Leading your team in times of upheaval

Leading your team in times of upheaval

by | Apr 6, 2020 | Digital, News, Tips, Video Production

Now that most of the country is working from home during the current lockdown, this is presenting new and important communication challenges that requires a different style of leadership.

How do you ensure everyone is staying aligned, motivated and still working as a team, whilst employees are also trying to balance their work with the new challenges of working from home, whilst possibly supervising and home educating a child?

Leaders need to step up and keep their team motivated by providing a weekly guide through the difficulties. This will be achieved by listening and motivating, sharing worries and addressing concerns, whilst articulating a plan.  It is essential for leaders to reach out and keep looking on the bright side!

Leading an organisation through uncertain times requires a strong yet open leadership style. You need to be very visible and lead from the front.

Video messages need to be different! They need to be personal and provide clarity with a human touch. They will probably be recorded in your home and whilst this will give an intimate feel, they need to be presented with a professional delivery to ensure important messages are conveyed. Recording a video like this can feel weird and unnatural. So, giving careful consideration to the messages and how you appear in front of camera is important, whilst also taking the necessary steps to avoid any unplanned interruptions!

Social Media is fine for setting up a company group for social chatting and general support, but often it can be a source of misinformation, employees will respond better to properly produced and moderated content in the way that people watch and listen to the BBC in times of uncertainty.

Organisations that care will up their communications game to support their employees at home.

Your business model and mode of operation has changed. Your strategy and plans for dealing with the crisis both during lockdown and afterwards need to be communicated with clarity and conviction. This will ensure your team understand how this will work and evolve, with a clear explanation and understanding of their role in the new way of working. It needs to highlight the measures taken to survive the crisis and outline how the recovery opportunities will be seized.

For the effective communication of the revised strategy and plans for dealing with the crisis professionally produced content is the best way, to ensure messages are understood, believed, and delivered with conviction and the right amount of gravitas.

Dealing with a pandemic and the uncertainty inevitability causes significant anxiety and leaders need to provide the necessary support. Entrepreneurial energy and optimism need to come to the fore to lead your team through the current crisis.  It is about focussing on the current and future opportunities to make the best of it.  In the words of Winston Churchill ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’

Consider the motivational impact of the Queen’s ‘ We will succeed ‘ address to the nation and consider how the delivery of a message by your CEO could benefit your employees and other stakeholders.

Make the decision to show good leadership and provide extra support.

These are difficult and challenging times for all businesses; with the exception of location filming we are able to provide the full range digital communication services as all of our team can work from home.

We are here to help you!

Here are a few ideas of things we can help you with:

  1. Produce a weekly video– outlining how you are dealing with the crisis. We can assist with scripting, provide advice on the kit required and how to film this in your home. We will then professionally edit it for you and add motion graphics and music if required, then help you to distribute it and monitor the response.
  2. A secure employee portal on your website – for updates and confidential information.
  3. An employee survey – to understand how employees are coping with working at home and provide additional support.
  4. Create infographics – to outline work at home tips and steps for dealing with the crisis
  5. Games and competitions– to maintain morale
  6. Webinars and virtual get togethers– to replace meetings and conferences.

Thank you to our customers, employees and suppliers for your continuing and essential support.

Please do contact me and let us know if there is anything, we can do to help you, by using our digital communications expertise and resources to provide essential communications to keep your business operating and support your stakeholders in these difficult times.

Stay healthy.

With very best wishes

Simon Poyser

CEO

IQ Media

USING DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS IS HELPING TO KEEP THE WHEELS OF BUSINESS TURNING

USING DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS IS HELPING TO KEEP THE WHEELS OF BUSINESS TURNING

by | Mar 19, 2020 | Design, Digital, Marketing, News, Photo, Tips, Video Production

USING DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS IS HELPING TO KEEP THE WHEELS OF BUSINESS TURNING

The coronavirus pandemic has placed extraordinary and unexpected demands on both individuals and businesses. We are certainly living in unprecedented and challenging times that requires us to support each other as a global society.

It is a rapidly changing situation, with a lot of unknowns and this is obviously causing a considerable amount of uncertainty and anxiety. Dealing with a crisis situation requires both strong leadership and good clear reassuring communication through the available channels to ensure everyone is connected and supported.

When we set up IQ Media as a digital communication agency in 2002, our primary aim was to help our clients use the latest technologies to communicate and compete effectively.  

This underlying philosophy has created a number of exciting opportunities and rewarding challenges over the years. This has led us to develop solutions that have allowed our clients to lead and change their markets, and indeed their business models to great effect.

Following the significant Covid 19 measures introduced by the government to try and slow the spread, we have been providing a lot of urgent digital communication solutions for clients. This has helped them to support their customers, patients, suppliers and employees to maintain communication and contact, to preserve and continue their businesses.

This work has included senior manager videos and website messages, e shots, animations ( including a hand washing animation!), a training video for a client who now needs to support technicians working remotely to operate essential equipment around the world, a video message to play in all stores for a major retailer, push notifications to apps and an e commerce site for a client, to maintain supply to customers.

All our team of thirty plus talented individuals, are able to work from their homes due to the agile business model, we have operated for a number of years.

This flurry of activity to meet these urgent and important needs has certainly helped to keep us distracted from our concerns about the future. We are here to support our customers, employees and suppliers as best we can and in turn rely on them supporting us.

A large part of what we do is help businesses communicate through creative storytelling, to reach and engage audiences effectively. In the current climate of ‘social distancing’ and ‘social isolation’ digital communications provide the perfect and, in some cases, the only solution to keep communications flowing. It is about being tenacious and creative to maintain contact and reach out to your audiences.

Communicating across the different digital platforms with multiple touchpoints is helping to keep businesses operating. This ensures customers, suppliers and employees all receive the support they require when they most need it, as the situation continues to change.

Apparently, Bill Gates predicted the occurrence and effect of a Coronavirus five years ago at a TED Talk and it is alarming that as an advanced global community we now find ourselves in the throes of this terrible pandemic without an immediate scientific cure or vaccine.

What is clear is that we will get through this and significantly reduce its potential impact by working together and supporting each other, with effective, regular and timely communication.

Thank you to our customers, employees and suppliers for your continuing and essential support.

Please do contact me and let us know if there is anything, we can do to help you, by using our digital communications expertise and resources to provide essential communications to keep your business operating and support your stakeholders in these difficult times. 

Stay healthy.

With very best wishes

Simon Poyser

CEO

IQ Media 

Sticky Digital Marketing works for F Ball & Co

Sticky Digital Marketing works for F Ball & Co

by | Sep 1, 2017 | Design, Digital, Marketing, News, Video Production

IQ Media has worked for F Ball & Co for over 18 years helping them to develop their market leading position through  innovative and effective  digital communications which include – responsive websites ,web applications, corporate videos, numerous training and product launch videos , Recommended Adhesive Guide apps, their own content player the iBall Player and effective use of social media channels, supported with an effective SEO campaign..

We first built and launched their very successful Recommended Adhesive Guide (RAG) App in 2011, this has been updated quarterly with over 5000 downloads since launch and over 300 interactions each week. The RAG App is used regularly by architects, specifiers and contractors.

We have used the above to develop targeted highly effective lines of communications with contractors, wholesalers and specifiers that drive sales significantly from launch and promote products, reduce costly returns through incorrect product usage, whilst providing a high level of customer service through valuable training.

iQ Media helps Permaflor rise from the ashes

iQ Media helps Permaflor rise from the ashes

by | Sep 1, 2017 | Design, Digital, Marketing, News, Photo, Video Production

IQ Media helps Permaflor rise from the ashes Image

IQ MEDIA HELPS PERMAFLOR RISE FROM THE ASHES

Permaflor the UK’s largest independent manufacturer of raised accessed flooring systems, suffered a catastrophic fire in April 2013. Despite the complete destruction of their production facility, the directors of the company promised their customers they would rise from the ashes.

Within hours of the fire Permaflor was identifying new premises and facilities, whilst taking immediate steps to ensure customer expectations could be fulfilled.

Fortunately all company data was hosted remotely off-site, through their sister company Databax, who provide cloud and offsite hosting solutions. They quickly provided the necessary IT support to ensure all records could be accessed without interruption, which proved to be invaluable, in helping Permaflor to maintain business as usual. The insurers and loss adjusters appreciated the leading position Permaflor has within the industry and provided the necessary support to get the production lines working, as soon as possible.

As a consequence of the fire, the company experienced a significant fall in turnover and needed to move extremely quickly and effectively to restore and regain customer confidence.

Given the urgency of the situation, a number of agencies were invited to submit proposals at very short notice, for a marketing campaign that would help Permaflor recover lost sales as quickly as possible. IQ Media was selected as their proposal was based on a digital marketing campaign, rather than a traditional advertising and PR campaign. This approach was chosen because it would have an immediate impact and deliver measurable results upon which the campaign could be developed.

Simon Poyser Managing Director of iQ Media explains their approach ‘Although time was clearly of the essence, rather than launch straight into the campaign, we felt it was essential to undertake a quick strategic review, to fully understand the business and its market opportunity. This was achieved by holding an ‘anything goes’  brainstorm session with the management and sales team.  Key areas such as customer segments, value propositions and the relationship with customers were considered, whilst setting some targets for both profitability and turnover. This was then reviewed and developed into a marketing plan by IQ Media, with a number of key actions to achieve the targets. ‘

This approach proved to be invaluable as it highlighted the key strengths of the business. This led to the development of its key proposition and delivery of the key messages through the creation of effective digital marketing collateral. The brainstorm session also identified a number of new customer segments along with an increased range of tailored services.

The campaign involved building and launching a new website for Permaflor, to firstly refresh its online presence and reinforce that it was very much open for business. A video was produced with the Director / General Manager providing a very personal statement to customers and suppliers, to thank them for their support, whilst showcasing the new production facilities.

This was used as part of an extensive  e marketing  and subsequent telemarketing campaign to update existing and prospective customers on Permaflor’s recovery and new offering.

The campaign managed to restore and double the post fire monthly turnover within two monthsof launch. This was achieved by not only increasing the quantity of orders, but also through revisiting the target market and the proposition which significantly increased the value of the orders. Visitor numbers to the website and inbound orders were more than trebled and the time spent on the website by visitors has doubled.

Permaflor has now fully recovered from the fire in just under 6 months and the company has a healthier order book than prior to the fire.

For more information, please contact Simon Poyser at iQ Media 01625 418667 / 07734 768342 or simonpoyser@iqmediagroup.co.uk

IQ Media helps NRC to reach new heights

IQ Media helps NRC to reach new heights

by | Sep 1, 2017 | Design, Digital, Video Production

IQ Media helps NRC Plant to reach new heights Image

Integrated Campaign helps NRC Plant to reach new heights

NRC Plant , the UK’s leading crawler and telescopic crane specialist appointed IQ Media to develop a marketing campaign, that would help them increase the awareness of the NRC brand to significantly increase their turnover from both crane hire and sales.

IQ undertook a strategic review of the marketing needs of the business model with the senior management team. This was then developed into a marketing plan that identified the channels that would be used to reach and engage new and existing customer segments, to deliver the value propositions as identified.

One of the first tasks undertaken was the refresh of the company’s brand identity, to create a modern and professional identity that is distinctive, memorable and stands out whilst reflecting that the business is selling and hiring crawler cranes. A new logo was developed based on the three letters and a line joining them to represent the track on a crawler crane. The use of red, black and white was chosen as the primary palette to provide a distinctive appearance to the marketing collateral and cranes on site.

A new responsive website was developed along with a brochure based on some new impressive site and operations photography undertaken by iQ Media. This was then supported by an e marketing campaign to drive traffic to the site.

The new branding was well received by existing and new customers and the successful campaign achieved significant increases in both crane sales and hire turnover from new customers almost immediately, as a result of a significant increase in visitors and enquiries from the website.

NRC recently attended the Vertikal Days crane show at Haydock and IQ Media produced a short video, to provide visitors to the NRC website with a guided tour of the new Hitachi Sumitomo and Link Belt cranes on display.

Please take a look at the NRC Website www.nrcplant.co.uk and contact us if you would like to discuss how a similar strategic review and digital communications campaign could benefit your business.