In the age of information, content is in abundance.
Scroll through social media and you will be spoilt for choice: every company worth its salt pumps out content to win over the hearts and minds of prospective customers.
Sadly, it doesn’t always hit the mark. When the ‘Likes’ are low and the average time spent on the page is not marrying up to your expectations, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
Whether you have yet to devise a strategy or you want to revisit your plan, we’ve put together a step by step guide to help you win at content marketing.
Often, we spend so much time involved in our own products and services that we fail to see the real issues our customers want to hear about.
The outcome? Complex, jargon-filled content that our target audience has no real need for.
If this sounds familiar, take a step back to map out your buyer’s persona. Instead of taking briefs from an ops team, ask your salespeople to give you the lowdown on the conversations they’re having with prospective clients.
What genuine problems do they have that your content could solve?
By taking the time to understand their unique interests, pain points and motivations for choosing a particular solution, you will form a strong starting point from which to build your content marketing strategy upon.
Your goal is to create a content marketing strategy that attracts a steady flow of on-target traffic to your website. After all, without a strategy, the performance of your content is a matter of luck. As with all marketing activity, your efforts should never be random, nor should they be derailed by something shiny.
(“Shall we do a blog post about…” and “I’ve seen so and so doing a podcast” are perfect examples of how not to plan your content. Don’t chase a bandwagon – start your own.)
The best way to achieve goals is to make them measurable and to tie them into wider marketing KPIs. Content-specific performance indicators will help you stick to goals by giving you clear milestones to tick off that prevent you from getting derailed.
Content KPIs will vary depending on your wider objectives but could include form-fills and conversions, page views, time spent on a page as well as social media metrics and email campaign results.
Once you have identified and set-out a thought-cloud of topics to fuel your content, consider the medium they will best respond to. Written content is a classic – as well as conveying the expertise of your company, it can enhance visibility across search engines given the right research.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t step outside the parameters of your business’ blog to engage your audience. Research from Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021 – and you don’t have to be Spielberg to tell a compelling story through video.
Concise and captivating video content can be as simple as your CEO answering a frequently asked question. It also presents an opportunity to showcase a snippet of your employer brand to the outside world. Charity events and team days out can make for clickable content that acts as a window into your company culture, and all it takes is a phone with a good quality camera to get started.
Beyond video, helpful content such as short slide decks and eye-catching infographics can help your brand to stand out in a crowded space.
Now that you have laid the foundations of your content marketing strategy, the next step is to ensure you can deliver on your intentions.
Without an individual or team to take ownership of your strategy, the task often falls to anyone with free time. Of course, time is money, and when urgent issues take priority, content slips back down to the bottom of the pile until – yep, you guessed it – someone sees something a competitor is doing on LinkedIn and asks:
“Why aren’t we doing that?”
More often than not, it comes down to a lack of commitment.
Simply put – if you want your business to be a leader in content marketing, it must be a top priority. As such, it should have ample resources behind it. Hiring a dedicated team or even just one specialist is far more effective than leaning on the sales team to throw something together when they have a spare moment.
A winning content marketing strategy is often best executed with the help of a content calendar.
Why?
Because a big behemoth that comprises of several mediums and messages can make for a daunting task. By breaking it down into smaller blocks that chunk off particular themes against set times in the year, the plan becomes a lot more manageable.
A reliable content calendar can be organised on a weekly or monthly basis, and helps keep track of all content being produced and published, whether that means upcoming articles, whitepapers, case studies, webinars, or promotional event updates.
As well as saving considerable time, a content calendar keeps the momentum going to prevent infrequency and encourages regular audience engagement.
Top tip: Before putting an editorial calendar together, we recommend undertaking a content audit on your website to determine which pieces can be re-used, re-purposed or re-shared throughout the year.
Just as every business is different, so too are your audiences. While there are certain mediums and channels that help boost engagement and increase reach, there is no off-the-shelf solution that works for all.
Analytics are your North star – they should help guide you in the right direction by identifying what is working and what is not. Don’t hesitate to make changes on the fly: if a particular style of content isn’t resonating as you thought it would, do some digging to discover the reason.
There will nearly always be key takeaways that can tell you more about what went wrong and what to action in the future to improve performance.
Need a hand on creating a content marketing strategy? We’re here to help. Drop us a message or give us a call to find out what we can do for you.
With the nation back in lockdown and redundancies expected to skyrocket, virtual agency network Pimento has teamed up with leaders in the world of HR, finance and wellbeing to provide support for those who find themselves out of work.
Research by the Chartered Institute of Marketing estimates that almost 40,000 people – one in ten of the sector’s workforce – have already lost their jobs during the pandemic, with many more to come as the UK heads into lockdown 2.0.
In response, a consortium of experts – including Reality HR, Talent Spark, Premier Consultants, Wilcox Day Wealth Management, Pimento People and MHFA England ambassador and instructor Michelle Morgan – have launched a joint initiative to get people back into employment.
The ‘What Next’ programme is designed to provide specialist advice across a breadth of topics, and give those in the creative, marketing and communications sectors the skills, tools, and motivations to find a new role – or set up as a freelancer.
Starting from November 10th, the series of interactive workshops will cover a range of topics from mental health advice through to going freelance and CV writing.
“We are expecting a ‘jobs bloodbath’ in the coming months,” says Stephen Knight, founder and CEO of Pimento, and the driving force behind ‘What Next’.
“The marketing and communications industry will be amongst the hardest hit, and these seminars are designed to help those affected to get their feet back on the ground after the shock of redundancy.”
Endorsed by the Alliance of Independent Agencies and the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), several other leading industry bodies are also looking to extend the reach of the programme in the coming weeks.
For more information on the scheme and how to join, visit: https://pimento.co.uk/what-next/
This month I’ve been stunned by two different films that come from popular mobile brands, Samsung & Orange.
Although the films are very different, they have some telling things in common. Neither of the films feature any product or service whatsoever, apart from the logo at the end. How refreshing…it’s as if the Covid crisis has forced many brands to have more of a conscience. Both these films support an idea that benefits humanity. Brands are beginning to realise that unless they put their money where their morals lie, unless they can actively demonstrate they are purpose-led, as well as creative in their communications, consumers will just switch off.
SAMSUNG’s film – ‘Inspired by a True Photo’ – is really inspired by an original photo, a simple sack of ‘Onions’, taken by a real person called Scott Anders. But we don’t see Scott take the photo, instead Director Sam Hibbard of Somesuch imagines a story behind the photo that sees a boy meet a girl for the first time – but full of comedy, pathos and using a surreal style. At its heart, the film is about connection – the hope & expectation of the boy’s journey.
Samsung have realised that it’s not the quality of camera that is important but the way people use images to communicate with each other. Samsung claim that when we take and share our images, they take on a life of their own. The shot becomes the conversation. The beauty of Sam’s film is that it avoids all the brand’s technology to tell a fun story using great characters, images & original music.
Connection & communication that is funny & uplifting in the time of Covid has never been more important.
The ORANGE film – ‘The Toy’ – takes a more direct approach to saving humanity by encouraging us to recycle our old phones. Millions of old phones are to be found hibernating in long-forgotten draws & these phones are wasting our planet’s precious resources.
The film is directed by Frédéric Planchon of Iconoclast, aimed at a European rather than UK market. It shows the relationship a little girl has with one of her first toys, the famous ‘Fisher-Price’ rolling phone. We see the girl become an adult & then rediscover her old toy in the attic with her own child. The recycling parable is clear.
Like the Samsung film, ‘The Toy’ uses great images & music to tell a life-affirming story with emotion.
A recent study has uncovered how the UK creative sector has continued to thrive, despite the challenges faced by the pandemic – with 81% of independent agencies winning work virtually for the first time ever.
As well as more projects being awarded over video calls instead of face-to-face meetings during the lockdown, the research also found that 92% of independent agencies have either collaborated with another agency on a brief, or would now be happy to, should the opportunity arise.
The main reasons behind marcomms companies favouring this joined-up approach, it seems, are to fill skills gaps their team doesn’t have (77%), provide the best client experience (44%), aid creativity (33%) and foster a more flexible working culture (17%).
Only 8.5% confessed to preferring to keep all projects in house.
The research – which quizzed small and medium-sized independent agencies throughout the UK – was carried out by virtual agency network Pimento, in association with the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), Marketing Agencies Action Group (MAAG) and independent communications collective, Harbour.
Other revelations from the survey include almost half of agencies (44%) disagreeing that colleagues need to be in the same physical place to be creative.
But with collaboration remaining a hot topic – and 53% of respondents revealing they now have spare space in their current premises for additional bodies – this perhaps goes some way to explaining why 77% of people said they would consider sharing offices with another agency.
When commenting on the results, CEO and founder of Pimento, Stephen Knight, said: “The pandemic has uncovered the power of virtual communications more than ever. And while agencies were collaborating years before COVID-19, the current situation has highlighted the need to accelerate this, in order to thrive in the current climate.
“As the research indicates, harnessing the era of the specialist is crucial for agencies. Every business has a niche – something it’s really great at – and joining forces with other professionals to deliver clients’ projects, not only helps foster high-quality output, but strengthens the foundations of our industry as a whole.”
The results also showed a shift in agency mindset when it comes to preferred working locations. 60% of respondents confessed to working mainly from the office prior to lockdown, whereas 72% admitted they will now look to split their 9-5 time between the office and home.
Only 15% of people want to continue working from the company headquarters full time, while 17% want to permanently operate remotely.
“Agencies are clearly continuing to adapt the way they function, in order to remain buoyant in the marketplace – with many challenging the ‘traditional’ office concept”, Stephen added.
“Creativity doesn’t just happen due to being in the same four walls as your peers, it’s the people and their skills which bring briefs to life – no matter where they are in the world. And the fact so many agencies have teamed up – and are open to sharing projects – as a result of lockdown, is a trend we’ll definitely be reading more about over the coming months.”
________
Pimento is the UK’s leading independent agency network. Founded in 2005, it now boasts 200 agencies and consultants, covering almost every aspect of marketing services. As such, they are able to meet the complex demands of clients by creating bespoke teams, drawn directly from its members. https://pimento.co.uk/
The survey collates the findings of 50 UK independent agencies, and all figures, unless otherwise stated, are from Pimento’s own research which was carried out online. Fieldwork was undertaken August 2020.
Welcome back to the second blog in our three-part series on Augmented Reality (AR). In our first segment, we introduced AR technology and explored its potential impact on our lives over the coming years.
But the technology already exists. And so, this poses an opportunity today.
Any brand who considers themselves a true tech pioneer, who is looking to distinguish themselves from their industry competitors, or is ready to forge an unrivalled relationship with millennial and Gen-Z customers, should consider grasping the opportunity AR presents for marketing and customer engagement, today.
When it comes to experiential marketing, there’s no better vehicle for delivering an unforgettable brand experience than AR. As mentioned in our previous blog, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination – but there is one decision you’ll need to make early on: how you’ll deliver the experience to your viewers.
For those looking to get started today, there are two methods of AR access to choose from: by building an app, or using WebAR.
For many, apps are the option of choice. In-app augmented reality enables you to control the entire experience from end-to-end, maximising elements such as branding.
Take Pokémon Go, for example. The combination of technology, art and culture to form a real-life treasure hunt was arguably one of the most successful experiential campaigns to date.
During its peak, as many as 20% of Pokémon Go players were using the app every day, and by March 2019 it had been downloaded more than 1 billion times. Those are some vast numbers.
The ease of use was a key factor in the app’s success – and it’s worth noting, there’s no doubt that downloads would have been significantly lower had the app required specialist technology, i.e. had it required additional headwear like ‘Snapchat Spectacles’-type tech to play. But every one of us has a smartphone in our pocket at all times, leaving a near-zero barrier to taking part.
The other option for creating an AR experience is to use WebAR.
Sometimes referred to as WebXR due to its ability to support AR, VR and MXR (Mixed Reality) functionality, WebAR allows you to use an AR experience directly within your browser – without having to download an app.
Most smartphones are WebAR-enabled, making it arguably even easier to access than downloading an app. However, you may have less control over some elements of the design.
So how do you choose the right platform for your audience? At P+S, we believe it comes down to your intent.
If you’re looking to integrate an AR experience into your website, maximise the ‘wow factor’ of your marketing materials or offer an AR experience in real-world locations, WebAR is a great choice. It removes barriers and offers instant access for anyone using a compatible device – without the need for having to stop and download an app.
However, if you’re looking to run a more complex experience – a game, or a more developed user interface like map overlays – then launching an app offers an excellent self-contained, immersive experience with unlimited customisation options. And you’ll have the added benefit of being able to update and push new content without disruption to your other content and materials.
Apart from creating the next gaming sensation, how can augmented reality actually be applied for brand marketing purposes?
For those businesses promoting a product, it could be as simple as creating the ability for customers to ‘see’ a 3D visualisation of your merchandise face-to-face – all from the comfort of their own sofa. IKEA have recently begun offering just this, enabling customers to view furniture in their homes before ever making a purchase. And with COVID-19 set to disrupt the store experience the foreseeable future, now has never been a better time to offer virtual product experiences.
For those businesses who offer a service rather than a physical product, this is an opportunity to think laterally about marketing.
Let’s take an airline, for example. While enabling customers to view a Boeing 747 in their own living room isn’t necessarily offering value, they could offer an augmented ‘map’ of airline routes across the sky instead.
Or, they could look closer at the in-airport experience. In larger international airports, offering an augmented map that leads customers from the security gates to the airline’s private lounge, or straight to their flight gate, would be a breath of fresh air.
Architectural firms can use AR to show their projects to a client in real-time. Financial services can demonstrate abstract concepts in a more tangible visualised form. And what’s more, the data shows that AR visualisations improve B2B buyer confidence, and help to speed up sales cycles.
From marketing, to product visualisation, to making invisible concepts visible, the AR experience creates higher levels of engagement, increases conversions, and offers a powerful branding opportunity. When done well, it’s inherently social media friendly, shareable and creates a powerful lasting impact.
But that’s not the limit of what AR will bring to brands.
Our next blog, and final instalment of our AR series, is coming soon – stay tuned.
Why not contact us today at marketing@proctors.co.uk to discuss your goals with our team.
Instagram Reels has created a huge buzz, however, most conversations believe that it is Instagram’s response to TikTok.
We believe that Instagram’s newest feature is more than just a copy of a trending video platform; it is becoming an integral part of Instagram’s business model, offering users and businesses an amazing opportunity to widely reach new users and turn them into loyal followers.
If you’re still not convinced that Instagram Reels are for you, here are seven reasons to change your mind.
1. Instagram Reels – Revolutionising content
Instagram Reels is the newest feature from Instagram, and in social media everything that’s new is trending. It was rolled out at the beginning of August as Instagram’s newest addition to their already extensive line-up of features. It may feel jarring on your feed at first, but so did stories, and so did IGTV.
Basically, Reels allows users, creators, and business accounts to share short, addictive videos in addition to posts, stories, and IGTV. The videos posted through Reels can be easily and quickly made and will feature on the feed and in the explore section. Reels are the first thing you see when you open the Instagram app or use the search button to look for anything on Instagram.
2. The Instagram Reels editing tools are next level
So, what makes Instagram Reels different from a standard video?
With Reels, you can create short, impressive, and addictive videos up to 15 seconds in length – there’s also a timer & countdown option to make filming easier. The videos can be overlaid with text that appears, disappears, moves, and more. Music is available from an existing library and sounds can be integrated at any given moment within the video, making the videos extremely impactful. Another useful feature is the transition options. With this, you can align objects from one clip with the start of another, making the transition smooth or shocking, or however you want. Playing with the speed of the video, either in full or in specific parts is also something you may want to try out as this makes your videos feel dramatic and high quality.
Like all Instagram content, there is an excellent selection of filters and options to choose from to make your videos slick and with a clean finish.
3. Instagram is a hot place for businesses
Across the digital industry, there’s a lot of chatter that Instagram Reels is merely a copy of TikTok. The main argument underpinning this is that Instagram Reels does not have the same creativity as TikTok and that the user experience is less creative and community focused. While there is some validity to this argument, let’s not forget two important aspects:
This is not, however, a comparison between Instagram Reels and TikTok. We want to show you why Instagram Reels is valuable for businesses, not necessarily instead of TikTok. Businesses are already using Instagram, and their audience is on Instagram, which is why, using Reels is the best strategy today for engaging with existing audiences and improving the relationship between brand and customer.
All you have to do is take a quick look at the first businesses jumping on Instagram Reels, and you will see that it’s here to stay: NBA Franchises, Louis Vuitton, Sephora France, Red Bull France, etc.
4. Instagram prioritises Reels content
As this is its newest ‘thing’, Instagram wants to encourage users to start uploading content through Reels. This is your opportunity. It’s time to take to Reels and be seen organically on Instagram. The fact that Reels is in its infancy gives you an advantage and should be capitalised on sooner, rather than later.
Remember, your audience will be impressed that your brand is up-to-date with the latest trends and this will reflect in your overall brand image as fresh and relevant.
5. Instagram Reels can be monetised
At the moment, you can gain reach, impressions, and engagement from Reels, which will translate into increased brand awareness and conversions by following the sales funnel strategy. But, it won’t be long until Instagram Reels is integrated into the Facebook ads placement strategy. As things evolve at Facebook, businesses will be able to monetise Reels content and will be able to clearly track conversions from Reels to sales. Don’t underestimate this power.
6. TikTok’s future is uncertain
Right now, TikTok’s future is up in the air. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order to ‘sell’ part of TikTok to a US firm in order to keep running in the country. Furthermore, TikTok was banned from India, one of its main markets. These have thrown into question the security and future of the Chinese app. With these insecurities remaining front and centre, Instagram Reels might be just the thing to replace TikTok all together, at the right moment and in the right countries. TikTok’s young audience will still want and need a place to hang out online and share their content, and Reels is primed to be that spot.
7. One billion users are active on Instagram each month
Finally, there are 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram and this figure is continuing to grow. These 1 billion can all see Reels content on the explore pace, and in their own Feed. It’s just sitting there – why not create engaging Reels for your audience to see?
Instagram Reels is still very new, and there will undoubtedly be many more twists and turns to come. Until then, we know this about it:
Knowing all this, the only question remaining is why aren’t you using it for your business?
If you need help with Instagram Reels, get in touch with OggaDoon today.
Marketing automation software does what it says on the tin: it’s technology which relieves some of the pressures of marketing your business, product or service, by automating your marketing processes.
No longer just the secret weapon of larger enterprises, marketing automation makes campaigns for businesses of any size easier to manage. From email to social, websites to text messaging, automation technology works across multiple channels – and across different touchpoints in the customer journey too.
But with hundreds of tools available, where do you start?
Luckily, we have tonnes of experience with automation software at P+S. In this blog, we’ll break down why it’s worth investing in automation, how it all works, and give you five top tips to make sure it’s a success.
So, if you’re searching for a way to deliver more qualified sales leads with less supervision, nurture customers more effectivelywhile conserving your resources, and reduce your marketing spend while increasing sales opportunities, read on.
In short, automation software can do almost anything. One of the biggest benefits is that it saves you time and resources – no more having to hit ‘send’ on every action you take. Plus, automation tools give you one place to manage multiple marketing streams, collect customer data and customise your campaigns.
Some of the tasks automation software can assist with include:
With the right automation software, you can liberate your team’s time and creativity. So members are free to work on bolder ideas for attracting customers, free to aim for more ambitious targets, and free to expand your business into new growth markets.
But your team still needs to deploy, optimise and develop your marketing software strategy: team members will still need to do the thinking, while the ‘heavy lifting’ is carried out by the technology.
There are thousands of different MarTech providers out there, offering hundreds of marketing automation solutions. Choosing the right one can be a bit of a minefield.
The best place to start is by identifying your business’s most critical needs. Are you taking too long to react to customers’ buying signals? Or maybe you regularly find yourself chasing the wrong leads? Make a list of your most urgent issues – there will undoubtedly be a tool designed to solve them. Once you’ve covered the business critical, you can then increase this list to include ‘nice-to-haves’ to help you further narrow down your options.
It’s important to create tangible goals, too. Not only will these help you measure your progress after deploying your technology, they will also help you to ascertain whether the investment is worthwhile for your business – and to justify that choice to your stakeholders, too. Using SMART objectives is a strong starting point for developing goals that make the most sense for your business.
Whichever provider you decide is best for you, there are a few ways to optimise the approach further.
Whatever software solution you settle on, choose to focus on simpler automation processes first, using simple data sets. This could be pre-scheduling some of your social posts, or regular marketing emails. Once you’re sure you know exactly how well this works, and that you’re benefiting from doing so, you can begin automating more complex processes with more tailored audience segments too: personalised automated upselling for customers who’ve shown interest in certain products, for example.
Any campaign you’re managing with automation software should complement your existing marketing. This isn’t the opportunity to overhaul your tone of voice and begin bombarding people with daily newsletters. You’ll still want to focus on enriching your customers’ lives with relevant news, information and products.
Employing new software is easier when your team is receptive to the change. Who will drive its success within your business?
Identifying someone to be the internal champion of your automation software is a powerful move. Usually, this person is in a senior position, acting as an authority on the tech as well as a successful user of it. This person’s guidance and experience will also help you make decisions about training and support requirements, and put plans in place for the adoption and rollout process.
The goal here isn’t to just market as much as you can – it’s to increase the value of your brand to your customers, using automation to build a long-term relationship with them. Automation enables you to interact with them in a more meaningful and relevant way, to build brand loyalty at every point in their journey.
And, of course, this wouldn’t be a P+S blog without us mentioning measurable goals. As previously stated, setting clear, ambitious but achievable KPIs from the very beginning will allow you to measure your success. Lead scoring and nurturing data should form a part of these KPIs, and will help you to establish a business case for continued investment.
Even the strongest marketing team can benefit from automation technology. Half of the challenge of marketing today is collecting, organising and applying insights from a flood of customer data – which is easier said than done.
From website visits, to open rates, clicks, social engagement, events and forms – the amount of customer information available is truly staggering. But by analysing it all, you can identify key behaviours which can then become a trigger for marketing automation processes. It means you can immediately respond to those triggers, and exponentially improve the efficiency and value of your marketing.
At P+S we work with our clients to ensure their marketing automation software gives every customer a better, more personalised experience. We’ll save your marketing teams countless hours on repetitive tasks, and ensure your business never misses an opportunity to connect with customers across every touchpoint – no matter where they are in their user journey.
Plus, not only do we help you make more of your customer data, we also measure the results – and continually optimise them, to become even greater.
With COVID-19 meaning social distancing is the new norm, we’re seeing profound effects on our lives. Face-to-face meetings, gatherings and events aren’t possible, making this a difficult time for the general population and most industries. For many businesses, budgets are under increasing pressure as revenue streams are cut and operational and marketing methods undergo huge upheaval.
As a society, we’re worried about our health, our families’ health, our wellbeing and our job security. Now is not the time for brands to choose a hard-sell approach, or to appear to be ‘cashing in’ on – or even preying on – social insecurity, as audiences become less receptive and more critical of insincere marketing.
So how can businesses maintain those physical interactions that are so vital to customer engagement, and promote their services in as effective and relevant a way as possible?
One option for connecting with your customers is through hosting a digital event.
Digital events have become more prominent in the last few years, and offer a range of benefits:
Two of the primary forms of digital events are webcasts and webinars. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in fact, they both feature a distinctly different approach to hosting an online event.
If you want to engage with a larger audience, featuring tens or even hundreds of participants, a webcast is an ideal way to broadcast your message.
Webcasts are typically a one-way flow of information shared over the internet, delivered like a lecture or speech. In cases where there are a large number of participants, a webcast gives you the opportunity to deliver a valuable presentation with minimum disruption.
If you’re looking for a higher level of engagement with your audience, a webinar might be a better option. A webinar more closely resembles a meeting, often with fewer participants who are more involved in the content. In this two-way, interactive option, your audience can ask questions, and there’s more opportunity for you to drive direct interaction.
For the very highest level of engagement where creativity and collaboration is needed most, virtual workshops create an effective environment within the digital sphere. In ‘real-life’ face-to-face creative workshops, structure is often more fluid, but this can be difficult to achieve in an online environment. To successfully deliver a virtual workshop, you should have a clearly-defined process for organising and managing participation, and use easy-to-implement, highly intuitive technology, to smooth the delivery process.
If you’re looking to fully replicate an existing conference or event, then a virtual tradeshow could be well suited for you. Virtual tradeshows can be hosted indefinitely, taking place online with on-demand information. By using live chat options and providing customer support, your visitors can experience the same feeling of instant, responsive communication as they would in a face-to-face expo.
In a virtual tradeshow, you can host digital exhibition halls, booths and auditoriums, helping you to replicate the immersive experience of a real-life event. However, it’s worth noting that this type of event the longest lead time, and can be costly to set up.
In this blog, we look at the different types of digital events, how you can build your audience for your events, and provide some top tips for success.
Different events will attract different audience sizes and levels of engagement. Its success will often rely on the quality and number of participants in the audience you manage to attract.
Traditionally, digital events are split into two audience segments; your existing database contacts, and audiences built through new lead generation.
Unless you have a well-managed and maintained database of contacts, GDPR and other data legislation, such as CCPA, can restrict the opportunity for direct email invitations to your event. So you’ll need to check this, and consider alternative lead-generation tactics if this is the case.
Social media is a great tool for driving lead generation when used creatively, and can be supplemented through media partnerships or other paid media channels – for example, search engine advertising.
One of the greatest benefits of a webinar or a webcast is that either one can be held live or made available on-demand, depending on the platform you choose to host your event. By making an event recording available after it’s taken place, you can make connections with customers and prospects who can’t necessarily attend in real-time, or who may be researching the subject after the event has already taken place.
In fact, with any online session you’ll want to consider post-webinar activity – just as you would with a live event. Your digital session is just the beginning of potential engagement, and with strategic follow-up activity you can continue to nurture leads and maintain interest. Repackaged content following a webinar can be an ideal way to sustain the conversation with customers, as can additional ‘exclusive’ materials.
With a combination of session playback and additional content, your sessions gain additional longevity – and that means maximum impact for your brand.
At P+S, we’ve been hosting digital events for years, both for our own brand, and for our clients too. Our top tips for success include:
When it comes to digital events, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and execution of lead generation campaigns, to designing and copywriting your presentations and content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet – and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of digital event would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing marketing@proctors.co.uk.
The creation and publication of high-quality content is an essential aspect of any digital marketing strategy. If crafted and broadcasted effectively, digital content can help you achieve a wide range of goals for your business, including increasing your website traffic, reaching new prospects, bettering your brand’s reputation, and improving your online presence.
However, creating new, fresh and strong digital content on a regular basis can be both time-consuming and expensive – luxuries which many of us can’t afford right now.
In this blog, we outline how to simplify things, extend your subject matter’s lifecycle and make the most out of your available resources, through content planning, repurposing and promotion.
One way to simplify the process of content creation is to repurpose what you’ve previously published. This recycling of pre-existing content saves you the time and expense of coming up with new ideas and developing original content from scratch, by breathing new life into what you’ve already developed.
The first step is to catalogue all of your existing content and highlight the most relevant to share as quickly as possible. The types of content you could catalogue include blog articles, reports, case studies, thought-leadership pieces, white papers, magazines, videos and podcasts.
Your online audience grows and changes over time – be it blog readers, social media followers or email/newsletter subscribers. Some of them will not have been aware of content you published 18 months ago, so repurposing this increases its exposure to new audiences.
Additionally, a topic that struck the right chord with your audience once is more likely to gain traction than a completely new one, so outlining your best-performing content pieces is vital. High-performing content has a much higher ROI potential than that which didn’t perform well the first time around, as well as being likely to include nuggets of useful information, which you can use as a basis and expand on, when repurposing.
Additionally, republishing existing content on specific topics establishes your expertise in these areas, and your audience will start perceiving you as an authority figure in your industry. This, in turn, strengthens your brand’s reputation and credibility, and can even improve your search engine ranking.
Search engines have a preference for websites that deliver valuable and meaningful content to their users. Repurposing content allows you to target the same keywords over and over again without the risk of duplication, and – if the content is of a high perceived quality – search engines will recognise your expertise in these areas, and reward it by ranking you more highly, increasing your brand’s exposure and reputation.
Once you have catalogued your content, it’s time to consider how exactly you’re going to share it, and who you want it to resonate with.
In the planning stage, specific audience segments should be identified and targeted, based on your existing followers, prospects, customers and business objectives. Content is often used as a tool for traditional lead generation, particularly in B2B marketing; through the use of collateral such as white papers, reports and webinars; so, ensuring your content strategy aligns with your new business objectives is essential.
Then, to amplify the reach and exposure of your content, the best channels and times to reach your selected target audiences should be considered and combined into a post schedule. You should also consider whether the content could be adapted into new and different mediums than it was previously. For example, a webinar could be turned into a series of explainer videos for distribution on social.
And always remember to check the content in the context of today’s unique environment. If it contains an overtly selling message, it either needs to be repackaged or discarded. It is important to strike the right tone with your messaging, which should remain sensitive and thoughtful.
Promoting through paid advertising allows you to amplify your content to reach more people, and, if done effectively, can grow your brand’s online following and drive sustained levels of relevant and engaged traffic through to your website.
Typically, social media is the best channel to use for the promotion of content, with the specific channel mixture depending on your budget, your target audience and the type of content that’s being promoted. LinkedIn and Facebook advertising can be particularly effective, and you can see some example creatives from a social media advertising campaign we ran for Epson recently here.
Advertising using retargeting can also be used to show content to previous website visitors, to encourage them to return to your site and keep your brand at the front of your customer’s mind.
With any digital content strategy, it’s crucial to measure the effectiveness of the content to allow you to see what material and placement are performing best, so you can refine and optimise your activities, to receive the highest possible levels of engagement.
For performance analysis on social media, key metrics to track include reach, impressions, click-through-rate (CTR), number of followers, likes, shares, comments and engagement rates. Most social media platforms offer some kind of analytics which you can access through your profile. There are, however, a variety of tools which offer more in-depth analysis of your performance, including Hootsuite, Fanpage Karma, Keyhole and AgoraPulse.
To gain valuable insights into your content performance on your website, Google Analytics is a fantastic tool to identify the most popular pages on your website, and provide detailed information on metrics such as page views, sessions, time-on-site, bounce rates, and landing and exit pages.
Once you have identified what content is receiving the highest levels of engagement, the most successful posts can then be boosted through targeted advertising to reach new relevant users in your target audiences.
When it comes to digital content, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and executing lead generation campaigns, to designing, copywriting and animating your content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet– and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of content strategy would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing marketing@proctors.co.uk.
After 20 years specialising in B2B marketing, I’m about to make an uncomfortable admission. Possibly one that will put a few noses out of joint among my colleagues.
While it might not be up there with the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire in terms of significance to the human race, this one breakthrough principle might help your branding – and so your business – become more effective than ever.
The essential problem is this. As soon as we put that B2B marketing hat on, all thought of people, of individuals, and the Pandora’s box of emotions that motivate them, goes right out of the (office rather than home) window. Instead, we become subsumed by the pursuit of sentiment-free business banality, and worship at the altar of corporate largesse.
And that’s wrong. For a brand to succeed – to be memorable, to resonate, to be the preferred choice – it needs to have humanity at its heart. Less business-to-business, and more human-to-human.
Before this theory is dismissed as an unmeasurable, intangible nice-to-have, there is some science to back it up. In 2019, Deloitte Digital conducted a report, The Human Experience: Quantifying the Value of Human Values. In it, the report writers concluded that the human condition is ‘universal and unchanging’, meaning it could be understood and measured.
Taking three core indices – customer values, workforce values and partner values –Deloitte was able to identify the ‘human centricity’ of an organisation, and predict those that were likely to grow faster and build stronger brand loyalty. Applying this measure to a testbed of brands in the fast-food sector, it found that those which focused on the human experience were twice as likely to outperform their peers in revenue growth over three years, and have 17 times faster store growth than those who don’t. Quite a prize then.
In carrying out the research, Deloitte also highlighted five ‘core human tenets’ that elevate the ‘human experience’ of a brand.
· Be obsessed by all things human
· Proactively deliver on human needs
· Execute with humanity
· Be authentic
· Change the world
But what does this mean for you when you’re developing and delivering your brand to the world? For us, it means considering the fundamental building blocks…
Great brands are built on great stories. And great stories are always about emotion. Things that capture our attention, stir our souls, fascinate or move us, leave us wanting to know (or feel) more. This is where your brand should begin, even if you’re operating in the most heavy-duty B2B markets.
Three or four years ago, I heard something said in a presentation that’s stuck with me ever since – ‘authenticity beats perfection’. And authenticity comes from us being human. When we’re authentic, we’re true to ourselves and the reality that lies behind our brands. Customers and prospects are able to trust us, to engage with us fully and to become familiar with what we stand for. They believe in us.
Technology drives today’s marketing. But technology should always be a means to create richer, deeper human-to-human connections through more intuitive and immersive digital experiences. Whether it’s AR, VR, AI, automation, or anything else, the way people experience your brand through technology must always bring them closer to you. And the same goes for the physical world. In creating a truly H2H brand, experience is everything.
The way your brand looks, feels, sounds and talks all have a part to play in its humanity. Have a personality. Avoid business jargon. Communicate like a person. Don’t use staid, cliched corporate imagery and stale, high-fiving commercial footage. Look for those unique, human moments in time that tell stories and create positive emotional associations. Be different. Be unique. Be you.
Getting to the heart of your brand’s humanity isn’t always an easy thing to do. We’re all so engrained in the traditional patterns of B2B thinking and speaking that it’s often lost amidst the front-of-mind commercial arguments we’re inevitably drawn to. But make no mistake – it’s essential if you’re going to invest in a brand that’s both measurable and memorable. And one that moves human hearts and B2B minds.
Want to know more about some of the brands we’ve helped build for our B2B clients? Take a look here.
Ifyou have an upcoming project you’d like to discuss with us, or learn more about the principles of H2H branding, please get in touch today by emailing marketing@proctors.co.uk.
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