Lodging & hospitality public relations specialist, Abode Worldwide, has appointed experienced agency leader and former Fleet Street journalist Neil Millard as Managing Director.
Millard joins the agency from Rhizome Media, where he spent nearly six years working across industries with a particular focus on property. Before that, he was a news journalist for some of the UK’s biggest titles, from the Evening Standard and MailOnline to the Sunday Mirror and The Sun.
His property experience — covering student accommodation, residential sales & development, offsite construction, fractional ownership, property investment, development finance, and mortgage lending — will dovetail with Abode’s six key lodging, living and hospitality pillars as the agency targets rapid growth over the next three years. Its focus will continue to be on technology solutions and enterprise level operators across short term rental, hotels, multifamily/Build to Rent (BTR), student lodging, coliving, and senior living.
Abode Worldwide was founded in 2017 by Jessica Gillingham and currently works with brands across North America and Europe. The company’s mission is to supercharge the authority and credibility of global tech pioneers and their customers as they transform the way we work, rest, and play. The team – which is hiring for new roles –does this by combining deep industry knowledge and extensive media and influencer relationships with continual fresh insight.
In the last year, for example, Abode Worldwide secured over 100 speaking opportunities for clients across podcasts, webinars, and conferences, in addition to hundreds more pieces of profile-raising proactive media coverage and thought leadership. To date, the agency has partnered with some of the biggest companies in the world of lodging, including ALTIDO, Bidroom, Breezeway, Boostly, Buoy, Guesty, Hostaway, Jetstream Hospitality Solutions, Key Data, Operto, PointCentral, Rentals United, Reside Worldwide, Revyoos, Safely, Uplisting, Xplorie and 3Sixty.
Jessica Gillingham, CEO & Founder of Abode Worldwide, said: “We’ve got big ambitions to be the premier global public relations specialist in the lodging, living and hospitality space, and Neil has been appointed to help us get there. He has a wealth of media know-how, fantastic leadership experience, and is a tremendous asset across the business and for our clients.
“He couldn’t join at a more important time, with the merging of the lodging, hospitality, hotel, short-term rental, and real estate sectors really picking up pace and we are excited to be at the forefront of this transformation for the technology solutions, operators, investors and their customers.”
Neil Millard, Managing Director of Abode Worldwide, commented: “The way we live is going to change dramatically over the next 20 years, and Abode Worldwide sits at an intersection where all these worlds collide. Whether it’s short-term rental technology, student accommodation, multifamily/Built To Rent, co-living or senior living — every one of these areas will see accelerating growth.
“This shift is happening globally, so it’s a magnificent opportunity for me to join an agency that looks beyond the horizon and already has more US than European clients. I’m really excited to join such a talented team. Jessica has massive ambitions for the company, and we’ll be winning business worldwide. A key immediate focus for me will driving our expansion and maintaining a laser focus on delivery for clients.”
For more information on Abode Worldwide, please visit abodeworldwide.com.
The Technical SEO team here at Varn have spent the past few years getting to grips with Google Analytics 4, the new website data analysis system which will shortly be taking the place of Universal Analytics. This is going to be a hugely important tool for anyone working in digital marketing in the coming years, so we have dedicated our time and brain-power to understanding how metrics and reporting have changed, as well as how to get the most from GA4 by setting up event and ecommerce tracking. Not to mention pulling data into custom dashboards to put the most important stats at our client’s fingertips.
Our Technical SEO experts recently put together a short presentation covering the basics of Google Analytics 4 to introduce the wider team to the ins-and-outs of the tool. We thought this presentation would also make useful and interesting reading for anyone else who may be making the move from the old familiar Universal Analytics to the somewhat intimidating new version. So we’ve added it here for free, to sit alongside our previous posts on how to get the most from GA4 and the GA4 timeline.
This short presentation covers the following questions and topics:
View our presentation here.
Ready to dive into Google Analytics 4? The Varn team can help you get the system set up for your website, pull data into custom dashboards in Google Data Studio, or replicate the reporting you currently use. Get in touch to find out how we can help.
We are absolutely delighted to announce that Wilkinson Sword has chosen Activation to create their in-store activation campaign for 2023.
Wilkinson Sword is an iconic British brand with a heritage spanning over 250 years, and we were thrilled when they decided to move forward with our striking campaign idea, “No More Hairy Moments”. The campaign launches in stores in January 2023, after extensive development through 2022, and will run throughout the year.
The “No More Hairy Moments” creative platform is purposefully bold, brave, and disruptive to seek attention when it matters. Its goal is to make Wilkinson Sword relevant in situations/events where they would not generally be linked and stand out in these moments in stores.
The creative is unlike anything the brand has done before. The goal is to draw customers’ attention both in-store and online, encouraging them to purchase Wilkinson Sword products and enter the promotion.
This year-long campaign will come to life across many key seasonal events, including Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and more, across multiple retailers. Each activation highlights a ‘hairy moment’ that the customer might want to escape from and we have partnered with travel brand Secret Escapes to provide the perfect prize. Each activation offers up to 5 entrants the chance to win £1,000 worth of Secret Escapes credits to plan their ideal escape.
The campaign kicked off in ASDA stores where customers have the opportunity to escape the New Year’s resolutions. ASDA shoppers can see the campaign both in store and online and enter the competition via www.asda.com/win. Future activations will be available across the major grocery and high street retailers so keep an eye out!
Getting traction online can be tricky without the right approach, but with a bit of creative thinking, generating online awareness can be done for even the most seemingly ‘stuffy’ brands.
Digital PR is very important when it comes to SEO, links are crucial to the algorithm for Google, and other metrics like social mentions and branded mentions are great for building your brand online.
Digital PR and creative content outreach is one of the key pillars of Varn’s full service approach to SEO, and covers a wide range of tactics and strategies around research and competitor analysis, content creation, and digital PR/link building.
Here we take a closer look at digital PR and why it is crucial if you weren’t your business to succeed online and your website to rank well in search engines.
There are a few key differences between digital PR and traditional PR even though they are often two complimentary channels.
Digital PR is a term which typically applies to more online activities and covers but is not limited to the following:
Traditional PR can often work as a stand-alone push and in many instances targets traditional media like print and television advertisements and placements. The ways that you measure success are also more apparent than with traditional PR.
Whereas a television campaign or print media advert may have reached a certain target demographic, tracking the actual numbers of people that saw it can be difficult and tracking the revenue impact is often even more challenging.
Whilst the tracking and right KPIs need to be set up in advance, measuring success is often easier with digital PR.
Brand mentions social media interactions and link coverage are all easier to track and set key performance indicators against. Other follow-on metrics can also be used like ranking increases when looking at SEO and the potential increased revenue impact from these increases in SERP performance.
Once you have content to reach out with (be it survey data, products, commentary or infographics) it is time to put together the target publication list. We work with the client to understand their ideal placements and tie it in with data on sites that we know move the needle when it comes to SEO value.
Before we start with the outreach, we ensure we have a list of ideal target rankings that we want to improve. You need to drive the right keywords to the right pages, which is why developing a proper keyword map is crucial, this is typically done as part of the Technical SEO onboarding process in the form of an audit.
Once we have developed the list we work through it in our quality control process then start with the outreach. Leveraging a tool like Buzzstream is great as you can scale the outreach and gain better insights into how each campaign is performing.
After that comes the outreach, email scheduling software helps you greatly scale up the efforts, from that we can then get a more targeted plan together to get placements on sites depending on the individual publications content guidelines and tone of writing.
After the outreach, we report on the links attained and over time are able to measure the impact on rankings. If we are working on an ongoing campaign, then these reports are more regular and can help build up a better picture when it comes to the digital PR impact on SEO in terms of rankings.
The diagram below shows one of the key differences in the method of outreach for digital and traditional PR. Whereas with traditional PR you want to get the content in front of the right audience straight away, with digital PR you are just as concerned with getting coverage on high-authority websites and increasing your rankings within Google. This way you are able to interact with potential customers when they are browsing content, but more importantly when they are seeking out relevant services that you want to rank for.
When it comes to measuring success with digital PR, the following metrics are great to have within your reporting toolkit:
All of the above are great ways to measure the success of campaigns, of course the ultimate aim is to build revenue and grow the business in a profitable way, but with more top of the funnel activities like digital PR having the above metrics to benchmark against is a great way to show the value of campaigns to clients and senior management.
Digital PR is a great way to create noise in your industry whilst also benefiting your SEO, at Varn our approach to digital PR is as transparent as it is effective. We always report on campaigns, and some get amazing results, others a slightly more muted, but we are always up front with performance.
Some of our favourite case studies include the Thought Clothing Black Friday survey push and the Festival Bag from Paper Bag Co. These are examples of two great digital PR tactics:
The above tactics are great for getting a large hit of links from news relevant sites and also consistent links to support your SEO over the long run.
Digital PR is a growing industry and is a very important part of a strong ongoing SEO strategy. If you would like to learn more about digital PR and the benefits it could bring to your business then get in touch with a member of the Varn team.
We have put together campaigns in the past which have driven great results for clients both in terms of coverage and impact on SEO. Our campaigns are set up with performance in mind, which is why we are trusted to deliver on our promises.
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).
If you, or members of your team, are hoping to develop a career in digital marketing, or perhaps considering a switch to a more marketing-focused role, funded support is available.
Starting in January, UWE Bristol is delivering a 12-week course designed to provide individuals with high-impact workplace skills that they can immediately use to support businesses. On completion of the course, learners will gain the internationally recognised DMI Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing.
Funded by West of England Combined Authority, each week will focus on a specific area of digital marketing to develop fundamental knowledge and then enhance those skills through interactive activities. The programme begins on 11 January 2023, running weekly on Wednesdays. SME fees are 90% subsidised at £300. Learners must live or work in the West of England and be over 19 years of age to access the training.
Employers can put employees forward, or employees can apply individually. As learners move through the training they will develop a portfolio of work based on existing work-based problems to enable the learning to have an instant impact. They will also be supported with a personal development plan to support career development.
Spaces are limited so early registration is recommended.
Bootcamps are open to individuals and businesses located in the West of England region (Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath and Northeast Somerset, and North Somerset). While each cohort has a primary targeted audience, we will consider applications from anyone who meets the basic eligibility criteria of being based in the west of England. You should also:
Once registered onto our digital marketing bootcamp, learners automatically become a member of the DMI which means they will get access to an extensive toolkit of resources, e-books, podcasts, lessons and much more, all of which can greatly support learning and careers beyond this training.
Access full information and register your interest here: https://www.skillsforfutures.co.uk/inclusive-digital-bootcamps.
We are delighted to have won the Best Use of Search B2B and Most Innovative PPC Campaign at the UK Search Awards 2022 UK.
The UK Search Awards took place at the Bloomsbury Big Top in London this month, November 30. The evening is the premiere annual event for the digital industry in the UK, celebrating the best of SEO, PPC and content marketing across the country.
The two awards were in recognition of our work driving global revenue for an ISO consultancy firm based in the UK. It follows hot on the heels of Launch winning PPC Campaign of the Year for the same client at the UK Agency Awards in October.
The judges said: “The Launch campaign had a great innovative approach with value-based bidding. They had clear, ambitious targets which were all achieved. Overall, an impressive and successful campaign.”
Jaye Cowle, Founder and Managing Director of Launch, was delighted with the award: “Our mission is to be the happiest performance agency. I believe that happy people do great work, and by empowering our team to do their best, we continue to get impressive results for our clients.”
See the full list of winners on the UK Search Awards 2022 website here.
Writing for marketing purposes is a little different from other types of writing. You can forget some of the rules you were taught at school, but that’s not to say grammar and fact-checking should go out the window. Longer pieces such as feature articles and business blogs might be a bit daunting for those new to marketing, or even those who are suffering from creative block, so here are a few top tips that might not only help get you started, but also keep the words flowing.
Have a plan – For longer pieces it’s helpful to start with bullet points. Map out what you want to say to make sure there’s a sensible flow to the whole piece. You may be perfectly confident in everything you want to say but pouring out what’s in your head onto the page, without planning the structure first can be a costly mistake. Bullet points don’t need to be massively detailed, and don’t need to take hours of your time, but they might save you hours of editing, so they’re a worthwhile investment.
Just write – Once you have your broad structure, start writing. I have worked with many copywriters in the past and some feel the need to agonise over every sentence to make them word perfect as they write. But when you have finished the whole piece, sentences will get cut and you will find better ways to phrase the points you’ve made. So, the important thing is to make a start.
An empty page is so much more intimidating than a page full of copy. You can and indeed should always edit when you’ve finished anyway, to make sure the piece works as a whole and flows as you intended, so you don’t need to aim for perfection on your first draft. I’m not suggesting you produce substandard work, but if you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to perfect every sentence as you go, you will leave yourself no time for the all-important editing process. I have witnessed deadlines being missed before because a writer was so determined to achieve perfection, which obviously isn’t going to meet anyone’s objectives!
Get your facts straight – Whether you are writing a profile piece on your business, or a blog about an important issue in your industry, it’s often useful to include some facts and figures to provide context. To give you an example, when I write an article about blogging for business, I might start with a statistic about how many businesses blog. With some words wrapped around this figure, it shows readers why it’s important that they read on. Or why I am writing about that topic. It also demonstrates that you have done your research and what you say can be trusted, building authority for the brand you’re writing for.
Be useful – It can be tempting to make your copy all about you, but the most interesting copy offers thoughts, opinions, advice, or market information that are useful to your target audience. It’s sometimes helpful to think about one person – someone you would really like to work with – and write for them. What would they like to know? What would make their lives easier? Don’t take your experience for granted – other people want to know what you know. If you identify who you’re writing for at the beginning of the process and keep them in mind throughout, it will also help you ensure you stay on message for the entirety of the piece.
Edit. I read any piece of written work I create multiple times once I’ve finished it, making sure I have a break in between readings too. It is possible to stop seeing what’s right in front of you when you are constantly looking at the same piece of work.
Sometimes you get so caught up trying to get just the right phrase and then fall in love with the way you’ve said something that you lose sight of the fact it doesn’t fit in that spot or isn’t relevant to the overall argument of the piece at all. This is less likely to happen if you have written your bullet points up front, but we all veer off course sometimes.
Read your copy through on completion by all means – I always find reading it out loud helps identify any glaring errors – but then move onto something else, go for a walk, have your lunch, or ideally come back to it the next day. Take a break from the copy before completing your final one or two edits. The more changes you make, the more likely you are to need to take a break before reading it through again.
Writing longer copy can be a daunting task, especially if you have to do it consistently with regular marketing features or business blog posts. But if you take it one step at a time, plan it carefully, remember who you’re writing for and why you’re writing it, and edit it at the end, you will soon have the pages of copy you want.
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.
View image in blog here.
The wealth management sector in the UK is undergoing a significant shift, driven by increasing competition, consolidation, societal changes in wealth distribution and advances in technology. Leading brands are capitalising on the opportunities this changing landscape offers. Many, however, lag behind – stuck in the traditions and mindsets of previous generations.
In this final article in our wealth management marketing series, we’ll summarise some of the key marketing trends and analyse the best ways to stay relevant in this highly competitive, evolving market.
SPOILER ALERT:
If you missed the previous articles in the series, we’d recommend checking them out. You can read them all here:
1. “The customer is always the main character” – What makes a good brand story?
2. “43% of the global high-net-worth population are women” – Is your story inclusive?
3. “Millennials don’t like being told what to do” – Time to rethink your strategy?
In the previous articles in this series, we’ve discussed how some brands are targeting women and millennials for growth. And for good reason:
We have seen this trend extend across the market, from firms catering to high-net-worth individuals through to the mass-affluent.
‘…in widening the conversation to include new demographics, brands feel contemporary and fresh, chiming with shifting societal attitudes…’
UBS are overtly targeting women at the premium end of the market, and Schroders are addressing millennials in the mid-market, both offering propositions and brand stories tailored to them. But it’s notable that neither feels forced or exclusive of other audiences. In widening the conversation to include new demographics, brands feel contemporary and fresh, chiming with shifting societal attitudes.
The mass-affluent end of the market is also burgeoning, with brands like ABRDN broadcasting a broad, inclusive and sustainable story to attract volumes of investors.
Other brands are following suit. St James’s Place has just rebranded, with the objective of showing they are “an inclusive, responsible and contemporary business”.
Sanlam have announced a name-change (Atmos) and imminent rebrand, which they say will reflect “a strong internal culture of collaboration, inclusivity and diverse perspectives.” The firm aims to become a leading, digitally enabled, hybrid wealth business.
Digital transformation is at the heart of many wealth management businesses’ strategies. Digitally enabled service is no longer the sole preserve of millennial demands. It is expected by a large proportion of society under 60 and has been accelerated by the challenges we all faced during lockdown.
‘… digitally enabled service is no longer the sole preserve of millennial demands…’
But it’s not only the service end of business that’s undergoing a digital transformation. The marketing function is becoming digitally enabled to create, disseminate and track marketing communications at scale, through a proliferating number of channels, across all stages of the prospect and customer journey.
Typically, these marketing machines have, at their heart, a CRM and marketing automation system linked to the firm’s website. These systems form the engine that drives the creation, delivery and tracking of results.
A digital asset management system will store all of the comms components – imagery and copy, blogs etc. – to enable consistency and efficiency.
A print-on-demand system may enable the online creation and ordering of personalised print communications. This is particularly relevant for firms who have a national network of offices, allowing for local marketing activity that’s governed centrally for brand consistency and budgetary control.
The ecosystem is constantly changing. For example, cookies – for a long time the industry staple for tracking and targeting data – are being phased out. The new version of Google Analytics (GA4) offers the way forward, using first-party data to connect all components of the marketing machine’s engine.
View image in blog here.
“…the new version of Google Analytics (GA4) offers the way forward, using first-party data to connect all components of the marketing machine’s engine…”
In the first article in this series, we analysed both the message and channel strategy of a number of wealth management brands. We saw that the winners projected a consistent brand message over an extended period of time, committing a significant investment into the activity.
“…the channel mix differs depending on the segment of the market being targeted…”
That’s not to say that direct response marketing doesn’t have its place – St James’s Place have built an enviable position using predominantly direct marketing tactics. However, for affluent audiences in this competitive market, brand associations hold more weight.
The channel mix differs depending on the segment of the market being targeted. For example, ABRDN have invested heavily in TV to cut through into the mass-affluent market. UBS have used a mix of premium print and audio advertising. Online channels provide opportunities for niche targeting of millennials and women’s interest groups. Postcode targeting on the Sky Ad smart platform enables TV advertising based on mosaic profiles.
Ambient advertising can build awareness around local offices. Whatever the mix relevance to the audience, the benefits are only seen if the message is co-ordinated and consistent across all channels, and executed over an extended period of time. In fact, it takes at least six months for any brand building to take effect.
Undoubtedly, these are turbulent times for wealth management firms. Technology is disrupting, society is changing and market competition is getting fierce. Through the course of these articles, we’ve seen how a number of brands are evolving and gaining advantage through a broader, more inclusive brand story, concerted and consistent investment in brand advertising and the smart use of technology. It will be interesting to see who else follows suit. The winners will undoubtedly capture larger chunks of the market. Those stuck in the past may well be consigned to history.
Want to get ahead of the curve? Keen to make your messaging matter to millennials? Have questions about inclusive marketing? We’re here to help.
Get in touch with us at [email protected]