These are tough times for businesses – large and small – and for everyone, good communication has never been more important.

How you communicate with customers is always vital but never more so than when times are tough.

Many businesses are temporarily shutting down until the Covid-19 virus goes and we can get back to normality.

How you communicate that to your customers, clients, partners and staff is really important and might have a bearing on how well you come out of this on the other side.

Every business is different and there is no one size fits all.

Here at Lighthouse Marketing Communications we have been helping businesses to get their message across, in good times and in bad, for 16 years.

If we can offer some help in maintaining good communications for your business right now – please get in touch.

In these days of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and the rest, you’d be forgiven for thinking the humble press release had had its day.

That that modest sheet of A4, double spaced and full of urgent news, had been put on the permanent editorial spike of history.

But no.

When the 1922 Committee wanted to impart some news that was hugely significant to the ruling of this country did it limit itself to 280 characters on Twitter?

Absolutely not.

It issued a short, sharp press release with a snappy headline, like a lit blue touch paper sparking fireworks to come.

And quite right too.

Newspapers may not be what they used to be, but news is still news, however it reaches people.

It was heartening that Sir Graham Brady made the Committee’s momentous announcement by press release – proving that, unlike Mrs May perhaps, this old girl’s time isn’t quite up yet!

We can’t get all of our clients the lead slot on the main BBC News but if you’ve got a story to tell, we’ll help you tell it.

Good media communications is all about having a strong story to tell, working hard to generate the contacts to pitch it to and a little bit of PR magic thrown in!

Social care – the care of our oldest and most vulnerable adults – is going through a challenging time with spending cuts over the past decade hitting the sector hard.

We are working with Mike Padgham, chair of the care provider group The Independent Care Group and owner of Saint Cecilia’s Care Group, to highlight the issues facing providers and the people they care for.

A series of press releases have been issued, picking up on aspects of the social care crisis and calling for action to help the 1.4m people currently living without the care they need.

These have generated a lot of media coverage – in newspapers, trade magazines and on radio and television.

Most prominent of this coverage recently was Mike’s appearance on the BBC News, as lead item, talking about the crisis in care.

It was very gratifying to see the work that goes in to media communications culminate in some excellent coverage for the issue at the heart of the release.

As I say, we can’t promise television headlines every week, but more than 34 years of communications experience can find our clients the right channels to reach their audience, whether that’s media, social media, email, advertising or any other channel.

Contact us today to see how we can help you.

Traditionally, to market effectively you needed to understand fully the features and benefits of the product or service you were selling and the crucial difference between the two.

But in this social media-driven, digital age where we know everything about everything, are features and benefits still relevant?

Well, I would argue that yes, they are more important now than ever – but our understanding of the difference between the two might be getting blurred.

Delivering training to a group of business owners recently, I asked a question about features and benefit marketing and was met with blank looks all round.

Here’s a quick reminder:

The features of your product are what it does and how it does it, including any technical specifications you like to boast about. The benefits are the changes or improvements your product makes to the user’s life – even the happiness it creates!

Let me offer a simple example: an umbrella. You might list its features as being a strong frame and handle, an extra-large, rainproof polyester cover and an attractive colour scheme. All very commendable.

But it is the benefits they bring that might make the customer choose this umbrella over another. The strong frame and handle mean this umbrella will keep you dry even in strong winds (when others blow inside out!), the large cover will keep you (and your loved one?) dry in the downpour. And the attractive colour appeals to you more than boring black or lurid pink…

Can you see the difference?

Most of the time, and it is a generalisation, people buy a product or service because of the benefit it brings to them. The way it solves a problem for them, makes their life easier, even – and this is the Holy Grail – makes them happier.

The same is true whether you are selling a frying pan or a fridge to a domestic customer or a piece of factory equipment or software to a business. You have to answer the customer’s question: what’s in it for me? If you are going to make the sale.

Now of course there are many other factors that go into marketing a product or service – design, price, where you sell, how you advertise and so on. But a good understanding of your features and benefits and how you can use your specific benefits to differentiate you from the competition can be really useful.

There are exceptions to the rule. Sometimes in marketing a company will decide that the features are so exciting that they give them greater or at least equal billing to the benefits.

Take all the gadgets you find on modern cars, for example. Car manufacturers will often give high prominence to technology – brakes, lights, on-board computers, cameras – to differentiate their model from others.

In mobile phones you see increasingly the power and features of the phone’s camera featuring prominently in its marketing, alongside the benefit message that it makes capturing your magic moments even easier and more fun.

Many companies are skilled at putting features and benefits side by side, particularly if their target audience might be a technically-minded, savvy one. Take the outdoor clothing manufacturer Rab, for example. Their website is jam-packed with information about the technical construction of their coats – including a guide to the different down insulation levels. To walkers, climbers and explorers, this technical information may well be fascinating and might differentiate Rab from a rival manufacturer. Especially, when Rab helpfully identifies the specific benefit each different down filling brings, dependent on your activity. Clever stuff.

In this digital age, when we are being bombarded with marketing messages, particularly through social media, as a business it is harder and harder to get your message heard.

But as you look to engage your audience and get them to better understand you and the product or service you provide, it will always be those amazing benefits you offer that will cut through the noise. Sell the sizzle, not the steak…

Solve a problem, make life easier and make people happy…

Hand touching on modern digital tablet pc at the workplace.

Ok, that’s not a very delicate way of putting it and please excuse the American slang – but it is nevertheless a serious question.

We are all so absorbed in the day to day of our own businesses that we rarely lift up our heads to see what our rivals are up to.

If you ran a bakery and another bakery opened up a couple of streets away, you’d pop in to see what they were doing and how they compared to you wouldn’t you?

In digital marketing, and in particular social media, things change quickly and a competitor who one day doesn’t seem to have a profile on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn suddenly embraces one or more of these platforms and is all over them like a rash.

And that can make your ‘Happy Easter everyone’ post, that you put on Twitter back in April, look a bit pathetic.

Now I know none of you will be that bad but I do think from time to time it is worth just taking a cheeky peak at what your competitors are up to.

Start with their website and have a look at how many blogs and news updates they are doing and what subjects they are concentrating on? A fantastic, busy website, with a lively and engaging blog or news section, might be the reason they suddenly come up two places higher than you in a Google search.

Then have a look at their social media accounts. How often do they post? Is it original content or are they simply sharing other people’s?

What type of content seems to work best for them, text, video, photos, competitions?

What time of day seems to get the best reaction?

Look deeper – what topics do they choose and what is their tone of voice? Friendly, chatty, authoritative, are they talking to their audience or at them?

You can learn a lot from looking at your competitors – even if you come away from the exercise believing that you are doing a great job and they aren’t (or not!)

Even Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, has an eye on his competitors: ‘Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.’

And it is always worth having someone unconnected to your business take a detached view at what you are doing too. Maybe a friend or relative could look in an objective way at what you have on your website and social media and give you an honest opinion on whether your content is as interesting, clear and engaging as it might be.

So do your business a favour today and take a look at what your rivals are doing – you might be in for a shock…

I’m looking forward to doing some training with TyroTraining tomorrow, as a new set of business people pick my brains on how social media can help their company.

I enjoy running training sessions, in particular because you get to meet new people and learn about local businesses.

It never ceases to amaze me what a wonderful, diverse range of businesses we have here in little old Scarborough and discovering what they do and what makes them tick is always a pleasure.

As to the training, well I can’t claim to be an expert on every technical aspect of every social media platform (who is?), but I think over the years I have learned a fair few hints and tricks that I am happy to pass on!

I honestly believe that social media should be regarded as a convenient and helpful tool to help people and businesses communicate.

The most successful posts I have done for clients have always been those that tell an honest, interesting story that people can relate to.

Too often people get hung up in the technicalities of the various social media platforms, without realising that it is what you say that is important.

So here’s to my new group of delegates tomorrow and to discovering what each and every one of them has to say…

In the world of marketing, an awful lot comes down to trust.

We make buying decisions based in part on our heart and what appeals to us and in part based on our heads and the reputation of the brands in front of us.

That can be anything from the small – like ‘trusting’ Kellogg’s to provide you with a decent bowl of Corn Flakes – to a major decision – like ‘trusting’ Volkswagen to make you a good car.

When that trust is broken, brands have to work hard to regain their reputation and with it, your custom.

It’s widely regarded that 11 years ago today – 9^th August 2007 – a financial crisis began that would shatter our confidence in banks, possibly for ever. The causes of the crisis were many but in short, financial institutions across the globe went in to a borrowing and debt melt-down. Many were bailed out by their governments and some failed – in the UK for example, Northern Rock was nationalised.

We have suffered a decade of economic crisis and uncertainty since and of course confidence in the financial sector took a huge hit.

Banks and building societies have been changing the way they engage with us, to try to regain our trust. Gone are the days of product-focused advertising, replaced by an altogether more ‘touchy-feely’, person-centred and responsible approach.

Nationwide has been using poetry, and real-life stories, including the tale of its first-ever mortgage, to strip back its message and convey what the brand is all about – lending money to people to live their lives.

Barclays can be seen offering advice on how customers can protect themselves from fraud – an issue-based marketing approach aimed at demonstrating how seriously Barclays’ takes its fraud responsibilities and, they hope, building trust in the brand.

Lloyds Bank ran its ‘by your side’ campaign, which sought to demonstrate how the bank is with you throughout your life’s major moments. It recently ran advertising on mental health issues. For Lloyds, this goes deeper than an advertising campaign, as it has backed this up by raising £4.8m for Mental Health UK and launching a money advice service for people with mental health issues.

The Halifax wants us to get the message that no matter who you are, you will still get the same friendly, “Extra” helpful service to support your day-to-day life. So we have seen Halifax staff helping cartoon characters Top Cat find a new home and Fred Flintstone to switch bank!

And Nat West has been running its campaign around ‘we are what we do’, highlighting the role a bank plays in people’s personal lives and in society whilst recognising that banks have a responsibility and accountability for what they do. It too has thrown in some timely reminders about security too, just to reinforce the message that it cares about trust as well.

There are other examples too, all of which shift the emphasis away from product and on to trust and the place a financial institution has in our lives and in society.

Will they work in making us fall in love with the banks again?

Time will tell. Individual banks do report that they are getting positive feedback from research, but let’s face it after the crisis of 2007-8 and all that came afterwards, the only way they could go was up.