“Language is as much a part of how you present yourself – and how other people react to you – as the way you dress�.

Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines

Ever since the earliest known grammar systems were established in Iron Age India, language and grammar have continued to evolve as foreign influences and the requirement for new words to describe new inventions and inevitable social changes emerge. A novel written 50 years ago will feature stark differences to one written today.

The importance of grammar has been rather lost in the current education system although business communications still demand a high standard of understanding. With a number of our clients we have either developed or worked with strict house style guidelines, which can include rules on anything from hyphenation and capitalisation to word preferences and sentence structure.

As much as the colours in your logo, the font used on your collateral and the company strapline all define your brand, so too does the language you use and the finer details that go with it. By using the correct grammar and style rules, your brand can communicate clearly with your audience and is less open to interpretation.

Perhaps most importantly, consistency across your communications demonstrates professionalism. After all, as Taggart and Wines highlight, ‘if we alwez rote howeva we pleazd itd b like turning up 2 an interview in ript jeanz n a scruffy t-shirt, y’know?’.

If you’d like to discuss developing a house style and how to implement it, please call Harriette on 0117 9371 383 or email harriette@strattoncraig.co.uk.

Secrets to creating great blog content

At Stratton Craig, blogging is a crucial part of our clients’ communications strategies, but when you’re posting three times a week – or even trying to muster up something original once a week – it can be hard to consistently create compelling content for your blog posts.

Sometimes finding different, interesting and useful content to share on a blog proves tricky. But keeping your conversations regular and insightful is crucial to engaging the right people.

With that in mind, here are 11 ways to consistently create great blog content:

1. Re-visit your blogging legacy

Have a look through your previous posts – are there any blogs you can add a second part to, an update, additional content?

2. Read through the last 24 hours home feed on your Twitter account

Reviewing the last day on your Twitter newsfeed usually delivers a few good blog ideas or content themes to explore.

3. What are you doing at the moment? Share the love

Discuss things you’re working on at the moment: projects, new client work, challenges, success, lessons learnt. Add value.

4. Check the blogosphere

Look at what bloggers are posting and expand their debates – this is a great way to further link into the blog community.

5. Become a source of exclusive information

Are you a thought-leader in your commercial space? No? Become one. Add exclusive content in your area of expertise.

6. Ask for help

Speak to your clients, colleagues and trusted network associates about what interests them. Ask for their help in creating content.

7. Do market research

Get online and see what your competitors are talking about. Then write something better on the same subject. Add insight.

8. Get passionate

If you have strong beliefs or proven methods around a commercial subject, share them. Share your passion. Readers love this.

9. Remain teachable

Ask your readers what they want to see. Start a survey, ask your audience what they value. Create statistical value.

10. Start with the end in mind

Remember why you’re blogging – think back to your earliest blog posts and recall what sparked you to start blogging.

11. Think ‘giving’ not selling

A sign that a blogger is usually finding it hard to create great blog content is when they start selling on posts, rather than giving. Remember to give, give, give.

We’ve just been commissioned to provide social media and blogging support to celebrity personal trainer, Mark Anthony. With his new 6 Week London Body Plan podcast, Mark is a great representation of the future for fitness in the digital era. If you’d like to speak to us about your social media strategy please call Harriette Hobbs on 0117 9371 383 or email harriette@strattoncraig.co.uk.

Since the launch of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) in June 2006, IFAs and firms have been getting to grips with the changing legislation. The purpose of the RDR is to improve clarity with which firms describe their services to consumers and increase the professional standards of financial advisers. Transparency and trust are essential for this industry.

Stratton Craig has been working within the financial markets for over twenty-two years. We’ve survived two recessions, watched as brands and governments have come and gone and witnessed some history-changing events. But through all of this the need for clarity and conciseness has continued and is perhaps more important now than ever before.

The financial world is a complex one but one where consumers are demanding clear communications and a strong narrative. That’s why we work with financial providers to help tell their story in the best way to their clients.

Far from dumbing down a subject, we plan and execute a communications piece by carefully gaining a thorough understanding of your culture, values and objectives so that we can start to help you tell your story convincingly. This is best summed up in our three step process to ensuring your business objectives are met and exceeded – whether that’s to increase revenue, build your client base or both.

The result of our auditing process is carefully crafted work that is designed to capture and retain the attention of your target audience, adding long-lasting value to your business.

For more information on our Blueprint process please call Harriette Hobbs on 0117 937 1383 or visit our website www.strattoncraig.co.uk/blueprint

Every law firm needs marketing. Gone are the days when solicitors could promote their firms by lunching with clients or personal friends in the business world, important though these channels may be. But when excellence and expertise are expected as the norm, how can a prospective client select a firm when they all appear so similar?

To stand out requires a strong, clearly defined brand. Or to put it in another way, your brand is your reputation. This is how you communicate your uniqueness, make complex propositions simple and differentiate yourselves from your competitors.

With the introduction of the Legal Services Act seeking to liberalise the market for legal services and encourage more competition and consumer focused legal firms, now is the time to ensure your communications define your firm.

Stratton Craig has been working within the legal markets for over twenty-two years. The legal world is a complex one but one where consumers are demanding clear communications and strong brands. That’s why we work with legal services providers to help tell their story in the best way to their clients. Far from dumbing down a subject, we plan and execute a communications piece by carefully gaining a thorough understanding of your culture, values and objectives so that we can start to help you tell your story convincingly.

This is best summed up in our three step process to ensuring your business objectives are met and exceeded – whether that’s to increase revenue, build your client base or both. The result of our auditing process is carefully crafted work that is designed to capture and retain the attention of your target audience, adding long-lasting value to your business.

For more information on our Blueprint process please call Harriette Hobbs on 0117 937 1383.

Everyone likes a good story. Whether it’s funny, sad, gives hope or leaves you feeling seriously depressed, a story captures an audience and helps them to empathise with the teller. In the same way, the story of a business has a hugely significant role in defining its brand values and capturing an audience.

A gripping, authentic and inspiring history – or even a story about one small detail of a brand – has real appeal to consumers. Give them something, even if it’s just one thing, to remember.

At Stratton Craig before anything else, we want to know our clients’ stories. We’ll help tell them in the best way and to the right people. The story of Rapunzel told by the Prince to his mates would have been very different to the one told to her father!

We’ll be looking at different stories over the next few months but we thought we’d start with the inspirational Cobra Beer.

Cobra founder Karan Bilimoria was up against quite a few obstacles when he began in business in 1990 – a recession, £20,000 of debt and an established brand leader in the market.

But Bilimoria’s success came initially from recognising opportunities and focusing his sharp intellect on turning negatives into positives.

Cobra was originally brewed in India and shipped to the UK in large bottles. As a newcomer, Cobra had to compete with an established beer in the Indian restaurant market. Diners in Indian restaurants were also more used to drinking smaller bottles of beer with their curry.

But Bilimoria pointed out to his potential clients just how authentic the larger bottle was and stressed the benefits of sharing one bottle and two glasses. It worked and the cases began to shift. After five years his revenue hit the million pound mark.

Unfortunately not every story has a happy ending and Cobra Beer recently went into administration. But we think the early story behind this company proves the importance of making the most of opportunities and communicating your unique offering effectively.

To find out more about our storytelling process, please call us on 0117 937 1383 or email harriette@strattoncraig.co.uk.

An interesting question, posed recently by the Editor of LegalWeek.com, and one which we felt was important to engage with, seeing as professional services are a core market for our team at Stratton Craig.

You can read the full article here, (http://ow.ly/1L7dG) and it makes for interesting reading on the legal sector.

Use of the word ‘greedy’ might not be appropriate, but it conveys the way many outside of the legal profession feel about the industry.

The responsibility for this perception lies firmly with the profession itself, in their marketing of themselves, the way audiences are engaged externally and  how the public and press are reviewing information they see, hear and read.

This brings us to consider what perception, reputation and communication mean to many in the legal sector, and how perception can play a vital role in the way external audiences relate to the sector.

Have you considered what your reputation and perceptions are in the marketplace? Are your communications conveying accurately what your main messages are?

Returning to the subject of perceived greed – remember, this is only based on conclusions the public and press have drawn for themselves. If a legal practice conveys greed, their reputation will follow accordingly.

By ensuring your organisation has appropriate communications, you can also ensure an accurate picture is conveyed to all of your audiences.

If you’d like to discuss how Stratton Craig can help you achieve this please call us on 0117 9371 383 or email harriette@strattoncraig.co.uk.

The first question to consider is probably what a content strategist is – and you would be asking with good reason.

In essence, a content strategist provides a number of essential services for your business. Services which you may well have already had delivered in the past, but in a different name or form.

A content strategist will pull together all the content communications needed within your business and deliver the required content across all platforms – including blogs, print, website copy, corporate messaging, tweet content, marketing collateral, email marketing campaigns, media relations and stakeholder communications.

This is a starting point, rather than a full example of where a content strategist can add value. Remember that effective content remains the starting point for all of your contact with existing customers and potential customers.

You can see how valuable a content strategist is for your business.

You may well have utilised the services of a copywriter, PR consultant, blogger, print content specialist, marketing consultant, web copywriter and others in the past. A content strategist can deliver all of these requirements in one focused, central, cost-effective point-of-contact.

One of the most powerful ways we can help you is via content strategy.

We’ve been delivering different elements across a range of corporate communications, managing a number of our clients’ content strategy needs and wants and ensuring that all messages point to their respective business, ultimately helping them to achieve their objectives.

It’s not easy getting an accurate flavour of you, your brand, your services, your passions, your ethics and your ideal connections across in 140 characters – even seasoned copywriters can find this a challenge on Twitter.

There are so many considerations to bear in mind, making Twitter both a joy and a potential disaster zone for the ill-prepared.

Here are our top 10 tips for Tweeting triumphs:

1. Don’t sell anything: it’s not a direct marketing platform, it’s social. Promote for audience benefit, yes, but do it with integrity.

2. Be authentic: it’s a true test of your confidence with content if you can be authentic in 140 characters. Be patient.

3. Get engaged: Twitter is not a broadcast marketing medium, remember the two-way conversations really, really count.

4. Observe and follow: if you see content you like, are inspired by, or want to follow, do so. A great way to learn – and free.

5. Content remains King: you’ll gain attention, engagement and re-tweets based solely on one factor – fantastic content.

6. Be challenging: if you see content you disagree with, challenge it. Spark debate and conversation, get involved.

7. Compliment competitors: make sure you monitor and re-tweet content from your competitors. Your audience will value it.

8. Be true to yourself: make sure your content is consistent with you, your ethics, your brand and the way you do business.

9. Forget random – get strategic: establish a content strategy and stick to it. Auto-publish if you must, but value your content.

10. Be grateful: if your content gets noticed and re-tweeted show your appreciation to your audience, every time.

Simple tips, strong strategies, stunning content. Twitter can be fast and frenetic but also fun.

FACETIOUS

…This is one of only two words in the English language that features all five vowels in alphabetical order, get in touch if you know the other one!

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