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The Importance of Ideation in Digital PR

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Digital PR is more popular than ever, which means those in the industry are trying to come up with unique and newsworthy ideas in a range of niches, making it harder to stand out.

However, due to Digital PR being so saturated, it’s more important than ever to offer journalists relevant, topical, and original content. This blog aims to provide tips on where to find idea inspiration, what to consider when coming up with new ideas, and how to refresh existing campaigns – all of which will help to spark inspiration!

8 Ways to Find Idea Inspiration

It can be difficult to know where to start when producing ideas, and it’s even harder for niche clients who may not necessarily have the most newsworthy product or service! Luckily, there are a range of sources that can help inspire ideas.

1) AI Tools

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has its disadvantages, as it isn’t capable of the same creativity as humans, but it can be great for getting idea inspiration. For example, you could ask AI tools, such as Chat GPT, to provide some potential angles for blogs on a particular topic or for more general marketing campaign ideas.

While the initial results may not be as relevant, you can try a range of prompts to get closer to what you want. A lot of the time, though, AI just provides a useful starting point when your mind has gone blank!

Another tool, idiot.online, was recently created and works similarly to tools such as Chat GPT, but it specifically comes up with Digital PR ideas, making the ideas much more relevant.

It’s also a lot simpler to use and takes minimal effort – you simply enter the website domain, and it will pull out a range of relevant Digital PR campaign idea titles based on the site’s main topics, with the ideas including UK tabloid media content, how-to articles and UK regional media articles.

As with many AI tools, the results are sometimes inconsistent. While both of these tools can provide some great starting points for ideas, they may also provide ideas that aren’t relevant or useable – it may take a few prompts. It’s also worth researching the topic suggestions from AI tools for accuracy.

2) Repurposing Ideas

A lot of Digital PR campaigns, and news stories in general, are based on existing stories and have been updated with something new and original. It’s perfectly okay to take inspiration from competitors and existing campaigns, but it’s important to change it up by adding something unique.

Otherwise, it likely won’t get picked up and copying work directly could give you a bad reputation, putting journalists off sharing any of your future campaigns. A new element to add could include internal data, updating statistics or adding expert comments, for example. 

Looking at what topics and types of content have previously worked for competitors is a great way to figure out what might get results for your clients and help you tailor your strategy accordingly. You can even use Google News to search for stories that have surfaced in the media in the previous year. Even your own campaigns can be repurposed – if you pitched a campaign and it was successful, don’t be afraid to update and repitch it!

Example of using Google News to filter on previous year’s new stories

3) Keywords

It can be difficult to tie relevant keywords to Digital PR campaigns, especially if it’s within a niche industry. However, keywords can certainly spark inspiration for ideas, as well as support a client’s SEO.

Starting with the keywords you want to rank for can help generate relevant and engaging content. Analysing keyword trends can also uncover popular topics and any industry pain points to explore, leading to relevant and topical campaign themes that can help position clients as thought leaders.

Incorporating keywords into Digital PR content ensures campaigns align with search intent, which in turn can drive traffic and increase visibility.

4) News and Events

Another great starting point for generating campaign ideas is to look at what is going on in the news or your client’s industry – this is key for a campaign to be relevant and topical.

A simple Google search of your client’s product, service or other relevant keywords can easily show you what’s currently being talked about in their industry which can spark inspiration for reactive campaigns.

As well as news stories and events, relevant awareness days and events can be a goldmine for idea inspiration. With there being so many days, weeks or even months dedicated to certain topics, there’s almost bound to be one relevant to your business!

Of course, not all awareness days are relevant or should be used for campaigns – any sensitive awareness days are best to avoid unless your business can contribute something valuable to the conversation.

Ensure to be considerate when producing campaigns off the back of awareness days and certain events depending on the topic and cause. However, many awareness days were created for marketing purposes, like Blue Monday, making it easier to get involved with lighthearted campaigns. 

Tying an idea to an awareness day can make it more topical, as they are often talked about in the news and online. For example, if you have a client or a business that offers pet-related products or services, National Pet Month would be an ideal awareness day to produce a relevant idea or repitch existing content.

We have also put together a calendar of Pop Culture events that you might find useful.

5) Social Media

Social media can be a great source of inspiration for a wide range of creative tasks, including Digital PR campaign ideas. A great starting point is to look at social media platforms for any trends relevant to your client.

Pinterest Trends showcases the topics trending on Pinterest with high search volumes and allows you to search by keywords, too. For example, at the time of writing, ‘spring outfits’ were trending on Pinterest, which could be a starting focus for an online fashion retailer.

X also has a trending section where you can see what people are talking about on the platform, which can inspire a reactive campaign idea. Additionally, Instagram and TikTok trends provide a visual representation of what audiences are engaging with.

Popular hashtags, used across most social media platforms, can also provide insight into what is currently popular on social media. There are also trend analysis tools which analyse historical data to identify any patterns and trends over time, such as Buzzsumo and Exploding Topics.

6) Data Sets

A wide range of datasets are available that can enormously help and inspire a digital PR campaign. For example, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) might release a house price index, and the data itself may show a change since the last statistics, which alone could be a story.

Tying this update to a relevant client and adding expert comments can make it stand out from others reporting on this news.

Some popular data sets include:

  • ONS
  • YouGov
  • Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
  • Netflix data
  • Google Trends
  • Census data
  • Social media analytics

Niche databases that are more relevant for specific industries shouldn’t be overlooked! These databases include Crunchbase for business insights, Spotify data for music trends, and IMDB for entertainment data. Showcasing data in a visual or interactive way, such as infographics or interactive maps can also add extra impact.

7) Editorial Calendars

Some publications will share their editorial calendars, which often outline themes, topics, and special features they’ll cover. Looking at these content plans can spark inspiration for new ideas and be a great way to see if any of your previous or planned campaigns could fit with their upcoming stories.

Editorial calendars can also help identify relevant themes you could tie into your campaign and increase the chances of coverage.

For example, if a publication had a feature coming up on ‘sustainable business solutions’ and your client related to this, you could create a campaign focusing on ‘Sustainable Business Trends to Look out for in 2025’. With all campaigns, if there’s a way to add any unique data or quotes on the topic, this can go a long way.

Another benefit of editorial calendars is that they will often provide deadlines – in Digital PR, it can be impossible to know the perfect time to pitch a campaign, especially when it’s a seasonal or reactive pitch as these are often planned into a publications content calendar way ahead of time!

These deadlines can help you plan, create, and pitch the campaign in plenty of time.

8) Online Communities and Forums

A range of forums, such as Reddit and Quora, can inspire campaign ideas based on what the public is talking about and asking. There are also more niche forums, such as parenting forums or creative professional networks.

Social media, such as Facebook, also has various online groups available for users to discuss a wide range of topics. 

To find relevant topics, check groups where your target audience might be looking. For example, if you’re targeting entrepreneurs, you could browse the subreddit ‘r/SmallBusiness’ on Reddit.

When looking into forums, also keep an eye out for trending questions, popular threads and topics, and discussions that occur frequently. Questions are a great way of knowing what information people want to read about.

For example, somebody asking “How can I reduce my business debt?” is a good indicator that a campaign providing tips on this topic, tying in expert comments from your client and any unique data/insights, would be beneficial to the public.

What to Consider When Brainstorming Ideas

When brainstorming ideas, the process should be approached strategically to try and ensure that the ideas will resonate with journalists and their audiences, as well as your own audience. 

Consider the following factors to refine campaign ideas and maximise their impact:

Why would journalists care about this?

Journalists won’t be interested in stories that aren’t relevant to them or their audience. Ask yourself why the journalist might care about a story – does it offer a unique perspective, original data or further information on a trending story?

Asking these questions can help you pivot your idea to help and ensure journalists will be interested.

What would the readers gain from this?

Ideally, Digital PR campaigns should inform, engage, or inspire the public. When thinking of ideas, consider how the readers might engage with the story – does it offer them a solution to a problem,  or evoke an emotional response?

These factors can increase a campaign’s chances of being picked up. It’s also worth bearing in mind how you can make this clear to journalists when pitching.

How is it unique?

According to Muck Rack’s State of Journalism report, journalists get around 50 to 100 emails a day, with high-profile writers receiving much more, so standing out is important! Is there a way to add unique data or statistics to your campaign?

Can you add a new angle to an existing story? Unique data can help make an already covered topic more original and different, which journalists will appreciate.

What assets would the campaign benefit from?

Visual assets can help to get angles and data across in a simple way – they’re particularly useful for data-led campaigns.

For example, an infographic can clearly showcase a campaign’s insights, while an interactive map or table can allow users to filter any data themselves for a better user experience.

Visual assets are also often shared on social media, providing more opportunities for exposure.

Is this evergreen?

Evergreen content is material that remains relevant, useful and valuable over an extended period. Keep in mind whether your idea could be repitched in the future, and if so, how much effort would be required to do so? Would the blog itself need altering, or would it simply just need a new press release or pitch email.

How to Freshen up Ideas for Repitching

In Digital PR, it’s impossible to judge if and when a campaign will be successful. Often, campaigns will be pitched a few times with different angles before they get picked up. To prepare for this outcome, it’s important to look for multiple angles within one campaign idea. 

Some ways to refresh campaigns for repitching can include:

Adding New Data

A campaign may not have been picked up due to the data not being unique or up-to-date, or there may not have been any data at all.

To update content for repitches, try adding in recent data that support the angle you’re pitching – internal data is ideal as this won’t already be available to journalists.

Existing data can be tied to campaigns too, but this could be less effective because it’s already out there. However, tying a few data sets together can make the angle slightly more unique.

Expert Comments

Adding expert comments to any campaign is beneficial as it positions the person providing commentary as an expert, which can make the brand and campaign more trustworthy and authoritative. Expert comments can support data, add further information, or provide opinions.

Adding expert comments into the campaign when repitching, whether it’s because they weren’t included in the original, or you’ve altered the quotes slightly to support a new angle, can go a long way.

Journalists will sometimes just take expert comments and tie them to an existing story rather than the full campaign, so including these in all pitches and repitches is key.

Infographics and Other Materials

If your original campaign didn’t have any visual assets, such as infographics or videos, and you feel it could benefit from this addition, including it in the repitch could make all the difference.

Infographics are a great way to represent data in a clear, concise way, and simply show the range of angles, saving journalists the chore of having to read through the content and find the key information themselves. If creating infographics, ensure to include branding like logos so you know the assets are yours if they get picked up.

Alternative Angles

Of course, as mentioned, using alternative angles is a key tactic for repitching campaigns. For example, if you’ve pitched a story about the best places to live in the world and it hasn’t performed great, try flipping that and pitching the worst places to live.

If you’ve produced and pitched a campaign focusing on the most dangerous roads in the UK, looking at crash data and leading with that angle, perhaps for a repitch you could focus on the local angles within this campaign, targeting local publications and leading with their area’s statistics.

Tying to Relevant News, Events, and Awareness Days

As mentioned above, campaigns relating to any new stories, events, or awareness days can provide a fresh angle to an existing campaign!

If you have pitched a campaign in the past relating to mental health, tying this campaign to a mental health awareness day, such as World Mental Health Day, can make the old campaign instantly topical and relevant again. However, be sure to update any old data or insights before repitching.

With the Digital PR industry being more competitive than ever, fresh insights and relevance are key to campaign success – standing out is key to securing media coverage. By focusing on what journalists and readers care about and adding value through data and expert comments, Digital PR campaigns can deliver maximum impact.

We hope the above tools, techniques and tips will help to provide some inspiration when producing unique, topical and relevant campaign ideas to share with journalists!

Want to build your brand awareness and boost your SEO via our exciting and innovative Digital PR campaigns unique to your sector? Get in touch today!

The Easiest Way to Become a Successful Writer and Authors

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Importance Of Marketing To An Organization

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Are you a small business owner or looking to get your own enterprise off the ground? If you are, it will occur to you very quickly that the importance of marketing and advertising cannot be overemphasized. Even in the initial phases of starting your business, you are thinking about marketing by deciding on a name and how to promote the value of your product to your customers. By choosing to start a business, you already know that you have a product or service to sell, meaning you are already delved into the brainstorming aspect. As soon as you have decided upon a business idea, you are already formulating ideas for your marketing plan.

 

In the beginning, advertising your company will start with identifiers such as logos or emblems, professionally designed business cards, brochures, pamphlets, an online presence by way of a website, and several additional marketing avenues. At some point you may want to know exactly what the importance of marketing is.  In essence, marketing gets potential customers interested in your products.

 

The first and most important thing which marketing must do is inform your customers who you are and what you offer. If they have one of your business cards, they know where to find you. At this point, they need to be informed of what you can offer them. Long term advertising keeps customers engaged in discounts, coupons, and any new products that you develop. Reaching your target audience can distinguish you from competitors who are marketing to the same segment. Your marketing campaign informs potential customers that you offer a unique product line, and with follow up marketing, your clients will know what makes you different.

 

Marketing is about letting the public know about any activity your business is currently undertaking, what makes your small business special, what your unique selling proposition is and what encourages your customers to buy from you. Whereas advertising is about trying to sell your products and services to new clients. A successful small business owner should be incorporating a marketing strategy as part of their daily business routines. You must have a clear understanding as to what your customers want and how to communicate to them that you provide that quality of service and product.

 

Marketing of any kind helps create a consciousness among your target audience about your business. There is nothing worse than launching a business only to find that you cannot generate any leads or sales. In truth, your company will need some form of advertising in order to succeed. Directing clients toward your products or services will help foster demand. An in-depth advertising campaign will also help you generate ideas for new product offerings. Effective advertising strategies provide in roads toward generating new clients and leads. Marketing increases awareness of your company among your target customer base, which leads to greater sales and profits.

How Automation can Benefit a Small Business

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Did you know you could totally automate the marketing portion of your business? You can set things up where all you have to do is to worry about tending to any new prospect or customer that walks into your business. In a business model like this, you can really free up a lot of your time, all while making money in your business.

 

Luckily, there are ways that you can automate your business without feeling “guilty” that you should be doing more work. But hopefully it won’t come to that. The main thing to keep in mind is that success in your business comes from working smarter, not harder. So, if you can find a way to make more money in your business at a faster rate than you’ve ever done before, you’ll find yourself on the right path to success.

 

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of automating your small business today.

 

You’ll gain more free time

 

That’s what you want, right? Isn’t the purpose of starting your own home business is to work less, profit more, and spend more time with your family? If so, then you should definitely consider automating your business now rather than later. With more free time to do whatever you want, I’m sure you would be more comfortable with running your own business, instead of letting it run you.

 

Never think that because you’re not working as hard as much that you feel like you’re “cheating” a bit. There’s nothing wrong with working less and carving out a niche for yourself in the marketplace. This is just a sane way about marketing your products and services.

 

If I were you, I would learn to find the smallest aspects of your business that you can automate. After you’ve automated these aspects, automate more areas that you know don’t normally tend to.

 

So, for example, if you’re currently emailing your customers by hand every day, sign up for a simple autoresponder form AWeber.com to automate the task of sending out your email. This is how you get real efficient in your business. Here’s another benefit of automating your business.

 

You’ll make more money

 

80% of your total profits will come from 20% of what you do. So, making more money in your business will come from simply come from you taking it easier. Figure out what the 20% of what you’re doing is bringing you in the money. The other 80% of what you do should then be put on autopilot, since they currently don’t bring in a lot of revenue for you.

 

Both of these tips for working smarter rather than harder can make you a lot more money than you’ve made ever made before. Don’t dwell on the 80% of the things that you do – following this path will simply make you work harder. I suggest that you figure out what the 20% is in your business, so that you can start seeing financial gains in the future.

 

Get ahead your competitors using Video for content marketing

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More and more case studies are being published on how online video content marketing is driving action to improve conversion across all points of the sales cycle – from getting found on search engines to providing information on what distances your company from the competition and closing the sale.

 

If you are selling into enterprise level clients you know that there is more of a diverse set of busy decision makers out there than ever before. With decision makers having access to a ton of information and the ability make their own assessment in the buying process keeping all the decision makers engaged enough so you can navigate and overcome any objections is the key to winning more deals.

 

Here are a few areas for your organization to get started using online video marketing in your sales process, which will give you a head start.

 

  1. Find out the content that is mostly used. Look at your company’s brochures, product specs, case studies and white papers. These are widely used in the sales process and can have a greater impact using web video content marketing. Keep them engaged and win the deal!

 

 

  1. What is easy to show but difficult to explain? You have product/service information on your website… you talk about your products and services with video production just like you do everyday! You are the expert, show your stuff. Get them to understand and win the deal!

 

  1. Who makes your company the best? Enterprise buyers know sales people only represent the team that will be executing your solution. Arm your sales team with video marketing content that allows these buyers to connect with your team. From your tech, project management, support to operation. Get them to connect with your team and win more deals!

 

  1. Post presentation objection handling – Record answers to the top three objections your customers have about post-presentation. Tell your clients that you know what their problems are and which products or services you have created and why you have created them. This will build trust and credibility without directly selling to win more deals.

 

  1. Thank you videos – Send a thank you video after every meeting. This will tell your customers how important they are to you and your business.

 

Just like 10 years ago when you needed a website, you will soon need professional video marketing content to drive your messaging. This can get you ahead of your competitors within the shortest possible time. Keep in mind that corporate online video marketing, with a quality online video production company to create your online video can serve greater benefits to larger businesses, that work hard to shape public perception. Simply put, online marketing with video can become a useful everyday tool in the life of a long sales and marketing processes.

 

In addition to providing your sales team with innovative sales-tools that distances your product’ and services business value, you will be adding excitement to the buying experience to your customers.

 

The Importance Of Animated Video To Promote Your Brand

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Being able to grow your business effectively in the 21st century requires going the extra mile. The methods used by business owners to sell their products and services keeps evolving every single day. As a marketing expert, you get the best results when you explore every option that is available to you. Although social media has also changed how marketing and advertising is done, there is still a need to do more. This has to do with things such as coming up with the right content to post on your website or social media platforms.

The allegiance of the fan base is with the basic idea behind the product and its services. This idea about a product/service has to be presented in a compelling manner. The problem is that people have a short attention span. They pass over information that is not compelling. What cannot engage them has to go. Hence, even if your product or service is the best in the market, you are unlikely to engage potential customers if you cannot tell them what you have to offer. So how do custom animated videos make your brand popular?

Animated Videos Grab Your Audience’s Attention

A sudden move, a startling or an unusual animated scene, or a sequence of computer generated special effects, are things that easily grab attention of the audience. Such engagement is the prerequisite to communicating your brand to the target audience. Popular brands offer their target audience a great user experience from everything they have to offer. This begins with the content that they have to offer. A custom video offers business the opportunity to deliver their business idea, product, or service in a compelling and engaging manner within few minutes.

Videos Go Viral

A brand has to become popular before it can maintain its stride. Custom animated videos can offer both a direct route to popularity and an indirect one. A direct method would be of placing the video so that it goes viral and rake in a lot of traffic to the product which the business will maintain afterwards. Secondly, a custom animated video can be made part of the marketing strategy to support other content.

They Give Your Audience a Quick Visual Summary of Your Product/Service

A custom animated video is a visual equivalent of a “sound bite”. It gets the message across to the target audience within minutes. Several long blog posts can easily be summarized in under 2 charged minutes. It is very dynamic, capable of demonstrating an idea from different angles without taxing the imagination of the audience. Hence, it can communicate complex details that cannot easily be visualized by the audience while reading lengthy posts.

Brands become popular when their audience is well aware of what they have to offer. A well-educated audience itself can become a medium of advertising your products by sharing your content. An engaging custom animated video is something that everyone is confident of sharing with someone they know.

GDPR is here, but it doesn’t mean your business is done prepping

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It’s been just a few weeks since the General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, and aside from some high level lawsuits from activist lawyers looking to prove a point, it’s been pretty much business as usual.

The media portrayed GDPR as the next and possibly more disruptive Y2K, like at midnight on May 25, 2018, the data breach police would be knocking down doors and shuttering businesses. This long drawn out regulation could actually take a few months to uncover non-compliant companies.

GDPR is all about putting personal data back in the hands of the citizen, the individual, the consumer and so on. It’s an attempt by the EU to drive transparency for data use and governance over what ultimately belongs to the individual.

Today, monolithic organizations are taking data and turning a profit. Inherently, this isn’t a bad thing, but there’s little oversight or transparency into how the data is being used.

In addition, consumers are signing off on onerous terms and conditions written in dense legalese, not meant for the common person. Data is currency. Our data makes money for other companies via ads, our data should belong to us and we should have control.

You’re a company and you’ve updated your Privacy Policy, so now what?

In preparation of GDPR, many organizations have updated and redistribute their privacy policy. You may have been responsible for this action in your company. But now what? What follow up steps need to be taken to stay compliant?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Manage your data — Continuously audit and assess your data control. Compliance is all about controls that are continuously reviewed.

Make the right hire — If your business is predominantly EU-based or focused, it would make sense to have this as a full time role versus part of someone’s job. If something goes wrong your business could be in deep trouble. Invest in people, tools won’t get you there.

Don’t be a datahoarder — Review your data retention controls that allow you to manage how long your user and event data is held on your servers. Under GDPR, user and event data must be retained according to more strict settings; when set properly, your systems will automatically delete user and event data that is older than the retention period you select.

Having  retention control is a key way to avoiding data hoarding and it provides an easy way to demonstrate compliance to auditors. So make sure to:

  • Understand what data you’re gathering and also classify it. Understand what personal data is and what it isn’t.
  • Make sure you understand where it’s held, how it is kept and how & when to delete it.
  • Back it up, anonymize it and encrypt it.
  • Do whatever you must, just don’t avoid managing it.
  • Be open about your processes and don’t treat it as a secret. Your influencers, customers and other stakeholders will trust you as long as you prove to be trustworthy.

Deadline has passed, can we breathe easy?

GDPR is a huge shift in how business’ approach customer data. While the deadline has come and gone, the real work is actually in the months and years ahead.

The past few months may have felt like a mad dash towards compliance, but in reality, work towards shifting the culture around data is just beginning. GDPR isn’t just the responsibility of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Yes, while compliance may live in that organization, data collection and usage doesn’t (not solely anyway).

Since data is the basis for making business decisions, companies need to holistically consider GDPR. Just like the new corporate mantra “security is everyone’s responsibility,” the same expectation should be set for GDPR.

So let’s dive into what different roles need to do in the wake of GDPR.

What it means for CEOs

Data privacy and proper usage is no joke. Just look at the Facebook/Cambridge Analytical debacle. Brands face real consequences by not adhering to GDPR. While we haven’t seen it yet, (as of this posting) CEO’s will carry the public brunt of the responsibility for non-compliance.

What GDPR mean for marketing and communications

PR and marketing activities depend on the ability to build and maintain meaningful and valuable relationships, and being perceived as trustworthy. The personal contact or biographic data of a journalist or social media influencer doesn’t belong to you as the PR professional, it belongs to the journalist and he/she has rights.

Remember to be proactive about it as the responsibility (and possible fines) rests with you. It doesn’t matter if you work with an external media database provider or an internal media research team.

What does it mean for sales?

Assuming all the data processed for direct marketing and sales purposes is done so lawfully, sales teams still need to address how privacy regulations impact their ability to send emails and place phone calls to prospects in Europe.

There is a sizable gray area when it comes to prospecting in Europe. With that in mind, here are a few best practices we know are tenants of European privacy law.

Pay attention to “Do Not Call” lists — Each member state may maintain its own “Do Not Call” list so it will be prudent to verify that your prospects are not on these lists prior to reaching out. Here are some helpful links to the lists for several member states: France, Netherlands, and Belgium.

Include opt-out and privacy notice links in emails to EU residents — For emails to both inbound and outbound sales, it will be critical to include notice of your company’s privacy practices as well as the opportunity for the recipient to object to receiving future communications. This will increase your transparency and reduce the intrusiveness of the message.

Use discretion with the amount/frequency of communications — Although this is somewhat ambiguous, it is advisable to use discretion with the frequency and number of touchpoints to ensure that you do not intrude on the “rights and freedoms” of the individual as mentioned above.

Use social media — Social media is a solid alternative channel to cold email that will allow reps to diversify their method of prospecting, while also remaining compliant with relevant privacy regulations.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should provide a helpful starting point for your sales reps. As always, review new processes with your legal and/or security teams to ensure alignment with the overall approach for GDPR.

What does GDPR mean for customer service?

As most teams use chat tools, or ticketing systems such as Zendesk, those dealing with customer data need to be especially careful about the information they see or interact with in these tools. Most particularly around sharing of information to solve problems — i.e. data portability of sensitive materials specific to a users account.

Examples could include logs or error traces that may contain sensitive privacy information. While passing this information is not necessarily a problem, it could be if the party you are “chatting” with is not the actual user. Hence it is recommend that support teams use two-factors of authentication before engaging with users who are not able to be verified over channels such as email or phone. The benefit of chat is that it is usually strongly tied to an authenticated user session.

GDPR aftermath

Now the that dust is beginning to settle, at least until the first major breach, it’s a good time to reflect on what changes GDPR will really bring. Perhaps this transparency will drive deeper and better relationships between organizations and their customers and user base. If so, we could see more win/win situations.

While those side effects maybe be muddied by whatever GDPR fine hits first, the ultimate goal for corporations should be to build trust and be the kind of company where their customers or users offer up insights and data freely.

The impact of GDPR for Creative and Marketing Agencies

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General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is another arrangement of norms intended to fortify the control people have over their own data. From May 2018 it will be a lawful necessity for all organizations to hold fast to the regulations set up or confront an overwhelming fine up to €20 million or 4% of an organization’s worldwide yearly pay (whichever is the bigger sum). To put it plainly, you would prefer not to do business without using it.

Data is everything in advertising and marketing. It gives an understanding into the customer; their identity, what they like, and what they need from an organization. Be that as it may, in reality as we know it where ‘data is the new oil’, here are a couple of focuses for advertisers to hold up under at the top of the priority list and how GDPR impacts marketing agencies.

  1. The nuts and bolts

Under European Parliament, GDPR will ensure individual data for all people inside the European Union (EU). This incorporates the fare of individual data outside of the EU. Individual data can be anything identifying with a person inside their private, individual, or open life. This incorporates names, photographs, posts via web-based networking media destinations, or a PC’s IP address.

  1. A brisk outline

The data subject (singular buyer) should expressly pick in to enable individual data to be prepared – pre-ticked boxes, or a presumption that assent is given naturally, won’t be adequate. Associations should be particular about what will occur with the data. A data subject has the privilege to withhold assent for their data to be handled, and the association ought not prevent them from utilizing an administration on the off chance that they do as such.

The following of assent is required. The data controller (association that gathers the data) must know when assent was given. Data subjects have the privilege to get to data gathered about them and a “right to clarification”, in which they can inquire as to why an algorithmic choice was made about them. Associations must delegate a data protection officer, who has the duty of guaranteeing the association agreeable with GDPR.

  1. The likelihood of ‘backing off’

A few decades ago, data in promoting and publicizing alluded to basic things like socioeconomics and reaction rates. Quick forward to today, we live in an interconnected existence where data is all over. Coordinating and catching this data empowers organizations to fabricate brands, and drive advancement and deals. An ongoing report by DataMeer found that client investigation made up 48% of huge data use in deals and showcasing.

  1. Adjust to survive

There’s no doubt that GDPR will shake up the advanced advertising scene. So, it is vital for organizations to guarantee they are prepared to actualize the progressions important to consent by May. With the likelihood of a back off in the movement of promoting guarantee your business is prepared to adjust and move keeping in mind the end goal to handle this. Don’t simply acknowledge it, do what you can so as to drive business improvement and deals.

The Importance of Market Research for New Business Ideas

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I know from the title you might be thinking this is a common-sense topic that you already know a ton about, but time and time again people throw all their chips in on their business without checking if there’s even a market for their product. They get a good idea, their friends agree it’s a good idea, and before you know it they’ve quit their job and gone in debt up to their eyeballs trying to get their little idea off the ground only to discover it wasn’t that original to begin with.

 

There’s nothing new under the sun! If there’s one thing you take away from this post, please let it be that! I don’t care how innovative you think your idea is, there is a 99.9% likelihood that someone has thought of it before and tried to do something about it. The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone and Facebook wasn’t the first social media site to ever exist.

 

The aforementioned examples weren’t successful because they were the first. They were successful because they popularized their respective concepts. They made it shiny and attractive to the masses, and that’s what your goal behind market research should be.

 

Market research should be conducted before you start your business! I don’t care what anyone else says, you need to have some sort of a business plan before you actually start your own business. Don’t be ashamed of working at McDonald’s while you pursue your business idea. It may slow you down, but it’s always smarter to have another job lined up before you quit the one you have.

 

How to Conduct Market Research for new business ideas

 

Researching your idea’s marketability isn’t just using Google to see if your specific idea exists already or posting your idea to a forum and seeing how many people flock to it. You can’t just spend half a day researching the topic and expect to truly understand how well your idea will sell.

 

You have to research anything that’s even remotely similar to your idea and use your findings to realistically extrapolate the demand your product can expect to receive once it’s on the open market. While doing this, you need to delve deep into the reasons similar ideas succeeded or failed and critically look at your product in the same light.

 

Don’t be afraid or too cheap to hire some outside help. There are a ton of market research companies out there that are professionals at what they do. They’ll be able to look at your idea in a more objective and critical light than anyone else will.

 

All in all, if you really have faith in your idea then you shouldn’t be afraid to put the time and money into making sure you do things right. This can be achieved by doing the right kind of business research for new ideas.

What percentage of Revenue Do Publicly Traded Companies Spend on Marketing and Sales?

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Sales and marketing are very essential when it comes growing your business. Simply getting your products or services to the marketplace isn’t good enough; you need to have an effective plan and budget for how you will get more customers and how to maintain your existing customers. There are several options that are available to business owners out there. You can either make use of you in house marketing and sales team or employ the services of a third-party company to help you with sales and marketing in your business. Publicly traded companies just like most business types out there, need the services of the right kind of marketing and sales company.

In order for anyone to fully understand the right amount of money spent on marketing and sales, it is first important to note the amount of money that comes into the business as revenue. This depends on the type of business and the industry in consideration. It is an obvious fact that the amount of money you wish to spend on your marketing and sales will drastically increase with how much you make. This simply means your first focus should be in creating more valuable products and services, which are useful to the marketplace, as this will guaranty more revenue for your company.

Spending the right amount of money on marketing and sales can put you ahead of your competition. If we take a closer look at publicly traded companies, we realize that there is no standard definition for such companies, this basically means it depends on what products and services you provide for your customers,

The need for having a strong sales and marketing team for publicly traded companies

Being able to create a strong sales and marketing team is important in any business. This can help your business grow within the shortest possible time. It is worthy of mention that you need to invest a reasonable amount of money to in sales and marketing, if you wish to succeed in a competitive marketplace. This has to do with creating the ideal sales infrastructure for your business.

The Ten Percent Rule

When it comes to the percentage of revenue spent on marketing and sales by publicly traded companies, then it would be important to consider the widely used 10 % rule. Keep in mind that this doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of money you make as revenue. Another important point to consider when looking at these numbers is how long the business has been in operations. If your publicly traded company is just in it’s infant stage, then it is safe to say you are going to need to spend more than 10 % of your revenue on marketing and sales. This figure is not fixed, as you might need to spend more money as a startup. Well-established businesses such as Google, Apple, and Facebook wouldn’t worry too much about spend money on sales and marketing, as many know their brands. A small business however needs to increase this percentage to succeed