As a marketer with 20+ years’ experience, I’m a big believer in using an array of tactics to get your message to market. People will argue for and against print heavy or social media dominant campaigns, but I believe that the more tactics you use, the wider you cast your net, and the more successful you’ll be. Of course, your messages and your approach need to be targeted within this net, but there is rarely a one size fits all solution, so the more ways you can reach your known target market, the better.
But are business blogs widely accepted as part of this marketing mix, or are they a nice add-on as and when marketing teams have the time? If blogging doesn’t have a regular spot in the marketing plan, should it be given a little more credence?
How important is blogging to your business?
Some people may wonder whether blogging for business is as relevant in 2022 as it was in the mid 2000’s when blogs were the up and coming ‘fashionable’ thing to do. In an era of podcasts and video streaming, you could be forgiven for thinking written blogs have lost their way and are now irrelevant in the marketing mix.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
According to a study conducted by Data Box entitled The Shift in Your Content Marketing Mix: 25 Marketers On What’s Changed in 2 Years 68% of marketers find blogging more effective than they did 2 years ago.
In addition, according to DemandMetric 70% of people prefer to learn about a brand through articles, rather than through an advert.
A changing picture
As with most things in life, achieving success from business blogging is a changing phenomenon. What worked 20 years ago, might not work as well today, but that doesn’t mean we should throw away the potential that exists in blogs.
For example, it used to be the case that the more blogs you could produce, the better. But that is no longer the case. It’s still true that consistency matters – out of date blogs are not a good look on any website – but quality has risen in importance.
Consumers today are looking for advice.
They want to conduct in-depth research before they buy, so if they can find everything they need from one website, they are more likely to trust that brand, revisit the site, and probably make their purchase. There are a couple of ways you can build this trust through quality blogging, and this might be through one or two longer blog posts, or it could be through a series of interlinked posts that cover different aspects of the same topic.
Whichever you choose, make sure you keep the customer in mind, because they are looking for more factual, helpful information and advice, than they are heavy handed sales and marketing messages.
Spread the word
Business blogging earns a spot at the marketing table for the content it generates for a company website and for the SEO benefits it brings, but it has also become increasingly useful for social media content too.
In 2022, more people are buying through social media channels. Accelerated by the Pandemic, more of us are opting to buy from brands we get to know online. So, the more information you can offer up online, the more trust you can build with your audience.
With longer, quality content being generated for blog posts, there is more to disseminate into smaller social media posts. These could be promotional posts to drive traffic to the blog, teasers about what’s to come, or multiple excerpts from the blog to continually drive the message to your target audience.
It’s a two-way relationship
Building a relationship with your existing and potential customers is an ongoing process of give and take. Having more of a presence online via a business blog and the resulting additional social media content, allows you to interact with your audience and gather invaluable feedback about their likes, dislikes, and requirements.
Analyse the data you get back from each post. What have people responded well to and what hasn’t gone down so well? Create polls and ask direct questions in your posts to find out what your audience would like to hear more about. This can help you give them the advice that they need, and of course generate even more content for your business blog and social media channels.
Need a little back up?
Of course, it’s easy to say that blogging is a great element to add into your marketing mix, but who has the time to stay on top of regular, informative blogs? Blogs are like feature articles. They require time to think, plan and research. And unless self-imposed timelines are set, they are not deadline driven. Which is why they often slip down the priority list of marketing agencies that are managing entire campaigns, or busy team-members within the business who have been recruited to populate a business blog alongside their day job. If this sounds like you, don’t despair.
You can have all the benefits of blogging without the hassle.
Believe it or not, many companies outsource the copywriting of their blog to external writers. Some people think it’s not a task that should be outsourced because it’s too personal. And if you hand over the reins of your business blog to a third party, it will no longer sound like you.
But a good blog writer will portray all the information you want to portray and more and ensure your blog sounds like it’s been written by you, but even better – read more about how we learn your voice here. Not necessarily because they are a better writer, although hopefully they do have more experience in writing if that’s their day job, but because they are able to give your business blog the time and attention it needs and deserves.
Add blogging to your marketing mix
If you haven’t included a business blog in your marketing plan before, or you have and it’s continually slipping down the priority list, perhaps now is the time to start.
On a scorching weekend in July, two of us creatives from Flourish were lucky enough to flee the heatwave and head to the air-conditioned sanctuary Amsterdam RAI. But we weren’t there for the cool air. We were there for TwitchCon – a convention like no other that sees gamers and cosplayers mingle with drag queens and ASMR enthusiasts to indulge in a weekend of live streams, community meetups and IRL (that’s In Real Life to you and me) events. Here’s what we learned.
Cat Dickie, copywriter
1. There’s SO much more to live streaming than gaming
Let me tell you a secret. I’m not a gamer. And I didn’t go to a single gaming panel at TwitchCon. If you think that sounds a bit like going to Glastonbury and not seeing any music, let me remind you that there’s much more to the world’s biggest festival of performing arts than bands and DJs. And in the same way, there’s way more to Twitch than gaming. In the Just Chatting category alone there’s travel and adventure streams, feminist groups, drag, body painting – the list goes on. TwitchCon attendees were a wonderfully diverse bunch. That’s the wonderful thing about streaming. It brings people together from every walk of life. Which brings me to my second point…
2. Community is the backbone of Twitch
Communities are formed through shared experience and passions. So, it’s no surprise that on a platform like Twitch, where creators in every field come together to do what they love the most, community is front and centre of everything. Unlike pretty much any other social media platform, Twitch deals in live content, meaning real, shared moments and shared experiences happen every minute. Real friendships are formed through streaming, and that was tangible at TwitchCon.
3. Audiences can smell authenticity
One panel I attended was memorable in that the hosts – three women who were there to tell us about how women in streaming support one another – chose not to sit behind the table that had been laid out for the panel, but on it. Legs crossed, comfortable, open. There was nothing contrived about their choice – they just did what felt right to them. Like choosing a favourite seat in the living room. Midway through, they invited a woman from the audience, a fellow streamer, to join them. This realness, this authenticity, was a running theme throughout the event.
4. Streamers are at the top of their game
They might be streaming from their bedrooms, but affiliates and partners are incredibly good at what they do. Hours and hours of work has preceded their ability to make a living from streaming. For the cosplayers, thousands of hours go into making costumes. It’s skill and passion that makes streamers go big, and turns them in to stars. There was so much talent under one roof at TwitchCon.
5. Transparency and support keeps streams coming
It struck me how open panellists were about sharing tips about their craft. There was no secretiveness or reluctance to share. They wanted to get more and more people on board and encouraged people to join the space. There was no feeling of exclusivity, or mystique around what makes good content. The Twitch community is open, and want more and more people to find their niche and join in.
Michael Barbour, Designer
1. Creativity
The way that Twitch use their brand guidelines has been eye opening for me. The themes they use are bold and clear, with block colours and accompanying textures. The imagery created, echoes what is happening in their community and ties in the brand in nicely. From the signage to the immersive experiences at the conference, everything on display was innovative and purposeful, as well as consistent and well thought out.
2. Meaningful Wellbeing
Twitch really care about their streamers and viewers alike, and actively promote healthy wellbeing whilst streaming and using the platform. They are constantly improving the safety on the platform to keep streamers feeling appreciated.
3. Charity
The way charities team up with Twitch is a relatively new and out-of-the-box way to generate fundraising. Having visited some of the charity seminars, I really learned how Twitch as a platform can improve a charity’s reach within their communities, touching new audiences and finding new ways to promote income generation online via streaming. Read more about how charities can enhance their fundraising through streaming on the Flourish website.
4. The Diverse Community
The community cannot easily be sub divided into genres. There is such a vast collection of different people and interests to follow and connect with, and the sky is literally the limit on what content can be found on Twitch. It’s as diverse as the internet itself!
5. Tools Available to Streamers
The toolkit that is available to streamers is ever growing and expanding. They are introduced to a bunch of new tools that are going to help us as an agency and streamers alike. I was also interested to find out how much they actively promote the use of other social media channels for streamers.
To read more about the Flourish team’s experiences at TwitchCon 2022, visit our recent website blog. If you’re reading this and intrigued to hear more about the marketing opportunities and potential via the use of streaming, feel free to get in touch with the Flourish team.
In the past 3 years, eCommerce businesses have experienced the impact of a number of global crises.
Right now, we’re still living through the aftermath of a global pandemic, rising inflation, and the war in Ukraine. And these global events have shaken even the most successful eCommerce brands.
Over the past 6 months, retail brands have started losing some confidence in marketing spend amid worries of a bleak future. However, knee-jerk reactions can do more damage than you think.
There are opportunities for those brands willing to invest. And to help you through these turbulent times, we have released a new guide – Global Issues: The Threats Affecting eCommerce.
You can download it free here. Or scroll down to find out more about everything included in the guide before you make up your mind.
In our latest guide, we take a closer look at the global crises impacting eCommerce brands, how brands can react and excel in these uncertain times, as well as the top 5 trends defining the eCommerce landscape in 2022.
It covers…
Digital advertising revenue reached $189 billion in 2021, jumping 35% – the highest increase since 2006.
But as we’re sure you’re aware, the picture is not rosy for many retail brands. Inflation, war, pandemics, and supply chain shortages have all created a difficult terrain for brands to flourish.
Consumers have responded to these crises by cutting back on their spending. The less people are willing to spend, the less people will be actively clicking on your ads.
The future eCommerce landscape looks tough. But there are still opportunities out there if you focus on the marketing trends that are emerging. It’s these trends that will help you succeed in 2022 and beyond.
You can get a free copy of the guide here. And if you have any questions, feel free to drop us a message.
There has been a lot of hubbub in the marketing world recently about the upcoming Government campaign encouraging businesses to cut their marketing spend to allow them to cut prices for consumers amidst the cost of living crisis. Is this a sensible move for any business, and should all marketing activity be treated equally in this scenario? How will business blogs fare in these discussions and how will you weigh up your options?
Yet again we find ourselves in an unprecedented situation – this time with the cost of living increasing exponentially. You hear about these things on the news and brace yourself for change, but when you go to the petrol pump and it costs almost £90 to fill up your family car with petrol, the pain is real! So, the fact that the Government is attempting to affect change for the masses is a necessary course of action. However, is cutting marketing spend really the best way to go?
Don’t take your eye off the future
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t claim to be a political expert and I wouldn’t want to be making these decisions. But I do know marketing and anyone with any experience in the field will know that promotional activity has a lead time. If industry cuts marketing spend now, business won’t stop overnight, but gradually the pipeline will dry up. Conversely, more money spent on promotion now will result in more business further down the line. Many industries are still in very fragile states of recovery after the pandemic, so to pull back on marketing now, could be damaging to their future prospects.
Whether to cut back on marketing or not, is of course not just down to the Government either. Businesses always need to keep an eye on every line in the budget, and especially over the last two years will have wanted to make sure there is no wasted spend and every part of the business is as efficient as it can be. And of course, when making decisions about your marketing spend, it’s not necessarily an all or nothing scenario.
Manage your mix
The best marketing campaigns consist of a mix of marketing tactics including public relations, direct mail, telemarketing, advertising, and online campaigns. If you are committed to best practice and you are already measuring the success rate of each tactic, perhaps there is an area you can easily cut back on because you can clearly see in your metrics it’s not performing as well as other activities in your marketing mix. Or perhaps you need to review your mix to make sure you’re getting the most for your marketing spend.
Blog it
If business blogs don’t yet form part of your marketing mix, now might be an excellent time to instigate one. Business blogs are a fantastic low-cost option to build and maintain a consistent presence online, while creating content to use on social media platforms. An increasing number of businesses are moving their marketing spend online anyway, so whether you need to cut, adjust, or increase your marketing budget in 2022, business blogs are a fantastic, cost-effective option to have in the mix.
We’re delighted to support premium cycle tyre brand Vittoria by launching Great Expectations. This series of mini-docs and social content reveals the inner thoughts of professional riders as they reflect on what cycling means to them.
We created the campaign to take a more personal approach, giving riders the freedom to express what cycling means to them as they prepared for the new season – and The Ride Ahead. It’s all part of The Ride Ahead positioning we developed with the brand’s leadership team that’s now being rolled out across Their global communications.
Filmed on location at the team training camps, Great Expectations launches with riders from XC team Santa Cruz FSA and road team DSM. The films open the door on the curiosity, optimism and courage of each rider in a series of intimate portraits as they share their hopes and ambitions.
“Visiting many places helps you to grow as a man – as a human – because you can see the world from different points of view,” says Maxime Marotte, Santa Cruz FSA, in one of the films.
“One of the nicest things in cycling is to go on a new road – that brings you to a beautiful place,” adds, Romain Bardet, Team DSM.
Firehaus worked with Italian production company Yanzi and director Marco Marcasolli along with the brand’s marketing team on the mini-docs and a range of short edits.
Vittoria CCO Ernesto Garcia Domingo said “ Great Expectations brings a new approach and fresh voices to our audience with pro riders sharing some of their personal insights and motivations. This has been a great collaboration so far under The Ride Ahead banner and we look forward to sharing more over the coming months”.
Ian Bates, Founder and Creative Partner at Firehaus said “This series of mini-docs has given us the space to produce content that is more personal and inspiring”
The Enterprise Sessions is a new content series led by Prof. Michele Barbour Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor: Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol.
The series has been created to inspire entrepreneurs and help them to realise impact from their ideas. Michele interviews founders, researchers and academics from different disciplines and career stages who’ve been part of the University’s Enterprise ecosystem. Each episode is a treasure trove of information covering a range of topics from funding, licensing and IP, consultancy, contract research and business incubation.
Guests include Konstantina Psoma, Professor Wuge Briscoe, Professor Roberta Guerrina and Dr Tom Carter.
Bristol now tops the list of UK universities for the return on investment achieved by spinouts and is ranked in the top 3 for equity investment.
Prof. Michele Barbour said: “The University of Bristol has an impressive track record of enterprise and innovation and we’re keen to share that knowledge within our community as well as with a wider audience. The Enterprise Sessions is a new content series that brings to life the personal stories of spinout Founders and how our enterprise ecosystem has them.
Firehaus took our idea and created a branded content series, introducing the broadcast-style interview approach, as well as the name and look and feel. The approach has allowed me to develop rich conversations with our interviewees and showcase their experience of our ecosystem which will be of huge benefit for anyone involved in research, innovation and enterprise.”
Nick Barthram, Strategy Partner at Firehaus said: “Firehaus has worked with a range of organisations in the Research, Innovation and Enterprise space, including UKRI, Made Smarter Innovation and The University of Bristol. Consequently, we’ve developed a clear understanding and methodology to ignite opportunities at the intersection of academia and industry”.
Strategy, Concept and Art Direction: Firehaus
Film Production: JonesMillbank
We have been helping our clients to prepare to transition from Google’s Universal Analytics to their newer platform Google Analytics 4 for the past couple of years. And, as we move through summer 2022, the need to make the switch to GA4 is becoming increasingly time critical.
Google’s friendly and familiar web stats platform Universal Analytics is going to be switched off in just over a year. If you’re a digital marketeer who uses Google Analytics to track website performance, you will need to make the switch to GA4 sooner rather than later.
We recommend turning on Google Analytics 4 asap so that when Universal Analytics becomes redundant in July 2023, you will already have collected a year’s worth of data in GA4. That’s why now is the time to make the move!
We’ve put together an overview of the key dates you need to be aware of, to help you plan the transition. Not sure how to get up and running on GA4? Take a look at our guide to setting up Google Analytics 4 to get you started.
The new analytics reporting platform was announced two years ago, shortly followed by the news that Google would eventually turn off Universal Analytics completely. At this point, the team here at Varn set ourselves the challenge to learn all we could about Google Analytics 4 in preparation.
We think switching on GA4 in summer 2022 is the most logical timeframe for all businesses who rely on monitoring website traffic, conversions and user behaviour. This will mean that you will have year-on-year data available when Universal Analytics gets switched off the following summer.
Setting up Google Analytics 4 in July 2022 will mean that you can run both UA and GA4 in parallel for a year while you get trained up on how to use the new platform and move your regular reporting to GA4.
At this point, you will still be able to access historic data in your old Universal Analytics account. However, no new data will be received. So it will be essential to have GA4 fully configured, with all your necessary reporting set up by this point.
From the start of 2024, you will no longer be able to access Universal Analytics, and all historic data will be deleted. We would recommend you export all historic data from your account before this date. Not sure how to do that? With a little bit of Varn magic and technical know-how, we can help you to pull your historic web data into a useful Google Data Studio report.
It’s time to start getting to grips with GA4. The new interface can be intimidating, as there are less out-of-the-box reporting options available and more custom configuration is required. However, Google Analytics 4 is the future of website analytics, so it is important not to be caught by surprise or left behind!
Feel free to contact the Varn team for help and support setting up your account, learning how to use GA4, and creating any custom reporting solutions you need.
Good form design is a cornerstone of conversion optimisation.
Without good form design, you risk disrupting the overall user experience.
A well-designed form removes frustration, makes clear the next steps, provides a positive experience for the user and will help to increase conversions.
Earlier this year, our Conversion Optimisation team headed to Experimentation Elite in London.
A celebration of CRO and experimentation, the conference provided a platform for marketers to share and expand their knowledge.
And the conference keynote – given by Craig Sullivan – got us thinking from the off. Good form design shouldn’t be difficult, so why do so many businesses get it wrong?
In his talk, Craig listed 16 ‘crimes’ that occur within form design. But, for the sake of brevity, we’ll summarise the most important and common that we see.
The copy on forms can have a greater impact on conversions than people credit it for. If you’re hiring developers and designers, skimping on copywriters could be costing more in the long run.
When handling form errors, offering inline validation and feedback will result in an increase in conversions. Providing this feedback while the user is completing the form, rather than waiting until submission, can minimize friction and irritation on failed submission.
Password constraints and too many rules create friction in many user journeys as people are left grappling for new ideas. It is recommended here to prioritize length over complexity and avoid “negging” by offering a password strength meter.
It is recommended that forms disable autocorrect and auto-capitalize on fields that may not have answers matching a phone dictionary, such as names. Autocorrecting answers where there is no mistake can be annoying and in some cases discriminatory.
Are you suffering from Premature Error Ejaculation? Craig identified in his presentation that “PEE problems” can frustrate and discourage site users so to prevent this, form field error validations should not appear before the user has finished their input.
It’s not just form design. There are so many crimes we see every day against Conversion Optimisation generally. And, as with form design, they’re mostly avoidable with just a little thought and planning.
The Crimes Against Conversion are often so deeply rooted that they can be hard to spot. But if you can avoid them, you will save yourself a huge amount of time, budget, and a lot of unnecessary pain.
You can read more about the Crimes Against Conversion here…
Even with consistent performance marketing growth for the last decade and worldwide digital ad revenue predicted to grow by 85% by the end of 2026, performance marketers can’t afford to rest on their laurels. Customer journeys are becoming less linear, and competition can be internal as well as external – it’s adopting a performance mindset that ensures results.
Take a telecoms provider, for example. With different departments (for example, broadband sales vs phone contract sales) using performance marketing to drive towards its own goals, two internal messages are competing for the same customer attention. A performance mindset solves this problem by taking performance marketing from a strategy to an attitude – a way of thinking. Empowered by good use of first-party data, it could be the difference between a brand achieving an ROI target or not.
As marketers, we should all be adopting the key attributes of a performance mindset, including those working across different departments. These include:
Maximising efficiency across all channels
First and foremost departments should be communicating frequently and there needs to be strong channel integration. Perhaps the answer is to have one budget with one goal and then to decide across all channels what the make-up of the activity should be? A mix of these different channels and departments can work together to achieve the initial overarching objective.
Always looking at the bigger picture – never just granular detail
With so many different, smaller components to marketing, businesses can sometimes forget to focus on looking at the bigger picture and working towards a wider marketing strategy. Focusing on the macro not the micro allows everyone to be more agile, keep stronger customer connections and maintain consistent branding.
Galvanising everyone toward the same north star using first party data
Much of this comes down to galvanising everyone under one north star. Assets and learnings should be shared across teams and across the business. This is where the data comes in.
With an ever-expanding mix of channels and platforms to communicate and interact with customers through, it is even more important for agencies and marketing teams to work collaboratively. First-party data (data collected directly from customers) is a route to bringing teams together. This data can help all marketers understand how their activity nudges customers along the value chain; how it impacts results and delivers more personally relevant customer connections. And, again using first-party data and measurement, attributing performance across channels, everyone in the mix understands how they impact and deliver results.
By sharing regularly, the team can become more invested in the goals not just their part of the process or their individual objectives, but of the whole.
Performance planning – using data as a guiding light
Data ensures you can put your best foot forward. It’s a guiding light in the creative process. It shifts the focus from subjectivity to objectivity. You can involve everyone in every stage of the process – show the creatives how assets are performing so they can see what they should do more of and what they should do less of.
Testing is critical to this as it gives you your concrete impact of what happens if we try X vs Y and what should we do more or less of, to drive a better performance. By showing the impact of using data to understand, intelligently target and communicate to your audience and the increase in success metrics it brings, you can unify business and marketing goals with customer level objectives that drive better results.
Customer-first decision making – what should we be saying/asking our customer to do?
Having a performance mindset ensures alignment across channels, thinking about how to maximise each one in relation to the other, and asking ‘What do we want the customer to do?’ and ‘How can each of these channels contribute to our efforts in encouraging them to do it?’
Too often there is internal competition, and business goals, which leads only to mixed messaging and confusion around what customers are being asked to do, and ultimately impacts engagement, response and conversion.
Through the deep understanding of your base that first-party data allows, customers can be encouraged along their value journey and the brand can look to measure and optimise to the right metric for that customer. Let the data direct that at a customer level – be it the download of an app, obtaining one more visit, registering on your website, sales of a product or simply driving awareness. by optimising in the right way you can direct your customers to their next best, and most logical, action.
A performance mindset brings unity and a shared focus: it’s a relay team, not a group of individual sprinters. And by putting customer and first-party data at the heart of your decision making across teams, your performance marketing will perform even better – leading to unrivalled ROI.
The article was first published on Performance Marketing World, May 2022
Written by Andrew Terry, Head of Strategy
According to HubSpot, marketers that blog consistently are 13 times more likely to see a positive return on investment. Business blogs are a fantastic way to make your marketing spend go a long way, but the generation of content is an ongoing commitment.
Idea rich, time poor
Many small business owners and marketers for larger organisations have lots of ideas they would like to implement but little time to implement them. They have multiple balls in the air at any one time, including clients, prospects, and media outlets, so keeping the business blog up to date can be hard. Some may feel like it’s enough to post every now and then when they have time, while others want to do more but simply can’t justify prioritising it over existing and potential clients’ needs. I know how that feels. I have my own blogging business, so my blog is an important part of my portfolio, but when I have multiple client deadlines to hit, of course I am going to prioritise their needs over my own. However, that’s not to say that neglecting your business blog is a good move.
Drive traffic and build trust
Consistency in business blogging is an excellent way to drive traffic to your website and promote your brand. It also builds trust with your target audience as they continually see that you are supplying useful information to them. If blogs appear on an ad hoc basis, they don’t receive the same recognition from Google, but they also don’t create the same perception among web visitors. People buy from people they trust and a business blog is a bit like providing a window into your business, for prospects to peer through to get an idea of what it’s like inside. If there are reams of useful information that have clearly been updated regularly and recently, it paints a picture of a company that is up to date, on trend, and in touch with the market and its customers. If there is a blog with the most recent post dating back to last year, you probably wouldn’t come away with the same impression.
Hold onto the visitors you get
Additionally, a consistent business blog is a good way to keep visitors on your site because you can direct them from one article to the next, to the next, and before they know it, they have spent half an hour delving into your knowledge and expertise. This only works with a well populated blog though. If you only have a handful of posts spread over the course of a few years, visitors will soon realise that much of the information they’re reading is outdated and go elsewhere to find what they need.
Keeping visitors on your site for longer allows them to build a better picture of who you are and what you stand for. Think about the difference between meeting someone in person for 30 seconds, and spending time with them for 30 minutes. While first impressions do count, the longer you can engage with your audience, the more chance you have of selling your expertise and building trust in your brand.
Budget for blogs
Regular blogging is also better financially too. If you outsource the copywriting of your business blog as many companies do, it may feel easier to commission a blog every now and then, but it’s far better value for money if you commit to a regular program. As well as ensuring you have a consistent blog on your site, if you establish an ongoing commitment with someone, you know there is a third party who will drive the schedule on your behalf, chase for any information they need, and make it happen with minimum hassle. All for a set monthly fee that you can budget for without worrying about variable fees from one month to the next.
So, when it comes to the question of ad hoc vs regular blogging, it really is best to keep it consistent.
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