Automation of systems plays to the strengths of using computers. They can tackle mundane or routine tasks efficiently, without complaint, and without the avoidable mistakes that can occur when humans repeatedly perform manual tasks. Embracing automation ensures your engineers and developers can focus instead of solving problems and adding value to clients.

When should you be automating? 

If you’re repeating something more than two or three times and the task is tightly defined (e.g. the data fields never change), it’s time to automate, especially if the tasks are very straightforward (such as adding data to a database).

Automation is often cheaper than you think, and the efficiencies it delivers can vastly outweigh the cost. Plus if investing in automation saves someone 1-2 hours a day or week carrying out a task, that time can be reinvested in solving other problems and delivering more work.

The pros of investing in automation  

An obvious benefit of investing in automation is its ‘always on’ nature. Programs don’t take breaks, even during public holidays.

Automating can differentiate your services, meaning you can add value by solving clients’ challenges based on your unique knowledge and experience rather than performing mundane tasks that anyone could do. Automating routine work also gives you the space and time to tackle the harder problems – if you play to the strengths of the computer you can do 80% of the work with 20% of the effort.

The cons of investing in automation  

Automation requires detailed planning to ensure the solution integrates with existing systems and is future proofed for any future developments. This will take time from experts. Depending on your existing systems, there may also be some software to purchase and bespoke programming to complete.

If implementation is rushed and manual processes pushed through first, it could take longer to unpick things and automate at a later date. Finally, automation does not mean automatic forever – maintenance will be needed from time to time. Context changes, systems change, data changes, clocks change – all of this needs to be managed and monitored.

So, spend some time thinking about the data you’re handling. How manual is it? Are you repeatedly discovering that data is missing when someone is on annual leave and only they know how to do it? Do you find that occasionally data is missing because someone copied and pasted into the wrong column? Are you frustrated that some data is in one system but not another, meaning you can never get a full picture?

If your answer to any of these is ‘yes’, and you want to streamline your customer data workflows, get campaigns, reports and insights delivered faster, it could be time to get automating.

 

This article was written by Nicholas Blake-Steele, Technical Director at Armadillo, and first appeared on AI Magazine.

Public sector service design specialists chosen by NHS Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to help support parents and carers of children with special or additional needs.

Government service design specialist, Mace & Menter, has won a competitive tender to work with the NHS on a series of projects to adapt and innovate health services in the South West.

The service design specialists will support Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group’s ongoing drive to design more effective and inclusive services around the needs of people in the region.

“We needed a partner with deep experience in service design and user research to bring to life human-centred design, and to help us understand how we can apply that in the wider health and care system. We wanted someone who could help us benchmark our skills and upskill the team,” says Ben Carlson-Davies, Insights and Engagement Manager, Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire CCG.

He adds: “Mace & Menter stood out as the strongest candidate with lots of experience in working with public sector teams. They also really took the time to understand the business needs, and actively challenged us about our own capabilities and where we want to be in the future.”

The Mace & Menter team will initially run research and digital concepting work for the CCG, and North Somerset Council to help them improve the Local Offer website for parents and carers with children with special or additional needs and disabilities.

Working in partnership with the CCG, North Somerset Council and North Somerset Parent Carers Working Together, this research will aim to better understand the current needs of parents and carers when using the Local Offer website. Alongside the research, Mace & Menter will be showing ways the service could be improved through concepts, storyboards and prototypes.

Sam Menter, Co-founder and Managing Director of Mace & Menter, says: “Our research project will ultimately feed into a business case for development and improvements to the existing services across the South West region. The first phase will help increase communication, awareness and information available to parents and carers in North Somerset.

“We have extensive experience running public sector service design projects, upskilling internal teams and embedding a people-centred mindset. Our combined experience of design for services, design and the built environment make us a great fit for the NHS and local government.”

POPcomms recently completed work on developing an entirely new interactive sales tool for Bacardi Martini to be used by the reps across the UK when meeting with customers.

The challenge

Bacardi own 62 spirit brands and is the world’s largest privately-owned spirits company.

Sales reps for Bacardi will regularly meet with a diverse customer base from bars, pubs and clubs to restaurants and hotels and within those establishments, they may be meeting with bartenders, managers and business owners, all with different requirements and understanding of Bacardi and its brands.

Meetings might involve introducing the customer to a new brand they haven’t stocked, giving advice on how to upsell premium brands through to in-venue activations, sponsorship, branding and best practices as well as the latest market research and data.

For each Bacardi brand they have a wealth of valuable content from tasting notes, heritage, brand videos and guidelines, associated cocktails, social media assets, as well as business case information.

In the short time a rep has with a customer they often struggle to have more meaningful conversations around any challenges Bacardi can help them with and introducing them to new brands, activations and market research that they can profit from.

Finding the right content at the right time depending on a customer’s needs and the conversation was very difficult.

How we helped

  1. Our objective was to help those sales reps have more productive and profitable conversations with customers no matter their role or business.
  2. We wanted to help Bacardi’s customers get more out of those meetings by arming the reps with a more customer-focused narrative and giving them a tool with instant access to relevant and timely supporting content.

The result

From our workshops with Bacardi and their sales reps we mapped out a customer narrative and created an interactive sales tool that let reps personalise the conversation no matter who they were talking to.

The tool gave them access to valuable content, important to the customer, within a couple of taps.

This meant reps could quickly access what mattered to the customer such as market research, best selling cocktails, up-selling best practice, latest brand activations etc. within seconds saving precious time meaning more time for the customer.

Sales reps now have exactly what they need, precisely when they need it.

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.

Do you remember the introduction of the world’s first touchscreen phones?

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.

From ‘business-as-usual’ collateral to ‘anything but ordinary’

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.

Slow fashion with a quick impact

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.

The gameification of the home (and office) makeover

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.

Location-based experiences

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.

A bespoke combination for a bewitching impression

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].

Welcome back to the second blog in our three-part series on Augmented Reality (AR). In our first segment, we introduced AR technology and explored its potential impact on our lives over the coming years.

But the technology already exists. And so, this poses an opportunity today.

Any brand who considers themselves a true tech pioneer, who is looking to distinguish themselves from their industry competitors, or is ready to forge an unrivalled relationship with millennial and Gen-Z customers, should consider grasping the opportunity AR presents for marketing and customer engagement, today.

Preparing for launch

When it comes to experiential marketing, there’s no better vehicle for delivering an unforgettable brand experience than AR. As mentioned in our previous blog, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination – but there is one decision you’ll need to make early on: how you’ll deliver the experience to your viewers.

For those looking to get started today, there are two methods of AR access to choose from: by building an app, or using WebAR.

For many, apps are the option of choice. In-app augmented reality enables you to control the entire experience from end-to-end, maximising elements such as branding.

Take Pokémon Go, for example. The combination of technology, art and culture to form a real-life treasure hunt was arguably one of the most successful experiential campaigns to date.

During its peak, as many as 20% of Pokémon Go players were using the app every day, and by March 2019 it had been downloaded more than 1 billion times. Those are some vast numbers.

The ease of use was a key factor in the app’s success – and it’s worth noting, there’s no doubt that downloads would have been significantly lower had the app required specialist technology, i.e. had it required additional headwear like ‘Snapchat Spectacles’-type tech to play. But every one of us has a smartphone in our pocket at all times, leaving a near-zero barrier to taking part.

The other option for creating an AR experience is to use WebAR.

Sometimes referred to as WebXR due to its ability to support AR, VR and MXR (Mixed Reality) functionality, WebAR allows you to use an AR experience directly within your browser – without having to download an app.

Most smartphones are WebAR-enabled, making it arguably even easier to access than downloading an app. However, you may have less control over some elements of the design.

So how do you choose the right platform for your audience? At P+S, we believe it comes down to your intent.

If you’re looking to integrate an AR experience into your websitemaximise the ‘wow factor’ of your marketing materials or offer an AR experience in real-world locationsWebAR is a great choice. It removes barriers and offers instant access for anyone using a compatible device – without the need for having to stop and download an app.

However, if you’re looking to run a more complex experience – a game, or a more developed user interface like map overlays – then launching an app offers an excellent self-contained, immersive experience with unlimited customisation options. And you’ll have the added benefit of being able to update and push new content without disruption to your other content and materials.

Predicting the future

Apart from creating the next gaming sensation, how can augmented reality actually be applied for brand marketing purposes?

For those businesses promoting a product, it could be as simple as creating the ability for customers to ‘see’ a 3D visualisation of your merchandise face-to-face – all from the comfort of their own sofa. IKEA have recently begun offering just this, enabling customers to view furniture in their homes before ever making a purchase. And with COVID-19 set to disrupt the store experience the foreseeable future, now has never been a better time to offer virtual product experiences.

For those businesses who offer a service rather than a physical product, this is an opportunity to think laterally about marketing.

Let’s take an airline, for example. While enabling customers to view a Boeing 747 in their own living room isn’t necessarily offering value, they could offer an augmented ‘map’ of airline routes across the sky instead.

Or, they could look closer at the in-airport experience. In larger international airports, offering an augmented map that leads customers from the security gates to the airline’s private lounge, or straight to their flight gate, would be a breath of fresh air.

Architectural firms can use AR to show their projects to a client in real-time. Financial services can demonstrate abstract concepts in a more tangible visualised form. And what’s more, the data shows that AR visualisations improve B2B buyer confidence, and help to speed up sales cycles.

Let’s seal the deal and get engaged

From marketing, to product visualisation, to making invisible concepts visible, the AR experience creates higher levels of engagement, increases conversions, and offers a powerful branding opportunity. When done well, it’s inherently social media friendly, shareable and creates a powerful lasting impact.

But that’s not the limit of what AR will bring to brands.

Our next blog, and final instalment of our AR series, is coming soon – stay tuned.

Get in touch

Why not contact us today at [email protected] to discuss your goals with our team.

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.

What does marketing automation do?

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 streamscollect 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.

How to get started with marketing automation

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.

Top tips for marketing automation success

Whichever provider you decide is best for you, there are a few ways to optimise the approach further.

1. Walk before you run.

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.

2. Keep it familiar.

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.

3. Identify your champion.

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.

4. Make it mean something.

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.

5. Never lose sight of your goal.

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.

Start your marketing automation journey now

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.

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:

A digital event for every business

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.

Building an audience

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.

Going beyond the main event

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.

Our tips for delivering successful digital events

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].

So, it’s time to refresh your website. You start by taking a look at what you can improve, and an audit finds your workflows aren’t quite right, your content matrix doesn’t quite work, and your design isn’t accessible. You decide a rebuild is the most effective route, so you putout a tender, choose an agency and move forward using the data you’ve collected and the issues recorded with your now defunct website.

Three years later, your company has grown and rebranded. Now, your website needs to cater for users across the globe, and your UX doesn’t quite fit newly heightened expectations. Time for another audit. You review your website, only to find the changes that need to be made will cost almost as much– and take just as long – as building an entirely new website. Before you know it, you need to start the entire process all over again.

If this story sounds familiar, you’re not alone. We’ve known many companies spend thousands on developing a website, only to find when they need even relatively small changes, there are significant cost and time implications.

Today’s accelerated pace of digital change means the traditional approach to web development has become outdated. But there is another way.

At Proctors, we’ve developed an approach to web development that gives websites the flexibility, scalability and longevity needed to support ongoing business needs.

Microservices to the rescue
Microservices architecture is a software development architecture which makes things much easier. Creating a microservice architecture involves splitting up all of the different services integrated into your website and sales process, then creating protocols for them to communicate independently to collect and deliver their data and services to users and website visitors.

Separating out your front-end into its own microservice allows you to free your design and UX from the limitations of your data systems. A separate front-end can connect to multiple data sources and present them in one central place for our users, often for multiple devices as well.

You can read more on microservices here.

What is a dedicated front-end?
At P+S, we specialise in Angular as our front-end framework of choice. While there are many front-end frameworks out there, such as React and Vue, Angular is more structured and has a more complete out-of-the-box framework. We’ve found it offers more consistent results, and is a more suitable tool for enterprise businesses.

Angular allows the front- and back-end of your website to operate as separate entities. Angular will function as the public face of your online presence to your users, and will connect to, and draw data from, all the other services using modern RESTful APIs; for example, content from Drupal and booking data from a booking engine.

This means any additional or changed functionality in the back-end of your website, such as an API integration, will not affect the front-end of your website.

An added bonus is if you realise your website needs to be updated a few years down the line, whether that’s from a UX standpoint or company rebrand, the front-end can be completely redesigned in isolation from the back-end, eliminating the need for a complete rebuild and minimising disruption to your online presence.

How can it help you?
Angular saves time and money.

Once Angular is set up alongside your content management system, your website is almost limitless.

If your company undergoes a rebrand, your Angular front-end can be re-skinned with no disruption to your website – check out our Atomic Design approach to making this process more efficient, too.

Should your company grow, the data used to set up your initial user journeys often becomes outdated. Not only is it possible for us to completely redesign how users interact with your site, we can even separate your site out further and conduct split A/B testing against other variations.

Alongside these core benefits, there are a range of other positives. You can reduce load time due to application processing taking place in the browser, rather than the server. And you can support and facilitate multilingual development in a much easier, simpler way than via a traditional CMS approach.

Finally, as many companies choose apps as a way of engaging with their customers on a more personal level, there’s potential for streamlining the process here, too. While the majority of businesses need to build their website, then build their app in iOS before building it yet again in Android, Angular makes this much simpler. You can run your apps from the CMS that drives your website (usually Drupal), and use your Angular front-end for both iOS and Android, for minimised build time, whilst avoiding the duplication of functionality as the majority of it will be readily available via your CMS.

Looking to the future

At Proctor and Stevenson, we’ve implemented a Drupal/Angular approach for a number of key clients, including global tech giant, Panasonic. This approach has enabled us to create a number of future-focused solutions for our clients, spanning multiple continents, in multiple languages and engaging millions of users.

Decoupling a front-end works extremely well for enterprise businesses which rely on legacy back-end data or back office systems, where it’s a real challenge to modernise this data and present it to customers in a modern, multi-device world. Given the current global pandemic, businesses are realising they must be able to operate remotely without a negative impact on efficiency or customer experience. Decoupling a front-end is therefore one of the most pragmatic, healthy and cost-effective choices a business can make today.

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.

Get in touch, by emailing [email protected] today, and let’s discuss how we can transform your business’ website.

COVID-19 has realised some of the most challenging times in recent memory. Across the globe, the pandemic is proving to be a ‘sink or swim’ event as entire economies are placed under increasing pressure, while brands and businesses scramble to find new ways of working.

This ‘sink or swim’ verdict rings especially true for B2B brands who traditionally rely on face-to-face relationships to do business – if they can’t find ways to work digitally, they won’t survive.

Digital touchpoints across the customer journey are no longer optional. They’re imperative.

This quote from a retail CEO in a recent article by McKinsey sums up the thinking we’ve seen in those of our clients who seem to be thriving:

“Every business is now a technology business, and what matters most is a deep understanding of the customer, which is enabled by technology.”

It’s tempting to focus on the word ‘technology’ here. You may think those who are succeeding had an advantage if they already had a digital marketing infrastructure in place. And yes, some of them may have had a head-start, but we think it goes deeper than this.

We’ve already seen successes born out of necessity. And rather than having any one technological solution to thank, it’s most often been a specific mindset which has proven invaluable to these prosperous businesses.

Here are some of the common attributes we’ve seen shared among the brands who are thriving:

1.     RESPONSIVENESS: Adapting to changing customer needs has always been critical to a brand’s survival. But not even technology companies, who have always set the pace of change, will have experienced such a rapid, radical shift in society as recent times have presented. Among our clients who are successfully navigating these uncharted waters, most have re-evaluated their brand’s purpose and re-calibrated it to connect with a new set of customer needs.

2.     SPEED: Small teams with an entrepreneurial mindset have been making quick decisions. In many cases, where it took months for plans to be approved, decisions have been made in days.

3.     EXPERIMENTATION: Spotting shifts in customer buying patterns has been useful, but often decisions have been made with imperfect data and a higher than usual level of uncertainty. The role of data has shifted from being the facilitator of protracted, detailed planning and decision making, to the radar for testing, learning and iterating quickly.

4     CREATIVITY: Connecting with customers in an authentic, positive way has been a creative challenge. Those who have succeeded went beyond stock “we’re here for you” platitudes. They re-enforced their brand purpose by adding genuine value to their customer’s lives.

5.     AGILITY: In the past, marketing digital transformation was often treated as a big-ticket, slow moving investment, often driven by expensive consultants. COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of digital systems for many, and most systems are largely interoperable, so bolting together solutions is entirely possible. Again, clients have been making quick decisions about what they need, launching and refining as they go.

6.     COLLABORATION: In the past, one of the classic barriers to marketing digital transformation adoption was cultural. Creating the ultimate digital customer journey needed collaboration between a diverse set of departments in the organisation, many of whom hadn’t had to work together before. Times of crisis often bring people together though, and in recent months everybody’s survival has relied on us all working together.

These attributes have always been typical of most successful technology companies, and are certainly evident in the marketing operations of our successful clients – no matter their sector.

What drives them is a mindset which focuses on:

·      Satisfying changing customer needs

·      Optimising the customer experience throughout their journey

·      Launching quickly with a minimum-viable-product (MVP)

·      Continuously improving commercial returns

It’s an approach to marketing technology that even Panasonic, our most digitally evolved client, has always taken. The sophisticated ecosystem they enjoy today has evolved over many years, always driven by this exact mindset.

So, as we all begin to look to the future, it’s becoming more and more apparent that things won’t go back to how they were. We’re all technology companies now. To succeed, we need to think and act like technology entrepreneurs: Creative. Responsive. Agile. Collaborative.

As Tom Peters said at the beginning of the dotcom revolution, winners have a common go-to-market strategy: READY, FIRE, AIM.

It’s still possible to integrate evidence-driven digital tools with your current business operations and deliver powerful results for your customer experience. Whether you want to maximise your brand awareness, or reassure your existing clients during these challenging circumstances, it’s possible to make changes which are as quick and calculated as they are impactful.

To find out more about we can transform your digital strategy, get in touch with us at [email protected].

Paradigm shifts, the ‘next big thing’, world-changing, disruptive, next-generation, XYZ 2.0… superlatives are at home when it comes to digital technology. So, it’s not surprising that most people roll their eyes at the introduction of the next tech game-changer.

With the gift of hindsight, we can see which emerging technologies were worth the hype over the last few decades – but they’re few and far between. The home PC, and in turn the laptop, the internet, and the smartphone: for the general consumer, these are the few revolutionary technologies that have truly impacted the way we live, work, shop and socialise, paving the way for smaller evolutionary trends which dictate our behaviour.

But is it really possible to make predictions on the next big shift in tech?

Well, hold your eye-rolling for now. Because it’s likely already staring most of us in the face.

When reality isn’t enough, augment it

Virtual reality (VR) has the Ronseal factor: it’s a self-contained digital ‘reality’ which you can digitally interact with.

VR has been around since the late 70’s. The most commonly cited first incidence of its use is from NASA, when their artist-in-residence David Em created the first virtually navigable digital world. But today you’re more likely to find it used for a video game or perhaps a training simulation.

Augmented Reality (AR) is slightly different. Instead of being self-contained, AR superimposes virtual elements onto the real world: it augments our physical reality.

You’ll most often find AR used on smartphones and tablets, making use of the device’s camera. Those social media filters which give you dog ears or a drastic makeover? They’re a form of augmented reality. And ‘Pokémon Go’ uses AR too.

Going beyond social

AR isn’t new, but it is being used in increasingly novel ways – and no, we don’t mean the new filters which make you look like an attractively chiselled supermodel.

AR has potential because while VR removes you from the real world, AR supplements your experience with reality – and can actually increase your engagement with the real world.

Imagine, for example, your VR headset didn’t block off your view of the real world. Instead, it’s a set of glasses, much like a normal set of eyeglasses, but provided a digital overlay of useful information. As a construction worker, you could look at a site and immediately be presented with spatial calculations which could help you cut materials to size without needing a measuring tape. As a surgeon, you’d be able to see your patients’ vitals in front of you, without even turning your head. As a consumer, you’d be presented with information about the materials which make up the clothing you’re about to buy.

All these are real examples – albeit mostly in their infancy. But they have incredible potential to become true game-changers with the right thinking, creativity and application.

Through a combination of enhanced engagement and the presentation of useful information, AR’s possibilities are limitless.

The state of AR today

We could go on about the complexities, challenges and intricacies of AR, but instead we’ll keep it snappy, as you’re busy holding down the fort in the real world.

Instead, let’s do a quick summary of AR today:

·    AR won’t replace computers

While AR may displace some computers, there’s merit keeping most of them. For example, while some companies have experimented with the addition of an AR dashboard in (mostly luxury) cars, this is unlikely to become the reality for the general public – who needs another distraction while trying to navigate rush-hour traffic? A satnav is plenty enough.

·   AR is platform agnostic

AR isn’t owned by Apple, Android or Microsoft: its technology can be used in combination with any of the Big Three (and any other brand, for that matter) as long as the device itself is compatible.

•     AR is still in its discovery phase

While we’re already using AR on smartphones, this is unlikely to be its final form – the screens simply aren’t big enough for us to appreciate its full potential. There’s so much scope for AR to play with all our senses: haptic feedback (pressure sensing) could be used for us to more accurately ‘interact’ with virtual elements; eye-tracking could ensure whatever information we need in our peripheral remains in constant view; geo-location and movement tracking can even further blur the lines between the physical and digital. In all likelihood, the vehicle for delivering AR experiences will depend on its context and use case – and that’s really exciting.

•     AR could see new tech behemoths emerge

The companies who use AR to its full advantage could well usurp many of the larger, well-established players who ignore it. This may seem overzealous, but in 2000, who could have guessed where Microsoft, IBM, or even Facebook would be today?

The future’s bright (and it’s not just an overlay)

If technology’s history has taught us anything, it’s that when a new piece of revolutionary technology comes along, it’s true magic is revealed when it collides with culture. It’s the crucial intersection between technology and the arts which offers the most potential.

Right now, the first wave of AR applications sit in two camps: utilitarian or ‘just for fun’. What we’re seeing today is not dissimilar to the very beginnings of an App Store.

The next wave will come when vehicles for delivering AR experiences gain traction, such as the AR glasses we mentioned above (Snapchat, in fact, launched ‘Spectacles’ as far back as 2016). Not only will we see utilitarian use cases strengthen, we’ll also see AR branch out into new markets.

From seeing how much fuel your car has left just by looking at it, or receiving real-time walking directions without ever having to look down at your screen; from your phone notifications appearing in your periphery, to shopping for new clothes seamlessly without ever having to try them on, thanks to a new AR mirror that superimposes new styles onto your live reflection.

These new applications will go beyond making life more convenient: they’ll start to build the standards behind the tech, and ignite discussions about how our technologies ‘talk’ to each other.

As for the third wave… That comes down to data.

It’s not Star Trek – but things are accelerating at warp speed

Now is the perfect time for brands to get ahead of the game when it comes to using AR in ways that will truly inspire and engage their audiences.

There are limitless opportunities. Why not contact us today at [email protected] to discuss your goals with our team.