21 Mar Building Brands Cornwall
Yesterday I took the afternoon off from working on my clients’ accounts to work on myself. I attended the first-ever Building Brands Marketing Conference in Cornwall. Although not the first Building Brands event that I have attended, it’s a first for hosting a smaller intermate event in the county. Although smaller, the event did not disappoint,
When going to events alone, it can often feel quite lonely. Walking into a room full of people and starting a conversation with total strangers can be daunting and sometimes easier to hide your head in your phone and blend into the background. I arrived a little late and entered a room full of people and instantly saw familiar faces. Being a smaller event than the main events hosted in Devon meant that I could easily spot friendly faces and catch up with contacts I’ve made over the years. I might work from home in my business, but it is amazing to have so many people all coming together and sharing time to grow in our community. Technically we should be rivals all working in the same field in the same county but it’s an incredibly supportive community all supporting each other to do the best for our clients.
After a mingle and an exploding bottle of ginger beer all over my trousers. It was time for the first talk,
Victoria Nabahani from Thought Quarter – AI and HI!
This talk discussed the ever-growing topic in the world right now around AI and whether it is going to take all of our jobs. The good news, is that humans aren’t going anywhere and actually when you think about it. We can’t get to AI without a human creating the programme in the first place. Then when using AI, you need a human to input the prompts to get anything out of it.
AI is only as good as the human involvement in using it.
AI needs personality and empathy and can not be used blindly without instruction from a human. Although it is a language learnt from Humans. We are still very much needed and without humans, AI is pretty lost.
Charlotte Westlake and Chloe Davison from Peaky Digital – Multi-Channel Marketing
Peaky Digital reminded us that the average person uses around 7 social media channels per month!!! There are thought to be somewhere between 20 and 500 touchpoints within a typical user journey to purchase on e-commerce. The journey is getting longer and more complicated whilst the data we use to get their as marketers is becoming more limited.
Lead times from initial enquiry to final conversion are extending and the consideration phase is getting longer, people are becoming more savvy, avoiding scams and considering purchases a lot longer whilst money is more scarce.
They highlighted that 44% of people prefer to learn about a new product or service via short-form videos and how segmented e-mails drive 30% more opens and 50% more click-throughs than unsegmented ones.
The team gave us all a reminder on the various touchpoints available at all the different stages of the user journey.
Ali Newton from Exposure Ninja – Google’s SGE
This was such a refreshing talk to listen to. An agency that’s exploring how search is about to see the biggest change in a decade and how AI is coming to search results soon and will potentially see SEO go through the biggest change in a decade.
With the introduction of the Search Generative Experience – SGE Search engines will try to answer the users’ search query in the search engine and not send the user to a brand’s website. This will leave way fewer opportunities to appear in the top spots in SGE, Meaning possibly Fewer and fewer visitors to your website from SEO.
Is SEO Dead?? Well, like a cat with nine lives, probably not but how it works now and how it works in the future are likely to be very different.
Since the days of the Google Panada algorithms (2011) that focussed on improving the quality of content on the web to more recently the helpful content updates (2022) Google has always pushed for quality over quantity of content. However, with the SGE update coming, brands will likely see a drop in informational organic traffic, If you’ve been creating content for SEO rankings around who, what, where when why queries? These may soon get answered by search engines in search engines and see fewer Top-of-funnel visitors coming to your website organically.
Ali suggested that to get the limited top spots in SGE it’s all possible by creating a short succinct description of the answer provided by an article at the very top. Rather than writing long in-depth blog posts. Write super short, exact-match answers to questions, give search engines the quick answer that the user is looking for and you should see success.
Pete Bracegirdle from Creative Coalition – How to make your brand famous
Last but not least, saving the best to last!
When Pete opened with Fame Sells and a picture of Kim Kardashian I had a slightly raised eyebrow… Let’s be honest, if he hadn’t told me that it was Kim Kardashian, I wouldn’t have known. Although I work in marketing and fully appreciate the power of fame and influencers, I’m not a fan of many celebrity cultures and endorsements.
Pete’s knowledge and storytelling are impeccable and he explained the difficulties for marketers and how it is getting harder and harder to get in front of your ideal customer and how marketing IS getting harder, People are now actively paying to avoid seeing ads! Think Netflix, Amazon, and Channel 4 all offering a paid option to view without ads!
Pete introduced his marketing success working on a campaign called Fearless Girl. A campaign that went live the day before International Women’s Day in 2017 and since its inception has generated over 71 million pieces of content indexed in Google and Millions of social media coverage. All whilst being a marketing activity via a very traditional none digital source!
The idea was around equality and women’s rights. The symbol of wealth in Wall Street, New York is very much solidified by The Bronze statue of the raging bull. Overnight on the eve of International Women’s Day 2017, the Brand ‘State Street Global Advisors’ placed a rival statue. Fearless Girl a young girl in a dress standing right in the financial district staring through the eyes of the bull to spark a conversation about the importance of gender diversity in corporate leadership. That was it! A bronze statue of a little girl with no branding on messaging.
As the day unfolded the momentum built and this little bronze statue created a movement not to mention global marketing success.
Pete discussed how being relevant and contributing to an issue that MATTERS to your audience helps your marketing succeed. Although the campaign had its difficulties, it was brought to life in the age of Donald Trumps’ rise in power and his anti-women message fueled support even further for this statue of a little girl to get worldwide coverage and support.
Pete suggested that in marketing we must be selfless, Lead with the issue and not look like marketing to succeed in marketing. Most importantly Be Different!
Even though the event was only a half day. It was jam-packed with useful information, inspiring topics and knowledge refreshers. Plus time spent catching up with other brilliant marketers from Cornwall. Thank you Building Brands for an Excellent event.
