Unsworth Sugden Blog

The foundations of any company’s business model, irrespective of their size or sector, are formed by their corporate identity and brand positioning. This is somewhat common knowledge but of increasing importance as marketing budgets are tightened.

Establishing a strong, well known identity is not an easy task but the gains of successfully doing so are prosperous. Recent weeks have seen Apple overtake Microsoft as the most valuable technology producing company thanks to its extensive profits.

Effective communication of Apple’s identity and product lines means very few would fail to recognise their logo, associate them as a leader of ground breaking home and office technology or name any of its products. Mass enthusiasm surrounds Apple’s identity as consumers aim to get their hands on the technology and suppliers compete to sell it. 

The question that dominates in the current economic climate is where do you prioritise your marketing communications spending to raise the profile of your organisation? An especially tough decision when tight budgets increase the pressure for clearly visible results.  

Such budget management is even more difficult with specialised communication agencies competing for a large share. Full service agencies offer an attractive means of consolidating marketing, advertising and public relations under one roof with many also having a digital arm to coincide with the expanding opportunities offered by interactive media thus offering multi platform reach.

Using such agencies allows all areas of your marketing strategy to be easily co-ordinated to communicate consistent, clear and direct messages. These are key to any branding campaign as the profiles and values expressed build a relationship between the audience and your corporate, product and/or service identity; an awareness that encourages future business.

The communication of success stories and strong products and/or services through PR, advertising and marketing alongside an establishing identity further enhances brand strength. A strength which continues to grow as awareness of your brand does, opening more opportunities for future business and expansion.

Such growth reflects the need for the continuous management of your identity and brand positioning. Once established, they need to prosper through regular up to date communication rather than fade into the background if they are to be successful.  

This is as time consuming as it sounds but it is essential. Again a full service agency can be of great use here as they can tailor and progress communication activity across all areas with this purpose in mind.  

Although just the roots of marketing activity, it offers the foundations from which future campaigns can be built. Once established, corporate identity is further enhanced by all positive future communication increasing business opportunities and therefore providing significant returns on investments in it. 

Unsworth Sugden’s advertising division and digital marketing division, US Digital, have combined their specialities to great effect for the Woodland Trust. Their knowledge of advertising and the importance of utilising a strong online presence has allowed the Woodland Trust to find the right candidates for numerous positions.

Thanks to an effective combination of print, website design and website development, the Woodland Trust was inundated with strong, high quality applicants. This proves the internet has not yet completely outdated print and that the qualities of both can be used to great affect.  

Marina (centre) receiving her award from Colleen Marples from CDS Global (left) and Hannah Elwell, Unsworth Sugden (right)

The PR department is celebrating this week as one of its recruits picked up a 1st class degree from De Montfort University as well as two student prizes!

All our congratulations go to Marina Boor who on top of graduating, has earned herself the title of Best International Marketing and Business Student and picked up first prize in the Employeer Award for Performance in the Workplace during her year with the company in 2007/08.

Well done Marina!

Many companies email their customer database with monthly or quarterly e-newsletters. Why not? It’s a good way of reaching your audience quickly and cheaply, and it keeps your brand in your customers’ minds.

In addition, at this time of year we see companies looking at other alternatives to traditional Christmas cards, with more and more investigating the the e-card route.

When sending an e-newsletter or e-card through to your customers’ inbox, the subject line of the email is of the utmost importance, for these 2 reasons -

1. Spam filters
These days spam filters are very sophisticated, and even if your email isn’t peddling a well known prescription drug, doesn’t mean your customers’ server will agree that your email is any different. To overcome this, be careful in the wording you choose. Avoid words like ‘free’ ‘credit’  and ‘call now’ and also overuse of punctionation such as exclamation marks and question marks. In short, be sensible with it, word it as though you are writing a personal email to someone.

2. Open Rate
It’s all too easy to press delete on an email before you’ve even opened it. Sifting through emails has now become  like sifting through your post at home; complete with Domino’s menus, credit card offers and charity plastic bags to put your old clothes in.
You need to make sure your recipient opens your email, and the only way of securing this is with the subject line. Include your brand in the subject, if your customers know it. If you’ve acquired your email marketing list through your customer database, they should be aware of you.
Include some pull, a taster perhaps of what is enclosed.
Wrong - “December newsletter”
Right - “Acme Ltd News - Savings across all our rocketpacks during December”

Of course, when you’ve got through to your customer, and you have their attention, you need to make sure you’re delivering a knockout email to them!

Online advertising is proving more popular than ever before.  Clients are embracing the Internet as a cost effective way of targeting new customers.

Recent reports suggest that online advertising in Europe has grown by more than 40% in the last 18 months.  In addition, forcecasts and predictions suggest that online advertising is likely to expand by a figure of 20% over the next 12 months.

One of the main attractions of online advertising appears to be the ability to get your audience to click on a digital advertisement and direct them onto a company’s website; once on the company website, you are no longer competing against other on the page advertisers.

It is important the initial web banner, sky scraper or button has a strong catchy sales message.  Don’t try and include all of the product’s unique selling points, these can all be included on the website.  The most important thing is to get the Internet user to click on the advertisement.  Design and creativity is paramount, particularly if there are other advertisers on the web page.

If designed and written correctly, online advertisements can help to increase website traffic and subsequently increase online enquiries and sales.