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Deep in north London under a heavily graffitied railway bridge, hidden away between a brewery and an unglamourous train station entrance, is a little coffee shop. So little, in fact, that you may very well miss it. If it weren’t, that is, for a small yellow sign. How can one simple sign so successfully capture the hearts (and wallets) of rushing daily commuters and achieve a consistently long customer queue trailing out of the door? As professional creatives and communicators we can sometimes get very wrapped up in trying to provide content which shows off our clever use of language or a ‘new’ approach. Innovative content is a key element of good copywriting, but that innovation does not have to mean complexity. The ‘coffee’ sign works so effectively because it isn’t trying too hard to be clever. As a passerby, I am immediately informed of something that may be of interest, and in a design style which cleverly mirrors street signage. It is beautifully integrated into its urban setting and its language is quick, immediate and accessible. In understanding their audience (busy individuals, likely mid-commute), this coffee shop has identified that its success probably lies in being a quick pit-stop en-route to somewhere else, not a destination in itself. The effectiveness of this sign reminds me of something a friend once said to me many years ago when I was considering whether I could make writing into a viable career. “The art of good communication is not just the ability to be understood, but the inability to be misunderstood.” It’s a thought well worth a moment’s reflection for all brand and marketing communications professionals, perhaps even over a quick coffee from your favourite coffee shop? If you’d like help communicating your brand story, please get in touch with us at DMA Partners. hello@dma-partners.com dma-partners.com

How many times do you walk past a sign on the street and read it? In other words, how much visual noise in our built environment has ‘stopping power’? Difficult to answer and quantify, we know, as we see, filter, read and retain information subconsciously from the thousands of messages around us every day. We exist in a highly visual culture, where every street corner is a communication touchpoint. There is pressure on brands to keep producing new content to be noticed. We feel it at DMA Partners. It’s one of the reasons why we maintain our regular blogs. Sharing content is a way for brands to connect with their audiences and make sure that when the services they offer are needed, they are on the radar for clients. But more content does not always equate to more engagement. So how exactly can your brand stand out? Shunning witty copy and clever graphics in favour of simplicity, one North London pub has created a sign which speaks to the pub ethos: simple, reliable, good. Their message is simple. “Under old management”. The copy is witty. In announcing proudly that things have not changed, and positioning permanency as its USP, the pub is cleverly attesting to a history of quality and giving people what they want. New does not always mean better. Sometimes what consumers are after is reliability and familiarity. This pub has managed to stand out by doing the opposite of what many others do. So maybe the next step in your brand strategy is not a radical re-design, but rather emphasising the quality of the features of your product or service that your customers truly appreciate. In an environment where there is constant pressure for innovation and novelty, perhaps it’s time to flip the narrative and look inward at what is already working well? To contact DMA Partners: hello@dma-partners.com

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has fast become an integral part of our professional lives. And with some (good old-fashioned) screaming media hype, it’s become impossible to ignore. Being human (and yes, this blog piece was written by a human, not AI), ignore was my first reaction, together with a little sulk in the corner as I read again and again about how ChatGPT will radically change the way copywriting is done, and de facto, how I and thousands like me may not be, ahem, ‘required’ any more. ChatGPT is a large language model trained by OpenAI with the ability to generate high-quality content quickly and efficiently. It’s a potential game-changer for professional copywriters facing tight deadlines and editorial pressure to produce persuasive, engaging content that resonates with their target audience. With natural language processing (NLP) capabilities it can generate content that is tailored to specific industries, niches and audiences, making it possible to create highly relevant and targeted content. It all sounds good, and it has many of us thinking (and fretting, too). But the more experimenting we’ve done, the less we’re fretting. ChatGPT can definitely help streamline the content creation process by automating some of the groundwork (or is that grunt work?). But I haven’t read much AI generated copy that is a delight to read, or surprising, or nuanced or subtle, nor daringly or beautifully written. And that is the kind of copy that, in our experience, reaches people. Because people are not just segments, targets and demographic groups. They have sophisticated, complex and nuanced capacity to read, feel, interpret and process information. Universities have survived Google, print publishing has survived iPads and Kindles, while hotel chains have survived (and are thriving) post AirBnB. Life is big enough to allow multiple and simultaneous truths. ChatGPT is a crazily powerful tool, and we can use it for some of our work some of the time, but at DMA Partners we are using it as a call to action, a rallying cry to continue doing what we do best - writing with spark, flair and with a genuine human connection to the people and world around us. Shakespeare never saw snowflakes framed and lit in the light of passing cars, nor nighttime NYC, nor the face of an intimate and distant moving image of smiling friends on a smartphone screen. Change, beauty and possibility are all around us. It is our most human characteristic to aspire and to reach for better. So how about if we do just that? hello@dma-partners.com dma-partners.com

I remember it well. Too well, coming back from holidays in the car with my parents and sisters all those years ago when someone would say, “it’s back to school again next week.” , i.e. the fun stops now and it’s time to get serious. As we adults are all just little kids in bigger bodies, it can feel very similar as we return after the summer break. Most of us get a wave (or even tsunami) of melancholy when faced with that ‘back to work’ feeling. Despite all of the LinkedIn jabber about ‘passion’ for work most of us would frankly rather be on vacation, or at least for a few more days… wouldn’t you? So come on friends, how can we get ourselves back into it for the new term? Just like a new set of pens or a new rucksack for school it could be that we all need a few psychological triggers to ease us back in. Here’s my little plan. New music on Spotify. I’m branching out musically hoping that some new sounds will stimulate some new thoughts and feelings. I’m going to be listening to the complete Gil Scott-Heron discography (properly) for the first time ever. It’s time to shake up some neurological patterns. Caffeine is out. The time has come to make the definitive switch from coffee to herbal teas. It’s going to be good for the soul and if not, it will certainly be good for the nerves and sleeping. Early starts. This is a hardy perennial. I’m not talking loony gym sessions at 04:30am, but if I wake up early, which I often do, I reckon I should start working earlier and free up some late afternoon time for other ‘stuff’. More talk, less texting. WhatsApp, Slack and all the rest of our tech apps are great for practical, swift exchange but they can be lousy for the meaningful sense that comes from real, elastic and bendy human conversations, the ones when you can hear what people are saying and what they’re not. So my new term policy means a cut back on all that flying thumb and forefinger keyboard action. And maybe a few less of these??!! 😀 🙌🌱☀️☕️ I’ve just realised that this list reads a lot like a set of New Year resolutions. Perhaps that’s because for us professionals September is our January which I guess makes our January everyone else’s April. Which means that April is what then? Anyway. The point is, it’s September now and we’re all getting back to work, so let’s have some fun, try some new things and enjoy it. That’s when the best, most creative work happens and that’s what fires us up at DMA. All the best and let us know if you have some ideas of your own to get the energy pumping!

Do you just know what communication is going to work and what isn’t? That’s the question we were asked by a new client last week. A good question and it got us thinking. We have worked on literally thousands of creative and communication projects in the last nearly 20 years at DMA Partners. So yes, we have a lot of experience and yes, we’ve seen when client communication works well and of course, we see the patterns emerge, i.e. what great communication ‘looks like’. So what is the critical factor? Is it amazing creativity? Is it data-driven analytical marketing? Is it the size of the marketing budget? All of these are crucial but after a team tea and brainstorm the other day we decided that there is one other factor that is more important. Momentum. Yes. Momentum. We have worked with many clients in multiple industry sectors and it is universally true that what matters most of all is the sense of moving forward, of motion, of energy. Successful companies experiment. They try things. They test out campaign and communication ideas. If they work, - great. If not, they move on to the next one. They don’t allow the search for perfection to get in the way of good. That doesn’t mean settling for second best or being sloppy. It just means not getting stuck at the creative phase, tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and fine tuning and finessing messages and creative ideas and and and and… And at a certain point just failing to get the message ‘out there’. A famous athlete once said, “If you’re not in it, you can’t win it.” The same can be said of B2B marketing communications. Get your message out there. Test. Be brave. What doesn’t work can be changed and the experience will make you better. And momentum is a good thing. It’s so much easier pushing a car that is already moving rather than going from a standing start. It’s the same in marketing communications. Build your company’s momentum with bite-sized action and let the impact build up over time. For more on how DMA Partners can help you build momentum for your brand please contact us.

Flick through LinkedIn (go on, admit it) and you’ll find plenty of people gazing into their crystal balls and trying to predict life, business and communication beyond the pandemic. There are as many predictions as there are flavours of ice cream. From cosmic to prosaic, it is very difficult to make sense of it all and even more complicated to try and make some plans back in our real world of business and marketing planning. So what do we do? Where do we make your bets for marketing budgets? The digital tidal wave shows no sign of slowing down, so online and social media is going to be critical. Whether remote working stays the norm or not, we’ve all learnt that work can be done effectively on the road, in a kitchen, at a train station and just about anywhere. We’re unlikely to completely forget that experience. So B2B marketers need to understand and be skilled in video conferencing, webinars, virtual event management, podcasts, - i.e. bringing people together when they are not physically together. But. There is, we believe, a but. We’re talking to our clients every day about their plans for the future and we’re detecting a huge amount of pent-up demand for trade fairs, industry conferences and face-to-face client meetings. The simple fact is that we humans are sociable. We like contact with others. We like laughs, gossip, hotel mini-bars, dinners on a company expense account and ooops, of course, the business relationships. One year (or even two) of a pandemic is not going to change those thousands of years of human evolution. So whatever you do, don’t lose sight of how things may look a year or two, or even three from now. Don’t forget how to do business face-to-face and don’t imagine that all of your customers are going to be behaving as they are now. They won’t be. It’s actually the fun part of marcomms; tapping into what we know of human psychology and working out how to ‘reach’ people, whatever the circumstances, wherever they are. It’s just beginning to get interesting!

In the current economic climate, this year is likely to be another year where marketers need to learn how to do more with less. Perhaps your marketing budget has been slashed, or it may be that your in-house headcount has dropped, but despite these challenges, the show must go on. That means you need a solution that will allow you to squeeze every last drop of value from the resources you do have. That’s where content repurposing comes in. What is content repurposing? Content repurposing is the art of repackaging and reimagining your content. It’s not simply copying and pasting your content on another platform, but rather but reworking it to create a new piece entirely, or indeed several new pieces. For example, let’s say you host a monthly webinar. You can repurpose the recording of each of those webinars into many new content pieces, as shown in the diagram below. What are the benefits of content repurposing? People prefer to consume information in different ways. Some prefer to listen to podcasts while in the gym. Others sit down to watch a video over a cup of coffee. Meanwhile, others like to scroll through their LinkedIn feed as they unwind on the sofa in the evening. Content repurposing allows your business to engage with all these people, exactly how they like it. As well as being able to cater to every content consumption preference, content repurposing allows you to reach more people on more digital platforms and enjoy a sense of omnipresence online. For example, a podcast you publish on Spotify could be turned into a series of smaller audio clips that you can turn into audiograms you share on social media. Ultimately, teaser clips like the below example from McKinsey & Company will lead more people to check out the original podcast episode. Content repurposing can also boost your SEO since you’ll have more assets linking back to your core content. It can also increase the lifespan of your content, breathing new life into your evergreen content and allowing your core messages to remain top of mind. We’ve saved the best benefits until last. Content repurposing will allow you to save time and money. You can finally get off the costly content production treadmill and focus on quality and distribution over quantity. What’s the best type of content to repurpose? While almost any type of long-form content can be repurposed, video is definitely king. This is because the video format gives you the most opportunity for creating new assets. With that being said, any piece of content (be it written, audio, visual or video) can be repurposed into another format. The possibilities are endless if you’re creative enough! So there you have it - the secret to achieving more results with less content! After completing an increasing number of content repurposing projects recently, we’re ready to show you how you can amplify the impact of your content marketing strategy. Please reach out to us to explore how you can get started with content repurposing. georgia.walker@dma-partners.com dma-partners.com

B2B marketing gets straight to the factual point and is all about appealing to the rational mind of potential customers. B2C is all about emotional connection with the consumer creating strong, visceral loyalty. That’s historically been the theory. Trouble is, it’s not supported by the evidence of what works and what doesn’t. As a creative + communications agency, DMA Partners has worked for many brands in both B2B and B2C. Our experience has taught us that buying decisions are not so different. They are part logic and part emotion. We worked for many years with a very well known (and loved) broadband and mobile provider. They had a great reputation with customers but in A/B testing on advertising, time after time, we found out that the most critical part of customer offer communication was the small print showing T&Cs and price, i.e. the customer wanted the product but they wanted to be clear on the essential detail. Put simply, the more detail in the ad, the more successful it was. In B2B we have lived the same from the other perspective. We have seen business results transformed when communication has been refreshed with different imagery and new colour schemes (with exactly the same product features and benefits). So what’s going on? Maybe it’s just how we are as people. One day we can fancy a fast food burger and the next it can be the last thing we want as we get back to our low-fat good intentions. On a given day we fancy wearing that brightly coloured shirt we bought on holiday and the next we will opt for sober grey. We are the same people but our reactions and actions are changeable. There are times when we are persuaded by logic and other times by impulses and emotions. Marketers should remember that. There are no absolute truths. Connecting to your audience’s rational mind is important but never forget that emotions drive behaviour, however unconsciously. Never forget either that emotions go so far but there is a point when people want to see the facts clearly presented. Human beings, in fact, are pretty good at making judgements on the veracity of what they’re being told, from both the implicit (the facts they’re being told) and explicit (the way it’s packaged). That’s our daily experience as communication professionals working with many brands across multiple industries. And our view is supported by a recent survey by the LinkedIn B2B Institute that discovered that B2B strategies with an emotional appeal are 7x more effective at driving long term profits. Could your business benefit from creating more meaningful connection with prospects and customers? Get in touch with Philip Martin to discover how DMA Partners can help you. philip.martin@dma-partners.com

Ever been to a dinner party where everyone’s talking (we humans like to be heard) and no one is listening? It often seems that way online too. But hold on a minute, - amongst all the messaging, online chat, tweets, posts, likes and the rest there has been an exponential growth in podcasts. That’s someone talking and millions actually listening. In April 2018, FastCompany reported 525,000 shows with 18.5 million episodes. By January 2021, Podcast Insights set that number at 1,750,000 podcast shows and more than 43 million episodes. And according to research, individual podcast listeners spend an average of six hours and 39 minutes listening per week. That’s 60% more than in 2017. It may be lockdown boredom, it may be screen fatigue, it may be that we all somewhere deep down have a primal desire to gather around a hearth and be told a story in the oral tradition. For B2B marketers, the ‘why’ doesn’t matter. The question is; does podcasting makes sense for your brand? The short answer is yes, it’s worth it. It is a channel that provides an opportunity for much deeper connection with your customers and contacts. In a 30-minute podcast, there is a chance to expand on a subject way beyond what can be achieved in a short blog, LinkedIn post or tweet. You really can ‘stand out’ from your competitors if you get it right. But, there are some buts! It needs to be regular. It needs to be well targeted. Expectations about listener numbers need to be realistic and the quality needs to be excellent, both content and production quality. As audiences grow, so too do listener expectations. So if podcasts are not on your ‘to do’ list, maybe they should be? Give it some thought. Take a listen to what’s out there. Get a feel of what works well and what doesn’t and have a think about what you could bring to the party (the one where people are listening)! Meanwhile, we recently conducted our own DMA survey with top professionals in marketing to find out their thoughts – download our interactive infographic to see the results. If you’d like some specific advice and practical support please contact the DMA team.

Remember your favourite childhood stories? Of course you do. They stuck with us because they reached our hearts, stirred our emotions, and filled our young minds with amazing dreams and possibilities. So isn’t it surprising that the techniques used in those stories are not employed by marketing professionals in a more conscious way? What are the ingredients for a high impact and memorable story? Why is it that so much ‘communication’ around us leaves us cold? We believe that we can learn from this childhood stories to elevate your presentations and storytelling to the next level. Here are 5 top tips that we think will help you. Tip 1: Images and words work in tandem. Get the balance right! Take a look at the images and words in any of your favourite childhood books. The words support the illustrations and the illustrations support the words. Too many presentations have images for the sake of images and words for the sake of words. Avoid that! Tip 2: Aesthetics matter. It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it (and visualise it). Humans love beautiful things. Whether it’s a deep red sunset, an instagrammable meal or a view from a mountain peak, beautiful things grab our attention. So, next time you’re about to finish your presentation it’s worth asking yourself – is it as beautiful as it can be? Tip 3: Length matters. Many of our favourite childhood stories were for those few satisfying minutes before sleeping. Cut out what is not really necessary! Tip 4: What’s your theme? Does your presentation have a central theme and narrative that is memorable? Does it move from A to B seamlessly? Does every slide push the narrative forward and support the overriding message? Tip 5: We’re only human after all. Can your audience identify with your story? Is it really written for them and the way that they think? We hope these tips are useful. If you would like us to help you with your storytelling in presentations and communication, please get in touch! georgia.walker@dma-partners.com dma-partners.com

For over two decades our client, Safenames, has been a leading provider of Global Domain Management, Brand Protection, SSL and Hosting Services. As renowned experts in this increasingly mission-critical area, Safenames wanted to showcase their expertise with a series of promotional animation videos to increase awareness of the online threats to brands and to communicate how a thorough, proactive approach can prevent issues. Safenames approached DMA Partners to work on the videos which covered topics from Brand Protection, Domain Strategy and Hosting to Phishing and Cyber Security. The videos combined illustration and animation, using Safenames’ cog icon to interlink the videos and provide the visual brand consistency needed across the series. The short films have now been rolled out across social media and Safenames’ communication channels. It’s been a pleasure for us to work on the project with a great client. Check out the videos on the Safenames website Or on YouTube: o Safenames Domain Name Strategy Overview Video o Safenames Legal and Brand Protection Strategy Overview Video o Safenames Brand Protection Video Access the full case study here: https://www.dma-partners.com/safenames

All good things come to an end right? Yes. Even DMA’s 3-part ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ series! But before we sign off and head into our European winter, we’ve been sharing notes on what has kept us cheerful during these stranger than ever months. The answer at least partly?.........Eggs. Round the corner from my house is a bar run by my friend, Carlos. He makes the most simple, delicious, slightly runny omelettes served with a hunk of fresh bread, a beer and invariably some expletive laden chit-chat about the wider world. Despite it all, he shows up every day, fires up the kitchen and does what he does best, dispensing small bursts of joy from morning to night. Inside DMA, every single day during lockdown and out of it, (and now back into it), our team have not only turned up. They’ve kept smiling, kept on producing great work and still cared deeply about doing the best we possibly can for our clients. This is not an ad by the way. It’s a kind of love letter: to these people that I have the very good fortune to work with. The world has been wrangling and bickering but down at our human scale we are surrounded by small acts of kindness every day. There’s the people that cross the street to keep us socially distant (but empathetically connected), there is the plumber that came to fix my leaky tap and didn’t want to charge for his time as “we’re all in this together”, there is the lady at the supermarket checkout smiling her greeting every single time I go. She, I’m sure, sometimes doesn’t feel like it, but her smile is far more than professional gloss and is visible even through a face mask. It is her own manifesto to optimism, a rallying cry to the simple transformative power of fewer words and more action. Are you listening, our political class? We all want to keep going, to make it better, - and instinctively we understand that a hearty homemade soup beats a thousand woolly words anytime. So this good 3-part series thing is coming to an end (for now). Thanks for your comments and letting us know your own Reasons to be Cheerful over the last few weeks. There are lots of good vibes and positive energy all around us and if we want to, we really can, in the words of the song, “feel it in my fingers, feel it in my toes”…. hello@dma-partners.com dma-partners.com