Get Your Marketing Animated

Posted on by Andrew Dymock in , ,

The different forms of animation

Animation is a broad term and covers various different styles. This is the same with animated marketing videos, which can take a variety of forms depending on your circumstances, preferences, and what you seek to achieve.

Understanding different common types of animation can help you to decide which is going to best speak to your audience, and resonate with both your core brand and what you’re looking to advertise. Choosing the right form of animation is the first step to a successful campaign.

 

Animation’s enduring popularity

People enjoy visual marketing, and animations are no exception to this statement.

It’s always the case that the public doesn’t respond well to being marketed to in a blunt and inelegant way. When something “feels” like an advert, customers are often resistant to engage with it – it smacks too much of “buy this, buy this now!”. Animation, on the other hand, seems to consistently be more warmly received.

There’s something to be said for the fact that, even though animation is a popular marketing technique, it never feels like a traditional advert. Which, some could argue, contributes to its effectiveness. Animated adverts are often viewed as something a bit different from the norm – which helps differentiate them from a crowd of competition.

 

Achieving your ambitions

Animation is a gateway to exploring some complicated ideas but in the most accessible way possible; it’s an excellent way to break down complex products, services, or messages to an audience – allowing them to retain much more than they might with more traditional marketing.

Grand settings, complex characters, and outlandish scenarios can be both time-consuming and expensive to film in more traditional ways. Building sets, costume changes, dealing with the weather and logistics – these are all headaches that are completely circumvented by animated marketing.

Animated videos also don’t go out of date as quickly as more traditional marketing videos. Clothing, technology, and settings can all start to date very rapidly where live-action is concerned. This isn’t true for animation, which means you get a much longer-term yield out of your investment. Animation can also cross borders for a global audience, where other forms of marketing can’t.

 

Investing in animated marketing

Investing in animated marketing is always a bright move for businesses that are looking to make a dynamic impact with audiences. It continues to grow in popularity, and it’s easy to see why.

If you’re looking to get your marketing animated, challenge us to bring your vision to life.

Guide To Event Planning: Measuring Success

Posted on by Andrew Dymock in

Typically, a pay-to-enter event will have gate receipts to help work out the return on investment. However, when a corporate event is held for the purposes of marketing, brand reinforcement and networking opportunities, the guidelines for calculating the benefits can be less clear when no direct revenue is being generated from ticket sales, product sales or sponsorship.

As there are so many other benefits which corporate events offer to organisations, it becomes vital to measure returns from activities such as training, leadership meetings, brand awareness events, awards evenings and congresses. So how to go about it? In this guide to event planning, we tackle the issue of how to measure ROI on corporate events.

 

Quantifying investment

Before we can calculate our returns or how much we have profited, directly or indirectly, from a corporate event, it helps to understand precisely what we have spent. Costs can broadly be divided into two main categories. The first is direct expenses, and these can include costs such as venue hire, travel, food and beverages, audiovisual, rental equipment, entertainment, marketing and promotional costs, and service providers. But to understand the big picture, we must also take into account indirect costs such as shared or pool-based expenses, accounting and administrative salaries, office expenses, rent and utilities.

 

Measuring returns

Measuring the holistic benefit of a corporate event to your organisation can be made simpler by defining your key performance indicators (KPI) clearly beforehand. Whether you achieve these KPIs as a result of your event then becomes the yardstick for measuring indirect returns and overall benefits. KPIs can include:

  • Attendance / Registration (day-of) – did you achieve the attendance you were looking for, and, therefore, the brand exposure that you objectified?
  • The number of sales leads generated – if your networking objective was to generate sales leads, how many did you manage in comparison to the number you hoped for?
  • NPS (Net Promoter Score: a measure of customer loyalty) – you could calculate your NPS following the event, and track the loyalty of those who attended.
  • Direct feedback from staff/stakeholders – did you ask attendees for their feedback on how the event went? You might invite attendees to rate elements of the event from one to ten, or alternatively, seek more qualitative feedback. If networking was one of the event’s attractions, did attendees feel that the quality of networking was satisfactory and rewarding?
  • Employee satisfaction scores – if you held an internal event designed to benefit your employees – by way of training, team bonding or otherwise – how satisfied were the employees with the way that the event went?
  • Social media engagement – was the event pushed out to a broader audience via social media? How many interactions did you achieve compared to your objectives, or compared to previous similar events?
  • Increased footfall – if your event was designed to grow your business’s footfall, did you achieve this in the weeks following it?

 

You may find that KPIs are not the ‘exact science’ that totting up direct sales are when it comes to measuring returns, but only by setting them, and measuring them can we start to build a bigger picture of corporate event success.

 

If you need some help producing events that get results, get in touch.

How To Turn Your Training Programme Up To 11

Posted on by Andrew Dymock in , , , ,

1. Videos and Animations

The vast majority of people are visual learners and will retain more information if it’s delivered through a visual medium. Of course, when leaders simply deliver verbal information and expect staff to take notes, you’ll probably spot that most people lose focus and interest after a few minutes. However, deliver the same information in an entertaining video or animation, it’s a safe bet that your staff are more likely to engage and process the information you need them to take away.

Research has also shown that learning through a visual medium also improves higher-order thinking and critical thinking skills. That means people are analysing and thinking about the information you’re presenting on a much deeper and more meaningful level. When they’re concentrating on a video or animation, more of the message is sinking in, and, as a consequence, more of it will stick with them.

 

Take a look at some examples:

Global MedTech Leader – Product Animation

British Safety Council – Wellness Film

Daimler Fleet Management – Educational Animation

 

2. Learning Progression Platforms

A learning progression platform is a great tool for keeping employees engaged and interested in your training programme. These could either be in-house via your intranet or through an app for freelancers and those working off-site, allowing them to monitor what they’ve learnt and still have to learn.

Who doesn’t love crossing things off a to-do list? If employees can visualise and track the progress they are making; every task or module, they can tick off fires up the brain’s reward centre. That sense of purpose and achievement can be a real motivator and spur them on, meaning they’re more enthusiastic about engaging with the next part of their training.

 

Take a look at some examples:

Salts – App Development

 

3. Gamification

People learn faster when there’s an element of fun, enjoyment and competition to their training. Gamification is a great way to spice up your training and keep people keen; give them incentives and rewards which make the process feel more worthwhile. That doesn’t need to mean sparking up competition between different individuals – when there are incentives involved, people are often happy just to be competing with themselves.

By applying game theory to your training programme, you not only avoid it becoming dull and corporate, but you could also raise satisfaction levels among your staff and improve retention levels. One of the biggest reasons people jump ship from a company is because they’re not offered enough room for personal development and progression. By delivering more ‘fun-filled’ training programmes, you’re probably offering something most other companies aren’t.

Training doesn’t have to be a boring affair, and there are plenty of ways you can inject a little fun and improve the quality of teaching.
Get in touch to kick-start your new training programme!

Top tips – Managing the creative process

Posted on by Andrew Dymock in , ,

We deliver thousands of creative projects every year, on time and on budget, for hundreds of different clients all over Europe. We like to think we know a few things about managing the creative process!

 

Check out our top tips on what you should think about to keep things on track, be it part of the BAU strategy, a launch campaign, or a one-off project.

 

Planning

Pre-planning is essential and can be defined across various areas:

  • Objectives – First things first; you’ll want to define your objectives – What outcome do you want from this campaign? Are you looking to boost BAU objectives or will it be a test for something new? How will it benefit the wider business? Once you have these in check, you’re good to get started.
  • Measurement – How it’ll be measured is probably one of the most important factors. Once you have your objectives, work cross-team to establish the analytics and data you’ll require access to measure success. Off the back of this, organise reporting templates and schedule wash-ups, as well as regular analytics updates throughout the process.
  • Budget – Next, set an appropriate budget. If you’ve been given a campaign budget, ensure your agency is aware, and they will keep a close eye on spending. Consider any changes of direction, as well as extras such as physical production costs, purchasing assets and relevant licences. From this, you can also work out the resources you need to get the job done.
  • Messaging – Finally, decide on what you want to say and how you are going to communicate it through the creative. Ensure all messaging is aligned cross-channel, and any above the line is threaded through if needed. Overarching brand messaging documents will help with this and should be fully briefed to your agency partners in advance.

Planning is arguably the most essential part of managing creative output responsibly. Identifying what you want and when you’re going to need it is a vital first step in the delivery of a creative project.

 

Communication

Leading on, you want to make sure the work you’re delivering is consistent, so you’ll need a reliable and dependable agency partner to assist with this.

One way to ensure work stays on track is responsive, agile and faster communication between teams. This can help deliver successful results, especially when delivery lead-times are shrinking. Communication is key in a fast-paced creative environment, and a lack of it will only cause further delays. Set check-ins throughout the day and longer status meetings every week to cover any updates, progress, and any potential blockers.

Communication isn’t just restricted to creative teams, either. Reviewing your objectives and progress with internal stakeholders, such as brand managers, will make them feel as though they’re being kept on the journey, and help alleviate any issues further down the line if something isn’t aligned.

Turning agile marketing from intent to reality

Empowering a partner agency

A partner agency can be a great aide to have when managing creative in a fast-paced business environment.

  • Clear briefs – Early conversations and clear briefs from the outset are absolutely key to avoiding upset further down the line. Set up an initial meeting to run through everything, which is always easier face to face, and allow them time to take anything back to their internal teams to consider before collating and sharing questions. Also, remember you’ve hired them to unleash their creativity, so try not to be too overpowering with the brand messaging as this can seriously hinder projects.
  • Resource – Ensure you have enough dedicated resources on the project, including personnel across all levels. This means brand, communications, senior stakeholders and legal teams, as well as designers and other creative studio members with varied skill-sets. Make sure your agency has a proper project management system that can control production costs and provide you with key contacts throughout, so you’re aware who will be dealing with your day-to-day, and who will be delivering the creative.
  • Collaboration – Being able to trust a partner agency is a huge plus. Collaboration works best when you can rely on them to know what you want, so you don’t have to spend half the time checking in. A good client-agency relationship will spark motivation too, and it means material received has a higher chance of being right the first time, requiring minimal amends. Setting aside time for regular and honest feedback so you can feed in from a brand perspective will benefit the collaboration process, as will securing time to share any results and data along the line.
  • Commitment – Commitment is a huge one – You need to know that agency partners will be delivered as and when they say, so deadlines are stuck to and delivery dates don’t get delayed. Educating team members will help avoid this, ensuring they’re aware of internal sign-off dates so content can be shared with plenty of time for feedback.

Top 10 tips to maximise your brief

Overcoming roadblocks

It’s natural that you’ll come across roadblocks in the creative process, but knowing how to address and overcome them is the most crucial thing.

Know how to manage your internal stakeholders – Enlist their help but have them trust your team enough to be able to deliver on the project without hand-holding. Also, share your opinion and push back if you feel feedback might be too subjective.

Ensure everyone involved is aware of the hard timescales, such as toolkit delivery, printing, postage, website aspects, TV adverts, and anything else which impacts go-live. Doing this early on and having the right people involved can save a lot of time, money, and ultimately headaches down the line.

 

Time management

Last but by absolutely no means least, time management is king when it comes to effectively manage creative. Plan each day in advance so you know how to manage both your time and your team’s time; set timelines for delivery and block time to focus. You could even put it in your calendar, making sure no one drops in overlapping meetings if that helps.

It’s a long yet rewarding journey, and the main thing to remember is why you’re doing it (you love your job), and the end-goal, or the outcome, is something you can all be immensely proud of as a team.

 

If you want some help with your next creative project, get in touch.