Digital Challenge
Wow, that was cold.
When volunteering to sleep under the stars I must admit I was feeling relatively smug about the unseasonably warm November evenings we had been having.
Then as the night wore on and the clouds revealed a beautiful shimmering moon the heat ventured upwards and I was left the long fingers of the cold creeping over my cardboard box mattress.
Grounding (in more ways than one) and a hugely gratifying experience, I am able to reflect that because of my absolute privilege, I only have to do it once a year.
I get a sharp slap across the face when I see an o2 referencing “data poverty” in its Christmas advert, wondering firstly what kind of world we live in when data can be classed as poverty (when we still have actual poverty in the world) and secondly how much of a dent in their £11.5 million profits it will have made.
You can see our profitable giving this year in our 2024 Impact Report, we gave over £3,000 of profit to charitable causes this year, probably a drop in the ocean compared to o2.
At 1.3% of our turnover, if we were at the helm of a global communications company that would equate to £141 million, (you can find out how much they committed here) my gut tells me Branston is a good egg, hopefully he will see it right.
This month I promised you some help with your planning.
If you aren’t thinking to the future this side of the big day, then I’m sure you will have some picture of change in your mind over the festive break.
I challenge you not to limit your beliefs, a few years ago working with government organisations or the NHS would have felt unattainable, but I’m proud to call them clients now. And here’s a quick hack to mull over, when you’re mulling something over, over your mulled wine this Christmas.
Once you’ve unpicked your whys all the way through to an outcome of change in the world, you’ll need a roadmap to get there.
If you want to avoid sitting and writing a boring document, then you likely have two options, getting the robots to help with some of the donkey work or getting the humans together for a workshop.
Let’s explore option 1.
A reminder that like us, AI is only as good as the context it has to work with.
However, feed in some brand values, customer personas and financial planning. Enter into a dialogue with chat gpt to fill the gaps (remove over-referenced uses of the word “foster” or “leverage”) and voila, you can make light work of a writing plan.
If you feel the plan is important enough for human insight, then a workshop creates a fine space for new ideas.
We have added Sustainable Leadership & Fostering & Leveraging AI to our workshop range for 2025 if you are interested. As it’s Christmas, I’ll share the recipe for creating an indulgent marketing plan.
We have been baking variations of this one for years, now it is broken into three courses.
Ingredients
Customer persona
Serves: you and your team
Question: Where does the work come from?
Off the top of your head, or look through your last 10 invoices, ask:
- What product/service are we here to discuss?
- Job title of the last person that bought it?
- Demographic characteristics? – Age, Sex, Location, Education, Income, Married
- Where are they hanging out?
Look for similarities between your customers and merge into personas, Digital Dom says, do be sure to name them alliterative.
Routes to market
Serves: your strategy nicely
Question: What is the financial model?
By persona, fill out the following table for the next year:
| Persona | Avg sale | Total Sales | Target | Marketing budget |
Here’s the math:
Target = avg sale x total sales
Budget = 10% of your target
You’ll soon see which of your personas is most scaleable or profitable.
Question: How do we reach them?
Go back to your personas, review and discover “where are they hanging out?”, and think “How do they buy this?”.
Deep in their mailbox? = Get a newsletter going
Can’t keep off socials? = Build an organic social content plan
Love the gym? = Advertise at the Leisure centre!
By the way, the answer “searching on Google” is found in nearly every exercise I have ever done, if you aren’t advertising or findable on Google then next year’s plan is very simple.
Now you can plot activities/platforms against your budget.
For dessert, an actionable plan…
Content Planning
Serves: you throughout the year
Weekly plan by platform
Help yourself to a very simple spreadsheet. In the tab “Year calendar” it lists out the weeks of the year and the activities you need to do.
Include special days
In the tab “Special Days” it lists out 100s of marketing days throughout the year. If you are writing a blog, posting to socials it makes sense to review what days will be relevant for your personas and plot this in your yearly calendar too, ask yourself, what else would be relevant? Trade shows? Key business dates?
Action stations!
Of course, a plan is no use if you can’t action it, so do what you can, outsource what you can’t, but do stick at it!
So there we go, a light and fluffy recipe covering strategic planning to tactical actions.
That’s a wrap
I started this series in January, with bread largely on my mind and a plan to share a bit of digital knowledge as well as the elements of change that circle around Vu.
As Christmas begins I see adverts for quality street advertising “recyclable” paper wrappers like it’s a new concept. I believe in a better future and I look forward to a time when this practice isn’t just a sales or marketing message.
A time when we have conscious business leaders who design their packaging or products with the impact of their lifecycle in mind, and their profits helping to tip the balance in favour of the underprivileged.
In a very positive sense, I am seeing change, and believe this is the direction of travel for all of us. As I reflect on the pride of becoming a BCorp this year, I feel privileged to be working with clients both old and new all trying to unpick and embrace their own unique challenges of digital sustainability transformation.
Thank you, I’m honoured to be a part of your story.
Do you know anyone who may be interested in this project?
Click to share:
