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.
The Perfect PR Package For SEO
Why we believe we have created the perfect PR package for SEO
With SEO and PR markets increasingly merging agencies at both sides of the border have started to encroach on each other’s turf to sell their wares.
Firms that once specialised in web mapping and site structure are now huge content generators, while those who have spent years honing their media relations are now working their press releases around key words and link-building strategies.
While we don’t proclaim to be SEO specialists, we do believe we have built the perfect PR package to help firms boost their off-site SEO thanks to our unique position in the media market.
Here’s a run-down of what it includes:
Link building
Link building is one of the oldest SEO strategies in the book. Since the late 1990s search engines have treated links as votes for popularity and importance in the ongoing democratic opinion poll of the web, and as such brands are constantly on the hunt to secure follow links back to their site from high-DA and relevant sites.
Our Breakthrough package offers a money-back guarantee of two follow links from publications with a DA of over 90, and we look to secure as many links as we can elsewhere to ensure there’s a healthy mix.
What’s more, our link building strategy has been developed alongside the digital desks on national publications which means we are always one step ahead of the curve when it comes to changes in link policies on national newspapers. Given that this usually has a trickle-down effect, it’s always good to be in the know.
For more advice on how to link build, see our top tips page here.
Social signals
Although links remain an important part of the SEO mix, there’s an indication that Google is shifting from exogenous signals to a new approach that relies on endogenous signals. That means a big focus on quality and an even bigger focus on social signals such as how sticky a piece of content is and how many people interact with it.
As part of the Breakthrough package we include social media distribution of the story via our in-house social media channels that places the content in front of relevant people who are more likely to share and interact with it.
Take a look at how we achieved our first quarter-million share month for our clients here
Web presence
Garnering a wide spread of coverage is key to an effective SEO strategy. The popularity of a story can amplify your brands message and presence on the web, so creating powerful, engaging content that gets wide pick up is a silver bullet solution to getting noticed in search.
We distribute our Breakthrough stories to a guaranteed 137 regional sites, including the likes of The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post and Lancashire Evening Post. On top of that we get guaranteed national coverage and widespread pick-up from relevant titles that deliver a healthy web presence almost at the click of a button.
To get an idea of the sort of numbers we can achieve, check our results from 2017
Content collateral
Finally, all the content we create for our clients as part of the Breakthrough package is theirs to own and use on their site and social platforms.
From the research to the video and visual assets, we provide clients with a range of content that will boost visibility on search and helps deliver longevity in the campaign. Our infographics are cut up as five separate visual assets which can be posted out on social media over a number of weeks or months, and our videos sit perfectly on landing pages that sip up that all-important SEO juice.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can help with your SEO strategy.
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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Football clubs are putting PR at the heart of their comms strategy - and reaping the rewards
Football fans up and down the country will know the feeling. Constantly refreshing your Twitter feed to check if your team has found the final jigsaw puzzle to propel them toward the Premier League title. He finally signs - cue fanfare, interviews with the player, general knowledge articles and all-round hysteria. It demonstrates how in just a matter of years social media has become integral to fanship and football.
The worlds of marketing, PR and social media are now a big part of how football teams operate. But believe it or not there was a time before all this, when the world's biggest football teams were not paying such close attention to their PR departments.
Manchester United are the biggest football team in England and, debatably, the world. For me they are a huge example of how pivotal PR has become in football. Six years ago they allowed one of their hottest young prospects, Paul Pogba, to move on for free to Juventus in Italy. Fast forward four years and they buy Pogba back, initiating one of the most drawn out transfer sagas in football history that would eventually make him the most expensive footballer in the world (at least for a while).
Fans were literally champing at the bit for confirmation of the transfer, and when it finally came Pogba had already inherited a popstar-esque stature. Social media was sent into overdrive with content and hashtags centred around the French star returning, with Man United running ‘#Pogback’ with even his own emoji.
Then there was a collaboration video featuring Pogba (an Adidas athlete) and Stormzy (a prominent UK rapper, also part of the Adidas roster) rapping and dancing dressed in Manchester United kit (Man U are also sponsored by Adidas).
The whole thing was a PR explosion and for the first time in a while I had started to believe the football world had gone mad. From a business perspective, allowing a player who was on your books to leave for free, only to buy him back four years later for £90 million seems absolutely ludicrous. Surely that's a shocking investment and a hugely avoidable mishap that would punch a hole through the heart of Manchester United’s financial situation? Right?
Wrong. When you factor in his shirt sales reaching £190 million within three weeks, then the whole PR stunt makes perfect sense. Not only are United getting a player of extreme quality, but also by turning him into an international popstar they are actually getting value for their money at £90 million! How insane is that? And this is before we even mention the benefits for Adidas, the kit manufacturer who sponsor Man U and also Pogba.
In other words, the deal made perfect sense for everyone involved, especially Adidas, who hold Pogba as arguably their most prized asset - someone who they invest most of their marketing and advertising budgets into.
Now, let's take a look further down the leagues. This year, Bristol City (who play in the English Championship) have implemented a PR stunt that was never before seen in the world of Football. They used their Twitter account to give fans a glimpse of the players, which is nothing groundbreaking, but the way in which they did it has hooked the nation, and has pretty much made them the nation’s favourite second team.
Whenever City score, instead of tweeting an ordinary goal update, their twitter account will tweet a hilarious gif of the goalscorer doing something completely random! Examples include players cracking eggs on their heads, brushing their teeth or even doing the ironing, and this one of midfielder Bobby Reid cracking 2 beer cans over his head!
GOAL: #BristolCity 1-0 Wolves, Reid 53. #BRCvWOL pic.twitter.com/Pu8K4e3Rx5
— Bristol City FC (@bcfctweets) December 30, 2017
(See more here)
So here we see a Football team using clever content not only to give their fans fun insights into their players, but also to boost their engagement and exposure with general fans of football up and down the country. One would be forgiven for mistaking them for a PR company!
When you consider their strong start to the season which places them firmly in the promotion race and a massive cup win against the aforementioned juggernauts Manchester United, then you have a football team who are massively on the up. All this on pitch success enhances the clubs stature and size, but the clever off-field PR moments have also hooked onto fans and keeps Bristol City at the forefront of their minds.
The world of PR is ever-changing. With the explosion of social media, content has been adapted to be more snappy and hard-hitting than ever, and football has changed to match it. Football teams are paying more attention to their PR then ever, and are reaping the business and exposure benefits because of it.
2017 – Letting The Numbers Do The Talking
Although the PR industry has developed remarkably over the past few decades, one thing that hasn’t changed is our compulsive need to use bizarre jargon to sell our wares. Incubators for influencers, accelerators for thought leaders, alignment for holistic viewers. Surely it’s time to de-layer the ecosystem?
While some may argue that the many faces of the digital revolution has necessitated an explosion of terminology in PR, it also threatens to overcomplicate what are often very simple objectives. Brands seldom approach us with such terminology in hand, so are we not doing them a disservice by adding waffle to their brief?
Here at 72Point we achieved a record-breaking year in 2017 by going back to basics. We have expanded into areas such as social media while solidifying our national media base by sticking to the basic principle that good stories perform well on any platform. And the proof is in the pudding.
We generated over five thousand print and digital cuts for our clients across the year, landing on an average of 15 publications for every story we put out. Add social media engagement statistics to that – a total of 635,000 shares across the year – and you get a decent picture of how our clients are getting serious bang for their buck.
But the highlight of 2017 was how we took our traditional press offering and applied it to social media. With a new social team in place – including UNILAD hires and a new social media management structure – we were able to generate a succession of viral campaigns, one of which was aired on Good Morning America with Will Ferrell and others which garnered a reach of hundreds of thousands of people across our social media suite of platforms.
Along with our national media offering and regional publication package we were delighted to introduce the Breakthrough Package in 2017 which delivers unrivalled cut-through for clients looking to get national exposure as well as touching the regions and getting traction on social media with the people who really matter to them.
The inflatable sanctuary project run for Hotels.com is a classic example of this. The project, featuring a mock ‘sanctuary’ for left-behind animal inflatables, was a huge hit with the national media garnering 29 pieces of organic coverage on titles such as The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Fox News. It also ran across over 170 Johnston Press regional titles and was distributed to tens of thousands of people on social media who are interested in travel or thinking about booking a holiday – a remarkable result all told.
It is a package we look forward to delivering more of in the New Year, quite simply because it delivers what it says on the tin without getting bogged down in meaningless jargon. It guarantees national exposure, it guarantees regional hits and it guarantees a targeted social boost or your money back.
That’s a straight-talking package from a straight-talking agency.
Start a Conversation this Christmas
Recognising Loneliness as a chronic issue in the UK, the late Jo Cox MP established a cross-party initiative called the Jo Cox Loneliness Commission, of which 15 major charities including Age UK, British Red Cross and The Silver Line UK are taking part. The Commission aimed ‘not simply to highlight the problem, but more importantly to act as a call to action. With the message ‘Start a Conversation’ about loneliness, and with each other. The Commission has got people talking at all levels – whether chatting to a neighbour, visiting an old friend, or just making time for the people they meet. After a year of research and community-building activities it will close on the 15th of December.
Bereavement is a prevalent cause of isolation that affects everyone, but in particular the older generation. Chronic loneliness can often set in when an individual loses close friends and partners who they have gone through their entire life with, leaving them with no one to spend time with on a daily basis. This leads to a vicious cycle where an individual has next-to-no contact with the outside world, therefore they cannot meet new people and make new friends and feel increasingly isolated from society. Charities such as Sue Ryder launched their #ConnectingThread campaign, which is on online community to provide people going through a difficult time with support – the campaign has provided people with a safe place to find practical advice, and an opportunity to share what they’re going through.
Poor health is another factor which can be experienced at any age and one that limits people’s contact with society. It’s an unfortunate fact that many elderly individuals are more prone to suffering from poor health, making it difficult for them to get around town or even their own home. Half a million people over 60 usually spend their day alone. In July 2015, Co-op and British Red Cross launched an innovative partnership to tackle this. The partnership has raised £6 million to fund new Red Cross services, helping over 12,500 people connect with their local communities by providing up to 12 weeks of practical support, helping finding activities and groups to join.
The Silver Line UK is the only national, free and confidential helpline for older people that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 68% of callers contact The Silver Line because they feel lonely or isolated, 90% live alone, and 54% say they have no one else to speak to. The charity is doing great ground work in providing older people with practical support, or simply giving them someone to have a chat with. Last Christmas, The Silver Line say they were unable to answer 5,000 calls due to huge demand. It costs £5 to answer a call. So this year, we at 72Point have partnered with The Silver Line to help them answer every single one.
We pride ourselves on being conversation starters. This Christmas we will launch our #StartAConversation campaign, urging people to talk about issues of loneliness, and more importantly – talk to each other.
We’ll be launching a new video on Friday the 24th of November to help The Silver Line start conversations that count this Christmas.
Stay tuned.
72Point Celebrates Its First 250k Share Month
Little did we know that a decade on 72Point was more symbolic of the number of online shows we make – three campaigns in September, ironically, had precisely that number of hits. But in many ways extensive media coverage is just one part of our arsenal today – which is why our first quarter of a million share month is massively poignant.
Interactions and engagements have become the currency of the internet today, and we have invested significantly in social media to ensure that “shareability” is at the forefront of everything we do.
The chief reason why is undoubtedly volume. Likes and shares are the equivalent of buying a newspaper in the old days and leaving it in a waiting room or office canteen. The copy shifts from one pair of eyes into a social or professional group of many, putting the content to work by opening networks of like-minded people.
But social media allows you to do much more than just spread the word. Through groups and friendship circles it allows you to talk to the people who really matter to you, and we’re becoming increasingly targeted with every project we do.
Take, for example, the inflatables sanctuary story we ran for Hotels.com. On the one hand the client was delighted by over 30,000 social media interactions to complement almost 3m coverage views, but they were equally delighted that we were able to position their brand in front of people booking a holiday on social media with a nostalgic, light-hearted video that was well targeted.
Soon, social media shares will not only be the currency of the public relations industry but everything else PR firms pertain to now cover. Google now uses social media indicators as a ranking signal, and marketers are flocking to social media in bid to engage consumers rather than just stuff commercialised fluff in their face.
The take-home is that unless social media is at the forefront of your strategy moving forward then you are
Conversation is key to men's health
Every November, the Movember Foundation brings the issue of men’s health back into the national conversation with their well-known moustache-growing campaign. They raise awareness of the fact that men die an average of 6 years younger than women for reasons which are largely preventable, often based on a reluctance to seek help and speak out about health concerns. Stiff upper lips and pressure to ‘be a man’ means conversations about men’s health are often side-lined. This is why charities like Prostate Cancer UK and CALM team up with the Movember Foundation each year to raise awareness of the common health issues causing men to die too young. They aim to tackle social stigma that stops men talking openly to each other about their health. Conversation is key to the men’s health debate – so to kick off discussions this month, here are the issues that will be front and centre of Movember:
Prostate Cancer
A staggering 11,000 men die from prostate cancer in the UK every year, but the exact cause is still unknown. Reluctance amongst men to confront health concerns is preventing this issue from becoming common knowledge. Prostate Cancer UK, with high-profile ambassadors within the English Football League and TALKSport, are leading the charge in encouraging men to become well-informed, vigilant and proactive in preventing and tackling the disease. They’re currently raising awareness of prostate cancer among black men – 1 in 4 will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime, compared with 1 in 8 of other ethnicities.
Testicular Cancer
Testicular cancer, although relatively rarer, is the most common cancer in men between the ages of 15 and 35. Some men delay seeking help because they don’t feel any pain, or feel fit and healthy. Others have said they have waited to avoid appearing weak or “making a fuss out of nothing”. For many, pressure to ‘be a man’ and the British ‘stiff upper lip’ culture is preventing them from seeking help for potentially serious medical issues.
Suicide Prevention
Last year, 75% of UK suicides were men aged under 45 – a shocking statistic that shows many younger men are driven to the point where they no longer see value in life. Since 2003, the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) has worked on helping men to open up. Slogans such as ‘being silent isn’t being strong’ aim to encourage men to speak out and seek the help they need. CALM is working hard to break down these barriers by providing a helpline for men who are in crisis, and by pushing for changes in policy and practice – so that male suicide can be prevented.
Mental Health
Mental health issues can affect anyone, and 12.5% of men in the UK are suffering from one or more. Many suffer in silence and refuse to seek medical attention for issues that are not considered ‘physical’. In a 2016 survey by Opinion Leader, the majority of men said they would take time off to get medical help for physical symptoms; yet less than 1 in 5 said they would seek medical help for anxiety or while feeling low. A severe mental health problem can have devastating wider consequences, such as homelessness, which mostly impacts men. Men’s mental health issues are all too often side-lined, and not taken as seriously as they should be. Speaking up and seeking help can save lives.
You can sport a moustache or grow a mullet this Movember – but starting a conversation is key. Stay tuned for more insights from 72Point and OnePoll this Men’s Health Awareness Month and email us at hello@72point.com for more information on how we support national awareness campaigns with high-quality media exposure.