In this episode, we speak to Charlotte Surtees-Chapman who is the Group Senior Public Affairs Manager at Associated British Foods plc.
Charlotte has worked for Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Associated British Foods on public affairs and communications and so offers a wealth of knowledge around how to correctly manage your communications to different parties.
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We discuss:
✅ What is public affairs and how it’s changed
✅ When to put something out as you or as your company
✅ The importance of the timing of your messages
✅ Checking that your communications make sense
✅ Using comms for internal benefits as well as external
✅ Understanding the different audiences your messages is going to
✅ Measuring the success of a message
Transcript
The following transcript is autogenerated.
Matt Nally 00:11
On this week’s episode, we have Charlotte, who’s the group Senior Public Affairs Manager at ABF. So thanks for coming on, Charlotte.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 00:33
Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
Matt Nally 00:35
Always, always, just gonna start by giving us a bit of background as to how you got into public affairs and sort of your background within it.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 00:44
Yeah. So as you know, we went to university together. So we started out at King’s College London and studied business management. And from there, I was very lucky to get onto the Graduate Programme at Coca Cola. So I started out in the bottling side, doing sort of a hybrid role of Communications and Public Affairs across a variety of sort of, I guess, the UK market, and also Europe. And then after that, I moved over to the Coca Cola brand side. And again, I did a hybrid role of sort of public affairs, and also some brand columns, and a little bit of corporate comms as well. And then I moved over to a global role at McDonald’s. So I was a global campaigns Manager, which was sort of focused on public affairs, but also communicating and launching some of our big sustainability campaigns. And as you say, Now, I am the Senior Public Affairs Manager at Associated British foods, and we are the UK’s largest agri food business and owner of Primark. So my role now is much more more focused on public affairs. But I guess I have a background in communications, Public Affairs, a little bit of sustainability, all with always with that food and drink lens.
Matt Nally 01:58
Awesome. Awesome. It’s a really cool company, isn’t there? Yes. Yeah, massive. I imagined it was very exciting projects, which we’ll maybe touch on a bit later. I think one of the reasons I was really interested in speaking to you today was, I suppose one of the challenges that any company has, and surveyors are the same is how do you communicate to customers, and of course, you’ve got different types of customers for the different services you offer. And, and even within one service, you’ve got different intents behind wipe, someone’s trying to join that go ahead. So if you’re doing a home survey, you know, perhaps it’s your first time buyer and upsize or downsize. So there’s different motivations throughout. And then you’ve got commercial clients, and they’ve got a very different mindset to what a domestic client or a residential client is looking for. So yeah, so that’s I suppose the context for today is looking at everything around that. But what just to suppose to get started, what what is public affairs? What does that cover?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 02:59
I think public affairs is really grown. In recent years, I think sometimes there’s been a misconception that Public Affairs and Communications has been a bit fluffy and a nice to have. And I think, especially with the rise of the influence of media, but also social media, people now start to understand that actually, being able to communicate well, is critical to any business. And really sort of supports in driving brand trust and reputation. So I sort of see communications as a great tool for engaging with all stakeholders, whether that’s, you know, prospective clients, as you’ve just outlined, whether it’s internal employees, media, or sort of, I guess, the brands that I’ve traditionally worked with sort of consumers of your end product. And I think it’s really important to help you drive, you know, business growth, you can gain more sales through the way that you communicate. But also, it’s about how people perceive your company. And building that positive reputation and opinion of your business is really important. You know, I just touched on today’s society, you know, one negative media headline or bad social media post can really destroy your reputation and your business overnight. And that’s why I think getting getting it right is so important. And then, I guess I’ll just touch on public firms very quickly, which is the other side and my role at the moment, which is really about minimising or mitigating risks on your business. So the government is always working on policies, whether that sort of sustainability policies or I guess, for you may be constraints around planning and ways in which you might need to carry out surveys. And actually, it can be really important to engage with politicians to try and shape the policies that they’re working on to ensure that they, I guess, benefit your business or don’t have too much burden or cost to doing business. And on the other side of that often government launching funding schemes which All businesses might be able to access. So the public affairs point, I guess, is also quite important to keep a monitor of as well.
Matt Nally 05:07
That’s really, really cool points. And they’re actually and I think one of the ones that stuck in my head there is it’s very easy actually to always think of everything is outward in terms of speaking to people outside the business and not how effectively you’re communicating internally to employees. And obviously, the how engaged they feel and motivated. So there’s a lot actually in that in there, Gemini I suppose. There’s lots I suppose to take away from that and delve into but what I suppose at a higher level are the keys to successful communication. So if you’re, where do you start with it? I suppose, because you’ve got all of these different stakeholders, you could approach to how do you sort of decide where to begin?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 05:52
Yeah, I think, fundamentally, you need to make sure that your communications are authentic to yourself and your brand. And everything you’re communicating, you are also putting into practice. So it’s no good say, communicating about these amazing environmental credentials, for example, if you’re not actually doing them. So it’s really important to know who your brand is. And then I think to make communication successful, it’s really about taking time to understand your audience, and build a meaningful relationship with them. And, you know, I think through all of that, then there’s a really important point to being clear in what you’re saying, but also being honest. And, and I guess, for you guys, that might be really important. If a product is delayed, then actually, it’s important to communicate that upfront, because I often think that people you’re communicating to appreciate honesty, they, they want to feel respected. And so the more information you can give them that’s going to support, I guess, your your kind of channels is really important. So I guess when it comes to communications, in general, what I like to do is come up with a little bit of a commons plan. And I think there’s a couple of points within that. So the first I guess, is really understanding, why are you communicating? So what is the objective? For you guys? It might be are you trying to attract new clients? Are you trying to build a better relationship with existing clients? Are you just communicating on a on an ongoing project and sort of is a day to day communication? So that’s really important. What’s your why? What are you trying to achieve? And then I guess the second point there is, what is your message? So what actually is it you’re going to be saying, and therefore what tone do you need to use? So, you know, we touched at the start, but being clear is really, really important. But also understanding is the message or giving positive or negative, how is the person receiving it likely to feel when they get it. And based on that you can start to think about, okay, which are the ways in which I should be giving that message. And also things such as, Are there points that make you stand out from your competitor, in which case that should absolutely be included in your message, whether that’s sort of green credential credentials, or you’ve got expertise in your business that other people might have, really using that as a driver for your message, I think it’s important. I guess a couple other points that I’ll touch on quickly is understanding who your audience is. And that I would imagine would be quite critical for you guys, because it depends on how much knowledge do they have of the subject. So if you’re reporting, for example, on I don’t know, the condition of a property to a commercial client who’s got loads of properties, sees this day in day out, then they might just want something really snappy. This is what we found, you know, can keep it quite quite quick. But actually, if you’re engaging with a first time buyer, who’s never done this before, they might want a bit more hand holding. And so you might need to over communicate some of the details and, and really work to reassure them. And so I guess, when understanding your audience, it’s trying to put yourself in, in the shoes of the person that you’re communicating to, and understand if you were there, how would you want to receive that message? And then I guess the final thing I’d touch on is, the channel that you’re using to communicate is really important. So you know, as I said, if your client is doing this day in and day out, then maybe a quick call is really easy. And, you know, communicating by phone is fine. However equally, if you’re submitting information to counsel for planning permission, for example, then you might want a formal channel where what you’re saying is recorded and documented for future use. So yeah, I think those are just a couple of very initial things that you should think of, but really important in making sure your campaign is successful.
Matt Nally 09:54
So there’s a couple of points I picked up from that. I think one was the channel I completely agree with you on that. Because I’ve seen often when I’m having conversations, people like to provide a service in the way that they like to receive communications. So they like phone, for example, which is great that everyone should have to pick up the phone, because that’s what they prefer. And actually, that doesn’t work. For some customers, they just want an email, if there’s quickly outline something, or they want to text or whatever it might be. So it’s really important to get the method right and actually put yourself in the shoes, as you say, of the end customer, then stakeholder and not not your own preference. The other one I find interesting, and I think people often struggle with this is you touched on really explaining your unique selling points, or the value offer versus a competitor? How would you go about when you’ve done this in the past, sort of, I suppose, understanding what they are, and outlining them properly and communicating in the right way. Because I find a lot of people can very easily get stuck on a feature. And it’s often the same feature that everybody else is saying. So I don’t know, we’re local, where RSCs, where whatever. And of course, everyone can say, their enough their local, their RSS or whatever it might be. So how do you pick up on your unique aspects or your value and communicate that in a way that isn’t just sort of generic, I suppose? Or the same as what someone else might be?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 11:23
Yeah, I think it’s a great question. There are a couple points that I would pick up on. So firstly, making sure that what makes you unique is actually, you know, is actually truthful, is really important. It’s no good communicating something which actually isn’t a brand value is I think that that gets picked up quite quickly. And at the moment, you see a lot of claims around say greenwashing where people are claiming that they’re really environmentally friendly. And actually, they’re not. And that can do more harm than good. As you say, a lot of the companies that you’re sort of talking about are probably quite similar in terms of their offering, I would look at things such as, Do you have an expert, for example, a technical expert in the business, which other companies might not have, in which case, you could use them to communicate some of the work that you’re doing, and really sell off the fact that they’ve got experience that other might other people might not have? Or they’ve got specific knowledge that might be really important. Another thing to look at is, you know, do you have projects that you’ve done before, which other companies might not have done and might be really relevant to that specific set of stakeholders? So, you know, are there proof points that you can start to bring to life from previous projects that that would help to show that you are unique? You know, whether that’s a specific project that really stands you out? Have you won awards that other people might not have won? And you can sort of communicate about those? Are there sustainable sustainability projects that you’re working on? Are you trying to reduce your carbon footprint, etc? Could you bring that to life? I guess something, I would also say as when communicating, it’s, it’s really helpful to look at what your competitors are saying. And you can start to sort of look at who do you think is best in class out there? And what are they saying? And how are they positioning themselves? And is there something that they are sort of selling themselves as which, which is really unique? And then you can start to work back and think, Okay, well, how does that fit into to my business? But I think what’s really important is, rather than just saying there’s something unique about you, there has to actually be something that makes you stand out. And I guess that’s working internally to find out what that is. And I guess also, it comes back to putting yourself in the client’s shoes. What would you be looking for, you know, if you’ve got five companies all in a line, is it that they’re more cost effective? For example? Is it that they’ve got the greater expertise, the better projects to prove that they’re able to, to really deliver what they say they’re going to deliver? Do they have testimonials that might stand them out? You know, really looking at what would you want in that situation?
Matt Nally 14:07
Yeah, that’s very important. And it ultimately justifies your your fee level within the industry. If you can’t communicate the justification for your value, then the by def, by definition of price is going to have to come down to reflect that you can’t provide the value versus somebody else. So it’s important one spend the time when I think when you when you’ve had some really big projects in the past? Because I imagined, obviously, you’ve been speaking to government, you’ve then had stuff that goes out to end consumers all around the same project. How do you review that message and adjust how you’re sending it out? Or what’s even included in it? How do you decide what to include? what to leave out how to position it? If you’re going for the end consumer and government and all these different people
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 14:59
from a consumer perspective, we know that audiences, you know, who might be looking on Instagram or Facebook or whatever, probably have quite a short attention span. So you need to look at what is the the key point that you’re trying to get across? And does it reflect the tone of the company. So, for example, I’ve worked on brands before, which are very playful in tone. And ensuring that is consistent in the message that we’re giving out to consumers is really important. And equally, keeping it short and snappy in the message. If, for example, you’re looking to engage with media, and you’re really trying to get a story to land, then you’ve got to think about what is the headline, what is the the unique point that you’re trying to communicate, which is going to sell a paper, it’s really important to look at, again, who your audience is, and what you’re trying to communicate. So from a consumer perspective, consumers don’t spend a huge amount of time reading things. You know, we’re in sort of a three second tick tock environment. So ensuring that you’re, you’re communicating something in a way, which is really fun, playful, three top line messages, Max to land, and then also looking at channels. So at the moment, it seems that consumers are quite visual. So Instagram, Tik Tok, could be the best way to approach your messaging that if you’re then looking to say, grab a media headline, you need to think about what is that headline that’s going to make them write about you? Is there a key stat that sort of stands you out from your competitors? Are you launching a new project? That’s, you know, particularly important, and what makes it exciting for a media to report on? And there, I think it’s really looking at the so what? And again, with media, it tends to be sort of face to face conversations, do you have someone in your business that you would want to put up for a media interview? Do you just want to give them a press release, and there you sort of have the key detail behind what you’re launching? With government, it tends to be slightly more detailed. So you’re, you’re usually looking to get a lot more information across whether that be, you know, specific detail about planning permissions, or, you know, very specific specific details potentially on a survey finding. And there, it’s probably better to consider who is the voice of the business? Are you going to communicate as the business you’re representing? Or might it be better to put one of your technical works that’s available, sort of put your technical expert forward to communicate that detail, which is probably going to be very formal, written responses to government style questions? Yeah, that’s
Matt Nally 17:43
a great point. So there again, and I think one of them actually ties nicely back with a previous episode we did around potentially email content, it’s not what you’re saying it’s, but it’s how you just lay it out. And it was sort of talking about visuals a minute ago. And you can have the same points. But if you if you’ve got it as one solid paragraph versus split into nice sections, and images, and all that kind of stuff within the email, then suddenly the same message one gets across, and one just gets ignored with too much.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 18:16
Thinking about what voice you’re using, because sometimes it might be that communicating as your business and as your brand is going to be most effective. But sometimes it can be really useful to look at, does the CEO have a voice? So for example, does the CEO have presence on LinkedIn, and actually, you want to communicate the brand message but via the CEO, or via I don’t know from for us, it might be our chief sustainability officer. And then also looking at you know, earlier, I think we were talking about ways in which you could stand out from your competitors. Are there specific magazines or publications in the civilian world that are very well read by clients, and where you could do sort of a blog, or an interview with your CEO or with one of your technical experts, because, because that’s quite a good way to expand reach specifically in that, I guess that that technical world of people who really know surveying,
Matt Nally 19:14
as a very good point actually made me think about something else, which is, how do you decide when something should come from the company, and when it should come from an individual like the CEO or somebody else? And just in terms of is there a risk that you start to develop too much personal brand with an individual, and therefore they leave the value is gone in the business because everyone’s used to hearing from, say, the CEO or or particular director. So yeah, how’d you find the balance on that?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 19:42
I guess it comes back to the message and does it feel more authentic for it to come from the CEO? So for example, if you are going to communicate about your business and brand values, or the way in which maybe you have Rate your employees and well being and that sort of message which feels slightly more personal, then it might be better for that to come from the CEO. Equally, if you’ve got something, you know, earlier, we spoke about a point of difference being you having a technical expert. If you are going to communicate something that is really technical, then it might be better for them to relay that message as they’ve sort of got the expertise. It’s an interesting point new razor about what happens when that person leaves the company. And the way I’ve done it previously, is we’ve always had someone were there. For example, if you take someone’s LinkedIn, there has not been a lot of crossover from a personal perspective. So we really have worked as a communications team to build that, that leaders presence on social media, and ensure that they are communicating regularly, but not too much on topics that are important to the brand. I guess another thing you can look at is to avoid those situations happening. If you communicate as the businesses and the brand, to them want to get the CEO or another leader within the business to amplify the post. So for example, they could share it on their LinkedIn, they could share it on their Twitter. And that helps to sort of, I guess, increase the credibility of that post, but also increase the reach.
Matt Nally 21:24
But also, yeah, keep it then tied back to the company, rather than it being too personal every time. Yeah, so interesting.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 21:30
And I guess also, you know, if so, for example, if I take examples we’ve done in the past, if I’m launching something on beef sustainability, during time a previous company, if the chief sustainability officer has been the person to come up with the sort of the narrative, and the concept, and they’ve worked really hard on that, it makes more sense for them to tell that story because they are more likely to be passionate about it. And then that sort of drives into the credibility and the way in which other people will read it, because that passion comes across from them having been so closely involved in it. Well, you know, if you’re just communicating your business credentials, then that’s, you know, far more easily going to come from the business itself.
Matt Nally 22:17
Yeah, yeah, that’s very good point. I think I don’t know why this popped into my head, I think it came around the bases inability part. But there’s obviously I imagined, it’s very easy to get a scenario where something somehow goes negative, someone decides to pick up on something, and they don’t believe it, and try and run a different angle. Even if it’s just, you know, on social media with consumers. I suppose the context I’m thinking of more is for a survey, you get a negative review, for whatever reason someone decides to don’t like, something that you did, whether it’s right or wrong, but how do you then mitigate that aspect in terms of how do you then start to change the narrative when someone’s put a negative? A negative review, for example, or said something bad on social?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 23:00
Yeah, it’s hard. And I, I’d say the first thing you need to look at is, is it worth responding to? So there are a lot of times I’m sure you can imagine it the brands that I’ve worked with, where you do get negative feedback, whether that be on social media, or sort of face to face. If it’s on social media, what you don’t want to do is make the situation worse. And so I guess it’s about working out. What reach does that social channel have? How many people are starting to engage with the comment? Is there truth behind it as well. So if they are making an accusation, which actually, there is truth behind and could be quite damaging, then that’s something that you would want to engage in. But if they’re just saying, you know, I disagree with the findings of the survey, and the post isn’t getting much traction, actually, it might be better for you not to engage at all, I would say probably for for your line of work and the sort of scenarios you will be dealing with, the best thing to do is to comment with thank you for your feedback, please drop us an email and we will come back to you directly. And that way you take the conversation off social media, and you minimise the risk of it suddenly blowing up. And you’re able to have an in hopefully, what is a constructive engagement offline, where other people aren’t able to see it?
Matt Nally 24:26
Yeah, that’s very good point. I think it ties in certain spots into my head and maybe ties in a bit with the the methods that have been used by the Royal Family With or a royal family surely say with the princess, in terms of the South Park ended up taking that on themselves that they’ve responded on behalf of.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 24:45
Imagine that’s a difficult communications team to be part of at the moment. Yeah, but yeah. Sometimes you do need you do need to address the situation. Situation. Absolutely. But there’s a time and a place and I think it’s about using your judgement as to Uh, is you engaging with someone who actually might not be rational and might be posting negatively about a different company every single day? Is it worth putting resources into to making that situation worse? You know, are they out there to pick a fight? Or do they have a genuine point where actually trying to sort of get your point across and make them feel comfortable and build back the relationship is important. And I think it’s about using your judgement that,
Matt Nally 25:29
yeah, you’re right, because actually, sometimes there are occasions where someone isn’t out for a resolution, they’re just out to have a bad day, or they’re in a bad mood, and they want to keep going down.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 25:40
And it’s the same way, you know, you’ll see on media stories, there’s a huge amount of stories where a company has been approached for comment, and they just don’t comment. And that’s absolutely fine to do. What I would say is, if you do have a good story to tell. So for us, it might be that someone’s commented negatively about our packaging, when actually is 100% recyclable and everything that’s being said, Isn’t fat, then that’s something that we might want to engage in and give a sort of media statement from the company on it sort of about, do you have proof points to back up? The reason why you disagree with them? And how can you put that in, across across in a way that doesn’t feel too defensive? If you are going to respond?
Matt Nally 26:21
Yeah. And actually, that reminded me of a point I want to come to earlier, which is, I suppose we’re talking more about media at the moment from my national press kind of level. But But equally, if you’re, you know, a medium sized business, you can still be doing that same thing with local newspapers. Where you are, it’s the same process. It’s just on a on a local rather than national level.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 26:43
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, to that point, it’s, as you saying, on a local level is really important. But also going back to that, are there specialist publications, which you would read? You know, I don’t know if they’re a survey as well, or whatever it might be. But are there those sorts of publications or newsletters that come out that that you read often, and you might think, actually being involved in this is, you know, it’s quite an interesting way to engage and to increase the reach and message that we’re trying to send out
Matt Nally 27:14
there like that. One other aspects I wanted to look at was, what are the common mistakes that you’ve seen? where things have not necessarily gone disastrously wrong? Cuz obviously, that’s most more specific to that scenario. But what are the common mistakes that you see people making? Where the message doesn’t get across? And people don’t understand it? And? And what makes a really good message?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 27:40
Yeah, there are a couple of points here, I would say sometimes, especially if you’re not communications expert, if you’re so into the detail of what you’re trying to communicate, it might make sense to you because you have the background on what you’re communicating, but actually, to someone else, with no expertise, and with little understanding of the industry, they might read something and it just completely goes over their head. And so I think when you’re when you’re writing a message, it’s really important to take a step back and look at how would someone who might have no knowledge on this subject whatsoever? Read it, a good sort of sense, check there as if you’ve written something and you’re not sure if you’re in that situation or not? Are there colleagues or even friends that you could say, Hey, have a read of this doesn’t make sense to you. And if it does, great, and if it doesn’t, then maybe you can see, seek a bit of feedback and advice on what would make it land for them. Because landing your message is really important. I think that the tone of voice is tone point is also really important. So you never want to sound too defensive in what you’re communicating. You want to be authentic to who you are, you want to be clear, concise. And always sort of reviewing your messages of what was the key point that I was trying to make? What am I trying to achieve here? And always going back to that, that checkpoint that we discussed at the beginning, and just making sure that the message actually does tick to, you know, tick all of those boxes? I’d say another thing that people sometimes don’t think about is time, as in when is it right to put the message out there? So for example, if you’re trying to engage someone on a really important topic is Friday at 530 going to be the best time probably not people are probably ready to, you know, to get on the drinks and head off for the week. Equally trying to land a really important message on a Monday morning when people are catching up with a million emails. Probably not going to work. So so it’s really thinking about, you know, does the communication make sense? Is the tone right for the audience that you’re trying to, to attract? And then yeah, making sure that that that timing point is right. You know, and also, it If you’re trying to I’m trying to think if you’ve got a highly commercial client, for example, or a technical expert, are they going to be looking on Instagram for the message? Maybe, I mean, maybe they are, but most likely they’re not, they’re probably going to be looking in the specialist publications. And so again, making sure that the channel of communications is right is really important.
Matt Nally 30:24
So that’s a very good point. Because it’s, there’s a lot of temptation to be on every channel because every other business is trying to be on every channel. But do you really want to be putting a message out that someone’s scrolling through on a Saturday on Instagram, when they’re actually just trying to enjoy their social time and look at other things entirely. They don’t really want to be getting bombarded with something technical. But the other point you made made me think back to my my school days where you get the feedback on your homework going, you haven’t answered the question. You’ve gone on your own tangent of what you think the question was, and not going back to hang on? Oh, yeah. Hang on.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 31:00
Yeah, it’s really, you know, also, I think, in a, in a day where communications are playing a much larger role for people’s businesses. You know, there’s two different types of communication, there is sort of the day to day checking in with your clients, building those relationships, building a little bit more knowledge and awareness of the brand. But also, you need to sort of try to balance because equally, you don’t want to over communicate, do you actually have a point to make? Or are you just communicating something because you think you should be doing something, you can sort of lose, we’ve all had newsletters, which you think you’re signing up to, and then suddenly, it’s like, daily or twice daily bombardment with information that actually you don’t really care about. So also ensuring that that you’re aware of that, and you aren’t over communicating?
Matt Nally 31:48
Yeah, cuz that’s a good point, actually, particularly with email is, you just it becomes so familiar in your inbox, it’s easy to ignore. See the same thing coming up? I think one last thing I was interested in understanding, particularly, obviously, the scale of the type of communications you do is how do you measure that success of a campaign? Because I think it’s really easy to put stuff out there. It’s the hard part is obviously getting the right message, as we’ve discussed, but also understanding whether it’s being effective. Yeah, so how do you decide because it’s obviously likes, on the one hand, it could just be a lot of people have seen it, they like their visual arts. So they press the button, but actually, there’s not necessarily read it. So it can be a vanity metric. Sometimes everyone has engaged and therefore it was an important metric. Equally open rate doesn’t necessarily mean that they were interested in the communication in an email. So how do you go about measuring or deciding what to measure on the different types of things you’ve put out?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 32:45
This is actually quite challenging as it can be hard to measure the impact of communications. I think going back to your why, and what are the what were the objectives that you set out in the first place? So were you trying to build more positive relationships with existing clients? Were you trying to attract new clients? Is it just day to day communications, you know, you’ve got the results of a surveying. And it’s sort of quite transactional. But I would say if you’re very clear on your objectives, and what you’re trying to achieve, then you can start to try and put KPIs to that. So you know, is it that through this specific communications, we want to try and attract five new clients next month? Is it that we would like an existing client to come back to us and you’re sort of looking at client retention? Is it that you just want someone to feel more positive about the work that you’re doing and have more trust in in you and your business? And so, you know, you’ve got the KPIs on the one hand, if it’s if it is really tangible, around attracting new clients, the harder measurement comes when it is around that sort of positive reputation, and building those relationships. And sometimes, you know, you need to measure that through check ins with clients, you know, can you check in at the end of some of your communications to say, how do you feel this relationships going? Are you happy with everything? Are we delivering everything you need? Or is there more that we could be doing? So that’s where I think you get some of the softer side. But you know, as you say, going back to likes, on on social media posts, I don’t think they always give the best you know, they don’t give you the best idea of what’s really going on. You know, likes are great. And I think you can use those as a KPI but I was would always look to engagement. So you know, if you’ve put something out on LinkedIn, Are people sharing it are people you know, putting something in the comments and coming back with questions? Are people connecting with you through it or reaching out saying great post would love to talk to you more about X, Y and Zed? Those are sort of some of the, the softer but slightly harder to measure points. And you know, It might be that you want to explore putting a little bit of paid behind some of the campaigns that you’re running. So if you’ve got a really important point to put on LinkedIn, you might want to look at should we put a bit of money behind amplifying this message sponsored, sponsored posts, for example? And then, you know, you, you look at well, I’ve increased the reach through that sponsorship. And so I might be more likely to attract more clients through that. But But I think it’s sort of an evolving process, and especially in the world of social media, it is very difficult to look at what actually was successful. But, you know, I would say, if you don’t think think things are going well, then I would look at, you know, can you seek feedback from other colleagues that you’re working with, again, to the point we raised earlier, is the communications message landing? And also looking again, at what competitors are doing this really well? Is there a gap between what they’re putting out and what you’re putting out? And how can you sort of bridge that?
Matt Nally 36:01
Yeah, definitely. I think, I think the social ones very, very hard to measure some of my, I suppose lowest engagement posts, in terms of, you know, the number of likes have actually had the most attraction in terms of conversations off the back of them. But I saw an interesting one the other day, which was, someone posted a picture of some, I think it was a mug with these. chocolate digestives. And the price was the price had gone up by on the shelf. And they’ve had, you know, 1000s of likes on that. And they’re like, but all my actual useful posts rep over years of my experience of how to do X, Y, and Zed. It’s just been the only thing but suddenly a packet of biscuits achieved that much work. It’s just,
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 36:41
yeah, but that’s really important. Because actually, that goes back to that message as well. And that’s an example where, sometimes if you have a shocking stat, I’m sure that was probably around inflation. If you have a stamp that’s really going to shock people use it, because that’s how you get that initial Oh, wow, I’m going to take a moment to to engage in content versus just skipping through it. So sometimes, you know,
Matt Nally 37:03
yeah, that makes it different to every other. Yeah,
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 37:07
exactly. So hard.
Matt Nally 37:09
I didn’t realise, you know, sorry,
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 37:11
I was just gonna say it sometimes, you know, having a hard hitting facts can be really impactful in gaining attention. And for you guys, you know, your source of business, you might want to look up, are there milestones coming up where, you know, you’ve done 100 surveys, which you might want to communicate, or you’re investing in x, y, and Zed is, especially from a headline perspective, being able to put a figure whether that’s financial or number of clients, or whatever that might be behind paying the message can be be really important.
Matt Nally 37:44
I suppose yeah, number does help, because it helps it to be more relatable people can actually engage and understand, understand, versus something that’s a bit more fluffy is the wrong word. But you know, in tangible effect, you can’t, it’s hard to understand or appreciate it.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 37:59
So just thinking about, I guess, your your audience, as well as like, probably a lot of what you’re dealing with is quite technical and quite detailed. So how can you make it a bit of fun? Is it through visuals? Is it through those shocking stats? What brings it to life versus you know, a lot of people can quite easily get lost in a lot of text? And, you know, that was fine for when you’re communicating to government. But if you’re trying to win over a new client, it might not be
Matt Nally 38:25
Yeah, so I agree with that. I think, I think also, what’s just popped into my head is it’s not just about communication, in terms of what you’re putting out there in terms of a marketing perspective, or general brand communication perspective. But that’s, that all still applies within, let’s say, a report that you’re sending out. Whether it’s a commercial property or residential property, how you’ve written everything in there, and how engaging it is, and visual and whatever makes a huge difference to how someone’s going to receive it, understand it, they’re in satisfaction to come back and use you again. So it all ties into other aspects of the business as well.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 38:59
Yeah, definitely. And what we sometimes do is, you know, we launch a report, and then we sort of put out the five key points and put it into an infographic and then you know, you can take that face to face meetings, you can drop it through letter boxes, you can put it on social media so especially I think if you’ve got a project which we’re putting a lot of money into, such as producing a report, how can you get the most bang for your buck? So how can you really make that one piece of content work hard across all your channels and in different ways with different audiences?
Matt Nally 39:30
Yeah, yeah. I think I suppose one thing is viewer survey and it will do something locally, you can go well, you know, of all the houses we’ve looked at in this particular postcode or postcode districts, they on average have this many significant issues this many low issues and averages as a cost of this so therefore our services more than paid for from it. But yeah, but I do a nice infographic. Aren’t you making visual? Definitely, um, But thanks for coming on and sharing all of your thoughts today around all the different ways you can communicate and things to think about. If anyone wants to take a look at some of the stuff that you post about through for ABF or who you’re working with, can they follow you online? See that?
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 40:17
Yeah, absolutely. I am on LinkedIn and also Twitter. So feel free to drop me a message and connect, always happy to talk.
Matt Nally 40:28
Much and speak soon.
Charlotte Surtees-Chapman 40:30
Okay, thanks so much. Bye.