Business customers do the majority of their decision-making online. Gartner research shows that in 2019 27% of buying groups’ time was spent researching independently online.
This figure has now increased, with Hubspot’s research suggesting that “58% of consumers say they’ve discovered at least one new product by searching the internet in 2022, and 44% say they’ve done so in the past three months.”
But a buyer’s time is precious and it’s important you aren’t cold calling or interrupting their workday, you want to meet them at a time that is convenient for them.
Digital marketing meets prospects where they are, whether that’s via their browser, their favourite sites or on social media channels such as LinkedIn. It can put your product or services in front of the right people, at the right time.
“86% of marketers increased brand awareness using one or more digital marketing channel” – Hubspot
While it presents great opportunities, the digital landscape is unique and ever-changing. It’s constantly evolving and updating to offer new ways of reaching your target audience.
So, with that in mind, we’ve put this guide together to help you efficiently create, optimise and maintain your all-important digital marketing strategy in just a few easy steps.
When it comes to digital marketing strategy, one size really doesn’t fit all. So, before you get started, it’s important to tailor your approach for your audience.
Using an analytics platform, you can answer the crucial questions that will inform your marketing strategy and ensure you’re targeting the right people. With platforms like GA4 (previously Google Analytics) you can learn who your target audience is and how current website visitors are engaging with your content.
Using the information you’ve gathered from your analytics platform, you can enhance your strategy with detailed buyer personas. Getting to the heart of your audience and their needs is vital. You need to work out where they are most likely to spend their time and how they prefer to digest digital content. This will give you a benchmark on how to create yours.
You will need to review your existing digital marketing channels. We recommend using the paid-earned-owned media framework.
This will ensure you can maximise value from existing assets and fill in the gaps where needed.
Review and rank all your existing content according to what has previously performed well. The idea here is to figure out what’s working and what isn’t, so you can set yourself up for success when planning new content. You’ll then need to identify the gaps and build out a new content plan.
“Worldwide ad spending in the digital market is projected to reach 679.80 billion USD in 2023″ – Statista
Once all the planning is out of the way, it’s time to define your digital marketing toolkit. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather a go-to selection to get the wheels of change in motion (and by change, we mean growth).
The first thing you’ll want to get right is your website. How is it ranking in organic search results? What keywords are your competitors ranking for that you’re not? Is the user journey working well? Are your CTAs converting? Does your website meet accessibility standards and user experience (UX) best practices? These are all questions you’ll want to ask yourself before working to get more traffic to your site.
A great, well-written blog that solves a customer problem is a great way to attract new audiences with a genuine interest in your products and services. And because you’ve crafted your personas and drilled down into the pain points of your target audience, you’re fully prepped to write or commission highly targeted content that’s helpful for your reader.
Social media advertising can drive leads, boost revenue, increase brand awareness and more. It’s where your customers feel most at home, and where they prefer to spend their free time. This creates an opportunity to engage more authentically and have more meaningful interactions.
Did you know according to Hubspot research there are over 2.38 billion monthly active users on Facebook? And 500 million daily Instagram users?
Social media has an impressive reach and great effectiveness, it allows you to nurture leads in real time. With social ads, you can set your budget and easily adjust it within the platform you’re using.
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is a highly favoured part of the digital marketer’s toolkit. This is because it can have a big impact in the short-term and show clear results. But it’s worth noting that it’s most effective in combination with always-on brand activity and well-optimised organic content.
PPC (pay-per click) is a form of advertising that allows you to pay a fee each time a user clicks through to your website from another platform.
Typically, when we talk about PPC, we mean advertising on the search engine results page (SERP). PPC advertising is commonly seen on Google results, showing up like this:
View image in blog here.
“63% of people have clicked on a Google ad” – Statista. How can PPC boost your digital presence? PPC advertising increases the number of leads and customers you’re reaching, unlocking otherwise untapped potential.
Google Ads is one of the most recommended tools for lead generation. If your campaigns are set up properly with a clear user journey, it has the potential to send extremely targeted leads to your website, opt-in form or other online property.
Google Ads allows you to focus on the people who are searching for the exact services your business offers, it’s also flexible. You can easily customise campaigns to focus on specific demographics of online users. For example, you can target people by location, the type of device they’re using, and the Google-owned websites they’re accessing (e.g. Google search, Google Maps, YouTube).
You can even set your own budget for specific parts of a campaign. For example, you can set daily budgets, or limits on the amount you’re willing to spend on clicks for specific keywords.
“The average cost per click on google ads is £0.75-£1.50″ – Demandsage
But you won’t get far on spending alone.
To get a clearer picture of what will give you the best results, you must continually test, track and optimise your campaigns.
“The average conversion rate on Google Ads is 4.40%” – Consolidata
So, now you know how to prepare a digital marketing strategy. And all the key components that will help you grow your online presence.
But as every marketer knows, the proof is in the pudding. By which we mean, growth relies on constant trial and error, A/B testing, research, analytics, and a constant stream of top-quality content that brings all your goals to fruition.
And that’s a hell of a lot to implement – even for a whole team of marketers.
That’s why we’re offering a free, no obligations consultation on your digital marketing strategy and marketing automation potential.
Branding is often associated with big commercial enterprises. Nike, Google, Amazon, Coca-Cola, are all instantly recognisable around the world – why? Because they’ve got good branding.
A strong brand identity helps to build trust and credibility through consistency and identifiability. That’s why it’s just as important for not-for-profits and charities.
A strong brand says, ‘we know who we are and what we’re doing.’ And this is as critical for building partnerships and raising funds as it is for boosting sales. That’s because investors and donors aren’t just looking for a cause to support, they’re looking for an organisation they can rely on. And good branding conveys the confidence and credibility they’re looking for.
It also manifests a sense of permanence. Good branding can make a charity or not-for-profit feel less like an organisation and more like an established institution. When it comes to attracting funding – this is crucial. Investors want to know that their resources are going towards building something long-lasting – a legacy for themselves and the organisations they support.
The same goes for potential partners and collaborators. They want to be sure they’re putting their faith in the right organisation. A strong brand can help bolster your reputation.
Finally, brand marketing does a lot of the work for you. Through consistent messaging and a discernible visual identity, you can build familiarity and trust with every ad, every post, every email, every piece of content. This means your marketing strategy can be proactive as opposed to reactive. Which means less time and money poured into short-term gains, and more resources spent on the cause you’re fighting for.
A brand should never be pulled out of thin air. No matter the sector, a brand is a representation of a company’s mission, purpose, values and vision. When it comes to branding for charities and not-for-profits though, it’s especially important to put values front and centre.
Nowadays, lots of businesses are taking a values-first approach to their marketing. It’s a trend that rose around the wave of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). Every business, big and small, wants to be seen as driven by their purpose.
Charities and not-for-profits are built around purpose – so this part is easy. It’s setting them apart from one another that becomes the challenge.
Storytelling is an integral part of brand marketing. And it’s something our head of video and motion graphics, Tim Price, loves most about working with charities and not-for-profits. Why?
“When it comes to stories, charities are probably wealthier than any other industry. Everything they do is about improving a journey. But, it’s imperative to remember who the hero is (hint, it’s not the charity). As is often the case in marketing, your client isn’t Luke Skywalker, they’re Obi Wan.”
That’s right. Just like the customer is always right, the beneficiary is always the hero of the story. We kept this in mind when we put together this video for OTR – a mental health social movement by and for young people living in Bristol and South Gloucestershire.
Watch the video in the article here.
Brands, like people, have distinct personalities. Characteristics that help make them relatable as well as unique. And a critical part of identifying these key traits is working closely and collaboratively with our clients.
This is how we approached the rebrand for Housing Matters, who came to us feeling a disconnect between their origins as CHAS (Catholic Housing Aid Society) were and the modern and dynamic organisation they’d become.
According to the copywriter on the case, Evelyn Chapman, collaboration was key.
“We were lucky enough to have regular face-to-face meetings with the Housing Matters team and getting to know them personally actually played a big part in crafting their brand identity. Each of them communicated with energy and passion. And though they’re warm and reassuring, you could tell they’re also tenacious – they’re real fighters. And we wanted their brand to reflect that.”
We took a similar approach when working with Runnymede, the UK’s leading race equality think tank. By working closely with the Runnymede team to refresh their brand and bring it up to date, we were able to refresh their colour palette to reflects Runnymede’s bold ambitions.
As 2020 was such an unusual and difficult year for everyone, rather than produce our usual Christmas video full of jolly japes, we decided instead to donate our services and resources to a local charity – Caring in Bristol.
They wanted to create something that celebrated Bristol culture – something edgy and full of life to reflect their brand identity and motivate people to donate in the run up to Christmas.
For this reason, we didn’t want to go down the typical charity ‘pulling at your heartstrings’ route. Instead, we went full force with a script and art direction that entertained (with plenty of nods to Bristol and all its wonderful quirks!), whilst delivering the cold hard stats about people experiencing homelessness.
Watch the video in the blog here.
With this video, and the promotion around it, we helped raise over £20,000 in under 2 weeks in the lead up to Christmas. The video also accounted for over 60% of the charity’s engagement for the whole month of December.
A branding project doesn’t always mean an entirely new identity. Sometimes it’s all about a simple refresh or incorporating more consistency across your messaging. But when we take on a branding project, we ensure we are providing not just the building blocks (like a logo, and new colour palette) but the blueprint, the tools, and the training to boot.
A good example of this is the branding work we did with Effat; Saudi Arabia’s first independent university for women.
Our Senior Designer, Katie Elvins said:
“Key considerations were to create a modern, clean and fresh look for Effat. We wanted to create a brand that was fun and engaging for students – but flexible enough to be adapted for parents, sponsors etc.”
In the end, we provided a comprehensive brand book detailing all aspects of their brand including messaging, logo usage, typography, photography style and a refined colour palette which has been given a clear structure with a core palette, college colours, tertiary palette and special colours. Katie went on to say:
“Then, once the brand was finalised we travelled to Saudi Arabia, and I ran a 2-day workshop, presenting the guidelines to the in-house design team and showing them how we could create consistent, exciting work with their new brand moving forward.”
That’s all to say – your branding should be more than a marketing exercise. It should be a collaborative journey for all involved. And it should leave you with a manifestation of your organisation that is timeless, emotive and strong.
Whether you need advice or support with positioning, visual identity, a digital refresh, or all of the above, we’re here to help. Get in touch and book a free consultation today.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)117 923 2282
Whatever you call it, online brand building is no new concept. But it’s often overlooked when it comes to digital marketing, which often favours the short-term gain of lead generation or performance marketing campaigns.
Long gone are the days when a strong online presence was a nice-to-have. In today’s digital age, it’s a must. But beyond simply being visible, you also have to put online engagement at the heart of your brand strategy.
Online brand standards are higher than ever. If customers or prospects see that your website, social media, digital content, or messaging is inconsistent, of poor quality, or non-existent, you lose something that will prove nearly impossible to regain – their trust.
So, how can you build a great online brand? It’s simple – you incorporate digital as part of the development process, growing your visibility and reputation online alongside your brand.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your identity, you’ll probably want to begin with design and top-level messaging, but it’s important not to look at your brand or online presence in isolation. The two go hand in hand and need to be developed in tandem for maximum impact.
It’s tempting to fall into the trap of undertaking SWOT analysis, consumer research, qualitative and quantitative research, and simply leave it as just that – research. A report for the archives. But by identifying your mission, values, segmented audiences, and USPs, you can root every stage of your brand development in data – ensuring that, as you grow, your brand grows with you.
From an online brand perspective – if you have a website, you can track user behaviour and align it with your research, allowing you to gather information not only about your customers’ perception of your brand, but their interactions too. Don’t miss the opportunity to use what you’ve learned from your online presence to shape the direction of your brand.
Data will give you a strong sense of the way your brand is perceived, what your customers expect, and what they want from your business moving forward. Armed with this information, you can change their minds, engage them better, and grow your brand.
Your website is an integral part of your brand.
It’s often at the heart of the customer journey – it’s where customers buy from you, how they contact you, where they find out about you, and often, where they make their first impressions after a quick search of your company name.
“…if customers or prospects see that your website, social media, digital content, or messaging is inconsistent, of poor quality, or non-existent, you lose something that will prove nearly impossible to regain – their trust…”
So why wouldn’t your website be at the core of your branding? It’s critical to the reputation of your business that your website is easy to navigate, visually appealing, a clear representation of your identity, and helps customers reach the next step in their journey – building trust with every interaction.
Accessibility should also play a big role in your online brand strategy. Does your website work with screen readers? Are fonts clear, high-contrast and easy to read? All of this plays a role in garnering, and building, trust between brand and consumer.
When it comes to building a brand online, you want to make sure your business is synonymous with great design, as well as streamlined and efficient customer experience. So user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) best practices become a really important part of the conversation between brand and consumer.
While trends are popular, it’s best practice that lasts. So here are some key principles to remember.
Social media is where you can start to build out the personality of your brand. Encouraging customers to engage with your brand in a more direct, organic way is a fantastic opportunity to further your reputation and recognition.
“…data will give you a strong sense of the way your brand is perceived, what your customers expect, and what they want from your business moving forward…”
Different platforms such as Instagram and LinkedIn will demand different approaches to content – and you can experiment to find the right way to engage your audience across each channel. But the mission, vision, and values established as part of your brand identity should always remain consistent if you want to build trust.
One misconception about branding is that it’s a one-and-done activity. But even the world’s most established, well-known brands update and refresh their identity regularly, and they’ll use always-on brand marketing to hold their market share and monitor engagement.
“…when it comes to building a brand online, you want to make sure your business is synonymous with great design, as well as streamlined and efficient customer experience…”
Equally, your online brand must evolve with the expectations, demands and behaviours of your customers. You want to gauge how your brand is performing, but also keep an eye on competitors to make sure you stay relevant and on-trend.
While the steps above detail how to build your brand online, the question remains: why should you put time and effort into it?
We know how tempting it is to spend your entire marketing budget on lead gen, but there are serious gains to be won for those brave enough to invest in always-on digital brand campaigns.
Your online brand is an opportunity for visibility and credibility. Through pairing your online brand with the right SEO, content, and marketing campaigns, you have a prime opportunity to significantly increase the visibility of your brand – in the same breath however, your visibility can be damaging if you haven’t invested in a credible online brand.
“…it’s critical to the reputation of your business that your website is easy to navigate, visually appealing, a clear representation of your identity, and helps customers reach the next step in their journey – building trust with every interaction…”
Your brand and marketing must work hand in hand to be truly successful.
Not only are customers more digitally engaged than ever, they’re also more sceptical than ever. As consumers, we’re flooded with newsletters, purchase alerts, email campaigns, and social media posts – how many of these do we actually take in?
If you’re not taking the time to understand what your audience engages with, and investing in branded content that matters to them, you can quickly fade into obscurity.
Developing an online brand that resonates with your customers can not only garner engagement, but loyalty too. If they know the messages you’re sending are of value to them, they’ll be more likely to pay attention the next time a sponsored post appears on their feed.
“…your online brand must evolve with the expectations, demands and behaviours of your customers…”
And engagement doesn’t just mean keeping up with competitors by producing like-for-like content. It means finding new ways to connect, stand out and speak to the emerging pain points or demands of your audience.
Brand is often seen as an immeasurable investment. At the end of the day, how do you measure how effective your new colour palette, logo, or typography has been?
You’ve invested your money, and you want to prove ROI, which is exactly where an online brand is critical.
Your digital ecosystem is entirely measurable. You can test your pre- and post-launch brand performance, as well as continuing to optimise and gather insights.
“…keep an eye on competitors to make sure you stay relevant and on-trend…”
Furthermore, you can compare against your sector and competitors. Your online brand is not only a snapshot of performance, but it can also help build a picture of where you stand in the market.
This information can help inform wider business decisions, by providing insights on which products or services are performing well, which processes needs reviewing or streamlining, and where you should invest your marketing budget moving forward.
So whether you want to grow your brand or boost your bottom line, building a robust online brand is a must for businesses of all sizes.
Whether you need advice or support with positioning, visual identity, a digital refresh, or all of the above, we’re here to help. Get in touch and book a free consultation today.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)117 923 2282
When we talk about brand, technology isn’t generally the first thing that springs to mind. Brand is, more often than not, considered to belong to the realm of “creatives”.
However, without touching on the levels of “creativity” required to conceive of and build the applications and services our modern world runs on today, we’ll spend some time looking at why technology is crucial to the success of a brand.
Technology tools are ubiquitous in our lives and day-to-day work, so we’ll take it as read that technology plays a role in crafting a brand, but once that brand lives and breathes, what critical role does technology play in ensuring its growth and prosperity?
Starting with a grandiose analogy, technology is to brand what “organisation” was to the Roman Empire: an enabler of massive growth and innovation or, when overstretched or ill-conceived, a potential cause of damage. In this way we can see that technology is an amplifier for brand, in both positive and negative directions.
Let’s continue with this handy framing and look at some examples of positive and negative impacts on brand facilitated by the duplicitous technology and see exactly why it is so crucial to the fundamental success of a brand.
Technology is to brand what organisation was to the Roman Empire: an enabler of massive growth and innovation or, when overstretched or ill-conceived, a potential cause of damage.
“Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall” – Marcus Aurelius
The words of Marcus Aurelius ring true for every good brand operating today. What you say matters. But so too does how you say it – and crafting and broadcasting brand messages, communicating brand personality and demonstrating brand principles are all enabled through skilled use of technology.
It’s often helpful to look at brands in terms of component parts, something we love doing in the tech space. Lets consider a brand as having physical and non-physical properties. In the physical space we have written, visual and auditory assets and capabilities; in the non-physical space we have experience, behaviour and embodiment components.
When we break it all down like this, we can start to see how technology can play key roles in supporting brand, primarily in distribution, governance and implementation.
Let’s consider a brand as having physical and non-physical properties. In the physical space are written, visual and auditory assets and capabilities, in the non-physical space we have experience, behaviour and embodiment components.
In the physical space, distribution, governance & implementation is really about moving the assets that support our brand around effectively and efficiently, ensuring that whenever and wherever our brand needs to be referenced it’s being done so using the frame that countless hours and much effort went into establishing, and furthermore ensuring that those mechanisms are doing this work in such a way that supports our desired brand. I’m fairly confident in saying that few brands would say that keeping a customer waiting (to view an image of their logo) is in line with their brand message and values.
This is achieved through:
In the non-physical space we’re really talking about communicating and enabling those representing our brand to do so in line with our expectations. Technology enables this by providing ways to up-skill and support those people representing our brand. Learning tools, managed communication systems, and again asset management, consider a Tone of Voice document.
This can be achieved through use of:
When these systems are in place, well implemented and well managed, we can create a robust, well-oiled machine through which we can ensure that our brand is carried through to all digital touch points.
Because no story would be complete without a cautionary tale, let’s look at one now. Ticketmaster, the global purveyor of all things live entertainment, suffered some very serious brand damage at the hands of technology.
“He who is not a good servant will not be a good [Ticket]master” – Plato
It should go without saying that poor customer service is detrimental to a brand. I’m sure we’ve all sworn off a company after a bad experience, and possibly still warn others off said company to this day.
Customer service used to be fairly linear, and all about the human touch – direct customer contact. Nowadays, the number of touchpoints between customer and brand has grown and much of that increased surface area is digital. It’s perhaps for this reason that we’re seeing a move from ‘customer service’ to the increased use of ‘customer experience’ as a more appropriate term.
Now, back to our cautionary tale…
It’s November 2022. Having selected Ticketmaster as her exclusive ticket sales partner, Taylor Swift is set to launch the pre-sales of the US leg of her ridiculously highly anticipated Eras Tour. It’s fair to say this was one of the most visible tour launches in history. Droves of her fans were hoping for an experience they’d never forget. And they got one. A bad one. An unforgettably bad customer experience.
What followed wasn’t Ticketmaster’s finest moment: website outages, fans being booted from queues, cancelled sales and the resulting Twitter storm of frustration – delivered by panicked, angry Swiftie acolytes.
The damage of this incident to Ticketmaster and its brand cannot be overstated. The narrative that Ticketmaster finds itself still dealing with, is one of incompetence, poor planning, and bad implementation, rather than one that focuses on the fact that it helped Ms. Swift sell 2.4 million tickets in one day, an all-time record.
What will people remember about Swiftie Ticketmaster-gate? Incompetence, technology failures and a terrible customer experience.
What will no one remember? That it helped sell 2.4 million TS tickets in one day – an all-time record.
To rub salt into the wound, the blunder and increased exposure has kicked off a series of events that has resulted in a class action lawsuit brought by Taylor Swift fans and a Federal antitrust investigation into monopolistic practices. To further kick the downed Ticketmaster and its salted wound, parent company Live Nation suffered a 17% slide in stock valuation in the two weeks following the incident.
To further kick the downed TicketMaster and its salted wound, parent company Live Nation suffered a 17% slide in stock valuation in the two weeks following the incident.
Let’s cut Ticketmaster a little slack and have a look at the heavy site traffic driven by the “astronomical” demand of legions of Taylor Swift fans desperate to snag tickets. Ticketmaster reported 3.5 million users registering for the pre-sale programme, a large number. Compare this with Semrush’s list of most trafficked pages on the web and the number pales in comparison with Google’s 18.11 billion visitors in December 2022. A little calculation shows that the infrastructure in place at Google would likely have dealt with this demand … and probably does daily.
(18,011,000,000 /31) / 24) = 24,208,333
Google approx hits per hour: 24.2 million
Whilst high website traffic and the strain on Ticketmaster’s infrastructure are clearly what kicked off this series of events, it was avoidable. I don’t work for Ticketmaster so I have no insight into where the failing was, but I’d be very surprised if the team responsible for setting up the autoscaling rules had a full understanding of the scale of potential impact of this type of incident, as the cost to add the extra resources to cope with load will have been pence on the pound to the cost of the damage.
Brand is inescapably dependent on technology in our modern world, it requires it, to live, breathe and survive. If a brand falls in the woods, does it make a sound?
If you’re responsible for your brand, you need to understand the myriad ways that technology can help it grow and develop, but just as importantly you need to understand the various technologies at play in your world and what unique risk management considerations they might represent.
I’ll finish on another pithy analogy: technology is fire, it can light your way, bring you and your brand out of the stone age and provide warmth and safety. But, don’t drop the match or it’ll
Burn. Your. House. To. The. Ground!
Whether you need advice or support with positioning, visual identity, a digital refresh, or all of the above, we’re here to help. Get in touch and book a free consultation today.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)117 923 2282
In uncertain economies, it’s understandable that businesses review their budgets. Often, marketing spend is one of the first costs to be slashed – part of a defensive, cost-cutting strategy.
This ‘batten down the hatches’ approach is an instinctive reaction. Why keep spending when every penny counts? But the data speaks for itself. This is a time for marketers to be proactive, not reactive.
A Harvard Business School study of 4,700 businesses during past recessions found that those who reduced costs selectively were 37% more likely to come out of the period in a stronger position than their competitors. By focusing more on operational efficiency, while investing in marketing, R&D, and new assets, these businesses could stay ahead of the competition and hit the ground running when the economy bounced back.
“…those who reduced costs selectively were 37% more likely to come out of the period in a stronger position than their competitors…”
To many, this may feel counter-intuitive. But brand growth is driven by an investment in long-lasting commercial impact. And, as any professional investor will tell you, success lies in buying low and selling high. In times of recession, media is cheaper, and the landscape is quieter as your competitors begin to retreat. So, the longer-term impact – as we come out of recession – should be greater.
That’s the theory anyway.
Luckily, there’s robust data to support this theory. The WPP Centre for Research and Development provides us with important insights from the past into the performance of brands through a downturn. It bases its analysis on data from the Profit Impact of Market Strategy (PIMS) database.
The PIMS database is the only source from the past that contains both marketing data and financial information for the same brands throughout the period of the study.
It’s tempting for businesses to show bottom-line results by cutting advertising spend in a downturn, especially when under pressure to report short-term quarterly results to investors.
However, the PIMS data shows that cutting advertising spend in a downturn doesn’t increase your short-term profits.
The WPP paper concludes: “Those that cut their advertising expenditure in a recession lose no less in terms of profitability than those who actually increase spending by an average of 10%. In other words, cutting advertising spend to increase short-term profits doesn’t seem to work.”
Whilst it might seem risky to increase spend in a challenging economy, the data from the PIMS database shows that it’s easier to gain market share in a downturn than it is in better market conditions.
“businesses in the PIMS database enjoy a higher rate of share growth during downturns, and a lower rate of share increase during stable periods and periods of growth.”
View image 1 in blog here.
View image 2 in blog here.
Increasing market share increases marketing ROI in the long run.
Increasing marketing spend in a downturn will naturally show a short-term fall in ROI for most businesses, depending on their sector. Figure 3 shows, on average a reduction of 1.9%.
However, there’s only a 0.1% difference between those cutting their spend by an average of 11%, and those increasing spend by an average of 10%.
View image 3 in blog here.
As we’ve seen from the data in Figure 1, even a moderate increase in spend resulted, on average, in an increased market share during a downturn.
For larger increases in investment, the WPP paper comments: “Brands increasing their spending by an average of 48% during a recession win virtually double the share gains of those who increase their expenditures more modestly. While this aggressive increase in advertising is associated with a drop in return on investment of 2.7% in the short term, it may nevertheless be acceptable to the marketer looking ahead to post-recession growth.”
Further, as demonstrated in figure 4, there’s a substantial body of evidence to show that a larger share of the market generally leads to a higher return on marketing investment in the longer term.
View image 4 in blog here.
So, we know there’s a case for being especially intentional about marketing during a downturn. But what should that look like?
A proactive approach to marketing during a recession should focus on maintaining a consistent and confident presence. This means keeping up with brand awareness campaigns and ensuring your identity, messaging and value proposition stay true, relevant and strong. It’s the wrong time to shy away from stand-out, brand-led marketing.
As The Drum puts it: “All these brand DNA pieces need to be considered and are valuable in building strong, long-lasting relationships with customers – especially during tough economic times where they are more cautious with where and how they are spending their money.”
So even scaling back on advertising could be a mistake if you want to gain market share and a competitive advantage. And while investing in SEO, PPC and lead generation might seem more pressing than brand and awareness, a strong, visible presence might just be the key to long-term success.
Don’t dismiss this case study because P&G is a large consumer brand. Studies by Binet & Field show that the principles of B2C brand building apply equally to B2B brands.
Without a doubt, the decisions we make today will affect the health of our businesses substantially for the longer term. So now, more than ever, we should ground our strategies in empirical data to avoid strategies based on fear and emotion.
So, while we’re all under considerable pressure to revisit our marketing strategies, remember the evidence from the past:
Whether you need advice or support with positioning, visual identity, a digital refresh, or all of the above, we’re here to help. Get in touch and book a free consultation today.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)117 923 2282
Love your brand? Thank the copywriter.
At Proctor + Stevenson we celebrate all creative work, and it’s all about the collaboration. Each successful campaign is a brilliant balancing act of copy, design, digital ingenuity, expert project management and the client’s goals. But we’ve noticed, outside of our creative bubble, that copy’s involvement is often sadly underestimated.
Now, before you get your tiny violin out for our copywriters, they’re doing fine. In fact, we’ve got a thriving team here at P+S that takes care of everything from UX, SEO and content creation to brand positioning, ad concepts and video scripts.
But there often seems to be a misconception that copywriters are, first and foremost, content creators, blog writers or comms specialists. Our clients are often surprised (and hopefully delighted) by how heavily involved our copywriters are – in everything from information architecture and UX design to brand strategy and campaign concepting.
We often think of brand as a congregation of visual elements – logos, fonts, colour palettes etc. And these are critical components. But good branding is more than just a pretty face – it’s strategic, carefully considered messaging.
It’s your company’s personality – bridging the gap between head and heart. Which is why it can have such an impact on your performance and position within the market.
“…good branding is more than just a pretty face – it’s strategic, carefully considered messaging…”
Think of your brand as a 3D reflection of your business with many different faces – like a Rubik’s cube. Along with the logo, colour palette, fonts and marks, your brand is represented by your mission, vision, purpose and your voice – the elements our copywriters craft with care behind the scenes. And all things that should shine through consistently across every touchpoint.
“…a copywriter builds the foundation for your brand, without which it wouldn’t even stand up, never mind standing out…”
With the visual elements of your brand – you attract, entice and captivate. But with your voice, you engage, persuade and compel. And engagement is what humanises, builds trust and – ultimately – makes the sale. If branding is about connecting with your audience, the way you communicate, or your tone of voice, is just as important as your visual identity. A copywriter builds the foundation for your brand, without which it wouldn’t even stand up, never mind standing out.
It’s exactly what it sounds like. Your tone of voice (ToV) is the way your brand speaks to its audience – the unique characteristics that set your communications apart.
Are you bold and confident like Apple? Motivational and inspiring like Nike? Are you adventurous and rebellious like RedBull?
Just like when you meet a person for the first time, the way a business communicates can seriously impact a consumer’s first impression. It can also become the foundation for your ongoing relationship. In both B2C and B2B marketing, ToV is what keeps your company communications authentic, trustworthy and engaging.
“…a first-class ToV guide is what keeps your brand feeling, and sounding, real. It’s the basis of all the conversations you have with your customers going forward…”
A first-rate ToV guide is what keeps your brand feeling, and sounding, real. It’s the basis of all the conversations you have with your customers going forward. When putting your tone of voice guidelines together, the copywriter will ensure your business can consistently represent itself in a way that gives the right first impression, builds trust, and nurtures relationships. It will also help you stand out in your market for the right reasons – whether that’s because you’re more disruptive, more reliable or more knowledgeable than competitors, for example.
When it comes to building trust with your audience, consistency is key. And unfortunately, visual consistency just won’t cut it. So we pack our guidelines with clear and useful information, making sure anyone who speaks on behalf of your brand can talk the talk.
You might have studied English at university. You’re probably well read. You’re certainly intelligent. Maybe you’ve worked in marketing for many years, writing a vast proportion of the comms and content. So why would you trust a copywriter to do it better than you?
It’s simple really – because copywriters are the experts. They know what sells. They know what compels. They know what converts. That’s what they’re trained to do.
“…from your USPs to your KPIs, we’ve always got your best interests at heart – and we know what interests your target audience…”
In the same way that anyone can create a Squarespace website or an AI-generated image, anyone can write copy. But if you want a site that’s tailored to your needs and built with your business in mind, you need a great digital designer or UX expert. If you need a unique graphic language to set your brand apart, you need a graphic designer. Your brand’s story and tone of voice are no different – you need a copywriter.
Imagine Nike without ‘Just do it.’ Remember Specsavers before ‘should’ve gone to…’?
And what if L’Oreal hadn’t told you ‘you’re worth it.’ Sure, these brands would all still exist, but there’s no doubt their success, memorability and share of market is, in part, down to clever copywriting and brilliant brand-led campaigns.
And here’s one from the history books. In 1911, Morton began adding an anti-caking agent to their salt, making it what the brand called the ‘first free-flowing salt.’ Presumably what came before was prone to clumping, shortening its useful shelf life.
Three years later, the brand came out with the slogan: ‘When it rains, it pours’ and introduced the Morton Salt Girl.
On its website, Morton notes that many branding enthusiasts and authorities called this combination ‘one of the greatest branding triumphs of all time’.
Very often, it’s the copywriter who writes your mission, vision and purpose statements. They often write your values, capture your personality – which will later be visualised by our designers – and craft your tone of voice.
Without all of this, your brand would be a hollow shell – beautiful on the outside, but with no signs of life or pearls of wisdom to offer. And your audience will see right through it.
“Copywriters at Proctor + Stevenson wear many hats. We write marketing material, of course –ads, brochures, e-books, newsletters, video scripts. If there are words, we’ve written them. But we also strategise, plan content, craft creative concepts for ad campaigns, and we play a pivotal role in branding projects.”
Our team gets involved from the outset of a branding campaign, gathering insight on your company’s (current and aspirational) personality, values, mission and modus operandi. From your USPs to your KPIs, they get to know your business inside-out.
Whether you need advice or support with positioning, visual identity, a digital refresh, or all of the above, we’re here to help. Get in touch and book a free consultation today.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)117 923 2282
Tone of voice (or TOV as it’s often referred to in these acronym centric times!) is important for brands and should be reflected across all their marketing copy. But for those that don’t have years of experience writing copy for different businesses, it can be daunting to know where to start. Fear not, help from your favourite copywriting service is here!
What is ‘tone of voice’?
If you think about the different tones of voice you use when talking to various people throughout the day, you are likely to use a different pitch, volume, speed, and perhaps even slightly different language depending on whether you’re at work, home, or out with friends. Even then, you’ll have different qualities that you use in different circumstances.
Depending on your tone, whoever is listening to you will interpret what you’re saying differently. Any managers or indeed parents reading this will know what I’m talking about immediately. A deepening of the voice and the use of more stern language means things are getting serious, while a softer pitch spoken more slowly gives the impression that all is well with the world.
The tone of voice of a brand works in a similar way. The things that you say and the way that you say it will help people to build their perception of you. When done well, your audience not only understands you, but they also want to work with you too.
How to achieve the right tone of voice for your brand
The first thing to say is the sooner you can give your TOV some thought the better as consistency is important. That’s not to say it’s too late if you’ve already been in business for a few years, but the quicker you can decide which tone of voice is right for your brand, the sooner all your audiences will have a clear picture of what you’re about.
Here are some tips to get you started.
Brand personality
When you start thinking about the right tone of voice for your brand, think about your brand’s personality and what you want people to feel when they see your name or your logo. Do you want them to feel comfortable, happy, relaxed, or serious? If you’re a solicitor you might want people to get a more serious professional feel from you, for example, while a marketing agency might want to present themselves as more fun and creative. There’s no right or wrong here, it depends on what type of business you have, the ethos of that business, and how you want to present yourself.
Organise your thoughts
Once you have spent time considering your brand personality and how you want your audience to feel, the next step is to organise these thoughts. It can be useful to list your different groups of audiences first – prospects, different groups of customers, competitors, suppliers, etc. Then write a few descriptive words about how you would like them to describe you in an ideal world. Really try and put yourself in their shoes. What do they want from your type of business, and how can your brand values deliver?
Once you have this list, you can use it to write out your brand’s tone of voice guidelines. If you have an expert marketer or copywriter on board this can be more in-depth, but even if you just come up with a few sentences that accurately represent you, it can be useful to keep all parties on the same TOV track.
Be consistent
Keeping everyone on the same track is important because if you want to give your brand a tone of voice, it needs to be consistent across all your marketing communications. That doesn’t mean you need one writer working on every piece of copy because different people have different areas of expertise, but with guidelines in place, all copy will sound consistent and like it’s from the same business.
So, your business blog should sound like it’s from the same company as your website content, physical brochures, social media, and press coverage. If all elements of your marketing campaigns are aligned, your audiences will learn what to expect from you and you will be easily recognisable.
Next steps for your brand’s tone of voice
Achieving the right tone of voice for your brand is a central piece of your marketing communications jigsaw. It’s the same as making sure all your marketing materials look the same with consistent brand design. If your website looks a bit different to your packaging, which looks a bit different to your social media pages, audiences won’t recognise you easily and may scroll past or walk on by. The same thing applies with the words you use and how you use them.
If you are still feeling daunted by the prospect of establishing and implementing a tone of voice that suits your brand down to the ground, perhaps hiring a freelance copywriter that can take care of all of that for you is the way to go.
The short answer is yes!
Let’s dive straight in:
Backlinks: Backlinks are links from another website to your website or content. PR activity often results in high-quality backlinks from reputable websites. These are a crucial ranking factor for search engines like Google and having authoritative sites linking to your content can boost your website’s SEO.
Brand Visibility: Output such as press releases, media mentions, comments and award announcements can increase brand visibility and awareness. When more people are aware of your brand and search for it online, it can lead to an increase in brand searches, which is a positive signal to search engines.
Social Signals: PR campaigns often include social media outreach and engagement. Social signals, such as likes, shares, and comments on social media platforms, are considered by search engines as indicators of content quality and relevance. So, a strong social media presence can indirectly contribute to better SEO performance.
Content Promotion: PR professionals (in theory) produce high-quality, informative content, pitching it to authoritative publications and leveraging social media to amplify organic reach. This aligns perfectly with Google’s E-E-A-T criteria.
Which leads us to our next question…
What the heck is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s a set of guidelines that Google uses to assess the quality and credibility of web content. Here’s a breakdown of each component and how PR can help:
Specifically, the first-hand experiences of people in your business who are the authors of the content you publish.
This becomes even more important in the context of content being produced by generative AI. AI can never replicate a human’s first-hand experiences. At best, it can make assumptions based on existing online content. This human experience and insight is a key differentiator between human and AI-written content.
You can demonstrate this experience by sharing the faces behind your business. This will enable you to:
This refers to the level of knowledge and expertise demonstrated by the content author in their respective field. Google looks for content that is created by individuals or organisations with relevant expertise, qualifications, or experience. For example, medical advice should ideally come from qualified medical professionals and tips on evading tax and never answering a question directly should come from a politician.
PR can help highlight the experience and expertise of individuals or organisations by showcasing their achievements, credentials, and industry recognition. This could include securing speaking engagements at conferences, contributing articles to reputable publications, or arranging interviews with journalists to discuss relevant topics.
Authoritativeness – although difficult to say – relates to the perceived authority of the content creator or website within its industry or niche. Websites that are recognised as authoritative sources by their peers, experts, or the wider community are more likely to rank highly in search results. Factors such as backlinks from other reputable sites, mentions in reputable publications, and industry awards also contribute to perceived authority.
PR can help establish authority by positioning individuals or brands as thought leaders in their respective fields. This can be achieved through media coverage, endorsements from respected figures, and participation in industry events or panels. PR also plays a vital role when things go wrong, by addressing negative reviews, customer complaints, and promoting positive brand stories.
Trustworthiness refers to the reliability and integrity of the content and the website itself. Google seeks to promote content that users can trust, which means content should be accurate, well-sourced, and free from misleading or deceptive information. Factors such as clear authorship, transparent affiliations, and secure website practices (such as HTTPS encryption) contribute to trustworthiness.
PR can help you build trust with your audience by managing your reputation and fostering transparency. Earned media is more valuable to SEO in building trust than paid media because it’s secured through merit.
In summary, E-E-A-T is an important consideration for Google’s search algorithms as it aims to prioritise high-quality content created by credible sources. Websites that demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are more likely to rank well in search results and earn the trust of users.
PR boosts your SEO strategy by supporting E-E-A-T signals and building credibility with both users and search engines alike. By integrating PR and SEO strategies, businesses can enhance their online presence and achieve better search engine rankings, making them more visible to their audience.
Welcome to the not-so-mysterious world of search engine optimisation, where your site’s visibility determines whether it is the needle or the haystack in the huge online landscape. To make sense of it all, small business owners and inexperienced webmasters may feel as though they must possess the skills of an enigma codebreaker. But do not worry! I’m here to guide you through the confusing world of SEO audits and make sense of the technical SEO language.
Determining how well your website is optimised for search engines is the essence of an SEO audit. Think of it like a MOT for your car: it checks a variety of components to make sure everything is in working order and maximises the likelihood that Google and its friends will find your website.
Technical SEO: This refers to the specific backend aspects of SEO, such as website security, mobile friendliness, and speed (HTTPS is your friend in this situation).
On-page SEO: Content reigns supreme here. To make sure the material is as appetising as a Sunday roast for the Google crawlers, we’re talking about keywords, meta tags, and appropriate header usage.
Off-page SEO: Although they are less visible, off-page elements like social media signals and backlinks can offer your website the credibility it needs to be among the cool kids in search engine rankings.
By doing this assessment, you can get a detailed breakdown of what you’re doing well and what needs some extra work. The final objective? To improve the SEO score of your website and move up the search results page.
Your website’s credit rating for search engines is comparable to your SEO score. It’s a ranking that indicates how optimised your website is out of 100. The better your site is optimised and the more probable it is that you will appear on Google’s first page—the promised land—the higher your score.
It’s important to keep in mind that this score is merely a general indication offered by SEO tools to help you with your optimisation efforts; it is not an official Google grade. Better visibility and a respectable score go hand in hand, so what is our recommendation? Consider your score and adjust as necessary!
Are you prepared for a basic introduction to SEO success? Let’s get started. The SEO audit is the first thing to do. You may find a lot of tools to help you with this, ranging from more in-depth solutions that can get to the specifics of your website’s SEO health to freemium options like Google’s own Search Console.
After receiving your audit, it’s time to put those suggestions into practice. Make sure your website loads quickly, fix any broken links, and make sure it looks great on mobile devices. Not sure where to begin? BrisTechTonic can help in situations when a little expert elbow grease might be exactly what’s needed.
Now, armed with an SEO audit, let’s discuss essential tips for improving your SEO score. Focus on the following:
Keywords: Use appropriate terms to draw in the right kind of traffic. Not a word that would baffle your grandmother!
High-quality content: Provide content that responds to the inquiries of your users. Visitors are encouraged to stay longer on websites with helpful and engaging content, which lowers the dreaded bounce rate.
Meta descriptions: These brief summaries have the power to entice visitors to visit your website. Consider them the chat-up lines for your website; make them succinct and pertinent.
Backlinks: The foundation of off-page SEO are backlinks. Search engines will view your website as more reliable and trustworthy the more respectable websites that link to it.
Each of these elements forms part of a holistic strategy to start climbing search engine rankings today. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint – SEO benefits build up over time.
I hope that this has been a lovely, relaxing kayak in the shallow end of SEO for those of you who are just starting started. But I can guide you through the depths of this ocean that exists out there. Let’s schedule a discovery call to discuss how SEO may help you realise the full potential of your website. Together, we’ll make sure your website is running smoothly and prepared to win the race for visibility. With BrisTechTonic by your side at every turn, the road to SEO mastery begins here. Thus, why do you delay?
So, you’ve downloaded a white paper or e-book expecting a really useful guide on a topic you’re interested in. The first couple of paragraphs look promising, and then the company’s sales pitch is shamelessly dropped. Instead of something educational, you may as well be reading a sales brochure!
Why do so many B2B marketers still confuse product marketing with content marketing?
Content Marketing – what it isn’t…
The most common reason for getting it wrong is our default desire to sell, sell, sell!
Traditional sales messages are all about us…
What do we want to say about us?
What products/services do we offer?
How long have we been doing it?
What are our USPs?
What’s wrong with this approach?
We’ve already done it on our websites, brochures and other marketing materials.
It’s not sustainable – once we’ve done it once,, what comes next?
There’s no engagement or two-way interaction with the audience.
Content Marketing – what it is…
“Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute
Content marketing promotes content that has genuine value to your audience, without pushing your product or service. It is content that benefits them on a day-to-day basis while reflecting positively on your company as the expert who shared their wisdom.
“Advertising interrupts what people are trying to read, watch or share. Content marketing attempts to be what people read, watch and share.”
Being a source of quality, relevant, engaging content on a regular basis helps build long-term relationships, rather than just bombarding people with sales messages. This makes them more receptive to our marketing messages when the time is right,, or may even result in them looking for us.
So aim to produce content that will educate, entertain, inform and influence.
Applying the principles of storytelling (forgive the shocking use of marketing jargon) can actually help. What do I mean?
Storytelling is the oldest form of imparting knowledge and much of how we look at what we like to call facts is influenced by stories and how we interpret them.
Stories make important messages easier to communicate…
So what’s the formula?
The structure of your content could look something like this:
1) Set the scene; who is this article for and how will they benefit from reading it?
2) Talk about the challenges and pain points that are keeping them awake at night. This starts to establish credibility, and also shows empathy, which is a likeable quality.
3) Give away something practical that your reader can take away and apply for themselves. Sharing your knowledge freely builds your credibility, trust and like-ability.
4) Add your own unique insight, something based on your own experience. This may demonstrate your product or service in a real-life scenario but shouldn’t be too pushy.
Product Marketing
The content required to support this function includes everything from core sales messaging and the product descriptions on your website, to your sales decks, product data sheets and customer case studies.
This is the right place for all the ‘me, me, me’ messages we mentioned earlier. It’s where we can dive into the features and benefits of our products, and explain what sets them apart from our competitors.