With 81% of people in the UK today saying that creating a well and healthy world is the biggest challenge of the 21st century and 52% of people in the UK saying that they have felt more unwell since the beginning of the pandemic, the immense scale of the task ahead is very clear.

To further explore this growing challenge, last week (April 28th), McCann Bristol and McCann Synergy hosted the second Talks on Toast event of the year, Truth About Wellness.

Hosted by Kathryn Ellis, Managing Partner, Strategy at McCann Bristol alongside Rodney Collins, Director at McCann Worldgroup Truth Central and Chloe Foy, Behavioural Strategist and ACC Coach at McCann Synergy, the event uncovered research based on 10 years of trended global data about the shape, role and meaning of wellness in consumer lives across 26 global markets – uncovering insights around mental, physical, emotional, financial wellness and much more.

Focusing on wellness both today and tomorrow, the research timeline demonstrated huge shifts in consumer behaviour from before the pandemic through to now. A large emphasis was placed on how far wellness has come in the last decade and the importance that is now placed on this for both customers and workforces.

With 74% of people saying they’re definition of wellness has evolved in the past year, what does it mean to be ‘well’ in today’s world? The insights uncovered suggest wellness remains multi-dimensional, however the definition of wellness we are familiar with needs to expand. Rodney talked through the eight dimensions of wellness including; emotional, financial, spiritual and social, with the focus drawing more now on how a sense of lack in one area can negatively impact another.

Rodney commented: “We’re really noticing that in the past 10 years what has shifted is that each of these dimensions appeared to exist in a silo, there was no mention about how ones mental health could impact ones physical health, how the bacteria in our stomachs affect how happy we are, how loneliness increases our chances of developing heart problems, or how the hitting costs of urban ride sharing is increasing environmental pollutants, which in turn are driving higher rates of Asthma. So the wellness conversation today has really become expansive, interconnected and networked.”

The discussion continued by identifying the erosion of this siloed approach, delving into the evolution of the wellness conversation and addressing five key additional shifts brands and businesses should foster and strive for to ensure a positive wellness evolution in the workspace.

Talks on Toast is a quarterly event hosted by McCann Bristol, delivering insight and global research at a local level based on key global topics.

Here’s a great story courtesy of MailChimp.

“In 1978, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp named Gary Thuerk used this new method of direct communication to send out the first commercial email to let people know about a new product. His email list only had 400 addresses, but the emails he sent resulted in about $13 million in sales.”

This was only 7 years after the first email ever was sent in 1971, and being the first person to do anything in marketing is a pretty incredible feat. Nowadays, more than half the world’s population has an email account – and most of them are more than happy for the brands they love to take up space in their inbox.

Email marketing is an all-encompassing term for sending promotional and commercial emails to a list of subscribers who have given you permission to do so. This includes newsletters, updates on special offers and events, welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, order confirmations, delivery updates and lots more.

You Can’t Argue With Facts: Email Marketing in Numbers

Email marketing often takes a back seat to the ever-present social media marketing, but it’s still a major player in the mix. I am a big fan of email marketing, and by the end of this post, I hope you will be too!

There were 4 billion emails users in 2020, with about a 3% increase each year. In comparison, there were 3.6 billion social media users in 2020, and these days we regularly see large numbers of people shifting to new platforms or giving up social media completely.

73% of millennials say email is their favourite way to receive communication from businesses.

44% of users check their emails to find deals from brands they like, compared to just 4% who would go to Facebook for a bargain.

Still not sold? How about this: email marketing has a return on investment (ROI) of 3800%. You’d be hard-pressed to find a figure like that anywhere else.

Turnhouse’s Top Tips for Great Email Marketing

1. Segment and Personalise

Segmentation is the process of separating your contacts based on a number of different factors. Personalisation is using those factors to engage people in a way that will resonate with them.

Here’s a very basic example. You sell candles, and you offer shipping across the UK. Your purchase process contains an opt-in form for your newsletter, so most of your past customers are on your mailing list, and you’ve segmented them geographically. Now you’re planning an event in Bristol, and you want to get the word out. It’s probably not worth sending that email to your customers in Edinburgh. I’m sure your candles are good, but they’re probably not ‘travel 400 miles to get one’ good. Especially if you can buy them online and get them shipped out. So we can send a personalised email along the lines of “Bristol customers, come to our event and make your candle dreams come true!”.

According to SendinBlue, there are four main types of segmentation.

As you can see, these are pretty broad and the possibilities are vast. Revisit your email marketing goals to figure out what would be most beneficial for your business.

2. A/B Testing

Should I add that emoji to the subject line? How about another paragraph of copy – would that lead to more clicks? They say the little things can make a big difference. Luckily, A/B Testing helps you figure out which little things actually work.

A/B testing is a clever little tool that allows you to send two slightly different campaigns to your audience. Then you can look at the data and find out which performed better, and use this knowledge to make better decisions in the future.

As business owners, we feel like we have to have all the answers. But sometimes A/B testing can prove our hypotheses wrong. Don’t be disheartened – instead, think of it as an opportunity to learn more about your customers.

Here are a few things you can A/B test:

3. Clear Out Your List

Chances are, you’re paying for your email marketing provider per contact on your list, so make sure those people are worth it! If you haven’t used your list in a while, start with a retargeting campaign to draw people back in with an enticing offer. After a while, clear out any contacts that haven’t interacted with your emails at all. Make this a regular habit to ensure your list is always up to date.

4. Optimise for Mobile

Over 70% of people prefer to read emails on their mobile, so don’t forget to check the mobile version before hitting send. The good news is that 1 in 5 commercial emails are not optimised for mobile, so getting this right could help you stand out from the competition.

Here are a few things to consider before scheduling that campaign.

5. GDPR

GDPR legislation can feel super intimidating, but don’t be afraid. Essentially, its purpose is to give people more control over their data, and it certainly doesn’t spell the end of email marketing. If anything, it means those people who choose to give you their data are going to be even more engaged with your business, leading to a more valuable list.

A few things to consider here:

Of course, by entrusting your email campaigns to Turnhouse, we can put all this into practice for you. Find out more about email marketing and the services we offer.

With Facebook announcing the rebrand of Meta in 2021 and the push towards the metaverse many have looked to the social media platform with a fresh pair of eyes whilst newer platforms like Snapchat and TikTok have been taking the limelight.

Facebook is maturing as a business and whilst some view it as an older form of social media it still has a very large user base that spans across different platforms and message services including Messenger, Instagram, Whatsapp and more.

 

SEO on Facebook follows similar patterns to the best practises outlined in our article on Instagram SEO and many of the same basic principles may apply as we look at ‘Metaverse SEO’ in the future. Here we share our guide to getting found on Facebook both in terms of the search feature of the site and the timeline.

As a side note, we will continue to refer to the platform as Facebook for the purposes of this article, however, we appreciate we may need to update in the future to keep up with the SEO best practice of keeping content up to date!

1. Ensure your business page is optimised with as much information as possible

The Business page of your Facebook profile is essential for marketing purposes and getting the correct information on there will help you optimise the page and your profile from an SEO perspective.

Having a profile with all of the correct information around business specialisms, opening times and contact information will help your customers find you and provide the best possible user experience.

Additionally, having relevant keywords and concepts in your profile descriptions will increase the overall effectiveness of your Facebook SEO efforts.

2. Link through to your Facebook business page and build backlinks

Adding backlinks to your Facebook profile from your website and other areas will help increase the visibility of the page on other platforms and search engines. This will increase the chances of your page being viewed and potential customers getting in touch.

3. Include custom tabs within your page

If you have other information you would like to share on your Facebook page then make sure you include custom tabs within your page architecture. This is a powerful tool to leverage when it comes to Facebook SEO and can be used to add sections on content, job listings and much more.

4. Share your on-site content on Facebook and optimise for SEO

If you want to increase the awareness of your onsite blog content then adding links to the pieces from Facebook will help you to increase coverage. This can drive social visits to your site and increase the overall reach of your website and Facebook profile.

5. Use keywords on your business page to optimise your Facebook SEO

As previously mentioned using keywords on your business profile page will increase the chances of searchers finding your business when they are using the relevant keywords that you are targeting. Make sure that you are not too spammy and the keywords are relevant and organic.

6. Optimise your Vanity Facebook URL

One of the quick wins that you can get on your Facebook SEO is optimising your vanity URL. This will give you better brand control over your page and make it appear a whole lot more polished. To optimise this go to your page settings and change your username.

Provide good content and tailor your sales pitch

The jab, jab right hook methodology popularised by Gary Vaynerchuck is a good principle to follow when it comes to your Facebook content strategy and indeed all of your marketing communications. If your users feel they are getting something of value then this will increase the chances of them buying your product or service further down the line. Great content will also improve your Facebook SEO, so it will definitely be worth pursuing.

Get in touch with the expert SEO team at Varn to find out more about using SEO on your website and social channels, we can help if you want more guidance on getting found in a Google search.

 

In Part 1 of our guide to measuring marketing’s effectiveness, we examined the key metrics required to demonstrate overall business impact. We then explored ways to measure brand awareness. In part two, we’ll focus on further key measures for brand impact, and move on to measuring how the marketing has performed in terms of business generation.

If you haven’t yet read Part 1, we’d recommend doing so as we’ll be jumping right back in where we left off…

Once again, our aim is to prioritise the essential information needed for a board report. The data needed by the marketing team to optimise these results will be the subject of a separate article.

Report section 2: brand building (continued)

Recall and perception

Budgets permitting, you can delve a little deeper than the top-level awareness metrics we mentioned in Part 1. By asking the right questions, you’ll gain a better understanding of how your target market perceives you against the competition. You’ll also discover how persuasively your offer and marketing messages are resonating.

Recruiting respondents can be achieved either by leveraging your advertising and PR relationships with publishers, or through social media platforms, using a service like Liveminds.

Another vital source of feedback about brand impact is your sales teamRegularly check in with them for on-the-ground intel on whether the brand is affecting their ability to open doors and how they’re welcomed and perceived when they meet.

Trust, recommendation and satisfaction

Your Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) is an industry standard benchmark used to gauge how satisfied customers are with the brand. Survey respondents are asked how likely they are to recommend you to their friends and colleagues on a score from 1 to 10. While this is a useful top-level metric for the board, running the survey also provides the opportunity to dig deeper. Ask questions about what customers are satisfied or unsatisfied with, and why.

Depending on the quality of your CRM data, you can also gain insight into any patterns emerging from different customer segments.

There are potential problems with an over-reliance on the NPS® measure, however, as it can suffer from bias if your sample size is too small.

It’s wise to supplement your snapshot score by monitoring review sites, social signals and feedback from your customer service team to get a full picture of how well your customers trust you and are satisfied with your products and services.

Report section 3: business generation

Revenue growth

This should show the revenue generated from customers who entered the prospecting funnel through marketing activity and were converted by sales. The report should present figures for the period since the last report, and highlight the trend over previous reporting periods. Ideally, it will split this into revenue from tracked direct-response campaign activity against brand response (originating from website leads and inbound calls).

Other growth metrics

To supplement the top-line revenue figures, include the number of customers acquired and the average order value. You may also want to breakdown the results into segments of strategic importance such as industry and regional growth.

Quality metrics

To demonstrate the quality of leads generated, measure the conversion rates from lead to sales qualification and customer. Again, present these for the reporting period as well as showing the trend over previous periods.

Performance metrics

This is where you demonstrate what the marketing spend on direct response/ABM marketing was for the period, and what was delivered in return. This should include:

–      Total spend on media, production, agency fees etc.

–      Return on advertising spend (ROAS), calculated by dividing the revenue generated by the total spend.

–      Return on investment (ROI). This is more difficult to calculate, as it shows the amount of potential PROFIT generated from the budget as opposed to the REVENUE generated in the ROAS calculation. You’ll need to work with your finance team to gain a picture of the average profit margin for each of your products and services, matching these against the records of what has been ordered in your CRM. If you’re purely a service business, the potential profit may not match the actual profit due to overruns.

Less clutter, more clarity

As previously mentioned, there is a wealth of data you could present to the board. Our purpose here has been to suggest the core metrics that will strategically demonstrate how effective your marketing activity is.

You may choose to add other information to provide further detail, but always remember that the key to effective reporting is clarity. Don’t overwhelm your executives with data. Stick to what matters to them and avoid the temptation to try and look clever by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it.

Need guidance putting your report together or making sense of your data? We’re here to help. Get in touch with us at [email protected].

Data. We’re drowning in it. There are so many metrics to prove marketing’s effectiveness, and it’s tempting to throw all of them into a thick report to show the science behind what we do.

But if you want to move away from showing how successful you are at measuring to how effective you are at marketing, here’s a short guide to picking the right metrics for the right job and the right audience.

The first cut is easy – decide if the report is for the board or your marketing team. If it’s for the board, the report is strategic and will therefore have three areas of focus:

1.    The overall impact of marketing on the business

2.    How marketing has built the brand

3.    How marketing has generated business

These metrics are important for the marketing team too.

They form the benchmarks for how effective their activity is, periodically. But the marketing team will also generate more frequent tactical reports detailing the effectiveness of all the possible levers they can pull across the customer journey.

These can include reach, frequency, impressions, clicks, cost per click, downloads, opens, likes and shares. They’ll also include conversion rates for landing pageswebsites and nurturing campaigns.These are the areas the team will seek to optimise day-to-day in order to impact the strategic KPIs. This level of detail isn’t relevant for the board.

In this article, we’re going to focus on the strategic report for the board, leaving the tactical stuff for another time.

Before we start, we assume that you have the necessary tracking in place to know the source of your prospects, with the ability to follow that tracking through to your CRM and measure what kind of customers they become.

If not, we have a future article planned to help you out, so stay tuned for that.

Once you’ve got your tracking in place, attributing customers to marketing is relatively simple to achieve for your direct response activity, but harder to quantify for brand building.

We’ll offer some simple solutions to this problem for you later on.

Report section 1: marketing’s business impact

Growth

For most B2B businesses who have long sales journeys, this will include booked revenue and pipeline value that is attributable to marketing within the period of the report. It will include revenue from new customers and existing customers where CRM activity has generated the business. It may also show growth in the number of customers and be broken down by segments of strategic focus such as industry and geography. To show growth trends you may choose to show figures for the current quarter as well as year-to-date and year-on-year data.

Profitability

This section of the report mirrors the revenue growth format, but shows the profit generated from the sales attributable to marketing. This is an important metric, showing the quality of customers vs. the volume shown in the revenue growth.

Average lifetime value

This requires a little more heavy lifting in your CRM data, but it’s worth it, as any increases in the rolling average will give a top-line view of how successful you are at generating repeat business.

Market share growth

This is relatively easy to calculate. First, find the annual spend in the category and location in which you operate – most sectors have analyst reports which will give you this figure. Then, express your annual revenue as a percentage of that number. If you’re midway down a crowded market, you might choose to show a share of market relative to your top ten competitors, taking the revenue figures from their annual reports.

Loyalty

Another easy metric to provide from your CRM is loyalty. First, select the customers who have bought something from you in the last 12 months (this time frame could be longer, depending on the length of your sales cycles).

These are active customers as opposed to dormant ones who may or may not be loyal to you.

From this pool you’ll select those who have been with you for over a year – any who have been with you for less time are considered new and won’t have a long enough trading history to demonstrate true loyalty.

From this pool you can show the average, longest and shortest length of relationship. Ideally, all three of these will increase year on year.

Report section 2: brand building

Let’s face it, unless you’re a major B2B corporation, most of us won’t have the budget to commission any form of brand research. There are, however, some simple and effective ways to measure your brand’s impact and growth which we’ll share here.

Awareness

One of the simplest ways to track growth in your brand awareness over time is to measure the direct traffic to your website. This figure shows the volume of visitors to your website who typed the address directly into their browser (if they did this, they were looking specifically for you and are therefore aware of your brand name).

To supplement this view, you could use GoogleAds’ Keyword Planner and GoogleTrends to measure the volume of searches for your brand name. This works if you have a distinctive brand name but would be less useful for generic brand names like Shell or Seat.

Finally, you could use social listening tools to track the volumes of brand mentions outside of @mentions and the official, owned channels.

Correlating these three measures against your brand building activity will provide a good picture of its effect on brand awareness.

BUT – and this is an important but – expectations around this data must be carefully managed through an understanding of the time scales involved in brand building.

If, say, you’ve launched a brand campaign across a number of channels, you will have planned for it to play out over at least five to six months. If the board is looking for results to show in the first few months, they’ll be disappointed, as any noticeable growth will only start to show towards the end of the five-to-six-month period. It’s important they understand that brand building is a long-term, consistent investment in growth, but over time there turns have a deeper, longer-lasting impact than the short-term direct response activity.

That’s it for the first part of this article. Next, we’ll dig deeper into further brand metrics and the essential strategic measures for your direct response and lead generation reports, so stay tuned.

If you need help with anything we’ve touched on in this article, why not reach out to us at [email protected]?

Google Data Studio is a brilliant tool that helps you visualise your data with customisable dashboards and reports. We first added to our repertoire of tools back in 2016 when Google introduced it as part of the Google Analytics 360 suite, and it’s been a firm favourite ever since.

It’s one of our most useful day-to-day tools, not only for supporting our own accounts management, but also for our client reporting. So without further ado, here’s 7 reasons why you should dive into Data Studio if you’re running paid media ads.

1. Custom visualisation

Spend a lot of time checking dull spreadsheets? It’s time for an upgrade! One of the key benefits of Data Studio is that it’s a highly visual analysis tool, enabling your data to easily be displayed via different charts, graphs, and tables at the click of a button.

For each element, you can choose which trends to highlight, how much information to include (e.g. ad image previews or just ad names) and which parts to make interactive in order to have the most visual impact.

Data Studio dashboards are fully customisable in every respect, meaning you can add company logos, colour schemes, and brand fonts to make your reporting a little more fun! If you’re a visual learner, the numbers are likely to make a lot more sense now too.

2. Combined data

Most of our ambitious advertisers run campaigns across many different platforms at any one time, with each one likely having its own associated budgets, benchmarks and targets.

Data Studio has an incredible 500+ (and counting!) data source connectors so it’s the perfect place for all of your data from different places to be easily combined. You can pull in your latest engagement results from Facebook and Instagram, your average Google Analytics goal completion rate, and your company forecast spreadsheet to analyse your top-level performance at a glance throughout the month, or simply display everything you’ve got running alongside each other. Whatever you want!

3. Calculated fields

Data Studio can be used for simple reporting tasks, but it also has powerful analysis capabilities. This is where calculated fields come in: you can manipulate the data to directly suit your needs.

Calculated fields can extend and transform your data by allowing you to apply calculations to create new metrics and dimensions. With calculated fields, you can answer questions that existing dimensions cannot answer. For example, whether you’re outpacing your monthly budget, or the average time on site for groups of custom geographic regions – super handy stuff.

4. Sharable and interactive

It’s highly likely you and your team members will have different requirements for your data. You may want to simply check on how much that new Pinterest campaign is spending this month to date, whereas your colleague may want an in-depth overview of performance over the last quarter compared to the previous year.

This is no problem at all. Data Studio is easily shareable via a URL that can be opened on any browser, operating system or device. Once email access has been granted, it can also be set up to allow different users to easily flick between the views and date ranges they need to see – either at the entire report level or individual graph/table/chart level.

5. No limitations

If attribution isn’t a consideration, Google Analytics dashboards can provide a useful starting point for data visualisation, but one of the key setbacks is that there are limits on the amount of widgets and properties you can use. So you can only have 12 graph/table/charts per dashboard and no more than 20 dashboards per property.

That may sound like a lot, but in practice this would be 2.5 each for your main source/medium paths, assuming you are only running on three advertising platforms; (all traffic), Google/organic, Bing/organic, direct/none, ‘email provider’/email, Google/cpc, Facebook/cpc, Bing/cpc.

Unlike Google Analytics, Google Data Studio has no limitations at all! So if you’ve got a lot of different data points that you need to keep track of, then Data Studio becomes your best bet.

6. Scheduled exports and embed features

If Data Studio seems like just one more thing you need to remember to check each day, week, or month, then scheduled exports might help reduce the load.

Data Studio can send a PDF report automatically on a regular basis via email, to up to 50 recipients, along with a customisable email message and link to the live dashboard. These dashboards can also handily be embedded into websites via iframe, as well as being fully integrated with work management platforms, such as Monday.com, to ensure your data is always close to hand when you need it.

7. And finally… it’s free!

Google Data Studio packs in a ton of useful functionality – especially for a free tool! So if you’re drowning in data and unable to see the wood for the trees, we’d highly recommend getting started with some dashboards today.

 

Need help getting set up on Data Studio? Contact us today and we can get your business running with reports and dashboards in no time.

GYDA Initiative is delighted to announce the acquisition of Very Good Digital and Digital Agency Coach. The acquisition, completed in January 2022, sees two of the UK’s most prominent business growth experts for digital agencies, Robert Craven and Janusz Stabik, join forces to create one of the leading business consultancies for the Agency sector.

Robert Craven says:

‘We are super-excited! Acquiring this business gives us more firepower to help a greater number of agency leaders. Janusz and his team of expert consultants bring even more breadth and depth to the GYDA Initiative team. 2022 will see us become the leading growth consultancy for digital agencies in the UK and Europe.’

Janusz Stabik says:

‘Having worked with Robert and the GYDA Initiative for three years on projects with Google Partners and consultancy clients, I am delighted that my business has been acquired by Robert, and to become Managing Partner for the GYDA Team. 2022 will be an awesome year for the GYDA Initiative and our clients!’

About the GYDA Initiative

Launched in 2013, the GYDA Initiative is a specialist growth consultancy working in the digital agency industry. The team of been-there-done-it digital agency experts, led by Robert Craven and Janusz Stabik, helps clients to run the agency they really want to run.

Already working across 23 countries, the Initiative is tasked with one goal… helping digital agency leaders to grow and run their agencies, and to do this smarter and faster. Build the company you want to run… run the agency you want to lead… lead the life you want to live.

About Robert Craven

Robert is known for his no-nonsense approach to business growth; he has worked with agencies and platforms from London to Dublin, from Singapore to New York. He is the author of Grow Your Digital Agency, and founder of the GYDA Initiative and GYDA Member Hub. His strategy and marketing consultancies, The Directors’ Centre and GYDA Initiative, help agency owners and directors to run the business they want to run, so they can live the life they want to live.

Robert writes from experience. His work with Google Partners over the last eight years has made him the go-to expert on growing digital agencies. Working with 150 of Europe’s leading digital agencies, he has identified the key characteristics of the ‘above-average’, and how to implement this in other agencies. GYDA Initiative supports you on your journey and provides the toolkit for becoming one of the above-average.

About Janusz Stabik

Janusz is a consultant, coach and digital strategist who helps agencies to deliver more value to their clients and shareholders. He works to define their vision, to grow high-performing teams, to execute projects better, and to sell more of the right kind of work. With over 15 years in the digital agency industry, he’s built, grown and exited his own agency, and now works exclusively with agencies in the creative sector.

As the lead coach for the UK and Europe Google Partners Elevator program, Janusz continues to guide and advise agency leaders on their growth journey.

Janusz joins GYDA Initiative as Managing Partner. Running a team of over ten consultants, Janusz will take the business into 2022 with a real sense of purpose, resulting in our clients’ greater success.

To find out more, visit:

www.GYDAinitiative.com

+44 (0)1225 851 044

Global education service provider and brand owner of TopUniversities.com, QS Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) have appointed AgencyUK as social media partner. QS is the world’s leading provider of services, analytics, and insights to the global higher education sector and famed for its university rankings, which have become the annual benchmark for universities around the world.

AgencyUK were appointed following a three-way pitch, in response to a social strategy and brand awareness brief set by the QS marketing team. AgencyUK will develop the organic social media strategy for the higher education and student communities around the world and launch a new programme of social media content off the back of it.

The pitch was overseen by Tim Edwards, Chief Marketing Officer at QS. Its purpose was to find an agency team who can support, unite, develop and promote their mission – to empower motivated people anywhere in the world to fulfil their potential through educational achievement, international mobility and career development.

The first wave of activity undertaken by AgencyUK includes strategy and creative that is based on education sector insights gathered from their world-leading independent market research and data analysis. The strategy will extend into the development of a global strategy and social media content plan rolled out in partnership with the QS global marketing team.

Tim Edwards, CMO, QS, said: “We were looking for an agency with strong strategic and creative capabilities and a track record in disrupting competitive markets. QS has grown rapidly through a combination of new product development and corporate acquisition, but we remain focussed on maintaining our market leader position, and to do so means being closer to our target audiences and continually investing in channel marketing.’’

Amy Stobie, Commercial Director, AgencyUK, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been appointed by QS. They are a well established brand with a host of well known digital properties and a continuing ambition for growth. Our social and creative teams are well placed for reaching out to these target communities and we’re keen to get going.”

AgencyUK are an independent brand communications agency with 32 staff based in the UK. The company has demonstrated 200% growth over the pandemic period, largely attributed to the expansion of their healthcare portfolio. QS is the fifth global account win in the past 12-months.

First event: 10th February 1.30pm – 2.15pm

Bristol-based web design and development agency, Unfold has just launched a brand-new events series, Below the Fold. The series centres successful business people, giving them a platform to share learnings from their journeys. Hosted by Unfold’s founder, Harry Cobbold, these events aim to educate and inform attendees with insider knowledge and tips for success.

What it takes to get your business acquired

The first episode in the series will see Gapsquare’s Zara Nanu taking the guest seat, with Harry interviewing her on Gapsquare’s recent acquisition and what it takes to build and acquirable business.

You can catch the event on 10th February 2022 from 1.30pm – 2.15pm. All events in the series will be held virtually via Zoom for the foreseeable future. If you can’t make the date, you can register in any case and you will be sent the session recording following the event.

Register for the event here.

One of the big benefits of Bristol Creative Industries membership is the ability to self-publish content on our website. We’ve seen lots of great content published in 2021 including some brilliant business advice. Here are the 20 most popular posts of the year.

1. Four key trends brands need to embrace post-pandemic

Chase Design Group examines the legacy that COVID-19 will leave for brands, and what newly adopted trends and ways of communicating should stay with us. Read the post here.

2. The best organisational structure for your agency

Having a strong organisational structure in place is key to growing your digital agency. Janusz Stabik explains your options and how to know which structure will guarantee employee and customer satisfaction and allow you to scale your marketing agency. Read the post here.

3. What marketing taught me about PR

Carnsight Communications is one of the most prolific BCI bloggers so it’s no surprise that the business has made the top 10. In this great post, company founder Jessica Morgan outlines what her previous career in marketing taught her about public relations. Read the post here.

4. Mental health in the workplace – why we need a culture change, not just a few new procedures

After the couple of years we’ve all had, the mental wellbeing of employees is increasingly concerning. Armadillo explains how the approach to mental health in the workplace needs a culture change. Read the post here.

5. How to attract better quality agency clients in three easy steps

Janusz Stabik makes his second appearance in the top 10 with tips on how digital marketing agencies can attract high-quality clients. Read the post here.

6. Five top tips for engagement on LinkedIn

In another post from Carnsight Communications, learn five key things to remember when looking to secure engagement on LinkedIn. Read the post here.

7. How to write press releases

Looking for your business to make headlines? OggaDoon shares top tips on how to write the perfect press release. Read the post here.

8. Why your brand should be listening, not leading, on social media platforms

Brands can’t lead the conversation on social media, says AMBITIOUS in this great post. Read the post here.

9. 10 insights and trends for business leadership in 2021

“As joint leader of an independent agency, 2020 meant sleepless nights. But it provided opportunities to inspire others and galvanise our team,” says Andy Brown, chief financial officer at Armadillo, in this post outlining leadership tips for 2021 that will also serve us well in 2022. Read the post here.

10. What do investors look for in your tech startup?

How can an entrepreneur attract the perfect investor? Gravitywell outlines six qualities investors look for in tech startups. Read the post here.

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11. B2B businesses: how to make a success of social media

Some B2B brands find social media a challenge but there’s lots that you can do as this post by AMBITIOUS shows. Read the post here.

12. Why it can pay to be less flexible

The winning agencies will be the ones with an uncompromising focus on their culture, looking at how they can support their people to be their best selves and do era-defining work, says Tonic Creative Business Partners. Read the post here.

13. Five top tips for brilliant blogging

If there’s anyone who knows about being successful at blogging, it’s Helen Savage from Blog Write Ltd. She shares some great tips. Read the post here.

14. 10 things you need to know about Google Ads

OggaDoon shares a list of 10 essential features you didn’t know you could use with Google Ads. Read the post here.

15. Content marketing: Avoiding keyword soup

Sparro House Creative Ltd outlines three tips to improve your content marketing. Read the post here.

16. Delivering social proof with case studies

If your primary audience is other businesses, then case studies are the perfect tool for creating authority, building trust and delivering social proof. George Devane shares some tips. Read the post here.

17. The ultimate guide to Instagram SEO

The phrase ‘SEO; now covers optimisation strategies and techniques on a  wide range of different websites including Instagram. Varn outlines how to improve your SEO on the social media platform. Read the post here.

18. How to take the fear out of fierce conversations

Leaders and managers have often received little to no training in how to have a ‘difficult’ conversation and so we end up avoiding the situation altogether until it becomes really serious. That can mean getting into performance management, grievance procedures or even worse. Jonathan Rees shares advice. Read the post here.

19. Choosing your marketing agency

Chris Thurling from Armadillo provides his advice on what to consider when seeking out a marketing agency that’s suitable for your business. Read the post here.

20. Five easy ways to improve your email newsletters

As you prepare to hit send on your latest business mailing, ask yourself whether it would pass the ‘hover test’. Here are five easy ways, shared by Carnsight Communications, to make sure it does. Read the post here.

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