BBB tips: why brand needs to be part of your growth, how to data mine and maximise the value of your current content

Partnership is something we feel really strongly about at Mattr. And living that shouldn’t just impact how we work, it should be something we actively encourage.

That’s why we setup Brand, Bitch & Brekkie, an intimate, no-holds-barred knowledge swap between likeminded senior marketers to help each other navigate the challenges they’re going through.

The latest of these was a real eye opener. Here are some of the golden nuggets spoken about:

Brandbuilding should not be separate to growth marketing

Even if it doesn’t have the same KPIs as more direct performance ads, creative content creates ROI direct marketing simply can’t. Sales teams can use it as conversation starters, HR should see it as tools to onboard best in class talent, and performance teams can make it a means of leveraging data and insights. So factor these in when seeking stakeholder buy-in for your next brand campaign idea!

Never forget the customer

Many comms decisions are based on what people within the business THINK their customer wants. But the trick is really asking them what they actually want. Beyond SEO, Google Keywords and following social trends, it’s worthwhile hosting open office days and regular sessions with your customer service teams to help do this.

Sharing is caring

Utilising communication tools like Slack is a really great way to spark and share ideas when it comes to content planning. From inspiring to funny or interesting stories that people are saying about your brand on social, let your team know about them or otherwise nuggets will get lost in the ether.

Maximising value

Creating content (particularly video) can be expensive. So maximising value is really important. Being able to bank assets on set, re-hash old content with a new spin, or planning campaigns that have lifetime value and can scale, is the key to ensuring you get the most value from your budgets.

If you agree with the above and want to share experiences with like-minded colleagues, why don’t you book a seat to the next Brand, Bitch & Brekkie roundtable on 9th October at Riding House Cafe, Fitzrovia.

Email sunnii@mattr.media or give her a ring on 07772343952 for any q’s!

Build a Brand Movement Round Up: Alzheimer’s Society, LoveCrafts & Method + Ecover

The #mattrmovement came back with a bang this week and wow was it an amazing night!

We loved the energy and insights from our amazing speakers Sylvia, Nigel and Sara and loved the questions from the audience...thank you everyone once again!

Here are just a few golden nuggets we took away from our lovely speakers, and if you want to see the full talks, look out for the videos we’ll be posting soon...

Sylvia Lowe, Alzheimer’s Society: Look beyond your brand

“No business is an island, everyone needs to help one another” explained Sylvia

With people developing dementia every three minutes, Alzheimer’s Society are constantly asking themselves... is the key to growing donations creating awareness about Dementia or creating awareness about their brand? The conclusion: if they can lead with the former, the latter will follow.

Sylvia showcased how effective this approach is using the grassroots #askusanything campaign which the charity launched during Dementia Action Week. The campaign focused on educating the masses about the condition and empowering those who suffered with Dementia to speak about what everyday life is like. This was capped off with a great film that totally humanised the issue without ‘sadvertising’.

The results? 28,000 more dementia friends (now totalling 2.8 million!) volunteering, added awareness through a series on Channel 4 ‘The Restaurant that Makes Mistakes’, and great media coverage to position the society as global pioneers. Not bad for a campaign that didn’t put the brand front and centre of its comms...

Takeaway: Turn your thought leadership into action leadership

Nigel Whiteoak, LoveCrafts: Data and creative are a match made in heaven

Nigel confessed “I’m a data geek”

Nigel loves his data, and he isn’t afraid to show it. In fact, it was this data that led to the success of their biggest in-house brand label: Paintbox. Online conversations suggested there was an untapped market for a broad range of colourful and affordable yarn so they seized the opportunity.

Using feedback from staff, customers and influencers in the crafting community, they perfected their product and brand, transforming LoveCrafts from a platform to a popular brand in its own right.

Earlier this year, Paintbox Yarns launched in the US with an advertising campaign created off the back of their learnings and data. The result was a colourful and playful film which tapped into influencers and the wider knitting community. This achieved a brand lift across social 5x over the average (I wonder who was the clever agency behind that ;))!

Takeaway: Get your customers involved in the curation of your brand

Sara Mendez Bermudez, Ecover & Method Cleaning: Your brand is only as good as the people behind it

“Brands don’t die, it’s the passion of the marketers behind it”, joked Sara

Launched in the 1970’s, Ecover was considered a seriously rebellious company in the cleaning sector. Fast forward 4 decades, the modern consumer is now looking for a shift in narrative - from one that looked within (Ecover is for the world of cleaning) to one that looked out (Ecover can help clean the world).

Their mission became clear: to lead a clean world revolution. This mission would guide them through everything, from who they work with, to how they present their products. Thanks to this communication strategy, the company saw not just a brand uplift but their sales and market share boomed too.

There were many things to take away from Sara’s talk, but her enthusiasm for embracing the ‘inner rebel’ in people and making them feel part of a movement rather than just selling a product was something we particularly loved.

Takeaway: Get comfortable being uncomfotable

To summarise… never settle

An extremely important pattern throughout all of our speakers’ talks was the importance of not fearing failure, and instead dedicating time to look at what can be improved.

Sara highlighted in her presentation that “progress and not perfection” is what to strive for when looking at how to build a true movement. At LoveCrafts, Nigel spoke about not fighting the feedback, instead, learn from it. And Sylvia explained how a brand has the power to disrupt the status quo of an entire sector, you don’t always have to settle.

It isn’t easy to build a movement. But if you put the audience first, think about your impact beyond your product and communicate yourself in a way that feels truly valuable, you’re on the right path.

Josh Fineman, Mattr Media Co-Founder rounding up the night

And before we go...  

If you enjoyed coming to our event, or even reading our tips from the eve, you may wanna check out our next content workshop on July 10th. For more info or to book your seat book click HERE...but hurry seats are limited and already selling!

Build A Brand Movement: The Body Shop, Hiyacar, Crowdcube... The Round Up

It’s been a whirlwind year for us at Mattr, helping our brand partners build authenticity and purpose through the power of film whilst creating our own platform all around how to get people to actually care about your brand.

That, of course, includes three epic Build a Brand Movement events, last week’s being the final one in 2018, with amazing lessons from Maeve Atkins, Global Corporate Comms Manager at The BodyShop, Patrick Ryan, Senior Equity Fundraising Manager at Crowdcube, and Sarah Kilmartin, CMO at new tech start-up Hiyacar. We had a whale with these three, and would just like to thank everyone who made it for such an insightful evening!

What a night it was…

For those who didn’t attend (boo), the below summarise all the important things we learned from them. If you like what you read, we hope you’ll join us in 2019 when we start it all up again!

1. Get your people thinking: ‘how can I help?’

“We campaign on serious topics, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously” - Maeve quoting The Body Shop founder, Anita Roddick

Maeve was our heritage brand representative for the evening. Leading the #ForeverAgainstAnimalTesting cause for The Body Shop, she taught us all about how to successfully create a cause-led marketing campaign that wins the hearts and minds of all stakeholders, staff and customers.

The Body Shop had been campaigning for 30 years on animal rights, but the 2017 campaign was the first time the entire business attempted to get both staff and customers to rally behind a cause (namely, to ban the international use of animal testing in cosmetics globally).

So how did they do it? Ultimately by getting people to understand and really care about the cause and showcase that what The Body Shop stood for was far more than ethically sourced products. To do this, The Body Shop doubled down on educating their staff at all levels about why it was so important to The Body Shop as a brand. The result? Huge amounts of internal advocacy not only boosted morale, but created another layer of word of mouth communication in stores and online when it came to convincing consumers to get involved. Oh and 8.3m signatures on a worldwide petition...no biggy.

TAKE AWAY: Cause-led marketing starts from within.

2. Let your customers help shape your brand

“Word of mouth is the most powerful way to get your brand out there” - Patrick Ryan

Crowdcube’s main purpose is to democratise equity fundraising. It is now the biggest equity crowdfunding business in the world, and as Senior Equity Fundraising Manager, Patrick sees first hand the power of creating advocacy out of your customer base.

For Patrick, the key is to take the time to really consider how to make people feel like they are a genuine part of your community, that they belong to your “tribe”. That all comes from figuring out what your purpose is, why it’s relevant to your audience and how you to action your purpose so that they believe that what you stand for goes way beyond your product offering.

And it seems that this sentiment is shared by some of the platforms most successful fundraising partners. Monzo, after raising via Crowdcube sent out “investor” personalised debit cards to all the people who invested with them. Crowdcube uses their investors to help them hire new team members. Simple, cost-effective, but something that he explained highlights how brands don’t just see the monetary value in their crowdfunding investors, but the social value as well. It impacts the bottom line in the long run, not just the short term.

And finally, Patrick explained that whilst most people think the investment is a rational decision, particularly with such early-stage businesses as those on Crowdcube, it’s as much about your story and vision...it’s about buying into what you stand for.

TAKE AWAY: it’s all about the personal touch and making people feel they belong.

3. Think outside the practicality box

“We’re in a generational move from less materialistic to more experiential ownership” - Sarah Kilmartin

Sarah Kilmartin has a favourite phrase she uses to describe the founders of her company Hiyacar, perfectly reflecting their mission. She describes them as “practical revolutionaries” because they aren’t trying to save the planet (although that’s a nice bonus), instead, they’re simply trying to change the way people think about and use their cars.

They’re doing this by getting people to understand they can turn their expensive vehicles from liabilities (your car sits in your drive for 95% of the year!) into assets, using money as a motive to share it with your neighbours and the wider community. Their priorities focus on this connectivity between communities first, moving away from the idea of being another disenfranchised car hire company.

There are many things Hiyacar are doing to live and breathe this value of community. From a communication perspective, Sarah explained that whilst competitors are focusing on expensive TV ads and print campaigns, Hiyacar is sponsoring a Christmas tree, supporting local choirs. When it comes to product research, Hiyacar literally goes around door knocking, meeting the users of the product to learn how they feel when they share cars with each other. However, the most interesting thing she mentioned was how business plans have been built and changed based on the value of community. As she said, they could follow the likes of Zipcar and create fleets of their own cars, but this would defeat the purpose of their mission- creating better communities.

TAKE AWAY: always go back to your values when making a decision, no matter how big or small.

4. Ensure you approach your communications honestly

Look how happy they were at the event…honestly :)

A common factor which all our speakers spoke about was the importance of communicating honestly. Their thoughts all aligned along the same trajectory - the way to get people behind a mission is to eliminate any fancy brand language and go along the lines of promoting personal purpose instead.

For Sarah, this meant changing all brand maxims and statements released to omit the words “car hire”, because their identity doesn’t relate to a car hire company, it’s a community-based service. People are what make the service as reliable as it is, so why shouldn’t their comms revolve around personal stories from users, as well as the cute community moments that entice more people to use it?

At Crowdcube, making sure that all investors could connect with business founders and feel a sense of power in the future of a company was paramount to the success of their product. Giving money to someone can be seen as an act of self-satisfaction, but maintaining a level of equal and honest engagement is important for any investment. Being constantly in communication with investors is why Crowdcube has raised over £150m in 2018 alone.

And finally, for Maeve, continuously reviewing their products and ensuring they match up to their ethical values is paramount to what they communicate. Most cosmetic companies have come under scrutiny for false activism, so real storytelling about that ethically sourced produce is central to everyone in the business, from shareholders to farmers, helps build that trust with staff and customers.

To summarise…

To build a brand people care about, you need to tap into their sense of being part of something bigger than themselves.  Whether it’s engaging your staff to build internal advocacy, creating personal touches to make people feel like they own a part of your brand story, or basing entire business decisions around your mission and what’s best for the customer, the key is to action what you stand for in everything you do. We hope to see you at the next Build A Brand Movement soon!

You could be at our next event, make sure to book your tickets!

3 challenger brands who are smashing their "why"

We live in a world now where asking why has become second nature. Why should I vote for this, why should I pay for this or why should I pay attention to this?

And guess what, as a brand guardian, you need to be able to have an answer to these questions! Not only do purpose driven brands outperform the stock market by 206% (Havas) but a study of 1000’s of CEOs showed that 88% of them believe that a business must have a clear purpose beyond profit to attract the next generation of talent (Cranfield School of Management). Nuts and bolts, ensuring you stand for something as a brand is’nt just vital for thriving, but it’s become necessary for surviving.

So, the natural question… how do you do this? Well, at our last ‘Build a Brand Movement’ event, we heard from 3 brand leaders who seem to have figured it out. Karma Cola are tackling the globally expansive fairtrade problem by building social issues into their business strategy, Eve Mattress are looking at advertising communication beyond selling their mattress products to enable people to have “the perfect start” and finally, Lynx literally turned it’s entire business around from their social ashes to become a phoenix of male empowerment.

You can check out what each of them spoke about HERE. But for some absolute nuggets of inspiration, let’s sum up for you the key takeaways:

KARMA COLA: “If it looks good, it tastes good and it does good, people will love it”

Simon Coley is founder of beverage disruptor Karma Cola. He explained that it was the discovery that there is actually no cola in traditional cola soft drinks that prompted him to create a fairtrade, community driven cola brand. The company literally bring good karma to every step of the production cycle- from  the producers, farmers, environment and of course the consumers get something out of it too. Whilst it’s elegant design and delicious taste goes some way to explaining their success, Simon puts a lot of their rise to fame simply down to the power of their storytelling...they can hand on heart explain what goes into their products to their customers and because these products are literally building bridges in Africa and helping farmers daughters go to school, these emotive stories are the things that are convincing people to spend money with them. And guess what? Because of how well received the brand story, Karma Cola is now growing the family to a whole range of other soft drink (see full presentation HERE).

Simon taking us through how Karma reinvests it’s profits back into the communities who help make the drink

EVE MATTRESS “Your why is your north star, you should always come back to it”

• Kuba Wieczorek, CMO and co-founder of Eve Mattress believes that a brand has to be honest in their marketing, because without this approach customers simply will not trust the message you’re trying to relay. Having a brand purpose is integral to this, because it gives you the chance to reflect on whether what you are communicating truly feels like it’s coming from your brand. And whilst TVC’s, Out Of Home campaigns and online content creates fantastic awareness, Kuba gave us some amazingly simple examples of how Eve Mattress do this with their purpose “everyone deserves the perfect start”, from putting on free wellness retreats for the general public to helping talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds have full time jobs with the company (see full presentation HERE).

Kuba passionately discussing what it means to be honest

LYNX “Pain makes you move”

• Fernando Desouches, ex Global Brand Director at Lynx explained how the brand discovered it’s purpose only by hitting rock bottom. Having spent years as a trusted brand amongst young men, Lynx lost sight of the changing attitudes towards sex, particularly amongst younger generations who were turning away from their quite dated ads which suggested you could win the hearts of beautiful women by wearing their product. It was only by losing meaning to their target market and millions of dollars in the process, that Lynx starting enquiring what they meant to the modern man. Research into beliefs, social commentaries, surveys and focus groups led to an understanding that “masculinity is a reflection of what society considers masculine”.  The conclusion? Lynx realised that if it empowered every young man realise they are the ones who decide what being a “man” is defined as, it would become central to this very conversation. ”Become the best versions of yourself” became their new mission statement and by focusing all internal and external communications around this, the brand not only saw incredible reaction by consumers but a huge uplift in sales (see full presentation HERE).

Fernando explaining his personal journey of what it means to be a man in todays world

Conculsions

So what can we take away from these stories to help you create answers when your audiences start asking “why” about your brand? Well, firstly, to be relevant to your audience you need to start from within. Ask yourself what is the problem you are really solving and what does your audience truly care about? Secondly, it’s all well and good having a fancy mission statement, but how can you live and breathe what you stand for? Whether it’s donating back to society or simply having principals in the way you work as a business, bringing staff to customers together around something that feels honest and true to who you are is vital. And lastly, always speak honestly. People have never liked being sold to, but even more so in today’s world. If you can connect authentic stories that you’re champinoning with your brand mission, you’re onto a winner.

Thanks for reading. if you liked the article, you’ll love our events. And lucky for you the next one isn’t too far away (November 7th) so be sure to book your free ticket HERE.

You could be at our next event, book your tickets quickly!

Purpose is more than a statement: How brands need to act in 2018.

For so long now, advertising agencies’ solution to selling brands has been to create a one sided communication with a heavy media spend behind it and expect that a customer will buy into the brand. But according to the results of the Havas’s 2017 meaningful brand report, over half of the world’s brands aren’t trusted and customers claim they wouldn't care if 74% of their brands disappeared completely. Scary right?

But don't panic just yet. Our evaluation is, you need to lead with purpose. Yes, I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve heard that buzzword being throw about but the truth is to stay relevant and trusted in today’s world brands need to start walking the walk as well as talking the talk. 

Brands need to find a way to live and breathe their values and integrate that into their both internal culture and through their customer journey. Every touch point you have with your audience should be an opportunity to communicate why your existence matters and enable them to actively participate with your brand. Brands that fail to do so run the risk of falling behind or worse still burning out. 

The Cultural Shift

Brands are failing to emotionally engage: The statistics from the Havas report highlight just how disposable brands are becoming and with the combination of businesses not having a clear mission or fulfilling their promises there’s no surprise we’re seeing such alarming results. In the Drum’s brand engagement research last year they found that 78% of people feel brands never emotionally connect with them. It appears to rush to create quantity over quality content, has led to brands failing to focus on their true values which has consequently led to failure to connect. And with Facebook and Google now changing their algorithms to favour “valuable content” there has never been a more important a time to communicate why your brand is irreplaceable.

We’re living through a movement era: Whether it was down to Trump, leaving the EU or the rise in sexual harassment complaints, the consumer mindset has never been so passionate about change. In fact, Fast Company released research that showed for 61% of millennials, it’s their goal to make change in the world. Change of course doesn’t have to be socially or politically driven, brands that provide an opportunity for customers to participate in something bigger than themselves will be the brands that form long standing communities.

It’s not just external purpose, it’s internal too: It doesn't stop with customers, employment expectations continue to show that your staff want more than money, they want a purpose. According to Kin&Co’s latest report How to avoid fucking up purpose their research showed that over two-thirds of workers said having a purpose that was properly embedded into their culture would have a positive impact on their work; including being more productive, more efficient and more likely to contribute to the company culture. And unsurprisingly 72% said they’d be more likely to stay at their company if they were more emotionally connected to their work. So not only is there a want for businesses to reflect the values of their staff, but there are results to show it does actually improve work place productivity.  As Simon Sinek states, businesses who live and breathe their vision will be the ones that don't just give employees something to work on but something to work towards. 

The early adopters

It’s started with 'Think Different….'

Don’t worry, I’m not going to create a case study article about the success of Apple because lets face it you’d have to be hidden under a rock to have missed that empire evolve. But the one thing we will highlight is there has never been a minute of doubt of what they stand for. Their consistent reinforcement of 'Think Different' has always been apparent in everything they do, making it both unavoidable and a definitive staple of Apple’s brand. From their emotive TV communications right through to their in-store Apple geeks, their beliefs have remained true throughout their evolution and is a case study to purpose led brand success.

Brands that we see echoing this are Dove with their Real Beauty mission, AirBnB’s Belong Everywhere and newer brands like Toms and Karma Cola who integrate their purpose into all areas of the business. Take the Toms 'One for One' movement, their mission to help people in need didn't just depend on customer purchasing and barefoot selfies, it was embedded in their internal culture too. As part of their Tomorrows Project program, every month employees are invited to submit ideas for a charitable project that inspires them. The company then votes and the person with the winning idea receives $10,000 and two days off work to make it happen. Pretty amazing right? The program encapsulates both what the brand stands for and what they are working towards.

And it’s not just B2C brands that have establishing discovered their purpose leads business success, B2B brands like E&Y have put a strong focus on “building a better working world” by providing industry leading research, thought leadership events and tailored training to improve workplace performances. Whilst instant messaging software Slack is a testament that when you define your brand as an enabler to bringing a workforce together, you can turn a tool that has been available for years and that sits in a heavily saturated market into a multi-billion pound company and an everyday essential to all industries. 

All examples have very different agendas but their passion for achieving their vision is consistent and more importantly accessible. Creating a strong product is key to all of these brands, but the difference in components these days, is providing an opportunity for people to take part in the brand passed purchase. The ability to identify and tap into the values and beliefs of an unformed movement is where brands will see the biggest opportunities in the future. 

Late bloomers

Even legacy brands with years of heritage need to find a way to stay relevant in today’s world. Take Hellmanns for example, despite being a market leader and having 100 years under their belt, their concern of being considered as the fatty condiment in the cupboard is what drove them to rediscover their purpose. Recognising their magic formula was real, simple ingredients they begun their “Real Food” movement - Hellmann’s commitment to helping Canadians discover the pleasure that comes from eating real food with simple ingredients. To do this, they created an Urban Gardens program to give Canadians a place to grow their own real food, developed the Real Food Grants program that helped fund over 40 real food initiatives across the country and used influencers to foster Hellmann’s brand advocacy inside the real food conversation. Through a mixture of education and interactive experiences the brand continues to champion real food initiatives across the country and change a longstanding perception of the brand. 

Proof it works

Does it work I hear you ask? Of course it does. According to Unilever, purpose driven brands are the driving force behind it’s success, reporting that its Sustainable Living brands grew over 50% faster than the rest of the business. And when Hellmann’s reviewed the success of its purpose-driven efforts, in addition to shifting consumer perception around mayonnaise, they saw a substantial and direct impact on sales of Hellmann’s in Canada. 

With research confirming that meaningful brands are outperforming the stock market by 206% over a ten-year period, it’s no surprise we’re seeing industry leaders like McVities and Cadbury reassessing their current positioning for a more purpose led perspective to re-engage with its audience in new times.

The time is now for brands to find what they truly stand for and focus more on how they can involve the customer along the way. 

What’s next? 

The most important thing to remember is purpose is more than a statement. It’s something you genuinely believe in, identify with and action upon. 

So what do you need to do next? First things first, you go back to the drawing board and remind yourself, why you started. When you’ve identified this internally, you need to ensure that your purpose is going to resonate with your new or existing customers, there’s nothing worse than getting it terribly wrong (cue that Pepsi ad). Then, and arguably the most important part to the process you need plan the best way to communicate your vision to be relevant and authentic. 

And don’t just take our word for it we’re hosting our “Build a Brand Movement” event on the 7th of March at Camden Work.Life where we will be hearing first hand from Bacardi Global Brand Director Zeenah Vilcassim, Virgin Money Creative Director Tim Arthur and Founder of MyFreda Affi Parvizi-Wayne who are building brands with purpose. Book your free ticket here.

Stefanie Sword Williams, Senior Content Producer at Mattr.Media.

3 ways service led brands can win hearts over minds

There’s no denying that some of the best service led brands have done a great job at integrating themselves into our lives, but the real question we need to ask, is have they got a special place in your heart? Simon Sinek has been championing the power of winning hearts as well as minds for the past seven years, yet we still see so many apps and digital services focusing solely on their product perfection instead of their emotional connection. USP’s are a rare find these days and too many digital brands concentrate on selling the features of their products instead of the benefits of it in use. The truth is, it’s balancing act and not an easy one at that but if you fail to crack both then the only path you’ll be on is the road to brand disengagement. So in this article we’re going to give 3 tops tips on how to win over the hearts of consumers as well as focussing on the minds. 

 

1. Use relatable data to connect

If you’re a service led brand with a great customer facing product, you are very likely to have access to great data, but the important question is, how are you using it to form emotional connections? Sure it’s integral to refining your service but it’s equally as important to utilise your data to engage beyond the product. A brilliant example of this is Spotify, everyday they use our data to recommend song preferences and custom playlists, it’s what keeps us discovering and using the service. But what they did to further build that emotional relationship was take the data they had to create an awareness campaign that formed a bond and human connection. This was a bond with Spotify, the music and the thousands of other users that also listened to “Its the end of the world as we know it on” after Brexit. And it worked, with results from YouGov showing that Spotify’s ad awareness scores increased by 5 points whilst its word of mouth exposure score improved by 16 points. So how about it, take a look at your data and see how you can use it to cleverly target and start conversations to stay top of mind outside your service. 

 

2. Use real stories to stay relevant

At Mattr.Media we champion creating real stories for many reasons, it feels honest, it’s engaging and it’s transparent but whilst we’ve seen a shift in feedback lovers and social media reviews so many services forget the importance of testimonials. People buy what other people buy. Your biggest advertisers are your customers and it’s technically free media, yet many brands don’t utilise their client base when it comes to testimonial content. If you need some inspiration, AirBnB are probably the best example of a brand that nailed testimonials from both a customer and supplier perspective. If you haven’t already check out the AirBnB stories playlist and Why I became a host to see how they took real stories to sell the emotional impact of their brand. If your product and service is up to scratch it’s no brainer for your next recruitment campaign. 

Top tip from us: The art of doing a testimonial well, is through telling an emotive story. Don’t just point a camera at your subject and feed them answers to regurgitate back, take the viewer on a journey they can resonate with. 

 

3. Use your employees (in a nice way)

It sounds so obvious, but so many businesses don’t use the stories of their employees to connect. Whether they are your designers, drivers, deliverers or even customer support, showing the people who form the business helps to build customer confidence and trust that you’re a decent brand. Last year we worked with Chip, the digital money saving app to help raise funding for the brand, showcasing Chip’s journey to becoming a bank, allowed Chip to put a face to the brand and involved the viewer in the brand journey. This personal non-generic approach helps to cement the brand the customers mind and provides them with human connection. Or you could take a leaf out of Deliveroo and Aecom’s book, who used their staff to promote the life changing affects the business has on everyday people. The important thing is making your brand human. Yes, we might be living in a tech obsessed world but everyone wants, needs and looks for is security and trust. Show it with your staff. And don't forget the obvious benefits of engaging your staff means that you’re able to use it for recruitment drives, employee engagement and customer facing content. 

So no matter what sector you are in, these three principles are applicable to every business who is providing a service. And the best thing about it? You should already have the tools in place to fuel these outputs. Look back through your data collection, review your social channels for feedback and listen to your employees to see how they can help promote your brand. Whether it be through thought leadership, event hosting, out of home campaigns, online video or even TV, take time to plan out the best win you can win hearts and not just minds. 

It will benefit your business so much more in the long run!

 

At Mattr Media we partner with brands and agencies who want capture real stories about the people and places that matter. We think about the purpose of your brand and it's relevance in today’s society. 

For more information contact stef@mattr.media or visit mattr.media