Sometimes it feels like I have to find a profound statement deep within to lead this newsletter. Most of the time I have hundreds of thought-leading statements to make.
Rather than craft that profound message, I'm choosing to lead with heart 💜. Three weeks have passed since the June newsletter and every week since, I've received phone calls from clients and contacts with budget cuts, shock redundancies, calls of distress and unfortunately, suicide stories directly related to business stress. The business landscape is horrific at the moment and whilst businesses are putting on brave faces and turning up every day, SMEs are struggling. Badly.
Of all the new businesses started four years ago, almost half (46%) are no longer operating, highlighting the tough business environment. Of the more than 2 million businesses operating in Australia four years ago, one in three no longer exists (36%). These aren't my statistics, they're directly from the ABS 😢. And two of the top 5 reasons these SMEs are failing? #4 Poor Marketing and #5 Lack of Planning with Vision.
Perhaps I tried to lead with heart by offering this short and sweet read: 5 reasons why small businesses fail and turned it into something more profound. And before you think a small business is a one-man-band, think again: According to ASIC, a small company is one that has an annual turnover <$25 million, no more than 50 employees and <$12.5 million in assets 😮.
Be kind. Support our small businesses. This is real.
Valentina xxx
Animated, dynamic ads out-perform static creative
We know this, but do you 🤔? A recent study from Emodo shows dynamic and animated creative ads can improve attention, engagement and memorability when compared to static ads. Whilst the average brand is scrambling for attention, the smarter brands are focusing on being memorable. What's the value in attention if your audiences aren't taking action or changing opinions and behaviours?
This report is a pleasure to read through and packed with insights that guided my media-buying and creative-placement strategies more than 15 years ago. BIG TAKEAWAY: the media placement and the creative delivery HAVE to work hand in hand 🤝. Make the creative work harder than its placement.
Our in-house graphic animator is poised to create your animated and memorable graphics, ads and brands. Are YOU ready? Drop me a DM to get started.
Canada blocks Meta news. Sound familiar?
Well, this ought to be interesting 🍿 to watch roll out. Last month, the Canadian Senate passed the Online News Act, and Meta confirmed it will remove news content from Facebook and Instagram for all Canadian users. Sound familiar? I ask because you might recall in 2021 our Aussie government tried the same thing and POOF, like a puff of smoke, non-media outlets were classed as media and their Facebook profiles evaporated, instantly.
I suspect our media companies and Meta alike, learned a great deal from the 2021 disaster and hopefully Canada was watching 👀 too. I wish I knew if this ruling will boomerang 🪃 to Australia again, and time will tell. Changes like this rarely exist in isolation.
An Artist's Showcase: Tanya Gregory
In 2021, we had an account manager join our team. She's a beautiful person and it turned out that account management wasn't really her thing. She said she wanted to focus on her art 🎨. In my head, that's a "little hobby" someone might want to explore, a bit like me and rollerblading. Then we saw her art. 🤩 OMFG SHE'S AMAZING.
Tanya Gregory is an exceptional landscape artist. I found her artwork on Instagram and of course fell in love. I now have two beautiful originals 🖼️ that adorn my bedroom. They started out in my office, but they felt more right in my home.
At the end of July, Tanya is holding a solo exhibition at SHAC. To support her artist profile, Tanya needed an easy-to-update website that allows her artworks to do the hard-sell, enabling Tanya the time and freedom to deliver her craft. The artworks you see are going into the exhibition - and yes, she'll be taking commissions and updating her portfolio in time.
Do yourself a favour and get yourself an original. These artworks are next level in landscapes and depict many Southern Highlands scapes (that I get to enjoy every day).
Prioritise the well-being of your team
There's plenty of literature to support the notion that supported employees deliver employer results. As we're seeing the return of face-to-face conferencing and workshops, I encourage you to enable a well-being program for your teams. We recently engaged with Kylie Bucich from The Everyday Essential to do just that. Kylie ran a stress and resilience workshop for us - and her new corporate offering is a perfectly-balanced and tailored program for your organisation.
Kylie practices as a Nutritionist, Health & Motivation Coach, and educates and supports individuals and businesses to improve their overall sense of well-being through practical, easy-to-implement lifestyle changes.
Kylie's signature well-being session Navigating Stress & Building Resilience touches on the pillars of health required to optimise health, inspire positive change and foster new habits to create a healthier lifestyle.
Tailored workshops or health programs can also be created based on your team's requirements/requests, such as:
- Sleep Foundations
- Nutrition Basics
- Boost Your Immune System
- Self Care
- Womens Health
Kylie also offers individual health coaching via Zoom or in person utilising her signature program the 7-Day Body Reset for those wishing to dive deeper into their own health journey. Get in touch today or phone 0458 300 393 with any questions.
PS - That stunning property in our reel is the remarkable Springfield Farm. A perfect autumn day framed by those floor-to-ceiling windows, complete with birdsong and cows 🐄 dotting the hillside. Time to book your Highlands getaway with your peeps. When you're ready to do that, DM me for a shortlist of stunning places to eat, stay and play.
Less than 5 min reads for you
This section: Short reads, 👀 not just about marketing.
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On the blog: how our designers stay original, over and over again!
When it comes to design, has it all been done before? Short answer: probably.
Staying original in a world saturated with great design is critical for businesses and their brands to remain relevant. Our Senior Designer Kate distils 5 key steps she takes to ensure that her design outputs for Banter are bang-on-brand and original.
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Play the game: Just how important is UX/UI?
Some of me wants to love it, and yet my entire being hates it. Here's a demonstration of how important good UI/UX is. My digital-work self wants to embrace it but my I'm-just-a-customer-too self shuts that browser with added swear words.
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B2B Influencer costs are dropping
The Influencer 💃 landscape is certainly changing, and so are the costs associated with it. We're seeing more B2B organisations increasing their influencer consideration, to drive engagement and build brand awareness. So what type of influencer is best suited to your business and how much should you be paying? You might be surprised at changing costs 💲 (and their affordability).
Simple. Effective. Life-saving.
Why is it only now that something as simple as this can solve a pretty large problem around the globe? True innovation 💡 doesn't come in the form of something brand new, rather overcoming a complexity with a simple solution. Like this: A wound dressing that changes colour 🌈 to reveal infection.
Innovations like the dressing created by the Linköping University team will assist clinicians in focusing on wound healing, rather than wound management. And preventing infections will help us to lessen our reliance on antibiotics.
Fab, I know. Just love this stuff.
Catch you next time 😃
