Tag Archive for: B2C

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED ABOUT PR FOR HISTORIC HOUSES

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Having a rural PR division, we have represented various countryside historic houses over the years, with one of the best examples of our work coming from current client Combermere Abbey, which is a 12th-century abbey based on the Cheshire/Shropshire border. Other examples of venues that we’ve worked with include the Cholmondeley Estate, Adlington Hall and the Wiston Estate in Sussex. Handling PR for historic houses is a tricky aspect of marketing to navigate, as there are often a lot of moving parts as well as many things to learn; but with such a wealth of experience in this field, we’ve learned a thing or two that we’re going to share with you today.

PR For Historic Houses: Our Lessons Learned

There are so many things we’ve learned over the years at The Source from the various clients we’ve worked with, we cover both B2B and B2C industries – as well as having specialities in rural PR and marketing; this means that the team have adept knowledge of the multiple sectors in which we’ve worked. Historic houses PR is one good example, we’ve worked with multiple venues and though each is different, there are universal lessons to be learned from all.

  1. You have to become a total expert

When you work with a historic house, you have to be prepared to learn a LOT. They are called historic houses for a reason – because they have a wealth of history. We put our all into learning everything there is to know about our clients and their backgrounds – no matter how many centuries that may span over. We’d definitely recommend spending time with your client, in person if you can, learning all there is to know. One of the first things you should be doing is taking a guided tour of the venue if that’s an option for you.

  1. Be prepared for unforeseen circumstances

You should have contingency plans in place for all clients, but for historic houses in particular. The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted so many businesses and has not spared the tourism industry. If you’re handling PR for historic houses, there’s a good chance you’ll be promoting tours, open days, overnight stays, perhaps even weddings. All of these had to cease at one point over the last year due to Coronavirus. We’d recommend being well prepared for any eventuality like this and keep an eye on what support there is too. Luckily in 2021, we have had clients who were the recipient of the Culture Recovery Fund, outlined by the Government DCMS and was supported by The National Lottery.

  1. You’ll manage mini sectors all within one business

Most historic houses, especially those that are privately owned, will have multiple strands of their business to generate revenue. For example, open days, tours and overnight stays are commonplace amongst the clients that we have represented. Sometimes even weddings. This means that you’ll be promoting multiple different offerings under one entity, you’ll need to practice specific PR skills, such as travel, local, wedding and more, all of which do differ. The more you’ll work on the accounts, the more you’ll learn and that’s what makes this kind of PR so rewarding.

  1. Get ready to engage with multiple organisations

One of the best things about managing communications for historic houses is that you’ll find there’s a lot of localised support. We work closely with local organisations such as Historic Houses, Marketing Cheshire, VistEngland and Visit Shropshire to further promote our clients to lovers of local attractions and heritage. These groups can be instrumental in your strategy, as you know their audiences are going to be interested in the venues you’re marketing.

  1. You’ll think you know everything… But you never fully will

In our first point, we said that you need to be prepared to become a total expert around the historic houses that you work with, and that’s true, but also expect to never stop learning. When your client has centuries of history, there are always more stones to be overturned, and that’s why we love working with venues like this so much. In PR, they say you never stop learning, and it’s safe to say that we can certainly relate.

  1. There’s so much to love

At Source PR, we become an extension of your team, whether that’s working with marketing, sales or even business owners. We become so passionate about the businesses we work for, and we’ve found that to be our experience when working with historic houses in particular. When you manage PR for historic houses, you learn so much about them, and you play an important part in bringing the magic of them alive for many people. We live and breathe our clients, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Support With PR For Historic Houses

If you’re a historic house owner or manager in the UK in need of PR, social media, digital or marketing support, then please do get in touch. We’d love to show you what we can do. You can speak to our team via the contact form on our website, or by calling 01829 720 789. Or you can find out more about our most recent PR work for historic houses by reading the case studies on our site.

5 SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS TO KEEP YOUR ENGAGEMENT UP

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Plunged into the second England-wide lockdown of 2020, it’s imperative that communications are continued on social media. Remaining vocal not only reassures customers, but it also keeps a brand at the forefront of their mind. When a company has something to sell through lockdown, even better. You can read our blog from the first lockdown on the importance of continuing your marketing efforts by clicking here.

Below, our social media experts at The Source have gotten their heads together and put together some helpful social media tips to keep your engagement up. The kind of advice that focuses on quality engagement, as opposed to vanity metrics and big numbers. After all, it’s better to have 10 interactions from users with purchase intent, than 100 people who’ll just scroll on without a second thought.

Five Social Media Tips For Good Engagement

Don’t Sleep On Boosted Posts

Don’t have the money for a paid ad campaign on Facebook right now? Don’t worry. Boosted posts are a great way to get around this, as you can push specific content out to a certain, refined audience (that you build yourself). You won’t find yourself paying out big budgets for this either. If you have something particular to push over a short period of time, such as last-minute room availability in a hotel, or an offer linked to an upcoming holiday (Bonfire Night, for example), then a boosted post may be the ideal cost-effective solution for you. Pre-lockdown, we boosted a Facebook post for one of our clients in the hospitality sector and for just £30, over the course of 7 days the campaign returned over 100 targeted website link clicks, as well as a reach of nearly 7000 people. That’s around a 30p cost per click and 0.04p per eyeball. You can find out more about the ins and out of boosting posts on Facebook’s help page.

Social media tips - boosted posts on Facebook

Promote On Other Platforms

When it comes to boosted posts, the usual go-to is Facebook – but the same advice can be used on Instagram too, which has a boosted post function that works alongside Facebook (due to their ownership of the platform). This means it’s super easy to do. One that’s often not mentioned in social media tips, but one that’s well worth considering… LinkedIn. Their sponsor function is a little trickier to get to grips with, with extremely specific audience filters that can provide a reach anywhere from hundreds to millions of users – but once you do get a hang of the process, it’s a great way for clients to reach the audience that are exactly right for them. Despite it being a little more costly (a daily sponsored post must be £8.00 minimum), LinkedIn was designed with B2B companies in mind, so if your clients are aiming to reach businesses and business owners, it’s well worth the investment.

Hashtag Phrases, Not Words

You can get a lot of engagement out of hashtags on Twitter in particular, but one of the best approaches (due to character limit) is to focus on phrases as opposed to single words. The reason for this, is that if someone is wanting to find out information about marketing, for example, then it’s easy enough for them to simply type the word ‘marketing’ into the search bar. Whether you’ve hashtag-ged in the post or not, as long as you’ve used the right keyword, your tweet will still be filed there. Hashtags that consist of multiple words or slogans usually get better engagement as they’re related to specific search patterns. The best tactic to use is to jump on the hashtags that are trending, wherever they’re relevant to your brand. For example, if you work with a client that produces cakes or baking ingredients, then rather than using characters up to hashtag #cake, why not wait until a Tuesday and start up a conversation around the Great British Bake Off? Use the hashtags #GreatBritishBakeOff or #GBBO which are usually trending in the UK between around 7pm-10pm on a Tuesday evening (when GBBO is on TV, that is). Another tip when it comes to hashtags, is capitalising each word to make it easier to read, for example you should say #ShopLocal instead of #shoplocal.

Tap In To New Industries

Crossing over to new industries is a great way to build your following up and widen your exposure. If your business is in food sauces, for example, try linking your content in to relate to restaurants or cafes, as opposed to keeping it really niche. This way, your business is available to a much bigger audience – but as those restaurant owners might want to purchase your sauces in the future – it’s a relevant audience too. One of the best ways to reach these new sectors is to share insights and relevant content. Get a Feedly stream going that includes trade publications for the industries you’re hoping to target so you can reshare their content, and don’t miss appropriate hashtags too, especially on Twitter and LinkedIn. They can help make sure you’re reaching the right people.

Try New Things

Lastly, another great social media tip to keep up the momentum with your social media is to experiment and try new things. A/B testing is an excellent method to trial different kinds of content, and you’ll likely find a tactic that works really well for your business. Every brand is different so it’s imperative you find what suits yours best. You could also try different platforms to see what works well for you. You might have traditionally always used Facebook and Instagram, but how about LinkedIn to reach a more corporate audience? Or, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, TikTok marketing is very new and upcoming and the reach can be insane. You can check out an example here of a local estate agents who’re using TikTok to showcase the homes they have for sale, and average reach is around 20k views with some videos reaching over 900k impressions.

Social media tips - use TikTok

Credit: Social Films

For more social media advice, along with PR and marketing insights too, be sure to keep a close eye on our blog. Or, to keep up with what we’re doing on social – you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

NON-ESSENTIAL RETAIL STORES: HOW TO REBUILD CONSUMER TRUST

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On the 15th June 2020, the Government allowed non-essential retail stores to reopen after being initially forced to close in April due to the outbreak of Coronavirus. Since, it’s been a tough ride for business owners. Trying to maintain a level of consumer trust whilst also being unable to operate is difficult. With many workers on furlough and so many businesses having to cease trading in all respects, some companies mightn’t have had the time to work on their communications and brand reputations during the lockdown period. So, if this is you, we’ve put together some advice on how to rebuild consumer trust and your brand image as you reopen today.

Rebuild Consumer Trust With Visibility

Rebuilding trust starts with being transparent and visible. There are a number of channels you can use to communicate with your stakeholders: social media, email, face to face, even through the press by getting publicity for your brand. You’ll also want to reach people that aren’t in your pre-existing consumer pool, too. We’ll touch on rebuilding stakeholder relations further down, but to really get your foot off the ground as non-essential retail stores begin to reopen, you’re going to want to make sure you’re visible to the entire public. As many people as you can be.

Spread the word of your reopening far and wide, make use of social media, and also sponsored posts where appropriate. Generate press coverage for your business and be loud. It’s all about being visible, especially if you trade in a saturated market. Don’t go quite and assume people will remember you – it’s been a torrid time for us all, you’ll need to remind people why they will love your brand. This is the first step of rebuilding trust.

Communicate What You Are Doing Differently

Now that you have the attention of stakeholders, you need to make sure you’re telling them the right thing. When announcing that you are reopening for trading, you’ll also need to communicate at the same time the steps you are taking to be Covid-19 secure. Presently, non-essential retail stores are only allowed to reopen if they can follow the 2m social distancing rules and can put precautions in place to protect shoppers. You’ll likely be doing this, so let your customers know too.

Lockdown has been an extraordinary and unprecedented time for us all, not least in the UK but across the whole world. Consumer attitudes are bound to have shifted and thus it’s only to be expected that some may be reluctant to get back out there and visit retailers such as yourself again. If you want to rebuild consumer trust, you need to be prepared to be very open, honest and detailed about how you are keeping people safe; and more importantly – you need to ensure those responsible measures are adhered to.

It could be as simple as posting on social media the signage you have installed, the sanitation points that you have around stores or the precautions staff are taking when they come into contact with consumers, or you could post updates on your website or email your databases. Have you and your staff taken Covid-19 hygiene courses in preparation? Share that too. There are plenty of ways to put the message across, the most important thing is making sure it’s said one way or another.

Encourage And Share Testimonials

One of the best forms of marketing remains to be WOM (word of mouth). Around 75% of people go to friends of family for product or service recommendations. If you’re offering a great in-store experience that allows customers to feel safe, then it’s likely they’ll tell somebody that they know about it. However, as a business, it helps to move that along even more and encourage wider testimonials. Is there a way you can incentivise customers to review their shopping experience? If so, this is something worth capitalising on as not only does this encourage further support from the public but it also gives you content to leverage on social media to keep on reinforcing and rebuilding consumer trust in your brand.

Don’t Ignore The Situation, Acknowledge It

Finally, it could be tempting to adopt a ‘business as usual’ stance. Not all brands will want to address the issue of Coronavirus head on, perhaps in fears of it putting more fear into consumers or even because simply that’s what everybody else is talking about. However, news concerning Covid-19 is quite frankly unavoidable. It’s fair to assume that almost everyone living in the UK will be aware to some degree of what has happened, and as such to not address it could even be seen as ignorant.

It’s important to acknowledge as a brand why you were closed, why you are now reopening and most importantly – what you have changed. Government regulations aside, you have a duty to your consumers to adopt safe measures as a retailer, being upfront about these is important – if you communicate to your customers and explain that their safety is paramount, this is a good way to rebuild consumer trust and encourage them that it is safe to shop with you.

Need Help To Rebuild Consumer Trust In Your Brand?

If you’re a brand – non-essential retailer or other – and are in need of support as your business reopens, then get in touch with The Source. Whether you’re needing to communicate to your customers, or market to a wider audience, we have experience in both B2B and B2C PR, marketing, social media and digital communications, we can help you.

THE EXPECTATIONS OF BRANDS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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In recent years, the way brands approach public relations and customer interaction has changed radically. When your ASOS or Amazon package doesn’t arrive on time, your first step might be to send a tweet or DM to their official accounts. You’re then likely to hear from a sales team member or social media intern within minutes. Some even go beyond customer service and go to great lengths to provide humorous, cutting content that quickly goes viral; Tesco seem particularly adept at this, whether that’s ribbing a guy who implied that it’s uncool to be on Tesco Mobile, making a pun about ‘hitting the hay’ during their horse meat scandal in 2013, or flippantly telling a Tweeter that they probably aren’t going on any dates this weekend.

An Era of Accountability

A brand’s presence on social media also allows people to come together as a collective to hold them accountable for a product, headline or action that is, at best, below par, and at worst, offensive or harmful. The examples are numerous: the beauty community alone has held gurus such as Jaclyn Hill accountable for hair and metal balls found in her range of lipstick, as well as Jeffree Star for similar reasons; the defamatory Pepsi commercial that featured Kendall Jenner was taken down in less than 24 hours after Twitter’s backlash; and the Advertising Standards Authority began to investigate a weight-loss pill company after its billboards asking ‘Are you beach body ready?’ sparked heated conversations online.

But just where is the line drawn when it comes to advertising? A tongue-in-cheek joke or pun on a billboard might be just that to some, but to others, it could be a sign of the way in which advertising manipulates stereotypes or the insecurity of consumers. In the age of social media and accountability, it’s great that companies find it more difficult to get away with ads that are racist, sexist or otherwise. If it weren’t for the long campaigning of women’s rights groups, for example, we’d still be seeing ads for cars flanked by bikini-clad women.

A Step Too Far…Or Simple Misjudgement?

But it’s not always so clear cut. A campaign by Brewdog in 2018 was withdrawn amid claims of sexism, yet the pink bottles of their Punk IPA – rebranded to ‘Pink IPA’, complete with a new design – underwent their makeover to promote the gender pay gap, with 20% of the profits going to charities that fight gender inequality. Nevertheless, it was deemed ostentatious and unnecessary by The Crafty Beeress, a beer industry blogger, and Labour MP Jo Stevens, who tweeted their distaste.

McDonald’s, usually an industry-leader when it comes to ad campaigns, dug a hole for themselves when they encouraged social media users to use the hashtag #McDStories back in 2012 in order to highlight their guarantee of fresh produce. Users shared their horror stories of ‘finding a fingernail’ in their Big Mac, being hospitalized for food poisoning, and losing 50lb after they stopped eating at the restaurant. The campaign – originally set out to promote something positive – was so disastrous it lasted a mere two hours.

The McDonald’s ad in particular is a stark reminder of just what can happen if the tides of social media turn against a brand. Never mind if the campaign has good intentions; it seems there’s nothing more people enjoy on social media than collectively complaining, for better or worse.

So what can businesses learn from this?

Unfortunately, it sometimes seems to be the case that campaigns are either a swing or a miss, depending entirely on how they’re perceived. Common sense dictates not to go for anything that might be provocative in terms of social justice, and yet the alternative – promoting equality – doesn’t always sit right with consumers either. Ads that are simple, punchy and effective, with no ulterior motives, seem to be the safest bet.

For advice on digital marketing and PR, give us a call on 01829 720789, or follow us on Twitter (@source_tweets), Instagram (@PRSource) and Facebook (Source PR).

CHRISTMAS CAMPAIGNS WORTH TALKING ABOUT THIS YEAR

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Christmas is just around the corner and the marketing campaigns are in full swing. However, with the festive period being such a saturated opportunity to make a real impact with your communications, not all efforts are wholly successful.

The Christmas Communications Challenge

Christmas has long been a great chance to do something a little bit different with your brand, to market it alongside the holiday period and to leverage Christmas as an opportunity to align your business with something very popular not only nationwide – but pretty much worldwide.

The problem is, is that many opportunist marketers have recognised the opportunity that the festive period presents. And thus, Christmas campaigns and adverts are more common than uncommon these days. It’s very easy for your efforts to be overlooked when they are competing against an abundance of other campaigns that get more and savvier each year. You need something pretty special and memorable.

So, how can you create a Christmas marketing campaign that truly stands out from masses? There’s no better way to learn than from the best…

Top Christmas Marketing Campaigns Of 2019

Cadbury’s Secret Santa

If a campaign returns for another year, you know it’s a successful one. This year, Cadbury’s are re-opening their secret Santa stations where you can send a bar of their chocolate to a loved one. It’s simple, but it works. The popularity of the ‘pop-up post offices’ equals widespread publicity for the brand, through press, word of mouth and social media. It’s totally Instagrammable.

John Lewis’ Excitable Edgar

John Lewis really illustrate how to perfect a Christmas marketing campaign. Through their much-loved and highly anticipated Christmas ads every year, they’ve cleverly associated themselves with being the go-to retailer during the holiday season. It’s a big responsibility, but their Christmas content is world-renowned, largely in thanks to the brand they’ve built. They have big boots to fill, but they manage to do it so flawlessly every year.

Aldi’s Kevin The Carrot

Aldi do really well in nailing down their Christmas campaigns. Much like John Lewis, their Christmas adverts have now become something of a tradition to the brand. Only with a twist. They’ve developed a character that is used time and time again. Kevin the Carrot is a name we’ve all come to know and love, and every year his return is anticipated by many. But Aldi go one step further in making the most of their Christmas marketing, their Kevin the Carrot collectibles are a huge hit amongst shoppers – meaning they profit not only from the publicity, but from raw sales too.

Deliveroo’s 10ft Gift Box

Something a little different this year was Deliveroo and KFC’s real-life marketing campaign that they executed on the South Shore of London this year. With so many traditions that are rife in the UK, it’s hard to create a new campaign that really makes an impact. But these two brands seem to have done it this year. Fashioning a giant 10ft gift box that gives passers-by a taste of KFC’s new festive burger – this campaign is one that attracts genuine footfall as well as publicity from being a little ‘out there’.

Coca Cola’s Christmas Truck

It’s old but gold. Coca Cola’s Christmas truck is a festive favourite for a reason: because they’ve built that brand and reputation for themselves through years of clever marketing. The advantage of being a well-established brand is that you can use the same marketing tactic time and time again. And instead of it becoming repetitive, it becomes iconic. The Coca Cola Christmas truck is simply a part of the festive season now, and all the while it remains a fan-favourite, the brand benefits from the publicity.

IKEA’s ‘Home Shame’ Ad

It works because it’s brand relevant, but also consumer-relevant too. IKEA released a Christmas ad this year which focuses on ‘home shame’ and how you shouldn’t be ashamed to open your home up to your family this festive period. It features an (admittedly catchy) backing track from grime rapper D Double E, which has provided multi-faceted benefits as the Swedish retailer is praised not only for promoting the Grime genre, but also just for their music choice in general. The song is now being released as a single. Christmas number one, perhaps? The marketing benefits just keep on rolling with this one…

 

Do you have any more stand out Christmas campaigns from this year? Let us know on Twitter.

Tag Archive for: B2C