Category: Uncategorised

By Mark Wilson, Creative Director

Brand development can sometimes be a daunting task. The thought of overhauling your brand, changing everything and moving away from what you know is a big undertaking. But brand development may not be as daunting and fear-inducing as you first think. In this article, I’ll talk about why brand development doesn’t necessarily mean a complete rebrand by answering three simple questions.

What is brand development?

Firstly, branding is very much the face of your company; it’s how people perceive you and governs their instant reactions when they hear your name or see your product. Brand development is how that brand evolves and develops to ensure that they are staying current. Development can take different forms, such as imagery, tone of voice, messaging, typography, colour, communication channels.

This leads me to my next point, about how brand development isn’t all about changing everything. There are many different intensities to brand development. It could be small tweaks to your imagery and icons or it could be a complete rebranding with a name change and new messaging that is aimed at a new target audience.

A good example of tweaking your brand to constantly evolve is Google – they are always updating logos and icons that generally goes under the radar but ensures their look is current.

Why is it important?

The importance of brand development is easy to understate and sometimes companies don’t realise the importance of it. It’s the face of your company – it’s the first thing people see and think of when your name is mentioned. I always compare it to a news feed; when you look at a news feed that is out of date your perception of it changes and you are unlikely to spend much more time looking through that feed. Whereas, if it’s current, you’re likely to revisit.

Brands are very much the same – you need to stay current to make sure that people trust you are up to the task, especially in comparison to your competitors. It’s no use if you’re a cutting-edge tech company that sells state of the art software but your branding is dated. Your brand needs to reflect the product or service that you are selling.

Where do you start?

This one is a hard one because different factors determine how you develop and what you develop. I look at it in two ways – do you have an old brand, where your brand is established and been around for a long time but needs to be updated? Or are you a new brand that has finished the brand launch and are unsure where to go from there?

Looking at it from the old brand point of view – you may have a good offering and a healthy client base but need to re-energise the brand. My first recommendation would be to look at the core messaging to make sure that it is still relevant and resonating with the audience. From that you can evolve your visual identity, by creating a new website, introducing more colours and imagery to give your brand a modern look and feel that can give you a competitive edge.

Now to look at the other position of the new brand, where it hasn’t been long since you introduced the new brand. Should you develop the brand any further? If the brand is very new, then you need a ‘settling-in’ period to make sure that you get some time to increase brand awareness. If you start changing bits about your brand straight away it’s an uphill battle to create some awareness with your target audience. Then I’d recommend starting slowly – don’t jump straight into changing the logo or colours, it can be as simple as changing a few images on your website to keep it modern and up to date. Once you have some brand awareness then you can start to look at refining and moving into new areas, such as channels.

It’s easy to want to constantly update and develop your brand but before you do make sure to look at whether your brand is still resonating with the audience. If it is then there is little reason to make drastic changes. But if you feel that your brand isn’t working with your current audience or are aiming at a new audience then it might be time for a refresh; feel free to get in touch with me to discuss how we could help develop your brand.

By Holly Tyler, Digital Account Executive

Just like social media itself, the humble hashtag has undergone intense innovation over the last few years. Almost every major platform has an algorithm in place to organise and distribute your posts, helping you to target specific audiences, and the creation of the hashtag was essentially an easy way to help yourself and the platform achieve this task. However, it hasn’t always been plain sailing when deciphering where and how to use hashtags. Let me cast your minds back: the year is 2010, the iPod Nano is the height of sophistication, and Instagram has just arrived in the AppStore ready to consume our lives. I’m sure many of us remember our cringe-worthy use of hashtags at the end of every post in a bid to grow our audience and exposure overnight. #LikeForLike and #FollowForFollow still haunt my dreams to this day, and sadly a lot of businesses are still none the wiser when it comes to hashtag etiquette. Luckily, I’m here to help.

Let’s start with LinkedIn. In its Best Practices Guide, the channel outlines three important reasons for using hashtags on their site:

1. To establish your credibility and expertise
2. To reach people who value your insights
3. To jumpstart meaningful conversations over shared interests

On a platform renown for its employment-oriented service and professional nature, LinkedIn is your chance to shine as a business and let your target audience know why you and your team should be their choice of service. Hashtags are a fantastic way to establish this connection, allowing you to specify your engagements and chime in on conversations that can further solidify your expertise. LinkedIn is also equipped with a ‘Hashtags’ feature under the ‘Community’ tab in your ‘Manage’ page, allowing you to add up to three hashtag topics that you are able to see trending posts for and respond to on behalf of your business account rather than your personal profile. If your last eBook is centred around remote working, then you would benefit from adding the #remoteworking hashtag to your tab so that you can engage with conversations that would benefit from your knowledge. Boom! Genius.

Now onto Twitter. In a recent blog titled ‘The dos and don’ts of hashtags’, the Twitter Business team addressed our aforementioned sin of over-hashtagging by stating that “one to two relevant hashtags per Tweet is the sweet spot”. Common myths which circulate telling us to cram as many hashtags into one post as possible are preventing your post from achieving its maximum exposure. This is because the content is broken down across various hashtag streams and therefore becomes less of a priority amidst the algorithm, as opposed to a post that features two prominent hashtags which creates a less-confusing request for the channel when distributing the content. Mind-blowing stuff, right? Twitter also encourages users to do their research before selecting their chosen hashtags, whereby investigating which posts are up-and-coming within your sector and using the same hashtags as them, you can reap the benefits of contributing to a ‘hot topic’. The same rule applies when creating a campaign-specific hashtag – ensure that the wording is relevant to your brand as well as your wider industry with helping from the ‘Trending’ tab.

While the algorithm may sometimes seem confusing, social media platforms are not designed to catch you out – they’re designed to help you grow and innovate, and now you have the tools to do so (you’re welcome).

By James Kelliher, CEO

If there’s one thing that last year has highlighted to business, it’s the value of crisis communications and the importance of having the right strategy in place to deal with said crisis.

But before we start using words like “unprecedented” and “new normal”, it may help to take a step back and ask ourselves what a crisis is — the first step in dealing with one. Simply stated, a crisis is a significant event that results in high levels of scrutiny which has the potential to affect an organisation’s normal operations.

Looking at 2020, the defining feature when it comes to the crisis is that the pandemic has affected all organisations; it’s a global challenge. Yes, it has impacted businesses differently in terms of customer service, logistics, supply chain, etc., but overall, everyone has been affected.

That said, the basic principles of crisis comms still apply and haven’t changed. What may change, and certainly should change, is the way we approach planning given the benefit of hindsight and experience from last year.

A case in point is scenario planning; a successful crisis comms plan includes preparing for a host of potential crises e.g. an executive scandal, data breach or natural disaster. Now, however, and moving forward, we’ll be including managing the impact of a global pandemic.

Because one key piece of advice we offer our clients is that you shouldn’t do crisis comms planning during a crisis. It can lead to hasty (and poor) decision making and a less than favourable outcome for the business and its stakeholders.

Our current situation might be an anomaly, but it has demonstrated how important the core principles are:

– Plan for tomorrow
– Respond rapidly
– Work with local authorities
– Position your management front and centre
– Be open and honest
– Demonstrate concern and convey integrity
– Speak with one voice

It has also highlighted the importance of accuracy. During a crisis, it is crucial for businesses to only communicate what they know to be true. Speculation is never advised. Earlier on in the pandemic this came into sharp focus with many brands falling short after making bold statements about impact, job losses, etc. when they simply didn’t have the information available to back that up.

Brands that fared well include those that admitted what they didn’t know but balanced that with making it clear what their plans were to deal with the crisis.

While COVID has certainly taught us a lot, it’s the adherence to the basic principles and being prepared that will help organisations through. It’s about being proactive, understanding the situation and having the tools at your disposal (like the right message communicated to the right audiences) to ensure you’re addressing the crisis and demonstrating that you have a handle on things, even when there is information that you don’t yet know.

By Amber Chawner, Account Executive

In the era of self-driving cars and smart home devices, it’s hard to believe that once we would have been riding around on horse and carts, or heaven forbid, be forced to use a phone that was connected to a landline. Technology is ever-evolving, which means that as a PR working in the tech sector, we need to be constantly evolving too in order to keep pace. Building strong and successful media relationships is one of the core fundamentals of a successful PR campaign, and while there are definitely some methods of doing this that have withstood the test of time, others have required a bit of adapting.

They say a magician never reveals their tricks, however, consider this your lucky day – as below I outline four tips for building media relationships that are made to last.

Don’t be late to the party: I know people say it’s okay to be “fashionably late” to a party, however, this does not apply to the world of PR. Pitching ideas to journalists that they covered several months ago is a sure way to lose brownie points with them. When deciding on new themes to pitch, make sure you have done the reading and that you are adding value to existing conversations, or moving the conversations forward. Offering the media great, future-looking content is the best way to build solid relationships with the press – which leads nicely to my next point.

Do your due diligence: Researching content is important, but it’s also important to research press targets. Having great content is only half the battle and targeting a cyber security publication with a piece around retail trends, for example, because you didn’t sanity check your pitch list, is a really easy way to burn any bridges that you may have with them. Take the extra time to do your due diligence before starting any outreach to make sure you are targeting the right publications and the right journalists.

Pitch punchy, but with personality: This is something that I truly believe helps differentiate yourself from other PRs, and helps creates a strong foundation for media relationships. Journalists receive so many emails every day that you want to make sure you are doing your part to stand out in a very crowded inbox. Making sure your pitch is short and punchy is more likely to get your email read, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be regimented. Allow some of your personality to come across in your conversations – whether that is via email, in-person or over the phone – and you will find it a lot easier to build and maintain strong media relationships.

Keep your ear to the ground, and your eye on the papers: Underpinning all of this in the recipe for media relations success, is the importance of keeping up to date with the news agenda and current affairs. Having a sound knowledge of what is going on in your sector and the rest of the world is key to delivering insightful commentary; helping to build those all-important journalist relationships.

Ensuring that you have a strong media relations strategy in place is key for the success of any PR campaign, so make sure you take the time to get it right, and you’ll see the results come pouring in.

By Hannah Buckley, Head of Content

The importance of taking care of our mental health and wellbeing has been a regular topic of conversation over the last year and this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week helps to bring that to the fore once more.

The theme of this year’s event, which began on Monday, is nature, highlighting just how big an impact the world around us can have on our mental health. In fact, according to The Mental Health Foundation, more than half of UK adults say that being close to nature has improved their mental health, while four in ten say it has made them feel less worried or anxious.

Over 3.5 million people have taken up gardening for the first time during the pandemic, and for many of us, activities like this or getting out to our local park for some exercise has been a real lifeline over the last year.

Now, as restrictions begin to lift, making time to connect with nature in some capacity should be something we still try to make time for to reap both the physical and mental benefits it can offer.

If like me, you can’t leave home without your mobile phone, then why not put it to good use? No matter how much time you have available to you, whether it’s a quick walk on your lunch break or a cup of tea in the garden of a morning, there are a wealth of apps on offer to help you get in touch with nature and protect and support your mental health.

Test your tree knowledge

Apps like TreeID by the Woodland Trust, which can identify trees using bark, twigs, buds, leaves, flowers and fruits, and iNaturalist, which uses artificial intelligence to ID plants and wildlife, can help you reconnect with nature and learn more about your surroundings. Paying attention to the local scenery and wildlife on your next trip to the park could make you feel calmer and more present in the moment.

Don’t forget to look up!

No telescope? No worries. A range of apps are now available to help you make more sense of the night sky and identify stars and constellations in your corner of the world. The use of augmented reality within many apps means that even if you live somewhere with a lot of light population, the app can still locate where you are and pull up what the star map should look like above you.

Try mindful walking

Like me, you might have found yourself continuously running and walking the same routes for the last year and may now function on autopilot. Mindful walking gets you to tune into your environment and the sensations of your body. By being more aware on your walk, you’ll open yourself up to the sights and sounds of nature, which may help you feel more present and less stressed. If you’re new to mindful walking, apps like Calm or podcasts can help to guide you in this practice.

Bring the outside in

Even if you can’t get outside, there are still plenty of ways to connect with nature. Bring the outside in and add plants to your workspace. If you’re not particularly green-fingered, then download an app to track when you should water them and how to make sure they thrive. Alternatively, take five and look outside your window. If you’re lucky enough to hear birdsong, you could use an app to help you identify the species of bird it’s coming from and even learn bird calls yourself.

With mental health charities advocating for spending time in nature or bringing it into your everyday life, giving one of these apps a go will not only help you reconnect with nature and change up your usual walk, but could also help support your mental wellbeing.

What does sustainable growth look like for technology companies? We interviewed leaders from fast-growth technology businesses to find the answer, including Adatis, Auga Technologies, Divido, Ecrebo, Funding Options, Imagen, paiyroll, Predatar, SysGroup and Vista Retail Support.

We combined their expert opinion with our 25+ plus years in the B2B tech PR industry to create the Secrets of Tech Growth eBook that looks at:

• Real-life success scenarios
• The common characteristics of fast-growth tech companies
• The role of Technology PR and marketing in their success
• What business models they use
• The advice they have for tech start-ups

This eBook captures the thought-provoking insights and experiences of CEOs and CMOs of a range of technology businesses, highlighting both similarities and differences in their approach.

Download The Secrets of Tech Growth

We set out to understand whether senior Sales and Marketing decision-makers working for B2B tech brands are truly operating within an Account-Based Sales (ABS) or Account-Based Marketing (ABM) framework. And if so, how it works best for them, what goals they have and the challenges they face. In our view, either structure can be summarised as a business-to-business (B2B) strategy that aligns both marketing, and/or sales resources and strategies, to categorise, build relationships and target companies or accounts into prioritised groups rather than on an individual leads basis.

The driver behind this research

So, why did we want to understand this area? ABM and ABS have become established buzzwords in the industry and within in the B2B technology space. We increasingly see the benefits of integrated, inter-dependent marketing and sales partnerships, co-ordinated with the same objectives from the top down. When that is in place, marketing communications professionals and their agencies can deliver true value for their brands. And, on a tactical level, we also wanted to know how companies’ marketing output influenced lead generation and which forms of marketing communications made the biggest difference. The result is what we believe to be the first study in the UK, examining both ABM and ABS, rather than just one or the other.

Critical to our intention was to understand the views from both Marketing and Sales leaders. To us, they are not functions to be viewed in isolation.

Highlights

This view is backed up by our research, with 87% of Sales and Marketing professionals stating that their department is very closely or closely aligned with their colleagues. This alignment directly challenges the myth that often rears its head: that Sales and Marketing teams are at odds, with different priorities, objectives and methods.

Our data shows that use of a CRM system is currently at 59% uptake for both prospects and clients and 88% for one or the other audience. This ability to capture, record and action information about both prospective and current client data, ideally in the cloud and complemented by a Marketing Automation Platform, goes much of the way to explaining why these two departments and their leaders are working in an ever more integrated way.

Yet, the CRM platform is only part of the story. The success of high-performing B2B tech brands operating in an account-based model to execute their sales strategy has, over the last few years, prompted some of those high-performing businesses to convert their marketing operations to run in the same way. In fact, 81% of the 202 professionals we surveyed said that they work to either an ABM or ABS operating model.

Our study shows that at a communications delivery level, social media and email marketing are viewed as the top two most effective ways to facilitate interactions with clients and prospects by both groups of professionals. Media relations, case studies and testimonials held stronger value for Marketers, demonstrating that more work is required by PR and communications experts in persuading Sales colleagues to understand their benefits in the overall marketing mix.

What really stands out from our research is that 89% of the 202 business professionals agreed that their company’s marketing efforts contribute to sales and lead generation. The value added was measured most widely by inbound sales enquiries to the website, the number of enquiries from social media channels and, interestingly, leads captured at events, either the company’s own or at industry conferences.

Our research continues

In a new blog focusing on the second part of our research project, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, I look in-depth at the goals and challenges of those 202 Marketing and Sales leaders to implementing an account-based way of working.

Related: A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS – goals, benefits and challenges

Suzanne Griffiths, Managing Director, Whiteoaks International

Download our free report, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’ today. In it you’ll find out:

• How senior Sales and Marketing decision-makers are currently embedding ABM and ABS into their business;
• Which marketing communications both leaders say supports the business most effectively; and
• The best ways for marketing tactics to demonstrate their direct impact on sales.

Download

How it started vs how it’s going
In 1970, activist John McConnell, proposed that there was to be a day to honour the Earth. Wisconsin Senator, Gaylord Nelson quickly took it upon himself to endorse this and the first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. 20 million Americans joined in a grassroots demonstration around issues such as toxic drinking water, air pollution, and the effects of pesticides.

Now, more than 1 billion people in 192 countries participate in Earth Day activities each year in support of the environment, highlighting the urgent action we need to take to save our planet, making it the largest civic observance in the world.

Earth Day 2021- The time is now
The theme of this year’s Earth Day is “Restore Our Earth” which is a fitting and much-needed sentiment as we look back over the last year of our world which has been devastated by the pandemic and numerous catastrophes ranging from hurricanes to bushfires. Its focus couldn’t be more timely. It has been a dark year but with vaccines being developed faster than ever imagined, and vaccination programs being successfully rolled out, cautiously speaking, this Earth Day, the future looks brighter.

However, there is an incredible amount to do and, considering that we need to significantly cut emissions by an estimated 45 per cent by 2030 to keep global warming to 1.5°C, the extent of the challenge we’re facing is clear. As Kathleen Rogers, president of EarthDay.org, poignantly explains “This Earth Day, we have an important opportunity to challenge our leaders to commit to climate action on a global scale. We are at the edge of a cliff — if we don’t act now to reduce carbon emissions, there will be no way back.”

How you can take part this Earth Day
There is an abundance of events, both online and in-person (in line with Covid restrictions), taking place this year. You can use this handy map to find out what’s happening in your area along with this toolkit to help you decide which path to take: perhaps you would like to partake in a teach-in on how to promote a cleaner future, or maybe you would like to organise a clean-up and tackle global waste. You can also tune in to Earth Day Live and listen to the event live-streamed that includes workshops, panel discussions and various guest appearances. You could also sign up to become a member and officially support Earth Day.

What else can you do?
While having an entire day dedicated to saving the planet is fantastic and does wonders in our quest, we can (and must) change aspects in our daily lives. A study revealed that most people want to make sustainable changes but aren’t sure where to start. The easy answer? Just start small. As we all know, every little helps: So, cycle to work, buy reusable bags for shopping, use a refillable water bottle, turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, pick up rubbish when out for a walk, buy local produce, switch to renewable energy and eat less meat (No meat Mondays).

Earth Day comes once a year, but these lifestyle changes are beneficial (and necessary) for the other 364 days, and the years to follow. In the words of Jane Goodall, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.”

We only have one (Mother) Earth. Let’s treat her right. The time is now.

What can we say about the last year? Changing our whole way of working and having to adapt to a different environment, one that many of us weren’t used to. I can safely say that it has been a challenging year and one in which I’ve learnt a lot along the way.

Especially in how we’ve had to change the way we work and communicate with each other. Even though we’re all still working in a team it can feel very isolated sometimes when your only communication is through virtual platforms. That is why staff wellbeing has become an even bigger focus for us – as I am sure it has for other businesses, too. We have the challenge of trying to replace the value of face-to-face interactions when everyone at Whiteoaks is scattered over a large area and can only meet virtually – up until recently!

In addition to constant communication, virtual socials and encouraging a work/life balance, one of the ways in which we’ve tried to do this is by engaging staff in different activities – like encouraging everyone to complete nine million steps (between us all!) in the month of February with the aim of raising £1,000 for our charity partner Ark Cancer Centre Charity.

This initiative was aimed at firstly, raising money for a good cause but also getting us all to work towards a common goal, with some added friendly competition. All of our steps were logged and counted on Stridekick where we had a leader board to see who was completing the most steps and encouraging others to get involved. I certainly felt the urge to get out some more, either taking the dog for an extra walk or even walking to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, they all counted! By the end of the month, we managed to complete the target of nine million steps and as a result, were able to donate the £1,000 to Ark and help towards their fundraising goals.

We partnered with Ark back in 2018 and their goal is to raise £5million to help fund supportive care and services, complementary therapies, and an enhanced environment in an NHS cancer treatment centre that will serve residents in the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT) area. The work on the radiotherapy centre is now nearing completion and they hope to be open and supporting cancer patients in the coming months.

The step challenge was just one of the initiatives that we’ve introduced in the past year to try to encourage and motivate our staff during the lockdown period. I can’t say that all of them have been as successful as the step challenge but that has been part of the journey and one that we learned from.

The main point I have taken from the lockdown and working from home is the importance of staff wellbeing and how it needs to be a much bigger focus going forward – not just as HR manager but as a staff member, too. Staff wellbeing shouldn’t be put on the back burner when it all goes back to “normal”. Instead, we should constantly evolve and improve our approach because wellbeing isn’t just a pandemic issue.