The Power Of Words (in a Pandemic)
By Becks Ryall
Writer, Pitch Coach, Proposal Whiz
Becks is one of our writers here at We Are All Marketing.
She has over 15 years’ experience as a professional writer and pitch coach and has worked for some of the largest companies in the world.
Becks can help you to write engaging copy, compelling proposals and help you to prepare for client pitches, virtually or remotely.
“I’m not going to lie, I really debated whether I should add the last three words to that heading.
Words have always been important, right?
You use them every day to communicate with your friends and family; your colleagues and your clients.
Most of us email, text, DM or tweet every day. But working together in this weird, remote world that we find ourselves in, has placed an even bigger importance on the written word.
Yes. We need to adapt.
Yes. We need to communicate. But I don’t think that we need to radically change how we write or what we write forever. So I popped those three little words into parentheses and decided to write some practical guidelines for writing; both for now, and for when we get through to the other side.
Writing to your teams
There are three simple rules.
Be clear
Give yourself a moment to really think about it.
What are you writing?
Why are you writing it?
What do you want your team or colleague to think, or do, once they have read it?
Then, once this is clear in your own mind, open with that message. If you have something important to say, then do it up front. If you need someone to do something, then ask them. Nicely, of course (there is nothing wrong with a please and a thank you, society has not crumbled).
In times like this, when people on your teams are reading far more emails than normal and juggling big, demanding (potentially stressful) commitments outside of work they will thank you for just getting to the bloody point.
Once you have got your messaging straight, it’s time to make sure that your tone is clear too.
The tone of a written communication represents your attitude, or your emotion, towards the reader.
And us humans can pick up on a negative tone very quickly.
The tone of a message can affect the reader just as much as the content and you won’t be able to rely on hand gestures or vocal intonation to adjust what you are saying. It can really pay off during times of heightened emotion to pay extra attention to how your reader will feel once they have read your written communication.
Be accurate
Now, I appreciate that this is not brand new information.
But give everything a read over before you press send.
Fact-check your content, run a quick spelling and grammar check. You don’t want to waste anyone’s time by sending out the wrong information or open up a stream of questions because your timeline doesn’t add up.
Think too about who you are writing to.
Have you accidentally hit reply all?
Do you need to copy someone in from another team?
Be accurate about your audience too.
Be human
Try and write like you would speak, especially if you are using different ways to communicate.
Don’t be afraid to use contractions. idioms, exclamation marks, etc.
Mix up your language in the same way that you normally would - when we chat to our friends we don’t use perfect grammar, we use a combination of long and short sentences and we ‘umm’ and ‘arr’.
Look at your timelines, expectations and requests and ask yourself do they seem sensible?
Are they achievable? If your team is working adjusted hours to accommodate child care or dropping food off to an elderly relative do you really need them to get back to you by 5 o'clock?
And if you’ve sat down and thought about what you are writing and why and decided that your clear message is just to make a colleague laugh, then that’s ok.
There has never been a better time to add a little positivity into your written communications.
Writing to your clients
Unsurprisingly, the same rules apply.
Be clear
Written communications to your client are, often, a more formal form of writing.
And while we are all working more remotely, written communications need to become even more focussed, targeted and clear.
Why should your client listen to you now?
How can you help them during the pandemic? Put the time in to both your messaging and your tone.
If you are in the process of making a sale or agreeing a deal with your client, then make sure your sales messages are clear too.
Can you offer a creative way to offer the same solution or product despite the pandemic?
In my next blog post, I am going to be writing specific guidelines for writing proposals and making pitches but if you have any pressing questions right now then get in touch.
Be accurate
This is even more important in the current working landscape. Written communications are going to represent you and your business in a much more real way and you don’t want to appear unprofessional by including typos or bad grammar.
Look at the accuracy of your audience here too.
Yes, you might have spent hours writing that creative, targeted communication but have you spelt the client’s name correctly?
Be human
We are all living in weird times.
Your clients are feeling just as freaked out as you and your team.
Can you speak to them with a more human voice?
Even if it means relaxing your brand guidelines or your house style of writing a little.
Honesty and positivity will go a long way in building human relationships through your written communications.
A final point from me about business speak.
I know it gets a lot of bad press. But if you work in a technical, super niche or highly regulated industry then business speak can really serve a purpose.
Don’t beat yourself up for using an acronym or spend hours trying to distill technical messaging into more simple language if it isn’t necessary.
The only important thing is that you and your client understand each other. And business speak can form a shared language, promote a sense of belonging; and I think we all need a bit of that right now.”
Are you looking for more information on how to write a killer proposal?
Or how to deliver the perfect virtual pitch?
Well, watch this space.
We have some practical advice for selling coming up in the coming weeks.
Social Media In A Crisis
Caught up in conversations about what your social now needs to be in this new world?
There are two sides of a scale, and ideally you want to stay away from either 'burying head in the sand' and 'doom-filled-hyper-realists'.
The bigger your organisation - and the higher your production investment - might make you feel like you need to carry on, BAU.
But ask yourself - can it wait. Even a little bit.
If you're caught up, paralysed with what your brand could do and could say in this time:
1. Be Helpful, if it's relevant to your business.
An interiors business telling you the technology to use to work from home might sound a little odd.
However, offering tips and advice on how to create a great office set up for one person, or if you're currently now sharing a space with your partner or family might help.
2. Be Fun.
Sharing memes that sit in the same cul-de-sac as your business vision and strategy will work.
Being flippant, muscling in on a topic irrelevant to you, or trying to gain traction for your brand in a way that is inauthentic don't.
3. Be Flexible.
Does that video have to go out right now?
Do emerging events now mean part of it isn't relevant?
Consider what content might last beyond the next Government Announcement
4. Be Open.
Be clear with what your business will now do, and what may change.
Update as this changes.
Give useful information your competitors might not consider worthwhile sharing.
Be that brand that in times of stress for your customers were helpful, open and honest.
5. Be Good.
Be good to your staff, be realistic with what's achievable in this new world, be kind, and be reasonable.
Resist the panic.
Be good to your customers, give them time to come to terms with what's happening, don't pressure sell, sales will still happen, conversions might drop a little.
Be good to society - being a responsible company is good for your brand. Offer help (see point 1), support, guidance, offer without necessarily expecting anything in return. Things feel frantic, so be the calming influence, don't add to the noise.
6. Think ahead.
All those boutique fitness studios offering free classes might feel like "goodness they're doing a lot for nothing right now".
But think ahead.
Grow your brand, get people to love your classes and they're more likely to come and join you for the real thing.
Plus, and this is a key thing to remember: the more views your Facebook video gets, or visitors to your Instagram Lives, or any interaction means - and this is important - you can retarget them later.
So you have a lovely, warm, engaged audience, travelling down that funnel, from awareness, to consideration, towards conversion, so while they might not be giving you money right now... they are much much more likely to than if you hit go on your spend when everyone else is going to.
7. Stay on top of it.
Things change. So last week's post about staying open, to a new viewer of your feed suddenly looks out of date.
Remove old posts as you work through things. Update and tweak those that still stand. Remember - new visitors will check out your profile, so keep it up to date.
You got this.
Tips to manage your marketing throughout COVID-19
These times are unprecedented for businesses, small and large.
However if you think on your feet and react to the emerging news and advice as things evolve, there are opportunities to stay ahead.
Communication with customers - how you will be helping and supporting staff: a responsible business is a good business.
Update often - reduce ambiguity & over communicate. Fake news and rumours will happen, so stay clear and concise with your comms - and authentic.
Tone of voice - should be clear and empathetic. Be careful if your brand tone is ‘challenger’ - toeing the line between straight talking and flippant.
Communicate & collaborate with your peers in ‘competing’ or complementary businesses - coming together to support, share learnings, challenges and ideas in this time is better than putting the walls up and struggling alone - are there ways that working together might help everyone out? Eg the UK’s major supermarkets coming together to issue the joint letter over the weekend.
Encourage & reward loyalty - consider subscription models or vouchers, or forward booking discounts. Who Gives a Crap are prioritising their existing, subscribing customers. Independent businesses in Bristol are offering vouchers to use at a later date to support their cash flow now.
Be creative (don’t cynically capitalise). Your audience are - or about to be - spending a lot more time at home, so think about the channels they might be interacting with more than before. How can your brand help in an authentic way? Printable kids activities for example if you're a family brand, tips on self-care if you’re self-isolating if you’re a beauty brand.
Stay front of mind - This is the time to invest to keep your content front of mind for your customers. There will be an ‘after’, so staying in your customers’ minds throughout will help your brand in the long-term.
Redeploy budget - If your audience are going out less, then consider the marketing channels that might be best placed to maintain your Share of Voice. Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Social, Video On Demand, YouTube, Display ads and TV advertising. Smart use of outdoor like digital ad vans or bus advertising might be relevant to those where buses route through local communities, or where there is a natural ‘hub’ where people will have to head to buy their essentials.
Working from home, for marketing teams
Now, we don’t like jumping on the old bandwagon, but with the unprecedented change in the way companies need to work while we are under measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, our founder Victoria wanted to share some of her insights from working remotely, internationally and onsite with teams over the past few years. We hope this helps you, as a marketing team, if you suddenly find yourself working from home..
“I’ve worked on projects where the team, having never met IRL, been scattered across Western Europe, Australia and up and down the UK. And it’s very possible to deliver great work, when the team has the tools they need to communicate, and you all sign up to communicating in a more structured way. In some ways the enforced distance can give you some time to ruminate on things a little more, so you get to refine your thinking before you sit in front of others.
This new way of working will be an adjustment for some, so if anything, sharing my learnings might be a little helpful to any teams navigating this ‘new normal’, no matter how short term.”
Marketing Planning
Your marketing plan is the roadmap and direction for marketing teams and key stakeholders.
But it is a constantly changing, fluid document. You just need to evolve it to make sure that it is still useable when you, your stakeholders, and your clients, are working from home.
Have you considered changing up your software? So, rather than relying on version control for a spreadsheet, consider moving to project management software like Trello or Notion.
Software like this also lets you upload visuals and set up a calendar view, so you can track what goes live, on what day, and assign owners, so that each of your team can keep on top of who’s doing what, and what they need to do next.
Also you could consider setting up approval labels so you can mark campaigns through different phases.
Clarity of ownership, SLAs for feedback and approvals (set up ahead of time) will help you to stay on track to deliver your campaigns on time when everyone is remote.
You might need to get a little ahead of your planning, so you have adequate time to get the feedback (and buy in) from your senior management, finance team or product teams for delivery, but a sketched out forward plan can be firmed up closer to the dates.
Media Planning
Consider how the platforms mentioned above could also help you to show your different planned media weights, alongside narratives for clear cast clearance, and more.
Where you might have usually expected meetings in person as a media brief response develops, consider how these developing responses might be shared - either as a live, ‘work in progress’ with notes to your stakeholders (or client) as or as static snapshots that you capture at key points as you proceed.
For the short-term, you might consider switching out some media channels in your plan to adjust for the changes in your consumer behaviour - investing more in digital rather than on public transport, for example, as more of your audience start to spend more time at home.
Creative
Platforms like Figma allow for creative feedback to be collaborated on directly within a document. This means that you avoid that rather painful trying-to-signpost-to-the-thing-you’re-feeding-back-on as well as writing out the actual feedback in a document where images aren’t easily embedded (hello Word and Powerpoint) suddenly can disappear.
You’ll still need a feedback owner, someone in charge of collating such feedback and keeping everyone on track, but you can distil this into actions for your design team pretty easily.
Figma also embeds into Notion - so you can create something like this example of a pre-made board.
Content & Copy
For your content strategy, you’ll probably have a way of showing all of your content in plan, but your visuals might be somewhere separate.
Why not use this as an opportunity to move away from sheets and sheets of info, and move to a platform that lets you view and approve in one place? Social scheduling tools like Sprout Social and Planable let you do this - and are, in my view, much better for team collaboration than Hootsuite, but if migrating is a step too far at this stage, then perhaps carving out a separate place to manage your content approvals from your overall marketing plan is a good idea. It could be a mirror Trello board, for example.
Chances are you’ll be using the 80:20 rule for your planned vs reactive content, so it’s probably a good idea to review, and make sure everyone is familiar with your social media policy.
Over-processing social can be the killer of creativity for some teams. Rather than making your team wait on approvals (while some big news breaks, something goes viral that you want to jump on or while you clarify the context of a meme), make sure the whole organisation is signed up to your social media terms and apply, a little bit of trust and flexibility.
It is also a good idea to make sure that your social media teams know how to be reflective of your brand tone, and ensure senior management is aware of how this will work going forward.
Over-communicate
From C-Suite, to marketing heads, to product marketing managers, to marketing assistants, this new way of working will be weird. If you’re a manager, it can be hard to balance the feeling of being able to check in with your team without feeling like you’re losing sight of what’s happening - and, on the other side of the coin, making sure that you’re not micro managing.
Working from home for marketing teams can feel quite daunting, especially if the rest of the organisation needs clarity on what you’re doing at the moment.
So if in doubt, over-communicate.
You might forget how much those little conversations with your team can shape the direction of what you’re working on, when you’re physically all in the same room, so creating space to talk, share ideas and collaborate is really important to keeping a happy team, while working from home.
And use tech to help you - perhaps it’s Slack, perhaps it’s Microsoft Teams, perhaps it’s regular updates on Whatsapp and group video conference calls.
Explain what you’re up to, maybe you could provide a brief update to your leadership team on what’s happened that day, or that week, as everyone adjusts to being less visible.
If you’re managing a team, actually having everything down in writing can be useful too, so you and they know exactly what ‘s expected, and what they need to be focussing on.
And while we’re on the subject, video calling
Make time for video check ins and catch ups, but while you do it:
Be on time
Be ‘in the room’ - put your phone on silent and close other browser windows
Pop yourself on mute when you’re not talking - if you’re taking notes the sound of typing could be pretty annoying for the rest of the callers
Find your lighting: you know the rules you have when it comes to selfies? Apply them to video calling too - pop a light behind your camera, not behind you, so you’re not a big old blur for the rest of your attendees
Send a quick text, slack message or email beforehand checking with the person they’re good to jump into video. Avoid the ‘X is trying to call you’ panic search for headphones, brushing crumbs off yourself, putting something presentable on, frantically brushing your hair if you’ve added another dry shampoo day…
Agree where you’re going to video call from and share a link with the group, there are SO many options these days: Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Skype, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans…give them a go and see which works best for you and your clients.
Keep up with your non-colleagues too
Keep up with your network - if you’re not going to see them so much for a drink after work, at events, conferences or meetings, then keeping up with each other online is super important too.
Humans are sociable creatures - and us marketers are especially geared towards being people-people, as it’s part of our job. We know that social interaction can be so important for wellbeing, happiness which both impact your ability to work for your team, your busines, brand or clients - so make sure you take the time to reach out and chat.
Talking things through with someone in a similar boat to you can make a challenge that did feel monstrous, suddenly feel achieveable, so reach out, we guarantee it’ll help.
We’ve created a Slack just for this, just for marketers, so fill in this form to join.
Media Buying Q&A: Outdoor Media
Lisa is our media buying extraordinaire.
She’ll wrap anything that moves in your brand, buy up space on Europe’s biggest motion billboard (that’s in London Waterloo Station, don’tcha know) and plan a killer radio campaign for you.
Outdoor and Above The Line can feel quite scary if you’ve never done it before.
Here she shares some of her valuable media insight to help you get started.
Q: How’s best for a brand to get started in outdoor media?
For me it always starts with the audience and what your desired outcome is.
As well as matching your target audience to the right formats in the right locations – we need to look at the activity you are currently doing across digital or offline channels to determine the best strategy and campaign to match.
Q: When’s the right time to invest in outdoor media?
The age-old question – is there ever a right time?
Do we capitalise on our busy periods or do we advertise when we need a push?
The ideal answer is both!
Budgets tight?
By using above the line formats like outdoor, to support your other campaigns at key periods across the year – you will create a longer-term multi-layered campaign affect.
This will maximise your budgets and create an ‘always on’ feeling to your brand, with spikes to support when you need it most.
Q: What’s the difference between a Digital Billboard and a Traditional Billboard?
Simply put, a traditional billboard (known as OOH) is essentially, a massive poster.
These are static and come in a variety of sizes and ratios. You’ve most likely seen these on the side of the road, at a bus stop or on the platform of a train station.
These are bought in two-week blocks (or longer), and have a fee related to the production – for the physical printing of the poster creative.
Digital billboards, or Digital Out Of Home (DOOH), as the name suggests are digital screens in same sorts of locations.
These are growing in popularity and in number, and allow advertisers to plan against the number of times the ad is seen – impacts, or impressions. These can be bought by day part – in the morning, lunchtime or evening, or throughout.
Because the screens are digital, there is no additional spend needed to produce the content for these (unless you want to run a specific campaign of course). The creative can be static, or full motion (with audio in some areas), so with digital, you can run many more options.
Q: What format would you say is the best for a brand to dip their toe into an outdoor campaign, without committing to a long period or a lot of money?
Outdoor has come a long way in the last few years and digital formats now offer clients the opportunity to run last minute video content. Sometimes even with audio.
There are no production costs to move your existing video content to a digital outdoor format, and your creative can be super targeted depending on the location of the site – you could even tie creative into the weather, local and regional news stories or trending hashtags!
With this format you can buy the media in impacts (ie the number of times it’ll be seen) rather than committing to longer term campaigns – meaning less wastage and more for your budget.
There are some amazing sites in great locations like train stations, arenas and supermarkets, so you not only get huge footfall (and opportunities to be seen), but you can deliver highly contextual creative for the location.
Have a new FMCG brand launching? Consider in supermarket digital outdoor campaigns to support the launch alongside your stockist activation plans.
What about a podcast that is perfect for the commute? Why not buy commuter impacts in train station locations?
Q: Is it true that it’s easy to pick up cheap, or even free outdoor space last minute?
Shhhh… Don’t tell anyone but yes.
As we work with all the main suppliers and have great relationships that have been built over the last 16 years there are opportunities sometimes to bag a great deal.
If you are looking for last minute space, it’s always best to have artwork ready to go for the format you desire.
Free space is never a guarantee but we work really hard to gain overshow (ie your ad is shown, over and above your booking times, so you get more for your money), and added value for our clients and their campaigns.
Of course, if you have your heart set on a certain site, location and date to run any campaigns - it’s best to book in advance.
Some of my clients book their desired sites over 2 years out!
Often large advertisers will place a hold on a number of sites, so it’s about pushing them for a confirmation on those sites. With outdoor, once it’s gone its gone!
Q: What do clients often forget about when they’re thinking about their campaign?
Most clients when designing their creative often forget the format that the message is going on.
A lot of creatives design the same creative to match the other activity and content across other channels.
In theory each format should be designed in a way to reach the right audience and consideration should be taken for the length of dwell time and also the correct font sizes.
Taking outdoor as an example, the simple messages are always the most effective with just 1 call to action and imagery to match.
Q: When are you most likely to be affected by seasonality?
TV campaign costs are affected by seasonality due to viewer figures, as well as National Magazines.
With most other formats like Outdoor, costs will not change due to the timing across the year but due to availability, sites will get heavily booked up at certain times.
If you are an education client for example you will struggle to get any bus, billboard or press exposure in your desired locations if you book less than 9 months ahead of September activity.
Q: What about major events in the year?
This is at the discretion of the main suppliers and certain sites may warrant a premium from time to time.
I can’t stress enough how booking early is always recommended.
Some clients think that it’s a sales tactic to book so far ahead but its genuine and most of them learn this by trying to book too late!
Q: For Digital Outdoor formats, do I have to create videos?
You don’t have to create video content, but research shows that movement in your advertising will generate a more effective and eye-catching campaign.
You don’t have to create a full video – even if you add small GIF’s and animations into your static imagery it can create a difference.
Digital formats allow you to play with your creative and you should have some fun with it.
Q: What format do you expect to see huge growth in from client spend in the next year?
Digital outdoor is growing and static billboards are being dismantled and replaced by digital at a rapid pace.
As buses now look to carry digital formats too – digital transport media is one area that is one to watch along with interactive digital screens.