Engagement Matters Blog

I am sure you have had similar experiences to me in reading case studies – often you read the first few paragraphs only to toss the article aside, unable to identify with the issue, see any relevance or interest in the article, or find it nothing more than a company’s hyped up sales pitch.

On the other hand there are those case studies that grab you from the first sentence and draw you in. By the end of the article you have related the situation to your own and are running over potential solutions in your head.

If you are charged with writing case studies, it is obviously pretty important that they fall into the second category or you may not have your job for long! Let’s look at how you can make your case studies more effective.  Read full post

Marcus Julius Cicero once said "If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings and speak my words".

Regardless of whether you like it, marketing and communication is about persuasion, so this quotation is particularly relevant.

Over the next couple of blog posts we’ll examine each component of this quote and what it means for your marketing and communication activities.  Read full post

Yes, yes, we haven't posted a blog for some time. As I have said in previous posts, social media represents a time commitment and you have to weight up what else you could be doing with that time (like servicing clients!).

Today's blog post is about testimonials. Testimonials are an excellent way to promote your offering without really doing it yourself. They give you credibility because they are a third-party endorsement.   Read full post

With social media playing such a growing role in the marketing and communications mix of many businesses, it's surprising how few people take a few extra steps to optimise their PDF documents for social media.

You may ask "why bother?". Well, the reason is to increase your readership (and thereby increase exposure to your brand or message).

Regardless of what your document is, for example: Research findings, a white paper, brochure, case study or best practice guide, ensuring the document is "social media friendly" is quick and painless and can prove useful.   Read full post

In recent posts we've covered what you should consider before jumping on the social media bandwagon in a business to business context. If you’ve decided to take the leap into social media and have worked through a proper strategy and approach then here are a few tips that may help you soar.  Read full post

In our previous post we discussed the pros and cons of social media in your business-to-business engagement and marketing plan.

If your organisation considers that the pros outweigh the cons, it’s still not a good idea to jump straight on the bandwagon and start furiously posting or tweeting information.

Given the time and monetary commitment you’re going to make, it makes sense to spend some time planning your approach first. Work out what your purpose in social media is, who are you trying to appeal to and what you will focus on. Build a strategy and plan, then jump on the bandwagon.  Read full post

Excuse the nonsensical heading but every time I think of social media Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be” pops into my head.

Social media is one of the hottest topics right now. Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, not to mention blogs, forums and other vehicles, are all gaining the attention of businesses.

Personally, I am a social media sceptic but my views are balanced by some in our company that can see potential. Regardless where we as a company stand on social media, we all admit that it warrants consideration in any business-to-business engagement plan.  Read full post

The last Pitfall in our series appropriately focuses on leaving content until last.

I’ve covered 'content is king' previously in this series but to reiterate, content is king. Too often companies dive into website development and then once they have the site ‘shell’ do they suddenly realise they need content and so start scrambling to fill the pages with words. Often this results in hastily (and therefore poorly) written content, delays in launching the site or the realisation that there are gaps in the new website structure.  Read full post

When putting this series together, there was never any doubt about what Pitfall 2 would cover... getting an 'agency' to develop your website.

Call them what you like; agency, digital media expert, website designer... unfortunately there are many companies out there eager to help but oblivious to the fact that they just don’t really 'get' online and that it's not as simple as mocking something up in Photoshop/Illustrator (or another design tool) and then banging out a website in Dreamweaver.   Read full post

This week we've kicked off our our 5 Pitfalls of Website Development series - over 5 days.

Each day we'll release a new pitfall and give you 24 hours to digest it. Here's an overview of the week:  Read full post