Employee engagement is an efficient business strategy. Happy, engaged, and resilient staff is the ultimate goal, but it’s easier said than done.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to employee engagement. It’s a mix of rewards, recognition, wellbeing, and community-building. Yuup provides a bespoke solution to each of these concerns surrounding employee engagement:
Employees are the heart of your business and the reason you exist. They’re also a significant investment, so it makes sense to invest in them as well.
Yuup offers a solution for employee engagement that goes beyond traditional perks such as free lunches or flexible working hours.
Based on research into what employees want from their employers, Yuup provides businesses with an innovative way to engage their teams by giving them recognition and rewarding them with things to do that are enriching and personal whilst stimulating the local economy and supporting small businesses.
Yuup is an online marketplace that offers a range of experiences that are perfect for businesses both big and small.
From team-building days to performance rewards and from staff wellbeing experiences to ways to celebrate big wins. It’s a way for businesses to engage their staff in ways they may not have been able to before.
Rita will talk about how she has found brand thinking not just fundamental to successful businesses of all shapes, sizes and stages, but also how you can apply it to yourself to ensure that you are as valued and influential as you can be. She will:
Tickets are priced at £50+VAT for BCI members and £75+VAT for non-members which includes a buffet lunch so there’ll be plenty of opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new connections too.
If you’d like to join the BCI network, read all about becoming a BCI member here.
As a high-profile business leader, acclaimed brand guru and sustainability champion, Rita is able to inspire organisations of all kinds to find new ways to succeed in an uncertain world.
She has been called ‘Brand guru’ by the Financial Times and ‘The doyenne of branding’ by Campaign magazine. Retail Week commented that she is ‘A fabulous ambassador for business’. Alongside her board chairing and non-executive roles, Rita is a writer, keynote speaker, conference chair & practitioner on all aspects of brands, branding and business leadership.
Her career has included being a Vice Chair and Strategy Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, as London CEO and Chair at the global brand consultancy Interbrand and as co-founder of BrandCap. She is now a portfolio chair and non-executive director on the board of businesses including John Lewis Partnership, Nationwide Building Society and Ascential plc. Previous boards have included ASOS, Dixons Retail plc, Emap, Bupa and Populus Group. Her non-profit boards have included WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Green Alliance. She was recently appointed Chair at Forum for the Future, the leading international sustainability organisation. In the 2014 New Year’s Honours List, Rita was awarded a CBE for services to the creative industries.
Rita is a regular columnist and media commentator, as well as author of ‘The Future of Brands’ and two editions of The Economist book ‘Brands and Branding’. Her new book on leadership ‘Love your imposter’ was launched by Kogan Page in September 2020.
Learned in Texas, delivered in Bristol. TMW Unlimited are hosting a free event at Origin Workspace to round up the most interesting bits from the world’s biggest knowledge-sharing festival, South by Southwest.
Liv Wedderburn (Social & Influence Director) and Paul Dazeley (Strategy Director) have returned from from Austin brimming with ideas and topics to discuss.
When they last returned from the last SXSW all the way back in 2019, they were most struck by how the conversation had shifted from revering tech to fearing it, with big corporations coming under mounting pressure over their ethical practices.
In the 3 years since, there’s been a pandemic, a new President, a Facebook rebrand and a whole new web has developed – so to say there’s a lot of new ground to cover is probably an understatement.
Besides a hefty dose of jet lag, the biggest issue in preparation so far has been trying to filter down the colossal amounts of information and choosing the most important things to share.
Liv and Paul will be diving into unknown realm that is our future: from the climate crisis, to demystifying the hype around the metaverse and Web 3.0, all the way to weird and wonderful conversations on space, sex tech, synthetic biology and much, much more.
To attend, register here. Free ticket includes drink, canapes and fun for all.
Date and time:
Thursday 31 March 2022 18:45 – 20:30
Location:
Origin Workspace, 40 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1HP
Here’s a great story courtesy of MailChimp.
“In 1978, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp named Gary Thuerk used this new method of direct communication to send out the first commercial email to let people know about a new product. His email list only had 400 addresses, but the emails he sent resulted in about $13 million in sales.”
This was only 7 years after the first email ever was sent in 1971, and being the first person to do anything in marketing is a pretty incredible feat. Nowadays, more than half the world’s population has an email account – and most of them are more than happy for the brands they love to take up space in their inbox.
Email marketing is an all-encompassing term for sending promotional and commercial emails to a list of subscribers who have given you permission to do so. This includes newsletters, updates on special offers and events, welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, order confirmations, delivery updates and lots more.
Email marketing often takes a back seat to the ever-present social media marketing, but it’s still a major player in the mix. I am a big fan of email marketing, and by the end of this post, I hope you will be too!
There were 4 billion emails users in 2020, with about a 3% increase each year. In comparison, there were 3.6 billion social media users in 2020, and these days we regularly see large numbers of people shifting to new platforms or giving up social media completely.
73% of millennials say email is their favourite way to receive communication from businesses.
44% of users check their emails to find deals from brands they like, compared to just 4% who would go to Facebook for a bargain.
Still not sold? How about this: email marketing has a return on investment (ROI) of 3800%. You’d be hard-pressed to find a figure like that anywhere else.
1. Segment and Personalise
Segmentation is the process of separating your contacts based on a number of different factors. Personalisation is using those factors to engage people in a way that will resonate with them.
Here’s a very basic example. You sell candles, and you offer shipping across the UK. Your purchase process contains an opt-in form for your newsletter, so most of your past customers are on your mailing list, and you’ve segmented them geographically. Now you’re planning an event in Bristol, and you want to get the word out. It’s probably not worth sending that email to your customers in Edinburgh. I’m sure your candles are good, but they’re probably not ‘travel 400 miles to get one’ good. Especially if you can buy them online and get them shipped out. So we can send a personalised email along the lines of “Bristol customers, come to our event and make your candle dreams come true!”.
According to SendinBlue, there are four main types of segmentation.
Demographic – concrete information about who contacts are (e.g. age)
Psychographic – subjective characteristics of contacts’ personalities (e.g. values)
Behavioural – contacts’ past interactions with your business (e.g. abandoned cart)
Geographic – where contacts are located (e.g. timezone)
As you can see, these are pretty broad and the possibilities are vast. Revisit your email marketing goals to figure out what would be most beneficial for your business.
2. A/B Testing
Should I add that emoji to the subject line? How about another paragraph of copy – would that lead to more clicks? They say the little things can make a big difference. Luckily, A/B Testing helps you figure out which little things actually work.
A/B testing is a clever little tool that allows you to send two slightly different campaigns to your audience. Then you can look at the data and find out which performed better, and use this knowledge to make better decisions in the future.
As business owners, we feel like we have to have all the answers. But sometimes A/B testing can prove our hypotheses wrong. Don’t be disheartened – instead, think of it as an opportunity to learn more about your customers.
Here are a few things you can A/B test:
Subject line – (long or short, emojis or no emojis)
Content – (more or less copy, more or fewer images)
CTAs – (how many, where are they placed)
Schedule – (day of the week, time of day)
3. Clear Out Your List
Chances are, you’re paying for your email marketing provider per contact on your list, so make sure those people are worth it! If you haven’t used your list in a while, start with a retargeting campaign to draw people back in with an enticing offer. After a while, clear out any contacts that haven’t interacted with your emails at all. Make this a regular habit to ensure your list is always up to date.
4. Optimise for Mobile
Over 70% of people prefer to read emails on their mobile, so don’t forget to check the mobile version before hitting send. The good news is that 1 in 5 commercial emails are not optimised for mobile, so getting this right could help you stand out from the competition.
Here are a few things to consider before scheduling that campaign.
Mobile devices will show just 25-30 characters of a subject line, so keep it short or make sure your key points are included at the beginning.
Some email apps don’t show images by default, so think of any images as a bonus, rather than the main event.
Make your CTAs clear enough to show up on a small screen, and big enough to easily accommodate a tap from a fingertip.
Test before sending! Always send a test email and view it on as many devices as possible before you hit send.
5. GDPR
GDPR legislation can feel super intimidating, but don’t be afraid. Essentially, its purpose is to give people more control over their data, and it certainly doesn’t spell the end of email marketing. If anything, it means those people who choose to give you their data are going to be even more engaged with your business, leading to a more valuable list.
A few things to consider here:
Make sure everyone on your list has given clear consent to be contacted by you, and keep evidence of this consent.
Only ask for the data you really need (this is important both for GDPR compliance and to maximise sign-ups, as a long form will put a lot of people off).
Use a reputable email marketing platform (MailChimp is great for beginners), and a lot of the complicated stuff will be taken care of for you.
Of course, by entrusting your email campaigns to Turnhouse, we can put all this into practice for you. Find out more about email marketing and the services we offer.
Please note: Since publication this crowdfund has closed. £988,776 was raised in 28 days with Yuup reaching 131% of its desired fundraising target.
Yuup, the Bristol-based online local experiences marketplace, has been offering the city’s creative community a platform to generate income through hosting experiences since it was founded in September 2020.
In just a year company has grown from supporting just under 40 experience hosts to now being a community with over 270 people and small businesses and 500+ experiences to enjoy throughout Bristol city.
On Yuup’s platform you will find anything from unicycle lessons to rum tasting, wild winter swimming to hot air balloon rides, and pottery making to fresh pasta making masterclasses. Each one of these unique experiences is hosted by a local person that can’t wait to share their skills and passion with new people.
The platform has seen side-hustlers and hobbyists turn their favourite thing to do into a business and their main source of income. In the past year, Yuup has generated over £450k of income for local people and small independent creative businesses in the Bristol and Bath region.
Maria Fernandez, from Healing Weeds, hosts foraging workshops in Bristol. Her experiences teach guests how to identify seasonal wild produce and how to make balms, medicines, cordials, and elixirs from the foraged harvest. Using Yuup, Maria was able to change her career in order to properly pursue the thing she loves. She said:
“Yuup helped me turn my hobby into a business and Healing Weeds is now my main source of income.”
Since launching in the middle of a pandemic, Yuup has been used by Bristol creatives to help their income streams and businesses bounce back from lockdown and the effects of the pandemic.
The drop in economic activity within the UK in response to the pandemic impacted SMEs and the self-employed significantly in comparison to their larger business counterparts.
Local businesses were forced to adapt in order to survive. For indie businesses that could facilitate experiences, Yuup provided a platform that allowed alternative revenue streams to the local businesses that were struggling to achieve their pre-pandemic footfall.
Alice from Trylla shop on North Street joined Yuup early on in order to use the platform as a kickstart to her business’ post-pandemic recovery. Her pottery making experiences have been so popular that Alice has since hired new staff to help support the demand for her pottery classes on Yuup.
Yuup’s positive social impact extends to platform support, marketing, and a ticketing system for charity events and fundraisers. Yuup’s recent collaboration with Belly Laughs comedy festival 2022 raised over 22k for charity and generated over 10k of revenue for local restaurants and bars. The company have also recently supported grassroots charities such as MAZI Project and KASK’s Ukraine Fundraiser.
At the start of February 2022, Yuup announced that the business will be opening up investment to the public to allow for the company’s scaling up operations this year. There are a number of ways that you can join the Yuup community. As an investor, as a Yuup host, by introducing a Yuup host, or as a customer.
How to join the Yuup community as an investor: Yuup’s crowdfund is open until March 31st, and the funds raised will go towards reaching hundreds more potential experience hosts in Bristol and Bath, generating income and jobs for locals and the communities that need it most.
Yuup will also be launching in its second city this summer, connecting creatives, makers and dreamers from another UK city to the Yuup community.
You can join the crowdfund from as little as £20. You will own a part of Yuup and participate in the financial rewards of share ownership. Your investment will support local independent businesses whilst helping even more people to discover incredible things to do in their local area. Visit the Yuup crowdfund webpage to watch the investment film and find out more here: https://invest.yuup.co/
How to join Yuup as an experience host: If you are a creative or passionate local person, you could turn that love of something into an experience for others to enjoy. Yuup helps people create, promote, and host experiences.
It’s free to join the platform, and you get simple tools, a host portal, and marketing support and investment. A small commission is taken from each sold experience, so Yuup only makes money when you make money.
The scope for experiences is almost boundless. From food and drink tours to cooking classes, craft workshops to cinema nights, outdoor adventures to indoor wellbeing sessions. If you love it, why not share the experience? Get in touch with the Yuup team about your future experience here: https://www.yuup.co/pages/join
How to introduce an experience host: Do you know a wicked weaver? A crowd-pleasing cook? A passionate painter? A cool climber? Refer your friend to the Yuup team and help them turn their passion into a business. Refer an experience host here: https://www.yuup.co/host_referrals/new
How to join the Yuup community as a customer: Just browse yuup.co and pick something that you would love to do! Alternatively, you can also buy experiences as gifts, purchase gift cards, or use Yuup’s experiences in your employee rewards scheme.
When you’re just starting out and your business is growing, hiring a freelancer or an agency to own and manage your digital marketing can be a risk – financially and otherwise. To help with the overwhelming task of DIY Marketing in your first months or years of business, I’ve put together a list of resources, tools, websites and apps that I use for my clients, and my own business to help me manage marketing channels like social media, Google My Business, email marketing and blog writing. I’ve organised this list into the seven categories which make up my content creation + marketing workflow:
Mental health issues do not discriminate. They can affect anyone at any time, and reflecting on the last two years, it comes as no surprise it is being experienced by more and more people.
In the UK alone, 1 in 4 will be affected by a mental health problem of some kind each year. Leaving more and more people searching for support from charities, the NHS and healthcare providers.
For the second year in a row, we have decided to raise awareness and help fundraise for a chosen charity by donating our Christmas Card video.
We did lots of research into which charity we wanted to raise money for, and the decision wasn’t easy. There are so many organisations fighting for important causes, and that’s just in Bristol and South Gloucestershire alone.
The chosen one
We finally came to an agreement on OTR, a mental health movement for young people in the region.
Their mission?
To defend, promote and support the mental health of people between the ages of 11-25. This incredible organisation focuses on breaking the stigma around mental health and their aim is to get people talking about it.
Their approach?
OTR runs a number of workshops, 1:1 therapy sessions, support projects and much more.
They run Resilience Lab workshops, helping young people develop the tools to manage stress.
And host Acts of Activism sessions, where young people can go to socialise, express their frustrations about inequality and come together to encourage small and big acts of activism.
They also hold a 6-8 week Nature Works project, which teaches young people the importance of nature for their mental health, and how connecting with it can be a very beneficial tool for stress-relief.
And their work doesn’t stop there.
OTR works tirelessly to make mental health an aspect of life that people can talk about without any feelings of shame. They believe in the power of partnerships and collaboration and that the world around us, also impacts our wellbeing.
Ultimately, they provide a help and support network so that young people can develop tools to cope with day-to-day life and the challenges that may come their way.
The OTR fundraising video
We worked closely with OTR to develop a video that represents their personality, demonstrates their mission, and spurs people to get talking (and donating).
And once you’ve watched the video, we hope you can help. With your donation, you can help a young person gather the tools they need to shape their own futures. You can help change the game.
A wellbeing pack is just £5. But the self-esteem it brings is priceless. Please donate what you can here.
For many of us, the season of good cheer comes with the stirrings of looking ahead and contemplating new year’s resolutions. Various studies indicate that 50% of us make resolutions only for 20% of the cohort to follow through beyond February.
Surprisingly, we rush to set resolutions without stopping to consider properly our current status. To my mind, the drop off statistics are explained not by weakness of will, but rather by a lack of an informed resolution choice. It’s a bit like getting in a car for a long journey without bothering to check the fuel gauge.
If we knew where we stood on a few key life headings (exercise, sleep, relationships) before making bold promises, we’d be able to set the right direction and stay the course well beyond the arbitrary 12 months.
Before you rush to make pledges for 2022, why not check in with yourself meaning your resolutions will be from a position of insight and strength? If you need a helpful tool or two, do get in touch.
One of the big benefits of Bristol Creative Industries membership is the ability to self-publish content on our website. We’ve seen lots of great content published in 2021 including some brilliant business advice. Here are the 20 most popular posts of the year.
Chase Design Group examines the legacy that COVID-19 will leave for brands, and what newly adopted trends and ways of communicating should stay with us. Read the post here.
Having a strong organisational structure in place is key to growing your digital agency. Janusz Stabik explains your options and how to know which structure will guarantee employee and customer satisfaction and allow you to scale your marketing agency. Read the post here.
Carnsight Communications is one of the most prolific BCI bloggers so it’s no surprise that the business has made the top 10. In this great post, company founder Jessica Morgan outlines what her previous career in marketing taught her about public relations. Read the post here.
After the couple of years we’ve all had, the mental wellbeing of employees is increasingly concerning. Armadillo explains how the approach to mental health in the workplace needs a culture change. Read the post here.
Janusz Stabik makes his second appearance in the top 10 with tips on how digital marketing agencies can attract high-quality clients. Read the post here.
In another post from Carnsight Communications, learn five key things to remember when looking to secure engagement on LinkedIn. Read the post here.
Looking for your business to make headlines? OggaDoon shares top tips on how to write the perfect press release. Read the post here.
Brands can’t lead the conversation on social media, says AMBITIOUS in this great post. Read the post here.
“As joint leader of an independent agency, 2020 meant sleepless nights. But it provided opportunities to inspire others and galvanise our team,” says Andy Brown, chief financial officer at Armadillo, in this post outlining leadership tips for 2021 that will also serve us well in 2022. Read the post here.
How can an entrepreneur attract the perfect investor? Gravitywell outlines six qualities investors look for in tech startups. Read the post here.
Want to post your own content on the Bristol Creative Industries website? Become a member.
Some B2B brands find social media a challenge but there’s lots that you can do as this post by AMBITIOUS shows. Read the post here.
The winning agencies will be the ones with an uncompromising focus on their culture, looking at how they can support their people to be their best selves and do era-defining work, says Tonic Creative Business Partners. Read the post here.
If there’s anyone who knows about being successful at blogging, it’s Helen Savage from Blog Write Ltd. She shares some great tips. Read the post here.
OggaDoon shares a list of 10 essential features you didn’t know you could use with Google Ads. Read the post here.
Sparro House Creative Ltd outlines three tips to improve your content marketing. Read the post here.
If your primary audience is other businesses, then case studies are the perfect tool for creating authority, building trust and delivering social proof. George Devane shares some tips. Read the post here.
The phrase ‘SEO; now covers optimisation strategies and techniques on a wide range of different websites including Instagram. Varn outlines how to improve your SEO on the social media platform. Read the post here.
Leaders and managers have often received little to no training in how to have a ‘difficult’ conversation and so we end up avoiding the situation altogether until it becomes really serious. That can mean getting into performance management, grievance procedures or even worse. Jonathan Rees shares advice. Read the post here.
Chris Thurling from Armadillo provides his advice on what to consider when seeking out a marketing agency that’s suitable for your business. Read the post here.
As you prepare to hit send on your latest business mailing, ask yourself whether it would pass the ‘hover test’. Here are five easy ways, shared by Carnsight Communications, to make sure it does. Read the post here.
Please respond to our new survey about the creative industries in Bristol and Bath. It will help us design – and advocate for – future support for the creative economy in our region.
This year we are celebrating Studio Giggle’s 15th Birthday. Like all great British ideas, the company was conceived in a pub over a beer. It was born out of a desire to create work on the cutting edge of technology and creativity, which is still at the very core of what we do.
When I asked Steve about the intriguing name, he smiled; it’s a question he’s been asked many times.
“Giggle really sums up the way we work. Creativity should be fun! It is often stressful, but by keeping a sense of humour and a lightness to our approach, we can make the whole process more enjoyable for everyone involved.
The creation of The Giggle Group wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. Steve had honed his skills over ten years, starting in theatre then working for various production companies as an editor, director and writer. He met James Carnaby and Adam Castelton, who helped him set up the company and whose continued support and advice are always welcomed. It was this experience that prepared Steve to open The Giggle Group in 2006.
In 2013, two worlds collided as Steve met Jonathan Brigden on a flight to Dubai as part of a UKTI creative industry mission. Jonathan had been running his own company, Knifedge, for 19 years. Knifedege created immersive and innovative events and groundbreaking projection content for an impressive list of global clients. It was evident that Steve and Jonathan shared similar creative ambitions, a love of immersive and live events and most importantly, a sense of humour. We also moved to our current home in the heart of Bristol’s creative community at The Paintworks.
In 2014 when Jonathan and Steve decided to merge their companies, they could create one cohesive animation and event machine.
In 2017 a new era of Giggle began when we rebranded from ‘The Giggle Group’ to ‘Studio Giggle’. This better reflected the growth and transition of the company over the years, from film to animation to creative studio. The “Studio” part of the name was to draw attention to the incredible team, which enabled us to deliver our award-winning work.
In its 15 years, Giggle has weathered some major global events. In 2008 Giggle overcame the financial crash by switching the company’s focus to animation over film production. In more recent years, the Giggle team showed extraordinary skill and creativity during the early days of the COVID19 pandemic. This was a challenging time for the company as we shifted to a remote working model and pivoted our production pipeline to deliver virtual events. This resulted in our most successful year to date. We won Manchester United as a new client, we hired 4 new staff members and developed XR and Virtual production solutions, all in just 6 months.
Studio Giggle in 2021 is a very different company from The Giggle Group of 2006. We now have offices in Bristol and Brighton, with our own Green screen virtual production studio which doubles up as our R&D test space. We can deliver live and virtual events anywhere globally, producing work for some of the biggest brands on the planet. As 2021 comes to an end, and we take a moment to celebrate 15 years of Giggle, we also look to the future. We intend to continue to create spectacular content for both live and virtual events, combined with beautiful animation and film with storytelling at their heart. We aim to always be at the forefront of our industry. We will continue to research and develop new technology solutions that can enhance the work we create for our clients.
We would like to take this momentous occasion to thank all of our team, suppliers, partners, freelancers, family and friends but especially our clients. Their continued trust and belief enable us to evolve and grow in ways we could never have imagined.
Roll on 2036 for our 30th Birthday!
If this has inspired you to work with us then please contact [email protected] or call 0117 972 0081.
