November 2020
Despite the turbulence, this year has flown by and the countdown to Christmas is already well underway. It means November has been a busy month for KPC as we work to wind down ready for the Christmas break, and prepare for the new year ahead.
From website projects to new clients on boarded, find out what we've been up to in November.
For many of our clients, conferences form a significant part of their marketing and sales strategy. But with many trade shows not able to go ahead this year, our clients have had to find other ways to stay in touch with their customers.
Luckily, not all conferences have been completely cancelled. For our client Furlong Flooring, their main trade show is moving online and will be taking place in late February. It's meant we've had to look at things differently. How do you give customers a feel for your brand and product portfolio without being physically present to have those conversations?
One of the ways we are plugging the gap is by evolving Furlong Flooring's current website to not only speak to their retail and commercial audiences, but to be an online showroom for their full range of flooring products. We kicked the project off this month and we're on track for a new website in time for the conference in February.
Find out more about our website development services
Cascade Engineering is the latest business to go through our business focus workshop. They had already done some work on their proposition, their target audience and their brand, but wanted help to put together a marketing plan that they could action themselves, or hand to a marketing agency to get going with. We were delighted with the feedback from the session and have already started working with Cascade Engineering to get some of their marketing assets in shape..
Learn more about our workshops
We are delighted to welcome Phoenix Footwear on board; a leading footwear manufacturer for some of the biggest names on the high street. Phoenix Footwear had already been through our business focus workshop back in August and got in touch again in October for some help to action the plan that we had put together during the session. We can't wait to get stuck in.
This month, we've also been catching up with a few familiar faces. It's always lovely when you hear from past clients and we're delighted to have been asked to help on some upcoming projects.
Find out what Phoenix Footwear thought of our workshop
The countdown for Christmas is truly underway and we’ve been busy planning for our own marketing. We’ve been putting together a useful resource packed with our favourite tools to help business owners give their marketing a boost in 2021. If you’d like to receive a copy, or know someone who might, please let us know.
Thanks to Rob Fryer for helping us with the design!
As we near the end of 2020, many will begin to reflect on what a year it has been. It’s also the perfect time to recognise your employees for all of their hard work and resilience. Whether they’ve faced the struggles of being in and out of furlough or showed resilience by continuing to work throughout the pandemic, it’s important you acknowledge everyone for their efforts throughout the year.
Every year we help our client, Furlong Flooring, to run a recognition scheme which culminates in an annual awards ceremony. This year, the importance of these awards is even more prominent and we’re looking forward to helping Furlong Flooring celebrate the great work of their people.
If you’re looking for help with employee engagement and internal communication, please do get in touch.
Debs attended another IoIC live event this month – this time on the topic of trust in the workplace. Ben Page of Ipsos Mori gave a particularly insightful talk on killer questions every organisation should ask on the subject of trust. As a polling organisation, they are often retained by their clients to ask customers ‘are we trusted’. Ben points out this is not necessarily a useful measure. Better are eight drivers of trustworthiness which give a deeper insight into the culture and values of the company. For example, ‘does it do what it does with the best of intentions’, or ‘would it try to take advantage of me if it could’ are more significant questions which would reflect more fully on the real values of a company. For more on the full 8 drivers, give Debs a shout.
In the past, if you wanted an employee or an external support to be able to post from, or interact as, your company page, you granted them admin access – a one size fits all. This month, LinkedIn have rolled out different types of admin access for company pages. These include:
LinkedIn are also slowly rolling out other admin permissions including ‘Content Admins’ which gives you permission to manage the page’s content and ‘Analyst’ which allows you to monitor a page’s performance via analytics.
The idea is to give tiered levels of management for all activities related to your page and allow you to keep some control over who posts from your page and when. It helps you give the right permissions to the right people – which is particularly important if you are outsourcing to paid media specialists or marketing agencies.
November saw the launch of John Lewis’ eagerly anticipated Christmas advert - a heart-warming story about how one small act of kindness can spark a heartfelt chain reaction. It’s the second year that John Lewis have teamed up with Waitrose to commission a joint advert, and we think it’s great.
But whatever your thoughts on the ad, we’re reminded of the importance of consistency when it comes to marketing. John Lewis have created a buzz, a following and a sense of anticipation. We’ve come to know that they will release a heart-warming Christmas advert every year; and it’s that consistency which contributes to their success.
Although you might not have the budget of John Lewis, you can still harness the power of consistency in your own marketing. Whether it’s consistency of output on social media or consistency in tone of voice and brand appearance – these things are really important to your success.
