News from Just Practising – Review of 2016

We are now five years old! Here’s a few highlights from our fifth year and some information about what we’ll be doing in 2017.

 

Highlights of 2016

This year has been no less busy for events, new projects and live appearances. Here’s just a few of the things we got up to:

• In January we took on another major new client for digital marketing to architects, and spoke at the Profile Network lunchtime seminar on ‘A LinkedIn Strategy for Property Professionals‘. Su also attended the RCi Show in Coventry on behalf of a client.
• In February Su spoke at the British Property Federation Business Development Forum on ‘Social Media in Construction and Property: Where are we Now?‘. Su live blogged the Green Construction Board sold-out conference on the Circular Economy. We also began judging the Rising Star Awards for the fourth year running.
• In February and March Su attended two Innovate UK workshops on ‘Digitising the Construction Sector‘ and ‘Rethinking the Build Process‘, writing interim project reviews on behalf of the Knowledge Transfer Network to publicise the work of the research teams.
• In March as well as running a Content Marketing Workshop at the Building Centre, we attended Ecobuild on behalf of a client, and Su presented the fourth Rising Star Award at the UKGBC party at the Crystal. The award was won by Lisa Pasquale of 6Cylinder, who will be a judge this year. See last years’ shortlist here.
• In April we live blogged the Workplace Trends Spring Summit on ‘People Centred Design‘ and the BIM4M2 Seminar ‘BIM for Manufacturers: Countdown to Mandatory Government BIM’ and also managed to find time to train the business development team of a new client in effective and non-intrusive ways to use LinkedIn to help specifiers.
• In May we attended the Roofing Awards at the Hilton London Metropole, and ran several 1-2-1 personal LinkedIn and Twitter training sessions for professionals. Su also delivered a talk at the nla (New London Architecture) on LinkedIn for Professionals.
• In June we ran an intensive one-day LinkedIn for Sales Professionals in-house session for an entire European Sales Team for one of our clients, as well as the ticketed version in London. We also live blogged the SPRA (Single Ply Roofing Association) Conference for the second year running, welcoming Cathie Clarke as their new CEO. We also ran a social media and marketing day in Birmingham for members of the Council for Aluminium in Building, consisting of three different bespoke sessions.
• In July we ran an in house blogging workshop for the team of one of our new clients, and attended the RIBA Local Members’ Forum, meeting organisers for the RIBA Nations and Regions and teaching them about how to use social media to improve their communications with members. Su was also delighted to meet with the now RIBA President elect Ben Derbyshire, who is working to drag the RIBA into the 21st Century and help architects become more business savvy.
• Over the summer, when not having a break, we conducted market research interviews with a range of UK Landscape Architects for one of our new clients. This work has simultaneously challenged some existing practices and revealed a whole new range of opportunities to improve communications with this specifier group. We also took time out to take out some special clients to lunch!
• In September we ran another Content Marketing Workshop at the Building Centre. Su also attended the COMIT (Construction Mobile IT) Conference in September and as well live blogging the two-day conference alongside Paul Wilkinson, was welcomed onto the COMIT Team. We will be attending more COMIT events next year.
• In October we Live Blogged a seminar on London Development Plans on behalf of EH Smith Clay Products, which included a revealing talk by Stewart Murray, Assistant Director of Planning at the Greater London Authority. We also live blogged the Workplace Trends Conference on Planning for People and a seminar on Psychological & Physiological Factors in Office Design. There was also a Linkedin for Sales workshop, and Su joined the core team at the relaunch of Women in BIM, becoming Vice Chair and taking part in their takeover of Digital Construction Week.
• Throughout the year we’ve been working with the RIBA Journal on behalf of SIG Design and Technology and in November we attended and live blogged their seminar, ‘Quality in Flat Roofing, Sharing What We Know‘. We also helped them put together an interesting new takeaway for attendees which will be subject of several blog posts in the new year.

Our most popular blog posts this year have included

• Who should be talking to Specifiers?
• Introducing Women in BIM and
• Please Stop Writing Crap on LinkedIn which ruffled a few feathers!

Would you like us to blog about something in particular? Just comment on this blog post and let us know.

Not just Social Media

Last year we celebrated our huge success with an integrated scheme of content marketing and digital and offline media with client SIG Design & Technology, by winning ‘Highly Commended’ in last years Construction Marketing Awards.

As promised in last years newsletter, when we offered our expertise and experience to other clients, and now have four major clients using variants of the same techniques to

1. Raise awareness of their brands amongst architects,
2. Grow traffic to their online places, and
3. Generate high quality enquiries 247.

We’ll be reworking our website in the new year so that it better reflects our work now. But don’t be disappointed, we are still delivering training sessions, and you can book our workshops in the Building Centre again next year – more about that below.

The service we now offer includes

• Website and Social Media Audit;
• Evaluation of your current external marketing team;
• Target profiling and high quality Market Research;
• Advice on Social Media Policy development and training for your staff;
• Content Strategy and coordination both online and offline;
• Content creation and outsourcing advice;
• All wrapped up with our renowned no-nonsense listening ear and questioning voice consultancy.

We’re also still live blogging and tweeting events, and speaking and MC’ing – more about those later.

As always you can use us as much or as little as you need, we work with your existing agencies or help you find new suppliers so you get the best service for your money. Just drop us a line with your questions and we’ll take it from there.

Content Marketing Workshop

Our Content Marketing Workshop, devised for the in-house marketing teams of construction product companies continues to be very popular.

We’ll be running the workshop again on 16th March 2017 at the Building Centre in London. Places are already filling up, so do book your place if you’d like to come along.

MORE INFORMATION AND BOOKING HERE

LinkedIn for Sales Teams

This year we also offered a half-day workshop on LinkedIn specifically for members of product companies involved in sales to specifiers. LinkedIn is an excellent toolkit for sales professionals. We look specifically at selling to architects, provide plenty of tips and workarounds for using a free LinkedIn account to best effect, and there is plenty of hands on experimentation and discussion so bring your laptop!

The workshop will be at the Building Centre in London on 20th April 2017.

MORE INFORMATION AND BOOKING HERE

If you’d like to consider in-house training and you can put together a group of 5 or more, do get in touch. Whilst we recommend training to be part of an overall strategy, we do make it available as a stand alone service where appropriate. Get in touch for more information.

What does 2017 bring?

We’re already planning some interesting activities next year. Several clients will be developing new websites with the support of Just Practising. We’ll be doing factory and training centre visits so there should be plenty of photography and a few more controversial blog posts as well as the purely informative ones. And with our probono work, there will be a special event to celebrate the five years of the Rising Star Award and Women in BIM is expected to make an even bigger splash.

This year we’ve decided that rather than send out Christmas Cards, we will be making a large donation to the Clacton Food Bank. Alongside supporting our local food bank, we’re also doing what we can to bring about the day when no family in the UK goes hungry.

The office will be closed from Thursday 22nd December, reopening on 5th January 2017.  I’d like to thank my fabulous Just Practising team of suppliers and associates for supporting all our work, and congratulate our clients on a very successful year.

Merry Christmas, see you on the other side.

Su Butcher