2023 is painting a fresh canvas for SEO, the hues and textures evolving with each new development in technology and algorithmic subtleties. The steady pulse of Google’s algorithmic alterations has long been our metronome, allowing us to harmonise our strategies, adjust our approaches, and assay the weight of ranking factors.
Challenger brands, strapped for cash, are obligated to conduct a diligent reconnoitre, judiciously allocating effort and budget to areas offering optimal returns.
As we breach the frontiers of 2023, where should we pivot our focus? What transformations has the landscape undergone with the advent of consumer-accessible AI tech, exemplified by ChatGPT (a nod here was inescapable) and the explosion of AI assissted marketing tools.
Delve into the ‘Matrix of SEO Importance’ for 2023. No, this isn’t a nostalgia trip to the halcyon days of the ’90s or a dive into intertwined conspiracy theories linking The Matrix and The Terminator.
Instead, it’s an inventory of critical SEO components and the attention they warrant in your strategy.
On-Page Optimisation (Headings, Meta Information, etc)
Low to Medium
Low to Medium
Technical SEO (Page Speed, Mobile-Friendliness etc)
Low to Medium
Low to Medium
Local SEO (Google My Business, Reviews etc)
Low to Medium
Low to Medium
Rich Media Creation
Low
High
Massive Caveat – We are assuming here that fundamentally the technical side of your website has been reviewed, is in a good place with regular checks and updates. We are also making the assumption that your rankings are generally on the up, not in decline.
What is E-E-A-T and why is this important in an SME Search Engine Optimisation strategy in 2023?
E-E-A-T. or Double-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is a concept that was first introduced by Google in its Quality Raters’ Guidelines (now search rater guidelines. All 176 pages are here for any insomniacs). It refers to the level of experience. expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of a website and its content. Google harnesses E.E.A.T. as a yardstick to assess a website’s quality and its potential to clinch a higher SERP ranking.
In December 2022, whilst we were all enjoying Christmas parties Google snuck in an extra E: experience. This is “experience” in reference to “…demonstrating first-hand life experience on the topic…”. So for example, this might a video or images with hands-on product experience, so the sourcing and linking of a dedicated expert on a topic or discussion point. For smaller marketing budgets this represents an opportunity to be creative with your content and the blog posts, reviews and rich media that you place on your website.
To help improve the E.E.A.T. of your website you should:
Create high-quality, informative content that is well-written and accurate. This will demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness to potential customers.
Ensure that your website is well-designed and easy to navigate. This will improve the overall user experience and make it easier for users to find the information they need.
Include a clear author byline and a list of authors on your website, if applicable. This will help establish authoritativeness and credibility.
Include links to credible sources to support your claims. This will help demonstrate expertise and trustworthiness.
Have a clear “About” page that provides information about your business and the people behind it. This will help establish trustworthiness and provide users with a better understanding of your company and its values.
Also, be mindful of the fresh ‘E’ for experience when generating content. This means demonstrating that your content is brewed with a degree of experience, such as actual use of a product or having visited a location. For instance, if you’re a small business retailing products, consider weaving in real customer reviews, video testimonials, or case studies showcasing the experience with your products.
For further reading and a decent guide on this subject check out this guide
Embracing the Power of AI
With the rise of AI technologies like ChatGPT and Google Bard, SEO is changing.
Tools like Google’s RankBrain use machine learning to understand search queries, providing a more nuanced and human approach to search. This shift is not just about optimising for bots anymore.
Instead, it’s about creating content that truly resonates with your audience. Context is king, and the reign of keyword-stuffing is over.
In this era of AI, the focus has shifted towards crafting engaging, relevant, and user-centric content. The key here is to view AI as a tool, not a replacement for human creativity.
It can help draft copy, design graphics, and even create videos. But at the end of the day, human creativity and strategic thinking are irreplaceable. The goal is to leverage AI, allowing us to spend more time on creative, strategic endeavours and less time on laborious tasks.
Link Building Strategies: The Art of Connection
Link building has always been an integral part of SEO, and that isn’t changing anytime soon. But what does change, however, are the best practices that ensure effective link-building. Gone are the days of mass link exchanges and buying links.
In 2023, it’s all about quality, relevance, and authenticity.
Building a strong backlink profile requires nurturing relationships with authoritative websites within your niche. Consider guest posting or partnering for webinars and virtual events. And remember, always make sure the content you’re offering provides genuine value.
It’s also worth noting that internal linking is a key aspect of link building. It enhances the user experience, guiding visitors through your site and spotlighting your best content.
It’s also crucial to remember that link-building is not a quick fix; it’s a long-term strategy. According to Ahrefs, it can take up to 10 weeks to see an effect from a single backlink. Patience, persistence, and ongoing commitment are key.
If you’re an SME serving a local clientele, then local SEO should be high on your priority list. Focusing on local SEO can help you compete with larger brands by targeting the community you serve.
Firstly, ensure your business is listed accurately and consistently in online directories, especially on Google My Business (GMB). Include high-quality photos, positive customer reviews, and make sure to regularly update your information.
According to BrightLocal, 5 billion searches are performed on Google every day, and 46% of those are seeking local information.
Consider incorporating local keywords into your SEO strategy, too. Keywords related to your location (such as the name of the town or city) can help to attract local customers. Similarly, creating locally-focused content can improve your visibility in local search results.
Technical SEO: The Engine Behind Your Success
Technical SEO might not be the most glamorous part of your SEO strategy, but it’s the backbone that holds everything else together. Without it, all the keyword research, content creation, and link building in the world won’t help your site rank.
In 2023, site speed, mobile optimisation, and secure browsing (HTTPS) remain vital aspects of technical SEO.
A recent Google study found that 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than three seconds to load. Therefore, improving your site’s load time is essential.
Additionally, with Core Web Vitals now a part of Google’s algorithm, aspects like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) are more crucial than ever.
Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check your website’s performance and find areas for improvement.
Remember, technical SEO isn’t a one-off task, but an ongoing process. Regular audits can help you identify and fix issues before they start to affect your site’s performance or rankings.
In the dynamic, always-on world of search engine optimisation (SEO), one under-acknowledged villain lurks in the shadows, sabotaging your business’s digital growth strategy: the reluctance to hit the ‘Publish’ button.
First off, let’s just get it out in the open:
Perfection is a myth.
There, we said it. Especially in the digital marketing sphere, where trends and algorithms evolve faster than you can say “algorithm update,” perfection becomes the enemy of progress. The longer you take to perfect your blog post, the more you lose out on potential SEO advantages.
According to a 2022 article by HubSpot, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got about 3.5 times more traffic than companies that published zero to four monthly posts. That’s 3 to 4 blog posts per week. Now, imagine the compounded effect of delaying each of these posts in pursuit of unattainable perfection. The opportunity cost is staggering and the delay on improving rankings results in continual SEO stagnation.
In reality, the frequency of the posting is not an exact science. The number of blog posts that you produce per month, shouldn’t directly be dictated by something as simple as taking into account the mass data. Instead, you need to perform analysis on your sector, the phrases you are hoping to rank for, what your top competitors are doing and your location, but competitor and content marketing analysis like our Explore. audit, which takes into account all of these factors can provide you with a clear roadmap on the magic number to aim for, for your business.
Quality vs Quantity
Understandably, quality also matters. But here’s the beauty of digital content: it’s not etched in stone. You can edit, refine, and improve upon it even after publishing. In fact, an iterative approach to content creation can prove beneficial for your SEO performance. In fact, 42% of marketers and business owners make refreshing old content a key part of their 2023 strategy. The survey completed by SEMrush asked 1,700 industry professionals “what factors lead to success in content marketing” and these were the key factors:
47% research their audience
46% perform search engine optimisation (SEO)
45% are publishing more content and publishing more frequently
44% said improving the quality and value of their content has led to success
42% said updating existing content has boosted their content marketing value
41% said analyzing their competitors influenced the success of their strategy
40% said creating more visual, and video content improved their content marketing
In the same survey. 55% said that creating more content and posting more frequently, was more important than the quality. Although 53% highlighted focusing on improving quality was also top of the agenda.
But the question remains, How does increasing the number of blog posts you publish support keyword ranking growth, even if they aren’t perfect?
Well, let’s venture into the exciting world of search engine bots.
AI-Generated: Three Search Engine Bots Having a Meeting
These tireless crawlers from Google (other search engines are available) constantly scour the web, indexing new and updated content. When you publish your content—perfect or not—these bots get to work, indexing your pages and improving your visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). Every time you hit ‘publish’—perfection notwithstanding—these bots spring into action. They index your pages, giving your visibility a leg-up on search engine result pages (SERPs).
Each new post you create is like uncharted territory for these bots, teeming with new keywords and unique descriptions of your products or services. It could be an exciting new service or an in-depth exploration of a strategic model you employ—whatever it is, it likely possesses a broader scope of expertise than what already exists on your site. For your website and your customers, this new article is a golden opportunity to expand your online presence and bolster your industry authority.
Now, let’s say you follow up with some post-publishing edits. Search engines see these updates, re-crawl, and re-index your page, thereby improving its relevance and freshness quotient. Fresh content, depending on the type is likely to fall under Google’s Freshness Algorithm is a strong ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, which means publishing first and editing later can actually support ranking growth and help combat ranking stagnation or steady declines.
The study shows that by increasing the number of posts you publish, increases your success of indexation and capturing rankings. Another study SEMRush showed that 27% of high-performing content was a month or less old. This is a stark contrast to similar studies done in 2017, where it was found articles took nearly a year to see top 10 rankings. With the development of better algorithms, article age vs performance has dropped significantly, which is even more evidence to adopt the “publish-then-edit” approach against the “Perfect-then-Publish” approach.
SEMRush Article Age Study 2023
Concluding remarks
In conclusion, shake off that perfection paralysis! Your content, like a fine wine, can get better with time. Embrace the publish-then-edit approach and witness a significant boost in your SEO performance. So, dust off those draft posts, give them a once-over, and then…hit that publish button!
Five stats to kick you into gear
Companies that prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to achieve a positive ROI on their efforts. (Source: HubSpot State of Inbound)
Long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more links than short articles. So, don’t worry if your content is lengthy, just hit publish. (Source: Backlinko)
Bloggers who update old posts are 2.8x more likely to report strong results. The more you publish, the more you can update and drive traffic. (Source: OrbitMedia)
56% of marketers spend £780 to £7,800 ($1,000 to $10,000) a month on Content Marketing, with 69% planning to increase in 2023. (Source: SEMRush)
Marketers who use blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t. Publishing frequently can be the key to unlocking more business. (Source: HubSpot)
As an SME owner, I know the importance of maximising your online presence, but at the same time appreciate there is a limited budget and minimal time to actually execute it. Proving expertise in Google’s algorithms can significantly enhance your search rankings and visibility. In this blog post, we will expand on the five practical and cost-effective strategies with real-life examples to help you prove your expertise to search algorithms.
TL;DR
High-Quality Content: Create well-researched, insightful content that demonstrates your knowledge in your field. Consider leveraging AI tools to support content creation, but always add personal insight to maintain a human touch.
Authoritative Sources: Collaborate with local industry experts or other SME owners to add credibility to your content. Show your authors’ expertise through an outlined editorial process.
Schema Markup: Use schema markup to help search engines better understand and categorize your content. This hidden markup can provide critical context to search engine crawlers.
Natural Link Building: Focus on creating valuable, share-worthy content that attracts natural backlinks from reputable sources. Promote your content effectively to improve your website’s authority and search engine rankings.
Social Proof: Leverage reviews, testimonials, case studies, and other evidence of your work to build trust with potential customers and search engines. Display any awards, press features, client logos, and certifications to boost your reputation.
What is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This acronym is used within the context of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Experience: This refers to the user’s experience interacting with the webpage. It can be influenced by various factors such as page design, usability, and the relevance of the content to the user’s search intent.
Expertise: This pertains to the level of knowledge or skill in a particular field that the creator of the webpage content has. A higher level of expertise is generally associated with a higher quality of content, especially for topics that require professional knowledge such as medical or financial information.
Authoritativeness: This is the credibility or reliability of the website publishing the content. It is determined by factors like the website’s reputation, the credentials of the content creator, and the quality and reliability of the content itself.
Trustworthiness: This refers to how trustworthy the website is, based on the accuracy and transparency of its content, the security of the website, and the website’s adherence to ethical web practices.
Google uses these factors to evaluate the overall quality of a webpage and determine how high it should rank.
High-Quality Content
Creating well-researched, in-depth content is essential in proving your expertise to Google’s algorithms. For instance, if you run a small bakery, you could write a blog post on “The Science of Baking Perfect Sourdough Bread.” This topic demonstrates your knowledge in the field, and by citing reputable sources and providing valuable insights, you’ll create a high-quality piece that appeals to both your audience and search engines.
It would be impossible to write this without pointing out the ability to use AI to support this content creation. We are still in the testing stage for how impactful AI-driven content is on search rankings, but from all the tests we’ve done so far, not only does it get indexed, but in some cases, on niche topics, it ranks well. Like any tool, the key is to not rely solely on the generation but to add insight, link to further insight and ultimately retain the tone of voice that makes you…human. This guide from Forge and Smith draws the line in the sand quite well.
Authoritative Sources
Collaborating with local industry experts or other SME owners can lend credibility to your content. For example, if you own a digital marketing agency, you could collaborate with a local web design firm on a blog post discussing the importance of responsive web design. By exchanging guest posts, sharing insights, or conducting interviews, both parties benefit from increased exposure and authority.
This is usually the part where we introduce a Guest Author…no…guess not.
One of the other tactics we’ve been using recently to demonstrate authority on specialist topics is to introduce an outlined editorial process. The authors of your posts, their expertise and the content they produce is equally as important as sharing outside expertise. By providing an editorial process, that outlines the authors of the content on your website, it can help support their expertise and where they’ve been published previously. The web team at Healthline.com have implemented this with fantastic success.
Schema Markup
Implementing schema markup can help search engines better understand and categorize your content. Let’s say you run a small plumbing business, and you have a blog post on “How to Fix a Leaky Faucet in 5 Easy Steps.” By using the “HowTo” schema markup, you’ll provide search engines with more context about your content, making it easier for them to identify your expertise in plumbing.
Schema is worth a completely separate post, especially with the advancements in AI, Googles Bard and the new approach to providing AI-generated search results. Schema has been providing an important role in generating quick answers from Google search results since 2011, so despite having evolved, the hidden mark-up of content is continuing to become an important part of any webmaster (an outdated name for someone who actually adds content to the website regularly) process. This hidden markup of content provides essential context to search engine crawlers, helping them to better understand, categorize, and rank web content.
Here are some key examples of schema used in 2023:
WebPage Schema: This schema provides vital information about individual pages on a website. It includes properties such as the name, URL, description, and language of the page. It can also help search engines understand the relationships between pages with the “isPartOf” property and show details such as the publication date, author, and featured image of the content.
Organization Schema: This schema helps search engines understand critical details about a company or other types of organizations. It can improve the way your business is presented in search results. Tags you can add include the name, URL, logo, description, contact point, founding date, founders, and more.
Breadcrumb Schema: This schema provides information about the organization and structure of the website, which can result in your breadcrumb trail displaying in search results. This is typically a much more user-friendly way of showing your page’s destination than displaying a long URL structure.
Review Schema: If you sell products or services via your website and use customer reviews and star ratings, then the Review Schema is crucial. Adding the Review Schema makes it possible to display reviews and ratings with your entry in Google’s Search results and listings on Google Maps.
Ultimately you should be looking to create content that others find valuable and share-worthy, you can attract natural backlinks from reputable sources.
For example, if you run an eco-friendly clothing brand, you might write a comprehensive guide on “The Benefits of Sustainable Fashion for the Environment and Your Wardrobe.” By sharing this guide on social media and engaging with like-minded individuals or businesses, you can build connections and potentially earn valuable backlinks.
Continuing with this example, once you’ve published the guide on you can take a few additional steps to promote it and increase its visibility:
Guest Blogging: You can reach out to fashion bloggers, sustainable living blogs, or environmental websites to offer guest posts. In your guest post, you can subtly reference your comprehensive guide and link back to it.
Influencer Outreach: Connect with influencers in the sustainable fashion industry and ask if they’d be interested in sharing your guide with their followers. This can dramatically increase your reach and the potential for natural backlinks.
Social Media Promotion: Share your guide across all your social media platforms. Encourage your followers to share the guide with their network, further increasing the chances of earning natural backlinks.
Email Newsletters: If you have an email subscriber list, send out a newsletter highlighting your new guide. Encourage your subscribers to share it on their own websites or with anyone else they think might be interested.
Forums and Community Boards: Participate in relevant forums and community boards, like Reddit or Quora. If there are questions or discussions about sustainable fashion, provide useful answers and a link to your guide if it’s relevant and allowed by the platform’s rules.
Remember, natural link-building is about creating high-quality, relevant content and effectively promoting it. It may take time, but the high-quality backlinks you earn will be well worth the effort, improving your website’s authority and search engine rankings.
Social Proof
Leveraging reviews, testimonials, and case studies can demonstrate your expertise and accomplishments. For instance, if you own a small accounting firm, you could create a case study detailing how you helped a local business save money on taxes. By encouraging satisfied clients to leave reviews on platforms like Google My Business, Trustpilot, and social media, you can build trust with potential customers and search engines alike.
Social Proof is an influential factor that can significantly enhance your credibility and trustworthiness. By displaying evidence of your work and the positive experiences of your clients, you can effectively sway potential customers’ decisions in your favour.
Here are a few additional strategies you can use to leverage social proof for your accounting firm:
Client Testimonials: Ask your satisfied clients if they would be willing to provide a testimonial about their experience with your firm. You can then feature these testimonials prominently on your website. Consider creating a dedicated “Testimonials” page where potential clients can see all the positive feedback you’ve received.
Case Studies: Continue creating detailed case studies like the one you mentioned. These can be incredibly effective in showcasing your expertise and the tangible results you’ve achieved for clients. Make sure to include real numbers and data to highlight your impact.
Awards and Recognitions: If your firm has received any awards or recognitions, be sure to highlight them on your website. This not only demonstrates your competence but also your recognition in the industry.
Press Features: If your firm has been featured in any articles or news stories, be sure to mention this and provide links if possible. This kind of publicity can significantly enhance your firm’s reputation.
Client Logos: If you’ve worked with any well-known clients, consider asking for permission to display their logos on your website. This can lend additional credibility to your firm.
Certifications and Affiliations: Display any relevant certifications or professional affiliations prominently on your website. This can help reassure potential clients that you are a legitimate and reputable firm.
By leveraging these forms of social proof, you can effectively build trust with potential clients, leading to higher conversion rates. In addition, positive reviews and testimonials can improve your search engine ranking, especially on local searches.
Conclusion
In conclusion, maximizing your online presence as an SME owner doesn’t have to be a financial burden. By focusing on creating high-quality content, collaborating with authoritative sources, implementing schema markup, encouraging natural link building, and leveraging social proof, you can prove your expertise to Google’s algorithms without breaking the bank. These strategies are not only cost-effective but also help to build trust and credibility with your target audience.
For high-quality content, consider collaborating with AI tools to save time without sacrificing the human touch. To establish authority, collaborate with other industry experts, introduce an outlined editorial process, and make your author’s expertise known. Implementing schema markup will provide search engines with more context about your content, helping them to understand and categorize your information better.
Remember, natural link-building should be about providing value to others. Create share-worthy content, and promote it effectively to earn high-quality backlinks. Lastly, use social proof to your advantage by showcasing reviews, testimonials, case studies, and other forms of evidence to boost your credibility and trustworthiness.
Mastering Google’s algorithms may seem daunting, but with the right strategies and a bit of patience, you can significantly enhance your search rankings and visibility. No matter what industry you’re in, understanding and implementing these tactics can be a game-changer for your online presence. Stay consistent, stay informed, and watch your online presence grow.
Consider the global environment we live in today. Customers are better informed than ever before. Employee expectations and career choices reach far beyond just their wage. Social consciousness is not only mainstream but due to the impact of social media, it is demanded and continually peer-judged. Skilled workers are in high demand, with companies across nearly every sector struggling to fill roles, driving up wage costs.
Ultimately, growing a company in 2022 relies upon more than just a healthy profit margin. In fact, a recent Linkedin study showed that 63% of workers put Work-life balance at the top of their priorities when looking for a new role. In the UK, 45% consider company culture a top priority. So for SME brands looking to break through the competition and the noise is Cultural Branding the silver bullet branding strategy for success?
What is Cultural Branding?
In the most basic terms, cultural branding is the process of creating a brand that reflects your internal culture and ideals. Externally, this means representing yourself and your company in a way that aligns with your values, beliefs and goals. Authentically.
The authentic part of this is probably the most important aspect of cultural branding. It means acting the way you want others to see you inside the organisation and outside of it. The good thing is that you don’t have to be huge to achieve it. You can be an SME, a non-profit or a consultant and still have cultural strategy at the core of everything you do.
The authentic part of this is probably the most important aspect of cultural branding.
It means acting the way you want others to see you inside the organisation and outside of it. The good thing is that you don’t have to be huge to achieve it.
You can be an SME, a non-profit or a consultant and still have a cultural strategy at the core of everything you do.
What are the benefits of having culture at the heart of your organisation?
Aside from gaining a focus away from being focused solely on the monetary. Putting a cultural strategy at the heart of your brand marketing strategy opens up new opportunities across different generations.
“A recent Harvard business review showed that in general, Boomers (Born between 1946 and 1964) tend to value loyalty and money over career specifics. Gen X (Born between 1965 to 1980) values ownership and autonomy. Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) value innovation, collaboration, freedom, experiences and creativity. Gen Z (Born between 1997 to 2012) values progressive equality, conscious consumerism, activism and pragmaticism.”
So if the current and advancing Gen Z buying consideration, puts their social conscience at the heart of the thought process, then for a company to grow, adapt and thrive having benefits within your organisation or brand that goes far beyond a simple transaction is going to be an important piece of the puzzle. Cultural branding allows you to create a loyal following. A loyal following in 2022, generates an unlimited number more opportunities than the simple word-of-mouth transaction in the Gen Z and Millennial era.
As a result, some of the benefits of putting culture at the heart of your branding are:
A stronger brand identity that is more memorable and easier to recall. Creating a sense of community.
More effective marketing campaigns, as you can target specific groups of people based on their cultural characteristics. Rather than just age and gender.
Improved employee retention rates as employees feel valued for who they are and not just what they do.
Increased sales as you can better understand your customers and tailor your offerings to match customer needs.
Greater profits, as you can charge higher prices, without losing customers.
Stronger relationships with suppliers, partners and customers as you all build trust through shared values.
A consistent and recognisable image, that isn’t hidden behind a corporate veil.
The importance of taking a stance and understanding the impact.
There are many different representations of what defines “culture”. The impact of your marketing team taking a stance on a topic that aligns with your cultural strategy is that you tend to alienate another group by default.
A Linkedin study on engagement opinions around posts that discussed “flexibility” is an example of this. In the study, the positive and negative engagements of a company mentioning flexibility were analysed and split into generational categories.
As we can see for Gen Z, flexibility is seen as an overwhelmingly positive aspect, but to a Baby boomer, the topic could alienate people.
The same can be seen across economic and social issues shared on Social Media channels.
Ultimately, If you’re going to take a public stance on a divisive topic, such as politics, the environment or social justice issues, then you need to decide if you’re doing that as you, or as your company.
If you’re doing it yourself, then you’ll have to accept that there will be backlash from some of your followers. But if you’re doing it as your company, then you can use that as a way to connect with other companies and organisations that share your views. Culture is something that is constantly evolving.
As new generations enter the workforce, the workplace changes too.
Examples of Successful Cultural Branding Strategy
Without going over the same iconic brands such as Apple, Nike, Under Armour, Coca-Cola and Gym Shark, let’s consider some of the successful brands in a local SME setting, achieving broader reach as a direct result of their focus on creating a cultural movement.
The Leeds-based bakery, with over 80k followers on Instagram, turned a PR nightmare into a cult brand opportunity after a customer sent a complaint to trading standards about the “illegal” US sprinkles they were using on products in the UK store. The company turned the whole thing into a positive, by being open about their passion and refusing to compromise on the quality of the product. The public banded together creating #sprinklegate where the company managed to turn the ordeal into a whole new sideline, working over the next few months to manufacture their own version of the sprinkles they wanted and would pass UK regulations.
Their foul-mouthed, and abusive customer posts on social media, is an example of how powerful and liberating a culture-focused approach can be.
Where most other business-to-consumer companies are slaves to their customer reviews, the Get Baked team earn more customers by berating the ones they don’t like.
What underlines this approach is a high-quality product, a unique approach and a clear understanding of the target market. The owner, Rich Myers, demonstrates a clear passion for his produce, with an envious self-confidence and attitude that resonates with his followers in and out of the store.
The combination is clearly a recipe for success (lazy and hideous pun intended).
Another Leeds success story, Tred is an eco-friendly fintech start-up that has launched a debit card that allows you to keep track of your carbon emissions through the transactions you make, with the option of offsetting any carbon emissions at the end of the month.
The company, having raised £1million through Crowdcube has a strong focus on engaging with its target market on the issues that resonate with the company’s core focus.
With a globally growing concern and a clear recognition for data-led action on climate change, the company is the perfect example of right place, right timing, perfect strategy.
Breaking something so complex, into a tangible and actionable service isn’t easy, we reached out to Tred to comment on their success. Eleanor Metcalf – Brand, Marketing & CX Lead at Tred had this to say about the culture at the organisation
“At Tred we believe team culture is an essential part of our success: we established our team values early on and they’re the first thing new starters are taken through in their onboarding when they join.
As a small team, it’s essential that we all behave in a way that not only produces our best work, but that also aligns with our sustainability-focused mission and produces the best outcome for our customers and, ultimately, for the planet. For example, one of our values is about building ‘a positive movement’.
Part of that is about fostering a positive team culture where we lift each other up and focus on finding solutions, not calling out problems. But it’s also about offering a positive outlook to consumers who might feel weary and defeated by the prospect of climate change – inviting them to join us in a collective effort to make a positive difference.”
Lucy & Yak
Lucy & Yak have built up a loyal and dedicated following based on their focus on an uncompromising environmentally focused clothing range, this creates an emotional connection alongside their approach to branding. With over 500k followers on Instagram and 50k on TikTok, the brand engages with its core customer base far beyond its original warehouse in Barnsley, Yorkshire.
Their focus on initiatives that create “positive changes” has been a strong central theme that continues to help the brand grow and gain loyal brand advocates that will support and promote them in everything they do.
This level of inspirational promotion can only be achieved through authentic branding and a commitment to a strong moral compass, this has led to the brand collaborating with celebrities and further strengthening its position in the market.
The brand has a strong social media presence and actively engages with its fans on multiple platforms, this level of interactivity helps the brand to create a personal connection with its audience and in turn, build trust. This is essential in today’s market where consumers are looking for brands that align themselves with causes that are important to them.
Examples of damaged cultural branding – Brewdog
Brewdog is a Scottish craft brewery that has been in the headlines a few times for all the wrong reasons.
The company’s CEO, James Watt, has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by staff members. The company has also been accused of creating a “culture of fear”, with allegations of over-work, exploitation and bullying.
At its core, Brewdog promotes ideals that focus on climate change, and better working conditions and part of the B corp movement. The issue with a brand that is continually overshadowed by the behaviours of its founders, is that it distracts from the Good the company is trying to achieve, which splits opinions and loses followers.
For us, it’s a great example of how important it is to create a cultural brand that aligns with your own ideals.
***UPDATE***
Almost as soon as we wrote about Brew Dog Faux Pas, they score yet another own goal with their fake #MarketingforGood style PR stunts. The public backlash against the company has been overwhelming over their latest stunt. Just check out the headlines.
I mean they really take “Any PR is Good PR” as a mantra…
Five steps to start introducing a cultural branding strategy into your SME.
1. Define it.
What makes you passionate? Why do you work? Why did you start the company, or why do you work for it? Where do you find your joy? How do you want to be remembered? What legacy are you leaving behind?
Asking questions about what defines you and the culture of your organisation is an important first step. At Brand Ambition, we started with the idea of legacy. We decided that what we ultimately wanted our company to do was leave a positive legacy behind. Then we started to explore that out and make decisions about what that meant. We decided that the most important aspects of that meant firstly, supporting our clients to reach their ambitions and secondly, mentoring our employees into the best versions of themselves, regardless of how long they work with us.
Download our Cultural Branding Strategy Board
To help you put together your own defined Cultural Branding strategy, we’re giving away our Cultural Branding Strategy Board. Simply click on the image to download the PDF, or get in touch and we’ll email it to you.
The work on our Cultural Branding Strategy gave us focus, to create services such as Spark*, the SEO-first content and social media delivery service, that supports “digital skills for good” development in apprentices and graduates by ensuring their first interactions with client-facing marketing happen on campaigns that focus on leaving the world behind a better place.
2. Hire candidates based on culture first.
Skills in a lot of industries can be taught. But in a lot of industries, such as manufacturing and engineering trained skills are in short supply. So how do you overcome finding the right person, vs finding anyone that can just do the job?
The ongoing skills shortage makes it even more important to hire the right people. One of the business owners, Alex Beardsley of ABL Business I’ve had the pleasure of networking with always talked about how they were looking during the interview process to see if they were “ABL”. They turned their company name “ABL” into a verb, to describe the people they wanted. The people that fit in with their corporate culture. The rules set around this were purposefully created to be inclusive but focused on finding the right people that shared their ideals commercially.
Our clients are entrepreneurs, marketing managers of SMEs, busy business owners and booming start-ups. We know that our clients need a marketing company that can just get stuff done, and that stuff might be anything in full digital marketing spectrum; Branding, Design, Advertising, Email, Website Development, SEO, PR, Social Media, Content Writing, Video Editing etc. So we hire multi-skilled and talented marketing professionals that have a proven commercial track record. Our PR and Content manager Megan, owned and was a successful doughnut slinger and cult coffee shop owner before coming to work with us. Our first apprentice Amara came to us with a desire to learn marketing after obtaining a 1st Class honours degree in Law.
3. Reinforce your culture from the inside out.
Staff benefits. Staff away days. Staff nights out. Is your culture built around casual benefits, or tied to your core values? I was lucky enough to attend sessions with Culco. a culture-first peer networking group in Leeds. The focus of the discussions were sharing how culture could be made an everyday part of the companies sat round the table. The key was to start by defining what the culture was, then building it into the everyday.
Look at how the tone of voice is carried across internal and external communications. Are your brand values visible throughout the workspace? Do corporate events and team engagement encourage those core values? Do the staff benefit?
During the process of our own cultural brand strategy, we defined nine core values:
Family First.
Efficient Through Innovation.
People Before Profit.
Local Experts, Wordly Experience.
Planet Saving Digital Disruption.
Brutally Honest, Consistently Constructive.
Excite, Surprise, Delight.
Ignite the Fuse.
Explode Expectations.
Each one of these sits at the core of our actions. In the spirit of being brutally honest, this is of course marketing b**s**t. But, these core values also help guide our decisions on policies. We believe in putting Family first, so we developed a flexible working policy that works around people’s families. We look at ways that we can grow the business profitably but focused on the people we employee first. We work under an agile methodology, that continually looks at improving the way we do things. We talk openly to clients and internally about the quality of our work, and then we find constructive ways to improve it. We always find ways to go beyond our client’s expectations.
4. Celebrate it.
We all know that Linkedin is a cesspool of self-gratifying and celebratory posts. But, in this climate of noise, driven by social media, self-promotion is an important aspect of cultural branding.
The point of creating a cultural brand is to ultimately generate a loyal and growing customer base, that does your marketing for you. To do this, you need to build loyal followers by using considered communication that is led culture first.
So once defined, you can explore the meaning behind your values. You can get closer to your target market through shared experiences of the things you care about. Whether, that is the love of a local football team, a shared hatred of certain food groups or the celebration of businesses and people like you. Celebrating your culture across social media, your website, advertising, PR and wherever else your target market consumes their news, drives engagement and purpose.
Engagement creates a considered and structured loyal following. A loyal following creates self-appointed brand ambassadors. Brand Ambassadors spread your core messages far and wide, creating more engagement and followers.
5. Involve others, and continually refine it. Consistently.
Culture is a constant evolution, like a lot of things in business, it can’t be implemented and forgotten about.
To truly generate a culture-first attitude, you need to let it evolve with those that experience it every day. Your employees and customers need should have a voice, allowing the brand to continually evolve with respect to the views originally set out.
This might look like a monthly meeting to discuss existing and new ways to reinforce the cultural strategy. It might be regular staff surveys, that allow for anonymous feedback. It could be empowering employees to engage with one another on their hobbies and interests, a staff day focused around helping the environment or supporting a charity that aligns with your brand.
If you’re not sure where to get started with Culture, I attended Culco workshops in Yorkshire, that provided a clear insight into how other businesses approach to culture, how they engage with their staff and customers on their values and how we can work together as business leaders to implement a Culture first approach.
Here is our endorsement of the course…
Don’t forget to download your Free Cultural Branding Strategy Board.
In case you missed it,
Download your Free Cultural Branding Strategy Board by clicking on the image. This will download a PDF, simply follow the points and get to work creating your very own Cultural Branding Strategy.
Having utilised the full extent of the SEMRush platform over the last six years, we’re always excited to see the latest updates and utilise them to our (clients) advantage. The latest round of updates came with “Keyword Intent” within the Organic Research Section.
As an integrated digital brand ad marketing agency, we looked at how we could integrate keyword intent into our own campaigns. We are testing it in a few ways, but one of our favourite “quick solutions” was learning how to steal conversions and leads away from Organic traffic.
Here’s how we’re doing it.
Step 1 – Use the “Keyword Gap” tool to find where your competitors are ranking better than you.
Step 2 – View “Untapped” keywords and filter keywords using intents “Commercial” & “Transactional”
Step 3 – Sort by lowest CPC and Keyword Difficulty and pull together the phrases you will use in a campaign.
Step 4 – Bid against non-branded competitor terms, with low CPC’s whilst you create content to build up your rankings in these categories.
Step 5 – Monitor conversions and use the data to target better landing pages with an SEO focus.
Step 6 – Reduce reliance on Paid as rankings grow on converting keywords, rinse and repeat.
Step 1. Competitor Keyword Gap Analysis
We used the term “Refurbished iPhone” for this comparison. We then picked a number of domains from different positions in the rankings that we wanted to compare against.
We chose:
Theioutlet.com
Reboxed.co
Raylo.com
Tech-tiger.co.uk
Qwikfone.com
*If any of you guys want a link, all you have to do is let us do an audit and hire us, we have some brilliant experience within the mobile phone market…#justsaying
As you can see from the chart, there are a number of similar terms the domains share, but the majority are dominated by one competitor.
Now we need to set-up the report we want to use.
Step 2. Filter keywords by the intents and position
In SEMRush, we are using the Keyword Gap tool.
Then we need to do two things
Change the Positions for “All in the Top 10”
Select the Intent Filter and tick Commercial and Transactional, then apply.
This gives us two types of keyword Intent, which represent customers that are close to the buying stages of the sales cycle.
Commercial
Commercial keywords indicate that the searcher is looking to investigate a brand or service in our case, its users that know the phone they want and are investigating their options around the model and refurbished versions. So in terms of our customer journey, this is a fantastic entry point and introduction of our brand.
Examples of Commercial Phrases from “Refurbished Phone” Research
Keyword
Search Volume
CPC
iphone xr second hand
2,900
0.54
raylo reviews
2,900
1.77
rent a phone
1,600
1.45
best iphone battery life
590
0.62
iphone 11 pro max second hand
590
0.53
is raylo legit
480
2.17
sim free phone contract
480
0.88
ipad pro 2020 vs 2021
390
0.9
iphone 11 pro max used
390
0.53
Transactional
Transactional keywords indicate that the searcher is looking to make a purchase of goods or services. These terms should result in more conversions than any other type of traffic. So from a Paid perspective exact match versions can support strong campaign growth for low cost per conversions.
Examples of Transactional Phrases from “Refurbished Phone” Research
Keyword
Search Volume
CPC
iphone 11 unlocked
1300
0.91
iphone 8 unlocked
1000
0.97
iphone 11 pro max pay monthly
320
1.21
iphone xs 128gb
320
0.5
cheapest place to buy iphone
170
0.66
Step 3. Find the cheap and easy wins
What makes this method so powerful against other forms of keyword research?
The research uses the strongest organic profiles in any niche, alongside the SEMRush data, to identify phrases or exact match bidding terms that you might not have stumbled upon using the Google Keyword Ad Planner, or by simply performing research through the SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool.
Not only that, but you are focused on terms that will drive sales. By utilising “phrase match” or “exact match” against these terms you can filter out a lot of campaign budget waste against broad match or even phrase match on more generic terms.
Let’s compare some of the terms we found against some of the likely generic phrases that might be used to generate them.
Generic Terms on Broad Match
Keyword
Exact Match Search Volume
Keyword Difficulty
CPC
Broad Match Variations
Collective Search Volume
iphone 12
673,000
81
£0.88
6,500
2,700,000
iphone xr
301,000
79
£0.55
39,900
1,200,000
iphone 12 pro
201,000
63
£0.59
287
1,100,000
iphone 11 pro max
135,000
48
£0.62
5,000
338,000
samsung s21 ultra
74,000
62
£1.27
37
162,000
In this table we have:
The “Keyword” or Broad Match Phrase
Exact Match Search Volume – The monthly search volume for the Exact Match of the “keyword”
Keyword Difficulty – The keyword difficulty out of 100.
CPC – The average cost per click for the exact match phrase
Broad Match Variations – The number of phrases that could appear if this was set to Broad Match.
Collective Search Volume – The collective monthly search volume for all broad match phrases.
This would ultimately leave the bidding to the Google Adwords algorithm. If you have large reserves and a big budget then leaving keywords open and allowing the algorithm to find the best bidding strategy for your budget is an option. On tighter or controlled budgets this can destroy the campaign budget quickly.
Compare this against our new targeted phrases
iPhone 11
Keyword
Search Volume
Keyword Difficulty
CPC
Keyword Intents
iphone 11 unlocked
1,300
44
0.91
transactional
iphone 11 pro max second hand
590
33
0.53
commercial
iphone 11 pro max used
390
37
0.53
commercial
second hand iphone 11 pro max
390
33
0.58
commercial
iphone 11 pro max monthly payment
320
39
0.7
commercial
iphone 11 pro max pay monthly
320
42
1.21
transactional
second hand iphone 11 pro
320
29
0.55
commercial
used iphone 11 pro
320
30
0.66
commercial
used iphone 11 pro max
320
39
0.75
commercial
In this example, we ultimately end up with terms we can set to exact match and build bespoke adverts around. The competition levels are lower, the CPC’s are more achievable and we are more likely to generate conversions, whilst a lower budget will allow us to dominate the Ad Space.
Step 4. Building & bidding
Build a list fitting to your budget of terms like this to bid on for the most possible ranking gains for the lowest possible cost. Of course you want to avoid any branded terms since people searching for “coca cola” don’t really want to find pepsi.
Alongside this you want to create content to build your rankings for these keywords. You can use Pillar pages to direct more authority and encourage ranking diversity through to key service pages.
Utilising the data from your paid accounts, you can see what converts and what drives the most leads.
When you have this as an understanding, you can create content on your site that reflects the conversions. The great thing about this is that if you’re smart about it you can create Pillar / Landing pages that encourage better conversion rates for your PPC, whilst also supporting your organic rankings.
After making these changes you need to constantly monitor your analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t. If certain keywords aren’t working then stop spending on them and reroute those funds into the keywords that are working.
Find the pages on your website that are keeping people there for the longest amount of time and direct as much traffic there as possible. Check your goals / objectives, if you’re seeing high bounce rates, this may be an indication the conversion path isn’t resonating with the target phrases.
Create more content around the topics that are generating you the most traffic. Even when you are on top of rankings it can’t hurt to secure your place even further so that it’s even harder for someone else to dethrone you.
Step 6. Reduce paid advertising reliance as organic traffic grows
Across our campaigns, one of the most asked questions is at what point can we start reducing paid budgets in favour of organic?
The answer is never as simple as switching off paid in favour of organic, but over time we work with clients to reduce their reliance on paid advertising, or at the very least reposition the budget into new target areas as the SEO builds.
In reality, we find that around 80% of our clients continue to grow spend across both channels as they see a strategy that produces consistent growth and results. You can see more about our successful search strategies in our case studies.
SEO is an ongoing process so in reality you’ll be constantly looking to replicate these steps.
If you’re still unsure about anything here and need some advice on SEO for your website, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] and we’d be happy to have a no obligation chat and see if we can help you out. Even if it’s just a bit of free advice!
We started Brand Ambition with a clear ideal; Marketing for Good is Good for Marketing.
One of the goals we set when starting the company was to help and encourage the next generation of Digital Marketing professionals as we grow.
Our job adverts for our most recent hiring round generated over 200 CVs and we reviewed every single one. We don’t care about direct experience in digital marketing and SEO, but we do care about passion for the subject.
The biggest thing that stands out for us is when someone has gone above and beyond to make something themselves.
It might be:
An active YouTube channel.
A Shopify store
A website for a parent
Started a business
Got to 10,000 followers on a social media channel.
Started a blog
Been a contributor to a magazine
But honestly, some of these skills are so rare that even demonstrating a sound knowledge of how the internet works beyond social media can be a fantastic asset.
So you wanna be an rock SEO star?
I don’t believe that anyone growing up dreamt of working in digital marketing, SEO Sam doesn’t quite have the same ring as Fireman Sam, but here we are.
My first ever personal project and learning ground was a “Geek Blog” on the now-defunct blog Battletoys.co.uk. As you will see from the link, it now points to my latest passion project. The blog wasn’t a huge success, but I did manage a few minor successes.
I blagged a number of products from tech and toy companies to review
I created connections with other blogs and managed to get guest posts on other websites.
I earned money (about £5.80) on Amazon Affiliates by creating a Marvel T-shirt affiliate store.
I taught myself how to use WordPress, how to code, how to read code and also how to utilise plugins to my advantage.
I had hundreds of little learnings from simply setting up a blog and learning how to make it look similar to what was in my head.
So, the Brand Ambition first tip is a simple one.
Tip 1. If you want to learn how to do SEO, start a passion project online and put something on a website. Go through the process of buying a domain, getting hosting sorted and a CMS uploaded and set up.
You do that once. I guarantee you come out the other end of it with a better appreciation and understanding of how websites work.
Unlimited Online Resources but who do you believe?
Understanding theory and application are two very different things. I was lucky enough to have a brilliant mentor in Andrew Ash at Enjoy Digital. He let me apply knowledge, make mistakes and was patient, even when I wasn’t.
One of the things I learnt, very early on, in my career was that everyone in SEO has an opinion on how they think the Google Algorithm works…All of them are right and all of them are wrong at the same time. SEO is a testing process, not an exact science. The technical elements and Google guidelines are open to interpretation and often something that works for one site, might not have the same impact on the next site.
I start every employee off with resources collated by my peers, because it also provides a good list of websites to check in with when you want to learn something new.
Tip 2. Learn and Read. Put what you learn into practice. Here are a few resources to get you started.
The Brand Ambition Top SEO Resources in 2022.
Let’s start directly from the horse’s mouth…
Google SEO Resources
I love this video from Google on how to hire an SEO. It’s exactly right, yet they’ve done it in a way, that makes you not want to trust it.
The 7 Best Beginners Guides to SEO Rated by Brand Ambition.
Learning SEO – I point every new starter to this ultimate list of SEO resources, learnings and support network. The list, compiled and most importantly constantly updated by Aleyda Solis is the one resource that makes most SEO professionals say “I wish I’d had that when I was starting out”.
Moz – Beginner’s Guide to SEO – For those just starting out and looking to get an understanding then the Moz guide is a good, simple guide to understanding the basics of SEO. The information is still fairly relevant and the fundamentals are in easy to read chunks.
The Google SEO Starter Guide – Getting an understanding of how Google talks about SEO is a great way to start out. Google is idealistic in its approach to SEO. Focusing on the user experience and getting people to the right answer in the quickest time. Actual Search Engine Optimisation is a little more complex than that, but it’s certainly a good place to understand the fundamentals.
Ahrefs – SEO Basics – A simple chapter utilising Ahrefs data to get a clearer understanding of the most important elements within SEO. Definitely worth a read to get an understanding from a data powerhouse whose SEO software powers the analysis of more than 50% of the SEO community.
SEMRush SEO Checklist – The other 50% use SEMRush and this checklist is a great basics list for ensuring SEO health. Super digestible and easy to understand once the other guides have provided a bit of context.
Sitebulb Hint Explanations – Our favourite Technical SEO tool belongs to the team at Sitebulb. As well as some truly witty release notes, the team have put together a full list of the hints their software checks for and an explanation of why they look at that hint, whilst providing further reading to give an indication of its importance. Getting a proper understanding of each one of these hints essentially makes you an SEO expert, so it’s a great learning manual. Note down anything you don’t understand, do further reading and some testing and you’ve got a pretty great learning structure to understand and implement Technical SEO recommendations.
Backlinko’s Link Building Guide – You can’t do SEO without building links and this is one of the most comprehensive guides on beginner link building strategies I’ve found to share with SEO execs.
Find a mentor.
You don’t need to read a thing or start up your own business to be an SEO. Another route is simply to find the right person to teach you. Read that again…I said The Right Person. I’ve worked alongside enough people to know when they’ve had the wrong SEO mentor and it doesn’t turn out well for the websites or the clients that belong to them.
Tip 3. Linkedin can be a fantastic source for discovering talented SEO professionals looking to give back, but the SEO Twitter community is one of the most active online resources. It can be a bit…cutting with embelished opinion sometimes, but through the noise its one of the best places to get insight and news on SEO. Check out @techseowomen & #SEOtwitter to get started.
When looking for a mentor, my advice is to check out their portfolio utilising some of the free tools that are above. If you can see a dip in traffic, or simply a pattern of constant decline, then you know you can speak to the person you’re about to trust to teach you SEO and get them to explain why a website isn’t performing.
We regularly review our accounts, to get a clear understanding and most SEO’s I know would be more than happy to take people looking to learn through the progress, what we are doing to fix issues and when we would expect to see positive results.
Where we love to recruit from
My favourite place to recruit from at the moment is a mixture of journalism graduates, who end up with an incredibly solid understanding of PR and often come ready to learn the basics of SEO and Digital Marketing Apprenticeship Graduates.
I’m increasingly impressed with the quality of the candidates that do a Digital Marketing Apprenticeship, their rounded knowledge often surpasses Degree level marketing graduates for real-world application. So if you’re considering a Digital Marketing career path and want some formal education, as an employer, I’d strongly recommend the Apprenticeship scheme.
I hope this insight into our hiring process helps anyone looking to get into SEO. Of course, this is just our opinion and there is no clear path. If you want to get into SEO as a career, ultimately the key is just to learn and put it into practice. We spend a lot of time talking about what digital marketing is, but the true success stories are those that put their plans into action. You can read all the articles you want to on a subject, but until you apply it, you have no idea how things will play out in reality.
Back to school, the football season really clicking into gear, the gradual cooling of the weather, shorter days and pumpkin spice back at Starbucks. September has some pretty major landmarks in it, but for us September takes on even more significance as it’s officially our birthday!
Robin and myself are both parents, and when a child turns one, you look back and reflect on the landmarks of the first year – the first trip home, first night sleeping through the night, first time they crawled, maybe the first time they walked or first words.
So like the true proud parents we are, we’re reflecting on our first year in business and some of the major landmarks we’ve enjoyed along the way.
September 1st - our first day:
SR – The first day felt like any other work day. We’d spent the last six months working from home as a result of the pandemic, so there was actually a huge anti-climax on the first day of the company starting. Robin and I spoke over zoom and I probably changed my Linkedin status, but the focus for the day quickly became about creating a sales template and following up a few prospective clients I’d arranged in the build up to working full time on Brand Ambition.
September - our first invoice day as Brand Ambition:
SR – We knew we were on the right track when it came to sending out our first three invoices. 15 days after starting the business, it felt like a big occasion.
It meant that all of the hard work that Robin and I had put in the build-up to starting Brand Ambition felt worthwhile. We knew it would be a long road but this was a big step along the way.
I remember a text exchange with my Dad, who is our financial director and is an investor in the business and him saying that this would be the first of many. It was a moment that everything felt real
December - our first Christmas:
SR – By December, we were pretty much fully booked. Both Robin and I were working flat out and we knew we needed to make a change, especially with the holidays coming up. We couldn’t get together for a Christmas party or anything, but I was lucky enough to be invited to one at a clients office and was incredibly grateful to kick-off the holiday season with some festivities.
We spent our time off well, and developed a bit of a plan, which we put into action in January.
January - our first hire:
SR – As we entered a new year, we took a big step as a business as two of us became three. We’d had an uptick in business at the back end of the festive season and we needed someone that could come in and help us take the next step.
With so much content needed for websites and the need for us to get out there as a business, we made the decision to bring in a PR and Content Manager. I’ve known Pete for a while from a previous role so when I saw he was available, I got in touch.
After having a chat with him (Pete likes to talk so it was a long chat) I introduced him to Robin via a Zoom call. After seeing how the pair of them got on – neither would shut up – it felt like a great fit for everyone. On the 18th January we were officially a trio.
April - our first trip to the office (not just Sam):
SR – As lockdown restrictions eased, we were able to venture into the office as a pair for the first time, with our PR and Content Manager Pete joining me in the Fantastic Media offices for the first time. Although it sounds like a small achievement, it really felt like we’d taken another big step forward!
May - our second hire(s):
SR – After hiring our first full-time member of staff in January, we were joined by another two members of the team in May. We’d had a number of new business wins and additional projects from existing clients, so it was clear we needed a bit of help, particularly across SEO and design.
After going through the interview process fully remotely, it was great to finally meet Myles and Dylan face to face as we spent a few days in the office getting to know each other in person.
June - our first time together in Northern Ireland:
SR – As restrictions eased further, I took full advantage of the opportunity to hop across the Irish sea and have a couple of days in person with Robin in Belfast.
One of the many benefits of us being a family business, is that I was able to bring my son along and have him spend some quality time with my side of the family. It was something that we’d just not been able to do over the previous 16 months due to the pandemic. Robin and I had a very productive couple of days together and my son had a brilliant time with the family.
July - our first office day together as a full team:
RH – In July, I was able to take the reciprocal step across the Irish sea to have a full day with the team. It was the first time that I’d met Pete, Dylan and Myles in person and the first time I’d been to Leeds in a long, long time.
Remote working is great and we have it down to a fine art at Brand Ambition, but there is something about being together as a team, face to face that you just can’t beat. Along with a productive day talking about who we are as a business, spending time refining our proposition and just generally having a good laugh with each other, we were then able to blow off some steam and spend the evening in a social setting.
August - Sam’s first holiday abroad from the business:
RH – After plenty of nudging from my side, Sam finally took a well deserved break and headed off to sunny Spain to spend a week topping up his tan and enjoying plenty of time with family.
It felt like a pretty big step for us as a business as we wanted to make sure that Brand Ambition ran just as smoothly with Sam or myself taking a break.
September 2021 - Invoice number 100.
SR – September 3rd – almost a year to the day that we sent our first invoices, we sent invoice number 100. Talk about coming full circle.
September - we’ve officially turned one
SR – Robin came over for a strategy meeting. As we turned one, we realised that a lot of what we initially set out to do had come to fruition, but that certain elements were starting to change and shift the way we work.
The day brought the team together to get a clear company vision and a clear direction for the company over the next 12 to 24 months. We have some ambitious plans for our direction so keep following our journey to see where we go next.
This day concluded with the Inaugural Annual Brand Ambition Birthday Games (or the Gonk’Athon.) Where a series of Games are played to win the honour of taking our “Gonk” Trophy home for the year. Well…what’s the point of starting a company if you’re not going to start ridiculous traditions that with any luck will be played out for years to come.
Bringing the Downtown Brand to life for Bauer Media
“Brand Ambition have revitalised the Downtown Brand. For a number of years the station had an outdated image which was impacting on the listenership. We now have a modern, fresh new identity which is designed to exploit our evolving demographic and digital platforms. Reach and Hours continue to improve substantially.” .
Simon Mann
Commercial Director, Bauer Media
Overview
After working with Bauer Media over the years, we’ve become a trusted partner for them and their brands of radio stations – some of the biggest in Northern Ireland.
Owned and operated by Bauer media, The Downtown Radio brand is synonymous with radio in the country and has been for more than four decades.
From a total brand overhaul, a creation of a new brand identity for a new radio station and social media, to email marketing, advertising and B2B campaigns, we’re the go-to agency for Bauer Media in Northern Ireland when it comes to anything visual.
It’s a relationship that has been built and advanced over time. Our honest approach, and tireless work ethic combined with excellent results has developed a relationship that we’re incredibly proud of and we look forward to continuing for years to come.
A New Brand Identity – Downtown Radio Brand Identification
Background:
The way that radio is being consumed is changing rapidly. Smart speakers, apps and online listening have introduced a whole new world of choice.
Unlike the evolution of how we consume music, the brand identity for Northern Ireland’s original commercial radio station hadn’t changed since the eighties.
The Challenge:
A new identity was required that reflected the changing face of the station in a way that appealed to its listeners.
After extensive research, insight and exploration, it was decided that the new identity for Bauer Media would appeal to listeners who wanted to simply hear great popular music.
The Solution
This fresh, simple and modern brand solution emphasises and accommodates this evolution of how listeners consume music. Its relevant iconography has been created, with the standout D at the start of Downtown hinting towards the pressing of a ‘play’ button.
Meanwhile, the strap-line reflects the brand’s ambitions and inherent strengths, with a line that points to exactly what listeners get when they tune in, and a brand strength that has been built upon for decades – great music.
Alongside the nod to the way we now consume music and a strap-line that really gets to grips about the strength of Downtown, the brand has been designed in such a way that it can also be used across a range of different platforms, without ever losing its impact or key recognizable traits.
It’s not lost on us that the #FreeCuthbert marketing stunt has generated a powerful amount of positivity around the Aldi brand, whilst also successfully showing up a rival.
As a piece of honest marketing and brand building, it has gained national interest, in the way that only large brands on social media can.
Aldi bullies Marks & Spencer into submission with social media…but at least M&S is big enough to fight back.
What’s disappointing is that it is another example of elitist brand building that damages small businesses and widens the gap between brands with a social conscious and those that, well, don’t.
Marketing campaign success aside, Aldi is a market-dominant bully, that is seemingly flouting copyright legislation (it’s a very complex issue, one which we aren’t qualified to comment on) to generate additional market share, kicking a traditional Yorkshire brand when it’s already down.
Nielsen Grocery Market Share Data – 2019
Live Kantar GB Grocery Market Share Data
Whatever data you use to define Grocery Market Share, it’s lucky for M&S that it has a strong & loyal customer base with a renewed online presence, boosted by Covid technology adoption, otherwise, this attack on its brand trademarks might drive its illusion of affordable quality back to the days before the 2006 launch of: ‘This is not just food. This is M&S Food’.
Consumers see Aldi as the plucky underdog, fighting against the “establishment”, aligning itself with brands such as Brewdog and taking pop-shots at established traditional brands like M&S, but in reality, it’s a global brand that gives consumers what they want, cheaper products at the highest possible quality.
Let’s weigh up how Aldi has been taking pop shots at M&S for a while.
Starting with Search Volume and Google Trends, we can see that in the last 7 years, Aldi has won the demand all year round, even Christmas, since 2016.
But this wasn’t enough for Aldi, its continued to belittle M&S on everything it does.
In fact, since 2016, according to SEMRush data, Aldi has seen Organic keyword growth of 1,347%.
Moving from 22,500 keywords in the top 100 to over 335,000 ranking phrases. Its move to create disruptive marketing campaigns that focus on products has led to a direct increase in Organic search recognition. As an SEO tactic, it’s been pretty flawless.
Three times Aldi has outright attacked M&S in a scrap for marketshare.
#Freecuthbert & #CaterpillarsforCancer
The moment that inspired the nation to free a cake recipe and wrestle the ownership away from M&S, which included a series of tweets including:
This is not just any court case, this is… #FreeCuthbert
If you thought this was just harmless banter, then you don’t know the power of Colin for the M&S website.
Data from SEOMonitor shows that “Caterpillar Cake” has 178 Keywords in the phrase cluster driving 610,000 searches per month.
Phrases that include “Colin” and “cake” has a massive 243,000 searches a month.
To put that in perspective popstar Niall Horan only gets about 100,000 searches a month. So is Colin the Caterpillar more famous than Niall Horan?
Yes. Yes he is (according to SEO Monitor)
Pre #FreeCuthbert M&S was dominating the SERPs on this phrase. It drove huge amounts of traffic for the brand, which ultimately drove sales.
As you can see from the SERPs before #FreeCuthbert, Aldi isn’t even on the list. Its cake was going relatively unnoticed and certainly wasn’t helping them drives sales. Then post-campaign, the SERP is now dominated by Aldi and the search volume according to Google trends has seen a 900% increase.
What is seen as a piece of reactive social media, will have long-lasting impacts on traffic to the M&S website.
Good to know: This isn’t an actual snapshot of the SERP, but it is the SERP using the “time” feature to pick on a particular day.
The Identical Drinks Trays
In November 2020, Aldi went after the M&S home market, by creating a popular duplicate of a Mirrored Drinks Tray.
The power of the PR around this piece has pushed Aldi on to the first page rankings for the phrase “Drinks Tray”, which gets around 4,400 searches a month & has ensured they now dominate first and second for the phrase “Mirrored Drinks Tray”.
The kirkton range has generated over 200 linking domains since launch, helping their entire home section and special buys range to continue the organic uplift on the website.
The fight for “Gastropub”
Believe it or not, M&S has won this battle. The range launched in time for Christmas competed directly against M&S food items and undercut the price on every one.
Despite the blatant attack on their Gastropub range, in terms of the other Aldi campaigns, M&S has fought this one off…for this year.
When we look at terms that drive monthly search volume according to SEMRush we get over 199 suggested terms that include “M&S” and “Gastropub”, with a monthly search volume of 4,370.
Aldi launched under the name “Gastro”, but there are only 5 keywords with a total monthly search volume of 20 for “Aldi” and “Gastro”.
Incidentally, the most searched for is the M&S Chicken and Leek Pie with 880 searches a month, so in terms of the products Aldi was competing with, the company clearly didn’t do its keyword research before hand as they didn’t have a competing product here.
Newspapers reported at the time: “According to Aldi, the collection costs almost 50 percent less than the M&S alternative, with prices starting from £1.99 and meal pairings coming in at less than £10 for two. Gastro dishes include Slow-cooked Texas BBQ Brisket, juicy Salt and Chilli Rib Rack, and Mac & Cheese with Pancetta.”
Sounds delicious, but this round goes to M&S
So…does it matter?
Big brands picking on big brands is part of the game, and we get that. In fact, the boost to a smaller brand, by being recognised by these bigger brands can drive awesome awareness and sales.
Brewdog got national press and nationwide support as a result of its direct attack on the brand, but the important thing here is that Brewdog had to instigate it and Aldi, despite purposely ripping off and stealing sales from a growing company, get away with appearing like it is doing everyone a favour.
At Brand Ambition, we love an underdog story. We love a brand that challenges, that rises above the fold and takes market share from the dominant players.
We love it, even more, when that brand brings others with the same values along on the journey but is that what Aldi is doing? Or is Aldi bullying smaller brands into submission and driving the market value down to the benefit of itself…and its customers.
For Brewdog, this wasn’t even the biggest thing it did throughout the year to push its brand forward as this Google trends graph shows.
In fact, the biggest story and best marketing campaign for BrewDog was this one…
The rumours are true, we’re giving away free beer!
We’re giving everyone in the UK a free 4 pack of our amazing new beer, Lost Lager
In other words, Brewdog was pre-committed to doing good in the world. Another clear example, of this, was December 2020, when its reactive PR helped them come up with the idea of utilising their venues as vaccination centres
The Aldi campaign might have helped with additional recognition, but the fact is, Brewdog didn’t need a large supermarket giant, stepping on its market share to make it do some good in the world and get its message across, it was already doing it.
Aldi, in this case, was simply stealing intellectual property from a brand that has worked hard to differentiate itself in a crowded market place.
Four times Aldi has stolen ideas from small companies and left them high and dry
Heck Foods – Chicken Italia Sausages
The family-run business, grown from farmers markets accused Aldi of copying its award-winning chicken Italia sausages. The founder of Heck, Andrew Keeble, labelled the supermarket a “parasite” after Aldi launched a similar looking chicken chipolatas. He went on to say: “Our customers kept getting in touch to say that Aldi is ripping-off our products and they’re not the same products.” He added, “It’s deceiving to our health and fitness audience.”
When Heck contacted Aldi and asked them to stop selling the knock-off products, they were handed a “threatening legal letter”.
The Collective – Gourmet Yoghurt Range.
The Collective also accused Aldi of copying its brand. Aldi launched a luxury yoghurt range called Moo!, bearing a striking resemblance to The Collective’s gourmet yoghurt at half the price. Amelia Harvey, co-founder of The Collective, said customers had been in contact to say they felt ‘duped’. “Aldi is deliberately trying to use the cues of successful brands to fool consumers in to buying them,” she said. “Our brand has taken seven years to tirelessly build by a small team. In one fell swoop Aldi has taken that brand value and used all our cues to cause consumer confusion.”
Speaking to The Grocer magazine, Aldi UK & Ireland chief executive Giles Hurley denied it was copying brands. He added: “What we do with our exclusive brands is identical to what the rest of the market does with own label, which is to draw cues and make products easily identifiable for customers without seeking to copy.”
Vita Coco coconut oil
Aldi undercut Vita Coco coconut oil by 75%. Leaving the company with no option but to ignore the new challenger in its market. The company was set-up to support the farming communities that supply the raw materials for their products.
Charlie Bigham’s Ready Meals
Aldi decided to make its own version, but it made them bigger and sold them up to 43% cheaper. Julie Ashfield from Aldi said that the low cost of the new ready meals will allow customers to make “substantial savings on luxury equivalents without having to compromise.” Charlie Bigham’s is a B Corp, focusing their business influence for good, funding projects like City Harvest. Beating Bowel Cancer and Magic Breakfast an organisation that helps feed over 48,000 school children.
So…
Social conscious matters. Aldi’s flippant social media campaign #caterpillarsforcancer is using a good cause to mask doing something immoral. This time, it’s M&S, next time it’s your favourite local independent.
Hey @marksandspencer can Colin and Cuthbert be besties? We’re bringing back a limited edition Cuthbert and want to donate profits to cancer charities including your partners @macmillancancer & ours @teenagecancer. Let’s raise money for charity, not lawyers #caterpillarsforcancer.
From our point of view, the big brands can create entertaining Twitter conversations all they like, just stop stealing ideas from hardworking brands creating quality products, that are doing good in the world by driving a social conscious.
There is a reason some products are more expensive, it’s because they aren’t trying to rip off everyone in the process of it being made.
Despite the blatant attack on their Gastropub range, in terms of the other Aldi campaigns, M&S has fought this one off…for this year.
