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You may be asking yourself, “How can something usually stuck behind an inbox or a mailbox, have anything to do with driving organic traffic to my website?” To illustrate how this works, I will share a recent experience of my own.

This is the age of earned. In recent times, there has increasingly been more focus on digital marketing for owned and paid media with the ability to accurately measure the result of our campaigns. But with public relations moving at a greater pace than anyone else in marketing and communications – turbo charged by digital, our skills are more relevant than ever. But we need to move fast to take advantage!

Private Equity boards are comprised of individuals with a significant amount of wealth at risk, so naturally, their primary concern is the growth trajectory of the company in which they invested. Beyond that, by the time you are presenting to your board, they will have conducted all of their due diligence before the buyout, and are now focused on the ongoing operations of the business. They want to see a structured plan that is a mix of aspirational and realistic, as well as the concrete steps that will be taken to achieve that growth. 

I was on Linkedin earlier. No, I wasn’t looking for a new job. I was looking at a friend request from someone involved in a strategic business streamlining network who had ‘felt some synergies between our business methodologies’ and felt it was a great idea to link. I didn’t really feel the synergy. Really, I didn’t. In fact I don’t know what synergy feels like…a tingling sensation? An unrelenting calling? Hives?

The only thing worse than having no sales team, is having a poorly briefed one, because they won’t make you any money, but they will cost you.

So, how do you build a sales team that is high impact?

The answer is properly briefing your sales person (or team) to ensure they are well equipped to have conversations with your prospects, articulate the value of your event, and close the sale.

A well-briefed sales team is the key to an effective exhibition.

When engaging in conversations that are meant to be persuasive or to influence your listener’s actions (for example, a sales pitch, an email campaign, or a call to action), your goal should be that your listener both receives and retains your message. The first step in achieving this is to tell them what they need or want to hear, not simply what you want to say. This is also true, and fundamentally more urgent, in a crisis communications situation. It’s human nature to more effectively receive information that is relevant and timely to us.

The fundamental challenge that we have when applying reason to the subject of brand is that great brand is great emotion. And this gives us a dichotomy, which is neatly summed up in a strategic principle that I apply called, 'Making Thinking Visible.' Without the rational, in-depth, analytical, left-brain approach, it is hard to have the right positioning and messaging associated with a brand in a creative, emotional space.

The three-year downturn in oil and gas, which started mid 2014, was felt throughout the industry. But it was arguably in the subsea sector that the impact was felt most.

In every corner of the world, one high-cost project after another was shelved or abandoned as subsea budgets were hit hard in favour of the less expensive and ‘quick win’ alternatives offered by North American shale.

The results are in and we have been ranked the top Scottish agency in the Drum Independent Agency Census (68th in the UK).