With the Online Harms Bill setting the first legal parameters on the internet wild west it’s great to see courses open to students, businesses and the general public that connect us with people who have experience, skill and the will to communicate their knowledge to more people, more of the time.
Dryden Enterprise Centre’s Digital Deep Dive course Monday 31st October and Tuesday 1st November brought together the risks and rewards of the digital environment, the importance of understanding data, online customer communities and to understand freedom of choice in the environments they work in and create.
Organised by Lauryn Mazzilli Marketing and Events Coordinator Dryden Enterprise Centre, Dryden Street NG1 4FQ, it brought together experienced working professionals to support young, new and more established businesses presenting insights, experiences and answered many questions. DEC provided coffee, tea and lunch, essential for enjoyable learning and networking. The course will run again, contact Lauryn: lauryn.mazilli@ntu.ac.uk
In this context knowledge is empowerment.
The day was structured into half hour segments: the first a thought exchange: everyone’s thoughts: what does digital mean to my business? Then Mapping the Customer Journey.
How do customers digitally connect with your offer?
Then great insights on preparing the ground, pre-sales with brand and communications specialist Ellie Jenkins from Ketchup Marketing and Communications.
Ellie brought up to the minute experience of Ketchup’s insights on the reasons why companies rebrand and the impact of new, changing digital techniques on their customers, motivation and work and the best way to use them.
Ketchup’s brand is Real People, Real Results, Real Fun and how being a value(s) driven agency means that they work with all the current tools available to tell your story in the best way possible.
They support you every step of the way: marketing and development strategy, your budget your options, outsourced or full service: they can help you with branding, graphic and logo design, copywriting, search engine optimisation: (eg: using one or two general key words or more more keywords with further potential), web design, everything digital, email, social media as well as print and billboard.
The structuring of the session was brilliant, through a delicious lunch, conversations and really useful networking until late afternoon when Andy Whittaker Young from NTU’s partner in all things print/art and design, supporting all kinds of creativities, Linney, talked simply and practically about the hows and whys of good customer data management. The relationship with NTU is an example of what he talks about: Linney have worked with NTU for over thirty years.
Their strapline is: Restless Since 1851: through that they produce fresh thinking, big ideas and new discoveries. Primary colours. Their website is accessible and straightforward: an image of the potential in the walk in the countryside and a clear statement of sustainability, thoughts, values, careers. They’re getting there!
Andy noted wisely that what you do with data after the sale is the beginning of the long term relationship: understanding the customer’s organisation, its place in the sector. The importance of the right CRM is vital. There are many reliable opensource systems like hubspot (and Zoho, that’s my addition) that allow you to use a free version and then upgrade, add on extras as you grow.
He talked about how to understand the customer and build insights into the organisation so that you understand how the organisation does things, who makes decisions and how you can build a stronger relationship: how and why segmentation with insight and developing understanding is important.
Andy started with…. so you’ve made a sale….hooray!
What’s next the treasure in your chest is how you grow it: how you develop the compound interest if you like, how you understand the future value of the customer. It’s through knowing your product and knowing your customer, their organisation and their sector well. You can’t beat understanding as a way to build solid sales. CRM linked to visualisation tools and social media can be automated, they’re your organising structure.
A Good CRM is a base (research these, Andy recommended Hubspot, there are others such as ZOHO providing free versions also), think about segmentation, understand your customer: what’s the relationship with decision makers, influencers in the organisation? Tools to graphically represent the organisation are useful: he suggested Lucidchart to map the service and creating an organogram thinking about relationships and communication. Think all the time about how you can do more with less so that you can work towards being able to communicate what you’re doing more simply with less while building your focus and plan for the client bringing value and a working understanding that SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound) targets will evolve and depend on the priorities you’ll have.
As time passes and you gain more insight and experience into how the tools work, as you build customer feedback, community, performance consistency way you’ll become more experienced in getting the right message at the right time to the right person/people and understanding how the channels really work in relation to your product, process, business growth, reputation and referrals.
Andy suggests ‘Be channel agnostic’ what he means I think is observe what the channels do and don’t do, keep up to date though conversations in your own business and support networks and always keep your eyes on opportunities to create new business, create economies of scale and innovation for you and your customer. Know your value and your worth.
Andy’s Useful Tech: check and research what fits with what you need:
Hubspot for CRM: https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm
Lucidchart for org charts: https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/
InVision collaborative whiteboard for managing creative feedback https://www.invisionapp.com
Vimeo for managing F&A Feedback https://vimeo.com
Wistia / Soapbox for video-marketing performance:https://wistia.co
Sprout for social performancehttps://sproutsocial.com
Miro for collaborationhttps://miro.com
Smartsheets for project timelines:https://smartsheet.com
The second day: the first half hour was spent reflecting on the first day and thinking about how this info could shape priorities and goals.
The first session was presented by Owen Conti of Code 56:
The layout of Code 56 website is clear: About us Case Studies Our Services Contact Us Remote Support
and underneath: On Demand Support, Proactive Packages, Continuity Cover with testimonials
Owen’s talk was called: IT Security and Support: IT Woes and Cyber Threats
The priority for Owen is What do you need to do to keep safe, and what can you do if something goes wrong?
Digital Security: Cookies/Backdoor attacks/Phishing/Scareware
Then discussion and a well earned lunch.
After lunch Roxanne Harley, Azerion UK: Azerion work with brands such as Ebay, Tiffany & Co and Disney to create environments where the brand can increase their reach and purchasing from gamers. Roxanne is Head Of Strategy/Client Development working to encourage engagement+ purchase using digital tools.
Roxanne uses her education, training, skills and insights to work with Azerion in the advertising/gaming/distraction economies. Roxanne covered the way brands need to understand more about their customers in terms of
1. Sustainability & brand purpose
2. Insightful planning
3. Data
4. Behavioural Targeting
5. Attention
6. Dynamic creative
7. Realtime
8. E-commerce
9. The Metaverse
10. Personal Branding
What’s next in the digital landscape?
Insight: You Gov https://yougov.co.uk
Data: Lotame:
Realtime: Chat bots
Ecommerce: Shopify (started by Tobias Lutke to sell snowboards)
Personal branding: Marketing Skills Academy Digital advertising: IAB (or ask Roxanne Harley!)
This was a brilliant and useful two day course. Contact Lauryn if you want more info on the email above.
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