Two weeks from introduction to strategy presentation

The organisation contacted us after seeing content we’d created for another arm of the business. Impressed with how we’d enhanced and updated sustainability messaging, the content marketing lead asked for an introduction to us.

Our contact began with a preliminary meeting to assess our capabilities, followed by a panel discussion to explore our experience as an agency and understand more about what we’d bring to the company’s supplier network.

Just a few weeks later, we presented our vision for the new website structure to the global marketing team. From user pathways to messaging hierarchies and new ways of expanding our client’s reach, our digital framework was an extensive piece that took both a strategic and practical approach to their online rebuild.

Our strategy was a hit with the marketing and web development teams, and we were signed on to help with the project. The project's first stage was to develop a framework document to help the organisation’s global teams to understand the vision and data behind the new website structure, approach and customer experience.

Impressed by our ability to develop and deliver innovative, compelling and out-of-the-box messaging, we were soon working alongside various members of the global marketing team on other projects ranging from whitepapers to case studies, articles, videos, web copy, social support and more.

What we delivered for our client

Winning an award isn’t just about gaining customer and industry recognition; it’s a strategic move that can boost your business in many ways. Whether you want to attract more customers, strengthen your brand or boost team morale, an award win delivers measurable benefits. Here’s why entering - and winning - business awards should be part of your growth strategy:

1. Boost sales and revenue

Awards don’t just look good on your website; they directly impact your bottom line. Businesses that win awards see an average 39% increase in sales, while SMEs have reported a 63% rise in income compared to non-award winners. That’s a serious return on investment.

2. Stand out and build trust

In a competitive market, credibility is everything; 80% of consumers prefer to purchase from ‘award-winning’ businesses, proving that an accolade can be the deciding factor when potential customers are choosing between you and a competitor.

3. Increase brand visibility and recognition

Winning an award gets people talking; 68% of businesses report better brand recognition after receiving an award. This helps you gain traction in your industry and opens new opportunities for partnerships and press coverage.

4. Motivate and retain employees

Your team’s hard work deserves recognition, and awards can be a powerful tool for boosting morale. With 84% of employees saying recognition affects their motivation to succeed, an award win doesn’t just reward your business - it energises your workforce, too.

5. Gain a competitive edge

An award sets you apart from the competition, reinforcing your reputation as a leader in your field. Whether you’re looking to attract clients, investors or top talent, being an award-winning business makes your brand more appealing to those who matter most. That's why SMEs note a 63% rise in income when compared to non-award winners.

Want to see your business take home the trophy? We can help you craft compelling award entries that maximise your chances of success.

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month, a time when businesses across all industry sectors are reminded of the critical need to safeguard their digital assets. This is particularly true for technology and cyber security companies as they are dealing with an ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats and regulatory challenges.

But while Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are working around the clock to support and defend their clients’ digital infrastructure, another great threat to business growth is finding the time to promote their own expertise.

Growing challenges in cyber security

Cyber threats are evolving rapidly, and tech companies are continually battling against new and more advanced forms of attack. From ransomware and sophisticated bots to advanced phishing schemes, organisations must stay one step ahead of current threats while preparing for those still on the horizon.

AI is an especially powerful tool in the hands of cyber criminals. It enables hackers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities at an unprecedented speed, making it more challenging for tech professionals to counter and adapt cyber security measures at pace.

In addition to these direct threats, cyber security companies are having to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Compliance with standards like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Directive require constant vigilance. Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), policy development, training and incident response planning are just some of the essential safeguards that must be in place to avoid the significant risks of non-compliance.

Finding time to build your brand and grow your business

In this demanding environment, cyber security and tech experts often struggle to find the time to promote their company and services and differentiate themselves from their competitors. SMEs are focused on using their technical expertise to protect clients from cyber threats, leaving little time for marketing. Efforts to highlight the company’s strengths and achievements often take a back seat, and valuable insights go unnoticed, making it difficult to attract new clients.

While you’re busy helping your clients, we can help you with the clients you haven’t met yet

While you’re busy safeguarding your clients, we can help you reach new ones. With years of experience partnering with technology and cyber security organisations, we understand the nuances of your industry and the challenges you face.

We know that your SMEs have valuable insights, but time is scarce. That’s why we’ve developed a streamlined process to extract their expertise in a quick, 30-minute call and turn it into compelling content.

We specialise in translating complex technical topics into engaging content that resonates with your target audience. We know how to talk tech and be listened to.

Whether it’s a blog post, white paper, case study, or thought leadership article, we can help you build a content strategy that positions you as a trusted expert, showcases your expertise and helps you stand out in the marketplace.

Cyber Security Awareness Month is the time to build awareness for your brand

With Cyber Security Awareness Month coming to a close, now is the perfect time to build awareness for your brand and show prospective clients why they should trust you to protect their digital assets.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you create content that reflects your expertise and builds your authority. Check out our case studies to see how we've helped businesses like yours succeed and browse through examples of our white papers and articles to see the value of well-crafted, thought leadership based content.

In B2B marketing, analysing your competitors’ content can uncover valuable insights to help inspire new ideas, highlight opportunities for differentiation and steer your content strategy in the right direction. It's a great way to make sure your efforts are on track and set up for success.

Here’s how to do a competitor analysis swiftly and accurately in four simple steps:

1. Make a list of your main competitors

The foundation of your competitor analysis is identifying your serious competition, in two stages. First, make a list of your direct competitors; businesses that offer similar products or services to you. Then, expand your list to include any indirect competitors; those who offer different products to you but target the same audience or fulfil a similar need. Consider, as well, any websites that consistently publish content relevant to your industry. These sites can compete for your audience’s attention, so it’s important to track their content and messaging.

2. Seek out any content gaps

Having identified your competitors, delve into their content to see what topics they cover and, more importantly, what influential areas their coverage misses. You’re on the lookout for subjects that are underrepresented or not covered at all, yet are highly relevant to your audience. These gaps become prime opportunities for you to create motivating content to address unmet needs while positioning your brand as a valuable resource. Analyse the formats and depth of their content, too, and consider deploying different formats for greater standout.  

3. Evaluate competitors’ content quality and engagement

Evaluating content quality and engagement involves assessing the depth, accuracy and presentation of your competitors' content. Look at how well they cover topics and whether their content is informative, engaging and visually appealing.

Equally important is analysing their audience engagement by measuring likes, shares, comments and other interactions to gauge what resonates with their (and potentially your) audience. Identify their top-performing content to understand what drives engagement and why, and also analyse underperforming content to learn why certain pieces fail to engage and learn what to avoid from that. The result will be a better grasp of any areas where your content could improve in quality and deeper insight into how you could boost engagement.

4. Plan to do it better

The final step is to pull all this knowledge together and make a plan. If you're going to cover the same topics, make sure you do it better by offering more detail, presenting it more clearly or adding more valuable and influential expertise. This will help you increase the effectiveness of your content, improve your SEO and increase your engagement, delivering a content strategy that’s more effective and competitive.

Let’s get started

At asabell, we specialise in conducting thorough competitor analyses to help you stay ahead of the game. Our team is dedicated to uncovering valuable insights and crafting strategies that give you a competitive edge. Get in touch with us today to learn how we can enhance your content marketing efforts.

Choosing a new content marketing agency is a big decision. Will they deliver what you need? Will they ‘get’ your organisation, industry and how you like to work? Will they be a good fit for you?

They may have been recommended to you, or their initial pitch may have been impressive but, when it comes down to it, will they walk the walk as well as they talk the talk?

After you’ve seen examples of their work, it’s sensible to scope out how they’ll work with you. Here are the top four questions to ask:

1. What steps will you take to get to know our business?

An effective agency should be proactive about asking questions around the topics below and suggest an onboarding meeting to learn what makes your organisation tick.

Topics to cover should include:

• your organisation’s objectives and wider business goals
• current industry challenges and trends
• key competitors to check out
• a big-picture summary of your target audiences
• your ways of working and how you’d like them to fit in with these
• your expectations of the agency and your priorities.

It’ll be important to share your past marketing collateral, brand guidelines and any strategy documentation before this meeting so your agency can review and ask any questions.

2. What experience can you bring to our partnership?

The experience an agency brings to the table is a significant asset – if it’s used to your benefit.

Ask them how they’ll use this in your work together.

Specifics to look for include:  

• insight based on previous experience in your sector and/or with your target audiences
• an approach that views your business with a fresh pair of eyes
• an understanding of the working practices of global organisations’ marketing departments and the likely pressures you’ll be under
• practical suggestions about how they can become a genuinely helpful virtual team member.

3. How will you communicate with us?  

Every organisation recognises clear communication as a vital part of any business relationship but what you need to pin down here is how this will work in practice. How will the agency go about building a collaborative partnership, particularly via a remote working setup?

An agency genuinely committed to collaboration should suggest:

• regular check-in calls for project updates and to report progress on hitting project milestones
• delivering regular budget updates
• a named project manager who will be the main point of contact and regularly available during working hours for quick questions or more extended consultations
• a willingness to act as a sounding board to help campaign development, sharing experience gained from cross-industry working.

4. How will you tailor your services to our requirements?

Your business is unique, and it requires content marketing that caters for your specific requirements. A marketing agency worth choosing will recognise the value of tailored content and be ready to deliver it.

Find out their approach to:

• customising their standard approaches to different content types to your organisation’s style and preferences
• considering your target audiences’ preferences, and crafting content to these
• pulling together content mixes in collaboration with you to better meet your objectives
• adapting in-life campaigns to emerging trends or industry issues to increase relevance and impact.

How we fit the bill

We pride ourselves on the outstanding quality of our work, our responsiveness, our ability to work to tight timescales, our transparency over progress and costings and our down-to-earth way of working.

But, above all, our clients talk about our friendliness, team spirit, can-do attitude and how well we collaborate as a virtual part of their marketing departments.

We’re always happy to chat about how we could support you and make your working life easier, so get in touch to find out more.

Twenty years at the forefront of B2B marketing means we’ve played an active role in the evolution of strategic business communications. In that time, game-changing technologies have redefined the marketing landscape – creating exciting new types of content and marking the end of the line for others.

But amongst all this transformation, some things haven’t changed. The key to developing great content and campaigns is – and always has been - messaging that engages the target audience. Understanding the pain points, goals and fears of each specific audience is foundational, and from there we pool our creative resources to hit our ABCs – ensuring everything we create is Accurate, Bold and Compelling.

Once this foundation is perfected, there are a few hard-hitting forms of marketing content that consistently capture our audience and make sure our messages hit their mark. Proving their value again and again by engaging, educating and converting B2B audiences, here’s some of the B2B content that’s stood the test of time:

Hard-wearing whitepapers

It’s hard to imagine what B2B marketing would look like without whitepapers. For decades, these in-depth reads have formed the centrepiece of carefully co-ordinated campaigns – with satellite content driving traffic back to their key messages. With a strong reputation for educating readers on the latest trends, industry challenges and innovative solutions, they’re a firm favourite among business leaders. And they’re a powerful way to build trust and credibility with senior decision makers thanks to their detailed expert messaging and well-evidenced thought leadership.

Captivating case studies

A powerful way to demonstrate real-world success, case studies give prospects concrete evidence of an organisation’s expertise, capabilities and successes. Using measurable results and letting customer testimonials speak for themselves, case studies are a persuasive form of content that boast one of the highest conversion rates in B2B. A timeless marketing asset for businesses, they deliver consistent results at various stages of the buyer journey.

Buoyant blog posts

Blog posts have been a constant feature of digital marketing, despite their format constantly adapting to cater to sophisticated SEO algorithms and reader preferences. A quick and easy way to tap into advice and expertise, they’re a popular type of content that helps to keep your audience keyed-in. Done right, they also enhance SEO, drive organic traffic to your website and are a powerful way of reaching new customers through guest-posting and multi-channel sharing.

Enduring emails

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways of delivering your message straight to the prospect. Far from the spam of the early 2000s, emails are now a sophisticated way of creating tailored content that speaks directly to each reader’s goals and challenges. Whether sending customised newsletters, specific product updates or personalised interacts, directly targeting your audience via their inboxes is a powerful way to nurture leads and build interpersonal relationships.

Worth-the-wait webinars

When it comes to webinars, the numbers really stack up. According to Dr James McQuivey, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, so it’s no wonder webinar content has been building traction since the 1990s. These online seminars are an engaging way to showcase expertise, demonstrate product features and engage in conversation with prospects. And because audience members typically register their attendance, they’re also a strong opportunity to capture leads and launch one-on-one sales conversations.

Playing the marketing long-game

Our 20^th anniversary has been a great time to reflect on the tried-and-tested marketing that consistently delivers results for our clients. But despite this milestone, we know you’re only as good as your last piece of work. That’s why we’re so dedicated to creating market-leading content, and our team’s always scanning the horizon for the next big thing we can offer our clients.

To discover how we can build B2B marketing content that delivers for your business, please get in touch.

19.10.23

Do you remember when...?

To celebrate our 20^th anniversary, we’re taking a trip down memory lane. Here’s a taste of the content that was working marketing wonders in the days when mobile phones were just becoming ubiquitous, offices were filled with desktop computers and Google Maps didn’t even exist.

Traditional print media

The world wide web was still a baby back in 2000, so digital didn’t hold the marketing mettle it does today. Aside from the odd pop-up ad or email, traditional marketing dominated. Print was the go-to channel as marketers churned out research papers, flyers and branded flip calendars for office desks. Rather than being posted online, content was used at events and business meetings and shared via CD-ROMs.

Direct mail advertising

We’re not talking about LinkedIn here, we’re talking direct mail in the form of postcards, letters, brochures and catalogues that used to drop right through your letterbox or onto your desk. Personalisation was on the rise thanks to better data processing, helping marketers to understand audience behaviour. Like today, these pieces of content were usually integrated into a wider, strategic marketing campaign.

Telemarketing

Back in the early noughties, the Nokia Tune was more recognisable than the Coca-Cola theme and that’s partly thanks to the proliferation of telemarketing. Getting a call on your mobile phone was still novel and people typically responded well to a direct, personal approach. Trust, rapport and relationship building were all foundational to this method of marketing, but as time went on scams and overuse of the channel meant it wore thin with customers. Do-not-call lists and a preference for digital channels among younger generations meant it was soon replaced with the more modern approaches we’re familiar with today.

Getting to grips with Google

Digital marketing was just becoming visible on the horizon, with Google's AdWords platform launched in 2000. This service marked the beginning of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and SEO - and the most forward-thinking organisations were just beginning to put together web-based marketing strategies. In just 20 years, the burgeoning area of digital marketing has grown exponentially across both B2B and B2C with once unknown concepts like ‘going viral’ securing a place in our collective psyche.  

Why we’re still here, 20 years on

While the methods we use to reach your target audience might have changed, our creativity and dedication to strategic, effective marketing hasn’t. Get in touch today to see how we can work with you to create content and campaigns that will keep your audience coming back for more.

20.9.23

Storytelling is part of who we are. It’s been around for millennia as folklore, old wives’ tales, cave paintings, ancient scripts, poetry and song. Stories have a powerful, innate purpose. Not only do they entertain and enthral and create a sense of community, but they're a survival tactic. These nuggets of wisdom are used to pass down vital knowledge from generation to generation. And so, story forms the basis of religion, philosophy, art (books, film, paintings, music) and the fabric of society in general.

Interestingly too, stories often carry a warning or a moral. They teach us important lessons. The most effective storytelling speaks to our needs, desires and weaknesses. It grabs the audience’s attention and taps into our emotions. As an exciting story unfolds, it takes the reader on a journey. It activates our imagination, encouraging us to guess what is coming next.

These are some of the features of the ancient art of storytelling that make it a compelling and effective medium to connect with your audience.

Resonating on a personal level

Stories invite us to identify with characters or aspire to be like them. Take, for example, the personal journey that rock climber Shauna Coxsey documents through her social media as she recovers from a knee injury. She has a huge following, with thousands of people cheering her on, admiring her courage and empathising with her pain. It’s easy to feel connected to her even if you’ve never met her. Her struggle feels real and her words are authentic. Her followers engage with what she's saying and many even try out her recovery tips.

Identifying with characters or situations in stories like this builds a bond and develops trust. It elicits an emotional rather than logical response, inspiring the reader and sticking in their memory. This is undoubtedly a factor behind the rising popularity of influencer marketing.

Giving structure and narrative

The best way to structure your ‘story’ when writing content is similar to structuring a plot line: start with setting the scene, then introduce a challenge or some kind of tension and explore this. Finally, explain the solution and come to a resolution. You may have seen a plot line represented visually as a peaked graph with climax – this kind of structure keeps the reader engaged and excited.

By starting with the challenge and then introducing a resolution, you are compelled to focus on the audience and their needs, rather than immediately writing about how great your product/service/brand is, which can turn people off.

Providing a greater sense of purpose

One final aspect to storytelling which appeals to our collective consciousness is the idea of belonging – being part of a bigger narrative. Donald Miller, author of Building a Story Brand, explains “brands that give customers a voice in a larger narrative add value to their products by giving their customers a deeper sense of meaning”. He uses Tesla as an example, one of the most talked about brands of the 2020s. They don’t just offer their customers a car, they invite them to be part of something bigger, a futuristic sci-fi style narrative that focuses on saving the environment through new technology.

Weaving a story that positions the audience as part of a greater and united cause gives purpose and meaning to what you are saying. Words by themselves only have so much impact, it’s the story you tell with them that will leave a lasting impression.

If you think you need some more storytelling pointers or you’d like some support creating content, please get in touch.

21.08.2023

There's enormous value to ensuring your team is a multi-skilled marketing taskforce, with all the diverse talents and expertise to take on a range of different projects.

Across a single department, this could span content creation, digital marketing, data analysis, event planning, social media management and video editing to much more.

Here are just some of the many benefits of having a versatile, well-rounded and well-informed marketing team:

1. Enhanced adaptability and resilience

Multi-skilled teams have a knack for rolling with the punches. When challenges come knocking, they adjust their approach without skipping a beat. If someone calls in sick? No problem – there's always someone else who can pick up the slack. And when the unexpected happens (we’re looking at you, COVID-19), a multi-skilled team can pivot and adapt.

2. A culture of innovation and creativity

Having wide-ranging talents in your team fosters a greater culture of creativity and innovation. Diverse skills mean diverse ideas and in marketing, that's pure gold. More angles, more insights, more 'eureka' moments - your campaigns will have the innovative edge that gets your audience clicking, reading and buying.

3. Greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness

Having a team of marketing all-rounders is smart economics. Projects that would typically involve several departments can be completed within one, saving time, reducing communication bottlenecks and cutting down on everyone’s favourite – unnecessary meetings.

4. Comprehensive understanding

A multi-skilled team delivers a 360-degree view of the marketing landscape. From SEO to content creation, social media to event planning, every aspect can be covered. This holistic view leads to smarter decisions and more integrated and effective campaigns.

5. Fostering continuous learning and growth

Perhaps one of the most exciting benefits of being part of a highly competent, multi-disciplinary team is the golden opportunity for self-improvement. When you're surrounded by teammates who each bring something unique to the table, learning becomes a daily routine. This constant exchange of skills and knowledge doesn’t just make the team stronger, it also promotes individual growth, which in turn leads to increased job satisfaction, loyalty and enhanced team morale.

A word of caution

A multi-skilled team doesn't mean everyone needs to become an expert in everything. That could lead to a "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" scenario, diluting the overall value of your in-house expertise. Instead, it's about fostering enough overlap in skills to enhance collaboration, understanding and the ability to step in when necessary.

The aim isn’t for your SEO specialist to turn into a graphic designer, but to understand enough about design to contribute ideas and collaborate more effectively with the design team. This approach promotes a culture of continuous learning while avoiding unnecessary skill acquisition.

Our unique and diverse marketing skills

These are just some of the reasons why building a multi-skilled marketing team is a considerable and worthwhile investment. Encouraging your team to start learning new skills and gaining experience in new areas takes a considerable amount of time, trial and error and even extra-curricular dedication. But in the long term, the returns will be enormous. Once harnessed, it’s a powerful weapon for any business.

For twenty years now, we’ve been developing our marketing team’s skills and experience across a range of areas. If you’d like to find out more about what our diverse team of experts could bring to your organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

20.07.23

Can’t decide what to eat at a restaurant? Not sure what colour to paint the living room? Torn about which movie to watch tonight? Indecision is part of life, and for most of us, it’s not a significant consideration. But what happens when it’s a potential customer who’s wavering on whether to enlist your services?

When you’re dealing with a prospect who’s grappling with uncertainty, the right marketing is key to helping them commit to a purchase. Carefully crafted marketing messages, deployed as part of a campaign that systematically reinforces and builds on these, are key. In this blog post, we’ll unpick some of the science around indecision, and look at powerful, proven ways marketing can help people overcome it.

Defining indecision

Starting with the basics, if a customer’s facing indecision, they’re experiencing a type of chronic procrastination that happens when someone has to make a choice. Overwhelmed by the number of options or the nuances of just a few choices, people typically end up either spiralling into extensive research or simply putting the impending decision out of their mind. At this point, the individual reaches a stalemate, unable to make a call and move forward.

Driving indecisive audiences towards decisive actions

Indecision isn’t all bad. There’s a growing body of evidence that suggests indecisive people are less likely to be swayed by confirmation bias. That means that, rather than favouring pieces of information that support their previously held views, they’re better at taking the information presented to them and weighing this up to make a more balanced decision. They’re also more likely to be perfectionists – and therefore scared of making a ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ decision.

These traits can be a win for marketers. One of the most common methods that indecisive people use to come to a decision is to consider their goals and the pros and cons of various options. Armed with this insight, you can gear your marketing to help them out. Prioritise concrete information that sets you apart from your competition and highlight the ways that you help customers to reach typical goals in their industry. Use stats, facts and clear language and deliver these at regular intervals to keep momentum behind the decision-making process.

Keeping things fresh for the future

Another useful insight to have up your sleeve when marketing to indecisive customers is that people typically experience greater satisfaction if they “choose the action that represents a change, rather than continuing the status quo”. New products, services, versions and additions to your current offering can all help to replicate this feeling of change and progress – meaning current customers don’t have to move on to another B2B relationship to keep things fresh. It’s vital your marketing capitalises on this by regularly updating messaging, highlighting additional benefits and drawing attention to new uses in the marketplace.

Keeping marketing engaging and persuasive – even for the most indecisive audience members – is at the heart of what we do here at asabell. We’d love to speak with you about how we can help ensure your marketing is successful, so please get in touch with one of the team to find out more.