Category: Uncategorised

Amber Chawner, Senior Account Executive

Last week’s announcement from Boris Johnson revealing the rise in national insurance tax to fuel health and social care has left promise for further investment in technology to help increase efficiency and allow for better resourcing. However, that isn’t to say that progress hasn’t already been made in this department, with exciting new developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and healthcare hitting the headlines every day.

As we wait in anticipation to see what is to come, below I take a look at some of the ways that AI is already being used to revolutionise the health and social care sector.

Using AI to detect dementia up to 15 years earlier
A disease that impacts more than 850,000 people in the UK every year, Cogentivity has partnered with InterSystems on a solution that uses AI to detect dementia up to 15 years earlier than conventional methods. Its Integrated Cognitive Assessment (ICA), teamed with InterSystems IRIS for Health data platform, tests how the brain reacts to certain types of images and detects the earliest signs of disease before the onset of memory symptoms. It has already been deployed at North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust and is currently the subject of a UK government-funded study in collaboration with the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

AI remote monitoring software to allow people to remain in their homes
Health tech company, Lilli has recently partnered with Dorset Council in a three-month pilot to help identify cost and time-savings in the care sector. With 100 people involved in the trial, sensors are installed in their homes which then track behaviour and electricity usage. AI then comes into play to analyse the data collected and spot any potential health problems. With additional strain being placed on the NHS at the moment, this kind of solution helps to keep people out of hospitals, while also allowing them the freedom to remain in the comfort of their own homes for longer.

Scientists are developing an app that uses AI to diagnose conditions by listening to their cough
Imagine having an app that can determine what illness you have just by listening to a cough?! For a lot of people, a cough is just a cough, but this group of scientists are recording millions of coughs and then training AI to identify what is causing the person to have the symptom. After the events of the last year and a half, this kind of tool could become instrumental in helping diagnose conditions such as asthma, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or even Covid substantially earlier – freeing up hospital space and increasing overall hospital efficiency.

AI-enabled software which allows surgeons to rehearse brain aneurysms procedures
Oxford Heartbeat has designed the PreSize technology – an AI solution that allows surgeons to rehearse brain aneurysms procedures. Currently being used by the NHS at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, the medical device software helps to plan neurovascular surgeries by predicting the behaviour of a particular stent in a patient’s anatomy. It then automatically creates an accurate 3D model of the patient’s vessel tree and indicates where a stent should start and finish in the vessel model, allowing the surgeon to select the best option from a library of all certified stents.

With these exciting new developments already well underway, keep your eyes peeled to see the other innovative ways in which AI can be used to revolutionise the healthcare sector.

Remember Facebook circa 2010? Brands took to the platform and it made a significant impact. Like all things digital, Facebook has evolved since then, in fact the whole paid and organic social media landscape has. What this means is with the algorithm changes (for Facebook specifically) reach, impact and engagement isn’t what it once was.

Don’t worry though – paid social media is here to save the day.

Or is it?

Let’s be clear: organic social still has a role to play in your digital marketing strategy. It is the ideal platform to tell your brand story, it’s built around community and it’s not necessarily about target driven results.

Tied into community management, something that’s become more of a focus over the last two or three years, is employee advocacy. Your employees can be your strongest advocates and when they take to social media to convey that, it has a positive impact on your brand in terms of amplification of content, visibility, shareability and share of voice.

Organic is also the ideal testing ground for the paid side of things because you can see what content resonates with which audiences and how they are engaging with your content. Those learnings, building up a clear profile of your audiences over time, can be applied to your paid strategy.

Why should you use paid social then? It’s not just used to boost organic content. It’s a lot more targeted than that. Those strategies are built around campaigns and specific objectives and typically across B2B are designed to generate an action.

So think about targeted content like eBooks, webinars and whitepapers, leveraging your best content. You can use these to fuel your paid campaigns across platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. With LinkedIn specifically, there is the opportunity to be really targeted across things like personas, industry, job title, age, geography, company size… the list goes on. You can use it to find and engage with new audiences.

The key thing about these types of targeted campaigns is that they can be measured and you can determine your ROI. While paid gets the quick-fire results based on specific campaigns, having organic running concurrently building your brand story and presence provides longevity.

Using both paid and organic social media together makes sense. And when you’re using social as part of a larger PR and marketing strategy, they pack a powerful punch for reaching those objectives – be it lead generation, brand awareness or expansion.

If you’d like to chat about the opportunity that paid and social media can deliver to your business, please get in touch.

As part of our The Question of Trust research, we spoke to marketing leaders from a host of B2B tech businesses. We got their insights on trust building, how to do it, how to overcome any challenges and how the process of maintaining trust and customer loyalty were affected by the pandemic.

This is what Martijn Groot, VP Marketing & Strategy at Alveo Technology had to say:

“I think what we saw during the pandemic was that it is very easy to engage on a superficial level in the sense of filling up webinar rooms, at least initially.

I think during the year, there was a certain fatigue of webinars and online events.

At the same time, I think there’s this digital bombardment of mailings, and everyone is taking pot-shots at buyers or influencers in companies.

But, in that war for attention using creative subject lines as well as tactics, there have been big developments in marketing automation, in the personalisation of websites or portals that people go through.

It’s easy to send content and get reactions and get downloads and get webinar attendance. Getting one-to-one meetings, that has been hard because things were postponed during the year and there wasn’t a reason for the buyer to engage.”

Q: What are the best ways to build trust?
The brand is important. Comms are important, so try to come up with relevant content, certainly be consistent in your messaging.

The best content in my view, and I’ve also been a buyer on the other side, is case studies, testimonials, or insightful commentary on challenges that I would face as a buyer. Anything from relevant peers which is the most credible content. Together with that kind of content, it’s anything from trusted third parties.

Part of our outreach has also been to the rest of the ecosystem, so people that we have a shared interest with, for example, selection consultants, or services companies that complement what we do in adjacent fields, both from the perspective of using them to help us in direct influencing, but also to team up to offer a more comprehensive solution to target accounts. Our outreach is not only to prospects, but also to influencers in the ecosystem.

In terms of building trust, I think it’s targeted comms on what you do, what’s coming down the pipe to your clients, report on service levels. We share roadmap information, so try to be transparent and consistent. Also, of course, you have to do what you say that you will do to your clients.

To prospects, it is as I mentioned, about, if possible, show them something that one of their peers has solved using our solutions, that will work best.

Q: Did that kind of approach change at all over the pandemic?
I think it changed in the sense that, on the marketing side, which is my department, we’ve certainly done more to get more out of our marketing automation toolset. Like HubSpot and making sure we’re using the content properly.

We’ve also accelerated micro-targeting that I mentioned, using our partner network, and still trying to make it all more personable, even though it’s digital.

We also have the comms come from the salesperson and offer something like brief consulting sessions with an SME, 30-minute or an hour call, where you’re not trying to sell them something.

Overall, we tried to be relevant. Have relevant content and then build on that.

Q: What are the biggest barriers to building trust with customers and prospective customers?
It’s been harder to get meetings, again, probably because early on pre-pandemic, it was easier to just have a coffee with somebody, sit down and interact more, let’s say, informally.

On the bright side, maybe the pandemic has, I guess, changed the etiquette of business meetings a little bit, that it’s now a custom to have video chat immediately. Maybe two years ago, we would have had this conversation over the phone or in person. There was this, I would say, an intermediary step that you can look each other in the eye, but it’s still digital.

On the digital side, the biggest challenge has been gauging the intent of people. I think marketing and market automation can play a bigger role.

Q: Where do you see the biggest opportunities for PR and marketing in building trust?
For the customers, it’s clear concise communication and regular updates. Don’t bombard them. Be selective in what you send to people and be relevant. Transparency is helpful.

For the prospects, it’s pretty much the same. It’s wherever possible, of course, and this is, to me, the most valuable content. You have to make sure that you give them what they need to go to the next step or make them think, which is more the thought leadership, and make sure the lightbulb goes off and they have this aha moment and they will look at you. Maybe otherwise they would not have ever considered it.

Insights into fostering trust, the role PR & marketing plays in supporting it, and what the future looks like for B2B brands.

Building trust has always been an important focus for marketers and increasingly so over the past few years. But what does it look like? How do brands tackle it, especially in a challenging environment? With today’s consumers inundated with options, how do use trust and loyalty to  make sure that your brand stands out? How do you stick in the mind of the consumer, ensuring that they know you’re going to deliver what you promise?

This eBook delves into how PR & marketing helps build and maintain trust by interviewing senior marketing professionals at companies such as IFS, Pulsant, insightsoftware and Glen Dimplex Heating & Ventilation. Discover how it has changed over the last 12 months and what the future of trust building and customer loyalty looks like.

Work Experience at Whiteoaks
We always love to engage with ambitious young people, hoping to inspire them to embark upon their own exciting PR journeys! Over the summer we were joined by two students, Tom and Clare, who worked with different teams for two weeks to gain an insight into how we operate. Luckily, thanks to the easing of lockdown restrictions, they were even able to come in and experience life in the office! Here is how they found it.

Clare Merrick

Background and Interests:
Currently, I am studying for a degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick and am in my second, and penultimate, year. In my free time you will most likely find me watching the football (come on you Blues!) or listening to some records from my collection. I live in a village near Slough (which I thought was a bit of a commute!) so I found somewhere to stay a bit closer to the office to be able to come in every day during my work experience. I wanted to get experience in PR because I have my heart set on working in the industry when I graduate, but I felt I didn’t know enough about which specific team I wanted to work with and which area would be best suited to me. Whiteoaks is such a friendly and forward-thinking company that I was delighted to be able to get to do some work experience here. I knew that I would be able to learn a lot from Whiteoaks as they are a leading B2B agency and that they would have just the kind of environment in which I would eventually like to work!

Experience:
Writing at the end of my first week, I have greatly enjoyed what I have done so far and am very much looking forward to the next. This week I have been working with the Content team who have taught me how to write various different styles of pieces for clients. I’ve been doing tasks such as writing articles, press releases and synopses, proof reading, editing and research, and have learned an enormous amount in the process! It was great fun to deploy my creativity in these assignments and to try to utilise my background of English Literature. Some of the tasks were a challenge at first as I was initially unfamiliar with the formats that were required but, albeit with the help of the Cookbook, I persevered and gained some invaluable experience along the way. I will be changing team next week, moving to the Digital team, and am very excited to be working with them and learning a lot more!

Future Plans:
As I will have graduated by this time next year, my thoughts are already turning to what my next steps will be! I am currently mulling over the idea of doing a masters, partly because the COVID-19 pandemic has already robbed me of a year and a bit of the usual “university experience” but have not yet come to any firm conclusions on the matter. Either way, when I have finished my education, I would like to start working in PR and Communications.

Tom Baldry

Background and Interests:
After studying Sociology and Business Economics at The Sixth Form College Farnborough and achieving the results I needed to, I then went on to study at my dream university which is The University of Exeter. The course I am studying at university is BSc Management and Marketing and I am about to head into my third and final year in September after the most amazing first two years. I like to keep myself very busy but when I do have some free time outside of studying and my part-time job, I am most likely to be found going out for dinner and drinks or listening to live music with my friends. I decided that, before I graduate next year, I wanted to put what I have learnt from my degree so far into practice and apply it to working in order to develop my current knowledge and understanding. When I learnt more about Whiteoaks as an agency I realised that it is definitely the sort of business that I see working for in the future as everyone is very approachable and no questions are off limits so therefore doing work experience here was really a no brainer!

Experience:
My first week of work experience at Whiteoaks is coming to an end and I have already done and learnt so many new things thanks to the brilliant team I have been working with. In this week alone I have done many different tasks such as working on social posts, data mining, research, editing and even contributing to the Whiteoaks website and so much more! I have really enjoyed all the tasks that I have done this week and have found it gratifying being able to put the knowledge I’ve learnt from my degree to a use.

Future plans:
As a result of the pandemic ruining many people’s travel plans including my own, after hopefully graduating this time next year I plan on going travelling for around six months to a year around Southeast Asia which has been a lifelong dream of mine. On the return from my travels, I think I will make a decision as to whether or not I want to go back to university to complete a masters program. If not, I will hopefully go into working in social media marketing.

By Mark Wilson, Creative Director

We all love a good podcast – from true crime and football fantasy, to epic cookery and comedy. There is a podcast on every topic.

But it’s not just entertainment. And content isn’t just directed at consumers. I’ll say it again… there is a podcast on every topic. Business, tech, creative, advertising, tech PR, HR… the list goes on. As a business owner or marketing professional you’ve most likely already asked the question: how can podcasts help my business?

The answer is simple.

The right podcast, with engaging and informative content, can be used in much the same way as any other PR and marketing asset. It is a great vehicle to support your objectives, and can be used to fuel awareness of your brand, generate leads and demonstrate thought leadership.

The best thing about podcasts is that they are so versatile — giving you almost carte blanche when it comes to format. Q&A, monologue, conversational, panel… the choice is yours. Depending on your objective and your content, of course.

And again, just like with other marketing and PR assets, the podcast is best used as part of a balanced campaign mix, covering off a range of different assets for every touchpoint; social, video, eBooks and the likes. Not everyone consumes content in the same way so it’s important to give your audience options and make it easy for them to engage with your brand.

The podcast is also the perfect tool to humanise your business and give your customers and potential customers insights into the people behind the brand. You can talk about your values, highlight your staff or simply give them valuable content in a personalised way, whether that’s coming from a subject matter expert or your CEO.

Another key element that podcasts can help with is credibility. We all know that having your existing clients talk about their successes and positive experiences with your business is a valuable sales tool. Also think about employee advocacy; having your team talk about their experiences, career growth and why they enjoy their jobs can help boost that assurance for prospective clients but also help attract the right candidates for new roles.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t a simple answer. But the facts are clear around the value that a professionally executed and promoted podcast can deliver to your business. Whether that’s providing a window into your brand and your team, reinforcing what you stand for or demonstrating your expertise and thought leadership to the market, podcasts are definitely worth considering for your brand.

As an agency we hear often enough in a new business environment that ROI is kind of murky and difficult to see. We challenge that view because we believe ROI in PR isn’t a myth or pipe dream. It’s achievable.

Watch Head of Business Development Bekki Bushnell shares her 5 steps to better PR ROI:

Since the beginning, we have always been a deliberately different kind of B2B tech PR agency. Nearly 30 years ago, we offered our clients a true PR breakthrough: ‘totally transparent PR with proven sales success’.

We help B2B tech businesses grow, prosper, succeed. For nearly 30 years we’ve been developing and delivering PR, content, creative, media, and digital and social campaigns across a diverse range of clients, including broadcast manufacturing, retail, supply chain and logistics, enterprise IT, cyber security, fintech and fast-growth companies.