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Employer brand

Getting your employees to build their personal brand: here’s what they need

Papirfly
6 minutes read

If you have an account on LinkedIn, you are likely exposed to thousands of ‘personal’ brands each day. From what you post on social media to how you sign off an email, a personal brand can be a powerful thing that shapes how the people of the world see your professional self.

When companies invest time and resources into helping their employees propel and magnify their personal brands, it can be highly beneficial for the person and the brand they represent.

Anyone can use the corporate brand’s narrative to help carve their own. Let’s take a look at which roles in particular should be actively encouraged to propel their personal brand.

Sales Professionals

Those sending out emails, inMails or hosting sessions with prospects are not only representing the company, but in most cases are the first point of contact for individuals. They are responsible for building trust in the brand and establishing a positive relationship with business decision-makers across the world.

It’s vital that sales professionals have the basic sales tools and documentation they need to do their job, but above this, they need support to create an impressive online presence. If a prospect is being reached out to by a sales professional, more often than not, they will check them out on Google. If the prospect is met with a poor online presence, it may tarnish the respect they have for the brand. If the individual is a thought leader or active poster online, they could be more likely to engage.

Sales Professional:

  • Needs access to videos, social assets and email templates
  • Nees access to tone of voice guidelines
  • Should understand brand values

Customer Service Professionals

Much like Sales Professionals, those in customer service play a crucial role in how they portray the brand to new and existing customers. They too need access to documentation that can assist them with queries and company information, but if they actively made being helpful and knowledgeable part of their personal brand, there could be an exponentially positive ripple effect on the company’s reputation.

Customer Service Professional

  • Needs detailed documentation
  • Needs access to tone of voice guidelines
  • Should understand brand values

Managers and Director-Level Professionals

Your brand’s content strategy may not extend to the experts in your business, but it most definitely should. Not just from a corporate perspective, but from an employer brand view.

People want to know the company they’re investing in, whether as a customer or a potential candidate, is as expert as it claims. If each head of department is creating their own content (or assisted in creating it), those in each respective team can share, comment and engage – further casting the net for your brand to get noticed.

Managers and Director-Level Profession

  • Needs access to professional resources such as copywriters and videographers
  • Shoukd pioneer brand values
  • Needs specific area of expertise to become thought leader on

HR and Employer Brand Teams

Showing the world that you lead by example is a great way to attract recruits. Those that are responsible for attracting and retaining employees should shout about what a great place it is to work, and keep everyone updated with any new or impressive policies.

HR and Employer Brand Teams

  • Helps brand to practice what it preaches
  • Understands employee brand inside out
  • Needs access to pool of assets

What will motivate employees to build their personal brand? 

Employees that do not have a strong personal connection to your brand are unlikely to be willing to build their personal brand in conjunction with your corporate story. Your employer brand must be strong in the first place and rooted in a positive culture in order for personal brand building to be effective and beneficial.  
Here are some key ways to help motivate employees:

  • When setting guidelines on what they can and can’t do, make them easy to read, understand and implement. 
  • Provide easily accessible resources and assets that can be edited or shared directly. 
  • Don’t expect this personal brand building to take place outside of work hours – it’s a big ask. Allocate some work time to personal development and brand building – once they’ve reached a certain level, employees are more likely to invest their own time.
  • Don’t leave them hanging. If they want to be involved but are unsure of how to get started, put them in touch with whoever can help, such as your agency, marketing consultants, designers or copywriters. You could even do in-house sessions that help individuals in certain aspects of personal brand building.
  • Don’t be too militant about which websites they can access on the company network. Restricting access to social media, for example, will discourage employees from building any form of personal brand. 
  • It’s important to remember that not everyone will want to partake in representing the company on their personal channels. It’s a big step for many, so think about rewarding those that do contribute – this can help incentivise others.
  • Know your brand mission and identity – if your brand is misaligned internally there’s little point in getting employees to shout about it.

Building a personal brand: what they need checklist

Now we’ve covered the who and the how, let’s get into the what. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it is the bare minimum your team should expect to implement should you wish to recruit more employees into building their personal brand:

Professional photography

Without a professional photo, an employee has little chance of making a good impression. If a photographer isn’t available then someone should be available internally to help shoot them professionally.

LinkedIn (or equivalent) training

If social media isn’t part of their job, it’s a huge ask to expect employees to get involved. A crash course or ongoing support to help them progress and answer any questions will be critical.

Access to a company laptop or phone outside of work hours

If you want your employees to represent your brand at all times, they need access to the technology that can help them facilitate it, even if they don’t engage outside of work hours.

A copy of the company mission and values

Employees need to be aligned to their corporate mission and brand values, otherwise it’s a wasted effort trying to build their personal brand. Someone that doesn’t share your vision will be instantly obvious on any social media feed.

Brand and tone of voice guidelines

This may be a smaller, more focused version of your wider guideline document. It could contain all the key brand terminology, dos and don’ts, and some key information about their industry or area of expertise.

A digital resource for assets and files 

Appearing professional starts with looking professional. This may begin with a nicely shot photo, but the content that appears on social feeds must look and feel like it’s part of the brand. Having a central, digital repository that teams can dip in and out of when needed will break down any barriers to engagement they have and actively encourage them to get involved.

A simple approvals process

If you’re using a Brand Activation Management (BAM) system, you should have a built-in DAM and approvals process for any new assets created. If your asset creation and sign-off process isn’t digitised, then try to make sure employees only have one hoop to jump through to get their content signed off – any more than this and they are likely to disengage.

Idea and topic generation sessions

Whether it’s in the form of a company meeting or a Friday whiteboard session, it shouldn’t be down to just the individual to come up with every topic they write about. While most content will be focused on their area of expertise, wider company updates and discussions are paramount, otherwise things can become quickly misaligned.

Assistance from other employees or an agency

If your employees are from a technical background or aren’t used to writing about themselves publicly, offer them access to resources inside or outside of your organisation that might be able to assist.

Empower your employees to build their personal brand with BAM by Papirfly™

One of the biggest barriers for brands is being able to produce high-quality, varied content on demand. Add brand advocates in the form of employees into the mix and that’s an entire content stream that needs to be accounted for. What BAM does is provide a central place for marketing teams and employees to create, edit, share and manage campaign materials.

Videos, social media assets, emails and more. Every digital and print asset team could need, produced in-house, by anyone, an infinite amount of times. The best part is that there’s a digital audit trail and an in-built sign-off process, so you can guarantee that only approved content makes its way onto the internet. 

Find out more about BAM today or book your demo.

Table of contents:

  1. Sales Professionals
  2. Customer Service Professionals
  3. Managers and Director-Level Professionals
  4. HR and Employer Brand Teams
  5. What will motivate employees to build their personal brand?
  6. Building a personal brand: what they need checklist
Retail Marketing

Retail products that went from challenger brand to market leader

Papirfly
5 minutes read

A challenger brand doesn’t conform to its market’s expectations. They find an aspect that cuts through the noise of their competitors, be it their vision, tone of voice or products.

This unusual mindset sets it apart from more established brands, and even the most unlikely, unnecessary product can slip through with the right direction, ambition and vision.

There are 3 principles that help to determine if a brand is a ‘challenger’ brand.

#1 The market

The position of the brand in the market has to be placed outside of the status quo. There needs to be an ideal, concept or way of working that the challenger brand is re-inventing or opposing. This means that they won’t capture an entire market – just those who are interested in what they’re proposing. 

#2 The state of mind

This is the mentality or premise that the brand was founded on and continues to drive as part of their growth vision. Whatever part of the world or industry they’re trying to change, it’s not a fad to get them on the map, it’s a long-term brand driver. 

#3 The rapid success

Because the offering is quite unusual or presented in a unique way, challenger brands tend to garner a lot of attention, and quickly. This can lead to initial and sometimes ongoing success. 

The challenger brands that have become market leaders 

Tony’s Chocolonely

The last thing the world thought it needed was another chocolate brand gracing the shelves, especially one that’s higher priced. But that’s where Tony’s Chocolonely stepped in and made us all take notice. 

Over 13 years ago their story started when journalist Tuen van de Keuken discovered the harrowing truths behind child slavery in the cocoa industry. He created a TV programme about it, was repeatedly shot down when trying to encourage big brands to rethink their slave labour practices, and ultimately tried to get himself prosecuted (it’s a wild ride, you can read more about it here). 

But in 2005, Tuen tried to prove that chocolate can be delicious and affordable without engaging in unethical labour practices and produced the first chocolate bars under the Tony’s Chocolonely brand. 

He soon discovered that a fairtrade status only gets you so far, and has fought continuously to bring new ideas and morally conscious processes into the chocolate producing industry. The company has now rightfully earned its place in Christmas stockings and everyday snacking. It took several years to get there, but their success in Europe in particular has been rapid. 

Magic Spoon

Another area of the supermarket shelf you might not expect to see a new face is the cereal aisle. Across the world brands have taken a foothold in specific countries, so you wouldn’t be surprised to see Kelloggs and Shredded Wheat in the UK, Cheerios and Cap’n Crunch in the U.S., whole wheats, multi-grains and mueslis across many other parts of Europe – the list goes on. But what U.S.-based Magic Spoon has done is deliciously simple.

The founders discovered that the average American consumes 100 bowls of cereal per year. And with kids one of the biggest lovers of the breakfast treat, owners Greg and Gabi felt it was time that a tasty cereal came onto the market that fell outside of the traditional mix of grains, sugar and GMOs. 

They combined nostalgia-inducing branding with healthy, filling and tasty breakfast cereal, and at the height of the pandemic saw their success skyrocket. Their price point is high, but so is the value they offer, outstripping competition when it comes to protein, net carbs, sugar, grain-free and gluten-free features. And while you may only see the Magic Spoon boxes on U.S. shelves right now, we’re sure their success will see them move further afield in the not-too-distant future. 

Beyond Meat

For decades, meat alternatives had a bad reputation. They were either tasteless and unappealing, or so over-processed and pumped with salt and fat that they were considered to be more unhealthy than some junk food.

What lots of brands got wrong for so long is that they didn’t want their products to resemble or taste like meat, to not offend non-meat-eaters, but Beyond Meat came in and changed the game. They created a burger so tasty and environmentally conscious that it’s now used by many big chain restaurants, including McDonald’s.

What was interesting about Beyond Meat’s strategy, is that they weren’t necessarily going after the vegetarian market – they were monopolising the world’s newfound moral compass that saw just how detrimental the meat industry is for the planet. What made this move so genius is that not only did they capture the vegetarian market, they also switched many meat-eaters onto the product. They encouraged other large meat alternative brands to rethink their recipes, and we’re now seeing more high-quality substitutes than ever before.

Beyond Meat did get an exceptional amount of investment – some of which was from Bill Gates – so while it doesn’t fall into our ‘underdog’ category for that reason, its mission has completely transformed attitudes in both the meat and meat alternatives market. Compared to a meat-based burger, they use 99% less water during processing, 93% less land and 46% less energy – a very worthy mission that’s made them what they are today. 

Ohne

Let’s move away from the food industry and into the feminine hygiene category. After noticing that just a handful of brands had the monopoly on these products, the founders of Ohne were annoyed with every pad they purchased being decorated with unnecessary pink hearts and filled with harsh fragrances. They now create both organic and sustainable period products, as well as distributing natural pain relievers and hormone balancers.

They attribute their success in a flooded market to the way they are framing the conversation. They’ve grown revenues by 240%, doubled their Instagram following and donated over 50,000 tampons through a crowdfunding campaign. They’ve opened wider conversations that other market-leading brands simply weren’t having. They’ve cut through with bold, powerful branding and a tone of voice to match. This, along with buckets of hard work, is helping them grow exponentially in the UK – and could see them on their way to becoming a market leader in no time. 

Are challenger brand strategies the future?

The success of challenger brands such as those listed, and even the likes of Tesla, Brewdog and Ovo, can teach even the most established brands a thing or two about success. Where investment, time and resources are no object, a challenger brand can effortlessly trail into a market-leading position – but very rarely are all three readily available. 

We’re likely to see even more challenger brands emerge, particularly in the food and beverage space, as plucky entrepreneurs look for new ways to make the world a better place. The food and beverage industries are among the highest consumables on the planet, so logically this is where many are looking to break into. 

Tools such as BAM by Papirfly™ are helping established and growing brands take control and activate their brand from the outset. Keeping everything on-brand, creating infinite print, digital and video assets, and so much more. Find out more or book your demo today.

Table of contents:

  1. The challenger brands that have become market leaders
  2. Tony’s Chocolonely
  3. Magic Spoon
  4. Beyond Meat
  5. Ohne
  6. Are challenger brand strategies the future?
Employer brand

The 9 signs that you have a strong employer brand

Luis Cupertino
8 minutes read

Employer brand is for everyone

So, a strong employer brand makes the chances of capturing the imagination of top talent and inspiring existing employees much greater. That begs the question: is your employer brand living up to its full potential, or is there room for improvement?

Here, we share 9 ways to assess the strength of your employer brand to ensure it is having a positive impact on your recruitment efforts. For information on other aspects that will help with attracting and retaining talent, check out our complete guide to employer branding here. 

9 telltale signs that you’ve got a great employer brand:

#1 Employee retention rate is high

Employees come and go in any organisation. However, the rate at which employees voluntarily depart is a useful indicator of how well your employer brand is performing.

When you are able to retain employees for numerous years, it indicates that they see value in being part of your organisation. Whether it’s due to financial incentives like salary and bonuses, or a close affinity to the values and missions that your brand stands for, it shows that your employer brand is keeping people engaged.

Conversely, if employees leaving after a few months in the role is a regular occurrence, it could be a strong signal that their reality as an employee isn’t living up to the promises of your employer brand. 

So, when does turnover become a problem? While employee turnover rates vary from industry to industry and location to location, in the UK it averages out to around 15%. Use this as a benchmark – how does your turnover rate look in comparison?

To work out your monthly turnover rate, simply divide the number of employees who left your company during the month by the average number of employees at your organisation in the same period. For example, say you had an average 100 employees in your company and 7 leave, that month’s turnover rate would be 7%. 

To quickly calculate your turnover rate in any given period, work out:

A – The number of people you employed at the start of that period of time

B – The number of employees who left during that period of time

B/A = Turnover rate  

If your turnover rate is lower than your regional or industry average, it is a good indication that your employer brand is doing an effective job of keeping people tied to your organisation.

#2 You receive many unsolicited applications

Do you find that, despite having little to no vacancies listed, you still receive job applications and CVs from interested recruits? If so, that’s a powerful sign that your employer brand is resonating with top talent, and they like what they see.

While there is little statistical evidence as to what a ‘large number’ of unsolicited applications amounts to and will vary depending on the scale and reputation of your organisation, receiving these approaches indicates that people aspire to be part of your team. 

The fact that they are willing to make a completely speculative effort to join you should be a clear illustration that you’re sending the right messages out there. If the number of these applications you’re receiving is rising, then it’s a good indication that your employer brand is getting stronger. 

#3 You have a high job offer acceptance rate

If the majority of your job offers to potential recruits are accepted, it’s a strong sign that your employer brand is:

  • Connecting with the right candidates
  • Providing the right incentives to join
  • Motivating people to be part of your team

In 2020 the average offer acceptance rate across all industries globally was 95%. To work out yours, simply divide the number of offers accepted by the number of offers issued:

If your percentage matches or exceeds this level, then it’s another positive marker for your employer brand. However, it is useful to assess those who didn’t accept an offer and find out their reasons for doing so where possible, as this could highlight potential improvements for your branding:

  • At what stage did they reject the offer?
  • Why did they refuse?
  • Which company did they join instead?

#4 You are securing quality hires 

It’s a highly competitive recruitment landscape – the best talent is hard to secure. For today’s top-tier talents, salaries and perks will likely only go so far in attracting them to your organisation. They will want to join a brand that aligns with their own values:

92% of people would consider switching jobs if offered a role at a company with an excellent reputation (HR Daily Advisor)

Knowing whether your employer brand has secured the best candidates is difficult to measure, but these factors are a good way to tell whether you’ve made a good hiring decision.

Are you securing quality hires? Here’s your checklist…

✅ Your hiring manager is satisfied 
✅ They are very competent or go beyond expectations at their job
✅ They meet or exceed the seniority level they displayed in their interview
✅ They have made an immediate positive impact
✅ They have become embedded within the organisation

#5 You have a high employee referral rate

If your employees recommend your job vacancies to friends, family or people in their wider network, it indicates several positive things about your employer brand:

✅ They have a strong grasp of your values and can see them in resonating with others
✅ They enjoy the culture of your organisation
✅ They are happy to act as advocates for your brand

Referrals are still one of the most effective recruitment methods for securing great talent – in 2020, the average number of jobs filled by referrals was 51%, and 45% of hires sourced from referrals stay at a company for longer than 4 years.

So, not only does it take an employee to be passionate about their job to recommend your company to someone they know, but they are also more likely to have confidence in the person they are recommending for the role.

If you feel this aspect of your approach to recruitment is lacking, try offering referral bonuses for staff who bring in successful hires from their network. In 2019, the average referral bonus was over £1,800.

#6 You have a positive giveaway/takeaway ratio

This ratio denotes the number of people you’ve hired from competitors against those who left your company to join a competitor.

Between two similar roles with equally matched salaries, your employer brand is often a candidate’s deciding factor and sometimes the only basis upon which they have to choose. So if you’re attracting employees from your competitors, it’s a big win for your employer brand.

Conversely, if you are losing potential hires or your existing employees to competitors, it should start to raise some red flags about the strength of your employer brand – particularly if the promise of a salary increase is not enough to win them back:

  • What did your competitor offer them – pay increase, career progression, personal incentives, etc.?
  • Did your own company culture or employer value proposition contribute to their choice to depart?
  • What are their core values and mission? Are they highlighted more prominently than your own?
  • Is their employer branding more visible than your organisation’s?

For more information, check out our insight on “14 reasons why you’re losing good employees to competitors”.

#7 You have a happy hiring manager

One of the easiest ways to tell whether your employer brand works is to speak to your hiring manager.

If they’re satisfied with recent hires and confident in your company’s recruitment campaigns, then they are almost certainly onboard with your employer brand.

#8 Your marketing and HR teams work side by side

Communicating your company values, posting job adverts and launching recruitment campaigns is a team effort between marketing and recruitment. And the thing that links them together? You guessed it, your employer brand.

Combining the expertise of your employer brand and marketing teams is one of the best ways to improve engagement of internal communications, keep staff in-the-know and instil your brand’s shared goals and values company-wide.

#9 Your employees are active on social media

When your employees are engaging with your company’s content on social media, you have visible proof that your employer brand is working. Even better if your employees are creating their own content through employee advocacy programs.

68% of Millennials visit a company’s social media channels to evaluate their employer brand (CareerArc)

To break down barriers between employees and organisations, staff need a way to share their stories and show the world what it’s really like to be part of your brand. Social engagement can be encouraged using platforms built for this very purpose, such as PostBeyond and EveryoneSocial.

Both these employee advocacy solutions actively encourage staff to share high-quality content with their wider networks and engage prospects.

How does your employer brand measure up?

If your company is falling short against the tangible metrics above, then it might be a sign that your employer brand isn’t working as well as it could be, and that you’re missing out on top candidates as a result. 

As well as exploring the 9 signs of a strong employer brand, it can be helpful to look for inspiration from the global brands that are leading the way. Here are a few pointers to take away from three employer branding examples we love.

Tony’s Chocolonely

In an effort to remind people that profits in the chocolate industry aren’t evenly distributed, Tony’s Chocolonely fair trade chocolate bars are not moulded into neat squares like other brands. 

This powerful mission statement to end unfair practices in the chocolate industry is combined with their bright, colourful packaging and informal typography to present a brand that is fun and inviting on the surface, with a strong, meaningful message inside.

Why we love it

The Tony’s Chocolonely brand mission and core purpose come across in every part of their employer branding – from their brand manifesto video to the way they showcase their team on their website.

What makes this such a success is the effective way that they walk the delicate balance between an important purpose to improve the lives of others, while maintaining a light-hearted brand packed with humour and joy.

Zappos

In addition to a highly engaging employee-driven social media presence through #insidezappos, the success of this company’s employee branding goes a step further to secure the best talent during their onboarding processes.

Every new hire undergoes a 4 week training process where they learn about the company’s values and gain experience working in the customer service department – regardless of the role they have been hired for. 

Before their ‘onboarding graduation’, new hires are offered payment to quit if they feel the job isn’t the right fit for them. According to Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO: “The original motivation for doing it was to make sure that people were there for reasons beyond a short-term paycheck.” 

Why we love it

Zappos’ purpose and personality are embodied at every employer brand touchpoint. From keeping the world up to date with what’s happening within the company through social media, to making the interview process match their positive values.

It has helped them garner a passionate, engaged workforce who share the same drive and purpose for the exceptional service Zappos has become renowned for.

Greggs

In recent years, UK-based bakery Greggs has excelled in building positive brand perception through witty campaigns and publicity stunts that won the hearts of consumers and loyal customers. The brand is also becoming regarded as a highly ethical employer, thanks to its support of mental health initiatives and help for people from disadvantaged backgrounds through The Greggs Foundation.

These are values that can also be seen in the way they treat their employees. After the resounding, and somewhat unexpected, success of launching the vegan sausage roll, all staff received a bonus from the incredible sales and profit boost that it resulted in.

Why we love it

It’s clear that Greggs understands and celebrates the value of its employees and the work they put in. They are careful not to forget that their biggest success is a result of their people and make sure they communicate this with actions not just words.

Shaping positive staff experiences goes a long way to shaping positive customer experiences. For Greggs, this has given them the perception as an ethical brand that values its employees and wants to give back to local communities.

Support the strength of your employer branding

With these 9 signs highlighted in this article, we hope that you are able to use them to check the strength of your own employer brand, and determine whether any improvements can be made to raise these all-important metrics. The continued success of a company’s employer brand plays a pivotal role in shaping its future, whether it’s attracting impressive candidates, to retaining its most exceptional employees for the long term. Keeping it strong and in shape will help ensure your organisation consistently expands and thrives with a motivated, engaged workforce behind it.

Table of contents:

  1. 9 telltale signs that you’ve got a great employer brand
  2. How does your employer brand measure up?
  3. Support the strength of your employer branding
Marketing

Back from the dead: marketing methods here to stay post-pandemic

Papirfly
4 minutes read

Print is dead. TV ads aren’t as effective anymore. QR codes are outdated.

There were hundreds of articles pre-pandemic claiming that anything non-AI, big data or digitally driven was seeing its demise. What we now know though, is while digital reigns supreme, there’s a firm place in the world for the more simplistic and traditional marketing methods.

In this article, we will explore which channels managed to be revived at a time when the world was on pause.

Direct mail

When promotional materials fall through the door, their journey to the recycling bin isn’t usually far behind. Historically, there has never been the time to sit and digest a sales message that hasn’t shown immediate relevance.

But during the pandemic something happened. We were at home a lot more. We had much less to do and bundles of time on our hands.

People didn’t mind reading for a little longer or looking into a product more deeply.

While direct mail isn’t as cost-effective compared to its digital counterpart, it can cut through the noise and literally land in front of your audience’s eyes, in their home, when the dwell time could be substantial.

There are four key things to keep in mind if you’re going to bring direct mail into your marketing mix:

#1 Consider sustainability and using appropriate materials

#2 Think about how you can connect this direct mail piece to a digital channel (a dedicated URL, unique discount code – that kind of thing)

#3 How are you going to utilise local data or personalisation to make your mail feel more relevant?

#4 How the direct mail piece will influence brand perception – ensure the quality is matched to your values

Direct mail is…

  • Highly targeted
  • Tangible and credible
  • An opportunity for high dwell time

Newspaper advertising

While the attitudes towards newspaper advertising closely mirror that of direct mail, it has transformed during the pandemic. It doesn’t feel as intrusive. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

We are consuming more news, seeking more distractions and craving entertainment. If your ad interrupts in a powerful or humorous way, your audience is going to make a positive connection.

The trouble is that the newspaper industry had already been in steady decline pre-2020, even with digitising ad revenues. Advertisers pulled out on deals collectively worth billions. And while everyday purchases were down on physical copies, subscriptions on the whole were up.

Those who did stay may not have achieved the distribution reach they would have hoped for (and they may have also been berated for their decision not to pull out). But they would have turned up to a more engaged audience. They would have shown their face during a difficult time to deliver a powerful message to someone that wanted to read it – albeit fewer of them.

What the pandemic has shown is the value of traditional newspaper advertising. Digital sales may help keep them afloat, but the interruption it causes to the user experience of the digital editions can become detrimental.

Newspaper advertising offers a usually welcome break from the news of the world. While others were busy pulling out cautiously (and understandably), other brands were forging connections by turning up when others wouldn’t – and customers won’t forget that.

Newspaper advertising has…

  • A high audience reach
  • Tangibility and credibility
  • High geographic concentration

TV advertising

It’s safe to say that the narratives from brands during the pandemic were a little repetitive. This is a fair statement to make because there was a lot of uncertainty, and people needed to know there was some form of uniformity and consistency.

Much like newspapers and direct mail, TV ads became a welcome form of distraction. People were curious what brands were going to say next, how they were going to respond to the crisis, and how they were going to try and help those who needed it.

TV ads that are humorous, emotional or boast virality will always come out on top. But what we can learn from the pandemic is that if an audience really cares about the topic, they will listen to what you have to say.

Long-winded narratives and storytelling can fare well at Christmas, but sometimes getting to the point, being black-and-white and telling people what they need to hear can be a winner.

TV advertising…

  • More space and time to be creative
  • Can be flexible around your budget
  • Captures attention

QR codes

There’s a lot of debate about whether the QR code is really here to stay. Its safety is being questioned. Marketers aren’t convinced. But one thing has been forgotten.

The once-dying format has become commonplace in many societies. What was once considered an inconvenience is now very much welcomed. Whether it’s checking in to a location, retrieving a menu or obtaining a COVID certificate, QR codes aren’t just known to younger generations now.

Whether or not the QR remains to be used in marketing remains to be seen, but what it does teach us is that people are open to exploring new formats, technology and ideas when it benefits them. In the meantime, we expect to see brands continue to use the codes in communication while the pandemic continues to keep it in everyday life.

QR codes…

  • Quick to communicate information
  • Cheap and easy to do
  • Many age groups are familiar

Rough-cut videos

If you brought a recording of Brenda from sales in her living room to the content meeting pre-pandemic, you would have probably been laughed out of the room.

Slick, professional production was where the bar was set and left in 2019. Now we see global brands embracing less polished recordings.

While this was born out of necessity (and lack of professional equipment/availability), it inspired countless teams to get behind the camera and start creating content. And guess what? People liked it.

There was something about big brands dropping the white-collar facade and showing normal faces behind the scenes that helped to humanise them for customers.

We don’t imagine the typical Zoom recording to take over from professionally cut videos. But we do see companies being more comfortable in trusting their employees to generate their own content in the future.

Brand consistency will always be important, but perhaps the guidelines for these rough-cut videos will help to loosen them in the future.

Rough-cut video…

  • Less production needed
  • Can be recorded anywhere by anyone
  • More authentic

Should you be embracing these revivals?

This will always depend on the nature of your brand and business. What we do encourage is to not be scared of these formats and to avoid following the crowd in uncertainty if you’re sure you can make gains going against the grain.

BAM is helping brands create digital, print and video content from anywhere in the world. No reliance on agencies, infinite professional outputs delivered by anyone.

To change the way you do marketing forever, find out more about BAM by Papirfly™ or book your demo today.

Table of contents:

  1. Direct mail
  2. Newspaper advertising
  3. TV advertising
  4. QR codes
  5. Rough-cut videos
Marketing

GDPR explained: A guide for global marketing teams

Papirfly
7 minutes read

25th May 2018. A day that transformed the way that marketing teams across Europe and beyond handle their customers’ data.

Since its inception, GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation) has compelled companies globally to take tighter precautions over how they request, use and protect people’s personal data. This applies to any organisation that collects data from people in the EU – with the backing of harsh fines for anyone that strays outside its regulations.

Marketers have felt the impact of GDPR more than most. Whether it’s building a database of prospects for an email marketing campaign, or producing personalised portals for customers, these teams are often responsible for capturing and managing a lot of personal data.

Therefore, it was somewhat concerning that prior to the law coming into effect, 41% of marketers admitted to not fully understanding the law or best practice for using personal data.

For anyone still in that situation, this article will reemphasise the importance of GDPR, and outline the ways global marketing teams can secure long-term compliance.

Understanding the importance of GDPR in marketing

In today’s data-driven world, it is no wonder that personal data is considered more valuable than oil. It directs the ways that brands communicate with their audience and set themselves apart from their competition. Personal data informs:

  • Improved customer experiences
  • Clearer marketing strategies and objectives
  • Targeted campaigns
  • Personalised messages

The value of personal data is undisputed in marketing – and this makes achieving GDPR compliance essential as, without it, the benefits that this data offers can be replaced by hefty financial penalties.

The maximum fine that a company can receive for failing to keep records in order or data breaches is 4% of their annual turnover, or €20 million – whichever is greater. This isn’t an idle threat either, as many brands have fallen victim to this over the years:

  • British Airways was forced to pay over €26 million for a 2018 data breach affecting 420,000 customers and employees
  • H&M was fined €35 million for keeping illegal surveillance of several hundred employees
  • Wind received a €17 million fine for several instances of unlawful data processing related to direct marketing

While the scale of these fines can have an immediate crippling impact on organisations, the ramifications on a brand’s reputation following a data breach or GDPR fine can be even more devastating. It takes a long time to build customer loyalty, but incidents such as the above can cause it to crumble in an instant.

57% of consumers don’t trust brands to use their data responsibly (CIM)

So for marketing teams, who often rely heavily on customers’ data to inform strategies and produce more targeted, focused campaigns, failure to comply with GDPR doesn’t just put you at risk of massive fines – it can destroy the trust you have established with your audience.

The international reach of GDPR

Furthermore, as highlighted earlier, GDPR does not simply apply to companies based in Europe. Any organisation that collects personal data from customers in the EU can find themselves subject to the same penalties if they breach GDPR.

This was reemphasised in a Court of Justice of the European Union ruling in June 2021, which ruled that U.S.-based companies Google, Twitter and Apple – who all have their European headquarters in Dublin – can be taken to court by any national data protection authority if there are cross-border data processing activities.

Put simply, this means that just because these brands are based in Dublin, it is not Ireland’s data protection regulators that can investigate and challenge them for breaching GDPR. Any country can do so on behalf of their nation’s customers.

Even if your company sells products online to customers in the EU without having a physical presence in the EU, you must designate a national data protection authority to represent you in the EU to ensure you comply with GDPR.

Moreover, in the UK, although no longer part of the EU after Brexit, the country will maintain an “EU-equivalent level” of personal data protection, as this is necessary to maintain the free, uninhibited flow of data between the UK and EU.

Therefore, regardless of where marketing teams are based, if they have locations in the EU or interact with customers from these countries, maintaining compliance with GDPR is crucial to avoiding any future issues.

What do marketing teams need to know about GDPR?

On the surface, GDPR regulations can appear complex and daunting. So here we’ll cut through the details and concentrate on the information that marketers need to worry about.

First, let’s start with a key question – what is personal data? According to GDPR, personal data encompasses anything that could be used to identify a person, either directly or indirectly. This includes:

  • Names
  • Email addresses
  • Phone numbers
  • Home adress
  • Local information
  • ID numbers
  • IP addresses
  • Usernames and online pseudonyms

In order to lawfully process this personal data under GDPR, companies have to fulfil one of the six legally accepted reasons to do so:

  • Consent
  • Contractual necessity
  • Compliance with legal obligations
  • Vital interests
  • Public interests
  • Legitimate interests

Consent is the most actively employed of these reasons by marketing teams (although legitimate interests may apply to some direct marketing activity). Here, it is crucial that consent is always freely given and never assumed – consumers must be aware of who you are, why you want their data, and how it will be used.

This information has to be clear, and it has to be the consumer’s choice whether they share their personal data with an organisation. This means you cannot:

  • Use automatic opt-in functions
  • Use a pre-ticked opt-in box
  • Use confusing or misleading language in your privacy policy
  • Bundle multiple activities into one consent form – consent must be attained for each separate activity

Furthermore, it must be just as straightforward and clear for customers to withdraw their consent as it is to grant it. Whether this is the inclusion of an unsubscribe button on email newsletters, or direct correspondence asking to have personal data erased from a company’s records, marketing teams must take efforts to uphold a person’s “right to be forgotten.”

5 tips for marketers to secure GDPR compliance

1. Be transparent about data collection

First, as discussed earlier, it is crucial that customers are aware of the data you are collecting from them and what the data will be used for. Consent must be clear, explicit and unambiguous – anything less can land companies in hot water.

To ensure complete transparency over data collection, consider the following:

  • Is your website’s privacy policy up-to-date, accurate and containing all the information that customers need regarding the use of their personal data?
  • Does your website make clear that it uses cookies to collect people’s personal data, and gives them control over what they are willing to share?
  • Do your contact or download forms contain links to this privacy policy, and require the customer to confirm they have acknowledged them?
  • Do any contact forms presume consent, be it via a pre-filled tick box or a lack of a distinct opt-in feature?

2. Establish clear opt-out systems

As every person has “the right to be forgotten” in relation to their personal data, it is critical that marketing teams make it easy for people to opt-out of any communications they receive from a company.

Email marketing is a major example of where this is important. Incorporating an unsubscribe button on every email distributed, or providing a space where users can manage what information they want to receive from brands, is vital to staying compliant when customers’ preferences change.

Even though this feels like common knowledge for many at this point, it is estimated that 8% of all marketing emails do not include an unsubscribe link.

3. Audit databases regularly

It is useful to check your marketing or website databases, either quarterly or annually, to verify that your data collection processes are maintaining best practice, or that anyone who unsubscribed to your correspondence is still listed in your active database.

A regular audit can highlight any holes in your approach – holes that could cost your company significantly if they are not addressed. If a data breach occurs and you are still in possession of personal data that you should no longer have, the financial and reputational repercussions can be substantial.

4. Report data breaches immediately

With GDPR, honesty is the best policy. Attempting to cover up any data breaches will not only encourage maximum fines when they are discovered. This may also cause irreparable damage to your brand’s reputation, making it unlikely that customers will trust you with their data again.

Instead, report any data losses, theft or accidental transfers as soon as possible. This will not only limit the fines that your company will have to pay for this incident, but it can also help you save face with customers. While some will lose trust in a culpable brand for good, for others this quick response and admission can be the first step in restoring people’s faith.

5. Focus on employees as well as customers

Finally, it is important that companies aren’t only protecting the personal data of their customers, but their employees too. As the H&M example earlier illustrates, failure to receive customers’ permission to use their details or imagery can have expensive consequences – as well as have implications for your employer brand.

This is especially important for marketing teams, as employee-generated images and videos are like gold dust when it comes to showcasing your company culture to potential candidates. However, if you don’t have your employees’ consent to use these assets in your marketing, they have every right to complain.

BAM by Papirfly™ can prevent this possibility. Our platform empowers your employees – regardless of design skills or experience – to create their own content in a matter of minutes. Everything produced is completely professional and totally on-brand thanks to BAM’s intelligent, custom templates.

Once assets are created, users can immediately upload this to the in-built DAM system and approve its usage in upcoming campaigns. Our GDPR Consent Manager makes sure that images with identifiable persons are only available to download, send or use in templates if that identified person gives consent.

Plus, if they only want these assets to be used for a limited time, all assets can be set to auto-delete after a certain period. An identifiable person can receive a link to a page containing all photos they’re included in – from here, they can revoke all photos, as well as delete any produced creatives that use these photos.

This prevents content from being published when there is no longer consent, or if the employee leaves the company.

Achieve compliance with BAM

GDPR has had – and will continue to have – a substantial impact on how marketers globally collect, use and store personal data. Compliance is key to both avoiding massive fines that can hinder your company’s future, and irreparably hurting your brand’s reputation.

We hope this article has emphasised the importance of compliance, and given you some food for thought over how you are maintaining this with your customers and employees. GDPR will not disappear anytime soon – if there are still holes in your approach, now is the time to address them.

BAM by Papirfly™ can be a valuable tool to ensure compliance across your employee-led content. If you would like to learn more about this feature, or how BAM enhances the speed, consistency and cost-effectiveness of your marketing production, book your personal demo today.

Table of contents:

  1. Understanding the importance of GDPR in marketing
  2. The international reach of GDPR
  3. What do marketing teams need to know about GDPR?
  4. 5 tips for marketers to secure GDPR compliance
  5. Achieve compliance with BAM
Employer brand

Is your employer brand strategy due a health check?

Papirfly
4 minutes read

Keeping your employer brand in good shape requires an honest assessment of its current condition. The sooner the better.

Perhaps your employer brand is currently fit and healthy with hires steady, retention high, and perceptions positive. Or maybe it’s not currently in its prime state. Either way, it can be tempting to take your foot off the gas when it comes to employer brand investment – be that in terms of time, effort or budget.

Yet if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the corner. Teams need to be agile with streamlined processes – ultimately, your employer branding framework should be working as hard as possible every day.

Conduct a health-check today and take the essential steps to keep motivated teams together, while winning the race to attract new talent by persuading them to choose your brand over your competitors.

How strong is your employer brand?

Measuring the direct impact your employer brand is having on your overall business’s profitability can be difficult as there are many contributing factors. You can, however, check whether your employer brand is reaching its full potential in several ways.

Work out your employee turnover 

The number of employees coming and going is a strong indication of how engaged staff are with your EVP (employer value proposition). 

To work out your monthly employee turnover rate, simply divide the number of employees who left your company during the month by the average number of employees at your organisation in the same period. For example, say you had an average of 100 employees in your company and 7 left, that month’s turnover rate would be 7%.

High employee turnover will have significant costs for your business. If you’re struggling with employee retention, it’s important to investigate the reasons why they are deciding to leave. This can highlight common patterns that will show you where you could improve as an employer, or whether you need to adjust your recruitment strategy for attracting and retaining talented employees. It may even be that you need to attract a different kind of candidate.

Check employee engagement activity on social media

When your employees are engaging with your company’s content on social media, you have visible proof that your employer brand is working as your talent can be a brand ambassador. 

Establishing employee advocacy programmes and empowering employees to create their own content is a great way to get them more engaged with, and build an employer brand.

Discover if you have a positive giveaway to takeaway ratio

This is the number of people you’ve hired from competitors against those who left your company to join a competitor. 

If you’re losing good talent to the competition, it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that they have been offered a higher salary. This may not be the only reason. Factors like work-life balance, flexible working, company culture and opportunities for growth have overtaken pay on the list of employee priorities and are key to building a great place to work.

Build positive brand perception from the inside out

The reason that your EVP is so closely linked to the financial success of your businesses – now more than ever– is because consumers care about employer branding.

As we’ve discussed before, building a positive brand perception is the key to winning the hearts and minds of consumers. It’s no use hiding behind your external messaging when what happens behind closed doors doesn’t match the ideals your brand is pitching to consumers. At best, your messaging will come across as inauthentic. At worst, your hard-earned trust and customer loyalty can all come tumbling down with a single post on social media – hence the importance of employer branding.

To let your positive company culture shine through, start from the inside out. Your external and internal employer branding should be natural extensions of each other, centred on the same purpose and core values.

How senior leadership teams can strengthen their company’s employer brand 

As a CEO or senior-level employee, you have the power to make or break the success of your company’s employer brand. If you’re not engaged with your EVP, why should your teams be? 

Here are three relatively simple ways you can instil belief in your employer brand and boost your profitability:

#1 Create an authentic EVP and embody it

Once you’ve established your employer value proposition with your team, it’s vital that the values and aspirations you are promoting to others come through in your own actions and decision-making. Lead by example to bring your staff on board with what your company stands for.

Unsure if your EVP is in the right place? Read up on the crucial components of any employer value proposition.

#2 Communicate regularly

You may not get to work directly with every employee in your business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to know them. Opening two-way channels of internal communication, like intranets and staff portals, will make all teams feel more equally valued and help you better understand their day-to-day impact on the business.In addition, having brand guidelines in one place will also help align everyone to the same message to stay consistent with the brand they work for which, as a consequence, can strengthen your company culture.

#3 Promote content around your company culture

As a member or key influence on your company’s senior leadership team, it’s important to have a visible online presence. Showcase your company’s big wins. Celebrate your employees. Let consumers see the human side of your brand.

Give your employer brand a regular checkup

There has never been a more important time to invest in your employer brand. No matter how successful it is, the attitudes of employees and prospective talent can switch at any time, and it’s important you have processes, tools and skills in place to respond. 

You can make your employer brand work smarter with brand management solutions from Papirfly.

With our brand management platform, you have a centralised portal for all recruitment and brand assets, which teams can edit, share or even create from scratch. Digital, print, video, social, email – everything you need to keep your employer brand front and centre.

 
Make this quarter count, find out more about unleashing your employer branding with Papirfly. You can even book your demo today.

 

Table of contents:

  1. How strong is your employer brand?
  2. Build positive brand perception from the inside out
  3. How Senior Leadership teams can strengthen their company’s employer brand
  4. Give your employer brand a regular checkup
Marketing

Ask Papirfly: what should marketers focus on in 2022?

Papirfly
4 minutes read

Marketers have had a hard time keeping up with the rollercoaster that was 2021. Parts of the world had to pause and lockdown, which meant demand for some products and services went through the roof, while others were left out in the cold.

We’re optimistic that 2022 will be a clean slate, and a chance to take the learnings from a turbulent year and apply them to a new world and way of thinking for many.

We asked some of our team to share the key thing they took away from this year and how this can be used for your brand’s success in 2022.

“Privacy, transparency and trust”

With Google set to depreciate 3rd party cookies by 2023 (though this date could still change), many brands will be putting plans in place to ensure they can effectively target customer groups in the absence of these cookies. Some brands are investing in a Consent Management Platform (CMP) to ensure they can comply with regulations, and capture consent for non-3rd-party and tracking cookies.

Brands should be focusing on obtaining first-party data directly from customers about their behaviours, interests and intentions to allow you to build your own personalised data sets. This is something that’s going to take a lot of trial-and-error and time investment, so if you don’t start in 2022, you’ll definitely be left behind when the third-party cookie crumbles from existence.

While there will be alternative methods that emerge after Google’s decimation of third-party cookies, I’d strongly advise that a more transparent first-party data collection strategy is put in place. We don’t know just how far data privacy laws will go, so your best bet is being as upfront and transparent with your customers as possible. Building trust is the priority long term.

“Don’t just survive, thrive”

If marketing budgets were cut and staff let go during the pandemic, your department may have had to get by with minimal resources. Many teams we’ve spoken to were starting to feel burnt out trying to work with a reduced staff while the demand for output remained heavy.

People are so important, but when there’s reluctance in senior management to replace them or fill the skills you feel you need, sometimes we’re left to ‘make do’ with what we have.

This is where we feel technology is going to play a huge role in 2022. So many incredible pieces of software have emerged and adapted throughout the pandemic to cater to the needs of a changing world. 

“Meaningful conversations”

Brands have been talking about “having conversations” with customers for years. But it was only when the pandemic hit that these conversations became truly authentic. They had to be. We were facing some of the biggest unknowns of our time.

Questions needed to be answered. People needed to feel informed. Online communities became even more important. Not only forums, but social media channels too.

They were places people could gather safely. People weren’t afraid to share their opinions. They had more time to leave detailed reviews and re-evaluate whether a product or service added real value to their lives.

A great example of a community that took off was Huel. Their followers on their Reddit sub skyrocketed to nearly 20,000 ‘Hueligans’. For a relatively new brand, that’s quite the achievement.

While the majority of contributions are user-generated, they do have dedicated Huel-employed moderators. The content they produce and cross-share isn’t just about educating new customers on their product, it’s helping existing ones make the most of it, with tips, feedback and recipes regularly posted.

Outside of using communities to help retain existing customers, many brands are being more vocal in topical events, a habit that was formed during the height of COVID-19 and that’s staying as the pandemic news eases.

“Content for data”

When it comes to building customer profiles and obtaining personal data, there are a lot of challenges about to hit brands. So why not use your content strategy as a chance to offer something substantial to your audience in exchange for their data?

No, it’s not a new idea. But a new way of thinking is needed to approach it in the right way.

Does your prospective customer want a 10-page report on why they should buy your product? Probably not.

What about a bespoke mini-report of recommendations tailored to them in exchange for their email address? That’s more like it.

Does your customer want a 60-minute documentary that goes behind the scenes of your manufacturing processes? Some might, but most likely not.

Do they want exclusive early access to sales and discounts? You see where this is going.

Data in exchange for content is an effective marketing strategy, but over and above content, you need to be providing tangible value to your customers. Now more than ever. Save them money, save them time, save them from having to research or do the hard work. Give them thought-out, genuine value and the email addresses will start filtering in.

2022 is here and brands are bracing themselves

Our team has shared their thoughts, and the reality is that there is so much to be done over the next year – beyond what’s been listed. Ensuring you can manage and thrive amid uncertainty and deliver what you need without barriers should be among your priorities.

Grasping onto multiple pieces of software or relying too heavily on external agencies can leave you vulnerable to gaps in your production. If your brand needs a dedicated portal where anyone in your team can create digital, print, video, social and email content then BAM by Papirfly™ should be on your research list.

In addition to creating and editing an infinite amount of assets each month, teams can store, share and save them anywhere in the world, manage campaigns and educate employees on brand guidelines along the way. 

To make this a reality, get in touch today to book your demo.

Table of contents:

  1. Privacy, transparency and trust with Papirfly’s Lead Generation Specialist
  2. Thriving not surviving with Papirfly’s Customer Success Account Executives
  3. Meaningful conversations with Papirfly’s Community Manager
  4. Content for data with Papirfly’s Social Media Executive
Brand Activation Management

Make this quarter count – brand activation is a must for your marketing budget

Papirfly
8 minutes read

As the pressures and demands on marketing teams worldwide grow year upon year, it seems budgets are going in the opposite directions.

At least that is the impression Gartner’s Annual CMO Survey presents. In 2021 marketing budgets plummeted to their lowest percentage of overall company revenue on record at just 6.4% – significantly lower than 2020’s 11%. In addition, Gartner also found that:

  • No industry averaged a double-digit percentage, with consumer products and goods (CPG) the highest average at 8.3%

Obviously, this has no doubt been influenced by factors like the global pandemic. But, there is no set timeline for how long the economic effects of COVID-19 will remain. This, and other global events yet to play out, may be a situation that marketing teams may have to contend with for a while – which is problematic considering the challenges they face in the current landscape.

A need to be agile to consumer trends. Maintaining a frequent stream of consistent content across multiple channels. Future-proofing processes against external disruptions. Preserving employee wellbeing and ensuring they have the tools to do their jobs as capable as possible. 

That’s a lot of plates spinning at once, and with less budget than ever to keep them going. Now knowing where to focus your budget is critical; you cannot afford to waste it on short-term fixes. 

You need a solution that will bring widespread benefits to your marketing efforts, empower your employees and maximise the full potential of your budget. In short, you need Brand Activation Management (BAM) – our area of expertise at Papirfly.


Here, we cover 4 key areas that marketing teams must re-evaluate in the face of restricted budgets, and why investing in BAM makes a big difference.

Strategic, creative and brand

Strategy, creative and brand development should be among the core focuses for any marketing budget. Without these, your brand experiences no innovation or growth – it is left in limbo, or constantly putting out the same material regardless of how the world changes around it.

This therefore is an area that requires ongoing investment, and Gartner’s research backs this up. Their surveyed CMOs report that an average of 11.3% of their marketing budget into programs and operational areas is devoted to brand strategy. This is the third largest segment behind digital commerce and marketing operations.

But, with budgets tighter than ever, the knock-on effect of maintaining investment in strategy, creative and branding means it has to be taken away from other areas. Production levels decline. Employees are let go. Campaigns are restricted. More advanced marketing techniques are taken out of the equation.

So, marketing teams are left with a choice:

  • Restrict their spending on strategy and brand development, hindering innovation and creativity in your organisation;
  • Find a way to cut down the costs of other processes so strategy and branding can still receive the attention they deserve.

Where BAM makes the difference

BAM can be a crucial difference-maker in allowing you to devote as much time, focus and resources (if not more) to your strategy and branding as you would have with a larger budget.

By enabling your team to streamline and simplify the production of assets across all marketing channels, this will save a significant amount of time and money that can be dedicated to continuously evolving and adapting your marketing strategy, creative direction and branding. This helps to ensure it doesn’t go stale, so you keep up with ever-changing customer trends and demands and don’t fall behind your competition.

We’ll talk about production more closely in the next section. But BAM’s capacity to support your strategising extends even further:

  • It provides a central, online repository to house all key documents and files relating to branding, marketing strategy and creative direction
  • The brand guidelines you spend time crafting during your planning sessions are easily accessible by your team members, ensuring they aren’t ignored and that consistency is maintained across all channels
  • Campaign planning gives you a birds-eye view overall marketing activity throughout your organisation, empowering you to set up, monitor and adjust campaigns with total ease and complete control

With consumer expectations reaching all-time highs, prioritising and evolving your marketing and brand strategies are more crucial tasks than ever. BAM allows you to maintain that focus in the face of tightening budgets.

Content production

Content production represents one of the biggest overheads for marketing teams worldwide. With more channels available than ever before for brands to engage their audiences and build visibility, taking full advantage of these has traditionally required a great deal of time and resources.


But, with budgets shrinking, it is becoming a real challenge for marketing teams to uphold the same level of production through conventional processes. Sacrifices have to be made somewhere, whether that is limiting the number of channels utilised and how frequently content is created for them, or budget being pulled away from other areas.

Additionally, Gartner’s survey has illustrated that marketing teams’ reliance on agencies to bear the burden of content production is noticeably declining.

So, with agencies now less available to pick up the slack on content production, how can internal marketing teams continue to populate their channels with the same frequency, consistency and quality with less budget?

By revolutionising their approach to content production…

Where BAM makes the difference

One of BAM’s primary benefits is the ability to ramp up the efficiency of content production, while simultaneously allowing you to bring more of this work in-house.

In a matter of minutes anyone in your organisation, regardless of design skills or experience, can produce studio-standard, perfectly branded assets across all mediums. Social media posts, videos, digital banners, emails, posters, brochures – all of these and more can be produced faster through BAM.

How is this possible? Well, it’s because BAM:

  • Harnesses intelligent, custom-built templates, which can be instantly adapted to fit the dimensions and requirements for all of your digital and print channels
  • Utilises templates with locked-down elements, ensuring that there is no risk of going off-brand regardless of who is creating an asset
  • Empowers your teams to use pre-programmed templates with set design, text and database parameters, so high-quality designs can be produced with ease
  • Has dedicated language and localisation features so that assets can immediately be translated and adapted for your international markets
  • Helps you get organised with an in-built DAM system – allowing you to store all approved assets in one location, to be shared, reused and adapted by your teams worldwide

By using BAM, marketing teams across the globe are seeing the time, cost and effort involved in production shrink significantly, allowing them to overcome tight budgets and even ramp up both the number of channels they use and how frequently they post to each of these.

In fact, BAM by Papirfly™ users save an average of £421,000 per year on production fees alone, as well as 297 days’ worth of production time. That is an extraordinary amount of time and budget you save to be reinvested into other areas. Especially when you consider that you only have to produce 20 assets per month for the solution to pay for itself.

Furthermore, with your employees more capable of producing exceptional assets in-house, this helps your team handle the fact that there’s less budget available for agency support. This way, you can devote your limited agency budget on important high-value projects and strategising, rather than let this go to waste on routine production.

In short, BAM puts the power of content creation into the hands of internal marketing teams. They can produce content faster and more cost-effectively with no drop in quality, enabling them to make full use of their marketing channels and get campaigns to market sooner.

Team dynamics

Restrictions placed on budgets will likely have knock-on effects on the composition and dynamics of marketing teams. Personnel may be let go due to the lack of funding or their roles becoming obsolete, while at the same time the remaining employees will be expected to maintain standards and spur growth despite these new limitations.

This could lead to a very precarious situation in many organisations. Employees being asked to work harder and under greater levels of pressure is unlikely to inspire job satisfaction. Performance levels could drop due to a lack of motivation, and talented people may walk.

If you are having to streamline your marketing team in response to budget cuts, investment in technology will be crucial to maintain performance and help those remaining to fulfil their role as capably as possible.

Where BAM makes the difference

As noted earlier, BAM works to make life easier for its users by minimising the time and effort it takes to produce on-brand assets. Rather than designers and other employees spending hours at a time creating, revising and adapting materials, this can now be done in a matter of minutes, with proofing and amends happening in real-time.

This upskilling through technology has an overall positive effect on team dynamics:

  • Employees feel empowered to perform their roles with maximum efficiency and effectiveness
  • They feel like they are directly contributing to the development of their brand
  • They feel like their organisation is investing in them by training them to use this technology
  • They benefit from completing their work in a shorter space of time, allowing them to maintain a healthy work-life balance

Furthermore, by being a completely digital and online platform, BAM can be set up to be used from anywhere at any time. This can allow an organisation to institute flexible or remote working opportunities for their marketing teams, which may boost morale, increase productivity, and make your brand more attractive to potential candidates.

Even if you are in the fortunate position to be growing your marketing team despite shallower budgets, empowering your team with digital tools like BAM helps create a more dynamic work environment, as well as enabling you to push more budget towards recruitment, onboarding and other areas of marketing.

Digital advertising and media spend

Bucking the trend illustrated by Gartner, the IPA Bellwether Report indicates there is a big boom anticipated for digital advertising spending, with global ad spend expected to grow by 12.6% and reach $665bn by the end of 2021.

This demonstrates how high a priority marketing teams and brands generally are placing on this form of advertising. Gartner does reiterate this by noting that a massive 72.2% of total marketing budgets is being devoted to pure-play digital channels.

Therefore, the onus is on teams to maximise the potential of their own digital advertising, to help them stand out on these saturated channels against competitors – who will likely be looking to harness these as much as possible too.

Where BAM makes the difference

Again, BAM can help brands achieve this goal and accelerate their presence on digital ads by speeding up the process of creating and sharing these assets. By making production more efficient, your team can become more ever-present on these highly sought-after channels than competitors still relying on conventional processes.

Particularly at a time where marketing budgets are being stretched to their limits, this is an ideal opportunity for brands to ramp up production when others are lacking the resources to dedicate to this. If you have the technology like BAM that makes this attainable, you can steal a march on the competition and make a larger mark on the digital landscape.

Moreover, the speed and reliability of BAM enables teams to react quickly to events and trends that resonate with their audience. This enhanced agility empowers you to produce campaigns built around these trends, engaging both new and existing customers with up-to-date, relevant content.

At a time where digital advertising is a top priority among marketers worldwide, anything you can do to gain a competitive edge in this setting will improve your prospects tremendously.

Take marketing budgets further with BAM

With marketing budgets increasingly limited, it is important that teams focus on the right areas to invest in that will make the biggest difference to their overall performance.

As we have hopefully demonstrated here, making BAM a priority for next year’s budget will have a significant knock-on effect on your whole department. By streamlining the time and costs associated with production and enabling your team to do more in-house, you can free up your budget for other essential areas, from strategy and brand development to digital advertising.

Make this quarter count – discover the incredible potential that BAM by Papirfly™ offers and how it can enhance the potential of your marketing budget like never before, get in touch with our team today or book your free demo.

Table of contents:

  1. Strategic, creative and brand
  2. Content production
  3. Team dynamics
  4. Digital advertising and media spend
Retail Marketing

How to be smarter with localisation in retail marketing

Papirfly
6 minutes read

The importance of localizsation

Growing a new brand to become a household name can take years, if not decades, to achieve. But with successful localisation, you don’t have to rebuild your brand identity and consumer trust completely from scratch when launching in a new market.

For a brand to be truly global, it needs to be able to reach consumers anywhere in the world, unlock doors to new markets, be prepared to take on local competition and tap into the buying habits of different audiences. 

As anyone in touch with the modern marketing landscape will know, this takes more than just translating the copy on your products, communications and assets into the relevant languages — as we’ve already covered on the Papirfly Knowledge hub, doing this puts you at risk of making some embarrassing marketing faux pas.

Even at a time when marketers are well aware of the importance of localisation, a study from the CMO Council revealed that despite 63% of marketers being unsatisfied with their localisation efforts, 75% allocate less than a tenth of their budget to improving them.

For successful localisation in any local market, it’s essential to factor in a number of considerations, including:

Cultural sensitivities

Probably the most obvious and definitely one of the most important things to consider before releasing any kind of marketing material in a different market is the associations, nuances or dual meanings it may have there. 

Certain imagery that works well in one local market may be inappropriate or offensive in another. The tagline you’ve been running from day one may not translate as intended or it could even be a local term for something else entirely. For the sake of a few extra checks with local teams, there’s nothing worse than having to pull your hard work because it’s offensive to the very audience you are trying to engage.

There are a surprising number of occasions when big-name brands have got this wrong. Including the time clothing retailer GAP had to apologise to China after releasing a printed t-shirt showing an incorrect map that missed out several of its claimed territories. As well as being aware of long-standing cultural nuances, the impact of significant local events can change the meanings and associations of certain words and phrases. For example, retailers in Australia have to be sensitive about how they promote Black Friday sales as this is also the name given to one of the most devastating bushfires in the country’s history in 1939. It’s one of the reasons that Black Friday sales have only recently taken off and remains predominantly online.

Localising your message

Even when you’ve checked that your translated marketing materials say what you intended, it doesn’t mean they have the same meaning to local consumers. Your brand may be universally recognised, and your products purchased for the same reasons (taste, quality, price etc…), your messaging needs to be unique in every market to get those selling points across in the best way possible.

To get this right, it’s vital that you understand your audience’s buying habits, behaviours and pain points. This will help you tweak your messaging in a way that remains on brand, but resonates better with local consumers.

Seasonal changes and local events

To stay relevant and front-of-mind, brands need to respond to what’s happening in every market they operate in. This means reacting to seasonal changes as well as bouts of unusual weather such as heatwaves, snow and storms, with relevant product promotions.

Being aware of location-specific events like sports contests, music festivals and local traditions create opportunities for brands to respond with promotions of relevant products and messaging.

Hyperlocal culture

A single localisation strategy for each country may not be enough to reach all the different audiences within it. Even when the language doesn’t change, cultural nuances can be completely different between counties, states and regions.

This means that a blanket approach to localisation won’t work. To avoid excluding swathes of consumers, make use of regional teams who understand the needs and wants of audiences in their local area.

Local teams

From an outsider’s perspective, it is almost impossible to gain an in-depth understanding of particular locations and pick up on all the cultural nuances that often become the central idea of the best advertising campaigns.

The best way to make sure that your brand is landing in a local market is to employ the expertise of teams who work there. 

In 2020, Deliveroo used hyper-localisation as the premise for its ‘virtual neighbourhoods’ to ensure they had 100% coverage in every area in which they operate. By building maps around local restaurants, they have been able to accurately geo-target campaigns for specific areas. It also meant they could automatically create new campaigns for local audiences whenever they launched in a new location.

How to make localisation seamless

The points above may seem like a lot to consider, especially if you are planning on taking your brand to every country across the globe. When you have a solid localisation strategy in place, innovative tools can help take the stress away from head office and give local teams the autonomy they need to implement your strategy with innovative features:

Integrate your PIM/ERP with marketing tools 

Bringing your product information management (PIM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) together and making them accessible in one location, empowers local teams to take control of pricing, stock levels, SKUs, variations, inventory options and distribution.

Working from a centralised portal, teams can more easily work together to make informed decisions using relevant data, while keeping senior-level teams in the head office in the loop. It’s a failsafe way to ensure that product variables are consistent.

Common product variables that are important for your marketing 

Capitalise on direct marketing

In unusually hot weather or the upcoming final of a major sports event, marketing teams need to respond fast to meet the sudden changes in consumer demand. 

These are often market-specific and local teams need to achieve fast turnaround times while ensuring that the materials they produce are the correct format, accurate and on-brand. With intelligent templates, pre-set to on and offline formats, they have everything they need to bring asset creation in-house and work within the strict parameters of your brand.

Don’t forget in-store assets

So that local stores are ready to promote local events, stock clearances and take full advantage of other time-sensitive opportunities, retail teams need a seamless way to produce printed in-store marketing materials.

Using simple creation software they can create professional in-store materials in minutes, define templates that are set up in the correct standardised formats for print and digital, and are pre-populated with the most up-to-date brand elements such as logos, colours and taglines.

Embrace local formats

As well as automated formatting for standardised social media assets such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, the tools you are using to localise your brand needs to account for local formats.

This means that teams can instantly set their marketing materials to the correct sizes for the local newspaper, print and digital format sizes.

Empower your local teams

Two key components of successful brand localisation are accuracy and speed. When you have a clear understanding of different markets across the globe, and your local teams have the tools they need to achieve great work, your brand can react fast to changing demands in specific locations.

However, these two key components come with two key challenges. When your internal teams are overworked or you rely on outsourcing from external agencies, both speed and accuracy can grind to a halt.

The best way to overcome these challenges is by empowering your teams with a simple way to produce assets in-house and automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

Automate content delivery at speed and scale

Tools like BAM by Papirfly™ have a suite of innovative features that help teams to create digital and print assets within dedicated templates. Easy to use and always on-brand. No expert skills are needed. As well as making your team’s lives easier, these features give marketing managers in head offices complete oversight of live campaigns and the ability to react quickly to take advantage of trends and opportunities.

Get smart with localisation and BAM

Table of contents:

  1. Cultural sensitivities
  2. Localising your message
  3. Seasonal changes and local events
  4. Hyperlocal culture
  5. Local teams
  6. How to make localisation seamless
  7. Empower your local teams
Corporate communications and marketing

How to win budget for any business software

Jessica Chambers
7 minutes read

Retail teams responding to demand at pace. Employer brand teams looking to attract and retain the best talent. Marketing teams rolling out global campaigns.

In today’s commercial landscape, investing in up-to-date software is vital to staying ahead of the competition. But with so many options and countless new features and capabilities springing up all the time, it can be hard to keep up with what these game-changing solutions can actually do for your company.

The time, cost and potential disruption that comes with investing in new business software can seem overwhelming. To be sure that you’re making the right choice, it’s important to be able to weigh up what you put in against what you get out in terms of:

  • Upfront cost
  • Subscription fees
  • Changes in process
  • Training teams on how to use it
  • Disruption to output

If you think you’ve found an all-encompassing solution that can solve your retail, recruitment and marketing headaches, be sure to arm yourself with evidence before you pitch it to your boss. As well as giving you the peace of mind that you’ve made the right call, it’s the best way to convince key stakeholders to sign off the budget you need.

The effort needed to onboard the software vs. benefit to the business 

Before getting lost in features lists and customer reviews, start by assessing the various needs of your own company. This will help you determine what that ‘outcome’ needs to be.

This can take time, but in the long run, it will save you from missing out on features that you really needed or wasting your budget on bells and whistles that, in hindsight, you didn’t require.

Taking this vital first step gives you a chance to analyse all the moving parts of your business (not just what’s happening within your own team) and discover how new software can address long-standing challenges, improve processes, increase your output, benefit work-life balances and, ultimately, make everybody’s life a little easier.

The next step is to compare your ideal scenario with what all the different software out there has to offer. For example:

  • If you want to bring project management up to speed, a product like monday.com enables you to manage everything in one space, is easily customisable and can automate many manual, time-consuming processes.
  • To give your employees a discussion platform from which to tell their stories, or to improve your candidate experience, PathMotion helps your employer value proposition shine through with authenticity.
  • For more efficient sales funnels and easy access to reports, SalesForce is intent on reducing the time that CRM teams spend on admin tasks.
  • If reducing turnaround time is your key objective, BAM by Papirfly™ helps teams create more brand collateral in-house and adapt materials for different channels with just the click of a button.

By dedicating the appropriate time and resources into researching these tools, you will eventually be able to settle on the solution (or solutions) that best meet your objectives. Plus, in the process you might find inspiration for other features that will improve the way you work that you hadn’t previously considered.

Making your case for your business software 

Once you’ve established which software is non-negotiable for your company and which offers the most potential to benefit your business, it’s time to collate that information into a convincing pitch to key stakeholders.

When presenting your argument, think about how you can prove your chosen solution will repay the investment for your own team and teams company-wide:

  • Can it help your employer brand teams engage staff across the globe with a platform for sharing their stories?
  • Will it improve your HR team’s ability to attract and recruit top candidates from the worldwide talent pool?
  • Does it help retail teams keep up with consumer demand with integrated PIM & ERP systems?
  • Can it accelerate your speed to market, or enhance the efficiency of previously time-consuming activities?
  • Does it make life easier for your teams by automating once repetitive and cumbersome manual processes?
  • Will it help marketing teams rely less on costly outsourcing with features that allow them to produce more in-house without stretching their budgets?
  • Can it improve the accuracy and consistency of your brand collateral, reducing the risk of mistakes creeping in?
  • Does it give you a birds-eye view over content creation across your teams, so you know what is happening at all times?

Don’t shy away from software challenges and truths 

So, you’ve spent weeks analysing, researching and comparing, and you’re sold on perfectly suited business software. Great!

However, it’s often only later down the line (maybe when you’ve already talked it up to your team) that you discover potential problems that you may have overlooked the first time around.

While it may have several unique features that you really love, that shouldn’t blind you to areas where software may be lacking. Because, when it comes time to present the software to company stakeholders and influencers, that is what they will question – and you’ll need to be prepared with answers.

Although it can be tempting to oversell a solution, don’t brush over the flaws. Instead, take the time to assess these and determine how you are going to respond to challenges about this. It may be that you have to make compromises, or you may identify a solution to the problem and present this at the same time.

Fundamentally, the most important part is to remain truthful at all times. Lies can quickly unravel and leave you in a difficult position to argue the merits of your software.

Top tip for software research

Most business software has free trials or live demos. Make the most of them and try to take a pragmatic view of what each has to offer…

✅ Test the tools for ease of use
✅ Get opinions from staff in different teams
✅ Quiz sales reps to be sure they understand your requirements
✅ Ask about any potential issues you identified in your initial research

How to get buy-in from key stakeholders 

To strengthen your case and put forward business software that ticks all boxes, you need to get your whole company on board. That means getting buy-in from key stakeholders within different teams across the organisation. Make sure you understand their pain points and show how the solution you put forward can address them. For example: 

Finding a solution for marketing teams… What are their pain points?

❌  Maintaining brand consistency across all channels
❌  Limited budgets hindering their ability to produce frequent, high-quality content
❌ An overabundance of manual, repetitive tasks
❌ Drawn-out proofing and revision time on materials, extending campaign launch times
❌ Over-reliance on agencies and external teams to produce materials

Overcoming marketing pain points with software 

✅ Includes templates and predefined parameters to prevent content going off-brand
✅ Offers an easy-to-use creation suite to allow more work to be done in-house with the same studio-quality result – all in less time and for less budget
✅ Enhances automation of manual tasks to make campaigns more seamless to produce and improve work-life balances

Finding a solution for employer brand teams… What are their pain points?

❌ Maintaining consistency across all channels
❌ Ensuring both candidates and existing employees have a clear idea of their company’s identity
❌ Limited resources to create both internal and external materials
❌ Inability to quickly adapt materials for local markets
❌ Minimal communication and collaboration with other teams globally

Overcoming employer brand pain points with software 

✅ Allows all brand guidelines, training videos and more to be contained in one central, easy-to-access space
✅ Enables them to store and share materials, which can then be accessed by other teams worldwide or repurposed at a later date
✅ Can quickly adapt and translate collateral to meet different languages and cultural nuances

Finding a solution for retail marketing teams… What are their pain points?

❌ Inaccurate or outdated product imagery, descriptions and specifications
❌ Extended times to create, check and approve campaign assets preventing them from capitalising on opportunities
❌ Dependance on local, disparate agencies, which may compromise brand consistency
❌ Difficulty adapting content for a range of physical and digital channels

Overcoming retail marketing pain points with software 

✅ Allows teams to harness the data available through existing PIM and ERP systems
✅ Enables the creation of content in-house, and can automatically adjust this for posters, digital signage, social media, and more
✅ Streamlines campaign production so they can jump on the latest trends and customer demands

How to pitch for software like a pro

Now that you’re armed with everything you need to put forward an inarguable case for your chosen software – including how it will benefit your company, key stakeholders and individual teams – it’s time to get final budget approval. Here are some top tips for convincing key stakeholders:

Start with the why

Begin with an attention-grabbing statement that puts forward the reasons your company is in need of a change and why your chosen software is the solution to make it happen.

Pitch with confidence

If you don’t look like you believe in the software you’re pitching, then it’s unlikely that key stakeholders will be convinced.

If you want to seem confident, remember to…

You could talk for hours about the hundreds of different features that your chosen marketing tool has to offer, but what do your audience really need to know? Stick to what you need to get across and explain how they benefit your company.

They may seem like the boring bit, but costs will be the first thing on the minds of whoever gets to sign off your budget. Make sure you have accurate cost calculations to hand and clear evidence of why your solution is a good investment.

Think ahead

Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. While it’s important to hone in on the immediate benefit, key stakeholders need to know that the tool you’re proposing aligns with the long-term goals of the business. 

Be ready to handle objections

Don’t be put off by resistance. Being prepared for difficult questions is a chance for you to instil more trust in your audience by answering feedback and criticisms in a calm and considered way.

We hope you find the software you’re looking for…

There are lots of excellent solutions out there, but with the information above, you should have everything you need to pick and pitch the right one for your business. If you haven’t added BAM by Papirfly™ to your list of potential software suitors, be sure to check it out and find out why it’s the day-to-day tool for over 1,000,000 employees across employer branding, retail and marketing at some of the world’s leading brands.

Discover BAM 

For help making sure you’ve left no stone unturned, and that you’re ready for any questions that come your way during your pitch, chat with one of our experts. Experience a demo, where you’ll be walked through BAM’s full capabilities. Once we’ve fully understood your challenges and project goal, we’ll send you a tailored proposal based on your requirements

Table of contents:

  1. The effort needed to onboard the software vs. benefit to the business
  2. Making your case for your business software
  3. Don’t shy away from software challenges and truths
  4. How to get buy-in from key stakeholders
  5. Pitch like a pro