Scott Cooper joins the Geronimo planning team.
Geronimo has recruited Scott Cooper, a Senior Planner to further strengthen our planning department. Scott joins us from Archibald Ingall Stretton, where he was the lead planner on O2 Business and Corporate accounts.
Scott has also worked client side with Amex. His financial credentials will support existing clients, and extensive B2B experience help drive our continued growth in this area, our B2B client list includes Direct Line for Business and SEAT Fleet.
Scott will work with Chris Dickens, our Head of Strategy, to deliver strategic planning across all of our clients, supporting their value creation proposition to clients and their customers.
Managing Director Andy Snuggs said:
“In this tough climate you need to invest in order to grow. We’re working with our clients differently to create value for them and their customers, and great strategic planning is at the core of this. Scott’s CV speaks for itself and with his finance and B2B experience he’ll fit right in at Geronimo.”
Scott added:
“Geronimo impressed me as an agency that seeks to genuinely understand the big picture before designing the creative response. Working in this way allows them to add real value and make a big difference to clients and consumers alike.”
Beat the downturn with Digital.
Apparently, the Chinese have a ‘word ‘ (it’s two symbols, actually) for crisis.
‘weiji’ translated means “danger and opportunity’.
It’s not true actually but let’s not let minor quibbles get in the way of a good opening line.
As we enter deeper into tough financial times companies instinctive reaction is to pull back from experimentation and innovation and shore up on the tried and tested.
Playing it safe until we ride out the storm.
That seems a bit too risky to me.
Why? Because that’s what all the competition will be doing too.
And you will still be in there amongst the clutter and noise.
Maybe not all though? Perhaps some of the competition are embracing the ‘weiji’.
Now , more than ever, is the time to be looking at fully engaging in a meaningful dialogue and relationship with your customers (and employees).
And there’s ways to do this with digital.
Use Existing Platforms
Video platforms such as You Tube, photo hosting on Flickr and various blogging software platforms are all there waiting for your content.
The sharing nature of these platforms means that – if your content is engaging and compelling enough – the audience will spread it for you.
Join the conversation
Your customers and employees are worried about how the economic downturn is going to affect them.
And they are already talking about it, online, amongst themselves.
Writing your own blog, and contributing to others is a way to establish and maintain open channel of communication between you and your customers .
Be authentic, transparent - and most importantly, human - and you’ll reap the benefits long after this recession has gone.
A simple Google Alert can keep you in the loop as to where your company is being spoken about online, and you can be ready to respond.
Try different stuff
Jumping from campaign to campaign, promotion to promotion is time consuming and costly for you; and confusing for the customer. OK, there are spikes around TV or banner campaigns but what happens in between?
It all goes dark.
Is a 0.1% click through really worth the bother?
Brand ‘awareness’ is no longer a valid or useful measurement.
Branding happens through the actual behaviors of your business, and how you involve people in that experience.
Look at ways to make the experience ubiquitous - spread across as many touch points as possible.
Think about where your audience is and go and meet them there.
With something interesting, useful and engaging, of course. Not just ads.
Now, more than ever they are tuning out from advertising messages.
The nature of the web allows you to solicit feedback from your audience and keep tickling, squeezing and tweaking your content to keep it relevant.
Think about utility
Instead of interrupting people while they are trying to do something else, as most advertising does, think about to be useful in people’s lives. What are the tools or activities your brand can facilitate that can make a difference in your customers lives?
What do we mean when we say ‘customer service’?
Serve your customers. Be there with a human voice when they need you.
Neilsen and Edelman research suggests that upwards of 70% of people trust recommendations from their peers far above advertising, when considering products or services.
Think about your top 20% of your customers. What kind of ways can you serve them that will encourage them to promote your products and services to their friends, colleagues and family?
Look to the web for insights.
Social Networks can be rich vein of insight for what your customers are actually saying and thinking, right now. Watch, listen and act.
Embrace the ‘weiji’ - the opportunity. Take this chance to make a meaningful connection with your customers.
It could be the start of a life-long romance.
Eaon Pritchard, Head of Digital.
Customer service?
Call me anytime: 079 7901 6084
Or drop me a line: epritchard AT geronimo.co.uk
Create conversations, not just messages
Have a look at your communications model, especially as you’re probably in the planning stages for 2009. Chances are that you’ll have a series of campaigns planned and a product launch or two.
Great, but where’s the glue that links all these campaigns, that engages both your prospects and customers on an on-going basis … and if you say that’s what our brand TV ads do, then hang your head in shame.
Take a couple of moments to look at nike+, mystarbucksidea, babycenter; all are important brand building activities … or what we call brand engagement activities.
And it’s not just big brands … look at Blendtech. And none of them are really selling the product … they are kick-starting conversation rather than pushing messages.
Now ask yourself … what’s the equivalent for the brand you work on? Deafening silence? Shuffling of papers?
Or do you think it’s a fluffy nice-to-have in your marketing mix?
Engaging customers whether it be in the form of information, entertainment or asking for their ideas is not peripheral any more. Ask J&J how important Babycenter is to them as part of their digital strategy … or ask Starbucks where the idea for wireless internet access in their cafes came from.
For the uninitiated, there are three key elements to define:
1. What territory you want your brand to occupy/own?
2. Does this correlate with what your customers/prospects are interested in?
3. Do you have permission to play in this territory?
The execution needs to be sticky… in other words, you need to create something which has some repeat use/longevity – one-off engagement isn’t enough or certainly not enough to create and influence meaningful conversations amongst your customers and prospects … and that is where your brand needs to operate in the future, so start now.
Chris Dickens, Head of Strategy
Why do match rates matter in B2B marketing?
Suppliers have been aggregating consumer lists such as lifestyle surveys and the Electoral Roll for years, but there is no equivalent in B2B. A utility or phone company wanting to increase its penetration among businesses will need a big database that doesn’t exist.
A single, generic solution is not the answer. Client companies should co-operate to pool data with non-competing partners. This is the way forward but you need to choose your partners carefully - it can be a client-led, rather than broker-led, initiative, with the help of their agencies.
Home insurance web sites scrutinised after floods
by Alicia Buller Revolution UK
LONDON - More people are going online to insure their homes than ever before and the figure jumped sharply after the recent floods.
However, new research has found that many web sites are not providing the information or service that customers need.
The independent study, by customer experience benchmarking firm, Global Reviews, measured consumers’ experience on 21 home insurance websites.
The sites were assessed against over 500 different criteria, including the quality of the information provided, the level of customer support, ease of application, information available to prospective customers and access to claim information.