On Thursday 22nd February, we hosted our first Digital Bites of the year at the Everyman Cinema in Manchester with over 100 attendees. The event hosted nine 10-15 minute talks, with a mid-refreshment break and finished with networking drinks.
THANK YOU TO OUR FANTASTIC SPEAKERS AND ATTENDEES
We want to thank everyone who showed up for the event, and the ten amazing speakers who took to the stage – everyone delivered fantastic talks full of knowledge and insight.
THE TALKS AND RECAP
Ollie Ratcliffe – Prolific North Marketer of the Year
The art of simplicity
Kicking off the talks first was Prolific North’s Marketer of the Year, Ollie Ratcliffe. Ollie covered the art of simplicity, taking your marketing strategy right back to its core, making your brand or product easy to find, buy, and remember.
He spoke about how it’s important to prioritise your efforts based on the behaviour of your customers. The goal is to make it easy for your customers to buy, and if your product is sold through a third party, make it easy for them to sell. Ollie advised that you must start from the four objections people have when buying a product and work back:
- Price
- Commitment
- Brand perceptions
- Product
Ollie continued by asking, is your product pipeline reaching your core consumer? The key to simplicity is to make it easy to remember and always communicate what it is that makes your brand truly unique.
He ended by reiterating that it’s important to meet your customers halfway, and always consider what you want to tell them vs what you want to hear. Constantly ask yourself, ‘Could my competitors do this?’ and if this answer is yes, try again and strive to be unique. We can get caught up in what’s flashy and trending, but ultimately if it’s working, stick to it.
Want to find out more? Check out Ollie’s slides
Allen White – Connective3
How UK companies can diversify their backline profile to increase organic traffic
connective3’s US PR lead, Allen White, covered how he helped a client diversify their profile by breaking into new markets.
The client approached our team after they spotted that their visibility and traffic had been stagnant for a duration of time. Our team knew they needed quality links, expanded reach, and established credibility.
To establish the new strategy, Allen explained how they looked into their backlink profile to analyse where the issues were arising from and found that the client had backlinks in the same publications numerous times, which was limiting their diversity.
They created a total 700 links in 24 states, grew their visibility from 60,000 to 139,000, DA 47 to 55, and overtook competitors by doing the following:
- Conducted a US strategy which allowed them to move into a new market and be featured in TV and radio stations.
- Broke into new markets by diversifying through celebrity/sports-related interviews – this tactic also helped to increase their credibility.
- Pivoted their tactics and tried to land in new, specialised publishers and on government sites.
Allen finished by explaining that link building in the US is a great way to diversify your profile.
Interested in seeing more? Check out Allen’s slides.
Lauren Adams and Plyska Genova – Genovi Creative
Why you shouldn’t follow trends: a 360º brand talk
In the next talk, Lauren and Plyska covered why it’s not always wise for brands to follow trends, and how paving your own path can set you apart from the rest.
They started by listing the pros and cons of jumping on trends.
Pros:
- Increases brand relevancy.
- Increases ability to go viral overnight
- Increases visibility.
Cons:
- Difficult to maintain consistent consumers.
- Weakens loyalty.
Lauren and Plyska continued to explain that true branding success lies in consistency and authenticity – this doesn’t mean huge budgets, but understanding the brand universe. There are five main pillars of the brand universe:
- Product
- Personality
- Customer
- Value
- Mission
Most brands begin with values and mission, and true branding has this in every aspect of their experience, not just the product. Lauren went on to say that it’s important to value what the customer reacts to and engages with, so you can create niches that resonate with the core business in mind.
With visual branding, the takeaway is to have something memorable, distinctive, and easy to action.
Check out Lauren and Plyska’s slides to find out more
Catriona Cherrie – connective3
When to pivot your content strategy and how to master agile content planning
connective3’s Catriona covered everything you need to know about how to pivot your content strategy and master content planning. She started by listing examples of when you would need to pivot your strategy including:
- Google algorithm updates
- Nosedives in strong areas i.e. when top-ranking guides are falling
- When the client wants to change the strategy
Although the first thought might be to panic if any of the above happens, it is important to know the steps on how to pivot your content strategy:
- Expand to consider all your options such as blog optimisations or optimising key landing page copy
- Keep the KPIs you’re measured against at the core of your changes
- Analyse the SERPs for competitor activity
She suggested repeating all three steps as much as possible and you’ll soon find a solution and your content will appear to the right people in the right way.
To find out more, check out Catriona’s slides.
Claire Burns – Wurkplace Wellbeing
Stress-smart, resilience ready
Claire’s talk identified stress levels and the best management techniques for you. Claire began by explaining that stress is a natural response that we all experience however, it is subjective and everyone deals with it differently.
She explained that in the workplace we often talk about the negative impact stress is having on us, and she used the Yerkes Dodson law as a model to showcase that optimal level is the best for performance, but too much or not enough stress can cause burnout.
Claire continued to explain the importance of recognising when we’re under a strain so we can avoid entering burnout, which is harder to recover from.
Claire’s top stress tips include:
- Set healthy boundaries.
- Relax and calm the nervous system.
- Develop your resilience and recovery. Recovery is short-term, whereas resilience is long-term, ability to bounce back and adapt to challenges.
Check out Claire’s slides to find out more about the different types of stress.
Natalia Chappell – THG
Driving growth through finding the balance between new and returning customers
Natalia’s talk was centered around the balance between new and returning customers. She explains that as a business, we collect data, but we forget how to analyse it.
Natalia highlighted that acquiring new customers, but not retaining them, is a big mistake and it’s important to find the balance between driving acquisitions being profitable.
Natalia continued to explain how we measure this and highlighted the importance of seeing which channels the customers are coming from such as:
- Affiliates
- Returning customers
- Cross-selling and upselling
To find out more, check out Natalia’s slides.
Ella Wright – NEOM Wellbeing
The power of community: creating a community-first social media strategy that works
Ella began by stating that NEOM Wellbeing offers more than products but is also a hub of information to provide customers with value to improve their sleep, mood, and overall wellbeing – NEOM Wellbeing is treating customers as a community.
Ella shared examples of Rare Beauty and Hyundai N, both showing positive and empowering social media posts on their channels, which helps to build a loyal customer base.
She shared three key questions for a winning social media strategy:
- Who is my community? Find out their gender, age, and location, and look beyond this data to find your audience.
- Where is my community? Look into the questions they ask and what they truly want from their purchases.
- How do I make my community care? Post engaging content, and keep them interested and in the loop.
She finishes by sharing the importance of giving back – invite customers to exclusive events, host giveaways, and offer loyalty programmes. Build the community and invest in the brand.
Check out Ella’s slides to find out more.
Will Brittain – connective3
Where did all my friends go? How social media lost its ‘social’ and what it means for paid content creation
connective3’s Head of Paid Social, Will, started by explaining it’s no surprise that you don’t see much content from your friends due to content creation taking over and new user behaviour.
Will explained how algorithms have changed, and now more than ever, feed content has been prioritised based on relevance. Platform algorithms match organic content with an audience based on three key points:
- Relationship
- Interest
- Relevant
In 2017, TikTok videos were capped at 15 seconds, in 2022 90 seconds, and now some accounts have access to post 30-minute videos. TikTok is the leader in this space followed by Instagram Reels which launched in 2020.
Will’s top tips for creating paid social campaigns include:
- UGC is your secret weapon, as the CTR on UGC ads is x4 higher than BAU design ads, with 29% more conversions with UGC campaigns.
- With Meta relaxing rules, you can use text-enhanced animations to bring a carousel to life, which are better performing than static images.
- If you can cater to both social usage and passive channels, you are winning.
To find out more about what this means for paid content, check out Will’s slides.
Lloyd Bradley – Google
Put Google AI to work for you
Our last speaker of the afternoon was Lloyd Bradley from Google. Lloyd started by explaining how it’s normal for marketers to feel apprehensive, but to think of AI as new ways to reach users, not taking your jobs. AI will simply change the way we do our jobs.
He shared that 66% of people want personalised brand experiences but demand privacy. Privacy is driven by regulation and user expectations and is something we’re consistently trying to navigate.
Lloyd delved into how to put Google AI to work for you across your measurement, media, and creative.
- Measurement – Measure and prove success with next-generation technologies that are more effective, actionable, and privacy-first.
- Media – Reach the right customers, at the right time with unprecedented effectiveness, reach, and scale.
- Creative – Build relevant creative at scale and speed.
He finished by reminding us that you’re the marketer, and AI is the enabler, it will only make your heavy lifting easier.
Find out more by checking out Lloyd’s slides.
Key takeaways from the talks:
- Less is more – you don’t need to follow trends to keep in line with competitors. Know your customers and niche, and stay relevant to them.
- Stress doesn’t make you productive, understand your stressors and learn management techniques to avoid burnout.
- People want to connect, whether that be on Reels, paid ads, or through content – the future is more digital than ever before with mobile-first content.
- Privacy is important to consumers, 50% would switch to their second favourite brand if it offered them more privacy.
- Third-party cookies are being removed from Chrome this year, it’s key to understand what this means for you.
- You’re the marketer, and AI is the enabler.
Thanks to everyone who joined us. If you want to attend any of our events, keep an eye out on our events page, or check out our LinkedIn for updates.
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