Bristol-based digital design and development agency, Unfold celebrated success on 14th October 2021, taking home the title of “Best Digital Design” at The SPARKies 2021. This was awarded for the transformational work they completed for their clients Sherpr.
The SPARKies is one of the year’s most hotly anticipated tech awards ceremonies in the South West. Since Managing Director, Harry Cobbold won ‘FutureSPARK’ back in 2019, Unfold has been nominated for several other categories (including ‘Tech Leader of the Year’ this year). The ceremony was held at The Showroom on Bath Road and was joint hosted by the TechSpark team and comedian Stephen Bailey (who had everyone in stitches).
Sherpr came to Unfold with two problems;
Unfold built a custom web app, admin portal and marketing site for Sherpr in just 10 weeks. This completely transformed their business. As well as automating all of the time-intensive back office tasks, Unfold also created an editable CMS through which the Sherpr team could update and manage their products without constant developer support.
As well as immediate savings in overheads, Sherpr were also able to process far more clients with their new reliable and automated booking system.
Following the work Unfold completed for them, Sherpr achieved their first ever 6-figure month and hit an annual run-rate of £1.2m.
“From beginning to end, the team at Unfold have been great to work with. Communication has been easy and any changes we needed to make during the build process were welcomed and perfectly executed.” – Andy Watson, CEO of Sherpr
Read more in-depth info on exactly how Unfold helped Sherpr achieve this remarkable step-change in their full case study.
If you have a project or digital platform you’d like advice on, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Unfold team.
Starting a new job can be a nerve-wracking process, especially when it’s your first opportunity after being at uni. Luckily, I’m here to share my experience of starting at Proctors and gaining my first real industry exposure.
Here are some of the questions I found myself asking, the challenges I faced – and some of the lessons I learnt.
What if I don’t know what I’m doing on my first day?
In any new job, a fear of failure is perfectly normal. Luckily, the Proctors people went out of their way to ensure I felt comfortable in the office, had sufficient training/inductions and the resources to get on with my projects, setting me up for success.
It’s important companies give you ample time to find your feet on your first day. So, if you don’t know what to do next, just ask how you can help. Remember, you were hired – you’ve already made it past the stressful interview part! Treat your first day as a fun celebration. Everyone is excited to meet you!
What’s it like starting in a Tech role?
Joining the Tech team at P+S straight after leaving university showed me the differences between education and real-life industry work really quickly.
In uni, I was constantly shifting my focus to find a speciality. This meant that almost each semester I would be creating a new project with a different focus and practicing a different coding language. However, at P+S I was able to focus on my strengths first, with support from seasoned (and friendly) developers, and begin specialising in the areas that I am most interested in.
Over my first few weeks, as I was introduced to all of the developers around me and all of the teams that I would be interacting with, all of the nervousness of a new role left as I settled in to my first full development role and focused on my workload.
How will I remember all these people?
Meeting everyone on your first day can be overwhelming, sometimes it can feel like you’re crashing a private party. Forming relationships takes time, and a supportive workplace recognises this.
At P+S, I was introduced to all the departments I would be working with, encouraged to reach out to anyone if I had any questions, and met with a multitude of messages from co-workers welcoming me to the company. Wednesday quiz nights and Friday night socials allowed me to meet people in a non-work environment. And as time went on more new employees joined, we all easily bonded over being new to the company.
Don’t forget, you’re not expected to remember everyone you meet immediately, but making the effort to get to know your co-workers over lunches and socials will help you feel at ease in your new job.
What do I do if I’m not busy with work all the time?
Sometimes work may be slow whilst you’re being given time to settle in, and you may feel guilty for not tapping away at the keyboard for all 8 hours of the workday. Just remember, people are giving you time to relax into the job and no one wants you to be overwhelmed. Take your time with tasks, regularly check in with co-workers to make sure you’re doing the right thing and focus on the small wins.
When working in a marketing agency, time management is incredibly important and often we are working to strict deadlines. At P+S, I was given access to a plethora of training resources for when I had a moment of downtime, to develop my industry skills.
Stay positive and believe in yourself
The most important thing to remember is to stay open-minded and treat your first job as a fresh start, a learning opportunity, and a chance to meet cool, like-minded people that can help you build an exciting career.
At P+S, we are always looking for talent to join our team across Creative, Strategy and Technology. Click here to find out more about our current vacancies or send your CV to [email protected].
The pandemic has seen UK industries split. Some businesses are still struggling to get back on their feet while others are booming beyond their wildest expectations. Those experiencing an upturn may be seeing sales soar because they adapted their business during periods of lockdown and have discovered a better way of doing things. Others may be experiencing higher demand because consumers have had time to take stock and make a change. Whatever the reason for the growth, it can leave busy businesses in a bit of a quandary when it comes to marketing their wares. The thought of bringing new customers on board right now might make you shudder. How will you cope? However, on the flip side, how will you cope when the work you’re busy servicing now runs out if your pipeline is empty?
Filling the pipeline
I’m writing this blog with a little smile on my face because this is a debate that raged for most of my 20 years working in agency life. There were days I didn’t know which way to turn we were so busy, and I admit, I didn’t relish the idea of pitching for new business when things were already so hectic. But there is no denying the importance of filling your business pipeline. You never know what is around the corner, so it is better to be prepared by continuing to market your business, even when times are good.
So how do you find the time to market your wares when you’re up to your eyeballs in servicing the customers you already have? It’s a fair question. One of the best ways to generate new business a bit more softly, is to generate inbound leads. For those of you unfamiliar with this term it means that you don’t have to generate a vast and complex suite of marketing materials, spend thousands of pounds on advertising, or spend hours on the phone calling your top list of prospects to try to drum up more business that you’re not sure you even want! Inbound lead generation focuses on marketing activity that encourages your prospects to pick up the phone to you.
Gently does it
Business blogs are a fantastic way of generating inbound leads. If people find a blog useful, they will revisit it time and time again and are more likely to contact the author of that blog when they need that product or service. Business blogs position you as an authority in your field, a trusted voice in a sea of noise. If readers like what they see, they may contact you immediately for more information about your offering. Or they may save you as a favourite, sign up to your blog, or follow you on social media (where you can regularly promote your blog) so they know where you are if they need you in the future.
Call for back up
I realise that right about now you’ll be shouting at your screen something along the lines, ‘how on earth am I going to find the time to write a blog right now?!’ Yes, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and keep it clean! I fully empathise with how much time writing and maintaining a business blog can take, but if you don’t have the capacity in-house, it could well be worth looking into outsourcing this part of your marketing. If you work with an external copywriter, they can spend the time learning about your business, absorbing the topics that are important to you, researching the posts you know you want to write about but don’t have the time, and ultimately populating your blog with fresh and engaging content. Content that will ensure your website is working hard to market your business, while you do what you do best and stay focused on delivering the fantastic product or service you offer your customers.
It’s difficult when business is busy to keep the pedal to the metal when it comes to marketing, but that’s where outsourcing really comes into its own. So, if you’d like to make sure the demand continues, while remaining focused on existing customers, don’t be shy in calling for back up. It might mean you can have your cake and eat it which is a pretty good place to be.
2020 saw a surge of people donning their gardening gloves to try and ‘grow their own’. According to Livingetc Pintrest has seen a 600% increase in searches for the term ‘DIY small garden ideas vegetables’ as the idea of homegrown produce became more and more popular. To grow your own fruit and veg though, is a commitment that requires effort. Effort to monitor seeds as they grow, water plants in the heat, protect them through the cold, prune to encourage growth, and of course collect your harvest when the time comes. It’s not easy but the ongoing nourishment is worthwhile for the end result.
To reach its full potential in today’s digital world, a business needs to be nourished with ongoing content in the same way that a garden needs ongoing food, water and sunshine . And while some companies only dabble every now and again to make sure visitors don’t think their business is out of date, ideally a business blog should be kept up to date on a regular basis. The more often the better too from an SEO perspective.
Generating enough content to help your business thrive though can sometimes feel like a chore. Especially when you have so much going on in the rest of your business. Of course, your priority is going to be meeting customer’s needs and delivering on your promises. But it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Working with a copywriter that is willing to understand your business and work as part of your team to deliver fresh and engaging content on a regular basis can give you peace of mind that you are doing your enterprise justice from a marketing perspective, without compromising your service to your customers.
The bottom line is, the more content you can generate and post online, the better your SEO ranking and the more enquiries you will receive. You could say that blogging to a business is almost as significant as water is to the growth potential of your new vegetable patch!
Having recently binge-watched the Netflix series ‘Drive to Survive’, Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 3) | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube I can’t help but compare some of the similarities between the industry, and game, that is F1 and the seemingly very different world of SEO.
The competition in F1 is tough, there are no prizes for coming over the finish line last, there are only points if you place in the top 10 and only 3 places on the podium. It’s a zero-sum game with obvious ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.
In our SEO world, I liken your website and Search Marketing to one of those F1 teams.
There are only 10 spaces on page 1 of a Google search and you need to be there if you want to be in the rankings race.
So what should you focus on to make sure you rank no. 1 on Google ahead of your competition?
Here are a four, (and very loose 😉) Formula 1 analogies to help explain how to make sure your competition is not pipping you to the finish line:
In Formula 1, the car and it’s engine are key to winning. A superior car like Mercedes is consistently performing ahead of the competition. So, we need to make sure your engine is tip top, and able to compete with the competitor’s engine.
In this instance, your content creation, superior thought leadership, content outreach and backlinks are the ‘engine’ for your business SEO efforts, driving the marketing activity and creating winning engaging content. However, this does take a lot of time and effort and so it is vital to make sure you have a clear plan to optimise what your team spends their time on.
Formula 1 teams spend as much time and money on their aerodynamics as they do their engine. Do you spend as much time on technical SEO as you do content creation? If not, you should. These marginal gains from coding optimisation and competitor analysis to analysing page speed, schema and your analytics can be the difference between ranking at the top of Google or not. However good your content/engine is, if the technical SEO is not constantly improving, you’ll have a crash at the most unexpected moment
The reality is that if Mercedes were racing against a Mini they wouldn’t need to spend as much time and money on their car. It’s the same with SEO and whilst I’m not trying to say don’t do SEO, please make sure you stop and actually research and understand what your competitors are doing online. Your race ahead, may not be as hard as you expect.
F1 teams spend huge efforts trying to understand all the finer points of what the competition is up to. So make sure you spend time to understand why your competitor is ahead of you in a search. What’s giving them the edge? Do you really need a brand new car or will a small smart tweak do the job? Make sure you spend time not just creating the offsite content that you need to, but look at the finer technical details of your site, and tweak and change if needed to get some quick wins.
For me, Lewis Hamilton is an outstanding driver, but arguably, because of the team behind it and the Mercedes car, they would still win a lot of races with one of the ‘less experienced’ drivers from other teams. Equally, a great driver can’t win a race in a slower car.
So as far as Search Marketing is concerned, if your strategy and digital marketing team have a poor sense of technical SEO knowledge and understanding, you may never succeed. Make sure you have the Lewis Hamilton of search marketing managers or seek support and guidance from those that can help. We are increasingly supporting our clients with Search Marketing Mentoring so their team can win. Could your business benefit from SEO Mentoring? (varn.co.uk)
Whatever you do, like a F1 team, you must make sure it is cost effective, constantly evolving and the time/investment spent can actually drive a good return on investment.
It’s very common to rip up the current marketing strategy and start again, but as we have seen with many clients and their websites, maybe you need to keep what you’re already doing and focus on the changes which will make it simply perform better.
If we can help you take your SEO engine apart have a good look under the bonnet of you and your competition’s search marketing, then do get in touch with the team at Varn.
In the digital age the focus is shifting from longer prose in the form of articles and handwritten letters, to short, snappy sentences on social media. That’s if there’s any copy used at all with attention turning increasingly towards images and videos online. While the faster means of communicating via social media has its benefits and is an excellent way to reach more people, more quickly than ever before, it is taking something important away too.
The written word is a wholly powerful thing. Here’s an example to demonstrate its importance. Think about how it feels to receive a text from a friend. As much as you care about the person texting, it probably isn’t much of an event anymore. It’s probably short for starters, and it’s more likely to be about something practical or light-hearted than it is to be about something deep and emotional. Of course, that’s fine for day-to-day interactions, but now think about how you would feel if you received a handwritten letter through the post. Perhaps from a friend or family member telling you how important you are to them, or how grateful they are for something you have done, or how proud they are of what you have achieved. Because we know a letter has taken more time, effort and thought, it means more. It is also something you can hold on to forever.
Prioritise a personal touch
The same thing applies in the business world too. Social media is a fantastic way to promote your wares as a business and reach more people. But used alone, it isn’t very personal. It can’t be when you’re using so few words to talk to so many people. And with the rise of shorter, faster, more convenient ways to communicate, has come an increasing lack of attention to detail. It’s as though speed and quantity are more important than quality. Unfortunately, it probably is in terms of social media or SEO algorithms, but what does it say about you or your business when your written word is full of typos, grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes? Don’t get me wrong, we’re all human, we all make mistakes. A few errors here and there can be forgiven, but a consistently problematic read is jarring and affects our perception of the author, whether we realise it or not.
The power of persuasion
When done well, the written word can harness the powers of persuasion in a way short text and images cannot do. People believe what they read in magazines, newspapers and trusted online sources, so when they read about best practice or advice on particular product options at length, they are likely to believe the content. Many of these pieces are ghost written by a copywriter or PR agency and serve to position businesses in the way they want to be seen, whether market leading, ethical, customer focused, or all of the above!
Future generation of writers
I have been lucky/unlucky enough to be in the mass of home schooling parents during the Covid-19 lockdown periods. This allowed me to see very closely the process of my reception child learning to write his first words, sentences, even stories. The pleasure to see him gradually grasp the different sounds and put them together on the page is immense and we will keep a lot of his writing to show him when he’s older. He may even decide to keep it and show his children one day. But what is the future of this creative outlet for him? Will there still be a requirement for any longer prose when he’s an adult, or will he gradually unlearn these skills and techniques and freedom to express himself, in exchange for quicker, easier ways to communicate?
I hope this isn’t the case because the impact of the written word on someone else whether in your personal life or in the business world, is something special and powerful and future generations should have the opportunity to give and receive this gift. The power of the written word should not be left behind in the digital age.
Pay your audience the attention they deserve
Whether you are talking to prospective customers or new or well-established customers, pay them the attention they deserve by spending more time on your communications. Quick and consistent social media messaging is great, but giving more thought to longer advice blog posts, a thank you note for their custom, or feature length articles in their industry magazines, offer a different level of connection between you and them. Aside from anything else it offers far more potential in terms of word count, to get your message across to them.
If the idea of this sounds appealing to you, but you simply don’t have the time, don’t forget you can delegate (read more about when and how you should delegate here https://blogwrite.co.uk/to-delegate-or-not-to-delegate/) to ensure you don’t miss out.
We’re delighted to have been featured by Best Startup UK as one of their top Bristol-based app companies.
It’s been a busy year for the Gravitywell team, working on a raft of exciting projects with startups in the UK and abroad, as well as the successful launch of Mezze, our very own SaaS platform for the food manufacturing industry.
Gravitywell was selected due to exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
Innovation
– Innovative ideas
– Innovative route to market
– Innovative product
Growth
– Exceptional growth
– Exceptional growth strategy
Management
Societal impact
Annually, Best Startup UK recognises companies that are pushing the limits of innovation to solve critical problems and challenges. Best Startup UK is managed by Fupping LTD, a London-based media company, whose aim is to accelerate the growth of the UK’s foremost innovators by promoting them to a global audience.
There are so many different things to consider when writing a blog, but for the purposes of this post, I’m talking about how to overcome some of the typical obstacles that get in the way of a good blog post and ultimately how to write your blog in a way that will best speak to your audience.
I can just sit down and write, can’t I?
Coming up with inspiration for content for your blog is the first step in the process which you can read more about here https://blogwrite.co.uk/five-ways-to-generate-content/ but assuming you have a list of topics you’re ready to work through, you then need to think about how you’re going to put these topics into words. That may sound like an odd thing to say because you can just write the first thing that comes into your head, can’t you? Not necessarily. A few business owners or marketers may be able to produce fantastic blog posts by downloading what’s in their head, but the majority will struggle to put their thoughts on paper in a meaningful way.
In my 20+ year background of writing copy for various companies and different personalities within those companies, I’ve seen every possible approach to generating and articulating content. Some of these approaches have been counter intuitive and believe it or not have put people off of using their services. Here are a couple of examples of some of the obstacles businesses need to overcome when blogging about their offering.
Be accessible
Some of the people I work with are very technically minded. Their jobs require a high level of detailed technical knowledge and indeed it’s why their customers choose to work with them. However, when it comes to writing pieces for mass consumption, the complex technical approach probably isn’t going to work best.
Think about your audience carefully. Choose one customer or ideal customer and imagine writing for them. What would they want to see in the blog post? How much time do they have available to read information online? Do they want to see lots of technical jargon, or will that make it harder for them to read? It can be a tricky balance because you need to show you have the knowledge and information your readers require, but equally you don’t want to put people off with an overly technical and jargon-heavy article. You don’t need to be patronising, but it’s important to accept that not everyone will know the same terms, abbreviations, industry specific jargon, that you do.
It’s also good to remember that blog posts aren’t about proving how much you know – the most successful blogs genuinely help people with advice and information.
Shelve the modesty
Another common obstacle I have seen for businesses generating content for themselves, is that they’re too modest. Some of the best companies and people I work with don’t think they have anything to say. I have come to the point now where I almost relish hearing this on first meeting because more often than not it means I’ve found a hidden gem! It is always easier for someone outside of your business to see the things you can’t see yourself.
Downloading this information isn’t a painful process either. I simply ask people about their background, their philosophies and what makes them different to their competitors and wonderful nuggets of information flood out! But they haven’t been able to see it because they are too close to all the good things they do. As is probably the case with most of us, they are more focused on the things they feel they need to improve than they are about all the positive aspects of the business.
This obstacle is a little more tricky to overcome because if you’re the modest type there’s not an awful lot you can do about it. However, if you identify with this, you should try to detach yourself and see your company afresh as much as possible. Again, think about a customer or prospect and pretend you’re writing to them. What useful information could you give them? How can you make their lives easier? What makes you different from your competitors? If you’re still finding it hard, perhaps you have a friend or family member that isn’t involved in the business that you talk to and find out what they think stands out about your offering.
If in doubt, outsource!
Of course, if this all feels too time consuming, or an impossible task, you can always outsource your business blog to a professional copywriter. They will have the tools to take your knowledge and experience and present it in precisely the right way for your online audience. Or see through your modest claims of ‘I have nothing to say’ and easily be able to produce a regular blog on all aspects of your business.
Good news for businesses: you no longer need to depend on high-cost, high-resource development for your digital projects. Apps, websites, and software alike can all be developed using a visual-first approach, with zero in-depth coding necessary.
Since the invention and mass production of the very first personal computers, people have wanted to take more control of their devices. But, whereas tinkering with functionality was once the domain of the ‘geek’, the low-code/no-code trend has grown to become accessible to all.
Today, these solutions have developed into such complex, adaptable systems, that you could argue there’s a decreased need for developers. No matter how amateur your digital knowledge, if you have an idea, you can make it happen with minimal code intervention, starting a business or launching an app with just a few swipes or clicks.
But before you go gung-ho and decide to handle your next digital launch in-house, there are a few caveats.
You’ll still need experience of best-practice UX, UI and user journeys to inform your design and ensure users can engage effectively with your app or website. Plus, you’ll need a knowledge of content and design hierarchy – not to mention branding expertise.
That means bringing in the experts. But low-code/no-code also means when you hire a professional agency to handle your digital build, you’ll save countless hours in back-end development time, and go to launch much faster too.
No-code digital design offers full flexibility when it comes to designing a webpage or app. In fact, a page’s layout is as simple as a simple ‘drag-and-drop’ to bring together development elements.
Low-code offers the agility to inject code into pre-developed templates, for enhanced functionality and a more customised offering.
Recently at P+S, we’ve been adopting more and more low-code/no-code digital solutions for both our clients and our own brand. Some examples include adapting TV for the digital world via a global Islamic community platform, and of course the design and relaunch of our very own Proctors website. Both are packed with stunning interactive elements and intuitive and accessible design, demonstrating just how flexible and professional these solutions can be.
Low-code/no-code solutions offer a huge return on investment, helping to develop SMEs or achieve optimisation for multi-nationals. The benefits are unlimited and inevitable, with the two stand out advantages being the creativity it can deliver, and the speed at which your project can be developed.
Put simply, you’ll have infinite scope for adaptive design when you choose a low-code/no-code solution. And the results are fully scalable across multiple platforms.
Not only can low-code/no-code save you reliance on internal developer resource, but it can also grow your knowledge of coding, providing even more exciting prospects for the future. The platforms involved often have great support systems which tend to be simple and well-resourced, helping to alleviate any worries you might have around back-end or hosting issues.
At P+S, we’ve created a team of award-winning specialists from across our Creative, Technology and Strategy divisions who are ahead of the game on all things low-code/no-code. Meaning we can provide integrated comprehensive solutions with little-to-no code intervention – but all the right design and strategy foundations.
Low-code/no-code is now part of our core offering, with our Creative team helping to pioneer this revolution with website development software like Webflow, who have arguably created one of the best low-code/no-code platforms available to date. (You can read more about some of the benefits of Webflow here.)
As a result, the time-efficient website solutions we create for you can be self-maintained and managed, kitted out with intuitive CMS and UI for quick and easy on-screen editing, and using predefined industry-focused templates that can be injected with code – so there’s no compromise on creativity.
At Proctors, we’re always trying to stay one step ahead ahead of the latest industry trends across our specialisms in Creative, Strategy and Technology. It’s one of the things that’s helped us stay at the forefront of our clients’ needs, and continue to grow our business over the years. And a low-code/no-code solution is one of those stepping stones.
We’re currently one of only two Webflow Enterprise-level Partners in the whole of Europe because of our teams’ commitment to this low-code/no-code methodology. It’s accessible, flexible and in the right hands, offers a cost-effective, future-fit web development solution for businesses of all sizes.
To find out more about building impactful, brand low-code/no-code solutions with Proctors, email us today.
Cytel, the world’s largest provider of statistical software and advanced analytics for clinical trial design, has appointed AgencyUK to lead the strategy and roll-out of Solara, the next generation in statistical and predictive trial design and selection software. This trial strategy platform combines massive cloud computing with Cytel algorithms to dramatically expand available design options for confident selection of the optimal design. Unifying statistical design and clinical strategy to improve clinical development productivity, Solara helps teams control uncertainty by simulating millions of design options in minutes; minimizes costs by ensuring teams find opportunities to shorten trial duration; accelerates speed to market (10-20% faster) and benefits the patients sooner.
The technology is such an advancement for the sector, that the Cytel board are investing heavily in its rollout, which includes a significant marketing effort led by Rebecca Grimm (Vice President, Marketing), Cytel and the team at AgencyUK.
“Solara is a real first for our industry, and we’re already active with live customers and their case studies which are starting to emerge. We appointed AgencyUK based on their sector experience, proven test and learn methodology as well as their passionately creative team. In partnership with AgencyUK, we’re looking forward to seeing the rollout expand globally over the coming months” says Rebecca Grimm, VP Marketing, Cytel.
“Our team has been working with pharma, biotech and clinical research organisations since 2008, and it’s always exciting to be at the forefront of new technology that can change how an industry operates forever. We’ve been developing the Solara brand and proposition alongside the go-to-market strategy. Digital media plays a vital role in its successful adoption by big pharma teams and biotech leaders alike, and we’re looking forward to its global roll-out over the coming months” says Sammy Mansourpour, Managing Director, AgencyUK.