Armadillo Press Release published 28/03/23
CRM specialist Armadillo welcomes two data heavyweights into its team in the form of Lucy Darbon, Data Strategy Director, and Andrew Sargent, Head of Insight and Analytics. The new hires will help the DMA Award-winning agency drive its data and insight offering further for global clients including McDonald’s, Disney and Carnival UK. Armadillo has doubled in revenue and headcount in the last 3 years.
New data strategy director, Darbon, joins from Zone, where she was data strategy lead, driving acquisition, analysis and leveraging of clients’ data to achieve business objectives. Before that she led a team at BT as senior digital marketing effectiveness manager, having worked at the multinational telco for six years.
At Armadillo, Darbon will bring her skills and experience to bear, helping clients use data to drive businesses forward. Working as a bridge between strategy and data teams, she will use tools such as data visualization and analysis to democratize data, activating first-party data and driving ROI.
Meanwhile, Sargent joins from 12 years at Wood For Trees, the charity and non-profit data insights agency, where he was director of analysis. Fresh from working with major charities such as British Red Cross, Marie Curie and British Heart Foundation, at Armadillo he will focus on getting strong insight through data from its global clients.
Heading up a team of six, Sargent will provide in depth analysis across the agency and will work closely with the creative teams to enable data to inform creative strategy.
CEO James Ray comments, “Intelligent use of data is at the heart of everything we do at Armadillo, and Lucy and Andrew joining will give us a fantastic opportunity to further upweight our capabilities.
“As we continue to leverage first-party data for brands, the appointments will help move creative and data even closer together, allowing insights to inform creative strategy and output, and driving ROI across all our campaigns.”
Darbon adds: “Since my very first role at BT I’ve been inspired to work with data, and this position feels like it fits my capabilities perfectly. I could see immediately that Armadillo had very impressive technical expertise and data science skillsets, as well as the appetite to push things further.”
Sargent said: “I’m joining at such an exciting time for data and analysis – there’s never been more scope, with tech enabling even more access to insights. I also loved the culture of Armadillo from my first interview – it’s agile with a can-do, punchy mindset.”
Mentor Digital has announced the appointment of Dan Watt as its new Digital Marketing Director.
Dan brings a wealth of experience to the Mentor Digital team, having previously worked as a Senior Strategist at Google and Managing Partner at McCann. In these roles, he was responsible for developing and implementing digital marketing strategies for some of the world’s largest brands.
At Mentor Digital, Dan will be responsible for leading digital marketing services and driving growth for new and existing clients. He will also play a key role in developing and executing the overall business strategy for Mentor moving forwards.
Under Dan’s leadership, the digital marketing services at Mentor Digital will increase in scope to become a holistic offering, encompassing all elements of paid digital media, SEO and analytics.
Dan’s team is equipped to provide consultancy across the entire spectrum of digital media: from initial auditing, planning and forecasting through to campaign delivery across paid search, social and display platforms, alongside technical SEO, content strategy and production. As well as paid media and SEO, the team also offers end-to-end analytics services, from auditing and scoping tracking requirements through to tag implementation, data visualisation and reporting.
Dan is a highly skilled and experienced digital marketing professional, and the team at Mentor is thrilled to have him on board. His expertise and leadership will be invaluable as they continue to expand and grow their business over the coming years.
If you would like to get in touch regarding any digital marketing projects, you can fill out a contact form here or call into their Bristol-based office on 0117 305 8900.
You can visit Mentor’s website here: https://www.mentordigital.co.uk/
Nine Tree Studios, a brand new 10,000sq ft film, television and commercial production studio, has opened in Bristol.
The studios are now Bristol’s largest independent film and television facility, with the venture being backed by JonesMillbank, Bristol-based video production company.
The studios will support Bristol’s creative industries as well as attracting talent and productions from further afield, fuelling Bristol’s existing draw for film, television and commercial productions.
The facility is being launched in phases. Phase one encompasses a versatile production space with attached offices, suitable for a range of dry hire and set build requirements, as well as events and photography, with significant parking for cars, vans and trailers.
Phase two will see the build and fit-out of a state-of-the-art production facility encompassing a 2,600sq ft primary soundstage, two smaller 300sq ft studios, grading suites, wardrobe, sound facilities, and expanded office and meeting space, all housed in a Class-A soundproofed facility.
Located in Brislington (BS4), the studios are perched near the centre of Bristol, servicing productions mixing studio and on-location filming in the region.
The facility will also become home to JonesMillbank, allowing productions to be supported by crew and creatives, whilst bolstering their own in-house production capabilities and resources.
“This is an incredibly exciting chapter in our history. We’ve been based in Bristol for 12 years, steadily growing our team, portfolio and clients, but this represents a huge leap forward and an incredibly exciting development for the region too” said Russell Jones, Co-Founder of Nine Tree Studios and JonesMillbank.
“We’ve already secured funding to develop and expand the space, helping to support not only our own productions but the wider creative community too”.
Adam Millbank, Co-Founder of Nine Tree Studios and JonesMillbank, added that “the continued growth in productions across our region is wonderful. I’ve been blown away by the diverse talent here. It feels fantastic to know we’ll be part of such a dynamic industry, celebrating all the region has to offer.”
The expansion will allow for the creation of numerous jobs, including technicians, crew, studio managers and marketeers, whilst allowing for the provision of work experience and placements.
Phase one has launched, with phase two aiming for 2023 Q3, pending existing bookings.
For booking and press enquiries please visit www.ninetreestudios.co.uk, call 0117 3706 372, or email [email protected].
Working with an SEO specialist can completely transform your company. You may forge a potent alliance that propels your online presence and boosts your exposure by fusing your understanding of the market with their expertise in search engine optimisation. Continue reading to learn more about how to manage this collaboration through effective communication, goal-setting, project management, and other techniques.
Understanding the extent of an SEO consultant’s or expert’s obligations is crucial for maximising your partnership and getting the most out of your collaboration. You can anticipate an SEO specialist to handle the following tasks:
To get the most out of your engagement with an SEO specialist, a solid base must be in place. You should collaborate to enhance a few SEO-related factors before implementing any new SEO methods. They consist of:
Effective communication will always be the foundation of any successful cooperation. There are various things you can do while working with an SEO specialist from Core Web Vitals to develop and maintain open communication and promote future success:
Setting up specific objectives from the beginning will guarantee that all sides are on the same page and pursuing the same aims. There are a few important factors to take into account before beginning to engage with an SEO expert for your business:
By ensuring that they have access to all the tools and data they require, you can help your SEO consultant or expert perform their task at its highest level. Offer these to them:
Mutual trust and respect should be the foundation of any successful relationship between your business and an SEO consultant, expert, or agency. You may promote a culture of cooperation and collaborate more effectively in a number of ways, including:
Your SEO approach will stay current and efficient if it is often evaluated. Any reputable SEO consultant will inform you that SEO is dynamic and constantly evolving, so it is important to check in frequently to make sure the techniques you have in place are still effective for your company. Think about the following:
As was already mentioned, SEO is a field that is always changing. It’s critical to keep up with the most recent business trends and best practises in addition to updating your strategies. As it is their job to stay current on SEO, your SEO specialist will be able to share the most recent information with you. Here is where the effective communication discussed earlier will come in handy. You can also:
Successful SEO usually involves a long-term commitment and strategy, which takes time. By performing the following, you may maximise the advantages of your collaboration with an SEO expert:
Partnering with an SEO specialist can help you and your company gain access to new contacts and prospects within the sector. You may take advantage of your SEO expert’s network in a number of ways, including:
For SEO to be successful, content is essential. In order to optimise your content strategy, work with your SEO professional by:
Your collaboration with an SEO specialist should always be ready to evolve as circumstances change. By working with an SEO consultant or specialist, you can embrace change in a variety of ways, including:
Working together to develop the best SEO techniques can help you and an SEO specialist ensure that your website is not only optimised for search engines but also stays on the cutting edge of SEO.
Want to learn more about SEO? Check out the services Bristechtonic Bristol SEO Company have to offer
If you want your business to succeed, you must consider the relationships you have with your consumers.
Creating and nurturing customer relationships has changed in recent times along with client expectations.
Having a physical site was necessary for consumers to shop there. Now almost everything can be bought at the click of a button. So, how do you keep a customer coming back to your website?
Audience members can feel entirely cut off from a company, even in today’s hyperconnected environment. Because of this, more companies are investing in ‘community management’.
Community management definition
Creating a community among brands and customers through online interactions is community management. Brands can recapture the human element of consumer brand loyalty, that technology advancements have deprived them of.
It connects to other marketing and PR aspects, such as social media, content, and search engine optimisation (SEO). It must complement your overarching marketing, public relations, and communications strategy.
Why do businesses benefit from an online community?
For organisations, community management is not only useful but essential. Adopting a community management strategy can improve consumer satisfaction by boosting brand recognition and loyalty. A community management plan that is effective can:
One excellent option for brands to build authentic relationships and get customer feedback is through a community that facilitates actual discussions. Even effective word-of-mouth marketing campaigns may benefit from it. 83% of customers believe that word-of-mouth advertising directly affects their purchasing behaviour.
What distinguishes community management from social media management?
Although there are many similarities between social media marketing and community management, their agendas are significantly different. The focus of social media marketing is on sharing social posts on social media channels. This is done to expand the brand’s client base and increase traffic and interaction.
A community manager will interact with your community across all online channels. The activity incorporates aspects of social listening, customer service, and community rules for participating in online forums. Intimate connections are developed through careful management. They also create communities both inside and outside of social media.
Community management techniques
Customer service is only one aspect of community management. There are, in reality, six main categories of community management efforts. The acronym SPACE makes it simple to recall the methods of community management:
Internal engagement is another method of community building and management that is frequently utilised to create an online community. Your team members, partners, and vendors make up your internal audience. Your consumers, fans, supporters, brand advocates, ambassadors, and followers make up your external audience.
Developing a community management strategy
Building effective networks that foster sincere, lasting relationships requires a solid plan. A successful community manager will organise all of your happy consumers in one space and look after them by encouraging good interactions.
These are step-by-step instructions for creating an online community management strategy:
When it comes to deciding how community managers measure success, there is no right or wrong way. The metrics depend on what’s important to you. Maybe you want to gain more followers on social media, or perhaps you’d like to enhance sales and conversions. Possibly you require greater brand recognition or more website visitors.
Clearly identify your aims and the tactics you need to measure your success by setting goals.
Before developing your plan, you must identify your primary audience. For instance, knowing the demographics of your target audience will enable you to focus your efforts on engaging that group.
Construct customer personas to understand your customers’ interests, preferences, etc. Find out where your audience is and then create content for them; they tend to be more active on one or two social media platforms, sites or forums.
Keep in mind that community management provides opportunities for small and close interactions. With a better understanding of your community’s members, ensure your content will interest them.
A great place to start creating your brand’s reputation and online community is on social media. Your community will know what to expect from you if you consistently release new content on social channels.
Social media platforms are fantastic resources for learning about your target audiences’ demographics and finding out what interests them. Encourage the sharing of user-generated content, a great way to share the love with your audiences and show that you value their interactions with your company.
It may even inspire creativity and generate suggestions for improving goods or services. In fact, 90% of online communities regularly share ideas about how to make changes to products.
Keep track of your progress while you work; test and learn to understand what works and what doesn’t. It will constantly change as your brand grows and your community expands. Adapt your goals and the KPIs monitoring your success to ensure they reflect your community’s continued growth.
There are plenty of analytical tools available to help you monitor and encourage growth of your social media channels. choose the ones that will work for you.
What does a community manager do?
They are experts with the knowledge and qualifications to put effective community management strategies into practice. Four different strategies are used by community managers to manage interaction across numerous platforms, including social media:
As social media becomes more and more important to a company’s success, ensure that you have an active community manager who can help build and grow your audiences.
Each year P+S hosts the South West Design + Digital Student Awards.
The Design Awards were launched by Roger Proctor MBE, Founder and Chairman of Proctor + Stevenson, as part of an ongoing campaign to tackle the way institutions approach design education. Roger wanted to give students the opportunity to stretch their creative talents beyond academia. He recognised the need for hands-on industry experience and commercial briefs. But he also noticed a frustrating lack of creative recognition outside of London, which is why he chose to celebrate talent specifically in the South West of England.
For final-year university students, the SWDDS Awards offer unparalleled opportunities – industry exposure, advice from an expert panel of judges, and valuable creative connections.
Last year Jessica Stiddard, a graphic design student from the University of Gloucestershire, was one of our top 10 finalists with 24 Karat Coffee – a sustainable and ethically sourced coffee branding project.
Jess has gone on to become Junior Creative at Dyson. We sat down with Jess to find out what she’s been up to since the South West Design + Digital Student Awards 2022.
So, how did you find out about the South West Design + Digital Student Awards?
As part of our course, one module included submitting our work to a design award. Our lecturer presented a selection of opportunities to choose from, and she had mentioned the South West Design + Digital Student Awards.
I had also heard about a previous graphic design student from the University of Gloucestershire who had won the SWDDS Awards and the opportunities that followed for her.
What project did you enter, and what category did that fall under?
I entered my third-year brand identity and packaging project for an ethical coffee brand 24 Karat Coffee, which was on a mission to make coffee better. The brief was set by Bulletproof – a design agency in London.
I entered it into the Graphic Design category, and the fact there is no brief meant I was able to enter work I had already completed, which made it a lot easier for me to enter the Design Awards alongside my university deadlines.
Since entering the Design Awards, what have you been up to?
After the awards, I graduated with a First Class Honours and had a one-month apprenticeship with Bristol agency Outlaw, where I worked alongside Emma Proven, winner of the 2019 South West Design + Digital Student Awards.
“…I have now been working at Dyson in Malmesbury for 4 months and I’m loving every minute…”
I then went on to work at Dyson as a Junior Creative. I had been in contact with Chris Roberts, Creative Director at Dyson and judge at the SWDDS Awards, who offered me the role. I have now been working at Dyson in Malmesbury for 4 months and I’m loving every minute.
That’s fantastic! Knowing what you know now, do you have any advice for people thinking about entering the South West Design + Digital Student Awards themselves?
My advice to someone entering the awards would be: just throw yourself into every opportunity you’re given. It can lead to amazing opportunities and achievements! If I hadn’t entered the awards, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It has opened many doors for me, including my internship with Outlaw and my full-time role at Dyson.
“…if I hadn’t entered the awards, I wouldn’t be where I am today…”
What was your overall experience with the Design Awards like?
My experience at the awards was great. I had an interview where I had to present my project and my portfolio to a judging panel, which meant my work was seen by some utterly amazing judges. Even though it could have been a nerve-wracking experience, they made me feel so comfortable.
The ceremony was also great. I got the opportunity to meet other creative students who had entered their work, as well as industry professionals that Proctor + Stevenson had invited. They gave me good advice for my first steps into the creative industry.
The South West Design + Digital Student Awards is back for 2023
Think you could be one of this year’s finalists?
If Jessica’s experience has inspired you to enter, what are you waiting for?
If you’re a third-year university student in the South West of England, get your best projects in Graphic Design, Digital Design and Motion and AR (Augmented Reality) ready.
Whether it is a bold new app, a dynamic branding campaign, or an artistic animation, we want to see it.
Find out more and enter now.
Independent brand consultancy, Mr B & Friends, have welcomed a trio of new creative hires, adding depth to the growing team. Helen Garley has joined as Design Director, Dave Warfield as Middleweight Copywriter and Megan Fry as Junior Designer. Their creative firepower will bolster the team as the agency heads into a busy period, with exciting briefs from InterContinental Hotels Group, The LEGO Group and Persimmon Plc all in progress.
Design Director, Helen, is well known to Mr B & Friends having previously impressed the team over the years on a freelance basis. Helen started her career in London, where she initially worked for large retail and in-store agencies before focusing on brand. Adept at working with organisations of all sizes, Helen enjoys seeing how brand can help a company to grow and transform. Having worked independently for a number of years, Helen is excited to be part of an agency team again and says her previous experience of the culture at Mr B & Friends confirmed it would be a good fit.
Middleweight Copywriter, Dave Warfield, joins the creative team with plenty of agency know-how across brands big and small. Having worked at two established outfits in the South West, Dave has crafted copy for brands spanning from global heavyweights like Coca-Cola, Unilever and P&G to challenger outfits such as Gipsy Hill and Garden Gourmet. As an ideas-first creative, Dave is looking forward to being involved in projects from the outset with the design team. Aside from the variety of clients and projects on offer, Dave was impressed by The Friends Pact and the hybrid set up that allows him to work more from home in Wales alongside his dog Amigo.
Last but not least, Megan Fry, has joined as Junior Designer. Meg was championed by a friend of the agency and seemed a natural fit for the role. Since graduating from Falmouth University during the pandemic Meg has learned the ropes at a couple of boutique agencies before joining the Mr B & Friends team. With a super positive attitude, she’s already joined in with the Play Team, DE&I Team and the Friends of the Community groups, supporting connections both in the agency and in the local area.
Creative Director, Kate Gorringe, says, “The past 12 months have seen the busiest time in our agency history, so we’ve been heavily focused on boosting the talent in the creative team. I’m delighted to welcome three new people who all bring something new – Meg joins us a junior designer who’s work shows exceptional promise in the brand space. Dave, our new creative copywriter, is an ad man straight out of central casting – we’re really looking forward to him pushing us beyond our comfort zones. And finally Helen – a creative with 20 years ‘experience and a long track record of freelancing with us has finally been convinced to take a full-time role as Design Director to show us all what great creative leadership looks like.”
At the end of last year, Open AI released ChatGPT, a first-of-its-kind machine learning chatbot. The revolutionary chatbot experienced explosive growth, reaching 1 million users in just 5 days.
In January we posted our blog “How ChatGPT will impact search marketing”, here we explored some possible use cases for ChatGPT across the four core teams at Varn. We also wrote about some of the potential limitations of the technology. Over a month on, we have now had some time to experience using ChatGPT to aid in our SEO work.
As a team at Varn, we have identified three key use cases where we have seen the most value in using ChatGPT.
No matter if you love Regular Expressions or are terrified of them, this tip will help all of you!
Regular Expressions (Regex) can expand the possibilities of important SEO tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog and more. For example, we recently wanted to filter out all the URLs in Screaming Frog so that only those containing a query string would display. This is exactly where we would want to reach for a regular expression.
However, with all the rules and complexities, writing Regex is very difficult. Even using documentation, writing a simple regex string can be incredibly time-consuming. This is where AI tools like chat GPT can come in extremely handy. Because AI has an understanding of what a user is asking, and can use this to write the Regex for us.
Here is an example chat log with chat GPT:
As you can see, we simply asked the chatbot (in plain English) how we would like to sort our URLs. Within seconds it gave us the working regex code, along with a handy description of how it works. By copying and pasting this regex into the Screaming Frog filter, we were able to sort URLs so that only those containing query strings were showing.
The true power of this feature comes from its flexibility. As SEO professionals, we could easily be presented with any number of pages or queries that we may need to filter down. But with the analytical abilities of AI, we can convert any written command into a working regular expression in seconds.
This use case has improved the way we use Regex at Varn, but it does come with limitations. ChatGPT will always try to do the best job with the prompt you have provided, but it will rarely ask for more information if it feels your query is inadequate. This means that when writing your prompts for ChatGPT you should always be as specific as possible, leaving no room for a different interpretation.
Additionally, you should be very careful to not just copy and paste this code if it’s being used for something important, like a client-facing Looker Studio filter. Instead, you should use a tool like regex101.com to test the regular expression against any unusual edge cases it may encounter.
One of the most challenging parts of writing SEO-friendly blogs is coming up with an engaging idea. But Chat GPT can help!
Chat GPT is extremely versatile, and it is also able to assist with more creative processes, as well as technical tasks such as writing Regex.
Blogs can be a great way to improve the Search Engine ranking of a site. They also provide value to visitors which helps to keep them engaged. However, we will often find ourselves racking our brains for a blog idea that is both engaging to a user and will also tick all the boxes for SEO.
Here is an example of where we have used Chat GPT to assist in the ideation of new blogs on the Varn website.
Here you can see that as a result of our request, we have been provided with a bulleted list of ideas for potential blogs on the Varn site. It is important to remember to give a very descriptive prompt for chat GPT – In this example, we found that we needed to specifically state that we wanted the answers in a bulleted list. Otherwise, we were presented with completed blogs, rather than blog ideas. We also provided a list of keywords that we could potentially use, but needed to make it clear that using these keywords was optional. Otherwise, GPT would just cram as many keywords as possible into each bullet point. This extreme level of specificity is vital if you want to unlock the true power of chat GPT.
There are a range of ideas in this list of potential blog posts (some of which are better than others), but overall this list could be a valuable resource when coming up with new blog topics. For example, the 8th blog in the list brings up an interesting idea about deciding when to reach for PPC or SEO for your web promotion. There are some ideas in this list that are too broad, or which lack a certain context, but overall there are many good prompts that you could use when creating a future post; They may just need some work to progress them into a workable blog title.
Writing Metadata and headings with SEO in mind can be time-consuming, but Chat GPT can help streamline this process.
In the previous section, we showed how we have been using chat GPT to assist in generating blog ideas. However, we can also use Chat GPT to create content for these blogs.
Here is an example of how you can generate metadata and headings using Chat GPT.
Once again within this section, we found it was very important to be hyper-specific with our prompts to Chat GPT, even going so far as to state the desired length of the metadata we wanted. The results are very interesting, the meta and headings are all well related to the blog topic we gave, and they do a good job of including keywords we might want to optimise for. In addition to this, the content reads well and tells a good story of what kind of content the rest of the blog might include.
Despite the fantastic quality of this AI-generated content, there are some problems. Firstly, the metadata actually exceeded the character limit we provided, this is because GPT cannot directly count the number of characters it is generating. For this reason, the character counts are often not what we asked for, even if it’s usually not off by much.
The biggest limitation preventing us from using Chat GPT to generate content like this is the risk of search engines picking up on our use of AI-generated content. Historically, Google has explicitly given guidance to avoid the use of “automatically generated content”, and this is what makes us so cautious about using AI-generated content on websites.
However, over the past year, Google has been slowly changing their guidance on AI content to appear more in favour of its use. Last month, the company properly clarified their stance on AI-generated content, essentially saying that it doesn’t matter how the content is produced, it will be judged based on the content’s quality. This suggests that AI content could be usable in SEO, provided it is user-friendly and meets the E-E-A-T guidelines set out by Google. Despite this statement by Google, we still tend to air on the side of caution and remember that AI-generated content is not perfect. It is also important to remember that as SEO experts, we have a fully formed understanding of the specifics and will be able to produce higher-quality content than a chat bot. For this reason, we tend to use AI generation as a tool to help inform our own content and will never copy and paste anything directly from Chat GPT.
So far chat GPT has had an extremely positive impact on our SEO work at Varn. It has allowed us to speed up some tedious technical tasks and allows us to put more time into other areas of our work. Even now, we still believe we could find other uses of the technology to better improve our workflow, and we are excited to explore these possibilities.
However, we also believe that it is best to think of Chat GPT as an (albeit very powerful) tool in our toolbox, not a superpower that will do all of our work for us. This means it is still important to have a good understanding of the task you are trying to accomplish, so that you can review the quality of the response and provide Chat GPT with accurate information and context.
A couple of years ago I was asked for profiling tool recommendations by a client wanting to invest their team. I’d had several profiles done throughout my career and my experience of them had been mixed. Whilst the reports always resonated with me, the emphasis was on personality rather than behaviour, and I found that after the initial session where everyone compared themselves to each other and shared their thoughts, the reports were often so complicated that very little, if anything was put into practice.
I then came across Colour-me profiling. C-me focuses on behaviours rather than personalities, using a common language which is non-judgemental and recognises that everyone is a unique blend, vs. trying to put them into a box. This felt like a much more inclusive approach to me, so I investigated further and ultimately became accredited so I could use it with my clients.
What benefits have I experienced working with C-me?
And the biggest benefit for me is that you can put it into practice immediately. It has helped me learn to flex my own behaviour and communication style, and work more effectively with others.
In a world where we’re facing ongoing challenges as an industry, my belief is that we need to celebrate our differences and find ways to learn from each other so that we can build exceptional relationships and continue to do brilliant work.
So can behavioural profiling help us build better relationships, higher performance and more inclusive cultures? My answer is a resounding yes, as long as you put it into practice and continue to, whether it’s for communication, running meetings, problem-solving, hiring new team members or creating your next 3 year vision.
If you want to find out more about C-me and what my report and workshop offering, or are simply intrigued, give me a shout.
‘Momento mori’ – Latin – a symbolic trope which acts as a reminder of the inevitability of death.
Death. Just thinking about it is uncomfortable, let alone using the word. Most of us actively avoid dwelling on it. But as marketers, we can’t shy away from difficult topics.
At Flourish, death is never far from our thoughts – and we’re okay with that. Comfortable, even. Because when we make people aware of their own mortality, we can spur them to do great things. To take actions that truly reflect who they are. Like updating their Will to include a gift to a charity.
The brilliant thing about legacy giving – meaning gifts in Wills – is it enables people to align themselves with your cause without spending anything right now. For many people, including a gift in their Will to a charity is a way of ensuring their beliefs are honoured when they’re no longer here. Whilst some people will donate a proportion of their estate, others will pledge a set amount. Others may never get round to updating their Will to reflect their wishes, which is why ‘always on’ legacy campaigns are so important.
For many of the larger charities, legacy gifts make up 1/3 of their total income. So whilst legacy gifts may not come to fruition as quickly as individual giving, they are still an extremely valuable source of income. Guaranteed income, nonetheless, which is essential for future proofing.
With an effective legacy programme, charities can capture the attention of supporters who recognise a gift in their Will as an extension of their values. Whilst we believe legacy programmes should be embedded in every charity fundraising strategy, there’s never been a better time to start prioritising gifts in Wills than right now.
In today’s financial climate, charity fundraising is becoming more difficult. The cost-of-living crisis has left household budgets stretched, and subsequently, individual giving has plummeted. But people’s values remain the same, and the desire to support causes close to their heart is still very much alive for supporters.
So knowing how to talk about legacies – and when – is crucial. It can be hard to talk about death in the first place, and even harder to talk about legacy giving without immediately mentioning gifts in Wills. Servicing enquirers with a useful information booklet and a user-friendly website are good places to start, but there’s much more to successful legacy fundraising than simply passing on information and hoping for the best. That’s where we come in.
Flourish have a long history of successful legacy marketing campaigns for charities. Over the years we’ve inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of people to support a cause they care about with a gift in their Will. How? By working with charities to develop messaging that resonates with their supporters. Producing assets, acquisition campaigns and supporter nurturing programmes. Ensuring charities maintain highly engaged relationships with prospective pledgers. All of this begins and ends with being mindful of death.
If you’re ready to futureproof your fundraising, get in touch with Business Development Manager Aimee Blakemore today at [email protected]. We understand that budgets are tight for charities at the moment, so we’re offering a free legacy comms review worth over £1000.
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