In the first instalment of this special, three-part article, we introduced you to the marketing and sales funnel. We set the scene by talking you through the different stages of the funnel, which is essentially the journey all of your prospects take before ultimately deciding to choose you or your competitors. Funnel aside, we also provided you with some practical social media for photography brands tactics to help you stand out from the crowd on socials. To quickly recap, the first phase of the marketing and sales funnel is referred to as the ‘Top of the Funnel’ (TOFU). It’s the awareness and recognition stage, when people are doing their research on the possible products and/or services they need to help solve their challenges. The next phase is the ‘Middle of the Funnel’ (MOFU). At this stage, prospects: Recognise they have a problem or a need they want to solve. Have moved from research mode into solution-finding mode. Are one step closer to becoming a customer (hopefully, your customer). Are almost ready to make a purchasing decision. Tend to be more receptive to content/wider marketing tactics. Generally speaking, TOFU social media and wider digital strategy is centred around educating prospects and showing them the different ways they can tackle their problems. While your MOFU digital strategy goes one step further by showing them why they should select your products or services. It’s at this point that potential customers consider and evaluate the various different options available to them in greater detail. 3 social media tactics for helping prospects evaluate their options: #1: Evidence of how great you are You know how good you are, but unfortunately, your potential customers don’t know it (yet). What better way to demonstrate your skills and products than by sharing case studies from existing or past customers. Create video testimonials from satisfied customers and share them all on your social channels or ask them to leave a review on your Facebook page or Google My Business profile. #2: Share a real-life glimpse of your company Use pictures, MOFU-focused blogs and video footage of you and your team in action and promote them on your social media feeds. As a photography brand, your audience resonates with high-quality images and video content and so this is worth investing in. In doing so, your personality and the way that you work will shine through, and you’ll become more than just another company name for people to choose from.  #3: Tell people how you can solve their challenges At the end of the day, prospects are looking for something (ideally you) to solve their challenges. But they won’t know if and how you can help them if you don’t tell them. If you’ve mapped out your buyer personas and their pain points and challenges, then you’re three-quarters of the way to completing this action. Now all that’s left to do is create content, be it Q&A blogs, videos or informative guides, that specifically tackle your audience’s problems. And use your

Great news – you’ve just received your investment sum, or are literally on the verge of securing it, which means all those weeks and months of hard work, negotiations and evidencing your credentials have finally paid off. Now, it’s just a case of allocating the funds in accordance with your company priorities, which range from investing in future research and development, to perfecting your current systems. But what about marketing? Will any of the investment span to your marketing activity? While R&D spend is a common area of expenditure for technology and science companies, and quite rightly so, spending some of your funds on your marketing strategy is an incredibly worthwhile tactic too.  Because having a dedicated marketing budget behind will enable you to develop and deliver a more robust go-to-market strategy. As much as it may be another investment to have to make, investing in your marketing will better position your company for immediate and long-term success that can be built upon year-on-year.  But how do you make sure your marketing strategy is set up in a way that guarantees your go-to-market strategy is spot on? That you achieve a competitive advantage, not just from the outset, but on an ongoing basis? Take a look at these dos and don’ts, which are designed to make sure you get the best return on investment from your go-to-market strategy, with the help of marketing:  DO – Focus on understanding your audience This is an important factor to consider, not just when your product is ready to go to market, but in the early research and development phases, to ensure it caters for the needs of your target market. Honing in on your target audience will also help you to articulate your vision to future investors.  Make sure you are clear about what you’re marketing, as whilst you think you know your businesses and its offerings inside out, is this clear to investors? You could have the greatest bit of technology available but if you can’t distil the customer benefits, you won’t sell any. Focus on who you should be aiming your marketing campaigns at, answering the key questions: Who? What? Why? Where? Find out more about the details you need to go into here.  We can help you define who your ideal customers are and through the creation of Ideal Customer Personas, we can help shape your brand from its design to its messaging and marketing. This clarity allows you to drive customer action. If you want to learn more about this, get in touch with us on the contact details below. DON’T – Leave marketing until the end We know how busy things can get, particularly in the lead up to entering the market, but that’s no excuse for overlooking or leaving your marketing to the 11th hour. As obvious as this may sound, it’s essential your product(s) or service(s) are strategically launched to market, which can be achieved with a dedicated marketing strategy and a clear brand vision. (Coating

I came to Digital Glue for a work experience placement as part of my studies in public relations at the University of Salford. It’s been great working with the lovely Digital Glue team, Anika especially, who did a great job preparing me for the two weeks I had ahead of me. Now at the end of my two week stay I have learnt a lot, gained a lot and had fun. Rounding up my time with the team here are my thoughts on what work experience has taught me, what it was like and how meeting new colleagues online went. Working from home, work experience Of course, we have barely exited lockdown, non-essential shops opened the same day I started. So, I am in my flat in Manchester, talking to people in Birmingham. It feels as if working from home should seem unconventional, but by now we are used to it. Still, getting to know your colleagues through a computer screen is strange, no matter how tech-savvy you are. The Digital Glue team have risen to the challenge though, making me feel welcome. I’ve even been invited to a regular office coffee break. Via webcam of course. I was concerned when I set out to do a placement that it would be hard to get a feel for the office, not being around people to get a feel of the focus and culture. I needn’t have worried. Right at the beginning, I was sent a handy little pack, letting me know what life was like at Digital Glue, and what I could expect and what was expected of me. How my work experience went I was given the bulk of the work I would be doing at the beginning of the week, which helped me understand what was expected, and set my work targets. There is a weekly meeting, where last week’s achievements are celebrated, and the main focus of the week is discussed. This makes the world of difference and has been a great way to get to know the people and the company. I have been given a real mix of tasks by the Digital Glue team which has kept life exciting, I’ve not been bored. It’s been great to be working on strategic planning one minute and looking up relevant influencers the next. There has also been a fair amount of social media graphic creation, which is always fun. I think that’s the great thing about the communications and marketing field in general, there is so much that goes into it. It’s a great place to be creative. But to be successful the attention to detail needed is breath-taking. I quickly found the team here are masters of this, so what better people to learn from. What did I learn on my work experience placement? I have gotten a lot out of my time at Digital Glue. I have learnt more about SEO and PPC advertising than I thought I would ever grasp, thanks Scott! And Anika

Generally speaking, Professional Services companies use their networks to generate valuable leads. And, as we all know, in order to increase your leads, you need to expand your network, which takes on-going time and resources. You can physically expand your network, by attending networking events, conferences and other relevant industry functions (pandemic permitting). However, as tried-and-tested as this tactic may be, there’s a bit of a glitch with it.  Historically, it’s always tended to fall to just one, or maybe two, people within an organisation (usually the MD, Partner, Director or Sales Director) to generate leads, which is fine, but….there’s only one of them, and there’s only so much they can physically do. And if they’re the Business Owner or MD, most of their time is taken up with actually running the business. Sound familiar? But there’s also another way to expand your networks that’s less resource-intense – it involves digitally expanding your presence by tapping into the power of thought leadership. What do we mean by thought leadership marketing?  So how do we define thought leadership marketing? It’s what the name suggests, a form of marketing that positions you or somebody within your company as a specialist within their field, be it VAT, business advice, bookkeeping, commercial, family or employment law or debt recovery, or another area of expertise. And while more traditional ‘physical’ lead generation methods may be heavily dependent on word of mouth recommendations and referrals, thought leadership marketing is capable of generating leads without relying on just one or two key people. Thought leadership marketing enables you to use experience as marketing collateral. You can leverage the wealth of skills, insight and expertise that exist within your organisation and use them to stand out from your competitors. When you implement thought leadership marketing regularly and get it right, it enables you to effortlessly increase brand followers on a widespread scale. And that wider following will increase awareness, which is ultimately low cost marketing at its very best. What does thought leadership marketing look like? There are lots of ways you can position yourself as a thought leader. But first, it’s important you identify what subject matter or discipline you want to be recognised as being a thought leader for. Take inspiration from what your competitors provide thought leadership on and look to see if you can provide insight from a different angle or on an area that they may have overlooked. The key is to make sure you aren’t saying the same thing as everybody else because that won’t get you noticed, it’ll just add to all of the noise that’s already out there.    Once you’ve clarified your area of expertise, decided on your key messages and then created a thought leadership marketing strategy that gets your voice and expertise out there. For instance, you can:   Write regular insight-based blogs for your website   Share your expertise on your social media channels   Instigate and contribute to credible digital conversations   Host webinars or forums