, you can replicate this experience in your showrooms – or even choose to implement an AR window display which could be used to great effect on social media, too.
So imagine this. You hear the clunk of your letterbox and head to collect the post. There’s a small, shallow cardboard box with a bold message printed on top.
GRAB YOUR PHONE AND GET READY.
You open the box, and a leaflet drops out: SCAN ME. Opening your phone’s camera app, and capturing the QR code, you’re taken straight to a video, introducing a teaser on an Amazing New Productᵗᵐ.
Upon further inspection, the leaflet introduces you to the brand behind the ANPᵗᵐ – you even watch a video about the team and see they’re local. In fact, their interactive office location map shows they’re just a mile away, where you can pop into their showroom for even more information.
It might sound otherworldly. But at Proctors, we’re making virtual, reality today. We can help you to create an irresistible campaign, whether it’s wowing shareholders with your next quarterly report or enticing new customers with clever interactive artwork in a viral social campaign.
Talk to us, and let’s discuss your possibilities at [email protected].
Although 2020 has not been a great year for shooting on location, particularly for branded content or commercials, Bristol filmmaker & writer Gavin Knight got round this problem… By crafting a brilliant script & sourcing rare footage from Bordeaux documentaries, the film was made during the first lockdown & released in April. It promotes a new concept in wine by Viniv – you can blend your own barrel of wine (240 bottles!) under the auspices of Chateau Lynch-Bages.
The Evcom London Film Awards normally take place at the BFI, but sadly this November it was a virtual ceremony. The film can be viewed on Gavin’s website here:
https://buxtonknight.myportfolio.com/viniv-bordeaux-wine
2020 has certainly been a rollercoaster and while we’ve had some pretty big lows, there’s also been some highs. Over the year, one thing that has come up again and again is the number of inspiring people and businesses that have come together in our city over the past year to support each other.
From our favourite restaurants providing free school meals to virtual initiatives across all sectors, it’s been efforts like these which have helped us get through and kept spirits high despite all the doom and gloom.
To share the love ahead of the end of the year, we thought we’d spend some time saying thank you to Bristol’s Best people and businesses, and encourage others to do the same.
We’re encouraging everyone to use the hashtag #BristolsBest to thank the businesses and people that have been brilliant over the past year – whether someone has stood by your business, supported you in personal capacity or just made you laugh. Why not take 30 seconds to call them out as Bristol’s best?
To help share the love, for everyone who tags us into a social media post ( LinkedIn, twitter or insta) we’ll be randomly sending little gifts from a selection of some of Bristol’s best independent businesses to those nominated and those saying thank you.
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s end the year on a high. Who do you want to call out as BristolsBest?
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