Posts Tagged ‘B2B PR’

Content marketing – no need for another dress.

 

I spent last Saturday afternoon shopping for a new outfit to go out in that night.  It’s something I’d not done for a long time. “Surely not, Ellen?” I hear you ask. “I thought you PR types were always at one party or another. In fact isn’t that what PR’s about?”

 

Well, no, sadly the life of a PR isn’t quite as glamorous as that. But I do get along to the occasional (OK not that occasional) night out. No, the real reason I’d not bought a new party frock for a while is because I do what most people do with their outfits – I’d been re-using them. I’d worn the same one at different parties knowing that no one there had seen it before. And where I was seeing the same people again I’d put different pieces together in new combinations.

 

But last Saturday the time had come. I had to bite the bullet and hit the shops. I found a lovely dress, and it was a fantastic party, so it all ended well, but it did get me thinking about how we’re increasingly doing the same thing with marketing material these days (re-using it for a different audiences, I mean – not taking it out and dancing with it on Saturday nights).

 

It’s an idea that makes such perfect sense it amazes me that more organisations don’t do it. Very often we meet a potential new client and we describe the vast array of press releases, whitepapers, presentations, training material, how-to guides and so on that we’ve produced for our clients, they raise their eyebrows and ask how much this all costs. They’re amazed when we tell them how much, and then we explain that it’s cost very little because much of the content has been created once and then re-purposed.

 

To give you just one example, we recently took an e-book we’d produced for one of our clients, and we used it as a website download, in e-mail newsletters, for top tips articles, as content in articles and blogs, as the basis of a live webinar, as well as several events and training sessions. The messages we developed in that e-book appeared in the marketing press, and in social media such Twitter and LinkedIn.

 

You see how much can be done with the one piece of content? It’s also incredible how using content in a new way can bring it to life. Just as the same skirt can be transformed by the right pair of shoes, or a more appropriate event, so what wouldn’t quite work as a press release can really galvanise response when used as, say, a blog post.

 

What’s more this tactic allows our clients to put out a high volume of outstanding content, reaching more and more people, all for a surprisingly affordable investment of time and money. There aren’t many marketers right now who aren’t looking for ways to cut costs – this is one that everyone can implement right now.

 

If you’d like to have a chat about how we can help you do this, then don’t hesitate to call us now on 0115 9220540 or drop us an email at hello@nelliepr.co.uk. We’d love to hear from you.

Twitter is great for supporting live events. As more and more of us trade nationally and in a global marketplace, so attending all ‘must go to’ live events becomes less and less possible and effective – when 100% of your potential leads were based in the UK, an event at the Birmingham NEC would reach many of them, but when 10%, 25%, 50% or 90% of them are based in the EU, North America and South East Asia, that event in Birmingham becomes a much less attractive marketing proposition.

Twitter solves this problem by allowing your potential customers to attend the event virtually. It also means you can take part in events that are always train trip away – very handy for a Nottingham-based company like us.

By doing this you not only vastly extend the reach of your event, you also enhance the experience of all those who are able to attend, and you can exponentially grow the number of people who follow your future tweets.

So, how do you do it?  Begin by establishing a suitable hashtag for your event. Make sure no one else is using it for something unrelated to the event. You can also set up a site which contains all the tweets carrying your new hashtag, as well as a space for people to upload text, photos and videos of the event.

You have now created a virtual space for your event. Encourage people to start using it by integrating the hashtag into your existing marketing: add it to your email marketing campaigns, your existing Twitter conversations, and your sign-up process for the event itself. You can monitor how many people are noticing it and beginning to use it by dedicating a column to it using a tool such as Tweetdeck.

Running this sort of social media mash-up is a fairly straightforward process, but it’s one that can produce impressive results.  We helped to run a social media mash-up for our client Infogroup/UK back in 2010 at Technology for Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A), in Earls Court, London.

The website recorded more than 2,000 hits during the event, 75% of which were from new visitors to the Infogroup/UK website, with the average visit lasting an impressive 17 minutes. So, not only did this campaign convey Infogroup/UK’s immediate messages to this audience – many of whom were not at the event itself – it also provided a long-term boost to Infogroup/UK’s social media following with Twitter follower numbers rising by 20%.

It is a vivid example of just what can be achieved through more advanced use of Twitter, and is just one of many ways in which social media is changing marketing. As Carly Ferguson, former Infogroup/UK Marketing Executive, and now Marketing Manager at B2B Marketing, concludes: “I’d always been enthusiastic about using Twitter and other social media, but the work we did at TFM&A really opened my eyes to the possibilities.”

To join the hashtag revolution, and start leveraging the power of social media for your next event, either give us at Nellie PR a call, or start yourself by following these five top tips:

1.    Establish the hashtag sooner rather than later and make sure no one else is using it for something unrelated to the event.
2.    Integrate the hashtag into email marketing campaigns, through Twitter and within invitations and sign up confirmation emails.
3.    Monitor the success of your hashtag by dedicating a column to it using a tool such as Tweetdeck.
4.    Give attendees content to aid their blog posts about the event by capturing as much on film as possible and promoting it via YouTube, Flickr or Vimeo.
5.    Finally, monitor increase of followers on any of your social media platforms, as well as traffic to your website from new visitors, to get a view of the success of your social media campaign.

Want to know more?  Contact Nellie PR.

Bryony Thomas came on-board as a Nellie PR client late last year and we kicked off her PR campaign with a very early win – an invitation to join other industry leaders on the platform at the B2B Marketing Annual Conference.

The audience of senior marketers and business owners heard her advice on how to get the finance team to love marketing.  Here’s what delegates had to say about her presentation: “Bryony Rocks”, “brill presentation”, “Bryony Thomas is owning the panel”, “presentation of day on reporting to board. Inspired practical love it.”  Click on the link for more speaker testimonials for Bryony Thomas.

We’ve since secured coverage for Bryony in the likes of The Guardian, Business Zone, Smallbusiness.co.uk, Retail Bulletin and B2B Marketing Magazine where she’s now a resident B2B Marketing Magazine blogger and trainer delivering workshops, including this one in May: social media training, as well as additional speaking slots too.

This is all fantastic early success for our work with Bryony. We first hooked up on Twitter through a mutual contact, and Nellie PR began working for two of Clear Thought Consulting’s clients.  Bryony was so impressed at the results we achieved for them that she hired us to build her own profile as a compelling and expert ‘practical’ marketing speaker.

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