Monday, 1 April 2019
Grooveyard expands its award winning activations team to 23
Grooveyard, one of Ireland’s leading live experience agencies, has recently expanded their workforce to 23 employees. With offices in Dublin and Galway, Grooveyard continue to raise the bar in brand experiences through activations, music, live sporting events and so much more.
The recent expansion of the team can be attributed to a growing increase in Grooveyard’s service offering, as many global brands are now turning to Experiential and Marketing agencies in Dublin that would have previously been serviced from London.
New recruits to the team include Paula Doherty, Senior Account Manager. Paula has a bachelors degree in marketing and a certificate in digital marketing and has worked in the industry for the last 9 years.
Prior to joining Grooveyard, Paula worked in a number of below the line agencies where she managed some of the worlds biggest brands in the automotive, health, education and alcohol industries. She will help to develop Grooveyard’s multitude of offerings.
Jonjo Nolan, Account Manager, joins the team with over 5 years’ experience overseeing highly successful award ceremonies, industry conferences, and team building events for brands such as Energia, Indeed, and Google.
Matthew Schutz joins the in-house studio team to assist with technology integration. Matthew has extensive graphic design experience and a passion for integrating digital technologies into events.
These three new hires join an award winning, international event team with a diverse portfolio of clients. Grooveyard MD James Gavin added, “We operate under the philosophy that we are only as good as our people so after a very careful and thorough recruitment drive we are delighted to welcome our three newest team members with their unique talents and experience to help meet our current demands.”
Manager. Paula has a bachelors degree in marketing and a certificate in digital marketing and has worked in the industry for the last 9 years.
Prior to joining Grooveyard, Paula worked in a number of below the line agencies where she managed some of the worlds biggest brands in the automotive, health, education and alcohol industries. She will help to develop Grooveyard’s multitude of offerings.
Jonjo Nolan, Account Manager, joins the team with over 5 years’ experience overseeing highly successful award ceremonies, industry conferences, and team building events for brands such as Energia, Indeed, and Google.
Matthew Schutz joins the in-house studio team to assist with technology integration. Matthew has extensive graphic design experience and a passion for integrating digital technologies into events.
These three new hires join an award winning, international event team with a diverse portfolio of clients.
Grooveyard MD James Gavin added, “We operate under the philosophy that we are only as good as our people so after a very careful and thorough recruitment drive we are delighted to welcome our three newest team members with their unique talents and experience to help meet our current demands.”
The post Grooveyard expands its award winning activations team to 23 appeared first on TheMarketingblog.
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2019/04/grooveyard-expands-its-award-winning-activations-team-to-23/
The Two-Step Process for Getting Genuine Reviews on Amazon
Ever since I started playing guitar in elementary school, the only online tablature I’ve trusted to teach me how to play my favorite songs have the highest quantity and quality of ratings. To me, a substantial amount of people vetting a certain tab for accuracy and giving it a five-star rating means that it’s the best tab out there. It also saves me a ton of time from having to compare every single tab’s accuracy to one other.
If you sell products on Amazon, the same principle applies. Reviews are crucial for driving sales on Amazon. Humans evolved to follow the crowd and assume that the majority is always right, so the more reviews you have and the better their ratings, the more credible and trustworthy customers will perceive your products to be.
However, according to analyses conducted by the Washington Post and Fakespot, a tool that leverages artificial intelligence to assess the trustworthiness of reviews left on Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Best Buy, Walmart, and more, over 60% of customer reviews in the electronics, beauty, sneakers, and supplements product categories on Amazon are fake or paid for.
The quantity and quality of your customer reviews have a huge impact on your rankings and ability to sell on the platform, so Amazon is starting to crack down on merchants who manufacture their products’ reviews. If they catch you manipulating your customer reviews, they can suspend your account, ban it, and even sue you.
To avoid Amazon’s wrath and start garnering the most organic reviews on the platform, we’ll show you a two-step process that can convince your customers to leave genuine reviews on your product pages. Read on to learn how to get Amazon reviews with integrity.
How to Get Reviews on Amazon
1. Sell a product that’s worth getting reviewed.
Today, we operate in a world where a lot of people prioritize gaming the system over providing the best brand experience possible. Fortunately, in regard to their customer review system, Amazon has caught on to this hollow tactic.
In 2016, Amazon banned incentivized reviews -- which were customer reviews given to brands in exchange for a free or discounted product as long as the reviewers revealed they received an incentive for their feedback.
These incentives were artificially inflating brands’ average ratings, so Amazon decided to level the playing field. Like we mentioned before, if they catch you manipulating your customer reviews, they can suspend your account, ban it, and even sue you. In fact, they take their customer reviews’ integrity so seriously that they don’t even allow your family members to leave reviews on product pages.
With this in mind, don’t even think about incentivizing or selling a positive review on the eCommerce platform. Instead, to get the best reviews possible, focus on crafting a high-quality product and providing top-notch customer service. This is what will truly convince customers to leave genuine five-star reviews on your product pages.
2. Send follow-up emails to customers.
Amazon lets you send automated follow-up emails that ask for product reviews to customers after they order one of your products. However, Amazon also requires you to follow a strict set of guidelines when using follow up emails, which don’t allow you to include marketing messages, link to other websites, or ask for, demand, or incentivize positive reviews in these emails. So when you’re drafting your follow-up email, it’s best to just politely ask for a candid product review.
According to JumpSend, an Amazon email automation and coupon distribution tool, sending more than three emails per order will annoy your customers and lead to diminishing returns. At the most, JumpSend recommends sending a delivery confirmation email to get your customers excited about your product, an email two days after delivery that asks for an early review when the product is still fresh in your customers’ minds, and an email a week after delivery as a last ditch effort to convince your customers to leave a review if they haven’t already.
In marketing, integrity trumps all.
Nowadays, trust, not attention, is a marketer's currency. You can attract all the eyeballs in the world, but if people don’t trust you, you’ll never sell anything. So even though our two-step process won’t help you garner the highest quantity of reviews or possibly even the highest quality of reviews, it’ll help you gather the most organic and genuine reviews. And in a world where only 4% of consumers believe marketers and advertisers practice integrity, being authentic isn’t only the right thing to do, it’s the best thing to do for your business.
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/get-amazon-reviews
The 9 Best Free Portfolio Websites for Creating an Impressive Digital Portfolio
Whether you're a UX designer, freelance writer, or photographer, an impressive online portfolio is critical for impressing potential clients, and landing future jobs.
A digital portfolio enables you to cultivate and display your very best work -- additionally, if you don't have a ton of prior experience in the industry, a portfolio can help you display your skills and talent with mock projects.
But crafting a good digital portfolio can feel like a daunting task, especially when you aren't even sure which website you should use to create one. Here, we've created a list of the nine best portfolio websites for designers, freelancers, and photographers, to ensure you're able to showcase your best work in any industry.
Best Free Portfolio Websites for Freelance Writers
1. Journo Portfolio
On Journo Portfolio you can create a sleek, modern digital portfolio easily. The site offers six distinct themes, and adding an article is as easy as pasting a URL and clicking add -- the site takes care of incorporating the title, publication, date, content, and image. Features include the ability to integrate with Google Analytics or use Journo's built-in analytics tools to measure visitors. Additionally, your site is automatically mobile-ready.
You can also blog straight from the platform, which could be useful if you want to showcase freelance work and your current blog in one place. Journo lets you create multiple pages, so you can have a Contact Me or About Me page, as well as your freelance portfolio.
Note: It's free for a name.journoportfolio.com URL (10 articles max), but for a custom domain URL and unlimited articles, you'll need to pay for a Pro version ($5-$10 per month).
Image courtesy of Journo.
2. Muck Rack
Muck Rack is a free media database that helps connect journalists with PR professionals, so if you use the site, you'll have good opportunities to network and receive PR pitches. You can even include specific topics you don't want to cover, which will filter out unfit pitches.
Additionally, for true ease-of-use, Muck Rack creates and maintains your portfolio for you by automatically compiling articles and social media profiles. Once it's finished, you have the option to customize your bio, or choose to spotlight certain pieces.
Muck Rack also offers a news alerts system, which enables you to track stories or tweets about a company, brand, or specific story angle. With their news alerts system, you can see when other journalists share information or publish stories related to your work, which will help you stay on-top of trends.
Image courtesy of Muckrack.com/ggreenwald.
3. WordPress
WordPress, a major content management platform, lets you create a blog on their platform for free. While not specifically geared towards freelance writers, WordPress offers plenty of impressive responsive themes to craft a unique blog and showcase your work. If you want complete creative control over your portfolio, this is a good option for you.
Additionally, you might choose to use WordPress if you want to showcase your writing along with other skills -- if you want a page for Writing and a page for your photography, for instance, WordPress offers a variety of themes and is flexible enough to enable you to demonstrate various pieces of creative work.
Image courtesy of Wetheparents.org.
Best Free Portfolio Websites for Designers
4. Behance
With millions of UX/UI designers, artists, and photographers on the site, Behance is one of the most widely-used online portfolio websites. It's also extremely simple and easy to use -- you can organize your work based on project, list projects under construction, and ask followers for feedback. Additionally, the site allows you to link your portfolio to your social media accounts.
Behance's massive digital community makes it a good option to get your name out there, particularly since recruiters and interviewers peruse the site to find talent, as well. However, Behance displays the number of people who have viewed your work and liked it, making it riskier than a more straightforward website portfolio.
Image courtesy of Behance.
5. Adobe Portfolio
Adobe Portfolio offers options to create a single-page website, or a full gallery of your work. With Adobe Portfolio you're able to set up a sleek and customized portfolio in minutes, and each of the platform's themes are automatically optimized for any device.
Additionally, Adobe Portfolio offers users a free Creative Cloud subscription service as part of the package, as well as the ability to integrate with Behance to import your projects for greater visibility.
Image courtesy of Garrett Byrum.
6. Crevado
One of the easiest free portfolio websites, Crevado lets you use a simple drag-and-drop tool to upload your projects and rearrange on the screen for true ease-of-use. The site is also automatically optimized for any device, so your portfolio can be viewed on a smartphone or tablet as well as a desktop. Best of all, you can customize your design to suit your preferences without writing any code.
Image courtesy of Kmbillustration.com.
Best Free Portfolio Websites for Photographers
7. Flickr
Undoubtedly one of the most well-known portfolio sites with billions of photos and millions of members, Flickr is a good site to share your own work, connect with other photographers, and find inspiration for future projects.
However, Flickr's community-oriented platform can make it difficult to showcase your best work and appear professional -- particularly since the site is typically used to share images with friends and family. For this reason, many designers also suggest creating a more polished portfolio website, and then linking to that website from Flickr. 
Image courtesy of Flickr.
8. Portfoliobox
Portfoliobox is a website builder specifically designed for photographers, and it's a good option for crafting a professional-looking responsive gallery of your best work. Additionally, Portfoliobox offers an e-commerce link which allows you to sell your prints or other artwork directly from the site. With the free sign-up, you'll receive a domain name, and a blog to further attract visitors to your site.
Best of all, Portfoliobox doesn't make you use a standard theme -- instead, you can integrate any style for any page to cultivate a unique, one-of-a-kind website. With more than one million users, it's a good option for both professional and novice photographers.
Image courtesy of Mika Suutari.
9. YouPic
YouPic's users include famous photographers like Joel Meyerowitz and Julia Fullerton-Batten. Another site specifically designed for photographers, YouPic enables you to craft a free stunning portfolio to showcase your work.
Additionally, the site offers trainings to improve your photography skills, as well as a Pinterest-style "Explore" page that lets you check out popular photographs, new artwork, and stories to inspire your own gallery. And, most interesting to note, YouPic allows users the opportunity to copyright their photos on the blockchain, and is the first decentralized photography platform.
Image courtesy of YouPic.
For further inspiration, check out 21 Memorable Photography Portfolio Websites to Inspire You or The 12 Best Graphic Design Portfolios We've Ever Seen, & How to Start Your Own.
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/free-portfolio-websites
Embracing neurodiversity in the workplace
Kate Burnett, MD of DMA Talent, discusses why the DMA is helping businesses to support a diverse workforce through their Neurodiversity Initiative
World Autism Awareness Week, taking place during the first week of April this year, will inspire people across the UK to take part in activities to raise awareness for autism charities. However, we need to do more in terms of promoting equality across the workforce – this all starts in our awareness and understanding of conditions like autism.
To help, DMA Talent is leading a Neurodiversity Initiative, which aims to help businesses learn how to become more ‘neurodiverse friendly’, ensuring they are able to choose from a wider talent pool and seek out the most capable individuals for their roles.
Neurodiversity is essentially a collective term used to describe people who think differently to the majority and is often stated in relation to neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism – to name a few.
According to the National Autistic Society there are around 700,000 people on the autism spectrum in the UK, of those, just 16% of autistic adults are in full-time, paid employment. Over three quarters (77%) of those who are unemployed say they want to work.
A poll conducted by CIPD in 2018, the professional body for HR and people development, found that just 10% of HR professionals in the UK say consideration of neurodiversity is included in their organisation’s people management practices. Alarmingly, 72% of HR professionals said that consideration of neurodiversity wasn’t even included. Given around 10% of the UK population is neurodivergent in some way, more needs to be done to support neurodiversity at work.
There is increasing recognition of the skills ‘people who think differently’ can offer, especially in relation to problem solving and creative input. Of course, this isn’t the case for everyone with a neurodevelopmental condition, but the point is there is an overlooked talent pool that can be a huge asset in the workplace.
Throughout the last 12 months, DMA Talent’s Neurodiversity Initiative has been working with subject matter experts and leading industry figures with neurodevelopmental conditions to help define best practice and develop a forum where businesses can discuss neurodiversity – providing guidance on reasonable adjustments businesses can make to recruitment procedures and working environments to become more neurodiverse friendly.
Through a series of free training workshops around the UK and panel sessions at leading industry events such as Advertising Week Europe 2019, we have made significant progress advancing the conversation around neurodiversity within the professional world – but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
How to find out more about neurodiversity – support a diverse workforce
As a professional community, we need to start addressing these alarming statistics by helping employers to understand what they can do to employ and support neurodiverse individuals.
Awareness-raising workshops and events are a good way to start the conversation around neurodiversity and best practice, but they should not be considered as comprehensive training.
We need in-depth training schemes for key personnel i.e. line managers and HR staff, to give them the tools to make sensible and realistic changes within their own organisation.
Post-training support, via toolkits and community forums, is essential to ensure the relevant personnel are able to implement measures that will benefit all staff. Additionally, a platform where consultation is available and best practice is continuously developed would help to sustain progress.
Peer support can be very effective and is often preferred by neurodiverse employees, who can sometimes feel misunderstood in the workplace. Providing staff with access to dedicated resources and allocated time for employees to meet and share advice, support each other with challenges, and have a collective voice to raise awareness, are all really important steps that need to be taken.
It’s important to remember that when considering what changes you should implement within your organisation, in order to be more welcoming to a diverse talent pool, this means doing what is best for your employees – they are all individuals who will thrive given the right environment.
The adjustments that we tend to recommend during our training workshops are those that would benefit everyone, not just neurodiverse individuals. Generally speaking, the majority of people profit from clear communication, structure, and a flexible working environment to accommodate sensory differences.
The Neurodiversity Initiative’s toolkit series – Autism Employer Guidelines
If you want the best people employed by your organisation, it’s time to recognise that perhaps we aren’t looking in all the right places.
DMA Talent, in partnership with Matthew Trerise, Training & Liaison Lead, NHS AWP Bristol Autism Spectrum Service – who has 15 years’ experience working with individuals on the autism spectrum – are developing a new series of free neurodiversity guidelines and toolkits to raise awareness amongst employers.
The first edition focuses on autism awareness and not only highlights the benefits of employing people with autism, but provides guidance from a number of experts about adjustments that someone with autism may benefit from within the workplace.
“Many autistic people use intelligence over intuition, and have developed strategies to navigate social situations and relationships. However articulate or intelligent someone is, never underestimate how much hidden processing they might be doing during an interaction. A person with autism can struggle to process facial expressions or body language, and is therefore more likely to take what someone says more literally. Employing someone on the spectrum doesn’t need to be challenging for either the employer or employee, although we must equip key personnel with the knowledge and tools to support a diverse workforce”, said Matthew Trerise, Co-author of the Neurodiversity Initiative’s ‘Autism Employer Guidelines’.
The Autism Employer Guidelines will be available for free download from the DMA website in May 2019. It will provide a comprehensive overview of how businesses can be better prepared to support and manage a diverse workforce. The following areas will be discussed:
• Recruitment – work trials and skills testing.
• Interviews – things to consider before, during and after the interviews.
• Workplace environments – an employee’s first day at work, how to build equality into structure.
• Employee feedback and appraisals
• Sensory environment – how to limit work-related anxiety.
• Career development
• Case studies – reviewing a digital agency’s work experience programme with someone on the autism spectrum.
DMA Talent are due to run more training sessions across the UK over the coming months, please get in touch to check availability!
The post Embracing neurodiversity in the workplace appeared first on TheMarketingblog.
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2019/04/embracing-neurodiversity-in-the-workplace/
Australian Movers and Groovers : 303 MullenLowe appoints Michael Corry
Michael Corry joins 303 MullenLowe from Carat
303 MullenLowe has hired Michael Corry, previously Carat’s head of digital, as head of digital strategy.
Corry will be based in 303 MullenLowe’s Perth office but will work nationally with the group.
“Michael is a person with a huge depth of digital strategic smarts born of a passion for technology. His capabilities will add significantly to our growing digital, data, analytics, search and online media capabilities,” said 303 MullenLowe Australian CEO Nick Cleaver.
“He has a rare talent that encompasses the broader digital ecosystem and therefore helps bring together a range of different disciplines. He will work across our Mediahub offering headed by Andrew Livingston nationally and Rene Migliore in Perth as well as with Charles Rallings our head of CX.”
Corry’s has worked in media and digital agencies for 14 years, including Carat Perth. Before that, he was at iiNet for five years, where he worked across product development, innovation and growth projects.
“I am excited to be joining 303 MullenLowe and the Mediahub team as it continues to power on with the growth of its hyperbundled offer,” Corry said.
“There are few opportunities in the country to work with an exciting new media offer as well as being able to access data, analytics, CX, social and creative capabilities all housed in one operating unit.
“While digital technology is an absolute necessity for competing in an ever-fragmenting marketing and communications landscape, I believe only the best balance and collaboration between creative and media will deliver incremental business outcomes for clients. This role presents this opportunity.”
303 MullenLowe’s Perth managing director, Derry Simpson, also extended a welcome to Corry ahead of his arrival.
“Michael is the most outstanding digital media strategist in Perth and we see his skills as adding significantly to our core digital offering,” Simpson said.
“Effectively harnessing the many moving parts of digital connectedness is pivotal to enhancing the customer experience and that is increasingly an area of focus for us.”
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The post Australian Movers and Groovers : 303 MullenLowe appoints Michael Corry appeared first on TheMarketingblog.
from TheMarketingblog http://www.themarketingblog.co.uk/2019/04/australian-movers-and-groovers-303-mullenlowe-appoints-michael-corry/