24 Stories Conference, Take 2!

I attended the 2nd 24 Stories conference, held in the lovely Fota Island resort, on the 13th of September. For anyone who doesn’t know what 24 Stories is, it is a tight-knit marketing community made up of 24 students, 24 businesses, 24 marketing professionals and 24 graduates, focusing on storytelling. It is a tribe – I have met countless numbers of marketing professionals both at conferences and at individual talks and from a networking point of view, being a member of 24 Stories has been extremely valuable to everyone I know. Members always try and support each other and give each other advice and it is amazing to see the tribe coming together, and expanding. Here is what I took out of the 2nd 24 Stories Conference:

PR Smith

First up was PR Smith, the founder of the SOSTAC planning framework. He spoke about how to write the perfect plan in a digital age. His advice was to look at asking great questions, making great decisions and writing great plans.

In a situational analysis, the 3 big customer questions that need to be answered about your customer are who (is the ideal customer), why (do they buy) and how (do they buy).

Looking at who the ideal customer is, it is extremely hard to accurately profile the ideal customer. For marketing professionals, you need to know what your ideal customer is, and you need to be able to describe this person in great detail. PR Smith recommended www.crystalknows.com to profile peoples likes and dislikes, and how they purchase.

Looking at why do customers buy, you must look at why the customers stay or why they do or don’t come back. The business will have to accommodate all customers on how they may buy – wanting to try on / use something before they buy, receiving samples, buying straight away etc. He said that if someone can analyse you with 10 of your Facebook likes, they will know you better than your work colleagues, if they can analyse you with 150 of your Facebook likes they will know you better than your parents, and if they can analyse you with 350 of your Facebook likes, they will know you better than your partner and even yourself!

Looking at how customers buy, first you need to start of by looking at whether your customers buy online or offline, and whether they do their research in-store or online. You need to look at the start to finish process and use the internet of things to connect and facilitate customers (example is Amazon). Next, PR Smith talked about messaging – he said that there are 2.5 billion people messaging, and this is 20% more people instant messaging than on social media. Click-through rates are higher than email, and it is changing the world of how we buy. Lastly, 56% of email queries that come through a website are left unanswered.

Looking at customer analysis, your customers can be border-less, category-less, aggressive (competitors can target your customers and your employees) and there can be hyper-competition even in niche industries.

Finally, PR Smith looked at strategy and “TOPPP SEED” – target markets, objectives, positioning, partnerships, process, sequence, experience, engagement and data. On partnerships, you can look and ask are there companies dealing with your ideal customers, and could you do a partnership? Looking at process, especially customer service, personalisation, social C.R.M and constant beta (optimising web pages, emails etc). Sequence looks at developing awareness before sales, engagement would be looking at ladders of engagement and data is looking at becoming a data driven company – is your data integrated and can your data add value? “Anything relevant to customers can be brought to life”. Finally, the actions are to motivate and communicate, and the control is measuring metrics often that can be fed into your next situational analysis.

Cause Related Marketing Panel

Next up was the “cause related marketing” panel that was made of Julie Dorel (SuperValu), Teral Cullen (Fota Island Resort and Fifa Women’s world cup), Caroline McEnery (The HR Suite) and DC Cahalane (Repubilc of Work).

First up was Julie and she spoke about the “AsIAm” campaign partnership, where they looked at wanting to make a better in-store experience for people that have autism. Julie said that you can do something easily with knowledge, and they spent a lot of time speaking with experts in this area, doing lots of research and just having a bit of luck. The partnership with the trial store in Clonakilty was very important, and she said that communication about what was happening was key. Read more about the campaign here: https://asiam.ie/asiam-and-supervalus-corporate-charity-partnership-earns-award/

Next was Teral and she spoke about the Fota Seek Christmas event and their commitment to become known as an accessible event for anyone with sensory issues. They slow down the event, keep the lights on, limit the sound etc. Extended families support the event, and they only promote this event organically, with word of mouth marketing playing a huge part. She said that communities often share their experiences with one another, and this is largely why people support the event.

DC Cahalane spoke about Republic of Work’s business and how they help the start-up community. “It was not a deliberate thing, it was just at the business core”, “we are a community for businesses”. DC feels like the community built up around Republic of Work solves a problem – they encourage people to come into them, and they will connect businesses with other businesses within the Republic of Work community. He also spoke about rallying around the businesses after the Douglas Village fire, offering all the help that they could to the businesses affected.

Finally, Caroline spoke about the “Celebrating You” children’s book that The HR Suite brought out to promote diversity on their 10th anniversary. The book is free to download, but people are encouraged to donate to Enable Ireland. Caroline said she had a “surge of wanting to do something good” and wanted to know “what they could do to make a difference”. She said that a lot of people got involved, and they were trying to get people connected. You can download the book here: https://www.thehrsuite.com/Celebrating%20You%20Hi-Res%20Entire.pdf

DC then explained that one metric they count is how many tours of the building are done, and Republic of Work’s free lunchtime learning events are something free that they are doing within the company, but it is working for them. Julie also said that it always comes back to kindness and you should do something if it is going to be good for the brand, but first and foremost because it is the right thing to do.

Ian Shepherd

Ian Shepherd, author of reinventing retail was next to speak at the conference. He spoke about 6 lessons for every business from the devastation on the high street.

Firstly, he spoke about “introducing the new normal”. He explained that change is now rooted in technology, your store and your website have to be integrated to look at purchase journeys and your social media channels. He said that customers can easily move on when they have such vast choices – they are becoming more aware of the environment, social aspects and are becoming more passionate about causes and brands. You need to know who your customers are and how they interact with you.

Lesson 1 was “survival is in the detail”. Ian spoke about ensuring to margin when you can and the algorithm intensity today.

Lesson 2 was “customer, not channel”. Customers shop through multiple channels, and you have to look at the most profitable channels by customer. The customer lifetime value is easy to say but hard to run your business around – it is a different way of thinking as sometimes there is a misunderstanding on the value of a small sale.

Lesson 3 was “flying blind is a bad idea”. Retail businesses need to know who their most valuable customer is, but a lot of retailers cannot answer this when asked. Consider using a loyalty scheme to measure how loyal your customers are right now.

Lesson 4 was “brand is what they say about you when you aren’t there”. The authenticity of your brand becomes incredibly important here, and you should consider holding focus groups to see how you are portrayed, finding out what your customers think about your business and brand. You have to think about the store’s operations, brand etc and make your message resonate powerfully.

Lesson 5 was “your people are your difference”. Thinking about the people you hire and thinking about how they really need to be advocates for the brand. Ian said that marketing is now affecting how people hire, and it is way more complicated, but way more interesting.

Finally, lesson 6 was “good enough is not good enough”. Standing out is really important (example: Lush) and areas you can stand out are in detail, pricing, customer lifetime value and real or differentiated brand proposition. You need to listen to each other, come together, share stories and pick up tips.

Building your tribe panel

Next up was the “building your tribe” panel that was made of Niall Horgan (Gym + Coffee), Lesley Giltenan (Lean with Lesley), Jill Holtz (MyKids Time) and Walter Hegarty (Christmas FM).

Niall Horgan, CEO and Co-founder of Gym+Coffee was first to tell their story of how they built their tribe. He said that they were “focused on not being a business, but what they wanted to create and what they wanted people to do”. They had events right at the heart of everything they do, holding over 80+ events per year between their in-store events and also travelling around Ireland with pop-up shops. He also spoke about taking on Brian O’ Driscoll as their Head of Community recently. Niall also spoke about opening their store in Mahon Point Shopping Centre, and how the are becoming more particular about footfall and store requirements now that they are expanding their stores, and often hold focus groups too.

Lesley Giltinan, founder of Lean with Lesley, spoke about her success online with her fitness classes, and how she grew her business. She now has an app that allows you to have different workouts that are done in Lesley’s physical classes. She said that “loving what you do makes it easier”. Her app includes videos of her workouts, training plans, several types of workouts, free challenges, healthy recipes and a lifestyle blog. They also have access to a private Facebook group where the tribe or community is growing all the time.

Next, Jill Holtz, co-founder of Mykidstime spoke about how their idea was originally to have a directory for parents to list classes etc happening in different areas as she couldn’t find any ballet classes for her daughter in her local area- she was solving a need for herself and for other parents who could not find information online. She had no blogging or technology background, but the co-founders were constantly building their community, and talking to their customers. She said “brand values aren’t just about what you put out there, its also about how you communicate them”.

Finally, Walter Hegarty of Christmas Fm spoke about their story of building a community and giving back to charities too. He went through how they started Christmas Fm off with a temporary radio license, their charity work raising €30,000 for ISPCC in its first year and growing from strength to strength ever since. He also thought it was incredible how many people from all over the world listen, text in or interact with their online activity when they are on air. He explained that they do all their market research after they go off the air so they can prepare again for their audience the next year.

When asked for their top tips from Stephen, Jill said “to have an authentic voice and consistent, excellent content”, Lesley said “to love doing what you do, believe in yourself, don’t give up and be open to learning new ways”, Niall said “try new things and find out what works and what doesn’t. You will learn from things and will get into your groove – trying something will never be too bad if it doesn’t go right”, and Walter said to “know your customers, keep in touch with them and give them what they want”.

Robert Brooks

Next up at the 24 Stories conference was Robert Brooks, social media consultant on the “This is Finland” country branding campaign. First, he took us through his journey of living in Cork for 2 months and how he got really invoiced in promoting the city. He worked with the Cork Rebel Week, got his “Cork passport” and was even nominated for a digital marketing award for his work.

Talking about his work with the “This is Finland” country branding campaign, he said “Finland does a lot of things very well so its not hard to market that”. He spoke about Finland’s key strengths – Nature and sustainable development, education and know-how and functionality and well-being.

Some examples of the things Finland do well – 80% of dads go on paid paternity leave, gender equality, high level of trust and more people work from home, maternity packages for new parents, 3 years paid maternity leave and tuition-free education all the way up to college.

Robert said he had the knowledge, so he spread the word on all the good facts about Finland, focusing on the key strengths mentioned above.

Katie King

Katie King, an author, keynote speaker and consultant on AI and digital transformation was next to speak at the event. Firstly, she described AI as “a family of technologies that use algorithms that perform tasks human beings normally do”. She talked about 4th generation technologies and the internet of things coming together. As marketeers, she said that we needed to always know the next wave of automation, and continuously needing to stay up to speed. “We are all on a journey of lifelong learning, and we need to be on our toes”.

Next, she spoke about AI in sales and marketing, looking at predictive analysis, advertising optimization, marketing personalisation and stakeholder insights. She looked at what problems AI solves, and how it is important to consider within different industries and will have different uses. AI has insight on all the “grunt work” we had to do earlier. She said that “80% of the jobs people will be doing in 15 years’ time don’t even exist yet”.

Workshop 1 – Bibi Baskin – Public Speaking

I attended Bibi Baskin’s Public speaking workshop straight after lunch. Bibi went through her story and told us all about her career as a TV and radio presenter, hotelier, motivational speaker, podcaster and all other careers she has done in her life. Then, she gave us tips on how to better prepare yourself for public speaking. Firstly, to know your audience. Find alies in the room, make sure the ventilation of the room is correct, ensure all technology requirements are met and physically go to the place you are speaking and check a few days prior. Arrive early and introduce yourself to the tech person as you will know their name if there is any problems. Consider having a podium on stage as it gives you something to hold onto, and it calms you down.

The next phase of public speaking she brought us through was fear on the day. Her top tips were to have basic things such as a glass for your water, have the “I am good enough” mantra and to see that failure is not the end of the world.

Looking at creating your speech, she suggested building blocks and links within your speech, having a little bit of humanity and humour and also not to rely too much on the slides in case there is an issue with them on the day.

Lastly, on her top tips of how to get rid of nerves on the day, she said to spend 15 minutes beforehand to get the tension out, and to do a full body scan. She recommended to regularly practice meditation as a way of dealing with nerves and fear, and her last tip was to do your homework and be prepared before the big day.

Workshop 2 - Muriel Foley – Social Media Advertising

Finally, I went to Muriel Foley’s workshop on social media advertising. She definitely was an expert on all things advertising, having worked with big brands in Toronto. She now works in Hopkins communications as a director of digital.

Firstly, Muriel spoke about all marketeers needing to know what was coming up. She talked about concentrating on defining 1 clear objective and measuring it with 1 K.P.I. For awareness, you need to resonate with people and optimize reach. A good tool would also be the ad recall feature to see how many people remember your ad. She spoke about page likes and engagements sometimes being vanity metrics that bring no value to you.

Some tips given were to not hit people with a conversion straight away in the awareness stage as they do not know who you are or what you do, use creative for all placements, tap into the Instagram explore page and to use a smaller space of time if you have a smaller budget.

Muriel then spoke about the Christmas season, often a massive holiday for any business. She said that shoppers are going bigger and earlier every year, and they will not tolerate bad buying experiences. Over €86 billion was lost from Christmas shoppers leaving a website that had a 4 second loading time website. Window shopping is shifting to stories, and messaging is fueling loyalty. For the inspiration or discovery phase, one should send a lean back message in October, and re-targeting in November. Tell a story without being too “salesy”, this is still an awareness phase.

Looking at the consideration phase, Muriel gave great tips such as the “tap to browse” button, where customers don’t have to leave the platform they are on. She said people are going more towards the mobile creatives, and you have to be aware of this when creating content (especially if you are creating content on a desktop for content that will be seen on a mobile). She said “users retain 95% of the information delivered via video in comparison to 10% via text”. Try to get your brand logo in the video within the first 3 seconds.

When looking at custom audiences, Muriel’s advice was to start getting to know the brands audience a couple of months in advance of a big campaign. Target people who watch a certain number of seconds of a video – this can be awareness then re-targeting with an action. Also consider looking at lookalike audiences.