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APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN: Free Ad Spend & Grants for UK Small Businesses

In April, Facebook pledged $100M to support small businesses worldwide. The programme so far has helped over 15,000 businesses keep down their costs and to carry on operating during this difficult time.

Here’s the good news; applications for the Facebook Small business grants programme is NOW OPEN to businesses in the UK, but you have to act fast as applications close on October 1st 2020.

The funding is intended to help businesses in the following ways:

Covering operational costs
Helping with rent costs
Connecting with more customers
Generating new leads, clients and sales
Maintaining a strong workforce

How We Can Help

As trusted partners, Unity can communicate and work closely with your business, as well as supporting you in your application for the small business grants programme offered by Facebook.

We offer comprehensive account management, ensuring that your ads and your businesses online profile will perform to its best ability while also optimising your customer reach and building a secure campaign to target leads.

→ Let Us Help

For a free account consultation and for further information on how we can support you in applying and in making the most of any grants made available to you, speak to one of our specialists today on 0116 298 4681 or via our contact form.

Or, for more information, check out our original post.

Digital marketing post-COVID – Are you prepared?

The recent pandemic has put a pause button on many businesses across the globe. And now as we all return to a new standard of normality, businesses need to be more creative than ever with their marketing strategies to re-engage their customer base.

We’ve all seen for ourselves how we have heavily relied on online services to fuel our lifestyles such as replacing gyms with Youtube fitness videos, shopping for groceries online, to even buying homes through virtual tours. The truth to be told here is… life must go on, COVID or no COVID!

However, this then created a huge demand for businesses to tailor their services to suit customer requirements, and the only way to drive customers to them is by using digital marketing.

Brand and companies must now redesign and revamp their marketing game plan and develop new strategies and techniques to reach their audiences. By doing so, they can continue to keep the trust and band authority they once had with their customers.

Here are our few of our tips to help you bounce back stronger and smarter in this post COVID world:

Prepare for a transformation in customer behaviour

Customer behaviour has most definitely been influenced by the recent pandemic, which is why you need to consider that factor in future campaigns. Think about the different mediums customers are using to purchase goods and how they are finding services online. The priority here would be to create meaningful and purpose-driven campaigns that meet the current consumer needs and requirements.

Keeping your customer informed

Quality content production is an essential part of your marketing campaigns. Especially in this climate, it is important to keep in touch with all your existing customers and also keep them informed of any business changes due to COVID. Regular updates of new products, services and news will help build brand awareness and keep your customers engaged.

Get social

Social media platforms are now the best places to reach your customers. Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin are where your customers are spending their time reviewing products, discussing opinions and making their purchasing decisions. You can use these tools to listen to your customers, learn more about them and the market in order to create tailored marketing campaigns.

Measure your data

The only way you will be able to see what is working and what isn’t is through data. Measuring data and analytics allows you to manage campaigns and make educated decisions when allocating marketing funds. The key performance indicators you need to measure are sales, number of leads generated, referrals, social analytics and so on.

Have you installed Google Analytics? This is a great starting to point to get insight data on your website, email and social media performance.

Finally, what you will learn from digital marketing is that it is all about being experimental. You need to try and test new marketing methods to promote your brand and engage with your customers to ultimately drive traffic and sales.

If you have a business and would like to up your marketing game post-COVID, then we are here to help. With tailored marketing campaigns targeted to your customers, we can help increase engagement and brand authority in this ever-competitive world!

Book a FREE consultation with us today.

Google & Facebook to Offer FREE Ad Spend for UK Small Businesses

Both Google and Facebook have released that they will be offering small businesses and medium-sized businesses financial relief in the form of ad credits and grants during the current pandemic. These grant credits are aimed for a business that routinely advertises through Google and Facebook although they are offering this to some new business accounts.

This programme was released in the U.S last month and is set to be made available to 30 additional countries including the UK imminently.

Facebook Small Business Grants

Facebook has pledged $100 million in grants and advertising credits to business accounts who again regularly advertise through their platform. The ‘Small Business Grants’ program is set to be made available to 30,000 businesses across 30 countries who have been hit by the effects of COVID-19. They have made some of their grants available to cover the costs of operations, rent, and workforce.

How to check if you are eligible:

Unlike Google’s programme, you will have to apply for a Small Business grant with Facebook. The eligibility is aimed at businesses that have operated for over a year and to those that employ between 2 – 50 people who have been hit with effects from COVID-19.

This programme is currently available in the US and will be expected to be released imminently in the UK.

See the full criteria and available locations here

Both the search giant and social media platform creates a lot of revenue through SMB’s, these programmes have been put in place to reward those who frequently use their services and is expected to build trust between business and client.

How we can support

We can communicate and work closely with your business, Facebook & Google to support your application for a ‘Small Business Grant’ and Google ad credits.

As a trusted Google Partner we offer comprehensive account management, ensuring that your ads are performing to their best ability while also optimising your customer reach and building a secure campaign to target leads.

For a free account consultation and for further information on how we can support, speak to one of our specialists today.

→ Be the first to know when this is launched in the UK

Stay in the loop and make sure your business is amongst the first to apply!

Register your interest now.

Stay Optimistic – There’s Opportunity In Digital

COVID-19 has affected many things including the way we all do business, however, it is important to stay optimistic.

To ensure you can continue to offer your services to your customers with minimal disruption you will need to adapt your business model to continue success.

Reassure your customers by improving your digital presence, focus your message and refine your audience to maximise your return and make that most out of what’s available, be innovative, be prepared and be open to trying new marketing methods to reach your customers.

Introduce Digital.

The future was always digital, however, the onset of the recent pandemic has forced the gears in motion and many businesses will have to adapt their business model to go online.

Build a secure digital presence, introduce your brand to the online world and share your services with a much wider audience. The first key steps are to recognize how your business can be introduced online, ask yourself ‘What can I offer my customers during this time?’ & ‘How can I offer this is in a safe, effective manner?’

If you’re already online, you need to secure your brand and hold on to your customers, during this time your business can still grow you just need to invest in more time and optimism.

There are so many tools that you can utilise to communicate and offer services to your customers, you just need to be willing to find them.

Adapt Your Messaging.

Increase positivity. We understand that these times are challenging, however, optimism always leads you in the right direction.

Reassure your customers that you’re operating, adapting and preparing for the future, it is now too common to see negative, scary messaging across social media and the news.

Enlighten your customers with confidence, make yourself visible, available and your customers will stay loyal.

Stay Ahead Of The Market.

Believe it or not, right now is a good time to invest more in your marketing, we have seen many of our client’s competitors scale back their marketing investments; this gives you a great opportunity to get ahead of the market and to be the first to convert without having to overspend from ramped up investment levels.

As competition has decreased, the level of competition – and therefore the cost per click – has drastically reduced. We’re finding that lots of businesses are now making the most of lower competition, resulting in greater visibility levels and lower costs per conversion.

In simple terms…in some industries, you can put less in, and get more out!

Stay Optimistic.

Now is a great time to invest more in your business to stay ahead of the market, to build trust and inspire your customers. Use this time to focus your attention on the right areas, stay positive, stay hopeful and you will lead in your market.

If you would like to discuss digital opportunities to maximise your business marketing, speak to our team today – we’re always available.

We understand the difficulties your business may be faced with at this time, so we have made our team available to support your business whenever you need us.

If you would like to request a call click here.

Unity – Digital Business of the Year Winners 2019

Unity was honoured to be crowned Digital Business of the Year at the 5th annual Niche Business Awards held at the Athena Theatre on Friday 6th September; fighting off some very strong challenges to walk away with the award.

The Niche Business Awards is a prestigious event that seeks to celebrate the cream of the Leicestershire business community and this year’s ceremony proved to showcase some very stiff competition across the range of categories. Not least in the Digital Business of the Year category sponsored by Creative 62, which saw Unity pitted against Base 8 Innovations and LoyalFree. Despite the fierce contention, Unity emerged as victorious.

Speaking afterwards, Marketing and Communications Manager Ashley Mason commented:

“I am thrilled that Unity has won the award for Best Digital Business 2019 at the Niche Business Awards. This is a fantastic accolade and really sets us apart in the Leicestershire business community. The whole team works very hard for all of our clients and they deliver fantastic results, so it’s great to be recognised for our efforts and ideas. It’s awards like this that helps keep us pushing forward and bringing exciting new ideas to the table.”

Managing Director Pete Frost commented:

“It’s a real honour to be selected as the Best Digital Business 2019. One of the things about the Niche Awards is the list of business nominated each year seems to get stronger, which is a testament to the Leicestershire business community as a whole. Being picked out of the competition shows just how hard the team has worked this year. It’s a really proud moment for Unity!” Themes surrounding the Niche Awards is always guaranteed to turn heads and this year’s theme ‘Arabian Nights’ did not disappoint, showcasing the vibrancy and the talents of Creative Edge Agency and Flambe Circus. After a warm welcome by Jenny Cross of Cross Productions, this year’s awards sponsored by Paradigm Wills and Legal Services got underway; kicking things off with a very special award for ‘Young Champion’, Kian Deacy.

Unity would like to thank this year’s finalists, as well as the hosts Niche Magazine and this year’s sponsors for a fantastic night. Congratulations to the winners and we look forward to seeing you all next year! To discuss your business’s digital marketing strategy, contact Unity today and see how we can help grow your business’s digital potential.

How to successfully create an influencer marketing strategy

You have a business, you have a product, you have a website and you’re on social media… but your numbers aren’t growing, maybe its time to introduce an influencer marketing strategy?

Due to the rising increase of social media apps, influencer marketing campaigns are now the fastest form of advertising and marketing a business can offer. Instagram now has nearly 2 billion active users; each day users are liking over 4.2 billion posts and the estimated marketing value is 6.5 billion, which has grown 6x higher than its value in 2016! With these numbers still expected to grow, savvy business marketers are using influencers to promote their product or service to one of the largest user based platforms in existence.

Now, we know that creating a successful influencer marketing campaign isn’t as easy as it sounds, but if you follow our steps we can lead you in the right direction.

Plan your Goals and KPI’S

Like any other marketing strategy, you need to know what your goals are and what you aim to achieve with the campaign; the most common influencer marketing achievements are:

Build your target audience and reach new audience marketings
Establish a trustworthy brand awareness
Boost traffic to your website and social profiles
Generate sales and increase footfall.

Choosing the right influencers

The most important part of creating an influencer marketing campaign is ensuring that you have the appropriate influencer for your market. For instance, if you want to increase footfall to your restaurant, you probably don’t want to start a campaign with a skateboarder.

Influencers aren’t just celebrities or limited to the fashion and beauty industry. For most types of communities, there is usually an influencer. As well as this, you need to decide what platform of influencers you want to work with – rated by follower size (celebrity, micro-influencer, local) and by category (vlogger, blogger, journalist, etc.).

Connecting and building the right campaign

Once you have found the right influencers to represent your brand, you need to connect with them, there are a few ways you can do this:

Direct: A lot of influencers promote communication through their email on their social profiles.
Through management: Influencers with high followers or celebrities will usually have their management communicate for business. While this will be effective in terms of reach, this is usually expensive.
Organic: A slower approach but this can build a trusting relationship. Follow your chosen influencer on social platforms and communicate with them over time.

When you approach your influencer, ensure that you talk business. Let them know what you want from them and in return what you can give. Work together to build your campaign, after all, they know their own audience, and they probably know what strategies work best.

Monitor, track and optimize

The final step is to launch your campaign, however, the work doesn’t stop there. Track your progress and monitor your achievements, if something isn’t working to its best, change your call to action. On the other hand, if something is performing well, boost its performance by paid promotion through social media sites.

Finally, record your ROI (return of investment). With a successful campaign, your product/ service would have sold, your audience would have been increased, along with your brand awareness. From this, you can learn what channels are worth investing in on your next campaign.

Contact Unity today

Our marketing and influencer strategy has had a successful lasting impact on many of our clients. We accommodate our clients with a range of solutions that can improve your business ‘s exposure and help you achieve your individual goals. Contact us today, we’d love to have a chat and discuss your marketing options.

Discussing wellbeing in the workplace with Josh Plant – An insider scoop

Wellbeing in the workplace is an important factor in the health and welfare of our employees here at Unity. With the wellness industry constantly evolving and becoming a trending topic of conversation over the last few years, it is crucial to make sure the wellbeing of your employees is a priority.

Here at Unity, we embrace wellbeing and utilise our facilities to give our minds a break from creativity.

We have a variety of opportunities around the office such as:

Our lovely ping pong table & PS4 system – (where our inner competitiveness strikes!)

A monthly yoga session – This is where we can take an hour from our day and enhance our inner chakra with positions that we can utilise with our office habits. We are taught various techniques that can help with our mental health and wellbeing within the workplace as well as our everyday lives.
Monthly socials and team lunches

Team building

We aren’t just a company, but a family and it is important to break away from the office and connect as a team. Past socials have included:

Lunches
Dinners and cocktails
Celebrating team members birthdays
Crazy golf
Escape rooms
Award ceremonies and much more!

Wellbeing at Unity is a very important factor to all of us as a team, which is why we were delighted to have Josh “The Power” Plant here at Unity HQ, where we were introduced to personal wellbeing assessments and conducted investigations into our personal health and development.

Through our 1 to 1 assessments with Josh, we pursued areas such as:

Analysis of current fitness, goals and dietary levels
Creating new health and fitness goals
Tracking our food and sleeping patterns
Understanding the elements of protein, carbohydrates and fat

Josh’s recommended apps

My Fitness Pal

This app has come highly recommended by Josh and it is a fantastic app to use! You can analyse aspects such as steps you have taken throughout that day, insert your food intake for that day as well as analyse your nutrients and calories you have lost during that day. It is a great tool to use when you want to lose weight or simply analyse your day-to-day activities.

bodybuilding.com

This website provides you with so much information if you want to get fit, from any level. From beginner to expert, you will be able to find something for you.

This website provides not only full body workouts but also nutritional recipes that will align with your exercises and handy articles to educate you about your body and which body type you are. Furthermore, there are also useful additions such as the macro calculator, BMR calculator and a muscle building calculator to provide further insight into your body type.

Top tips from Josh:

Track your food & the times you are eating: whether it is a snack or a meal – write it down. This will aid your understanding of your eating habits and where change needs to happen in your diet.
Track your sleeping patterns: It is important to track and analyse your sleeping cycle because if you are not getting enough sleep, your body is not fully recovering in the night, leading to implications such as fatigue and low energy levels during the course of your day.
Track your daily intake of steps: This may be something you haven’t truly thought about but aiming for 10,000 steps a day can not only change your energy levels but improve your wellbeing and state of mind for the day. These steps can be achieved easily than you think throughout the day, you can add to your steps by changing your transport to work. Instead of taking the car, can you walk to work? Instead of sitting at your desk at lunchtime, why not taking a gentle stroll around your area. 10,000 steps is your DAILY recommendation, so don’t worry if you have not reached your goal but always keep this number in your mind for the next day to come.

Understanding Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat.

Protein – 4 calories per gram

Carbohydrates – 4 calories per gram

Fat – 9 calories per gram

Josh Plant was a fantastic addition to our wellbeing initiatives and we learned a great deal about our daily routines, fitness levels and created goals. We also gained further insight into how important looking after your mental health and wellbeing is within the workplace.

What are your thoughts about wellbeing in the workplace?

Why it is crucial to have a content marketing strategy for your business?

So, what is blogging and content marketing?

Within this blog, we will be explaining the two above terms, providing you with a clear understanding and giving you food for thought on what you can implement within your own company.

Did you know: Businesses that contribute to the art of blogging produce 73% more leads than companies that have decided not to go down this route.

Interested? Read on.

Explain blogging to me

You have most likely heard the term blogging and even read some blogs yourself across the Internet. This term comes from “weblog”. This refers to the act of publishing informative content onto a website platform.

Blogs can take many shapes and forms however and can pursue a variety of backgrounds – from educational to personal and corporate content. The possibilities of blog writing are truly endless!

If you’re new to blogging or looking to have a blog section for your company website, you can find more information right here.

Okay. so, what’s content marketing?

When it comes to company productivity, creating blogs is simply not enough to make a mark in society. Blogging is a fantastic tool, but in order for blogging to be truly effective for a business, it needs to be placed within a strategic marketing plan – blogging then becomes a valuable asset to drive results and produce potential conversions.

This is what makes content marketing. Having the attributes to create and publish strategic, valuable and consistent content in order to educate and attract an audience.

At Unity, we use buyer personas.

Now, a buyer persona is where we produce research and create a semi-fictional customer that would be the ideal fit for a companies target audience.

This allows us to build customer loyalty and deliver core value to these personas, attracting the right target audience who are marketed with the relevant content and attracting those conversions to take place.

That is the difference between blogging and content marketing – content marketing is all about driving customers through the purchase funnel and proceed with a conversion in order to drive those results home.

At the end of the day, it is so important to make sure that you don’t treat your consumers as a sale, treat them as your neighbour. Communication is key and in order to create that C2B relationship, you need to acquire the customer’s trust, create engaging high-quality content and provide something new so your customer will directly come back to you and not your competitors.

Content marketing can promote itself in an array of forms – not just the form of blogging.

Below is a list of just a few possibilities that you could pursue to align with your blog:

Social Media
Infographics
Video Content
Animation

With the variety of channels, you can undergo in order to create those conversions, the possibilities are endless.

Brilliant. What should I do now?

So, when it comes to what the differentiations are between blogging and content marketing, you should have a deeper understanding.

We always produce a variety of strategies and tests when it comes to producing engaging content for all our clients, so it is very important that you undergo the exact same process.

A few key aspects to remember:

Create a content marketing strategy for your blogs. If there is no strategy, you will have a much lower chance of creating value and converting those leads.
If you are not providing core value to your customers, then this is not content marketing. Fact.
Blogging is a tool for your business. Content marketing is the toolbox.
Remember, it is important to align your content projects with that of other marketing directions such as email marketing and social media, in order to enhance your content’s success rates and build a stronger brand personality online.

What are your thoughts?

At Unity, we are passionate about content marketing. Let’s face it, it is all around us and will continue to be a presence in the future of the marketing world.

It enables you to bring value, trust, the generating of leads and finally convert customers to purchase your services and products.

To find out more about effective content marketing, speak to our team today who will be happy to have a chat about your content marketing opportunities