Marketing and Communications agency YOURS. SINCERELY teams up with business leaders for a virtual panel event
For a year that was tipped to be transformational, 2020 has certainly lived up to expectations – just not in the way we had imagined. With budgets slashed and plans rendered redundant, uncertainty looms over the business landscape.
Should we increase digital ad spend? Should we do a webinar? Do our clients want to receive regular comms? What stories are journalists eager to hear, and perhaps more to the point, what do our customers want to hear?
As a comms agency YOURS. SINCERELY, understanding what ‘good’ looks like is a critical part of our day-to-day in helping our clients achieve their goals.
In the wake of recent events, however, we’ve all been forced to re-evaluate the best strategies for success in the ‘new normal’.
In an effort to explore this, we’ve been tracking emerging insights and will be discussing these in more detail with founders and marketing leaders of some of the UK’s most exciting businesses later this month – sign up for free here.
What makes for a successful marketing strategy?
The answer to this question has changed over time in line with technological advancements and cultural evolution. Usually, it takes months and even years for trends to take hold.
In the case of Covid-19, the shift happened overnight.
As lockdown began, entire industries were forced to rethink their approach as the marketing landscape experienced the biggest shake-up in recent history. Marketers across the UK, and the world, were forced to rip up their plans for the year and spin on a dime – but the landscape had changed, and all the previous wisdom about what works was no longer valid.
Want to get your clients to trust you? An aggressive campaign won’t be well-received in this era. Want to offer help but afraid of sounding like a broken record, or worse – an ambulance chaser? Getting cut-through is a delicate balancing act.
So, how can you win the game when the rules have been changed?
If only there was a map to guide marketers through the uncharted waters of the new normal. The good news? We are now seeing some consistency in emerging trends, as well as some valuable insight into what works.
To try and better understand what good looks like in the new landscape, we’re hosting a panel discussion with founders and senior marketers from a range of businesses.
If you’re looking for advice, tips or tricks to survive and even thrive through this challenging time, join us at 10:30am on July 2nd and put your questions to our panel of experts. Find out more and sign up at: http://yourssincerely.online/virtual-panel-event/
Covid-19 has proved to be the ultimate stress test for what unites people both personally and professionally. The businesses holding it together have drawn on their values to frame their response and guide their actions. In doing so they’ve proved that even when events feel beyond their control, they can still choose how to respond and where to draw the line.
So, as attention turns to moving business forward, it’s time to regroup and consider if what united you in the past will be enough in the future. To look at what kind of behaviour you want to see more of and use this as a filter for how you recruit, empower and recognise people.
Because whilst it may feel like everything has changed, actions still speak louder than words and, in that way, values are more important than ever.
Some things to think about as you ready your business:
1 GETTING REAL
As a team and culture, ask if you still value the same things you used to. Look at what has held true but also what needs to evolve as the world has changed around you.
2 CLOSING THE GAP
Look at where your values come to life through your culture and make sure you’re making the most of them when it matters. The walk-talk gap is a thing of the past.
3 EMPOWERING YOUR FRONTLINE
Make sure your leaders have the space and support they need to make good decisions. Remove any unnecessary red tape or out of date policies in their way.
4 GETTING TOUGH
As you rebuild, and potentially recall and recruit, be confident that everyone on your team shares the same values. Some things are non-negotiable going forward.
5 SETTING A NEW STANDARD
Encourage and reinforce the behaviour you want to see through the way you feedback and recognise people. With new expectations in play, leading by example is more important than ever.
Communications agency Purplefish has teamed up with Future Space to offer businesses free virtual advisory sessions
Bristol communications agency Purplefish, in partnership with Bristol science and tech hub Future Space located at UWE Bristol, is launching a free Springboard programme designed to offer advice and support to businesses.
The agency team is offering companies resident at Future Space powered by Oxford Innovation free virtual advisory sessions to assist with planning and ideas generation for handling marketing and communications as lockdown in the UK starts to ease.
The sessions will last 45 minutes and can be used however deemed most beneficial for the participants.
Whether it’s coming up with creative ideas to fit a specific brief, gaining current insight from the agency’s experts or discussing and prescribing possible solutions to a pressing comms issue, Purplefish aims to bring fresh perspectives to the meeting to help identify opportunities and offer practical guidance.
Usually based at Paintworks, Bristol’s creative quarter, Purplefish offers full-service communications services including public relations, social media and marketing support, video and content, events and experiential and strategic issues consultancy.
The 12-strong team has a diverse client portfolio spanning sectors including property, hospitality, not-for-profit and community, consumer brands, tech and business services.
Commenting on the Springboard programme, managing director Joanna Randall said: “It’s essential not to switch off communications efforts in a period of great uncertainty, and now is the time to be putting plans in place as businesses start reintroducing staff back to the workforce and hopefully entering a new phase of opportunity.
“We encourage companies to take full advantage of our offer – no matter the sector or size of business, we’re here to help and we will be extending this out to other businesses across the region in the next few weeks.”
Newly recruited innovation manager for Future Space, Aimee Skinner says: “We’re always looking for new ways we can add value and support our resident companies as that’s the true benefit of being part of a likeminded and dynamic community.
We hope these will be the first of many sessions offered to our residents, as part of our new programme ‘advisory space’
“We’re delighted to be piloting this scheme with our resident communications agency partner Purplefish – collaboration and support between businesses has never been more important than now.”
Purplefish started as a freelance business in 2010 and, after a fast-initial growth phase, was incorporated in 2012.
If you are interested in booking onto the Springboard programme once it’s launched across the region please contact: [email protected]
Twitter: @PurplefishUK
Instagram: @Purplefishagency
Website: www.purplefish.agency
LinkedIn has long been the preferred social media marketing channel for B2B companies. The business-minded LinkedIn members are accustomed to the social media network’s advertising already includes sponsored InMail messages and social media posts.
Along with the dynamic ad types, LinkedIn offers advertisers superior audience targeting. High-value prospects can be reached by company, title, seniority, skills and a variety of other unique criteria suited to B2B social media marketing.
Two of the more effective LinkedIn advertising types have been video posts and lead gen forms in recent years. Video content has grown exponentially across all social media, thanks to faster mobile speeds and lower barriers to creating high-quality videos. Lead generation form ads allow users to complete forms without leaving the platform, which increases form completions and reduces the cost per lead.
A recent article from Search Engine Journal describes a new LinkedIn Advertising feature that provides the ability to retarget users based on video view and lead gen form engagement.
The feature allows advertisers to retarget LinkedIn users that open a lead gen form or watch a portion of a video with another message. Both opening a lead generation form and watching a significant amount of a video post are interest intent signals. Even if the user didn’t convert this time, they are at least aware of the message and might be more likely to convert with additional messaging.
One example of how this functionality can increase conversions is with online events. A video trailer for the event can generate excitement and show the value of participating in the event. Audiences that watch 25%, 50%, 75% or more of a video can then be targeted with an additional LinkedIn ad that encourages registration. Because the user demonstrates intent and interest, the advertiser could use tailored messaging in the new ads that address barriers to enrollment and highlights the benefits of the event.
Another example designed to reduce costs focuses on leveraging the lead gen form retargeting. LinkedIn’s new feature allows users that open or submit information in a lead gen form to be retargeted. In the case of when a user opens a form but doesn’t complete, retargeting messaging could focus on delivering more value for completing the form. This is an opportunity to address mid and low-sales funnel questions when retargeting audiences that have already completed the lead gen form.
LinkedIn is yet another social media platform to develop remarketing opportunities around on-platform user behavior. When combined with appropriately tailored messaging, this functionality can lift conversion rates, push costs down, and creates a higher level of attribution. At an unprecedented time in digital marketing, we’re excited to see our clients begin taking advantage of LinkedIn’s new features.
It’s become a synonym for weird-ass, which is fine, because language is fluid, except it’s not quite fine, because they are not synonyms. There are things the word unprecedented wants us to stop and consider.
The things are: there’s no precedent for this thing, right now. There isn’t any past experience we can draw on. We don’t know what to do.
As individuals, we don’t already have a set of techniques for successfully avoiding our fellow citizens in the street. There are no Victorian etiquette guidelines that deal with the difficulties created by indecisive people in supermarket one-way systems.
If we are one of those supermarkets, or a town planner, or a university, the problems we’re having to invent solutions for are even bigger. We’ve never had to retrofit our existing, car-based infrastructure to cater for the increased numbers of cyclists, walkers and joggers who all need to stay as far away from each other as possible.
We’ve never had to work out how to explain to a roomful of six-year-olds that it’s important not to touch things, or each other, or even whether it’s a good idea to try. We don’t know how best to do that – and nor should we. That’s the point of unprecedented situations.
It’s OK.
This situation is unique in its challenges, but it has other unique features, too. Never have we been so patient with our online orders, so appreciative of our rubbish collectors, so uncomplaining about the wait for our fish and chips. So understanding that everyone is trying to do the thing we need them to do while also wrestling with unfamiliar tech, trying to home-school two children, and still doing the endless washing-up. That everyone, in fact, is human. Just like they always were.
“We’re trying to figure it out” has become about the only honest-sounding answer. Nothing quite works, and everyone’s trying to figure out how to make it work, and everyone else is being patient and considerate of the time that takes, and the hiccups along the way.
If there has ever been an opportunity to stop and think, it is now. About the new normal, and how to make sure it’s one that everyone can participate in. About how to deliver services well, not just online. About thoughtfully combining our new need for distance with all the other requirements that a space has: ambience, for example, or efficiency.
We know lots of services will need to change, in some cases quite fundamentally. We’re encouraging our clients to pause before making those changes and make sure they have the answers to some questions:
Doing that research now means you can avoid making expensive mistakes. You can focus on what’s important to users. You can gather feedback on ideas before the internet gets to hear about them, and does what the internet does best. Importantly, you can make sure you don’t build the wrong thing.
We’ve been working with Bristol City Council to build an approach to recruiting foster carers that works both during this pandemic and after it, by understanding the very real challenges and concerns that people have. We’re bringing together small groups of fostering service providers to share and discuss these findings, and help them apply that to their own challenges.
We’re also helping the Council get ahead on understanding what people will want from cities after this enforced pause. Will visitors still interact with new cities in the way they used to? Will citizens want to return to the old ways, or will they want to change? What compromises are they willing to make, and what for? Where do smart cities fit into the plan?
And we’re working with Scope on content design for covid related help and information, running research with users to help identify missing information, highlight ambiguities, and ensure the tone of voice fits the situation.
If you haven’t worked with service designers before, or you’ve been considering what doing research like this would actually give you, please do get in touch. We’d love to talk you through a recent project and show you the results so you can think about how a human-centred approach could help you relaunch the right services in the right way.
What can we help you with?
We are specialists in service design, user research, discovery and prototyping for public services, health and the third sector. To find out more, contact us on 020 7193 8952 or email [email protected].
Bardsley England are one of the UK’s largest producers of top fruit. The business grows 22k tonnes of fruit annually from their 24 sites and 820ha of land across the Kent countryside. A fifth generation family business, Bardsley England has undergone a significant transformation over the past 6-years under the stewardship of managing director and entrepreneur Ben Bardsley.
Now providing a vertically integrated supply chain solution, Bardsley England employ 450 people, growing, storing, grading, packing and distributing fruit to all the major supermarkets.
“In 6 years we have increased production and revenue by 1000%. We have a global mission to change the way the fresh produce industry operates currently, by building a company that is devoted to new ideas, has a well funded innovations programme, and a focus on technological advancement and robotics for the betterment of the environment, consumers and our people. Our journey is only just beginning and we recognised that to be successful across all of our operations we also needed the right partners in place. For farm machinery we chose John Deer, and for marketing communications we selected AgencyUK” says Ben Bardsley, Managing Director, Bardsley England.
Bardsley England have a large and complex marketing challenge growing their existing consumer facing brands including fruit juices as well as helping them define and build a global agri-tech offering which will help eliminate food waste and contribute to global carbon reduction. The multi faceted channel mix has evolved quickly alongside a small yet fast growing marketing department, but regular access to a broad range of specialist marketing skills has become essential to supporting the business. Bardsley commissioned a five way pitch with top UK agencies in their search for the right partner.
“We have worked with a number of food producers, tech businesses and companies with a rapid growth trajectory. We knew going into this pitch that Bardsley England had a unique story to tell, and that they were ambitious and needed a partner that could share that vision. But it was only during the pitch process that we realised how well our cultures married together. As a mid size independent agency we devote time to finding the right people and developing the right skills and culture. The combination of which leads to innovative and creative work that helps our client brands disrupt traditional markets around the world. We seek out organisations in the food, drink, health and tech sectors’ that are committed to making a positive difference to our world, not just their profit, and have an executable plan to do it. We are excited to be commencing our partnership with Bardsley England, and look forward to being a part of Bardsley England’s continued success story”. Amy Stobie Co-Founder and Commercial Director, AgencyUK.
AgencyUK are ranked the UK’s top advertising agency in 2020 by The Drum. The recent announcement on Bardsley England follows a string of new client wins, including the relaunch of the much loved sweets brand Chewits.
Founded in 2008 as an integrated brand communications agency with a high level of expertise in creative and emerging digital technology, the AUK team have become well known in the food and drink sector across Europe. Today the AgencyUK team work with international business brands as well as direct to consumer businesses.
Illustrate Digital, one of Europe’s top WordPress agencies, has won the contract to create Bristol Waste’s new website.
The agency based in Temple Meads won the job by presenting its strategy virtually during the Covid-19 lockdown. It won the pitch on the basis of Illustrate Digital’s past work and the pitch alone, rather than a traditional face to face meeting.
Scott Jones, Managing Director and founder of Illustrate Digital, said: “These have been challenging times for all businesses to navigate, but to bring on board such a great client at this time is a real testament to the expertise of the Illustrate Digital team.
“Bristol Waste is a vital part of the day to day workings of the city, so it is vitally important that it has a website that’s user-friendly and reflects the wide ranging work that it does on a day-to-day basis. What we envision for Bristol Waste is a website where the design is user-focussed and allows flexible content to help anyone and everyone who lives in Bristol and the surrounding areas.”
Scott added: “Pitching our ideas and strategy during a global pandemic is a little unusual but also really exciting. We sold our vision for the website virtually and the team at Bristol Waste could see what we wanted to create for them and the calibre of our past work and clients.
“We are looking forward to making our vision for the website a reality and giving Bristol Waste the website it deserves.”
Bristol Waste is just one of six new clients that the agency have managed to bring on board in lockdown, which comes at at time when Illustrate Digital have announced their all-new majority female board heading into 2020.
Illustrate Digital has offices in both Bristol and Cardiff and is one of Europe’s leading WordPress agencies. It has also developed a specialism in tech and financial services, with clients such as Hodge Bank, CountingUp and FinTech Wales. It was established in 2013 and employs 16 people from its two offices.
As lockdown restrictions ease and businesses begin to open their doors once more, it’s time to focus on the road to recovery. Customers will want to be reassured of your brand’s actions and precautions, and businesses are reassessing how to communicate their plans.
It’s important to remember that many brands are still communicating, including your competitors. Customers want to hear from you now more than ever. People will be missing your products and services due to restrictions and changes in circumstance. Many companies are seeing higher open rates than before lockdown due to a captive audience (source: Campaign Monitor).
Here are five things it is important to bear in mind on your business’s road to recovery.
Start to think about how you reacted to the changes during the route to lockdown and reflect on that. How did you play it? Did you get it right? If you did not react as quickly as you would have liked, then think about what you would have done to keep customers informed from what you now know. You can use this to inform all of your choices moving forward – particularly in planning flexible communications like emails.
Think about what customers want to see from you. Remember to strike the right tone and support them. Customers are likely to want to be assured that they are being kept safe. They will also be looking for good value at a time when household incomes have decreased for the majority (source: Savanta). Ensure that you resonate with key consumer concerns at every stage of the process.
Loyal customers should be your priority so be sure to contact them first. These are the customers that provide you with the most value, and who in turn will receive the most value from you. This is a good time to think about your first party data and how you may be able to draw on what you already know.
In a world of three-hour queues for garden centres, manage communications carefully and avoid hype. You will never be in a position where it is acceptable to let the customer down or underperform. Now more than ever people need consistency, compassion and exceptional service from the brands they turn to and trust.
Scenario planning is key. Think of as many possible scenarios you can and how you could react to each as a business. Imagine it as a road map. CRM allows you to efficiently prepare different communications and templates that can be ready to deploy depending on the outcome.
It is also important to think about your competition and how this has changed. People may have found your product elsewhere during this period so it’s key to establish where customers have gone and ask yourself the question ‘how do we win them back’? Can your early communications remind customers why they choose your brand in the first place? This is also a great time to consider if you have any new customers as well. Ask what drew them in and how can you ensure you retain them?
It’s important to keep in touch with the general mood of the country at this time as news updates and situational changes are constantly happening. It is also key that you maintain your brand tone of voice and bring your brand personality to every piece of communication. Lockdown has seen diverse businesses all sending out similar messages of sympathy. It will be impossible to make an impact if you’re blending in with the crowd.
This article was written by Armadillo Client Partner, Jo Penn, and first appeared on Digital Marketing Magazine.
We caught up with Steve Richardson, ECD at Mr B & Friends, to gather his thoughts on the most effective ways of running Creative teams remotely. Here, our chat as part of our Ask the Expert series.
Steve: On this scale, as in everyone in the team – it is. We have flexible working, enabling people to fit work around their lives, but this time with CV19 it’s fitting lives around work funnily enough. Generally, though, we all find certain parts of projects WFH can be better. No distractions, turn off notifications and get creating. We often work from home to either get headspace or when life gets in the way.
Steve: Drive and energy. It’s very easy to get distracted. So by setting timers, switching off the phone, getting space to focus this all helps – but you need to have a sense of achievement in each working period – this comes from a good internal drive. It sounds a bit too much, but making progress is important, either professionally or personally. I’m constantly amazed by what we’re achieving during this time.
Steve: Tough one. Slack has tried to replace email for me, just in smaller bites. I sound a bit of a luddite there for sure. I’d go for your video-conferencing tool of choice – ours is Zoom. It helps hugely to see faces, get connected and share screens. If only we’d all bought shares in that 2 months ago. As I’m sure many agencies have, we’ve learnt new ways to work – running large brand workshops and programmes all virtually, all through Zoom.
Steve: As soon as CV19 became a thing, we set up two meetings every day. A quick-fire morning stand-up where we go through tasks and everyone can share where they are and what’s still to do and then an evening check-in to see what help is required, what still needs planning. We have since loosened those as it was too much, with project check-ins, team catch-ups too. Personally, I feel walking and talking on the phone, away from the home set-up has been refreshing too. Some air, a quick chat off-piste – helps to talk around a project, and make sure there are no crossed wires.
Steve: Get creative with it. Right now, everyone has different home-life situations with young families or individually feeling quite isolated. Let your team know they have personal space and they should make time for themselves. Equip them correctly at home, with chairs if need be. Health and wellbeing is important – we’ve set-up Zoom quizzes (yes, I dress up like a lunatic), Friday beers, team gatherings and online fitness ab-lab sessions to enable virtual interaction in different ways.
Thanks so much for sharing!
This article previously appeared on the ADLIB Blog.
The challenges are coming in waves. At first it was getting everyone set up to work from home. Then about detailed financial forecasting and planning staff resources. Now it should be about trying to shape your business for the longer term, while continuing to keep close to what’s happening every day.
Sadly, it’s likely to continue like this for some time to come, with uncertain timings and unpredictable outcomes creating occasional periods of optimism among those of stark reality.
In this situation it’s easy for agency leaders to become passive, particularly when faced with the day to day monotony of working from home and the energy sapping stress of almost continuous video meetings. It’s hard to blame anyone for just focusing on ensuring their staff are safe and well and on making sure the finances aren’t too far away from their predictions.
But this is a time when strong leadership really matters. When the differences between those that can and those that can’t become very obvious. And when the future winners and losers are created.
When the key decisions and pace of activity is driven by client demands good agency leadership can be relatively easy. But when those things need to be initiated – as in the current environment – the challenge is very different. Leaders need to set the agenda, focus efforts and create momentum.
We’re not saying this is an easy task, but here are a few tips that we hope will help you rise to the challenge:
1 LOOK TO THE FUTURE
Many of you will have learned new things about cash forecasting, virtual communications and Government schemes. But once you’ve got these in place you should have your head up looking to the future of your agency and what will make you succeed in the post-Covid era. Good cash management is important and will help you survive, but it won’t make you a winner and shouldn’t be your everyday purpose.
2 SHARE AND DELEGATE
In this locked-down environment it’s easy for leaders to become very insular, working alone or with just a couple of individuals. But the future success of your agency is important to many more people. And a lot of your team have ideas and energy to contribute to making your agency as good as it can be in both the shorter and longer term. You’ll have leaders in many parts of your business, make sure you’re using them.
3 MAKE SMALL STEPS COUNT
In the past you may have set objectives for your team on a 90-day or six-month basis. But faced with the current challenges and with people working at home, the approach needs to be very different. Leaders need to set objectives and tasks for their teams on a daily or weekly basis – with each being a contribution to moving to a much better place. The small steps ensure that people don’t lose their focus when working alone and they create a sense of momentum when achieved. They can also be a basis for celebrating success – rather than focusing on what’s been lost.
4 CHALLENGE YOURSELVES
Many people are claiming that the lockdown has increased their focus and efficiency. And on straightforward everyday tasks this is probably true. But this is not a time when this type of head-down productivity really counts. It’s progress towards being a strong business again that really matters and leaders need to push themselves, and their teams, to get on that track. Ask yourself at the end of each week whether you and your team have done everything possible to ensure your business will be at its best in the future. If the answer is no, you’ll know what next week’s challenge is going to be.
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