You know the drill. Go big at Christmas on the festive food and fizz, regret it all for a day or two, and then return to work bursting with ideas and inspiration (if not mince pies and perspiration), ready to tackle the year ahead.
Well we thought we’d help you get ahead of the game this year, and really hit the ground running, with some marketing and design tips, trends and technology to look out for in 2021.
With Google’s BERT algorithm putting more emphasis on interesting and varied content, rather than just key words, and people naturally spending more time browsing due to COVID, and they’re converting more when browsing, we all need to produce more regular, more varied and more relevant content, that can deliver value and keep traffic high, and conversions growing.
While people are going to have to focus on their content, I think considering how people actually interact with that content has never been more important. Take the humble PDF, for example. With so many more engaging alternative formats, why opt for something static that doesn’t look great on a phone or tablet, and doesn’t make for easy updating? We’ve been having great results with platforms such as WebFlow, that can deliver so much more.
Over the years, I’ve lost count of the times my mum has said to me: “OMG… we used to wear that when we were young.” And I’m certainly noticing the same trend in digital design. A lot of old techniques are being adjusted and modernised for today’s market. It’s all down to technology, such as browsers, moving on at light speed, so we can adopt ‘old’ digital approaches far more successfully and effectively.
No-one can deny the influence of the environment and sustainability issues. Especially in the technology we’re using. Dark mode for browsers and devices was introduced at the end of last year, to save battery life and counteract the negative effects of bright white light. We should also be looking out for things like default low-def playback settings for online video, which can have a hugely positive impact on our collective carbon footprint.
One trend on the rise is a revival of 1990s culture, strongly reflected already in fashion, beauty and music. As this proliferates further, so does the opportunity for 90s nostalgia marketing. Pop culture references can take customers back in time and tap into emotional memories, and provide opportunities for humour, that will build associations and connections with brands.
From Google phasing out third-party cookies to Apple removing device identifiers for tracking and blocking cross-site tracking, there’s going to be a lot of change in how advertisers can get their ads in front of the right people. The optimist in me wants to believe that this will lead to fewer but better advertising but it seems more realistic that Facebook and co. will find new ways to track or amass more power by introducing similar solutions (e.g. Google’s Privacy Sandbox) – albeit with better privacy, which is a big win.
HDR content is going mainstream. The scales are starting to tip when it comes to consumers having access to the necessary hardware. Essentially, all new TVs and most smartphones these days can display HDR content and, increasingly, record it. Gaming consoles have supported it for years and YouTube has just added HDR support for livestreams. So consumers will increasingly expect the improved visuals. I think for high-profile advertising, brands will at some point have to up their game and produce in, and budget for, HDR.
If part one of our tips and trends for 2021 has got you thinking, look out for part two in early January. In the meantime, if you’ve got the beginnings of a marketing plan, and want a bit of help in making it come to life, get in touch. We’ll be more than happy to put our heads together with yours and see where 2021 can take us.
Welcome to the third and final blog in our series on Augmented Reality (AR).
In case you missed it, our first segment introduced AR technology and its impact on markets across the globe, while our second blog explored AR’s potential when it comes to marketing, today. Today’s final instalment delves deeper into the practical use-cases for AR today, along with some of the loftier examples of where its tech could take us.
If you had one, you were of course, lucky enough to be able to afford an extortionately expensive high-end smartphone. You were also probably unlucky enough to be pestered by people who wanted to ‘have a go’ for themselves.
Arthur C. Clarke said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ And touchscreens certainly had enough magic to magnetise the masses. Now, AR is taking a similar step from the realm of the mystic, into reality. And the timing couldn’t be better.
From the everyday, to the extraordinary: there are opportunities for the world’s biggest brands, most digital-savvy marketers and forward-thinking businesses.
In the age of the smartphone, you could be forgiven for thinking business cards have largely become redundant. But if the line ‘Are you on LinkedIn?’ doesn’t set you on fire, an AR business card could be a stronger opener when encountering potential business contacts in the wild.
Upon scanning your business card, the recipient could be greeted by a showreel video of your products, a short introduction to your business, a tour of your office locations or even live and up-to-date special offers – in fact, there’s limitless potential.
And best of all, creating an AR business card could be a lot simpler than you think. Prototypes already exist which simply work by the recipient scanning a QR code on the card with the camera on their smartphone – no special apps or software necessary!
It goes without saying: this tech doesn’t need to be contained to your business card. Product catalogues, service leaflets and even your quarterly reports can all be brought to life with some clever AR, making your brand not only more appealing – but more engaging, too.
For those of us who treat clothes shopping like a competitive sport, aiming for a new P.B. each time we hit the rails, life could become simpler with the introduction of augmented reality.
One option, which many of us will already be aware of, is ‘virtual try on’ – both online, with the assistance of your laptop or smartphone camera, and in-store through specially-AR-activated mirrors.
L’Oreal was one of the first businesses to introduce AR ‘smart’ mirrors at beauty counters, offering consumers the option to try on cosmetics with ease – and my guess is this will only become more prevalent after the hands-OFF-your-face impact of the pandemic.
Virtual try-ons aren’t just for people, either.
If you’ve visited the Ikea website recently (who hasn’t during lockdown?) you can now ‘try on’ furniture, wallpaper, tiles and more to visualise products in your home. And the same principles can be applied to commercial premises, too.
So if you’re selling high-end office furnishings, commercial signage, or even an air conditioning unit, you can easily make your products more impactful by introducing them directly into your customers’ lives – even if it’s virtually.
This doesn’t need to be just about chasing Pokemon. You can create a treasure hunt for adults which introduces a new level of interactivity between your brand and your customers anywhere you have a physical presence.
For example, if you’re attending an expo, you can place AR locators around your exhibition stand to deliver information about your individual products and services. You’ll stand out from the other exhibitors at the event, and be able to engage your visitors more effectively, keeping them attentive for longer so your employees can follow up the conversation too. And, again, it’s a great conversation starter.
If your business has a retail presence, you can replicate this experience in your showrooms – or even choose to implement an AR window display which could be used to great effect on social media, too.
So imagine this. You hear the clunk of your letterbox and head to collect the post. There’s a small, shallow cardboard box with a bold message printed on top.
GRAB YOUR PHONE AND GET READY.
You open the box, and a leaflet drops out: SCAN ME. Opening your phone’s camera app, and capturing the QR code, you’re taken straight to a video, introducing a teaser on an Amazing New Productᵗᵐ.
Upon further inspection, the leaflet introduces you to the brand behind the ANPᵗᵐ – you even watch a video about the team and see they’re local. In fact, their interactive office location map shows they’re just a mile away, where you can pop into their showroom for even more information.
It might sound otherworldly. But at Proctors, we’re making virtual, reality today. We can help you to create an irresistible campaign, whether it’s wowing shareholders with your next quarterly report or enticing new customers with clever interactive artwork in a viral social campaign.
Talk to us, and let’s discuss your possibilities at [email protected].
Extensive economic changes provoked by COVID have resulted in the biggest challenge for a decade as more UK Agencies seek a business valuation and assistance on rebuilding value. As a result, we are offering each agency the opportunity to receive a free valuation of their business helping them to prioritise tasks to rebuild value, or raise finance and investment, or buy-out shareholders or sell their business.
No one can anticipate how long the economic conditions will remain or change further as we enter a second lockdown, so we intend to email valuation updates to each registered Agency who complete our algorithm. The effects of economic and Covid crisis are not limited to short-term view, the longer-term impact also requires agency owners to consider significant interventions to protect cash-flows and rebuild value.
So whether you’re seeking or raising finance, thinking of selling your agency or reviewing the strategic direction of your creative agency, for a limited period we are offering a free confidential valuation.
To new agencies, the process involves 3 simple steps.
First step:
To help us calculate the Agency’s value, answer a few questions for our algorithm to work through the risks and value drivers.
Second step:
Tell us a little bit about your Agency, including your email address, so we can send you a confidential agency valuation report.
Third step:
Based on the information provided, we will email valuation updates when ‘significant circumstances’ change the algorithm value multiplier.
As more agencies complete our valuation algorithm, we are able to refine and improve the accuracy of valuing UK creative businesses, which we intend to use for the benefit of our customers. If you have any questions please call me or email [email protected], or take advantage of our free www.ouragencyvalue.com/report/
Following 3 years of meteoric growth, going from kitchen start-up to over £2.5 Million in expected retail sales, ‘Optimal health’ pioneers Hunter & Gather appointed Noughts & Ones to bring their new brand identity, packaging design and innovative unsweetened sauce products to life by delivering a new Shopify store.
Noughts & Ones delivered bespoke Shopify theme designs that incorporated a number of tailored technical integrations including ReCharge Pro subscription functionality, Gorgias customer support and LoyaltyLion rewards.
“This newly evolved design enables us to grow as a brand by being really stand out, bold, and clearly communicating our aim of “Providing You The Tools to Thrive” through products that are always free from refined sugars, grains, and Inflammatory oils!” – Amy Moring, Co-founder
The first 14 days have seen an immediate impact with:
👍52% increase in online store sales
👍5.87% average Conversion Rate (3.34% above industry average)
👍3.2% increase in AOV (Average Order Value)
In addition to the new Shopify store, Noughts & Ones are delivering data-driven development as part of an ongoing strategic partnership to ensure that Hunter & Gather continue to grow their D2C offering and provide their customers with the tools to thrive.
Discover more from Noughts & Ones here 👉 noughtsandones.com
Marketing automation software does what it says on the tin: it’s technology which relieves some of the pressures of marketing your business, product or service, by automating your marketing processes.
No longer just the secret weapon of larger enterprises, marketing automation makes campaigns for businesses of any size easier to manage. From email to social, websites to text messaging, automation technology works across multiple channels – and across different touchpoints in the customer journey too.
But with hundreds of tools available, where do you start?
Luckily, we have tonnes of experience with automation software at P+S. In this blog, we’ll break down why it’s worth investing in automation, how it all works, and give you five top tips to make sure it’s a success.
So, if you’re searching for a way to deliver more qualified sales leads with less supervision, nurture customers more effectivelywhile conserving your resources, and reduce your marketing spend while increasing sales opportunities, read on.
In short, automation software can do almost anything. One of the biggest benefits is that it saves you time and resources – no more having to hit ‘send’ on every action you take. Plus, automation tools give you one place to manage multiple marketing streams, collect customer data and customise your campaigns.
Some of the tasks automation software can assist with include:
With the right automation software, you can liberate your team’s time and creativity. So members are free to work on bolder ideas for attracting customers, free to aim for more ambitious targets, and free to expand your business into new growth markets.
But your team still needs to deploy, optimise and develop your marketing software strategy: team members will still need to do the thinking, while the ‘heavy lifting’ is carried out by the technology.
There are thousands of different MarTech providers out there, offering hundreds of marketing automation solutions. Choosing the right one can be a bit of a minefield.
The best place to start is by identifying your business’s most critical needs. Are you taking too long to react to customers’ buying signals? Or maybe you regularly find yourself chasing the wrong leads? Make a list of your most urgent issues – there will undoubtedly be a tool designed to solve them. Once you’ve covered the business critical, you can then increase this list to include ‘nice-to-haves’ to help you further narrow down your options.
It’s important to create tangible goals, too. Not only will these help you measure your progress after deploying your technology, they will also help you to ascertain whether the investment is worthwhile for your business – and to justify that choice to your stakeholders, too. Using SMART objectives is a strong starting point for developing goals that make the most sense for your business.
Whichever provider you decide is best for you, there are a few ways to optimise the approach further.
Whatever software solution you settle on, choose to focus on simpler automation processes first, using simple data sets. This could be pre-scheduling some of your social posts, or regular marketing emails. Once you’re sure you know exactly how well this works, and that you’re benefiting from doing so, you can begin automating more complex processes with more tailored audience segments too: personalised automated upselling for customers who’ve shown interest in certain products, for example.
Any campaign you’re managing with automation software should complement your existing marketing. This isn’t the opportunity to overhaul your tone of voice and begin bombarding people with daily newsletters. You’ll still want to focus on enriching your customers’ lives with relevant news, information and products.
Employing new software is easier when your team is receptive to the change. Who will drive its success within your business?
Identifying someone to be the internal champion of your automation software is a powerful move. Usually, this person is in a senior position, acting as an authority on the tech as well as a successful user of it. This person’s guidance and experience will also help you make decisions about training and support requirements, and put plans in place for the adoption and rollout process.
The goal here isn’t to just market as much as you can – it’s to increase the value of your brand to your customers, using automation to build a long-term relationship with them. Automation enables you to interact with them in a more meaningful and relevant way, to build brand loyalty at every point in their journey.
And, of course, this wouldn’t be a P+S blog without us mentioning measurable goals. As previously stated, setting clear, ambitious but achievable KPIs from the very beginning will allow you to measure your success. Lead scoring and nurturing data should form a part of these KPIs, and will help you to establish a business case for continued investment.
Even the strongest marketing team can benefit from automation technology. Half of the challenge of marketing today is collecting, organising and applying insights from a flood of customer data – which is easier said than done.
From website visits, to open rates, clicks, social engagement, events and forms – the amount of customer information available is truly staggering. But by analysing it all, you can identify key behaviours which can then become a trigger for marketing automation processes. It means you can immediately respond to those triggers, and exponentially improve the efficiency and value of your marketing.
At P+S we work with our clients to ensure their marketing automation software gives every customer a better, more personalised experience. We’ll save your marketing teams countless hours on repetitive tasks, and ensure your business never misses an opportunity to connect with customers across every touchpoint – no matter where they are in their user journey.
Plus, not only do we help you make more of your customer data, we also measure the results – and continually optimise them, to become even greater.
For most companies, producing reports is a necessary evil.
It can be a dull, daunting and time-consuming task, with hours spent gathering data and creating graphs, formatting, fact-checking, and last-minute late-night copy editing. Additionally, if you’re printing a physical copy of a report, you face the additional stresses getting your report production and distribution-ready – not to mention the added costs involved.
Once your report is published and posted, it’s a case of hoping your recipients have the time to spare, the attention to give and enough interest to read it.
But publishing your reports isn’t a lost cause.
Businesses are increasingly using their reports as tools for lead generation, awareness building and trust amplification. Any report can be digitised: from market briefings, to sustainability and annual reports. But creating a report which stands out requires more than just designing a PDF.
Whether you create a microsite, or a new webpage which hosts your findings, as long as you have a clear strategy and vision you can turn every business report into a marketing tool that promotes your company and engages your audience all year long.
One of the best things about digitising a report is that you can study engagement more closely than with a print document. With a digital report, you can provide a much better user experience than via a printed report or a pdf, allowing for interactivity and responsiveness whilst providing greater clarity and impact.
There are a wide variety of different methods you can use to amplify your report’s underlying data and craft an improved story for your reader. Using interactive graphs or animations, you can provide a wealth of context to each chart, helping your audience to better follow and understand the core messages you want to share.
The global trend of mobile and tablet usage is continuing to rise, and a fully responsive report allows you to make the most of this opportunity. Not only will you reach new audiences across different devices, you’ll also improve the experience of your existing online audience too.
Tracking engagement and interaction is easier, too. The importance of mobile-optimised reporting is only going to continue its trajectory of growth, as ‘digital natives’ age and progress into more high-profile roles and senior appointments worldwide.
Crucially, it’s easy to make amends and additions to your existing online report, without having to reprint or republish. From small things such as copy amendments and imagery updates, to adding live, up-to-date information from an API, changes can be performed quickly and without needing to recall any existing reports. You’ll save time and money, whilst maintaining an audit trail to cover any legal requirements.
You can think of a digital report a little like a book: each chapter – or section – tells a different part of the ‘story’, while its overall title and theme remains the same. This is one of the key elements which make a digital report so valuable.
Think about a business’ sustainability report, for example. The overall theme is sustainability, and the report may be split into sections such as the corporate mission, sustainability goals, emissions reduction statistics, recycling statistics, employee engagement and waste, etc. Breaking a report down into these elements allows you to do two things: target additional, more specific audiences, and maximise your report’s longevity, relevance and impact.
By posting regular organic posts on social media and supporting them with paid (targeted) advertising, your report will reach new audiences who may have specific interests in themes contained within your report. You also boost your opportunity for increased press coverage and ongoing discussion on platforms such as LinkedIn, keeping your report – and your brand – front of mind for your readers and investors.
Digital reporting also offers increased accessibility. Multi-lingual functionality, left-to-right and right-to-left language support and text formatting optionality can all enhance your report’s accessibility – and therefore its reach to a wider audience, for global and regional coverage and relevance.
Localisation can even take this one step further, changing your report’s layout and content based on user behaviour, or third party data like their industry. This is another way to highlight different aspects of your report to drive even more engagement and boost your value to your reader.
When a search engine provider assesses your site, they use more than twenty different ranking factors. Their goal is to match people searching online with the content that’s most useful and relevant to them.
High engagement, other websites or ‘authors’ linking to your content, and online conversations about your content and your content’s quality are all among the ranking factors search engines use to determine your value. This is how more people will discover your content.
The more value you have, the more a search engine will increase your visibility to its users. Your ranking will improve across key search terms, in turn driving more traffic to your website and report.
Another key aspect of search engine ranking is your website’s authority. With an increased level of user engagement and a better user experience on your website, you send clear signals to search engines to increase the authority attributed to your page and website. You can also boost your authority by presenting search engines with a large volume of relevant, high-value content.
Increasing both page and domain authority is an excellent way to cement the trust people place in your website – and your business. Not only this, it can also improve your chances of ranking for a wider range of keywords associated with your site.
Creating a digital report will also allow external parties, such as press or investors, to link directly to your website, going even further to boost the authority of your page and domain in the eyes of a search engine.
Who are your readers? What do you know about them? Collating as much information about your audience – and desired audience – as you can will help you build a comprehensive report which meets their needs and captures their attention.
You may have different audience groups who will have different relationships to your content. Think about the sustainability report mentioned above: will one audience be focused on a specific section? Do they want more information on your figures or projections? Do they need to follow a certain format?
Unlike a pdf or printed report, tracking can be set up to monitor how people are actually interacting with your reports online, rather than just assuming their continued interest.
By identifying patterns and user behaviours, you’ll be able to understand the user journey through your report. In the long run, this insight will save you time and money, by allowing you to focus on optimising the sections and features that are the most important for engagement.
You can also use tracking to create audiences for your digital marketing. This might be useful should you wish to further publicise a particularly good result, product launch or outcome to people who have already shown an interest in your content.
At Proctor and Stevenson, we know a thing or two about crafting reports, and have been producing extensive, high-quality documents for over 40 years. From digital reports to microsites, we’ve designed bespoke content solutions for a range of clients, along with robust awareness-building campaigns to drive their audience numbers skywards.
When you digitise your report strategically, you have a marketing tool which promotes your company all year long – and with increased engagement and coverage, shorter production time and ultimately a stronger impact than ever.
When it comes to digital, our in-house team can take care of everything: from back-end development, to front-end and digital design, SEO, AdWords, automation, information architecture and content optimisation. And they’re led by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet – and exceed – your expectations.
Get in touch, by emailing [email protected] today, and let’s discuss how to transform your business report into a brand beacon.
With COVID-19 meaning social distancing is the new norm, we’re seeing profound effects on our lives. Face-to-face meetings, gatherings and events aren’t possible, making this a difficult time for the general population and most industries. For many businesses, budgets are under increasing pressure as revenue streams are cut and operational and marketing methods undergo huge upheaval.
As a society, we’re worried about our health, our families’ health, our wellbeing and our job security. Now is not the time for brands to choose a hard-sell approach, or to appear to be ‘cashing in’ on – or even preying on – social insecurity, as audiences become less receptive and more critical of insincere marketing.
So how can businesses maintain those physical interactions that are so vital to customer engagement, and promote their services in as effective and relevant a way as possible?
One option for connecting with your customers is through hosting a digital event.
Digital events have become more prominent in the last few years, and offer a range of benefits:
Two of the primary forms of digital events are webcasts and webinars. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in fact, they both feature a distinctly different approach to hosting an online event.
If you want to engage with a larger audience, featuring tens or even hundreds of participants, a webcast is an ideal way to broadcast your message.
Webcasts are typically a one-way flow of information shared over the internet, delivered like a lecture or speech. In cases where there are a large number of participants, a webcast gives you the opportunity to deliver a valuable presentation with minimum disruption.
If you’re looking for a higher level of engagement with your audience, a webinar might be a better option. A webinar more closely resembles a meeting, often with fewer participants who are more involved in the content. In this two-way, interactive option, your audience can ask questions, and there’s more opportunity for you to drive direct interaction.
For the very highest level of engagement where creativity and collaboration is needed most, virtual workshops create an effective environment within the digital sphere. In ‘real-life’ face-to-face creative workshops, structure is often more fluid, but this can be difficult to achieve in an online environment. To successfully deliver a virtual workshop, you should have a clearly-defined process for organising and managing participation, and use easy-to-implement, highly intuitive technology, to smooth the delivery process.
If you’re looking to fully replicate an existing conference or event, then a virtual tradeshow could be well suited for you. Virtual tradeshows can be hosted indefinitely, taking place online with on-demand information. By using live chat options and providing customer support, your visitors can experience the same feeling of instant, responsive communication as they would in a face-to-face expo.
In a virtual tradeshow, you can host digital exhibition halls, booths and auditoriums, helping you to replicate the immersive experience of a real-life event. However, it’s worth noting that this type of event the longest lead time, and can be costly to set up.
In this blog, we look at the different types of digital events, how you can build your audience for your events, and provide some top tips for success.
Different events will attract different audience sizes and levels of engagement. Its success will often rely on the quality and number of participants in the audience you manage to attract.
Traditionally, digital events are split into two audience segments; your existing database contacts, and audiences built through new lead generation.
Unless you have a well-managed and maintained database of contacts, GDPR and other data legislation, such as CCPA, can restrict the opportunity for direct email invitations to your event. So you’ll need to check this, and consider alternative lead-generation tactics if this is the case.
Social media is a great tool for driving lead generation when used creatively, and can be supplemented through media partnerships or other paid media channels – for example, search engine advertising.
One of the greatest benefits of a webinar or a webcast is that either one can be held live or made available on-demand, depending on the platform you choose to host your event. By making an event recording available after it’s taken place, you can make connections with customers and prospects who can’t necessarily attend in real-time, or who may be researching the subject after the event has already taken place.
In fact, with any online session you’ll want to consider post-webinar activity – just as you would with a live event. Your digital session is just the beginning of potential engagement, and with strategic follow-up activity you can continue to nurture leads and maintain interest. Repackaged content following a webinar can be an ideal way to sustain the conversation with customers, as can additional ‘exclusive’ materials.
With a combination of session playback and additional content, your sessions gain additional longevity – and that means maximum impact for your brand.
At P+S, we’ve been hosting digital events for years, both for our own brand, and for our clients too. Our top tips for success include:
When it comes to digital events, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and execution of lead generation campaigns, to designing and copywriting your presentations and content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet – and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of digital event would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing [email protected].
The creation and publication of high-quality content is an essential aspect of any digital marketing strategy. If crafted and broadcasted effectively, digital content can help you achieve a wide range of goals for your business, including increasing your website traffic, reaching new prospects, bettering your brand’s reputation, and improving your online presence.
However, creating new, fresh and strong digital content on a regular basis can be both time-consuming and expensive – luxuries which many of us can’t afford right now.
In this blog, we outline how to simplify things, extend your subject matter’s lifecycle and make the most out of your available resources, through content planning, repurposing and promotion.
One way to simplify the process of content creation is to repurpose what you’ve previously published. This recycling of pre-existing content saves you the time and expense of coming up with new ideas and developing original content from scratch, by breathing new life into what you’ve already developed.
The first step is to catalogue all of your existing content and highlight the most relevant to share as quickly as possible. The types of content you could catalogue include blog articles, reports, case studies, thought-leadership pieces, white papers, magazines, videos and podcasts.
Your online audience grows and changes over time – be it blog readers, social media followers or email/newsletter subscribers. Some of them will not have been aware of content you published 18 months ago, so repurposing this increases its exposure to new audiences.
Additionally, a topic that struck the right chord with your audience once is more likely to gain traction than a completely new one, so outlining your best-performing content pieces is vital. High-performing content has a much higher ROI potential than that which didn’t perform well the first time around, as well as being likely to include nuggets of useful information, which you can use as a basis and expand on, when repurposing.
Additionally, republishing existing content on specific topics establishes your expertise in these areas, and your audience will start perceiving you as an authority figure in your industry. This, in turn, strengthens your brand’s reputation and credibility, and can even improve your search engine ranking.
Search engines have a preference for websites that deliver valuable and meaningful content to their users. Repurposing content allows you to target the same keywords over and over again without the risk of duplication, and – if the content is of a high perceived quality – search engines will recognise your expertise in these areas, and reward it by ranking you more highly, increasing your brand’s exposure and reputation.
Once you have catalogued your content, it’s time to consider how exactly you’re going to share it, and who you want it to resonate with.
In the planning stage, specific audience segments should be identified and targeted, based on your existing followers, prospects, customers and business objectives. Content is often used as a tool for traditional lead generation, particularly in B2B marketing; through the use of collateral such as white papers, reports and webinars; so, ensuring your content strategy aligns with your new business objectives is essential.
Then, to amplify the reach and exposure of your content, the best channels and times to reach your selected target audiences should be considered and combined into a post schedule. You should also consider whether the content could be adapted into new and different mediums than it was previously. For example, a webinar could be turned into a series of explainer videos for distribution on social.
And always remember to check the content in the context of today’s unique environment. If it contains an overtly selling message, it either needs to be repackaged or discarded. It is important to strike the right tone with your messaging, which should remain sensitive and thoughtful.
Promoting through paid advertising allows you to amplify your content to reach more people, and, if done effectively, can grow your brand’s online following and drive sustained levels of relevant and engaged traffic through to your website.
Typically, social media is the best channel to use for the promotion of content, with the specific channel mixture depending on your budget, your target audience and the type of content that’s being promoted. LinkedIn and Facebook advertising can be particularly effective, and you can see some example creatives from a social media advertising campaign we ran for Epson recently here.
Advertising using retargeting can also be used to show content to previous website visitors, to encourage them to return to your site and keep your brand at the front of your customer’s mind.
With any digital content strategy, it’s crucial to measure the effectiveness of the content to allow you to see what material and placement are performing best, so you can refine and optimise your activities, to receive the highest possible levels of engagement.
For performance analysis on social media, key metrics to track include reach, impressions, click-through-rate (CTR), number of followers, likes, shares, comments and engagement rates. Most social media platforms offer some kind of analytics which you can access through your profile. There are, however, a variety of tools which offer more in-depth analysis of your performance, including Hootsuite, Fanpage Karma, Keyhole and AgoraPulse.
To gain valuable insights into your content performance on your website, Google Analytics is a fantastic tool to identify the most popular pages on your website, and provide detailed information on metrics such as page views, sessions, time-on-site, bounce rates, and landing and exit pages.
Once you have identified what content is receiving the highest levels of engagement, the most successful posts can then be boosted through targeted advertising to reach new relevant users in your target audiences.
When it comes to digital content, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and executing lead generation campaigns, to designing, copywriting and animating your content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet– and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of content strategy would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing [email protected].
After 20 years specialising in B2B marketing, I’m about to make an uncomfortable admission. Possibly one that will put a few noses out of joint among my colleagues.
While it might not be up there with the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire in terms of significance to the human race, this one breakthrough principle might help your branding – and so your business – become more effective than ever.
The essential problem is this. As soon as we put that B2B marketing hat on, all thought of people, of individuals, and the Pandora’s box of emotions that motivate them, goes right out of the (office rather than home) window. Instead, we become subsumed by the pursuit of sentiment-free business banality, and worship at the altar of corporate largesse.
And that’s wrong. For a brand to succeed – to be memorable, to resonate, to be the preferred choice – it needs to have humanity at its heart. Less business-to-business, and more human-to-human.
Before this theory is dismissed as an unmeasurable, intangible nice-to-have, there is some science to back it up. In 2019, Deloitte Digital conducted a report, The Human Experience: Quantifying the Value of Human Values. In it, the report writers concluded that the human condition is ‘universal and unchanging’, meaning it could be understood and measured.
Taking three core indices – customer values, workforce values and partner values –Deloitte was able to identify the ‘human centricity’ of an organisation, and predict those that were likely to grow faster and build stronger brand loyalty. Applying this measure to a testbed of brands in the fast-food sector, it found that those which focused on the human experience were twice as likely to outperform their peers in revenue growth over three years, and have 17 times faster store growth than those who don’t. Quite a prize then.
In carrying out the research, Deloitte also highlighted five ‘core human tenets’ that elevate the ‘human experience’ of a brand.
· Be obsessed by all things human
· Proactively deliver on human needs
· Execute with humanity
· Be authentic
· Change the world
But what does this mean for you when you’re developing and delivering your brand to the world? For us, it means considering the fundamental building blocks…
Great brands are built on great stories. And great stories are always about emotion. Things that capture our attention, stir our souls, fascinate or move us, leave us wanting to know (or feel) more. This is where your brand should begin, even if you’re operating in the most heavy-duty B2B markets.
Three or four years ago, I heard something said in a presentation that’s stuck with me ever since – ‘authenticity beats perfection’. And authenticity comes from us being human. When we’re authentic, we’re true to ourselves and the reality that lies behind our brands. Customers and prospects are able to trust us, to engage with us fully and to become familiar with what we stand for. They believe in us.
Technology drives today’s marketing. But technology should always be a means to create richer, deeper human-to-human connections through more intuitive and immersive digital experiences. Whether it’s AR, VR, AI, automation, or anything else, the way people experience your brand through technology must always bring them closer to you. And the same goes for the physical world. In creating a truly H2H brand, experience is everything.
The way your brand looks, feels, sounds and talks all have a part to play in its humanity. Have a personality. Avoid business jargon. Communicate like a person. Don’t use staid, cliched corporate imagery and stale, high-fiving commercial footage. Look for those unique, human moments in time that tell stories and create positive emotional associations. Be different. Be unique. Be you.
Getting to the heart of your brand’s humanity isn’t always an easy thing to do. We’re all so engrained in the traditional patterns of B2B thinking and speaking that it’s often lost amidst the front-of-mind commercial arguments we’re inevitably drawn to. But make no mistake – it’s essential if you’re going to invest in a brand that’s both measurable and memorable. And one that moves human hearts and B2B minds.
Want to know more about some of the brands we’ve helped build for our B2B clients? Take a look here.
Ifyou have an upcoming project you’d like to discuss with us, or learn more about the principles of H2H branding, please get in touch today by emailing [email protected].
Typically, we print brochures which contain product and service information about our businesses. We might hand them out at events, take them to meetings or even send them in the post to customers and clients in order to spread brand awareness, stir up new interest, and offer discounts and alluring offers.
But most printed brochures become out of date after a certain period of time, rendering them obsolete – and they’re not the most environmentally friendly solution. Add to this the world’s changing consumption habits as the scales tip towards increasingly digital experiences, and a printed brochure is no longer the most efficient solution for getting the word out about your brand.
Instead, there’s a growing demand for digital brochures.
Digitalising your brochures is a natural evolution that will help you keep up with changing consumption habits, as the world becomes more reliant on technology and virtual experiences.
Take a look for yourself at how to meet consumer expectations at the touch of a button, and read on to explore the benefits which have clients approaching us to create their digital brochures, today.
Information in a brochure can become quickly outdated – particularly if you’re part of a brand that prides itself on meeting the highest standards of quality, adapting to changing markets or staying one step ahead of regulations. If new industry standards come into play, or the government launches a new initiative that’s in line with your values, print brochures lack the agility you need to spread the word.
One of the main benefits of producing a brochure digitally rather than in print is the ability to be able to edit, amend and add to your content long after it’s been released.
Whether you’re launching a new product, reacting to market changes, new consumer habits or real-world events, you can edit your content in real-time, ensuring you’re always disseminating the latest and most accurate information.
And if your content is always up to date, it’s always relevant to your customers’ lives.
There’s no longer a need to think of a brochure as a standalone or one-off piece of content.
Instead, it becomes a dynamic document that can be built up over time and be integrated with your other digital offerings.
When it comes to your marketing, a digital brochure opens up opportunities by providing data that you just can’t get from paper.
You can gather information on who is looking at your digital documents, where they come in and drop off, and even calculate which pages are most popular. Not only this, you can track where the traffic visiting your brochure is coming from – whether it’s directly from your website, from an email campaign you’ve sent, or an internet search engine – giving you invaluable information about your audience.
This data can be used to optimise your marketing efforts. If you can see that people drop off from your brochure at a certain page, it may be worth redesigning it or rearranging your content. If most people visit via your email campaigns, but you’re only sending them once a month, you can make an informed decision to send them more frequently.
Perhaps most beneficial of all, your brochure can also become a powerful marketing and lead-generation tool in itself.
By placing calls to action (CTAs) throughout, you can direct your readers to take action: whether it’s clicking through to more information on your website, to campaign landing pages or driving them to contact you.
Take a look at the ‘last word’ in our digital brochure, for an example.
It’s even possible to embed forms within your document, so you can collect customer data while encouraging them to sign up to future brand engagement opportunities, such as webinars, newsletters and brochures.
Take advantage of the power of social media and reach an even wider audience with a digital brochure.
With some clever promotion, you can encourage people inside and outside of your business to share your document. Sharing it via a URL link –rather than in a download – can be especially useful in an age where people are sceptical of downloading unknown content.
You can even embed share buttons in your brochure, so then people who read it and find its content useful are able to share it to their own followers, growing your potential audience much wider than you could achieve with a printed version.
Accessibility is a key concern and is become much more standardised across web-based content. Digital brochures have the benefit of offering ‘zoom’ features, and even translation options where needed. And when it comes to accessibility, instead of making several print brochures in different formats, you can adjust contrast ratios, font sizes and offer speech-reader friendly content too.
Engagement is much more versatile with digital brochures, too. In fact, you can grab your readers’ attention in a number of ways.
Embedding video in your document can help bring information to life, and add personality which makes your content even more memorable. You can add animated infographics, transitions and interactive elements to maintain curiosity throughout the user journey, and maximise the impact of every page.
Plus, you can even design brochures which are entirely responsive, with an optimised appearance for every device it’s displayed on.
Have you ever received a physical letter, business card or leaflet with multiple URLs or complicated email addresses written on them? With a digital experience, there’s much less room for user error – and a much larger chance of people visiting the content you’re asking them to.
In fact, using live URL links makes brochures easier to navigate in more ways than one. You can cross-reference pages, chapters and sections within your brochure, wherever they’re relevant, or link externally to additional information – whether on your website, or creating a mailto: link, making it easier than ever for your readers to get in touch. You can explore all these examples in our digital brochure.
By removing the need for printing and delivery, you can save considerably on your production costs.
Not only can you remove the additional costs of paper, production, print and distribution, you can skip out on the stress that comes with potential errors, print deadlines and handling reprints – not to mention you’ll have a much, much lower environmental impact.
All you need to do with a digital brochure is provide the link.
Digital brochures have many features and benefits that make them a great alternative or addition to the traditional print brochure. If you haven’t already, just take a look at our newest digital brochure for an example of how interactive, memorable and engaging they can be.
Ready to open up new possibilities for marketing and audience reach? Or want to speak to us about the role a brochure could play in your promotional and marketing strategies?
Talk to us today at [email protected].
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