We have reached out to other members of the marketing and communications community to bring together this curated list of our top tips. We hope the information helps and encourage you to reach out to the contributors for any questions or comments!
Margaret Sherer, Cittadina Marketing.
1) Time spent planning your marketing strategy leads to successful marketing campaigns
When I meet with customers to discuss a new marketing campaign and tactics, oftentimes I hear, “Oh, that doesn’t work.” When probed about the aversion to that particular tactic, 9 out of 10 times, it turns out that the customer had launched a tactic without considering their audience, what they want them to do, or what happens after they’ve clicked on a link! Though you would hope a marketing strategy was thoroughly planned from the very beginning, business owners or marketers typically are short of time for this important first step and pushed into getting ‘something’ live as fast as possible. This rarely sets a campaign up for success. Consider the following: What platform is right? What collaboration avenue could work? Is your site set up once someone clicks on the link?
The digital landscape is so vast and can be very confusing and maybe even intimidating, but now is the time to really think about how to cut through the noise, build your digital presences on the platforms that make the most sense and begin to attract your customer.
If you’d like to discuss your marketing strategy or how best to get some of your tactics working better for you, get in touch at hello@cittadina.co.uk. Happy planning!
Samantha Farrow, Farrow Creative.
2) 3 Simple Steps to Better Branding
Before rebranding or evolving your brand think of the three P’s. You need to have all of them right in order for your brand to work effectively. Think of a milking stool with three legs...if one is missing you will fall on your bum. Proposition - What are you selling (promising)? Position - Where does your organisation sit in the market place? Personality - What does it look like to your customers and prospects? Proposition A brand proposition is a promise that an organisation makes and this promise needs to be easily understood, engaging, unique, relevant (to the target audience), and consistent. Position Where do you want your organisation to be placed in your target market’s mind — what are the benefits you want them to associate with your brand? To maximise your brand value you need to be relevant and distinctive. Do you have an effective brand positioning strategy in place? Personality The fun part, also the part that organisations get wrong. Your brand personality is what consumers relate to. Having a consistent set of traits that your target market enjoys increases it’s brand equity. Brand personality is also described as a set of human characteristics that are linked to a brands name.
For an informal chat about your brand evolution or to talk more about how we can help set up and implement your brand strategy please contact Samantha Farrow, MA email sam@farrowcreative.co.uk or visit our website www.farrowcreative.co.uk
Fiona Fitzgibbon, Diversiffi Media.
3) Distil the key objective for any commercial partnership down to one simple sentence
Commercial partnerships, whether monetising assets, brand to brand through to B2B/C2B, are a shared responsibility and risk. They must work for all stakeholders, and require a long-term strategy that takes time, often months to deliver, and then needs constant development. For a partnership to succeed, it is vital to ensure all parties visions, values, and purpose align, with time spent exploring and interrogating the business needs. This can be delivering/expanding value to customers, it can be complementary services, or financial leverage. At Diversiffi Media, we take ownership of our client’s business challenges, see it through from assessment to fruition. This removes the pressure from our client’s day to day, presenting an outcome that meets the core business needs. Diversiffi Media operates across the UK, Europe, the States and the Middle East. Clients include Samsung UK/Europe, Transport for London, Unibail-Rodamco Westfield, Aviva Investors, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, Boston Consulting Group, HSBC, London Legacy Development Corp, FatTail USA, Gulf Meteor Dubai
Get in touch with Diversiffi at info@diversiffi.co.uk
Vanessa Whiteside, Moth Marketing.
4) Beat the SEO minefield with social media
When people think about ‘search’ they think of Google. However, with more people than ever spending their time online, switching from Instagram to Facebook to Youtube to Twitter to LinkedIn and back again, these channels are becoming powerful search engines of their own.
Being active on these platforms through having a live, optimised (hashtag those keywords!) account provides more opportunities to be discovered, either intentionally or through the smart algorithms, matching your brand to your desired audience.
In addition to these benefits of social media as powerful search engines in their own right, social media profiles are often amongst the top results in Google search listings for brand names, so ensure your channels showcase the best of your brand to benefit from this exposure.
Stay active, relevant and creative with your social media strategy, as these platforms are becoming the gateway to people discovering your brand.
Get in touch with Vanessa to learn more about Moth Marketing’s smart and flexible marketing services here: vanessa@mothmarketing.co.uk
Jessica Pacey, 67 Health.
5) Place storytelling at the heart of your communications
Tactically, communications can often be broken down into the following steps: the development of key messages, tailoring them to your audience and then choosing the right channel to disseminate the messages to said audiences. Yet the campaigns that successfully ‘cut through the noise’ do more than share key messages, they tell a story. Corporate facts, however compelling, do not a narrative make. Taking the time to build a story that persuasively communicates the context in which you are working, your aims and crucially, why the audience should care about them, makes all the difference to how others engage with your content.
So take inspiration from your younger self - the storytelling that we are exposed to as children provides a roadmap to the kind of impact us adults seek to have on readers now. If you’re struggling to find the time or the imagination to build your story, invite the help of an agency specialising in your field.
For those working in the healthcare industry, 67health was founded to help companies with big ambition to deliver impressive campaigns that put storytelling at the heart of their communications.
Get in touch with 67health at: hello@67health.co.uk
Juliet Francis, JFPR Consulting.
6) When embarking on PR understand the media agenda and become an expert
It is vitally important to understand your target publication if you want to gain coverage from your PR campaign. This could be from a publication’s general agenda, how frequently it is published to linking the journalists that would typically cover stories in your industry.
There are sometimes subtle differences between even the most similar publications across media platforms. This form of intelligence can offer a range of benefits, such as offering creative ideas that can help you with future campaigns, honing in on your brand’s key message and of course how you will communicate.
Bringing some news value to the table as well as offering compelling insight to a subject will inspire the journalist to turn to your spokespeople for commentary, and could just land you a top story in your target media. There is groundwork to be done, such as letting the journalists see you engage with them outside of the timeline of trying to secure press coverage. Comment on a previous story they have written, ask them brief questions about their thoughts on a topic for example. Relationship building helps to build trust, whilst offering news value insight on your sector will turn you into an expert and can catapult your brand into the spotlight.
JFPR Consulting is an agency made up of ex-journalists specialising in corporate and consumer communication with media relations at the core of its service.
For a free consultation please contact: juliet@julietfrancis.co.uk