Business

  • Business, Marketing

    How to keep up with politics without your head exploding

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    A white, dark blonde woman faces a brick wall. She's wearing a wide-brimmed brown leather hat, a blue denim jacket with an applique image on the back, and a flowery dress. She is writing on the brick wall with blue chalk. The word "FREE" can be seen

    I talk a lot about UK politics.

    I sit here sipping my Earl Grey tea and polishing my monocle, aware that my sphere of reference is ridiculously narrow. Even as I make a concerted effort to look beyond my borders.

    The fact is, it’s impossible to stay up to date on every issue and event currently kicking off around the world. Unless it’s your full-time job. And as the internet makes our world smaller, it brings home just how interconnected we all are – for good and bad.

    So, if you want to acknowledge in your messaging that you are a citizen of the world, affected by Roe V Wade, grain supply lines in Ukraine, and the melting Arctic ice…

    How do you possibly stay in the loop?

    1. Work out how much you can handle.

    If you have the time and headspace to devour the entire Guardian website, and follow it up by listening to Radio 4 while you do your burpees then more power to you. But if (like me) both time and headspace are limited, decide the amount of content that will make you feel informed without feeling overwhelmed. And be OK with that.

    Got 5 minutes, but still want to be informed? The Knowledge is a free daily email collated from across the media on all the issues of the day.

    2. Take breaks.

    I am a politics junkie. I will sit down at a party with someone I’ve only just met and spend 2 hours talking about how the PFI policies of the last Labour government paved the way for NHS privatisation. (And then regret it the morning after!). But even I need a break. Sometimes it all gets too much. When the world is tough, or your life is tough, or both – have the confidence to step away for a bit. We’ll catch you up when you get back.

    3. Vary your sources.

    Mainstream Media is not the balanced information Mecca that it used to be (well, if it ever was). And the Facebook algorithm does not provide a one-stop-shop for everything you really need to know. If you want to make sure you’re getting the whole story, and you want to be aware of what other groups are also thinking, then you need to triangulate your sources like a good little orienteerer! Mix it up, step out of your box, etc. etc.

    Tortoise Media is another relatively unbiased place to find decent information. Especially on important issues that the mainstream media have moved on from.

    4. Listen to people with lived experience.

    Professional commentators are paid to have opinions on things. Journalists are paid to write interesting stories that make you buy their newspapers. The good ones do their research, and talk to the people actually affected by an issue. Those living it. But a lot don’t. If you want to know what it’s like being a poor single mum juggling childcare and DWP assessments, or a middle-aged mechanic who’s just been made redundant and is walking to the Job Centre every day, then seek them out.

    Head to Twitter, find them. And LISTEN.

    5. Don’t fall into the “what about the dolphins?” trap.

    You’re a lovely person. You care about a LOT of things. And occasionally you might post about one of them. On your personal or business social media. Only for some plonker to come along and say “I can’t believe you’re talking about this! It obviously means you don’t care about these 3 other things!”

    And of course, it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about those other things. Only that it’s impossible to talk about all the issues you DO care about all at once, within the character limit of your favourite social media platform.

    It’s important that idiots like this don’t put you off voicing your opinion and advocating for important issues. You can talk about the importance of good sex education in schools, while also caring about the plight of bumble bees but not talking about it today.

    And it’s important to remember that we can’t all campaign for all the things all the time. Share the load. Don’t feel you have to jump on every campaign that comes along. It doesn’t make you a terrible person if you don’t go on the dolphin march.

    “But I’m so adorable!”

    So, there you have it.

    5 steps towards staying informed, and using that information to speak out about the issues that matter to you. Take this knowledge and use it wisely!
    And if you really want to get started, but you have no idea how you can fit this into your business, then we need to talk.

    Start with my “How to talk about politics without pissing people off” Framework.

    And then, let’s chat about how you can make your brand speak for your politics, as well as make you money!

    Book a call

    Carry on reading

  • Marketing, Business

     7 Voice of Customer Best Practices to Make Your Audience Feel Seen & Heard

    How voice of customer best practices bring you and your audience closer together.

    Voice of customer best practices in action. A white woman in her 30s wearing a dark green jacket and whiite top sits at a table smiling at another woman, who can be seen parshly from behind.

    My copywriting philosophy is…..

    Hang on, that sounds a little pretentious, doesn’t it? A little like I’m standing in front of a lecture hall wearing a jacket with leather elbow pads, pushing my glasses back up my nose, and asking you all to “take a journey with me”.

    Let’s not do that, shall we?

    If you’ve read my About Page (And if you haven’t then what are you doing here? Start at the beginning like a normal person!), then you’ll have read about the 3 superpowers I gained from being a youth worker that I use to transform your relationship with your customers.

    If you skipped it (and you really don’t want to go take a look) then here they are:

    1. Listening
    2. Empathizing
    3. Directing

    If your brand wants to build a stronger relationship with its audience, then you should be doing every one of those things on a regular basis. They should be woven through your content marketing strategy (we can talk if you don’t have one of those yet), and written on faded yellow post-it notes around your workstation. Whether you decorate them with doodled hearts or not is your own business.

    Today I want to talk about why listening is important for a brand. The key is this:

    Everyone wants to feel heard.

    Have you ever had one of those nights where you sat down with another person and the conversation lasted until dawn? That evening where you felt you’d found your soulmate? When you told your friends about it the next day and you said things like “It was as if we’d known each other forever”, or “It was like he was inside my head”.

    Why was this different to a normal conversation over dinner? I’m willing to bet it was because you felt listened to. You felt as though someone was paying complete attention to you. In a world where we’re all constantly distracted by phone notifications (I’ve glanced down at about 8 just writing this paragraph), having the complete attention of another person for more than 2 minutes is a rare and intoxicating thing. It makes us feel important; like we matter.

    Your customer, your email subscriber, your website browser, your Instagram follower. They all want to feel important. They all want to feel as if you’ve heard them. They want to know that you read their comments, take notice of their reviews, and pay attention when they unsubscribe.

    The more someone is listened to, the greater a connection they feel with the person doing the listening. And people spend more money with brands they feel connected to (That’s why I love a good About Page!).

    Voice of Customer questions to ask

    Market research should always involve spending time learning about your perfect customer – your avatar if you’re going all “marketing geek”.

    Us marketers call this Voice of Customer research – spending time in real life and on the internet paying attention to where, when, and how people are talking about your brand. Marketers love having fancy names for things, it means you can make up acronyms and have conversations with other marketers where no one else knows what you’re talking about.

    But really, it’s just listening. Jump on the message boards your customers hang out on. Do they love your new product but wish that it had a different name, or handle, or box? How are they comparing it to other brands who do similar things? What problems are they using your product or service to solve (and are these the same problems you designed it to solve)? Do they have nicknames or shorthand for the things you do? Are they recommending it to others, and how are they doing this? What are they complaining about, and is this something you can fix?

    And, if you can swing it, actually talk to your ideal customer.

    The benefits of Voice of Customer research

    Once you’ve done your “Voice of Customer research” (bleurgh: buzzwords), then you have to actually do something with the information you’ve gathered. Otherwise you’re just nosey.

    The simplest way to start is to use similar language in your communications to how your audience talk. If people reading your social media posts, emails and webpages consistently see words and phrases they connect with and recognize, then they will feel a greater connection with your brand. You “get them”. And, you know, they’ll be more likely to open their wallet and throw some cash at you.

    If you’re not sure how to weave this new information into your communications, then give your friendly local (or not-so-local) copywriter a call. It’s what we do best. Give us your reams of data copied and pasted into a Google Doc, and we can give you the words that reach out to your audience like a cup of coffee and a warm hug (if that’s what you’re going for).

    Voice of customer best practices

    You can also use the information to make changes to your products or services. These can be tiny tweaks, like the name or packaging, or adding in an additional element (say a module on time management to your online nutrition course). It could be a wholesale rethink of your product line. As an added bonus, acknowledging that it was feedback from your customers that caused this change, doubles down on the feeling of importance and being heard that they get.

    Want a hands-down fabulous example of a brand that speaks like their customers do? Check out Tom Insurance – and be amazed!

    I’m all ears

    Access to your target audience (whether current or potential customers) is your biggest resource in building relationships. If you take nothing else in from the beginnings of my copywriting philosophy (oh, wait, we weren’t calling it that, were we…), then remember this:

    Be the one that sits down next to them on the skate park wall and asks them how they’re getting on. Then they’ll be yours for life.

    (You can take the girl out of youth work…)

    Want help with your listening? Let’s chat.

    Carry on reading