The Business of Manufacturing, a Question Time style debate on the future of UK manufacturing, chaired by Peter Marsh of the Financial Times, attracted lots of media attention last week. With some high-profile business leaders on the panel, including Juergen Maier of Siemens and James Averdieck, founder of Gu Chocolate Puds, the event created plenty of incisive comment on the prospects for growth in manufacturing and engineering rebalancing the national economy.

Working with the debate’s organisers, Marketing Leeds and Leeds Manufacturing, Appeal helped broaden media interest in the story by creating a video that provided an informative summary of the event, featuring interviews with the speakers. The video was used on TheBusinessDesk.com, to generate greater depth and interest to the Business Desk’s report on event.

The United Bank of Carbon (UBoC) is the brainchild of Jonathan Wild, former chairman and chief executive of Bettys and Taylors Group. Having spent much of his career leading a company with strong links to the tropics through its tea and coffee growers, Jonathan was ahead of the times, investing in environmental initiatives long before the concept became popular.

Twenty years ago Jonathan started a campaign to engage customers in support the company’s environmental projects. Since then, Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate has succeeded in planting three million trees across the globe and its latest mammoth undertaking is to support a UBoC project that is working to save a rainforest in Peru which is the size of the Yorkshire Dales.

The Bettys & Taylors name has become synonymous with green initiative s and ethical trading and there can be little doubt that its phenomenal success as a business owes much to the place it has won in the hearts of its customers and staff as a result.

Anyone who has met Jonathan will know that his conviction is contagious. Having listened to him explain his vision to a journalist, we immediately offered our services on a pro bono basis to support UBoC’s communications needs. Working with Jonathan and fellow trustee, Professor Piers Forster of the University of Leeds, we have re-launched a brand new website for the organisation to showcase its achievement so far and encourage more businesses to join the collaboration.

The re-designed website now focuses on the motivations that have driven supporters’ involvement. It is not necessarily a case of ticking the corporate social responsibility box, it may that supporters gain benefits through improved employee engagement and customer loyalty or they may be thinking of the future potential of carbon credits. The reason for involvement doesn’t matter, what is important is the fact that leading companies such as Deloitte, Bibby Line Group, Straight plc, Premier Farnell and DDB believe that they have something to gain from their investment.

With PR ‘greenwash’ receiving much criticism in recent years, supporting UBoC is an easy way in which businesses can make a genuine contribution to protecting our world. Surely the success of Bettys & Taylors, a £103m business and blender of Yorkshire tea, the third largest tea brand in the UK, is proof that investing in the environment really is a sound commercial investment.

In the past, many businesses have been deterred by complex and time-consuming production along with prohibitive costs.  However, the advance of social media together, together with camera technology, has made it an ideal time for businesses to experiment.  Existing media relations campaigns can be complemented with an online video which can be produced for a similar cost to a stills press shot and hosted on YouTube – still the leading brand for video streaming.

Figures show that online video usage is a huge area of internet growth.  In October 2009, Nielsen reported a 25 per cent increase in online video viewing year on year  and the trend is continuing – January 2011 saw annual usage in the US increase by 45 per cent. In February, there were a staggering 139.2 million unique US online video viewers who streamed 13.6 million videos and spent an average of 4 hours, 20 minutes viewing video.

With online media such as TheBusinessDesk.com requesting that businesses submit video releases, it’s a great way of getting more profile for your story.  What’s more, Google loves video so it will also give valuable search engine optimisation benefits.

Many businesses remain cautious, with the old days of hugely expensive corporate videos still too fresh in their minds.  However, for innovative companies (particularly those who have succeeded in building up a strong social media presence) there are huge benefits to be reaped.  Here’s the latest online video we’ve produced for one of our forward-thinking clients, JCT600.

I’m really not sure of the answer, but it does seem that if you post a request on a LinkedIn group for example, for anything from advice about digital marketing to the best restaurant in Yorkshire, you are inundated with group members, eager to help.  Obviously, cynics will say that this is due to self-interest with respondents simply trying to sell their wares, and in some cases, this is true.  However, in many others, there is no ulterior motive, just a genuine desire to help.

In the cut and thrust world of 21^st century business, it does seem bizarre that one of the latest forms of communication is actually enabling us to return to some good old fashion human values.  Social media is based on the concept of sharing information and providing free advice.  By belonging to a community with some common interest, members also take on an unspoken duty to help each other – just look at the meteoric rise of Mumsnet or MoneySavingExpert.  There’s no doubt that people enjoy being able to give expert advice, to have their voice heard and to have the satisfaction of doing a ‘good deed’.

From blogs to forums, the concept is not to use the community to promote yourself or your business, but rather to engage with like-minded people, share your experiences and learn from their’s.

So, make the most of it!  Whether you’re looking for help with web marketing; advice on how to view group activity on the iPhone LinkedIn app; or a film star lookalike for a product launch (just some of the requests on today’s Yorkshire Mafia Group on LinkedIn) – ask the online business community to help!

And, in the spirit of altruism, these are some of the LinkedIn groups in Yorkshire which I find helpful:

Brand Harrogate

Brand Yorkshire

Harrogate & District Business Group

The Yorkshire Mafia 

Now it isn’t unusual for TheHuffingtonPost  and celebrity blogs to break some of the world’s biggest media stories, but does that mean they are at all useful tools for every business?

Nowadays we get asked the question on a monthly basis: “Should our company have a blog?”

The answer is often yes, but not always, and we run through a few questions before we advise either way:

1. Do you want to attract more relevant traffic to your website?
2. Are you willing to give away a few ‘tricks of the trade’ in exchange for this traffic?
3. Do you have expertise in your firm that can say interesting useful things on a blog?
4. Will your organisation have the resource to update a blog regularly?

If the answers to the above are all yes, then your organisation might well benefit from using a blog to broaden your profile as experts in your chosen field and markets.

In terms of building a blog, there are many suppliers springing up, and, just like web design, there are many pitfalls and a huge list of dos and don’ts.  Here are a few basic tips to remember;

1. Use WordPress freeware to build the blog – it is the most effective way of attracting Google traffic at present (make sure you include an ‘About us’ page, readers will want to know who you are; and add links to other social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn)
2. Use an expert to build it – we outsource to one of a few suppliers, they typically charge £600 to £800 to build a good blog that mirrors the style of the rest of the site
3. Keep the blog within your URL if possible – i.e. use a page within your site – www.yourcompany/blog
4. Study blogs that perform well within your sphere of work, and think carefully about how the bloggers on these structure their posts – learn from good practise!  The Top 50 Business Blogs as identified by The Sunday Times is a good place to start researching -
5. Ensure your posts are informal and informative – don’t get carried away with opinion unless it is really very interesting
6. Never rip off other people’s content or images – its bad manners and also breaches copyright
7. Think carefully about keywords and make the content relevant to potential customer searches (search engines such as Google love websites with blogs because they contain regularly updated keyword-rich content – implementing an effective blog is a great way of pushing up your Google ranking)
8. Include links to interesting content elsewhere and to websites that allow further research on the subject – be altruistic!
9. Offer the reader something they wouldn’t get elsewhere – information, hints, tips and free advice that they would often have to pay for
10. Blog about a broad range of subjects and companies, not just about yourself

Blogging is not the same as any other form of writing, it is more personal and informal, and the best blogs have links and images embedded that enhance the search relevance of the article.  It is impossible to impart every aspect of what works and what doesn’t, but hopefully these are a starting point.   

Our own blog, started in September 2009 delivered a 70 per cent increase in relevant traffic to our website within a year, and has delivered a number of very high quality business leads – proof positive that a good blog is good business.

A few months on and it has found a new place in my daily routine of browsing, but I keep getting asked the question ‘Why would I want one?’ by people who I talk to about the device, and thought I would explain the way it has crept into my daily life.

Firstly, I have to say that I bought it with the excuse of needing to keep ahead of media trends and the latest platforms for Apps, etc, but I always wanted it for leisure mainly, so didn’t have great expectations for it as a business device.

What I have found though, is that for certain uses, presentations, browsing live websites in meetings, watching video and quick easy handling of email on the move it is just superb.  I was already a convert to the iPhone (it seems that most buyers come through this obvious route )and this follows that device seamlessly but with the obvious benefits of its size.

I have one regular monthly meeting where a finance character thinks we should all print out a 33 page excel spreadsheet every month, kill a tree and then shred the mountain of paper after every meeting.  I now simply keep the required excel and .pdf files on an email in my inbox and access them on my iPad, scrolling rapidly to relevant pages, and with the added benefit of being able to zoom into any line or detail under discussion.

Could I do that on my notebook? Yes, but the battery life is triple (I get 9-12 hours of video playback, or 7 hours of browsing from mine), and the iPad takes just a second or so to launch email, saving all the hassle with my decent but still fiddly Acer notebook.

But it is at home I find that the iPad comes into its own.  Whether you just want to make sure you haven’t missed any crucial out of hours client emails, browse news websites or research anything that you previously did on a laptop then I now reach for the iPad every time .  I saw a phrase that described a trend towards ‘scatter cushion browsing’; using multiple web browsing devices  all around the home, and this is a good way to describe how it works its way into your home.

Right now, it will be on the dining room table where I left it this morning, or my wife might be using it in the kitchen to watch a You Tube demo video on recipes.  It is also often on the coffee table in the living room, and when I find an offer on an email that I want to show my other half, I will take it outside or to wherever she might be.  Its completely unhindered mobility, tactile search and beautiful screen makes it my favourite device for browsing. 

All in all, the reasons I now love the iPad are:

• 10 hour plus battery life feels like it never needs charging
• Lovely graphics make browsing easier, and who needs a keyboard?
• Huge video & music storage is great for journeys
• ‘Always on’ start up makes logging onto emails a really simple and quick task

I think that the FT’s App is a lesson in the way publications can utilise the net in years to come, and tablets, whether Mac (who have sold 3 million units and rising! ) or on any other OS will be in every home within five years, but it is still mainly a leisure device for me, but one I wouldn’t give back if you offered me a great deal of money.

Will the iPad change the world?  No.  Has it made mine better?  Absolutely.

With many clients within the professional services sector, we were pleased to be invited to join the committee of the Yorkshire group of the PM Forum, the association for marketers in professional services.  The seminar I attended this week raised some familiar themes and I was interested to hear how some of the region’s leading legal and accountancy firms were handling them.

It’s not very often that you are able to question the managing partner of a leading regional professional services practice about his marketing strategy, let alone quiz four at the same time!  But this was the opportunity presented by the PM Forum event which took a Question Time style format.  The panel consisted of partners from four well-known organisations in Yorkshire with law firms represented by Paul Ayre of Gordons and Jonathan Oxley of Lee & Priestley; plus Kevin O’Connor of Baker Tilly and Richard Williams of Deloitte providing an accountancy perspective.

Ably chaired by James Buckley of Deloitte in the role of Dimbleby, it was a refreshingly honest session with the partners sharing some of the common challenges and frustrations of marketing within the professional services arena.  They gave an interesting insight into traits they look for when recruiting their marketing team.  Desirable characteristics include resilience; a ‘can-do’ attitude; creativity and enthusiasm.  They agreed that they need people who will champion marketing initiatives and are genuine team players, able to work across specialisms in the firm.  Whilst some of the partners stated that a background in the firm’s profession was very useful, others felt that a fresh approach with a marketer from a different sector could also give significant benefits.

There were a number of recurring themes, perhaps the most significant was the need for the entire organisation to ‘buy in’ to the importance of marketing and business development.  Whilst it might not always be a practical solution to make this element part of an employees’ performance review, one of the partners stressed the importance of a top-down approach saying that because he as managing partner had a weekly meeting with the marketing team, everyone in the firm was aware that business development activities were a priority. 

Making Marketing a Priority

There were comments from the audience that marketing was often seen as a secondary function to client work and also that it was sometimes difficult for marketers to challenge the opinion of partners who were senior to them, but perhaps had a limited understanding of marketing.  There was a consensus that it was the responsibility of the marketer to champion the best strategy for the firm and to find a way around any resistance.  It was also agreed that although every partner had to be a fee-earner, he also had a responsibility to market and promote the firm. 

The importance of cross-selling services within a firm and the role a marketer could play in this process was also stressed.  With the market still tough for winning new business, the opportunity to sell additional services to existing clients presented a much more attractive proposition.  However, with professionals sometimes ‘blinkered’ within their own department, a marketer with a broader perspective could prove invaluable.  It was also felt that those involved in business development must engage with clients.

Interestingly, all of the partners said that their marketing activities had not retracted during the recession with business development acknowledged as a crucial part of the management process.  In some cases, marketing activities had grown although resource had been re-focussed on sales generation.  As with marketing in any sector, the key is to ensure that every initiative has clear and measurable objectives.

Sharing centre stage with seasoned commentator Greg Wright, deputy business editor of the Yorkshire Post, proved an interesting experience.  He was able to provide all sorts of practical advice from the usual pleas not to send long-winded, technical or irrelevant news releases, to avoiding the least convenient times to ring him (not around 11am or 3pm when the news meetings are held) and the easiest way of irritating a journalist – clogging up his inbox with oversized photos (be warned – apparently, the press, like elephants, never forget…)

My role was to give an overview of the value of PR and social media to professional services firms, and to offer some insight into the way the media is changing.  A somewhat daunting task when addressing an audience of switched on marketers.

Thinking about the key changes in the media, there are, of course, new faces and publications, but the major development has to be the meteoric rise of social media.  I have been staggered by the proliferation of social media ‘experts’ over the past few months offering their often very expensive services and ‘must-have’ seminars (take a look at a cracking skit that is a viral hit on YouTube called The Social Media Guru -  very well observed, if a little rich in its language, I am certain these self styled ‘gurus’ are breeding rapidly in the serviced offices of the UK).  I do worry that professionals are being panicked into tweeting, linking in and blogging without really thinking it through.  As with all marketing, a clear strategy must be the starting point.

Marketers are under pressure to exploit social media and there is no doubt that it has a useful part to play, particularly in monitoring brands and engaging with customers.   What’s more, some networks such as LinkedIn are extremely useful for all sorts of tasks, from finding suppliers to identifying potential job candidates.  However, it is becoming increasingly clear that whilst professional services firms need to embrace the world of social media, they must keep this tool in perspective and ensure that they use the proportionate resources to implement an SM strategy that suits their business. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong exponent of social media (we recently undertook a very successful campaign to launch a new bargain fashion website TheFashionPixie.com – it was immediately picked up by Google and filled the first page of listings on the day it launched which would not have happened without SM).  However, I am trying to issue a word of caution amidst the current SM hysteria.  As the latest panacea, I fear social media could become the new wild west of marketing in much the same way as web design was ten years ago when clients could be charged five grand for a ten page brochure site designed by a 19 year old student in a weekend!  Finding the right social media partner, and avoiding the ones that cloak the common sense of social media in jargon and hype, isn’t easy, but there are some out there. 

Judging by the reception my comments received and the discussions that followed, it was a bit of an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ moment.  Everyone (particularly in marketing) feels they should be fully conversant with this growing phenomenon , and they don’t want to admit if they can’t actually identify any mind-blowing benefits it would give to their own particular business.   My advice is to look beyond the smoke and mirrors and trust your judgement!

I had a quick lunch with a competitor Nathan Lane in Leeds last week, and was pleased to hear that he is as hacked off with the process of tendering as I am (as an agency we haven’t tendered for a couple of years).

My issue is simply that proper consultancy is a creative process that doesn’t suit the process of tendering.  Ask us to consult, to look at your organisation, the people involved and the business issues too and then we will propose the best activity to suit your business needs.

The fact is that some agencies like to tender. They have developed a framework that can be dropped in for any job that ticks boxes and wins work with little bespoke thinking or input.  They have junior staff rattling them off in a ‘numbers game’ approach.   

In-house marketers should appreciate that the tender process leads to duplication and lazy documents devoid of real creativity.  The most cost effective agencies don’t have the time to invest in bespoke tenders (as we don’t have fat margins) and most of the best ones don’t do ‘tick box’ proposals for any pitch because it is poor practice.

Why not have PR people invest their time into the solving of creative business issues, rather than ticking boxes?

A good example of the kind of irrelevant minutia that local government tender processes can involve could have a look at any council’s website.  Try this compelling detailed document from a recent Fenland District Council PR tender process, for crying out loud!

So, if you want to get the best consultants for your organisation follow these steps;

1)      Ask for credentials from between six to ten agencies

2)      Meet five or so and brief them face to face

3)      Ask for proposals from the most appropriate/impressive three

4)      Hire the agency that demonstrates a balance of best thinking and most cost effective proposal

I guarantee that if you run the process well and are open with the agencies you will have made a better appointment at the close than by implementing the dry and faceless tender process.  As a bonus your new PR partners will understand your issues better. 

Stick to tick box tendering, and you will keep hiring the people who are good at the tender process, not good at PR.