eBooks

The UK’s professional services industry is worth £240bn to the economy each year but how confident are CEOs about navigating the next twelve months? We surveyed 150 top executives from the industry to uncover how they are navigating economic pressures, building resilience and managing emerging business risks in today’s complex operating environment.

Using in-depth research, PHA expertise and guest insights from the world of business, the findings of our white paper highlights the optimism – and otherwise – in navigating threats such as deepfakes, changing Government policy, whistleblowing, climate change, and generational employee issues.

The term ESG was born in 2004 but is it still a priority for business leaders and how have attitudes shifted?

Download our latest eBook to read our analysis of five years of media data, insight on the upcoming ESG legislation impacting businesses and top tips from ESG experts on how to manage stakeholder backlash.

Local SEO is a vital aspect of your overall digital marketing strategy. Download our in-depth guide on how to optimise your Google Business Profile.

Download the report analysing a group of retailers from both the UK and USA that are using syndicated content against a control group who aren’t, comparing data across 54 data sets to prove what the impact of using syndicated content was on SEO performance.

Planning a website migration is no easy task. With developers, designers, SEO, and internal teams to coordinate, the project rarely runs smoothly.

We’ve made this checklist to walk you through the essential SEO steps for your website migration to help make your updated website perform the best it can, and minimise disruption to your business.

Black Friday marketing is becoming increasingly challenging for brands. 15% less people participated in the event in 2021 compared to 2019 and more than 60% of consumers have stated that they do not trust Black Friday sale prices. Despite these obstacles, UK consumers still spent over £9bn during Black Friday 2021 and accounted for over 10% of all Black Friday related website traffic globally.

In partnership with Trustpilot, Salesfire and Linnworks, we are pleased to launch ‘The Black Friday Playbook’, analysing the emerging trends shaping buyer behaviour and providing our expert insight on how brands can nail their Black Friday marketing.

Our latest eBook “The growing importance of healthcare communications” is now out. In it, we analyse the fresh communications challenges and opportunities facing the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical industries following two years that have been defined exclusively by the pandemic.

Incorporating insight from specialists in Strategic Communications, Reputation Management and Healthcare, the eBook will shine a spotlight on how the industry landscape has evolved and the increased importance of healthcare communications as we head in to 2022.

No one in their right mind would spend years saving for the house of their dreams, neglect to take out insurance and leave the door open overnight. You might as well line up all your valuables in the front garden with first editions, family heirlooms and fine art clearly labelled.

It is all the more surprising, therefore, that many people and organisations are so busy building a positive personal or business reputation that they forget to put protection in place should it ever be compromised.

Perhaps this stems from the relentless focus on how to design and develop your own image on your own terms, or perhaps it reflects a more fundamental misunderstanding of how brand and reputation interact, particularly in the digital era.

An organisation’s brand is what it says about itself; its reputation is what its stakeholders have grown to expect from it, what they hear and feel about it. They are two integral parts of the same system and, when they inevitably overlap, the result is what the organisation stands for.

The art of blogging in general has been on the rise for many years, dominating many different sectors, from the fashionable set that includes Liberty London Girl, Susie Style Bubble and 5 Inch & Up, to beauty gurus Pixie Woo and Tanya Burr, as well as teen sensations Zoella and Jim Chapman. More recent additions to the scene are a flurry of new food-mad bloggers, taking the UK by storm with recipes, ‘how to’ YouTube videos and even new product launches like the ‘The Hemsley + Hemsley Spiralizer’ which have achieved a cult-like status.

Becoming ever more popular in recent months, key players such as Deliciously Ella and Hemsley & Hemsley have received widespread media attention, with Ella Woodward even appearing on the front cover of popular supplement ES Magazine. With all of this attention surrounding food bloggers, and taking into account their undeniable influence on consumers, it is imperative for food and drink brands to get involved and partner up with the blogging community in order to reach out to their readers and ultimately to secure new customers and drive sales.

However, although it is clear that brands should (and do) want to tap into this invaluable resource, it can be difficult to understand which bloggers are right for your brand; how you should contact them and what sort of relationship you want to build. With this in mind, below we have put together our tried and tested recipe for working with bloggers to create a successful campaign.

For most businesses, advertising is an essential cost to help promote and sell your product or service. In the words of Derby Brown, “The business that considers itself immune to the necessity for advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business.” With that in mind, if advertising is a non-negotiable spend, then consideration must be carefully given to the platforms chosen to promote your business.

The buzz word of modern business parlance is ‘transparency’. Stemming very much from the global crisis, the way companies behave, act and engage with stakeholders has never been more under the microscope.

The global crash helped elevate the attraction of business news, putting it very much into the minds of everyday readers, not just those with a mind for the financial pages. That means the role of the CEO is, in today’s era of transparency, focussed upon even more than before. And in a crisis, when the role of the CEO is to lead, and to be seen as strong and decisive, the microscope is even more intense.

In these stormy waters, the leadership of the captain of the ship is paramount, and could see the company sink or swim.

The buzz around the latest tech developments has never been greater. In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of ‘tech-specific’ journalists alone, with more and more writers, broadcasters and bloggers including technology amongst their cluster of interests.

But while the opportunities for technology to grab the headlines are numerous and wide-ranging, the competition is fierce, with journalists receiving hundreds of emails every day.
So how can your tech brand stand out and make the most of launching new products at such an exciting event? In this Ultimate Guide, our technology team give you our top tips and expertise on how to ensure your brand grabs the headlines.

PR – one of the vital ingredients of the marketing mix, but also often the least understood. Most people simply don’t know what it is. And a reputation of ‘spin’ has not helped lift the mist. Even businesses who have experience using PR can be led astray by common, and sometimes dangerously wrong, myths about the industry. To set the record straight, here are how, what, why tips every start up should be looking out for when seeking PR support.

A positive online reputation is vital to the success of all brands, be they businesses, organisations, or individuals.

In theory, it should be a straightforward task. Scratch the surface, however, and it all becomes a little more complicated.

You may have never put a foot wrong. But perhaps you haven’t grabbed the social media megaphone to tell the world about everything you’ve done right?

That isn’t going to cut it with the free-flowing feedback culture of a smart phone wielding world. You can’t establish trust in a vacuum. You need fresh and credible content to tell your story.

You might think that as a productive business or inspiring individual with sound values and solid ethics, there is no likelihood of your reputation ever needing protecting.

But the digital world is vast and complex. Find out how to protect your reputation from our experts and exactly how they do it.

The ideal charity is a household name that enjoys exposure throughout the mainstream media, from broadcast to newspapers to magazines. Celebrities are falling over each other to endorse its work, and no wonder given the constant high-profile funding events it throws and eye-watering donations it commands. And best of all, the organisation is run by a founder whose renowned charisma has politicians preening, sports stars swooning and the darlings of culture crooning.

Easier said than done? Find out more about how PR can support your third sector organisation.

Do you know what your customers’ needs will be in the future, as much as you know what they want now? Getting ahead of the curve will make the rebound faster and more productive.

Let’s make no bones about this: none of us have ever experienced anything remotely comparable to what is happening during the pandemic. Coronavirus has already had a seismic economic impact on us all, affecting every business and every family in the country, but we don’t yet know how bad it will get or how this will end. We are in unchartered waters.

When planning your response to the crisis, that’s the first factor to bear in mind. There is no point trying to pretend you can predict the future, or that you can put in place a plan that you won’t have to rip up in weeks or even days. It’s not a failure to admit that; this is a fast-moving situation, and you need to be nimble in your response, not wedded to a strategy that might quickly become outdated.