You may think you’ve got a pretty good handle on who you want to talk to, but how well do you really know your audience? Do you know what makes them tick, and equally, what winds them up?

It’s not enough anymore to rely on traditional sales and marketing demographics to try and sell your products and services, you need to appeal to hearts and minds and engage people emotionally. To do this, you need to understand them fully, going beyond demographics to a psychographic profile.

This is a true investment of time and resource in researching and fact finding, but it is essential in our increasingly connected, emotionally-driven society, so where do you start?

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Thanks to the development of technology and smart phones, most of us now heavily rely on spellcheck and autocorrect. Our brains switch off somewhat to our spelling when drafting messages, and manual spellchecking and proof-reading are becoming a distant memory.

However spellcheck and autocorrect do not pick up every error – they can be a great support in terms of helping us write quicker and more efficiently, however nothing replaces the quality control of the human eye doing a secondary proof-read.

There are five key areas where you should double check your spelling that often result from us typing faster and with more distractions:

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With International Day of Happiness coming up this weekend, and with the times continuing to be challenging for a lot of people around the world, I thought I would share something around positivity and happiness, and how the way in which you write can have such an impact on the reader and their emotions.

Whether it’s an email, a news story, or a social media post, there are some simple checks you can carry out to make sure your messaging is positive and constructive, and a lot of this is down to the words and tone of voice you use.

So, where do we start? How can we create more positive messaging?

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Yes, I know it’s International Women’s Day this week, but personally I feel the subject has been well and truly covered by the dearth of emails, newsletters, and media coverage on female related content. Meanwhile, it was National Grammar Day last week, and I felt this poorer cousin needed a little love, particularly in view of how important it is to our language and communication (and how little that is appreciated).

I really want to keep things simple, because I feel people tend to shun grammar rules, thinking it is too complicated, and it really doesn’t need to be. In fact, the opposite is true, and, as with most elements of effective writing, the simpler, the better. So, in that spirit, four key things to remember:

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With World Book Day upon us this week, and social media feeds already being take over by hordes of cute children dressed up as their favourite literary heroes, it had me thinking about stories – those we tell and hear, and the ones we remember and repeat. I love reading, and writing (and talking), so this is a skill that comes naturally to me, and that I enjoy, but I realise it’s not the same for everyone.

We all need to be able to tell our stories effectively however, now more so than ever. In this digital information age – post pandemic – where most people have had (and many still do have) reduced contact with others, there is an increased need for connection and community.

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With the start of the new year, and the optimism that the vaccine roll out around the world is bringing, we are seeing a very encouraging renewed interest in PR and marketing, particularly from the smaller organisations and SME’s who have been cautiously managing their budgets over the last twelve months. As things start to pick up again globally, it’s time to think about restarting, reworking or simply launching your marketing communications plans and PR, but before you dive in, make sure you really know what you are dealing with – this week we’re sharing our three key fundamentals to help ensure you have the right understanding of the task ahead.

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Now more than ever, kindness is essential, and that shouldn’t change once you get behind your laptop and put your work hat on.

As Random Acts of Kindness Day rolls around again this week, it’s a good time to be thinking about how you can show a little kindness to your business community:

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Tuesday is #SaferInternetDay and in recognition of that, this week’s post is thinking about how we can make the in Internet a safer place.

As a business owner or marketeer, you may think there’s very little you can do, however any journey, no matter how long, is made up of a thousand steps. If we all took a few tiny steps together, then together, we could have a huge impact. So start by thinking about yourself and your online image and reputation – not only is it beneficial for the greater good, it’s also essential to have a healthy and protected protected online reputation in order for your business to survive.

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You’re focussed. You’re committed. You’ve developed a marketing communications plan and have created your social media accounts and are actively posting away on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn about your company and industry, not hurting a soul. Everything is organised, professional and legal. Or is it?

How well do you know the social media rules and regulations in the country in which you operate? For those in the UAE, some of these laws are very important and are strictly enforced, and if you are not aware of them, you could be opening yourself up to all kinds of financial and legal risks, that include your website being blocked, substantial fines, deportation and even a jail term.

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