What a year!

Like lots of businesses, we’re quite glad to see the back of 2020. It’s been a strange year, but it’s also been a great opportunity to see how we can work differently, take new ideas on board and be agile to respond to events.

Things we learned this year:

• Where to get eggs during a national shortage - M&S remained surprisingly well stocked!
• How to make a face mask – which was the second highest Google search in the ‘how to’ category
• Furlough, Joe Wicks, banana bread, home haircuts and other trending topics; how quickly they can take off...
• What a good presentation DOESN’T look like - as the Government was roundly jeered for its COVID statistics slides during weekly briefings
• How creative, enterprising and selfless the people and businesses around us are, and how lucky we are to live in great communities

A brief look at KPC's 2020...

As we started home working in March, we stayed in touch with daily check-in calls with the whole team and regular one-to-ones. These calls were essential to keeping the team together and to ensure that we were organised and prepared to support our clients as they went through their own transitions. In a few short weeks, we had:

• Designed and executed an internal communications strategy for a global infrastructure company.
• Wrote articles, guest-presented, and facilitated 6 new business sessions to audiences looking to refocus their marketing.
• Helped a client to run its first ever webinars, pulling in key clients and driving new business where they were missing trade show customer contacts.

And like everyone, we’ve attended virtual conferences and webinars, kept up with our networking and kept in touch with our contacts on LinkedIn and with virtual meetings. Lockdown also offered time to discover new walks on our doorstep, spend more time with our dogs and partners, get fed up with family quizzes and learn to appreciate the importance of the simple things in life.

Internal communications gets the focus it deserves!

We’ve always been hugely evangelical about the power of good internal communications, and this year has thrown a real spotlight on the companies doing it well – and those who need to up their game. It’s meant our clients have turned to us for more internal communication support, and we’ve loved the opportunity to do more of what we’re passionate about.

When the people in your business pull together towards clearly defined goals that everyone can commit to; when you get that right, it shouldn’t matter what gets thrown at you – your culture, your people and your commitment will put you several steps ahead of the rest.

There are plenty of articles and resources on our website around this topic and please do give us a shout if you think you could do with some internal comms support in 2021.

Welcoming new business

Investing in marketing in a downturn might seem brave, but statistics show that those businesses who retain or increase marketing spend in difficult times come out the other side ahead of their more cautious competitors. So, we’ve been delighted to see a real appetite among business owners for committing to strategic marketing. In fact, we’ve facilitated 6 marketing workshops and onboarded 3 new clients since the first lockdown.

We’re excited to be working with some great new businesses, led by dynamic people who want to see a clear return on their marketing investment and look forward to continuing the great work in 2021.

New starts for KPC

We moved offices during the year, to a flexible office space that allows us to meet safely where we need to and host COVID-safe client meetings. Our new details are on the bottom of this newsletter, so please do update your records.

We also said goodbye to Becky Ray, who has moved to a new role. Becky was a great addition to the team and we know she will be fantastic in her new job.

How KPC got through the year