Why a strong content base should be part of your marketing strategy
Traditional marketing is becoming less effective by the day. Instead of simply pitching your services and products to potential clients, the way to achieve vital cut-through now is to provide them with truly relevant and useful content that gives them actionable insight.
The Content Marketing Institute’s annual research reveals that the vast majority of marketers are including content marketing as part of their strategy. They state that there are three key benefits for any enterprise that utilises content marketing, which include increased sales, cost savings and better customers who have more loyalty.
These are absolute no-brainers as to why content marketing should be a key aspect of your strategy. At the end of the day, marketing is impossible without quality, engaging content, so if you devise a strong content base to your overarching strategy then all aspects will greatly benefit.
Social Media, SEO, PR, PPC and inbound marketing are just some of the strategies that can be boosted by utilising clever content marketing. Using a diverse range of rich media serves to keep your customers engaged and grabs their attention instantly.
Infographics, videos, embeddable quizzes, animations and images are all methods in which you can provide customers with relevant high-quality content that can improve their loyalty to you and boost your brand exposure.
Here at 72Point, our in-house design team provide a comprehensive content marketing offering.
We worked in collaboration with Freuds on their social campaign for NHS England, putting together a number of assets including several animated GIF’s, static graphics and a short animation. This provided NHS with great content that was posted across their Twitter channels, and by various other health organisations - raising awareness of the services available via NHS111 and delivering the key messaging of their campaign in a creative way.
The team also crafted an animation for The Department of Culture, Media and Sport as part of their ‘free wifi’ campaign, which saw over 1,000 public buildings in cities across the UK transformed into free wifi hotspots, supporting their larger #BuildingBritain campaign. The package included a 45 second animation and a GIF of the final sequence. As well as this, we supported the campaign by providing social media graphics to be used by public organisations, raising awareness of the campaign.
Our infographics are divided into five different pieces, meaning that they can be posted out at different times across different social channels, providing clients with plenty of longevity on their campaigns, whilst our animations are perfectly tailored for social in length and design.
Whether you are looking for a high-quality social project to maximise your brand exposure (take a look at our breakthrough package here), or a clever piece of visual content to embed on your website or post across your social channels, 72Point should be your one-stop shop for all content marketing needs.
How to Capitalise on Influencer Marketing
In 2017 it was recorded that there was an 325 per cent increase in influencer marketing searches on Google. With Kylie Jenner being capable of wiping off $1.3 billion off of Snapchat’s value in one Tweet and the mass outrage brought about by Youtube star’s Logan Paul’s visit to Japan, it is clear influencers are as important as they have ever been. However, with that in mind, there is a right and wrong way to use influencers for brand purposes. This is especially true where Jenner was also responsible for the complete social media catastrophe in Pepsi’s controversial advert last year. Here’s our tips on how your brand can safely use social media stars to elevate and gain coverage.
Tips
1) The Bot Problem
A recent survey from the University of Southern California and Indiana University found that up to 15 per cent of all Twitter accounts were not even real people but bots. Significantly, this means that up to 50 million accounts are fake. It also doesn’t ignore the fact that many wannabe influencers are buying these bots to make themselves look more credible. This is relevant as it could mean that by using these influencers, you could be conveying a strong message to a very small audience which is not just a waste of time but also money.
2) Focusing on the Right Demographic
More followers may equate to potentially more eyes on your brand but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee success if the brand’s message can’t accurately be conveyed by that influencer. At 72Point we focus on listening attentively to customer needs as brand message is the biggest priority in any campaign we produce. This is exemplified by our recent campaign for Cineworld which used The Mash Report’s Rachel Parris to highlight “what makes the perfect film.” The success garnered a staggering 148 pieces of coverage in print and online media, with coverage in the Metro and The Sun. Consequently, the message was authentic and combined an influencer who had an engaged following with a brand they loved. This unsurprisingly resulted in a natural relationship that worked very well. Therefore, the focus should be on having a partnership with an influencer who has followers in the right demographic who are actually listening and will be interested in the brand’s message.
3) Consistency
Staying true to your values is an unheralded value that is dismissed more often than not. However, in the increasingly scrutinized world of social media it can come back to haunt you in the worst ways. This was best shown with Zoella’s old Tweets resurfacing. By using influencers you have to be very careful in picking consistent individuals who you are confident can deliver. The core of 72Point also focuses on consistently providing good results that don’t devalue a brand in circumstances that may result in negative coverage later on. Ultimately, this can only be rectified by strong research for brands to find the right people for the job.
4) Measurement
Without the right tools it is difficult to evaluate how successful a campaign has been, which is why a large proportion of the job in conjunction with influencers is convincing them that we can deliver on our promises. The Digital Team at 72Point focuses a large proportion of their time measuring different metrics and keeping up to date with trends to stay on track in the ever-advancing digital landscape. Overwhelmingly, it means our content matches up well with how much extra coverage an influencer can provide to strengthen a brand to the next level.
Conclusion
As a PR firm we are always looking to capitalise on the next big trends but before doing so it’s always important to step back and get the fundamentals of conveying the right message to the right audience. The marketing and PR world is always adapting but with these tips it could provide an effective solution to help steer your brand in the right direction.
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Why PR Needs To Be A Valuable Part of Your 2018 Marketing Strategy
The beauty of PR as a 21st century marketing tool is that it has evolved into an all-encompassing method of communication. Few, if any, comms methods in a modern marketer’s tool kit could claim to meet SEO, social media and brand exposure KPIs in one fell swoop, but thanks to the nature of the digital market that is precisely what PR can achieve.
In an age where content is king, creating stories and empowering storytellers has given brands oxygen on the web to stand out where others get swallowed up. Little surprise, therefore, that 77 per
cent of exhibitors at this year’s Prolific North Live carried out PR campaigns in 2017 and 92 per cent look to do it in 2018 as well.
But there are objections to utilising PR tactics among the marketing community, namely because confusion exists over how to implement a successful PR plan.
And who can blame them? The market today is extremely crowded, which means the ability to stand out is becoming increasingly difficult. PR can return a bounty of positive business benefits, but only if campaigns are orchestrated successfully, which returns me to my initial point.The art of PR is about creating stories and empowering storytellers. Whether it be journalists, bloggers, vloggers or social media influencers, having a good story at the heart of your campaign is key to its success, and so a PR plan should always start with idea generation and stress testing.
Although journalists and other media professionals aren’t always on hand to judge a story before it has been created, plenty of agencies do have current or former hacks on their books, so seek them out and run your ideas by them before you get underway. After all, overcoming the first hurdle early on will ensure you don’t run into any bumps further down the line. Then, make sure you develop the campaign with a holistic approach across all platforms and channels. Ask whether there is a natural linking structure to satisfy SEO objectives, whether the content is optimised for online media and social media and that it is sharable.
Crucially, make sure you have an effective means of distributing the story beyond your established circles by assessing how to make a big splash in the media and ways in which to infiltrate social media audiences that aren’t currently in touch with your brand. With over nine in ten companies set to roll out PR campaigns this year, the reality is that PR is not something you can afford not to do.
72Point secures media exposure for your brand across digital and traditional media. We create, distribute, and land PR and branded news stories in massmedia publications including Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Sun, Daily Telegraph and Metro as well as mass-readership news sites such as The Independent and UNILAD. Content. Covered.
This blog was written as part of 72Point’s presentation at Prolific North Live 2018 as part of their Digital Keynote Theatre – click here to view video highlights from the event
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How to Make the Most of Marketing Exhibitions
How to Make the Most of Marketing Exhibitions
Exhibitions form a key part of a marketer’s arsenal, offering unique face-to-face communication with prospective clients and vital networking opportunities. But it can be a tricky task to maximise the takeaway from these events. Last week, 72Point attended the Prolific North Live Expo at EventCity in Manchester. If you read our earlier blog (http://www.72point.com/future-digital-media-north-heres/) you will be aware of just how pivitol the North is within the digital industry. 70 per cent of total UK digital tech investment was in regional clusters beyond London, with Edinburgh (£159 million), Manchester (£78 million) and Sheffield (£61 million) among the notable recipients. The event represented a massive opportunity for us to interact with the biggest movers and shakers of the digital sphere, and we wanted to share our strategy for how we maximised our return on investment.
Make sure your branding stands out
Expos offer a fantastic opportunity to get your brand out there, and you should be looking at capitalising on every opportunity you get to do so. From merchandise to sponsored events, billboards and digital content, it is crucial that you utilise as much of the available collateral at hand to make sure your brand has prominence. At Prolific North Live, we sponsored the keynote session as a way of ensuring that our logo was in as many visual slots as possible. Our Managing Director Chris Pharo and ChannelMum’s Jane Hamilton also took to the stage to share their vital experience and insights on the changing world of digital media, news and PR, which reaffirmed our position as a professional, authoritative brand. It also gives attendees some real takeaway – making them more likely to attend and remember your brand.
Keep It Simple
Simple but effective branding is the best way to convey your message. Long-winded, complex collateral can often result in key messaging being lost. Any collateral used at an event should be punchy yet informative. At our exhibition stand at Prolific North Live, we made sure to keep it simple. As an agency that creates, distributes and lands proactive stories in major publications, we can cut out the marketing fluff and just say it as it is, highlighting our key services and ROI for clients. Making sure that your message is conveyed clearly and concisely with your exhibition panels is vital so that any passers by can instantly recognise your specialties at a glance. This will give potential customers a lasting impression of what you specialise in, meaning that you will likely be their first port of call.
Engage with social channels
Events provide great visual content for social media channels, another key way to boost engagement. Followers can be gained by simply interacting naturally with other attendees and piggy-backing on the momentum that any decent expo will generate. The exhibition floor at Prolific North Live was full of cutting-edge brands showcasing innovative tech which lent itself to regular Instragram story updates – great engaging visual content for our followers to view. Through regular updates linked to the event you can boost traffic to your social pages page and gain followers. Twitter feeds work well when utilised on a rolling basis displaying general updates and goings-on at the event including relevant hashtags. This provides followers with a newsfeed, giving them all the information they need.
The take-homes
Marketing events are a great way to boost brand exposure and increase traffic to company websites/social channels – all very viable justifications for allocating spend. But, above everything, attending marketing events allows your company to stay on top of industry trends. They provide a fertile ground for networking with key individuals and learning about what’s current and what’s next to come – allowing you to identify how this relates to you. This knowledge can be invaluable in keeping your brand fresh and relevant.
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2018: The PR Trends that you need to monitor
Jack Granard looks ahead to the trends you need to monitor in 2018. See the first of this two-part feature on the digital media predictions of 2017 that you should have followed here.
2017 oversaw the continued evolution of what it is to be a PR professional, as it became more influenced by digital elements, social media and marketing.
Importantly, as content became more visual, it superseded the tried tested methods, such as traditional press releases, whilst also bringing about the rise in the use of video, influencer and infographic content. This article will highlight the upcoming trends that need to be monitored in 2018 and how it can be incorporated by your company.
The Future Role of PR: The Statistics
The advancement of the PR role is indicative of the importance of reacting quickly to the latest PR trends so as not to be left behind.
A 2017 USC Annenberg Global Communications study which interviewed 875 PR executives and 101 marketers from around the world found that digital storytelling is the biggest future PR trend with 88% citing it as important. Moreover, social listening ranked second (82%) followed by social purpose (71%) and Big Data (70%).
In terms of skills for future growth, strategic planning with 89% was voted as the most important, followed by written communications (86%), social media (84%), multimedia content development (82%), and verbal communications (80%).
87% of professionals believe the term “public relations” will not describe the work they do in five years, which exemplifies the initial point about being reactive. This is given further strength, where 60% of marketing executives believe PR and marketing will become dramatically more aligned in the near future.
Ultimately, these figures suggest the importance of being a well-rounded PR executive. It is essential to keep on adapting, otherwise the PR professional today could become extinct in as soon as 5 years.
Dark Social Media
Data coverage and tracking in the PR industry has become a fundamental element of presentation and success for clients, in identifying social influence and monitoring performance. However, what is impossible to track is dark social, which is defined as the communication through private messaging platforms, such as, text, email, Whatsapp, Messenger and Skype. The importance of tracking this is accentuated by the likes of Forbes.
Bearing any privacy concerns, the main interests in measuring this is emphasised by the notion that increasingly we are more likely to share a link via dark social than on your Facebook profile. Consequently, PR firms are incapable of measuring this and are left confused as to where the rise in traffic to websites stems from. Significantly, standard web analytics are incapable of measuring this and key insights are lost.
Therefore, to start measuring dark social, one method could be to really emphasise the social sharing buttons on your site, whilst making sure all buttons have trackable links. Alternatively, if your direct track URLs are too long, it will be more unlikely to have been typed in their browser.
Overall, with this being a recent hot point, it is notable to keep your eyes peeled for new developments.
Artificial Intelligence
As stated throughout, data measurement has been very important to the PR role and AI has the potential to extend this further, through being utilised for basic research and media monitoring.
By utilising data scientists to predict future trends and investing in artificial intelligence to also combat this, it could pave the way for workload to be reduced for PR companies and to predict when and what businesses need to change. However, one topic that has been heavily discussed is the usage of intelligent chatbots. These bots powered by artificial intelligence could evolve the way customer communication is utilised and may also be used to create a new fun concept to promote a brand. Further weight is given, as it was highlighted by Business Insider as “the biggest thing since the iPhone.”
Speech Recognition Technology
Whether you have seen the parody videos or you have utilised the technology in Amazon Echo, Apple Siri or Google Home, it is largely agreeable that it has been a strong talking point recently.
Speech recognition built into modern devices is quick, accurate and definitely the future. With the possibility of it being used more frequently it could bring about a process where ads and SEO are not relevant. This has been heavily advocated by Steve Waddington (Social Media Director at Ketchum) who believes it will “create another wave of internet disintermediation.”
With rising incomes and interest in becoming more technological, firms should try to incorporate this technology into their campaigns and find new ways to be different.
Personal Brand Reputation and Social Ethics
Is it obvious? Yes.
Does, more need to be done? Yes.
Social media has brought about exposure in new ways, putting us all under scrutiny. However, this is also a positive thing as it allows the opportunity for engagement with all these individuals through social media to gauge what this company is like. Previously, executives would target features in broadsheet papers but now optimising social networks is essential to harbouring not just brand reputation but a personal relationship with the consumer.
72Point has effectively created a space to combat this and has evolved through its recent brand revamp to better understand our organisation, our consumers and our goals. Now with increasing competition and shorter attention spans, only specialised websites who understand how to communicate effectively with all these new tools can succeed.
The PR industry is only likely to become more ethically focused with the Public Relations Communication Association’s (PRCA) expulsion of Bell Pottinger being a major point in 2017. Therefore, more awareness and positive messaging needs to be shown to restore trust.
Conclusion
This year will involve more competition and more technologies to use than ever before. At 72Point, we attempt to stay one step ahead and monitor these trends carefully. The PR world is a jungle and it has been shown to be ruthless in the past year. Therefore, more personal and genuine campaigns need to be implemented this year before it is too late.
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2017 must be the year the professionals take back control
There’s a proverb in Romani culture that goes “a dog with two masters will die from hunger”, implying that you shouldn’t divide your loyalty because each master will assume the other has taken care of you. The philosophy of moral determinism – also notably satirized by Jean Buridan and, erm Amy Farrah Fowler from the Big Bang Theory – is particularly poignant as the PR industry reaches a crucial crossroads in 2017, where it must decide how to properly balance its commercial considerations with a responsibility to media publications and its consumers.
Last year as part of our annual white paper we noted the merger of several digital disciplines coming together under an umbrella leveraged by the creation and distribution of content. Our take on the year ahead was that traditional PR disciplines are no longer confined to the PR industry, with SEO practitioners dabbling in content to satisfy Google’s demands and marketers making the shift in response to consumer disdain for display placements.
What we didn’t initially foresee was how the input of marketing and SEO industries would impact the sort of content being produced. Marketers, for example, are slaves to the brand and very much tied to its messaging. SEO professionals are ultimately looking for tangible search results. But we PR professionals have to satisfy two masters, and as the industry starts to swell we must capitalise on the opportunity to take back control.
As an agency, 72Point is in a unique position in that we’re sat between PR agencies and the media. Our parent group, the UK’s largest independent news agency, is a shout away at any point and are there to lend us their insight into what is working at any given time, which is advice we dispense to all our clients as well as at Creative Therapy Sessions, which we rolled out across the country this year. We don’t embargo, we don’t distribute our news content in press release format, we don’t include brand mentions in the opening paragraph and we stick to the best stories, and that’s why we landed 100 per cent of our projects in back-to-back months in the close of 2016; We make it as easy for the media to lift our content as possible.
Publications will adapt at pace
Despite much change in the mainstream media market the forecasters are all starting to paint the same story; print revenue is in decline, digital revenue is yet to be fully realised. This year the pace of change is set to shift a gear, with editorial teams likely to shrink and commercial departments expand in scale and remit, often with conflicting implications for the PR industry. Soon, many media publications will be viewed more as partners than a separate entity.
Meaningful measurements
The PR industry is suffering from a serious numbers addiction. It uses estimated coverage views that bare little relevance to the social interactions and absurd projections based on simplistic mathematical sums. At some point, we’ll get found out and there will be a shift to more meaningful measurements which will result in targeted distribution on relevant publications and, crucially, better quality, shareable content.
Google will shift its indicators
In the same way brands will demand more human interactions over meaningless numbers, Google is about to shift from “exogenous”’ to “endogenous” signals to incorporate more genuine quality signals. The end may be in sight for link-building practices, which are currently a key indicator of trust, but a rather shallow one. Google’s algorithms in the future are more likely to incorporate the time people spend on the page and the way they interact with content.
From visual to interactive
Publishers want people to stick, brands want people to share, and both parties want content that works across channels. That’s why 2017 will be the year of the interactive. Quizes, graphic puzzles, even the old “spot the ball” type competitions will have their day in the sun again as we fight to keep consumers engaged.
Content Umbrella: The coming together of PR, marketing, social media and SEO
SEO, PR, digital advertising, content marketing; they all seem to be doing the same thing nowadays.
As Google demands better quality content, online media consumers get turned off by display and brands look to engage rather than convert there has been an amalgamation of digital disciplines leveraged on the basic principles of creating and distributing content.
Which is why we’ve coined the term Content Umbrella.
The content umbrella represents a significant shift towards content across several industries. Our white paper, released this week, documents how the mobile and digital revolution has necessitated a mass re-think across the board and how the shift has implicated specific disciplines as well as the content industry as a whole.
To whet your appetite, here’s a wee snippet:
Display Blind: Advertising Adapts to Digital
Display advertising is at best a saturated market and at worst a marketing technique teetering on irrelevancy. As more people access content via mobile devices the marketing world has been faced with the dilemma of how to best communicate to audiences who are wise to the motive behind a display ad.
Consumers, on the one hand, do see value in content. Per-dollar content marketing produces roughly three times as many leads as display advertising according to Oracle research. Furthermore, the consumer becomes a brand champion by engaging with the content, creating a c2c ‘sharing’ relationship rather than a b2c ‘telling’ relationship. With more consumers accessing the internet via a smartphone over any other device, the tip towards content is only going to grow.
Social Media: Native Social vs Digital Display
Social media is also confronting how to communicate marketing messages to an increasingly mobile user base. On mobile’s smaller screens, the stream is the experience, which is why display has struggled to make an impression.
In-stream native ads, however, look, feel, and function seamlessly across mobile and PC, which is precisely what brands want. AdRoll analysis of Facebook’s ad exchange revealed that ads in the News Feed achieve 49-times higher click-through rates and a 54 per cent lower cost-per-click than traditional placements in the right-rail sidebar. As a result, spending on native social is set to rocket to $21 billion worldwide by 2018, and it is likely to continue to climb.
Slapped By A Panda: Google Demands Quality Content
Google’s Panda algorithm instigated a golden age for purveyors of quality content. After years of SEO ‘cheats’ – content farms, keyword advertising, link building et al – there has been a mass purge of low quality, spammy sites which have been replaced by sites that provide relevant content that is interactive and of good quality.
All organisations looking to rank well for key search terms need a strategy that is focussed on creating high quality, highly relevant content that is distributed well. With talk of Google switching backlinks to brand citations, the SEO industry will become increasingly cosy with content and publishers.
PR in the Media Mix
In marrying the brands needs with those of the publishers, PR is perhaps best placed to unify the umbrella of content. PR professionals understand how to create engaging content while at the same time making brand considerations such as marketing messages and SEO objectives.
As a genuinely multimedia business that has been supplying content to national newspapers for 40 years, SWNS / 72Point are well placed to meet the demands of the digital industries falling under the content umbrella. Not only do we know how to create great content, we can give it the reach it deserves by distributing it through established channels.
Hippos, polar bears & paint: PR highlights of 2015
A good PR campaign or stunt can work wonders for a brand.
Get the timing, tone and creativity just right and not only will you see tons of national, regional, online and broadcast coverage but thanks to social media, it can also end up going viral, giving you more exposure than money could ever buy.
There is a fine line between a good stunt and a failure. They can be expensive to plan and carry out, with no guarantee of anyone talking or writing about it afterwards.
But here at 72Point, we’ve seen several stunts and campaigns this year which have not only had great results in terms of coverage, but were memorable and got us all talking.
Here are just a few of our favourites from 2015…
Polar bear
Campaign: Polar bear on the tube
Brand: Sky Atlantic/Fortitude
Agency: Taylor Herring and Sky’s in-house PR team
Last January, commuters in London were greeted with a life-sized polar bear on the tube, after it was ‘set loose’ by Sky Atlantic to promote its new crime drama Fortitude.
The huge bear, which was built by a team of Hollywood special effects experts and operated by two puppeteers from the West End production of War Horse, was seen around various places in the city including the underground and crossing the Millennium Bridge.
Fortitude was set in the Arctic, and what better symbol is there of the frozen landscape than a terrifying but beautiful polar bear?
Thanks to the amazing pictures of the bear riding the tube, walking over bridges and roaming the city’s parks, the campaign got widespread coverage but it was also great for social media. The first thing confused Londoners would have done is to Tweet, Instagram or Facebook about their unusual encounter with a polar bear that day.
It received 47 million impressions on Twitter – 30 million of which were from the UK, while the show launched with just over 700,000 viewers – the biggest audience to date for a UK originated drama on Sky Atlantic.
Fifty Shades
Campaign: Fifty Shades of Grey ‘Leaked Memo’
Brand: B&Q
Agency: Good Relations
At the start of the year, it was all about the highly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey film, which was released in February.
B&Q ‘issued’ a memo to all staff telling them to get to know the storyline in case customers enquired about items inspired by the film, such as cable ties, rope and duct tape.
So many brands wanted to be associated with the famous movie, and all kinds of surveys, PR stories and stunts were planned to allow them to get on the Fifty Shades bandwagon.
But this was one of the best – the ‘leaked’ memo format was great and entirely believable, while still being very tongue-in-cheek, resulting in a huge amount of coverage including The Daily Telegraph, Sky News and BBC Radio Two.
They even saw a second wave of coverage after admitting the memo was, in fact, fake.
It was a great quick-win, which was quick and easy to execute, providing great talk value and standing out at a time when so many other brands were trying do stories about the same thing.
Lego
Campaign: Lego-proof slippers
Brand: Lego
Agency: Brand Station
As a parent to an almost five-year-old, Lego-mad little boy, as soon as I saw this, I thought it was a brilliant idea – stunt or not.
Anyone who has a Lego fan in their house will know the unbearable pain that comes from stepping on a discarded brick, trying hard not to swear repeatedly because your darling child (who is most likely the one responsible for leaving said brick in the middle of the floor) is nearby.
The branded slippers come with an extra thick sole, meaning parents can walk around their house freely, safe in the knowledge that more of the little bricks will no longer be a threat to their feet.
Unfortunately for millions of parents, Lego and the French agency behind the slippers, Brand Station, only made 1,500 of the slippers, but the coverage and social media activity around the stunt was a great result for the brand.
Lights
Campaign Christmas: Lights Untangler
Brand: Tesco
Christmas is a tricky time of year for PR – everyone wants to get in on the action but there is only so much Christmas PR the media can take.
Tesco came out on top with their idea to hire the first Christmas light untangler in one of their Wrexham stores after research found those in the town were found to be most frustrated by the festive job.
They took something which causes all kinds of stress in UK households at the start of December and tied it into their famous ‘Every Little Helps’ slogan with ease.
As part of the job ad, responsibilities included ‘manning and managing the Christmas lights untangling stand’, ‘checking lights and bulbs for signs of breakage’ and of course ‘successfully untangling customers’ Christmas lights neatly, quickly and efficiently and in an orderly fashion’.
The ideal candidate had to be ‘passionate about Christmas, ‘able to untangle three metres of lights in under three minutes’ and ‘be persistent and patient’.
After the first wave of coverage from the initial job ad, Tesco also saw further hits once they revealed more than 100 people had applied for the position.
NHS
Campaign: Missing Type
Brand: NHS Blood and Transport
The Missing Type campaign, in June, was designed to raise awareness about the shortage of blood donations, and saw As, Bs and Os, removed from the brands logo to highlight the different blood groups.
It started with a host of brands such as Waterstones, Odeon and even Downing Street mysteriously removing letters from their signage.
A few days later, NHS Blood and Transport revealed they were behind the missing letters with a news story revealing that 40 per cent fewer donors had come forward in that year, compared to ten years ago.
But following the reveal, as well as the brands who had already joined in, other brands took part with the public also joining in by changing their Twitter handles to replace any As, Bs and Os with a blank space. We even took part ourselves. The success of the campaign is clear in the figures – more than 30,000 people registered as blood donors during 10-day campaign and it had more than 700 pieces of coverage, which even resulted in the public website having to be taken down as a result of the unprecedented demand.
Snickers
Campaign: You aren’t you when you’re hungry
Brand: Snickers
Following news of the Jeremy Clarkson ‘fracas’ in March, Snickers jumped at the chance of some brilliant reactive PR.
As details emerged of the incident, where the Top Gear presenter was said to have assaulted one of the show’s producers because he was refused a hot meal, Snickers sent a box of the bars to the (former) BBC presenter with a note using the brand’s slogan ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.
The chocolate brand’s campaign and TV advert sees a Snickers bar given to someone who is acting diva-like due to hunger. After tucking into the chocolate treat, they return to their normal self.
The parallels with the Clarkson story were just too good to pass up and Snickers were quick to react – and tweet a picture of the box and note to their followers, which was retweeted thousands of times.
And finally, on the subject of Jeremy Clarkson, we also need to give an honourable mention to the Robox, a 3D printer created by the husband of our very own creative account director Emma Elsworthy, who created a Jeremy Clarkson version of Hungry Hippos, ‘Hungry Jeremy’.
They designed a 3D-printable version of Clarkson’s head, which can be used to replace the hippos’ heads in the classic game, which saw great coverage across print and online. It goes to show that a killer of an idea is still at the heart of a good PR campaign – you don’t need to be a big brand to generate a buzz.
A holistic approach to blogger outreach
What is ‘blogger outreach’ and how do I do it?
That was the prominent undertone from a series of creative workshop sessions we recently hosted in the trendy Ace Hotel in Shoreditch. The proliferation of alternative media platforms has rendered the PR industry perplexed, and the knee-jerk reaction has been to throw money at it. But a holistic approach to blogger outreach is possible, and it is a far more attractive proposition for both brands and bloggers alike.
Marketing Land defines blogger outreach, or influencer marketing, as the process of leveraging influencers with an established and substantial following in exchange for “free access to the product or service” or a fee for publishing content. But the notion that bloggers are simply ‘reviewers with reach’ is misguided, and PR professionals are missing a trick if they define them as such.
Successful bloggers are able to reach large networks of people because they produce great content that resonates with a target audience. Talya’s blog Motherhood: The Real Deal, is a good example. The hilarious account of the “general WTF-ness” that comes with being a mother embodies the spirit of being a blogger by connecting to her audience with good content that is relevant. We landed this release not because we paid, but because we have established a relationship centred around those principles.
As a PR firm working from inside the media – the so-called Trojan horse effect – we are able to land branded content across the board because we take a media-first approach to outreach. At a blogger level, that is about supplying good content, engaging with blogger communities and using our media-base to collaborate with bloggers to ensure the content cycle is rewarding for all parties involved.
Here’s a short guide to our blogger outreach programme.
Content generation
Bloggers, like any other publishing genre, are in the business of providing engaging content to readers. Where they differ is that they have free reign over how they produce that content. Unlike mainstream media outlets there is no protocol when it comes to blogging, which breaks the mould of the holistic model applied by PR companies when outreaching to the media. Press releases are outmoded, spokespeople are redundant and branded messages can be off-putting, but that doesn’t mean that content is unwanted.
At 72Point, we take a hands-off approach to content distribution. Our own digital media hub is tailored exclusively to online publications, providing all the necessary materials in a simple-to-use format. We encourage collaborators to get creative with the content we provide them, or even engage with it. Like this.
Building communities
Communities are a focal part of the blogger ecosystem. Social media communities exist across all genres, many of which are active with meetups and conferences regularly taking place across the country. In order to have a feel for the pulse of the community, it is really important to engage with these networks.
The digital hub has a large community of more than 500 bloggers which we endeavour to engage with on a regular basis. Our Ambassador Programme gives us access to key influencers who work within blogger communities, and we regular discuss topics such as content generation and co-creation in our forum, as well as outreaching over social media.
Co-creation
We strongly believe that bloggers should be a part of the creative process, and we endeavour to involve bloggers in the work we do wherever we can. Our ambassadors have worked with us on several releases which have subsequently given them great exposure in the national press. Here’s a couple of examples:
Plus Size Bloggers Speak Out About Body Shaming
Demand for Ethically Sourced Clothes Increasing
The blogging community has been somewhat neglected by the PR industry thus far, and it is to our detriment. Alternative media outlets offer a lot of promise and arguably as much or more ROI in terms of engagement and social interaction than national press. But involving them in the outreach process should be less about throwing freebies their way and more about involving them in the creative process. It’s undoubtedly a long-term endeavour, but ultimately for a very worthy cause.
Marketing to the Millennial Mum
Mothers, we've all got one, unless you’re a marmorkreb. Facebook has just reminded me that it is my Mum’s birthday today, triggering the annual panic-order of flowers which is well on its way to becoming a tradition.
Still, between the ‘terrible son’ guilt and the ‘these daffodils are a bit pricey’ remorse I was reminded of this report from Hill+Knowlton on the growing influence of the Mummy blogger.
If you've just opened that link and heaved a sigh at the 11 pages in front of you, fear not, here’s the TL;DR (too long; didn't read) version:
- Mums are responsible for 70% of household spending
- ‘The Mummy Pound’ accounts for $20 trillion of consumer spending worldwide
- 23% of Mummy bloggers think that “a lot of marketing by brands that target Mums is not relevant or ineffective’
- 93% want to work with brands but only 13% believe agencies understand how to approach and work with Mummy bloggers
The Mummy bloggers have earned the trust and respect of their audience, but only a small percentage of brands have cracked how to take advantage of this. How do you effectively market to Millennial Mums?
The first thing to consider is that the modern mother is very different to my dear old Mum, patiently awaiting her belated bouquet of daffs. 75% of new Mums are Millennials, making for a hellish Venn diagram-intersection of tough demographics to approach. Essentially, the tried and tested rules of marketing to Generation X are becoming less effective with every passing year.
And it’s all social media’s fault.
You’re a Millennial Mum. On social media, all your friends are having a better time than you. They’re prettier, wealthier and better-dressed. Their selfies are flawless, they've got 20k followers on Instagram and their latest blog was entertaining yet informative.
Worse still, brands are pushing products on you from their Facebook pages like you’re a confident, well-established Gen X baby boomer. These guys took on the world and won with their entrepreneurial spirit. Meanwhile you were nurtured, educated and set on the world with fragile dreams only to be flattened by the grim reality that ‘not everyone gets a trophy’.
It all comes together to create an ideal perception of motherhood that is unrealistic for the Millennial Mum.
This calls for a more understanding mode of marketing. In a world where new Mums are straining under mounting social and economic pressure, brands that provide an escape are more appealing than those perpetuating the Gen X ideal.
59% of Millennial Mums favoured advertising with a more realistic edge, showing real-life situations using real Mums, while 57% looked for humour in the ads. If you are in the business of marketing to mums then shaping your campaigns around these characteristics could be the key to the Millennial Mum market.
And if you’re approaching Mummy bloggers with your content be sure to do your research first. 71% hear from up to 20 different brands a week yet 80% of the pitches they receive end up going unused. Spend some time exploring each blog, check out their social media channels and consider how you could collaborate with the blogger in the future. All the extra effort will be worth it when your content is posted by a prominent Mummy blogger, perfectly tailored to suit the Millennial Mum audience.