Claire, Author at Cameron Wells

Home, not alone

Coronavirus (Covid-19) has hit the world hard. Really hard. It has put a big, brutal spanner in our personal and professional works. The ‘new normal’ is anything but normal.

It’s unsettling and scary. The only certainty is uncertainty.

In a business context, we’re having to adapt to digital meetings and engaging over email. Office banter is now a Youtube link or a meme. Work colleagues, families and friends are separated. The daily commute is bedroom to dining room. Boardroom directors are finding out that controlling maverick marketing managers and budgets is childsplay compared to home schooling. Teachers have been elevated to hero status in most UK households. NHS staff to superheroes.

Which leaves us PR and Marketing professionals feeling humbled and in awe. But we still want to do our bit to help – to keep products and services selling and businesses surviving. We can’t throw in the towel onto a growing pile of budget cuts and furloughed out of office notices. And while we’re not saving lives or educating future generations, we can still do our bit to help businesses keep their employers informed and clients engaged – just with an added dose of sensitivity. We can also help them maintain a healthy-ish pipeline and new business leads for when all of this is over. And be ready with some much-needed positive news stories.

This pandemic has brought out the very best in people – and the very worst. But as stone blunts scissors, good blunts evil. Families, neighbours and business communities are closer than ever despite the physical distance – finding new and innovative ways to connect and communicate to fight the good fight.

Connectivity was the buzz word last year. We were all connected socially and professionally by thousands of webinars, podcasts, apps and social media – 24/7, 365 days a year. Success was measured by amassing followers and likes.

Success today is about survival.

And connectivity has taken on a new meaning. Nothing to do with tech. Nothing to do with big data, IoT or generating retweets or comments.

It’s about being truly connected to everyone and everything that truly matters – friends, family, clients and work colleagues who if you’re lucky, become friends and like an extended family. If you’re reading this – you know who you are.

Being connected in April 2020 is knowing everyone we care for is safe and healthy.

On that note, Cameron Wells will be connected at 8pm tonight to pay tribute and give immeasurable thanks to the real heroes who are giving up being physically connected to their families – so that we can take care of ours.

Get clued up on content marketing trends

Seth Godin calls content marketing “the only marketing left” – it’s authentic, useful, and perfectly suited to the internet generation.

As content wizards ourselves, we’re on board with the far-reaching impact of good content.

The marketing industry grew under the misguided impression that more content equalled better content. However, it is now recognised that whether audio, visual or text, it’s the value and relevance of the content that matters, not the size or length.

Never has this been truer than today. The businesses emerging bruised but not beaten by the coronavirus pandemic are scrambling to be heard over the noise that is post-lockdown marketing mania.

Everything you produce, from a two-minute promo video to a 2000-word blog or 20-minute podcast should be better than the stuff your audience is currently reading, viewing or sharing – particularly when it comes to what your competitors are doing and saying.

Leave your audience satisfied so they have a reason to engage with you, share your content, and come back for more.

In the turbulent year of 2020, content marketing is evolving dramatically. The channels, tactics and tools used to create and distribute content are adapting to the current climate, at a faster and more furious pace.

So, keep up with what’s in vogue with our top 10 tips:

1. Video and live-streaming take the limelight

Aside from blog posts, video content is the go-to content stream for brands looking to engage, inform and entertain customers – and the lockdown era has only served to accelerate this trend.

Seemingly everyone, from B2C to B2B brands, have jumped on the video and live streaming bandwagon to remain front and centre of client and prospects’ minds during this disruptive period. It is often in times of adversity that innovative thinking prevails, and brands are quickly adapting their marketing techniques to reach their audience and video is a sure-fire way to engage with key demographics. Just some examples of what brands are doing include:

Webinars
Instructional/advice videos
Q&A sessions
Product demos and reviews
Behind-the-scenes
Interviews with experts
Live case studies
Testimonials from happy customers
CSR events, awards or accreditations

Whatever the concept, it’s important to repurpose your video content in a variety of formats in order to transfer the content into full or edited pieces, audio-only or transcribed into text.

If you create the right video for your message on the right platform to reach the right audience, you will create a mini army of followers and influencers who will help you get more exposure for your business. Video platforms include YouTube, TikTok, IGTV on Instagram and, of course, your own website.

2. Podcast-mania

Around 7.1 million people in the UK now listen to podcasts each week. That’s one in eight people and is an increase of 24% over the past year – and more than double over the past five years.

This trajectory is set to continue, as audiences become more and more engaged with their timely and topical content. If you have something relevant to say, build audio content into your marketing strategy and reap the rewards of this highly engaging platform.

3. Let’s talk about conversational marketing

It’s good to talk – even if it is to a virtual person. Chatbots or online live chats are growing in popularity as audiences look for quick answers or fast navigation to more in-depth content.

With the advent of social distancing, virtual chat has become a pivotal channel for marketing, as traditional means of communications have become more difficult to maintain.

By engaging in conversation with your audience, you can learn more about their specific needs in real time. Conversational marketing tools minimise frustrating downtime or the need to fill out forms or being put on hold on a call. It is therefore vital that your chatbot tool is able to easily find this content on your site.

4. Content tailored to voice search and smart devices

It’s understood that 50% of all web searches will be conducted by voice this year. Brands are now starting to optimise their content for voice search which will help smart devices answer queries more accurately (currently only around 60% of answers are correct).

So, get ahead of your competitors and update your existing content ready for voice SEO – understand the difference between what your audience will write compared to what they will say. Get it right and it will be your content that’s shouting out of smart devices in the future. You’ll be Alexa’s first choice.

5. Personalised content gets even more personal

Fortunately, as the consumer’s need for personalised content increases, so does the development of technology to facilitate these demands. By using dynamic content tools, you can automate the creation and delivery of highly-relevant content to individual customers based on their preferences, needs and interests via multiple communication channels. One size never fits all.

6. Build topical authority

Google’s algorithms now assesses the holistic value of a given page within the entire site, not just the content on a single page when ranking. So, for example, a car brand offering advice on safer driving technology would rank more highly than the same topic offered by a general gadget site – even if the content was equal in quality.

Building credible authority is done by creating long-form pillar pages that act as a base for your content marketing. Build on this foundation over time by creating pillar content covering a wide range of topics that support the original ‘pillar’. Become the voice of authority.

7. Sometimes a snippet is all you need

Google’s ability to deliver ultra-relevant pages and content based on a search term now goes one step further by presenting ‘snippets’ within the first results page. Appearing at the top of results pages, snippets provide an impactful, brief overview of the key points within a piece of content.

The result of this development is that content creators must recognise that the number of ‘no-click’ searchers is on the rise. Over 50% of Google queries resulted in no clicks last year, indicating that Google is evolving into an answer engine more than a search engine. Therefore, creating content that ranks on Google may increasingly require marketeers to adopt a question-driven content strategy.

It’s becoming more and more common for users to search for a longtail keyword, so that Google will present a quick and easy snippet with all info they need without them having to click through to a full website.

8. Data-driven content creation

Content should be created based on hard evidence of what works and what doesn’t – not a gut feeling of what you think your audience wants to hear. Key to these insights is data and a data platform that allows you to monitor and report on the successes and failures based on KPIs or the ROI of past campaigns. Listen and learn then do it again – better.

9. Search intent should drive content

There are 4 types of web search to be aware of:

Informational – when the user is looking for broad information (e.g. how many calories in a banana)
Navigational – when the user wants to visit a specific site (e.g. instead of typing “Facebook.com,” the user searches on Google for “Facebook”)
Investigational – when the user wants advice (e.g. best headphones for runners)
Transactional – when the user wants to do buy something (e.g. book flights to Berlin)

Google’s algorithms have now brought search intent to the fore and can detect the type of search a user is conducting (along with more specific aspects of intent).

So, ensure that each piece of content you create for each search intent includes either a call to action or relevant further information that will lead your audience swiftly to the next stage of their enquiry.

10. Fast and focused content

At last but by no means least, it may seem obvious but ensure content is relevant to the customer search.

Content should be easy to digest and focused on getting readers to their desired information – fast. Filter list posts (with links, headings, buttons, icons) based on exactly what your reader is looking for by segmenting the topic into obvious and easily digestible sections.

All change

Change is the only constant in life according to Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Social and digital trends explode onto our tablets and into our lives then fade away. Remember the furore of Friends Reunited? Brands come and go. Bye bye BHS and Blockbuster. As do celebrities who have their 5 minutes of fame then crash and burn then join Big Brother or rehab. But change is inevitable. That’s why fashion fads come and go (thankfully in the case of the rah rah). Change is also as good as a rest. That’s why we need so many handbags, right ladies? And so many nights out with friends to discuss the merits of each.

Change can be exciting and exhilarating. But it can also be overwhelming and daunting. After almost 15 years on the B2B PR and Marketing scene, it’s time for a change. New brand, new colours, new font, new website.

But same great team. Same great work. Same enthusiasm and passion for all things B2B.

In our game you need to stay ahead of the game. So before we embarked on our own rebrand we treated ourselves as a new client and thoroughly researched the market, competitors and trends first. Then of course we brainstormed, thought-showered, mood boarded and SWOTed, thought outside the proverbial box to come up with concepts, names, straplines, colours, brand values, USPs then wrote a well-thought out creative brief…

Farewell Cameron Wells.

Hello CW: Creative wordsmiths. Campaign winners. Commercial wizards. Consistently wow.

CW just got brighter.

Our new brand colour is yellow. According to colour psychologists, it means happiness and optimism. It is the colour of creativity, high energy, enthusiasm, hope, fun, and cheerfulness.

Think that sums us up perfectly.

In between our rebrand, we were busy getting nominated for a CIPR award, wining new clients and keeping old ones happy. Doing what Cameron Wells did best and CW will continue to do in our predecessors award-winning footsteps.

Web trends for 2020 and beyond

So what did our web trend research for our own new website reveal as the do’s and don’ts for the next few years?

Here are the top 5 to help keep your website fresh and your clients not complaining about thumb RSI.

1. Mobile first design

Responsive and mobile-friendly web design isn’t optional anymore. In fact, your site should be designed with mobile in mind first. The number of mobile searches overtook desktop searches several years ago and now it’s estimated that over two thirds of people carry out searches using their smartphones.

2. Bold colour and minimalism

Minimalism goes hand-in-hand with one of 2020’s biggest web design trends: colour. Bold, bright, colours will help your brand stand out against the soft neutrals that a lot of companies have chosen over the past few years.

Using colour mindfully to evoke certain moods will be big in 2020. Colour psychology has been used by marketers for years to help create brands and influence consumer perceptions and buying behaviour.

3. Organic shapes

Move over geometric shapes of 2019. In 2020, it’s all about organic shapes. Organic or fluid shapes are anything that doesn’t involve straight lines and are inspired by nature, like undulating hills or the asymmetrical and winding curve of a lake or river.

Fluid shapes are a great way to break up sections of a website without harsh lines or angles or to use as integral to background design.

4. Smart video

Video has long been a must-have for websites. People love to watch people. Video is engaging. Video grabs attention. It’s one of the most effective online marketing tools if it has purpose and meaning. Gone are the days of embedding a YouTube video on your site just for the sake of it. One content rich, high quality video is better than a dozen contrived, untargeted ones.

5. Thumb-friendly mobile navigation

In 2020, web design will be all about thumb-friendly design.

If you’re reading this on your phone, look at the way you’re holding it. Your fingers are probably wrapped around the back of your phone leaving your thumb to do all the work. Putting the navigation bar, menu, and even contact buttons in the space your thumb can easily reach makes your site easier to use and improves the customer experience tenfold. And no threat of thumb RSI. Enjoy our new, smart, bright, minimalist, thumb-friendly website…

The removal of the instagram following tab – a good or bad move?

You know what? I’m pretty obsessed with social media.

I mean, I have to be for my job but I do like it in my personal life too. From finding out the latest Brexit saga on Twitter to reading the Coleen Rooney / Rebekah Vardy beef on Instagram, social media serves up an unrivalled mix of entertainment, news and social interaction in one fell swoop.

But I do find myself on there too much, mindlessly scrolling when I’m supposed to be watching the latest episode of Peaky Blinders and having to rewind (much to everyone’s annoyance).

This is why I’m coming round to Instagram’s shock move of deleting its following tab from users’ accounts. It provided yet another way of staying on the app longer for me and my fellow obsessives, another feed to scroll, another time-wasting exercise.

However, from a business and marketing perspective, I’m worried removing this tab could do brands and influencers harm in the long run.

I used this feed to discover new accounts, with most of my ‘I don’t know you in real life’ follows coming from this tab. Yes, there’s still the ‘explore’ section of the app but a good majority of those images are from accounts I’m not really interested in.

I asked quite a few of my other Instagram-loving friends if the following feed was something they benefited from. Many did, agreeing that it was somewhere they could find new people or brands to follow via their like-minded friend’s activity. Others weren’t too fussed about its demise – they said it was nice knowing people weren’t lurking in the background watching what they were doing.

Could this mean the number of new followers to a company account will slow down? Who knows. What with the number of likes soon disappearing on photos, will brands start to feel the impact of change on Instagram? I guess we’ll soon find out.

As for me, I promise to use the time I would have spent on the following tab on something more valuable. Like looking at Boris Johnson memes on Twitter.

Choose a PR agency

Be realistic. Don’t be wowed by the agency which comes up with the most interesting or unusual ideas. Wacky ideas can sound impressive in a pitch, but they can also be highly unworkable. Ask them for a media plan to hit the ground running and look for an agency who is realistic, honest and up-front about the job they can do for you.
Horses for courses: Find out who will be actually working on your account. You may be meeting the slick presenters at the pitch but then be passed over to the newest recruit straight out of college to cut their teeth on your account.
Proactive not reactive: Find out how proactive they are in creating news. Your PR agency shouldn’t just sit back and wait for you to give them story leads. They should be using a combination of imaginative thinking and hard graft to unearth opportunities for you.
Short-stay: Ask them how long their clients stay with them on average. This should give you a good measure of their levels of commitment.
Skin deep: Find out how much of a priority your business will be to them. If your account manger is spread too thinly working on 12 different accounts at once, how can they ever hope to really get under the skin of your business and understand your market?
Take aim: Look for a B2B marketing agency which will agree to setting campaign objectives together, not one who makes up their own objectives for your PR programme and then congratulate themselves for achieving them. PR is cost effective but it’s still an expense. Everybody deserves to know what return they’re getting on their investment. You should be getting regular updates on results.
The whole truth: Check what’s included in the monthly fee so you can avoid being hit with a long list of ‘extras’ they omitted to mention at the pitch.
Eats, shoots and leaves: Yes we know social media speak has taken over but there’s still no excuse for sloppiness. If emails and proposals from the agency have grammatical errors and typos, chances are all the subsequent work will be too.
Ask to speak to current clients: they should be the agency’s best advocates and if they’re not, you need to know why!

Handling the media

In the spotlight: top tips on being media savvy for business growth

Today’s business environment is hugely competitive, compelling companies to promote their services, image, brand and reputation in an effort to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

The media offers one of the most effective means of achieving this, and the return on investment can be compelling. It’s usually cheaper than advertising, much more credible and more effective at boosting Google rankings.

Here are 10 quick tips to get media savvy fast.

Always respond to a media enquiry. You are being given an opportunity to influence what appears in the news and, more importantly, how you, your company and industry are perceived.
Be aware of deadlines – journalists work to very tight schedules – if you want to get on the air or see your name online, be prepared to move fast and cancel a few appointments.
Be prepared before interviews. Find out – or work out – what the journalist is likely to ask you and prepare and practice key messages.
When being interviewed, be confident and remember that you are an expert in your field. Inject a little bit of oomph and allow enthusiasm to shine through.
But don’t make it up. No-one expects you to know everything about everything within your organisation or industry. Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t know the answer to a question; just say so and offer to find either the information they need or an appropriate person to talk to them as soon as possible.
NEVER say “no comment” – you might just as well admit you are guilty.
Don’t feel compelled to fill a pause or a silence with unnecessary information – silence can be used by an interviewer to get a person to make revelations they wouldn’t otherwise divulge.
Don’t just answer yes or no – give full answers but, if it’s for radio or TV, no more than 30 seconds long. Any longer and you will be edited from a recorded interview or interrupted during a live one.
If you want to promote your company and its products and services, be subtle, or you’ll sound like a snake-oil salesman. Don’t disparage the competition.
Don’t drop your guard when the interview is over. It’s never over until the reporter leaves the building or hangs up the phone. And remember that journalists never stop working and speaking “off the record” no longer exists.

Come up with new ideas for content

Content marketing – how to come up with ideas for new content

Though the principles of content marketing have been around for some time, only in recent years has its popularity has skyrocketed in the B2B sphere. Rather than being new-fangled and complex marketing technique, it’s just another bit of jargon that can easily be translated and owes as much to human nature as to textbook strategies.

Fact 1: Unless you are in the final stages of the buying cycle, nobody likes being actively ‘sold’ to. It feels intrusive and no B2B marketing professional wants to end up feeling like a foot-in-the-door double glazing salesman.

Fact 2: B2B marketeers have to earn their right to sell later on by sharing useful, objective, credible, relevant, expert advice now – when prospects are in the early stages of research. Don’t tell them about your products, tell them about how the general technology can help them to solve a problem, make them look good in front of their boss, support their staff better, make their working day easier so they can leave work on time etc.

So far, straightforward. But the internet is awash with anodyne advice from the school of the obvious. So how do you come up with high quality, engaging, fresh content to fuel your marketing campaign?

Aside from the obvious point about subscribing to relevant e-newsletters, LinkedIn groups, Google Alerts and RSS feeds so that you are amongst the first to know about industry developments, you want to be gauging what your current clients what they want to hear about.

You should then create a schedule, so the inspiration doesn’t dry up, and incorporate enough flexibility into it so that you are able to be reactive and respond to new developments as they happen.

At Cameron Wells, we’ve been doing this for clients for 15 years – here’s a case study and a list of ideas which might help:

Buyer guides – e.g. 10 things to look for when specifying… or a 3-step guide to buying…
10 questions to ask…
5 must-haves, 5 mistakes to avoid
Trends – creating threats/opportunities for your clients
Warning signs – 7 signs of impending cashflow problems
Strategies – 12 ways to reduce your health insurance costs
Definitions – 10 SEO terms explained – demystify buzzwords
Resources – 10 best guides, best websites, best online calculators
Aggregated content – e.g. 10 best infographics (where you should always credit and link to the source)
Enhancements – 10 ways to make the most of your telematics system, are you getting the most out of your dictation technology?
Best practice – 10 keys to sustainable growth/case studies
Metrics – are your e-newsletters working? 6 metrics to track
Capture content from events and then drip feed info in different formats: e.g. from a presentation: video – topics by topic, podcast, slides, article, white paper, webinar and a news release

Get new business leads through direct marketing

Digital and social media has undoubtedly changed the face of B2B marketing with many businesses redirecting much of their marketing spend to these channels.

So should direct mail still have a place in your marketing plan? Is it cost effective? Does it deliver results? Can it help customer engagement? Will it drive sales?

Read our top 10 tips to implementing a successful B2B direct mail campaign.

1. Plan ahead

Set very clear objectives that can be measured. Do you want a sales meeting? Who with? When? How many can you handle each month? Do you want to promote a short term special offer or launch a new service? How many sales or product trials do you require? Set up unique telephone numbers, ad codes, arrange tele-sales follow up or track unique website visitors so that you can measure the campaign success.

2. All about the money

Establish what is an acceptable cost per pack. Before you brief your agency, give clear direction on your budget. Embossing, spot UV and promotional gifts may look fantastic but will they deliver the ROI you need? Don’t forget to include the ‘invisibles’ in your overall pack cost – postage, list purchase, data cleansing, inserting (hand or machine enclosed), labelling and sorting plus follow up all need to added to the creative and print costs.

3. Power of data

Fish in your own pond and use a reputable list broker. Don’t ignore your lapsed customers. Don’t omit non responders to past campaigns. They may be in market this time and interested in your new offering. Segment and profile your most profitable customers and then buy similar data from a recommended IDM or RAR provider. If timing is critical to your product or service, try to buy tagged data with a renewal date appended so you are contacting potential customers at exactly the right time.

4. Know your audience

Who are you targeting? The Finance or Marketing Director? Or the PA gatekeeper who opens the CEO’s mail? What sector do they operate in? What is the size of the business? ‘Who’ drives everything – from the data provider to the concept and tone of voice to the messaging. Get this wrong and even the most powerful Direct Mail pack will fail.

5. Keep your enemies close

Try to get on mailing lists of your competitors. Monitor their on and offline activity. Know what they are up to, what they are saying and offering – then do it better.

6. Make it memorable

Be different. The format and creative execution must have stand out. You have very little time to make an impact. Remember people are time poor and are bombarded with mail – probably from your competitors. Make yours intriguing enough for them to want to open and you’re half way there. Whether that’s through a message that really strikes a chord, a compelling offer or a branded gift which engages them.

7. Power of words

Be single minded – make your campaign proposition obvious. A skilled copywriter will turn your product or service features into meaningful benefits for the end user. Features are ‘so what’ whereas benefits demonstrate how your offer could make them twice as effective or allow them to go home on time by being more efficient. Make them want you as much as you want them. But don’t overpromise. Make sure everything you say is legal. Always check the T&Cs and small print.

8. What should I do now?

Make your call to action clear. There should be no uncertainty about what happens next. Should they call you to arrange a meeting? Email you? Enter a prize draw? Visit your website to arrange a demonstration?

9. Testing testing

Budget and volume permitting you should always A/B split test. Long copy v short copy. Incentive v none. Letter only v full pack. Price v benefit as lead message. With and without email or call follow up. Monitor, learn and refine your next campaign accordingly.

10. How did it measure up?

Always share your results – internally and with your agency. And don’t just track the mailing response rate – it’s the conversion, overall ROI and the projected lifetime value of the lead that will really tell you if direct marketing is working.

How to write a good creative brief

As one Creative Director I knew unsurprisingly put it: “It’s the most important piece of paper in the agency”. Get the brief wrong and you will waste valuable time, resource and reputation. And have a really grumpy creative team.

First and foremost a brief must be brief – 2 sides of A4 maximum, 1 page is ideal. Remember the left brain, right brain rule of how a creative mind works compared to that of a suit! But brief does not mean it shouldn’t be thorough.

Run through the brief in person if possible and deliver it with passion. Give it the time and enthusiasm it deserves. A good brief should leave the creative team feeling excited and motivated to get started.

In brief – top 10 tips for the brief writer

Before you write anything, do your research, prepare, question and challenge
Don’t just fill out a form, but use the briefing form (see below) to stimulate your thought process
Be very clear about the aim of the brief
The main brief sections fall into 3 main categories: Background, Communication and Implementation
Deciding what you leave out can be as important as what you put in
Include only the critical information in the brief with the remainder in the attachments
The single minded proposition should be the focus of the brief
Understand your audience and what motivates them
Think about how to make your brief memorable
Confirm your brief in writing and get approval from necessary parties

When you’re ready to put finger to keyboard, here’s what should be included in every brief…

Background

brief overview: give an overview why the work is required including supporting customer research, past campaign results and competitor activity where appropriate in attachments.
objectives: these should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) eg 20% increase in sales leads amongst FTSE 250 HR directors within 3 months – NOT: lots more sales leads as soon as possible!
target audience: ‘who’ drives everything from media selection, tone of voice to imagery. Approaching affluent, AB, 60+ retired couples in Cheshire is very different to talking to SME business owners in the North West. Include any valuable consumer insights.
execution: what exactly is required? A lead nurturing email campaign? A/B split test consumer press ads? 30” radio script? VAT free direct mail pack? An integrated campaign featuring all?

Communication

single minded proposition: arguably the most important part of the brief, yet the most difficult to get right. What is the ‘essence’ or key take out from the brief? A good SMP should be captured in one sentence – or ideally just a few words. The SMP for the M&S food TV advert “This is no ordinary…” was simply ‘Food Sex’. The agency would have produced a very different ad had the proposition been ‘Great value yet delicious food.’
primary and support messages: pick out the most salient messages which will add value and be meaningful to the target audience – these can be company attributes or product features and benefits which can be functional or emotional.
creative direction: this is where you need to consider the look and feel of the piece – should it look hard sell, traditional, nostalgic, dynamic or quirky? Should it position a brand as an innovative, fast paced industry expert or a caring, nurturing service provider which will pull at the heart strings? Think about formats, photography style, colour palettes, fonts etc. Give direction – not instruction so that the creative team has chance to do what they do best.
tone of voice: How will the headlines and subheads engage the recipient? Should the copy by punchy, humorous and conversational or formal, informative and thought provoking? The tone must clearly reflect the brand personality.

Implementation

call to action/ response mechanism: be very clear about what the recipient should do next. Should they visit your website to buy online, call to arrange a meeting? Don’t forget to include any tracking or promotional codes.
budget
timings / key dates
mandatory inclusions: eg. small print and brand guidelines

Remember the old adage – you only get out what you put in. You can’t bake a mouth-watering cake with out-of-date or missing ingredients so don’t expect exceptional creative work if your brief is lacking in lustre.

How to create engaging infographics

Infographics have created a marketing bandwagon that all savvy marketeers appear to have scrambled onto to liven up dull topics or simplify complex ones, but how do you make them as engaging and effective as possible?

Here are our 10 top tips to creating the perfect infographic:

Ensure you consider everything and plan everything before you start to design an infographic, for example consider the structure of it, what you want to include on it and what the purpose of it is. Will it be used to mainly to educate or entertain people, for example? Will it be for social media or more for sales meetings collateral? Create a central theme around which all your statistics will hang.
Create a strong, enticing header for your infographic and social media posts to encourage click throughs.
Get it right from the offset – use correct facts and stats for your infographic and double check they are correct before thinking about anything visual.
Make your design unique to ensure it stands out; use strong graphics and make sure it has a colour scheme and look and feel that accurately reflects the brand.
Tailor your infographic for your target audience, using relevant design style and language. In an ideal world you will already know that this is a hot topic and that your target audience feel strongly about.
Don’t try to tackle too many subjects at a time, one subject per infographic.
Keep a good balance between images and text, don’t include too much text as this defeats the point of an infographic.
Ensure your infographic flows logically and that everything is in the correct order.
Don’t be lulled into making it too long – the average time spent viewing an infographic is only three minutes so forcing people to keep on scrolling could be extra design budget down the drain.
Always include your sources or a link to your sources online.

Looking for some inspiration? Here’s a couple we prepared earlier….

Willis Towers Watson Health & Benefits – HR Healthcheck

Willis Towers Watson Health & Benefits – Binge Britain

Webfleet Solutions – Fleet Productivity