September 2020
We’ve been working hard this month, both with new and established clients, and on our own stuff too. We moved to our new offices in Farnham and are looking forward to welcoming people to our Covid-safe meeting areas for workshops and marketing review updates.
If the past 6 months has taught us anything it’s that businesses need to be ready to adapt to change. The more flexible you are and the more strategies you have in place, the easier it is to meet any challenges that come your way.
Change comes in a variety of forms, from unexpected events like the pandemic, to planned change like mergers and acquisitions. Managing change well produces positive results for the business and its people. Managing change badly can result in disaster.
That’s why we’re introducing our one-day focused Change Management workshop which will result in a 100-day plan to help you manage change across all the stakeholders in your business. It’s a day out of the office that gives you three months of clear and valuable tactical advice that you can put into practice straight away.
Find out more about the workshop
Proof, this month, that consistency works when it comes to marketing messaging and output. One of our clients regularly packaged deals and discount products to sell but was sending the information out in an inconsistent way, resulting in limited sales. We’ve put a plan in place for consistently-designed sales emails with a powerful message that arrives in client inboxes at the same time each week. Customers can easily identify the emails as a regular discount offer, depend upon, and over time expect the timing, and the packages are regularly selling out.
We were delighted to be shortlisted in the Ongoing Communication category at the prestigious Institute of Internal Communications awards earlier in the year. The virtual ceremony was held online at the end of September and the whole KPC team attended to see if we could beat off competition from some of the UK’s biggest agencies and brands. We were up against agencies working for the likes of Volkswagen and Met Police who definitely have access to bigger budgets than some of our clients. Sadly, we lost out to Southeastern Railway/Words&Pictures. We’re determined to keep competing at a national level because we believe in the quality of the transformative work we do with clients on their internal communications programmes – so keep watching this space!
Here’s what Deborah Kingsley, Managing Director, had to say about the news of our place on the shortlist...
Training is an important part of our work at KPC. In order to give the best advice to our clients, we need to be up to date with the latest trends, thinking and leadership, as well as contributing to that leadership ourselves.
This month Deborah took part in training from the Institute of Internal Communications, focusing on new ways of working. The session looked at how we can move away from ‘synchronised working’ – essentially 9-5 working based on everyone being together in meetings or in offices – and look at more distributed working models where routines and methods of connectivity can change for teams, groups or individuals, based on what works for them and the business. This has obviously been highlighted by the move to home-working and the benefits and downsides for both workers and businesses, and has shown that savings can be made and productivity increased with the adoption of blended working.
At the start of October, Kim will be attending Brighton SEO – a hugely valuable conference that takes place twice a year and focuses on search marketing. Topics cover everything from competitor and gap analysis to website optimisation and content marketing. This is Kim’s fifth conference and we’ll be sharing some of her insights next month.
This month we have been preparing a guest article for TAB – The Alternative Board coaching and advisory board group. As a member of TAB, we have worked with several businesses recently on marketing strategy, running day-long workshops to take an in-depth look at target customers and ways to reach them. Our guest article shares some of the questions you should consider before jumping into tactical marketing delivery, as well as some of the benefits of this workshop both for the businesses involved and for those who are coaching business leaders to be more focused on strategy and delivery in the long term.
“Frustration with marketing comes up often in our Boards. When my clients have brought KPC in, it has given an edge to their marketing thinking which has supplemented the business targets we have set. It’s been a useful enabler to my coaching.” Stuart McCulloch, TAB Facilitator and Coach.
Keep an eye on our social media to see the full article once it’s published.
Read our last article for TAB which explores how to keep people connected in a socially distanced world.
Or find out more about the one-day business focus workshop.
This year’s local elections were moved from May 2020 to May 2021, and we’re working pro bono with local party Farnham Residents Group to help plan their communications between now and the elections. A small local party with limited funds but big success in elections, the Group needs to raise and maintain its profile locally, let people know what they have influenced and achieved and persuade voters to go out at the time of the elections and choose local representatives who really care about the local issues.