Judith Middleton
"Digital is a hyped buzzword and which, up until recently, we have not fully trusted in terms of the myriad of promises it proclaims to deliver. In many instances we report to FDs and so promise without measurable delivery is just never going to cut it at DUO. Our team has truly understood that the real value of a digital campaign in the B2B space is when it increases trust, value with customers and shows commercial results," says CEO Judith Middleton.
DUO has increased its digital product stack considerably over the last couple of months. "At the very core of our business is content development which, traditionally used in media, is now being enhanced by fully integrated digital campaigns to create a new level of success. This is very exciting for us as PR and marketing professionals as it finally closes the loop on the commercials with irrefutable results in sales and brand sentiment," she says.
Services such as website development, and with it SEO and Google AdWords, social media content development and community management, blog writing and video, have formed part of the consultancy's traditional digital offering. "We've now expanded on these services and have delivered effective brand and executive LinkedIn profile set-up and management projects, webinars and fully integrated online, social, PR and marketing campaigns for our clients," says Middleton.
LinkedIn is a valuable prospecting and social-led sales tool that enhances the credibility of a brand or the profile of a member of the executive team among potential clients and partners. "Few of our customers are truly harvesting the potential of LinkedIn," she says.
Webinars allow businesses to take their messages to a much larger audience than the one in the auditorium. "A webinar adds brand value through thought leadership, generates leads and fuels the content marketing machine," she says.
DUO Marketing + Communications is staying true to its customer promise of delivering business results and is insisting on tailored targets for each new digital campaign.
"We prefer having very specific metrics in place to be able to analyse insights and make the campaign count. In fact, we request that clients invest in measurement tools so that we can track a shift in sentiment too. A sale with a compromise in sentiment is a job poorly executed and we need to ensure sustainable campaigning for ongoing results," she says.
PR is a key component of an integrated digital strategy. Google is the largest and most trusted media property in the world according to the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer. Attention can be bought through pay-per-click advertising or can be earned through natural search.
"The latter is where PR comes in and why, ultimately, it's the sustainable option for brand elevation for our B2B tech clients," says Middleton.
In the last 18 months, Google has focussed its algorithms on editorial influence, reputation and trust. "SEO agencies are fast becoming partners with PR agencies to produce quality content to bolster their technical efforts," she says.
Digital marketing unlocks copious amounts of data that can be used to gather intelligence for future campaigns. "We're using our expanded digital product stack and learnings from previous campaigns to influence new campaigns that deliver meaningful business results for our customers," she concludes.
