Think of your ideal client? How would the relationship be? Simple and easy? Low maintenance? Drama-free? When you’re juggling a million and one other things, smooth and breezy interactions seem incredibly appealing. But to build long-lasting and fruitful relationships with clients, our interactions need to be honest, and we need to create a genuine connection with them.
So how can we go from transaction to connection?
Be there in the storm and the calm
How do your clients see you? Are you the saviour who sweeps in to save the day in their time of need? Or are you the quiet confident, ready to lend an ear at any time? If you can be both, you’ll be in a good place.
It’s something David Ogilvy talks about in Confessions of an Ad Man:
“The head of an agency has so much on his plate that he is apt to see his clients only in time of crisis. This is a mistake. If you can get into the habit of seeing clients when the weather is calm, you will establish an easy relationship which may save your life when a storm blows up.”
To be able to help solve clients’ problems and challenges you need to be armed with the insight into what works for them, how they see success and what their goals are. To get an understanding of this goes beyond their top-level strategy, it’s what makes them tick on a day-to-day basis, and the more interaction you have the deeper your understanding will be.
Don’t flatter to deceive
Think your client’s product or service is flawless? Brilliant, be sure to tell them. But if it’s not, don’t flatter to deceive – there’s a strong chance it will come back to bite you.
Ogilvy has words of wisdom on this too:
“It is difficult for a doctor to tell a patient he is suffering from a serious disease, and equally difficult to tell a client his product has a serious fault. But the time comes in the life of every advertising agent when he must grasp this nettle. When I told one client that I had doubts about the consistency of his spaghetti, his reaction was to question whether I could do a good job for any product I disliked… On the whole, however, I have observed an increasing tendency on the part of clients to welcome candour.”
Tell people their offer is flawless, and they will expect immediate outstanding results. And if those results don’t materialise? It’s likely you’ll be in the firing line. Tell clients where you think their strengths and challenges lie and you can focus on amplifying the strengths and together you can work on the challenges.
For a well-functioning relationship, both parties need to feel free to speak their minds. It takes time to build trust but inviting honest feedback from clients from the off and accepting this without pride and hostility will set the tone for open communication as the relationship progresses. Sometimes the client will know their industry and market the best and sometimes you will have the expertise and ideas to change their perspective. But when you have established honesty and openness in the relationship, these discussions become constructive rather than destructive.
Build deeper relationships
Deeper, more honest and connected relationships with clients take time. But the investment is worth it. It will allow you to set realistic goals, expectations, and deliverables – and meet them. You’ll be better positioned to address bottlenecks and potential challenges. And you’ll be armed with all the information and insight you need to better report on your success.
Every relationship is different, but have a think about your current clients – do you really know what their motivations are? Have you a firm grasp of what success looks like for them? Are you investing the right kind of time with them? Do you need more face-to-face meetings and less reporting? Could they benefit from networking in your circle?
The easy client relationship might on the surface free your time up to concentrate on other things. But you might be missing opportunities to foster a deeper and longer-lasting connection.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2022 was a pretty transformative year for Keep Art It.
Special thanks to:
Director Douglas Karson highlights:
We’re thrilled to bits about what’s coming next!
It’s said that what happens in the US, takes 5 years to happen here. Personally, I think its MUCH quicker than that!
90 million Americans will be freelance by 2028. Up from 59 million today (36% of the entire US workforce). For a combination of reasons, the world keeps moving towards a freelance work-style. Even though highly-educated, highly-skilled, better paid than 70% of the entire US workforce (and therefore higher tax-payers) governments everywhere still continue to misunderstand and largely ignore them, despite their estimated $1.6 trillion contribution to the global economy.
Most freelancers have to fend for themselves. 63.6% are under 34 years of age – and have never experienced a recession. This video
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/roysheppard_freelancing-freelance-economy-activity-7015388336827551744-OSXi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
I posted on LinkedIn offers urgent advice for all freelancers. Not just young ones.
Please share with any freelancers who might find this helpful.
(Sources: Forbes, CNBC, Upwork and Edelman Intelligence).
As 2022 draws to a close we’re delighted to be ending the year with top-line growth of +40%. We’ve welcomed major new clients and projects including, Bristol Innovations, Loughborough School of Business & Economics, premium plant-based nutrition brand Vivo Life, Made Smarter Innovation, Medi-Tech innovator Radii Devices and law firm TLT.
We moved to a new home in Engine Shed in March, the natural location for our focus on scaling innovative organisations. From here we continue to support leadership teams in this enterprising region which recorded an investment flow of £1.1bn in 2021 – putting it into the top 20 in Europe.
Moving into 2023, we’ll continue to work alongside The University of Bristol, developing its commercial quantum offering, The Enterprise Sessions and other projects.
And our ongoing relationship with Vittoria, the world’s most advanced bicycle tyre company, has also flourished and we’ll continue to support the leadership team on global brand development. Notable achievements this year include supporting the launch of the 5-hectare Vittoria Park next to the brand’s HQ in Brembate Italy and advertising projects including the benchmark-busting OWN THE UNKNOWN campaign which brought about a collaboration with the Velosolutions team and percussionist Ian Chang.
We also captured the spirit of the brand for internal and external audiences with their Manifesto film.
“It’s been a fantastic year for Firehaus. We’ve worked with some inspirational people throughout 2022 who have maintained a visionary approach to the role of their organisation – even in these difficult times. Each of them is changing the world for the better and it’s great supporting them in that endeavour. We’re super-excited about what’s to come!”
Ian Bates – Founder and Creative Partner
In our increasingly data-centric world, organisations now have the ability to apply an intense focus on the changing motives and preferences of its current and potential customers in a bid to attract, engage and retain.
Growth marketing applies to the highly personalised approach of using a multitude of channels to deliver individualised messages aligned to customer needs.
A growth marketer employs the full marketing funnel to spot trends, hone tactics, and achieve sustainable growth. The customer-centred, data-driven strategy that takes into account the entire customer journey, from awareness to activation. Public relations compliments this approach.
Traditional PR and marketing strategies are acquisition-based rather than retention-based, with a focus on the firm or organisation. Growth marketing, on the other hand, focuses on both acquisition and retention while being totally consumer-centric.
Growth marketing tries to collect and analyse as much data as possible by utilising engagement tactics like A/B testing. The most effective strategy to consistently target the right audience and accomplish growth is then determined using this data.
Where does PR come in?
Public relations benefits growth campaigns by fostering strong relationships with the public, expanding a brand’s reach, and connecting more people with the company. It works well with growth marketing because both approaches are customer-centric. Additionally, they both work to engage clients through a variety of channels to establish long-lasting, solid partnerships.
Benefits of using PR as part of a growth marketing strategy:
Public relations fuels marketing activity by making sure your brand appears in the optimal locations to reach your target audience. There are several ways that public relations professionals achieve this including increasing online presence, strengthening connections with the media, and leveraging the influence of events.
Growth marketing focuses on increasing a user’s lifetime value. To engage and keep your audience throughout the entire funnel, content creation and content marketing are essential. Growth marketing strategies use a variety of marketing channels to get the correct audience to see appealing content.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of a wider marketing approach. SEO encourages more website visitors and offers opportunities for lead generation by ranking your content higher on Google. Public relations can impact SEO results by creating newsworthy content, creating referral traffic and building links.
Growth marketing benefits
Organisations can gain clients, reach milestones, and experience growth at a rate that is unheard of by using a growth marketing strategy. To obtain client information, growth marketing teams engage in creative innovation. They then create optimised plans for each user category using this data.
Growth marketing, with a focus on whole funnel marketing, may hold the key to creating long-term success in a shifting market. In effect, full-funnel marketing methods see up to a 45% higher ROI and 7% increase in offline sales. It has the benefit of producing more informed decision making as well as generating loyalty and repeat customers.
What does a growth marketing strategy look like?
Growth marketing experts have numerous in-demand skills, such as data analytics, optimisation, analytical thinking, experimentation and even creativity.
Here are just some of the tactics and strategies used by growth marketers today:
Conversion rate optimisation: This is a powerful digital marketing strategy used to draw new visitors to your website or landing page. Your website will be optimised and improved by a growth marketing team to maximise the number of leads you produce.
Split testing: Growth marketing campaigns are all usually rooted in creative experimentation. A/B testing is fundamentally about experimenting across a number of formats, such as social media ads and emails. Split testing divides your audience into two varieties so that you may compare a website or marketing campaign. You can collect statistics by dividing your audience between the two versions and analysing the results to see which version performed better.
Referrals and customer acquisition: A referral programme is a word-of-mouth marketing tactic that involves gaining clients by way of referrals from existing clients. It’s a reliable growth marketing strategy that aims to generate recommendations using straightforward tools like referral links or codes. Word of mouth will automatically start to have an impact as you establish your brand and raise awareness.
Paid advertising: Paid advertising campaigns using tools like social media or Google ads, provides some of the best methods of experimentation. It’s one of the best ways to bring in a new audience while increasing the lifetime value of your customers. Generally, paid campaigns are often the best way to reach people when organic reach is down.
Customer experience is a critical component of your approach. Potential customers want to feel connected to your brand in addition to feeling like they are getting an excellent product or service. Customers who stick with a brand are just as important to a company’s growth as new ones.
Experts in growth marketing are always looking for ways to gauge client satisfaction and enhance the customer experience. And there’s a valid justification for it. It seems that it could cost around 5 times more to acquire new customers than to retain old ones. According to Harvard Business School, profits could also rise by a startling 25-95% with just a 5% retention increase.
Growth marketing can provide brands with a way to stand out from the competition and build a sustainable future.
Sarah Warewinter joins Bristol operation as Associate Director, Strategy
McCann has bolstered its strategy team in Bristol with the appointment of Sarah Warewinter. Sarah joins as Associate Director for Strategy having headed up IMA HOME’s insight and strategy team in Leeds for 11 years.
Prior to her time at IMA HOME, Sarah worked across a diverse range of sectors, with her portfolio including major brands such as Argos, Dr Oetker, Interflora, Jet2 and the NHS.
In her new role, Sarah will build on the strength of the existing team to deliver meaningful work for the agency and its clients. Talking about her appointment, managing director Andy Reid said: “Across the globe, McCann is known for providing our marketers with best-in-class strategic and creative services to help brands play a meaningful role in people’s lives.
“For us at McCann Bristol, Sarah’s appointment is central to delivering this core function, as we continue to proudly create award-winning work for our clients. Sarah comes with an impressive track record, along with a wealth of expertise across a range of sectors and I’m pleased to welcome her to our senior leadership team as we head towards 2023.”
Sarah added: “I’m really excited to join the McCann family. The ambition and direction of the business is really exciting, and I can’t wait to be involved in the next stage of growth for McCann Bristol.”
Bopgun, a brand, strategy and digital agency, has been selected from a number of agencies to support Puzzler Media with the UX, design and development for a new lead generating B2B website.
Puzzler Media is the UK’s largest supplier of printed and digital puzzle-based content, backed up by end-to-end content management and support. With over 50 years’ experience, Puzzler Media is the go-to name in puzzles, working with business worldwide from national and regional newspapers to magazines, membership organisations and individual brands.
With only a consumer-facing website, Puzzler Media identified the need for a new B2B website to improve their online presence, increase brand awareness and ultimately generate leads. The website will showcase the huge range of puzzles on offer, alongside solutions to deliver content and client case studies that demonstrate their experience and capability – all delivered in a clean and user-friendly design.
“B2B is an exciting and growing part of our business. We help a multitude of clients in supplying print and digital puzzle content and tech solutions. We didn’t have a site that reflected the breadth of content and the quality of our client base. We chose Bopgun because, based on the good work we have seen them deliver for other clients, we believed they were the best agency to deliver our Puzzler Business Partnerships ‘shop-window’. We’re really excited to be partnering with them on this project.” Lynda Newland, Deputy MD, Puzzler Media.
Launched in 2008, Bopgun is a multi-disciplined creative agency with an unrivalled background across the publishing industry. With both the founders having worked in various roles at Future Publishing for over 14 years between them, Bopgun has grown into a substantial and distinguished company working with some of the world’s leading industry players including Elsevier, Story House Egmont, Anthem Media, Hachette Partworks and Kelsey Media to name a few.
From engaging websites for the likes of Marvel and Disney, to e-commerce subscription sites, promotional campaigns, animations and illustrations, Bopgun prides itself on delivering real value to the publishing industry.
“We were thrilled when we heard we’d won this project with such a prestigious brand as Puzzler, known by their existing clients as the UK’s largest puzzle supplier. Knowing how important it is for their business to convey their detailed and wide range of puzzles is the sort of challenge we love!” David Mathews, Managing Director at Bopgun.
Bristol Academy of Voice Acting (BRAVA) launches a brand new Talent Database today to help local, national and international producers, casting directors and content creators find Talent for their projects: www.brava.uk.com/casting-database.
All featured Talent have been trained to BRAVA’s high standards and have cut professional voice reels, with high quality home studio capabilities to deliver work. Functionality includes the ability to download mp3 reels as well as view individual profile pages and submit full casting calls online.
Commenting on the launch of the new BRAVA Casting Database, founder & director, Melissa Thom, said:
‘Over the last year, we have been overwhelmed with calls from producers, casting directors and content producers and we have created the BRAVA Talent Database in direct response to this need. Our Talent have been trained to the highest possible standards across narration, commercial and characters and are voicing across a range of client projects, with enquiries increasing significantly. We are thrilled to showcase and support out Talent in this way.
BRAVA has already successfully cast a range of roles, including feature films, national commercials, online radio, audiobooks and more. We will continue to add further functionality and Talent this year as we grow. Our aim is to continue to connect our highly skilled voice actors with clients locally, nationally and beyond, in Europe and America’.
BRAVA works alongside some of the most prestigious global names in the industry to offer personalised online training in the art and business of voiceover. The Academy is specifically aimed at professionals from the fields of broadcast, digital, corporate and commercial, who are interested in adding voice acting to their skillset.
Core learning takes place online, meaning students can learn at their own pace, wherever they are. Training is offered as personalised 1-1s or group sessions and covers a wide range of topics, including Getting Started in VO, Corporate, Commercial and Narration, Characters, Audiobooks, Performance Techniques, Home Studio, Marketing, Vocal Health, VO & Shakespeare and Presentation Skills.
Find the database at www.brava.uk.com/casting-database or contact us at [email protected] to find out more.
To find out more about BRAVA go to www.brava.uk.com
The tech industry is fascinating from a brand perspective. Its growth has been so fast, disruptive and organic, with so many quickly expanding start-ups, that it has barely had time to pause and draw breath, let alone ponder what role brand might have to play in its future. When your numbers are good, something like brand scarcely seems to matter. Most companies have thrived despite, rather than because of theirs. But the hour of reckoning may be near.
In all industries there comes a point when it isn’t enough to have a great product or service to build a successful business. Knowledge spreads and grows. What once was groundbreaking rapidly becomes standard, imitable, improvable… the marketplace crowds and alternatives proliferate. Your ability to communicate your difference and your real value becomes ever more important as competition intensifies. Which is what makes the current situation in tech, digital and data analytics so interesting. With a plethora of similar-looking brands that use familiar language, the sector has evolved into a homogeneous playing field. The overwhelming sense is that everyone looks and sounds extraordinarily similar. That, for the wise, presents a far bigger opportunity than a few more lines of groundbreaking code.
It’s easy to see how things have come to be the way they are. All that mattered at the outset was the innovation. Companies started small and agile. Many really struggled to keep pace with their own success. Brand was often lumped in with digital marketing, handed to less senior people to take care of, and frequently seen as superficial – “just a logo” – and therefore low priority. The great thing about digital marketing from a digital company’s point of view? It’s easy to measure. Brand, which is bigger in every way, less so. All this is understandable: companies had people to hire, products to develop and customers to deal with. Even many who understand the importance of brand have simply put it off.
But now the situation has evolved. Many of those companies that started with two or three people now number twenty or thirty or substantially more. Now internal purpose, morale, discipline, decision-making and behaviour weighs heavier: bigger overheads, bigger clients, bigger responsibilities… each new step carries greater implications. How do you keep this ever-growing number of people together as a meaningful entity? Who exactly are you, as an organisation? What do you actually stand for?
The questions keep coming. How will you thrive consistently in the tech big battleground that is the fight for talent, when demand outstrips supply? What’s going to make high quality people choose you, instead of a close rival, for their next job, so you can maintain the high standards of the work you do as it scales up? Your good name and future business rests on it. And how, when you know that your product is better than your lookalike rivals out there, are you going to convince potential customers of that? How will they know who to believe? What’s going to get you the market share your innovation undoubtedly deserves?
Decisions going your way is the answer to these questions – and all of the great myriad of micro-influences that lead to that. But it’s easier said than done. The science of decision-making is fairly well documented. We’re not such rational beings as we’d like to believe, with up to 90 percent of the choices we make based on emotion… and later post-rationalised. This is just as applicable to tech as it is to buying chocolate in the supermarket or choosing a house. Instinctive decisions are made before we even know it ourselves. And this is where a brand – when it’s done well – comes into its own.
A brand isn’t simply a logo, a strapline, colours, imagery, fonts – it’s the sum of how all these are orchestrated, plus the behaviours and feelings that this leads to. It’s the whole experience of your organisation at every moment it has contact with someone. It’s the sum of every gesture and action by every employee as well as every facet of every piece of communication. A smart brand is alive to possibilities not just online or through marketing but anywhere there is engagement or the opportunity to bring its big core idea to life. Why can’t you make someone smile when they least expect it, in – say – the company car park for example? A brand is how you make your customers (and your own people) feel, which influences their behaviour towards you. And that’s why it’s a key strategic tool. The right thinking now can shape big, big decisions later. This is not a slap of paint.
To return to the tech sector in particular. It tends to be the case that tech companies focus intensely on what they have developed. It’s what they know, it’s where they feel comfortable. But what do they – or you – really know of the person who says yes or no to you, the key decision-maker with the final word? Or of what goes into that decision? Are you sure the technology itself is even within the grasp of this individual? Does it even need to be? Perhaps what matters for them is simplicity, ease of use, an instant sense of reliability and effectiveness: impact. Often, it’s not until much further down the line that verification of the tech offer is sought – usually by someone else, long after the important decision has been made. It’s no coincidence that so many tech businesses only thrive when they become human, literally, in the form of a meeting or presentation. If that’s the only time your “brand” is alive – then you don’t have a brand at all.
The fact is that many businesses in the tech sector focus their communications around dry, technical language set against a visual backdrop of technology cliches or familiar-looking process diagrams. Whilst it might be a necessity to articulate the nitty gritty of a technology, platform or service somewhere, this is often given priority at the expense of the wider, more human and beneficial story. Complexity stymies simplicity. Many businesses are missing the opportunity to connect their brand with customers in a much more powerful way.
So what can (great) branding do for you:
— Revolutionise credibility
— Influence the big decisions people are making about your company
— Improve your talent acquisition
— Support your business strategy
— Radically alter morale and engagement internally
— Increase business leads and new business / revenue
— Inform strategic decisions
— Bring stability and reassurance through demanding times
— Drive IPO or sales valuations higher
— Change the future.
Eight new recruits, including Business Development Director, Marketing Manager and Medical Writer join Create Health.
Bristol-based healthcare marketing agency Create Health is strengthening its team across the board with new appointments across departments, welcoming eight new team members in total.
Carys Richards brings a wealth of experience from the Pharma sector to the Create Health team as Business Development Director.
Meanwhile, Sean Quay joins the team as a Medical Writer. He comes from a clinical background, with time spent in pharmacy and primary care working on regional level pharmacy projects like driving medicine optimisation and public health campaigns.
Junior Graphic Designer Amelia Horner initially joined the agency as an intern, taking advantage of Create Health’s apprenticeship scheme to secure a full-time role.
In addition, the agency welcomes, Charlie Culverhouse as Senior Account Manager, Kate Wells as Junior Art Director, Jasmine Freeman as Marketing Manager, Joe Wilson as Motion Graphics Designer and Rhi Wheeler as Account Executive.
Managing Partner Ed Hudson said “The Create Health team growing at such a rate signals the exciting times ahead not just for the agency but for the healthcare communications industry. We’re thrilled to have brought on board a roster of talented individuals who will help us to push the boundaries of creativity and make a positive difference to healthcare professionals and patients alike.”
Medical Writer Sean Quay, added “Healthcare communications is booming and being part of Create Health feels like I’m aboard a rocket about to launch.”