Articles Archives - Page 5 of 10

By Hannah Buckley, Head of Content

The awards calendar forms part of many a PR & marketing plan, regardless of the industry you’re in. Taking home an award (even in some instances being shortlisted among high profile brands) is a great way to showcase your talent and expertise in your industry, demonstrate credibility and strengthen your reputation in the market.

What do you need to consider when writing a winning award entry?

The criteria for different awards is obviously… well, different. But there are 5 key areas you should always consider. I’ve sketched them out below:

#1 Always read the rules and entry requirements

It sounds quite obvious but a lot of valuable information can be missed if you skip over this stage and go straight to drafting. It’s kind of like ignoring the instructions on an IKEA bookshelf – you know what it’s supposed to look like at the end but could be missing out on the finer points of fitting that wood screw or using a wall stud.

Word count, specific questions that need answering, facts that need to be included, and of course the deadline – are all vital to writing a winning award entry.

#2 Ensure you’ve got the relevant content

This follows naturally from understanding the requirements. You’ve got a lot to say, many highlights and great achievements, but which category is the best fit? Do you have all the information that’s required? Do you need to chat with sales about a deal they secured? Do you need information from HR about company culture? Get all your content together, have another look at your requirements and then identify any gaps.

#3 Show results

It’s one thing to talk about your successes; it’s another to use tangible facts and figures to show that. Judges love seeing measurable results that will give your entry context. Remember that the judges won’t necessarily be as familiar with your industry as you are, so showing a clear picture of your success will help you stand out.

Don’t be afraid to add customer testimonials or any stats around customer satisfaction – this will also help build the bigger picture.

#4 Make it visual

Words are powerful. But having strong images to support them is even better. Whether that’s showing your latest product in action (if it’s a product category) or having a creatively designed infographic to show your company stats, great images always elevate your entry and make it more appealing to the judges.

#5 Make sure it’s professionally written

Here at Whiteoaks, this is what we do, so of course we’ve got a vested interest in this step! But in a nutshell, never hand this off to a junior, do it at the last minute, or use the exact same copy as last year. A winning award entry tells a clear and engaging story, using concise language. It needs to balance those elements with answering the requirements AND within a specific word count. Leaving this in the hands of professionals also means it will be accurate, properly proofed, and reflect the style and tone of your organisational messaging.

At Whiteoaks, in the last year alone, our Content Team has drafted 10 winning award entries for our clients. Get in touch if you’re keen to chat about how we can help you draft your next winning entry.

By Emily Fishburn, Senior Account Manager

The enterprise technology space is a highly competitive and crowded one. As with similar marketplaces, the most successful brands are those that not only deliver a good product or service, but stand head and shoulders above competitors.

Easier said than done. But it can be done.

Increasingly, PR is being used as one of those tools to help brands in the IT space distinguish themselves from their competitors. Just how can B2B tech PR help? If you’re in this space, we’ve compiled a list:

Thought leadership

The media is saturated with articles on popular topics like SaaS, big data or cloud, which means it’s harder to have your voice heard. B2B PR (and working with the right PR team) can help strengthen your voice by refining your messaging and making sure your subject matter experts come across in the best possible way.

It’s not about shouting louder than your competitors, it’s about saying something of value; something that will resonate with your prospects and answer a question, pose a solution or open their eyes to something new.

Here, having a definite opinion – and not being afraid to voice it – is also one of the ways to get yourself heard through thought leadership. You’re the expert in your field, so don’t be afraid to be outspoken, or even controversial if you have the facts or experience behind you.

Proactive commentary

In the same vein, having a strong opinion or something fresh to say on breaking news stories or emerging trends will give your brand a tremendous advantage. Again, this demonstrates your expertise and helps build the credibility of your brand. Be ready to jump on those chances – whether that’s giving your PR team your views and thoughts in preparation, or being readily available when opportunities (or the BBC) come knocking.

Media briefings

The traditional media briefing still plays a massive role in brand awareness. Work with your PR team to build those relationships with key media, not just to talk about product updates, but wider strategy and industry trends — again, not being afraid to voice an opinion or have a view that’s different from the herd.

The right relationships

It’s worth saying that you won’t be courting the entire UK media. Instead, there will be a few publications and journalists that are key to your PR plans and business objectives. So it’s vital that you’re talking to them in the right way about the right things. Product updates would never be shared with national publications, but solid case studies and press releases would resonate with the channel press.

The humble case study

Nothing sells your business like happy customers. Don’t forget about the impact that B2B content such as a well-written case study or customer testimonial can have on your desired audience. Case studies with clear results and demonstrable return on investment can be used throughout the marketing funnel, but especially with prospects in the consideration and decision phases.

What’s next?

PR gives you a number of tactics that can be used to elevate your brand, grow awareness of your offering and make you stand above your competition. Working with the right digital PR agency ensures those tactics become powerful tools that can help you reach your target audiences in the right way and ultimately achieve your business objectives, whether that’s boosting awareness, M&A or expanding into new markets.

If you’d like to chat about how we can help your business, please get in touch.

By Ella Thompson, Senior Account Director

Since the birth of the internet, cybersecurity has been a growing concern for businesses around the world. The number of cyberattacks has steadily grown year-on-year and experts predict it will carry on this way for the foreseeable future. In addition, cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated – they can find the smallest weakness in a network and exploit it without the company even knowing.

But it’s not all bad news. There has been a boom in the cybersecurity industry and companies reinforcing their cyber defences. Reports suggest that the UK cybersecurity industry is growing at a rate of over 20% a year with the global market projected to reach $258bn by 2025. With such a competitive landscape – how can cyber companies stand out from the crowd?

One of the best ways is to invest in cybersecurity PR. This helps increase brand awareness, showcase expertise and drive leads. But with such a crowded marketplace, how do you stand out from the rest?

Here are my three tips for developing an effective PR campaign in cybersecurity:

Understand your audience

The first thing you need to do when considering PR is to understand your audience and who you’re trying to influence. In the past, cybersecurity was not considered a board issue, it was left up to the IT director or manager to control. But with the ever-growing threat to companies and the risk of hefty fines from regulation such as GDPR, it has now become a top priority for the C-Suite.

There are now multiple decision-makers involved in cyber security strategy and purchasing decisions, so you need to create messages that suit each audience. Messaging that resonates with IT leaders isn’t going to have the same impact with the C-Suite. Your IT audience will be able to understand the technical jargon, whereas the C-Suite will be looking at the overall importance to the business and how it impacts the bottom line.

Once you understand your audience, you can then identify the target media you need to engage with to reach them. For example, while tech and cybersecurity titles may be best for your IT decision-makers, you may want to consider broader business and national titles for business leaders, adjusting your messaging (and tactics) to ensure the content engages and resonates with the right pain points for that audience.

Define your PR strategy

Cybersecurity dominates the media headlines; whether that’s a company experiencing a breach or another receiving a fine for misuse of sensitive data – there’s rarely a week that goes by without some form of cyber attack in the news. When appointing a PR agency you need to know that they have the right relationships with the media so that they can get you to the front of the queue when journalists are looking for experts to comment. Speed is key when reacting to breaking news, but some groundwork needs to be done so you can make the most of this PR opportunity when it comes about. This could be through building the profile of your spokesperson with the media so that journalists think of you when an opportunity to comment comes up or having the views of your subject matter experts documented to help with drafting comments.

As well as developing a process for reacting to breaking news stories, you also need to consider your proactive PR strategy. Ensuring the agency truly understands your business objectives will be critical in defining a compelling content strategy, storylines and PR programme that will resonate with your target audiences. It’s also important to identify which areas of the industry you want to target and have a voice in. Then you need to ensure that you are creating content with intent in these areas to establish yourself as an expert.

Be bold

Finally, there is a lot of noise in the cybersecurity industry. Most industry players are saying similar things and it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. It pays to be bold with your statements; just because 90% of cybersecurity professionals are saying the same thing doesn’t mean that you should follow. By developing an alternative perspective on an issue, challenging misconceptions or making predictive or bold soundbites, you can stand out in the media and increase your awareness. The important thing here is that your PR agency should be able to help you find your niche; balancing your messaging and objectives with what your audiences (and the media) need to hear.

If you’d like to hear more about our approach to cybersecurity PR or how we’ve helped similar clients, then please get in touch.

By Ellie Nash, Digital Account Executive

Whether your business goals are growth, boosting customer engagement or reaching new audiences, social media has a definite role to play – especially used in concert with your wider PR and marketing plans.

But where do you start?

Here are our four tips on improving your social strategy, reaching your social media goals, and improving your online presence.

Connect with Industry Influencers:

Connecting with industry influencers/creators is an important part of enhancing your online presence. You can do this through engagements.

Engagements are where you or your organisation will interact with an industry expert in your field of work who is currently discussing a hot topic that has relevance to your organisation/the services you provide. For example, if you were a healthcare organisation and the Minister for Public Health tweeted something that you feel you could contribute to or provide a valid solution to, don’t hold back, get involved!

Here are some of the benefits:

Engagements drive more conversation. Especially when reacting to a post with a question, you leave the door open for not only the author of the post to answer but also others viewing the post.
Engagements pose a greater opportunity to grow followers. If the author responds or others respond to the engagement, they may follow you, especially if they agree with what you’re saying about the topic.
If your organisation links a blog or whitepaper to the conversation as a solution, this increases the chance of more views and overall engagements.

At Whiteoaks, we would recommend making most of these engagements on Twitter. Twitter is more conversational, casual and is more seamless to find trending hashtags that apply to your industry. If you are planning on engaging with an influencer or creator, possibly consider ending your engagement with a question, such as, ‘What are your thoughts on this?’. This encourages more opportunity for the individual or others to get back to you and get involved.

Use MORE Video:

As the millennial and Gen Z attention span decreases, the demand for short and snappy videos increases. According to a recent infographic by Social Media Today, the average attention span of this generation ranges from 8-12 seconds… And that’s why short-form videos are key!

Now, we’re not pleading with you to set up a TikTok account but keep in mind that short, snappy videos are the way of the future. Videos are becoming so attractive to audiences as it allows them to digest information from videos that are long enough to catch their attention and short enough for them to leave them wanting more.

For the most part, this is a chance to show off the personality of your business, the talent of your team and the fun you have within the office.

Here are a few examples of content that we would recommend you post, depending on the type of business you are:

How to’s
Meet the team
Product highlights
Humorous videos (get involved in World Hot Dog day or April Fools!)
Influencer marketing

… These are only a few examples of some of the content that could make your business go viral, be creative!

Implement Paid Social:

Why should you use paid social? It’s not just used to boost organic content. It’s a lot more targeted than that.

So think about targeted content like eBooks, webinars, and whitepapers, leveraging your best content. You can use these to fuel your paid campaigns across platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. With LinkedIn specifically, there is the opportunity to be really targeted across personas, industry, job title, age, geography, company size… the list goes on. You can use it to find and engage with new audiences.

The key thing about these types of targeted campaigns is that they can be measured, and you can determine your ROI. While paid gets the quick-fire results based on specific campaigns, having organic running concurrently building your brand story and presence provides longevity.

Using both paid and organic social media together makes sense. And when you’re using social as part of a larger PR and marketing strategy, they pack a powerful punch for reaching those objectives – be it lead generation, brand awareness or expansion.

Start using a Social Media Calendar:

Social media calendars are essential to keep your team and content on track and heading in the direction you want it to.

Google sheets is great for hosting your social calendar.

Here are a few of the benefits of implementing a calendar to your strategy:

Ahead of the next month’s activity, you will go into the document and write in the note tab what needs to be promoted and on what day throughout that calendar month. This keeps everyone aligned with what needs to be pushed onto social, at what time, and on what platform.
If the social media ideas/blog links are provided a week in advance of writing the schedule, it gives the team time to look through the link and formulate a post. This reduces stress and improves efficiency.
You will gain more engagement and interaction on posts that you have crafted for specific channels. Rather than copying and pasting the same post over to all of your platforms, use the calendar to review what was posted last week, what went well and what to post the following week. Taking time to fit within the character limit of Twitter whilst also developing the information for LinkedIn.

Social media is an ever-changing world so expect to see a lot of new development in 2022 and make sure to take note of the brands that are harnessing these trends.

By Richard Garfield, Specialist Content Writer

Over the past couple of years, businesses have had to quickly adapt and change the way they promote their products and services. While the ever-changing marketing landscape may seem daunting, here are five key trends to keep an eye on during 2022 to ensure your content marketing plans stay on track.

#1 Empathetic marketing

Recent events have led marketing teams to take a more empathetic approach, which we are likely to see continue throughout 2022.

It’s a way of seeing your customer through their eyes and speaking to them as people and not simply as potential buyers. To do this you need to be clear who your customers are, what challenges and pain points they face and what motivates them into action. Answering these questions will be useful in producing content that evokes relatable emotions which will build trust, create better customer experiences and develop more authentic relationships.

#2 Hyper-personalisation

It’s well known that customising messages will improve customer engagement, especially when it comes to email marketing.

While this has become pretty much standard practice, a newer trend is now emerging with hyper-personalisation. This goes deeper than simply using a customers’ name as it taps into an individual’s preferences, desires and needs.

Basically, this uses data to deliver more personal and tailored products, services and information to create unique interactions with individuals. Hyper-personalisation can increase customer loyalty and create more enjoyable interactions.

#3 Shorter video content

During 2021 video content became a central part of many content strategies. TikTok alone grew by an impressive 173% and with Instagram embracing a shift towards video, so the importance of video content will surely grow in 2022.

As average times for watching videos continue to fall, short videos suit fast-paced social media platforms. According to Hootsuite just over 39% of businesses already use short video content to sell their products and services, with 30% reporting that it provides a higher ROI than their own websites.

When done well, video can create a deeper connection and capture the attention of potential customers more readily.

#4 Audio content and podcasts

Audio content has become more and more popular in part due to podcasts which are available live or on-demand. In a recent survey from HubSpot, 80% of businesses polled said they plan to invest either the same or more into podcasts and audio continue for the year ahead.

We expect this trend to continue in 2022 with more content that is directly linked to a brand being available as they are a great way to share information while listeners are doing other things such as driving to work, doing household chores, or working out.

#5 Optimising content with infographics

We expect to see the trend of consumers actively choosing content with visual displays such as infographics over content that is purely text in 2022.

Studies have shown that people can process images 60,000 times faster than text and in the same vein, people tend to remember only 10% of information through sound, while they remember up to 65% of information they see visually.

While images can be powerful on their own, when mixed with text they have even more impact, as audiences respond well to the combination of words and images. Articles with relevant images receive 94% more views compared to articles without images. Well-designed, attractive visual content, such as infographics, photos and animations, can increase visual interaction with consumers can drive emotions and help them along with their buying decisions.

Content teams must keep abreast of key marketing trends if they want to attract and retain their target audiences in 2022 as after all creating exciting content is what gets businesses and their brands noticed. However, this does not mean they can simply jump on new trends and ignore basic marketing practices, as without a unified content and marketing strategy this is unlikely to pay off in the long run. Making sure your content and marketing is aligned with the rest of your business and by clearly defining your marketing goals, will allow you to make the most of these trends.

If you have any questions or would like some help with your content marketing, get in touch with us.

It’s that time of year when the mystics grab their trusted crystal ball and take a long hard look into the future. For those of us in B2B PR & marketing, that approach just doesn’t work! Instead, we rely on educated guesses and the wise words of our experts.

We asked our Creative Director, Mark Wilson; Head of Content, Hannah Buckley; and Head of Digital and Social, Ross Walker for their take on what to expect from next year.

Mark on creative

#1 Focus on video and animation

We all had to work within the confines of the pandemic which meant finding other outlets or avenues for creative. Things like photo shoots, for example, couldn’t happen, so we had to find alternatives. Which is where video and animation shone and as a result, we can see can more of this next year. We are also going to see the use of video and animation in different media and areas, and across different platforms. Just look at the Channel 4 reality series that was produced exclusively for broadcast on Instagram.

#2 More green

Obviously there’s been a lot of focus on sustainability, not just because of the recent COP26, and I think will influence all areas next year. More brands will be shouting about their credentials and efforts next year – and will be pressed to prove it. But more than that, there’ll be pressure in the digital sphere to prove sustainability; how can digital brands be more energy efficient. If you consider the internet produces nearly 4% of the world’s greenhouse emissions, there is definite work to be done.

#3 Return of the DM

No. Not the direct message. I’m talking more old school. The direct mail. While direct mail like junk mail has had a steady presence in our lives, it will be the desk drop that is staging a comeback. This can be used as a way to get your brand to stand out, be more personalised and targeted. I think it’s just a really ripe area for creativity, especially because people are tired of receiving emails marketing emails, dozens a day. As we hopefully make a return to our offices next year and away from being in front of our screens 24/7, a physical, tangible thing will be well received.

Hannah on content

#1 Increased demand for a wider variety of content types

In today’s time-strapped environment, people are a lot more selective about what they consume, which has led to greater demand for videos and podcasts, to supplement more traditional types of marketing and PR content. These types of content are easy to digest, can be more widely shared and reach more audiences while staying true to the brand’s messaging.

#2 More data-driven content

This is really a circular thing and recognises the role content plays in the bigger picture, in terms of company goals and objectives.

With this, there will be more of a move towards data informing the types of content being created and at the same time there’s a push for content to provide tangible results that can be evidenced with hard data to show how content is helping to meet those company goals.

#3 More brands sharing more opinionated content

This is a more upfront up front way to engage with audiences, particularly as people are now a lot more discerning and know when they’re being sold or marketed to.

With that, some brands are being bolder with how they communicate with their customers and prospects to cut through the noise and make their voice heard.

This approach requires businesses to strike the right balance between being outspoken and potentially controversial, and remaining true to their brand’s messaging and values.

Ross on social and digital

#1 Employee advocacy

The term has been used quite a lot and it’s becoming more and more important for brands to adopt these programmes into their marketing. Essentially it’s about leveraging employee networks to promote the brand, ensuring they’re amplifying the messaging. But…all in a meaningful and authentic way! The obvious benefits are brand awareness and transparent engagement with target audiences. In addition, LinkedIn for example, is more inclined to push individual posts and content over those coming from corporate pages.

#2 Evolution of paid social

Next year it’s going to be more important than ever to stand out and leveraging paid social campaigns can really be beneficial, especially around brand awareness and lead generation. It’s a great way of building engagement and being more targeted. It does need to be underpinned by a solid content strategy to make sure your audience is consuming that content and interacting with your brand.

#3 Bet on organic social

With all the changes that have happened this year – enter the Metaverse! – there’s no guarantee that organic will continue to be effective; especially with the focus on paid and the fact organic reach has been steadily declining over the last few years. However, organic still has a definite role to play so we’ll see brands taking full advantage of that.

If you have any questions or thoughts on the trends, let us know! Or get in touch if you’d like to see how you can capitalise on them in 2022.

By Tom Addison, Senior Digital Marketing Executive

For a long time, digital PR and SEO operated separately, often at odds with each other. Fast forward to now, and integration between the two is vital. While some argue that a good digital PR strategy can have a bigger impact upon SEO than PPC, email marketing and other digital approaches, alignment of PR and SEO is the way forward.

Integrating PR and SEO doesn’t need to be a huge overhaul to your strategy and planning; simple collaboration and communication can drastically transform your results and enable you to see the bigger picture.

Here are three reasons you should consider digital PR when it comes to developing your SEO strategy:

Backlinking

Backlinks are where a 3^rd party website links to yours. This is something that most clients want in their coverage because it’s more likely to drive referral traffic to their website. And as we all know, referral traffic is a very valuable source of visitors. This traffic typically spends the longest on the website and has a higher conversion rate than the other sources of traffic. It’s always worthwhile to take a deeper look into it on Google Analytics to see which referral link is working so you can focus your efforts on getting more backlinks that are similar.

Backlinking can also help you boost your domain authority, which can then help you rank higher. There are eight broad areas to Google’s ranking algorithm and one of them is having authoritative backlinks to your website. Moz has developed a scoring system for domain authority, which gives you a good idea of how authoritative Google thinks your website is. For example, if you get a backlink in The Guardian, which has a domain authority score of 95 then Google will consider you more of a reliable and authoritative source than someone with a backlink in a lower-scoring website. That’s not to say that one backlink in The Guardian is better than lots in a trade publication – there is a fine balance between quality and quantity.

Content creation

A large part of building out your SEO is creating a consistent stream of optimised content to help improve your organic traffic and rank on Google. Content marketing is hard work, it can take up a lot of your time or budget if you’re outsourcing it. So, you want to make sure that you’re getting your money’s worth. PR teams can work with SEO teams to help determine which content could be worth amplifying by pitching it to the media. It’s a win-win if you’re able to create one piece of content that can help drive traffic and get you coverage.

This mainly just comes down to communication between teams. If your digital PR and SEO team are integrated or have frequent meetings to make sure that their goals are aligned and they’re sharing ideas, it can eliminate duplication and improve efficiency.

Reputation management

When people are deciding to buy something they now have all the information they need at their fingertips – especially when it comes to B2B. They can quickly do a search that will tell them whether people think you’re doing a good job or not. Whether your product or service delivers on its promises, and whether your brand is trustworthy. This third party endorsement is incredibly valuable to businesses because the prospective buyer will trust what other people have to say about you much more than what you have to say about yourself.

Every company has had at least one bad review – deserved or not. So, what can digital PR and SEO do to help combat this? I would like to say though that if all your reviews are negative then you might want to look at your business practices, not PR and SEO. But to get control of your online reputation from that one pesky review that haunts you, can be done with some successful PR activity. It could be through a successful integrated campaign that has got you national coverage or in a highly regarded trade publication. The search engine results on page 1 for your brand may look a lot more appealing to a prospect – or even potential staff – something we discuss in our Whiteoaks Prodcast episode on building the employer brand.

If done right, PR and SEO can have a huge impact on your inbound lead generation. Even if it’s just increasing the communication between the teams it’s worth thinking next time you’re creating content or pitching an article how can this benefit each other.

If you want to talk more about aligning your B2B PR and SEO then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

By Bekki Bushnell, Head of Business Development

The fintech industry isn’t something that is new, it has been around for a long time. But it’s quite hard to determine the actual inception of the fintech industry. Like cloud, ERP and CRM, fintech is part of our business vernacular. But when did the term even originate? Was it the world’s first ATM in 1967? Maybe the introduction of the Nasdaq, the first electronic stock exchange in 1971? Or does it go as far back as 1866, when the first transatlantic cable was laid? Many people would claim that PayPal was the first to really kick off the rise of the fintech industry – the online payments system has brought fintech to the masses.

Today, the UK fintech industry is worth £11 billion, according to Kalifa Review published in 2021. Regardless of its origins, the industry presents a wealth of business opportunities for fintech startups. So, with such a competitive market and one that is growing rapidly – how do they capitalise on it? Beyond the obvious answer (have a great solution), fintech PR has a definite role to play in making your brand stand out and help fuel your growth.

I’ve outlined three key areas you need to consider when thinking about fintech PR:

Understanding your fintech audience

The first thing you need to do when considering fintech PR is to understand your audience and who you’re engaging with. The fintech industry has a multitude of areas to it, from mobile payments to SME financing, all these audiences have different factors that affect their buying decisions. Your digital PR agency can help you define this audience (B2B customers, B2C customers, potential investors) so that you can fully understand their needs and pain points. They can also help you split them into different buyer personas so that when you come to create your messaging it can be tailored to each persona.

Your tech PR agency can then take the messages directed at each persona and identify the channels they need to be targeting for each, whether that’s the media, social, events, or a combination. By doing so, you as the client can know that your messages are hitting the right targets at the right time.

Building trust

Confidentiality and security are vital for customers in the financial services sector, which means new entrants have to work harder than established players to build up trust and break through the perception that it’s not just those organisations with decades of experience behind them that are trustworthy. This is where fintech PR and marketing can play a key role in fostering that trust and credibility.

Customers need to have confidence in the company to deliver what they said they would. Thought leadership and customer endorsement can play a key role in this. SiriusDecisions suggests that 70% of the buying decision is now done before even speaking to a salesperson. That’s why B2B content marketing is so important now. You can build up the profile of your brand and team, giving you presence in the fintech sector and people will start to see you as the source of information when it comes to your niche.

By gaining the trust of your customers they will become much more comfortable in your ability to handle their data responsibly and provide vital services within financial services.

Learn more about how to build trust in our Question of Trust eBook.

Return on investment

Considering how competitive the fintech industry is, you must make sure every penny you spend on PR is helping you achieve your business goals and objectives. PR has long had a reputation for being hard to prove business impact, but this is not an excuse anymore. Stakeholders will want hard evidence that their PR investment is working – this is more than just coverage numbers – they want to be able to see evidence of sales leads, share of voice and website traffic to name a few.

I would recommend all fintech startups considering a PR investment not to accept the recommendations of the agency until they can prove the link between the activity they’ll be undertaking and the company’s startup strategy and goals. This is why our deliberately different approach of set fees for set deliverables, linked to clear performance commitments underpinned by a formal service level agreement, continues to resonate so well with fintech startups and firms looking for PR.

If you’d like to hear more about our approach or need help with your B2B PR, content strategy, creative PR or digital strategy and social media, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

By Susan Richter, Marketing Communications Manager

Of course this blog is inspired by Facebook’s bold move to rebrand its holding company to Meta. Like most things Facebook does, the rebranding is not without its critics; from the reasons behind it (to divert attention from the allegations of whistleblower Frances Haugen) to the lack of translatability (meta means dead in Hebrew).

But Facebook isn’t the first brand to take the leap and it won’t be the last. The one example that sticks out in my mind is WWF (World Wrestling Federation) changing its name to WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) in 2002. This was as the result of the wrestling organisation losing a trademark lawsuit brought by the World Wildlife Fund, or the “real” WWF.

As far as reasons go, Northern Rock becoming Virgin Money also stands out. The Newcastle-based bank failed, was nationalised and eventually sold to Virgin Money and quickly rebranded.

There are a number of reasons for a rebrand; ones that don’t involve lawsuits or fixing bad reputations. M&A, brand evolution, moving into new markets, change in strategy… the list goes on.

Regardless of reason, it should be a good one; a rebrand is costly. Not just in terms of design and implementation, but also the impact it can have on your customers, investors, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Brand building is an ongoing process, and key in strengthening credibility and creating trust. Not all brands have the luxury of changing their name, garnering international media coverage and being big enough (with big enough budgets) that a name change won’t affect customer loyalty or market perception.

Although a rebrand doesn’t always equate to a complete name change. Starbucks Coffee dropped the “Coffee” and Kentucky Fried Chicken lost most of the consonants and all the vowels from its name to become KFC. Again, these are massive global brands. But what about smaller brands?

In 2018 The Whiteoaks Consultancy rebranded to Whiteoaks International. The reason? To move with the times, to reflect our evolution and to highlight our reach as an agency. Three years later we revamped our brand identity and tagline, for some of those same reasons. One step that was vital for us in both instances, was considering our audiences.

For other brands, the same is also true. How will this impact customers, staff and other stakeholders? This ties into the overriding reason for the change. Is it with the customer / end user in mind? Or is it a vanity exercise? How will the change affect reputation, market credibility? Are you staying true to your purpose as a business?

Then there’s the logistics involved in managing the change. The key to a successful rebrand is having a solid plan to roll it out – from communicating the change to internal and external audiences, to designing the assets and revealing them in all forms, including building signage, letterheads, website and social channels.

As humans, as much as we resist change, we’re all about reinvention. From a new hairstyle, to a new colour scheme in your bedroom. And who could forget the artist formerly known as Prince, proving it’s not just companies that can rebrand. In all seriousness, it’s easier for us; a trip to the hairdresser (or Boots) and a visit to Dunelm for soft furnishings and voila. For brands, it’s a little trickier because the stakes are so much higher and there are a lot more moving parts. So when it is time to think about a rebrand or a brand evolution? What is the secret to success? If the strategy behind it is well-considered and the change is well managed, the sky (fun fact: Sky One was recently rebranded to Sky Showcase) is the limit.

Trust forms the foundation for all relationships and in the B2B tech space, that’s no different. We wanted to delve into how brands approached trust building and customer loyalty as part of our The Question of Trust research. So we interviewed a range of marketing professionals from B2B tech brands to find out.

This is what Gail Cook, Head of Strategy & Insights at Glen Dimplex Heating & Ventilation had to say:

“We’ve been around for 70 years, so there’s a trust element there. We’re not a fly-by-night company. We’re not going to go out of business. That’s really important to us and building our brand and our reputation because you see it nowadays, particularly with this digital age and online, is the number of overseas manufacturers who are now able to sell into our markets. People can buy through Facebook and can buy through different channels.

They’re buying electronic equipment that’s maybe not tested, and they’re not up to our safety standards. Then you get counterfeit products. People don’t know any better, and we have a job to do to build trust with our consumers through our brand so that they know when they purchase our products, they are safe, and they can trust us as a brand.

I think more and more brand reputation is going to become even more important in the future, particularly for those end consumers”.

Q: What are the most important components of customer trust?

For us, customer trust is about building partnerships and relationships with people. That’s about us doing what we say we’re going to do, being open and honest, having two-way dialogues.

For us, we also see sustainability as part of trust building.

Many of our retailers, many of our customers are asking for specific credentials around what we’re doing to be more sustainable as a business. We have the full traceability of every product that we make and where those components and where those parts come from and where the raw materials come from, what factories have been produced in and what labour has been used. We share that information with them.

In addition, our factory is fully accredited from a health and safety point of view, and the manufacturing standards. Customers can be confident in what we say around the safety of our products, and that’s something we pride ourselves on. Safety is at the heart of everything that we make.

Q: Have you adopted any new approaches in building those relationships with customers?

Yes. Our industry is changing a lot and there’s a lot of legislation that’s coming into force and that causes uncertainty. We’ve taken the lead in understanding that legislation and supporting our customers and playing that back to bring value in that partnership with them. We’ve been doing CPDs and training sessions online. We would normally have those as face-to-face sessions. Actually, we’ve been able to get more customers coming along to those, and we’re giving those CPDs free of charge. We’re doing analysis that they don’t have time to do themselves. We’re helping them as a business. It’s some of what we’ve been doing in the past, but it’s in a different way of doing that.

Q: What role has PR and marketing played in helping you build that trust? Has it been more significant?

Definitely more significant. We’ve been supporting our sales colleagues. It’s typically our commercial colleagues who would have those direct relationships with the customers, particularly in a B2B environment. We’re supporting behind the scenes. We’ve been investigating the technologies that are available to help them have those communications. We’ve been on the sidelines supporting, making sure things run smoothly, troubleshooting for them because we want them focused on the relationship, not on the peripheral stuff around that.

We’re trying to position ourselves as a trusted expert, and that’s been received really well. We’re bringing activities that are added value to that customer’s business. We’re not just about pushing out our products to them. It’s that added value. How can we help their business grow?

Q: Where do you see the biggest opportunities for PR and marketing in building trust?

There has never been a more important time for brands to step up and talk about what they do well and build their relationships. In my 20 years of marketing, there’s never been a more turbulent time between Brexit, global supply issues, a global pandemic. This is really an unsettling time for everybody. As brands and as familiar brands, we have the rule to build people’s confidence back up that we’re still here, the world is still normal. We provide great products. It’s been unsettling, but we’re here.

Brands have values, we stand for things. As a brand, we do what we say we’re going to do, and we can communicate that out there. We have to now take that step up and bring that reassurance and that trust back to the markets in which we operate.