Flowers – meh! I can take them or leave them as a gardener – but I’ve always loved growing vegetables and this year, as for many other people, my veg plot and greenhouse seem to have taken on new significance in my life.
As ever, there seems to be an element of serendipity (one of my favourite words) in what flourishes or what dies. I will be filled with hope and excitement as the seedlings emerge from the compost, filled with tenderness as I nurture the little plants, then frustrated as some of them keel over, wither and die, and deeply satisfied as others flourish and eventually bear fruit (often far too many fruit in the case of the courgettes).
It feels a little like that with marketing at present. Working with our clients in professional services, a traditionally conservative sector, this has been an exciting time in terms of new ideas and willingness to experiment (the equivalent of planting kohlrabi and asparagus perhaps?). Here are 4 things that we’re working on with clients – none of them rocket science but evidence of increased creativity, some of which will hopefully persist long after the lock-down ends:
- Webinars: already widely used in some sectors, these are easy, quick and cheap to do. Especially compared with the traditional business breakfast or evening seminar with drinks. Not to say those won’t make a reappearance but I think the webinar is here to stay as a complementary alternative.
- Online networking: some of our clients say this works better than ‘real world’ networking – maybe it’s because we are more ‘ourselves’ (I am resisting that awful word ‘authentic’!) when we’re sharing a window into our homes, our kids have walk-on (or starring) roles, and the cat is sitting on our lap.
- Collaboration with network colleagues – perhaps as a result of (2) above, plus a desire to help out people we rate and like, we’re seeing lots more ideas for joint articles, podcasts, and press releases fuelled by the maelstrom of change going on.
- Different formats for content: if you’ve got something to say, maybe it doesn’t have to be a conventional article? How about a podcast? Or a ‘mini-guide’ created using Prezi? Or how about a Tweet – could it finally be time to engage with Twitter?
Let’s hope the green shoots of lockdown are still bearing fruit in the months to come (and we’re making the marketing equivalent of ratatouille as a result)!
By Victoria Ash
