Manchester residents and stakeholders gain from new skills and jobs website developed by Cornerstone DM.
Our long-standing marketing relationship with a not-for-profit community organisation which helps Manchester residents with jobs, volunteering, training, and digital technology skills has yielded a new website created by our design, digital and web development team.
We were delighted when Yes Manchester – an award-winning registered charity working with people looking to improve their lives in some of north Manchester’s most deprived districts – asked us to design and create a brand-new website that would provide the services and functions residents, staff and stakeholders needed on their journey to find work, and to develop their careers and skills.
It also complies with the very latest legal and website standards and is easy to maintain, update and adapt in the future, as required.
Since 2013, Yes Manchester, which runs three centres in Newton Health, Collyhurst and Higher Blackley, has helped more than 1,000 north Manchester residents gain employment or launch their own business.
It has also helped more than 500 residents to gain formal training and over 8,000 with access to computer facilities and the internet. Overall, its three centres have received over 107,000 visits and its services have generated an estimated total social value of £15million.
We are no strangers to working with diverse public sector, not-for-profit and commercial organisations. Our Public sector clients include Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Recycle for Greater Manchester (R4GM), and North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust. Cornerstone also works with a wealth of community interest companies and registered charitable trusts.
Cornerstone MD David Wadsworth says: “We are really proud to work with organisations such as Yes Manchester, which do such important work in their communities and makes such a difference to people’s lives.
“Our agency has considerable experience gained over the years with varied public sector and not-for-profit organisations. We understand their changing circumstances, challenges, audiences, and ambitions and provide bespoke services for all their needs.
“Working with Yes Manchester on such an important project as we emerged from the depths of two nationwide lockdowns was really invigorating for myself and our team, as we set about improving digital experiences for people in the areas Yes Manchester serve, helping them to bring people back into work, upskill them ready for opportunities and give them opportunities to develop valuable skills to improve their employment opportunities.
“We’re pleased with the result and pleased to be contributing our skills and knowledge to this very valuable community resource.”
The new website is fully compliant with legal requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and technology standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a global organisation which aims to develop the internet towards its best potential.
Yes Manchester was founded in 2013 as a subsidiary of Northwards Housing, a housing organisation which managed over 12,000 council homes across north Manchester. In July 2021 Northwards Housing became part of Manchester City Council and Yes Manchester become an independent CIC before becoming a registered charity in November of the same year.
Sheila Sturgeon, Chief Executive from Yes Manchester said: “As we embark on the next chapter of our journey, we felt a new website was needed. The old website had served us well but was built some time ago on a limited budget, with a basic design and coding to suit. Over time, it had become dated and limited.
“We needed a new website to serve our changing needs, to comply with the latest disability accessibility, internet, and data protection standards, and to provide range of new features. These include appointment-booking, interactive client profiles, the ability to receive donations and the ability to send automated messages to clients.
“Customers can now create their own profiles on the website with job preferences, skills, areas of interest, training, background and personal information. They can also upload their CVs for employers to see. Yes Manchester staff can analyse individual profiles and partner organisations, businesses and employers can engage with Yes Manchester on community projects, skills, training and job vacancy opportunities.”
Nigel has been a journalist since the days of typewriters (not even electric typewriters)! He has edited several weekly newspapers across Greater Manchester, been the editor-in-chief of several more and edited a daily newspaper in Northern Ireland. He came home to work on the former Greater Manchester regional TV station Channel M. Having dropped the […]
Find out more about usLearn more about us
Google Analytics Is Changing – Act Now Before It’s Too Late
Google has announced it is decommissioning Universal Analytics (UA) on 1st July 2023, and while that might seem like a long time away, it is essential you take action now.
Google Analytics allows you to track your online traffic, better understand user behaviour and, most importantly, measure your website’s ROI through event and conversion tracking. It’s a vital tool to improve your online brand presence.
Should I stick with Universal Analytics or move to Google Analytics 4?
We recommend you switch from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 as soon as possible to provide year-on-year reporting value in 2023. If you don’t have GA4 set up by June this year, you’ll have no year-on-year data to report and benchmark against after 1st July 2023. So don’t delay!
When will Universal Analytics be deprecated?
Google says UA users will be able to access previously processed data for at least six months after each measurement solution is deprecated. In the meantime, it is encouraging users to export historical data and says it intends to offer more guidance on data export as the date approaches when UA will no longer be available.
However, Google isn’t giving a date when UA will no longer be available but says it will provide a ‘future date’ after which users will no longer be able to see their UA reports in the Analytics interface, or access UA data via the API.
Those who don’t make the switch face being left behind, although users will be able to use and collect data in their UA properties until 1st July 2023.
What’s behind the change to GA4?
GA4 was introduced just over two years ago to address evolving measurement standards driven by what Google calls ‘the need to navigate new challenges and to understand the complex, multi-platform customer journeys — all while prioritising user privacy’.
Writing in an article entitled, ‘Prepare for the future with Google Analytics 4’, Russell Ketchum, Google Analytics Product Development Director, says: “UA was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions, and more easily observable data from cookies. This measurement methodology is quickly becoming obsolete. Meanwhile, GA4 operates across platforms, does not rely exclusively on cookies, and uses an event-based data model to deliver user-centric measurement.
“And though UA offers a variety of privacy controls, GA4 is designed with privacy at its core to provide a better experience for both our customers and their users. It helps businesses meet evolving needs and user expectations, with more comprehensive and granular controls for data collection and usage. Importantly, GA4 will also no longer store IP addresses. These solutions and controls are especially necessary in today’s international data privacy landscape, where users are increasingly expecting more privacy protections and control over their data.”
Don’t delay – act today
We are contacting all Cornerstone clients to alert them to the ‘hidden timeframe’ of the Google UA changes.
The great news for all our clients is that we can make the changeover for you – all you need to do is contact us as soon as possible to get a date in the diary.
Unsure whether you need to make the change? If you created your property before October 14, 2020, you’re likely to be using a Universal Analytics (UA) property. If you created your property after October 14, 2020, you’re likely using a Google Analytics 4 property already.
To arrange a migration, or if you need more advice about whether you need to make the change, contact us today.
Interested in working with us? We’d love to hear about your next project
Get in touchRequest a brochureNew business, new recruits and a new digital signage platform
A raft of new business wins and five new recruits continues Cornerstone DM’s impressive growth and development as 2022 gets into full swing.
In fact, we are forecasting a sales growth of 30-40% for this year following our £1.2m turnover in 2021 – the agency’s best-ever performance, despite the economic impact of the Covid pandemic and the resulting national lockdowns.
We’ve started 2022 with a 30% growth in business that includes three new leisure trusts serving Bury, Barrow and Blackpool added to our impressive leisure centre marketing portfolio that already includes Active Tameside, Oldham Community Leisure, Everybody Sport & Recreation, GM Active, Volair and Burnley Leisure and Culture.
Other new clients include automotive storage specialists Linco Automotive, a North West-based SME providing consultancy, design, supply and installation services to prestige car dealerships; and London-based Cheetah Transformation, which works with clients to build, implement and support the adoption of a global workflow management system.
Exceptional standards and high-quality outputs
MD David Wadsworth, who founded the full-service agency in his parent’s attic in 2007, says: “We’re working with regional, national and international firms across a number of industries. 2022 has been an exceptional year for us so far, and with more new business in the pipeline, we are going from strength to strength.
“We’ve bolstered the team with more resource across several disciplines to maintain our exceptional standards and high-quality outputs.
“Everything we do is based on our founding principles – results, reputation and relationships. Testimony to that is the number of potential new clients coming to us following word-of-mouth recommendations from our existing clients.”
These latest expansions follow a succession of new contracts we won in late 2021 that were already accelerating our recruitment and growth plans.
The new recruits have augmented our account management, digital and web teams, while a new sales manager to maximise the potential of the our signage operation is being sought.
In addition to our team of established professionals, we’ve taken on an apprentice in web development. The 12-month programme – with the possible option to extend to take higher qualifications – includes all the basics of HTML and CSS and further development into database managed websites using PHP.
Cornerstone Digital Signage Platform
Another new development for us is the launch of the Cornerstone Digital Signage Platform – a web-based, digital signage solution that allows businesses, brands and organisations to tailor their communications to their target audience via strategically positioned digital signage screens and totems.
We’ll be providing clients with total flexibility and autonomy over content, but we’ll align all output with a client’s marketing strategy and assist with asset creation – be it imagery or video to help engage with users, keep brand messaging front of mind and position key product messages throughout their facilities.
David adds: “We’ve developed this innovative, accessible and cost-effective digital signage software after listening to the market and what customers need and want. With so many clients embracing digital technology, and needing to communicate with stakeholders on their premises, we are confident of its effectiveness, and are offering a free, 30-day software trial, which can be used on any smart TV or wifi enabled digital signage solution.”
Cornerstone DM shortlisted for two regional marketing awards
Cornerstone DM is thrilled and utterly chuffed to be announced as finalists for two accolades in this year’s Prolific North Marketing Awards!
We’ve been shortlisted in the Best Social Purpose Campaign category for our work on Active Tameside’s Charitable Status Campaign and in the Best Brand Building Campaign category for helping to steer the rebrand of Burnley Leisure.
The awards acknowledge the stand-out campaigns of the year alongside recognising the region’s best small and large agencies and in-house teams.
Formerly known as the Northern Marketing Awards, we’ll be alongside our regional agency and marketeer counterparts awaiting the winners’ announcements at the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds on 25th November.
In the running alongside campaigns for brands such as Asda, schuh, Channel 4 and The Body Shop, our Best Social Purpose Campaign submission centred on strengthening and defining Active Tameside’s position as a charitable organisation and social enterprise.
We developed a B2C marketing and PR strategy to shine a spotlight on the leisure trust’s transformative and award-winning community services and its dedication to provide outstanding leisure facilities to benefit and improve the borough’s health and wellbeing, particularly during and post lockdown.
The Best Brand Building Campaign nomination focussed on re-aligning Burnley Leisure & Culture’s popular, yet disparate, leisure centres, eating establishments, entertainment venues and community programmes into one recognisable brand while retaining the individuality and origins of each entity.
Cornerstone DM managing director David Wadsworth, who founded the agency in 2007 in his parent’s attic, just down the road from where it now occupies a modern, in-house designed office space said: “Being shortlisted in the Prolific North awards is a great achievement in itself for our agency.
“Our teams and clients have worked tirelessly and with great passion and pride to pull together each of these projects and deliver something that not only has value to the organisation, but also the people and communities they engage with.
“We’re proud of the brands and campaigns we’re a part of, and keen to see our work put forward. Well done to everyone involved in all categories, it’s great to see the industry thriving.”
Enjoying year-on-year growth and working with clients across a range of sectors and industries, we now employ a 22-strong team across strategic marketing, public relations, digital marketing, design, web development and print production.
You can keep in the loop with how we get on at the awards by following us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn where we’ll be posting live from the event on the 25th!
Shortlisted: The Cornerstone team members who worked on the campaigns recognised by the Prolific North marketing awards.
Gill has been a journalist for way longer than she cares – or dares to remember. Formerly a news reporter, feature writer and beauty columnist working for newspapers across Greater Manchester, the switch flicked, the light came on and she headed straight for PR. Gill works across a number of sectors including health, pharma, leisure […]
Find out more about usCornerstone joins Rio Ferdinand Foundation and partners to inspire Oldham’s next generation
As an Oldham agency born and bred, we were delighted to recently partner with The Rio Ferdinand Foundation (RFF) Oldham Enterprise Trust (OET) and Oldham Opportunity Area at an event designed to boost the aspirations and career prospects of young people from high schools across the borough.
Building on its existing work in Oldham, RFF and OET organised the Enterprise Day with event partner Oldham College, which provide the venue and catering for free.
It brought together local businesses and business leaders as part of a new initiative to help inspire, educate and connect young people through entrepreneurialism and enterprise skills.
Around 80 students from eight local schools including Waterhead Academy, The Blue Coat School, The Radclyffe School, North Chadderton School and Coop Academy Failsworth attended the careers event which featured interactive sessions, skills workshops and inspirational speakers from the Oldham community.
Keen to inspire, invest in and increase opportunities for the young people on our doorstep we were thrilled to be invited to take part, particularly considering the motivational and humble origins of our agency.
Fresh out of Huddersfield University with a degree in marketing, founder, managing director and Oldhamer David Wadsworth didn’t let his inexperience get in the way of his burning desire to launch his own agency.
In 2007 he laid those first foundations of Cornerstone – and all from his parent’s attic in Clarksfield, Oldham!
Fourteen years and several moves later we now occupy an impressive in-house designed and built office space in Acorn Street, Lees, employing a 22-strong team across strategic marketing, public relations, digital marketing, design, web development and print production and now have an annual turnover of over £1m.
Alongside highlighting David’s story of entrepreneurialism and determination to succeed, our ‘communication’ themed activity workshop at the enterprise event was delivered by PR manager Gill Potts and our 18-year-old digital marketing apprentice Madeline Thorp.
Madeline engaged students with her first-hand experience of gaining an apprenticeship and offered insightful advice on work experience, job applications and interviews.
“Gill and I delivered a workshop on behalf of Cornerstone DM that revolved around the theme of communication,” said Madeline.
“I spoke to the students about how to communicate to potential employers through CVs and interviews, and how there are other routes into the workplace aside from university.
“Inspiring more young people into work is something very important to me as an apprentice, and it was a pleasure to be able to talk to young people like myself about a more unconventional pathway into the workplace and how to actually secure an apprenticeship.
“The students really engaged with our workshop and activities, which was great to see.”
David added: “It was fantastic to be invited to work with the Rio Ferdinand Foundation to help inspire, encourage and guide our borough’s future workforce.
“Finding insights, mentorship and guidance from industry experts has been critical to my own success with Cornerstone, so it’s a great pleasure to be able to take part and support our community’s leaders and managers of tomorrow in achieving their path to success.
“The event was extremely well organised and well received by attendees, and it’s excellent to see this work taking place in our town.”
Victoria Lowe, RFF programme manager North West said: “The event was a huge success, our businesses and young entrepreneurs really inspired the young people who took part in their talks and enterprising activities.
“The young people learnt about communication, teamwork, resilience and problem-solving, as well as top tips and career guidance from our professionals, like Cornerstone.
“Everyone got stuck into the different workshops and young people created films to share their own enterprising ideas for Oldham.
“RFF would like to say a huge thank you to our partners Oldham Enterprise Trust, Youth Enterprise Network Oldham, Oldham College and our businesses for all of their support in this collaboration.”
The career opportunity programme is offering weekly sessions throughout this year with opportunities for local businesses, education practitioners and members of the community to get involved. If you want to support young people to tackle inequality and drive social change in your area visit the website Support our work — Rio Ferdinand Foundation or contact the Programme Manager, Victoria Lowe, on 0161 743 3779.
(Photo credit: Les Howarth, Real Time Images)
Gill has been a journalist for way longer than she cares – or dares to remember. Formerly a news reporter, feature writer and beauty columnist working for newspapers across Greater Manchester, the switch flicked, the light came on and she headed straight for PR. Gill works across a number of sectors including health, pharma, leisure […]
Find out more about usThought provoking talks at the LFX Network
How well is your team? How well are your coworkers?
Do you really know?
If your team or colleagues are shut away in their back bedrooms, as many of us have been, or still are, following the shift to home working, the honest answer is that it’s hard to know.
I started to think about this in a room full of 30-40 people at a LFX Live event – the first in-person event this leisure and fitness network, which we at Cornerstone sponsor, has held since the pandemic struck.
Dr Glenda Rivoallen was one of four speakers – me included – at the event held at Prairie Sports Village, run by Burnley Leisure and Culture, one of Cornerstone’s clients.
Dr Rivoallen was speaking about leadership and resilience in the workplace – a key topic in these difficult times amid the ever-increasing focus on mental health, wellbeing and mindfulness.
How well are you as an individual, she asked? Is it time to be more human and not put on a façade of everything is OK when it’s not?
How can you find a positive way to engage with your teams about their mental wellbeing, their happiness at work and their engagement with your culture?
Not easy questions to answer for anyone with a remote workforce.
And just to prove how difficult it is to really know how someone is feeling, Dr Rivoallen, speaker, author, entrepreneur and consultant in creating successful wellness brands, said she classed herself as having high functioning anxiety. She is a brilliant speaker, confident in her approach. You would never believe she had anything like that underpinning who and what she is.
She spoke about the benefits of mindfulness and focusing more on your own wellbeing, and the benefits that exercise can have on your mental wellbeing as well as your physical wellbeing.
I’m certainly interested to find out more about how we can better ensure our company is a healthy place with resilient team members.
A word from Europe Active’s David Stalker
Dr Rivoallen’s comments about wellbeing chimed with those of our first speaker – David Stalker, president of EuropeActive, previously the European Health and Fitness Association, which rebranded itself to better reflect its position as the European Association for Fitness and Physical Activity.
He spoke about the need to shift the focus from gyms and fitness to health and wellbeing, becoming ‘health delivery partners’, the driver of health in the community. He explained how the leisure and fitness industry had been trying to engage with certain age groups and demographics for years, but they were not responding and gave suggestions on how everyone in that room, even the younger individuals, can make a real change to the health of their community.
Now is the time, he said, for the industry to go out into communities and engage directly by going into care homes, schools, reaching out to GPs, pharmacies and leisure trusts to take health and fitness to the people instead of waiting for them to come to them as quite often, the hurdle for health in the community is they don’t want to come to the gym.
It’s not just a problem in the UK but across Europe too, he added, and needs to be tackled for years and years to come.
In government, leisure and fitness falls under the Department for Sport, but David Stalker highlighted the fact that the industry should be pushing to be part of the Department of Health. After all, he said, there were more physical and mental wellbeing benefits to be gained from lowering someone’s cholesterol level through exercise and diet rather than a pharmaceutical solution (like a pill). Just one example, but that thinking could be expanded to many more health issues.
Consumer behaviour and marketing insights
Completing the thought-provoking day was a back-and-forth about understanding consumers between our fourth speaker, Chris Loxley, and yours truly (David Wadsworth).
Chris, a psychologist by trade, has a proven track record as a thought leader in behavioural science. As Head of Behavioural Science at Loved by Design, Chris works with a wide range of businesses, brands and organisations and it’s his opinion that people don’t think how they feel, they don’t say what they think and don’t do what they say. It’s his job to unlock the unseen opportunities that reside in the hidden and often unspoken thought processes of the consumer.
How do you change consumer behaviour? By his own admission, Chris is a theoretical guy and would use psychology.
But for me, it’s all about the customer experience. If a consumer has the best possible customer experience, they will be more engaged with the brand, they’ll typically become an advocate for it by recommending and referring. They’ll stick with the brand longer.
Chris spoke about social proofing – that’s a concept that says we are all influenced by the people around us, so if you see someone doing something you feel you’ve got to do the same. (Does the recent panic at the fuel pumps, spring to mind?)
Social proofing is used to generate anticipation and demand. You’re online, there are five people watching a product, 13 people buying it and there’s only another 13 in stock. It creates panic, urgency, even desire. Reviews and recommendations are another example of social proofing, I know I’m not the only one guilty of scrolling through hundreds of reviews from people I have never heard of before deciding whether to buy a product, or book a table.
We also spoke about the four pillars of marketing, known as the 4Ps – product, price, place and promotion. “Are they still relevant?” I was asked.
They absolutely are, but tend to be a concept many companies fail to truly understand and engage with in today’s fast moving, digital centric world.
Left to right: Graeme Hinde (LFX), Chris Loxley (LovedBy Design), David Wadsworth (Cornerstone DM)
The 4Ps still underpin strategy at any level, and via any channel. They can power product development, pricing strategy and channel strategy as well as the art of promotion, or communications, which sadly is where many marketeers are now pigeon holed into. I think consumer insight is a dying art of marketing. These days marketers communicate to consumers. But we are the ones who need to listen to them, do research and feed it back at corporate level. If you’re not going into a new strategy acknowledging that you know nothing about the consumer, your strategy is most likely going to be biased, and missing some great opportunities.
We could have talked for hours on the topic and how consumer behaviour can be used more extensively in the full marketing and product mix.
Each talk brought some thought-provoking ideas and insights to the table, and certainly gave myself, and without doubt the audience plenty to think and talk about. We’re looking forward to the next event which takes place in Wales in November, where I’ll be speaking again, this time on wider marketing strategy and campaign implementation.
Using the Facebook boost button for good
The boost button is the most simple way of advertising on Facebook and is often the go-to option for small businesses but avoided by PPC marketeers.
So, who’s right on this occasion? Should or shouldn’t you click that big, blue boost button?
Well… both!
As an agency full of PPC experts, we’ve come to appreciate the nuance between the Facebook boost button and Facebook Ads by understanding the different use cases for each.
What is the Facebook boost button used for?
The Facebook boost button is used for promoting organic content to a wider audience.
You do this by paying to ‘boost’ one of your regular posts to an audience defined by location, age, gender, interests and/or behaviours. This makes it quick and easy to get your page content in front of users who don’t yet ‘like’ your business profile.
But when we compare the simple boost button to the Facebook Ads platform, we start to see its limitations.
What Facebook Ads allow us to do that boosted posts do not, includes specifying ad placements, objectives, and using advanced creative and targeting capabilities.
Choosing ad placements
Facebook Ads, controlled within your Business Manager panel, allow you to choose where you want to run your ads on the Facebook Network.
In 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for a cool $1 billion at which point advertisers creating ads on Facebook could also run ads on Instagram in one fell swoop.
Facebook also has its own Audience Network which is a substantial group of off-Facebook apps owned by the social media giant. You can choose to advertise on this Network using Facebook Ads.
Other placements include:
- Facebook Marketplace
- Messenger inbox
- Facebook right column
- Instagram explore
Ad objectives
Do you want your content to generate real results rather than just increasing your social reach?
Facebook Ads allow you to choose from different ad objectives based on what you want to achieve.
If you want more people to buy from you or complete a key conversion, choosing the ‘conversion’ ad objective will mean your budget is being spent per conversion, rather than per ad view or click. Ad objectives help you to spend your budget wisely to get the best results.
There are several ad objectives you can choose from, other than conversions, including:
Brand awareness
- Increase awareness of your business or Facebook page
Reach
- Show your ads to as many people as possible within your defined audience
Web traffic
- Drive users to click through to your website
Engagement
- Encourage more likes, shares, and comments on your ad content
App installs
- Increase downloads of your app
Video views
- Get as many video views as you can
Lead generation
- Collect leads via in-Facebook forms
Facebook messages
- Connect with people on Facebook by encouraging them to message your Facebook page directly
Catalogue sales
- Showcase your e-commerce store products and increase sales
Store visits
- Increase visits to your physical shop
Advanced creativity
When you boost one of your organic Facebook posts, you’re most likely going to be putting money behind a simple text, image, or video post. And that’s if you’ve got professional designers creating your image and video assets.
Within the Facebook Ads platform, you can create your own videos, carousels, collections, stories without the need for a full design team, or, if you do have designer to hand, you can upload your own creative assets.
Carousel ads
Carousel ads are a collection of image blocks that the user can swipe though allowing you to showcase up to ten images or videos within a single ad, each with its own link.
This is perfect if you’re wanting to promote a collection of different products or services, giving each its own creative asset and link in one ad.
Video creation
Using static images or your own video assets, you can start to include more information and calls to action in your ads by using the Facebook Ads video creation tool.
This allows you to overlay text and stickers and choose from different transitions between assets to create one cohesive and eye-catching video.
Collections and instant experiences
A collection ad is a basic image or video ad accompanied by four images directly underneath the main creative assets. Collection ads appear directly in the Facebook News Feed.
When someone clicks on a collection ad, instead of linking to your website, app, or lead generation form, they’ll be taken to an ‘instant experience’.
An instant experience is a full-screen landing page, created by advertisers within Facebook Ads, that gives more information about a brand, service, or product to encourage engagement and sales.
Story ads
Running ads on Instagram Stories give you a chance to reach up to 1 billion active monthly users with almost 25% of those story viewers accessing swipe up links.
Creating ads specifically for stories means you can include interactive elements like polls, as well as disruptive video to really engage with your audience.
So, are Facebook Ads or the boost button best?
There are advantages to using both forms of Facebook Advertising, but it all depends on what you want to achieve.
There is certainly more cause to use Facebook Ads with its wide range of objective targeting and creative freedom allowing you to get more out of your money. But the Facebook boost button does offer you a quick and easy way to promote your content and get a specific message out to your target audience without having to worry too much about ad setup.
In summary, we’d recommend using the boost button to increase the reach of your organic posts but use Facebook Ads to support wider campaigns with an aim to either increase brand awareness, sales, app downloads, event attendance, footfall, and lead generation.
If you’d like to talk to our PPC and paid social experts about Facebook advertising, email digital_team@cornerstonedm.co.uk.
Jess joined Cornerstone as an account executive in January 2017 following freelance roles within marketing and PR fields. Exploring her passion for all thing digital, Jess embarked on several training courses and became Cornerstone’s dedicated digital marketer within 12 months of joining the Cornerstone team. Jess gets involved in all digital work at Cornerstone including […]
Find out more about usHow to nail an SEO audit
When you want to understand how your website is performing within the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), the best place to start is with an SEO audit.
An SEO audit is a comprehensive outline of a website’s SEO performance, covering a wide range of technical SEO, content, on-site and off-site elements.
What makes a good SEO audit?
Ultimately, a good SEO audit should outline a focused, prioritised list of achievable actions within a specified time frame with the intention of improving organic search performance.
An audit should clearly state the facts which can be used to form a comprehensive SEO strategy.
Focusing on what is really going to contribute value to a website’s performance within the SERPs is vital in an SEO audit.
And that’s the keyword here: focus. Whether you’re an SEO agency, expert or improving search value in-house, clients and C-Levels signing off on your audit outcomes don’t want to spend their time reviewing Excel spreadsheets with thousands of rows of problem URLs.
Keeping an audit concise and understandable is key.
As an established Manchester SEO agency, we’ve optimised our audits to concentrate on:
- Technical specifications
- Core web vitals
- Site health audit
- Site architecture
- Content
- Rankings
- Backlinks
- UX
What does an SEO audit involve?
Tech specs within an SEO audit look at the core technical elements of your website which affect crawlability, indexing, and performance. We run simple yes/no, good/bad, active/inactive reports on these checks and communicate any substantial issues thereafter.
Core web vitals became direct ranking factors in 2021 and are the most recent must-check item for your SEO audits. Ensuring your website passes all core web vitals checks will improve usability as well as rankings.
Running a site health audit using one of the many SEO software programmes on the market allows you to understand and prioritise recurring errors on site such as missing alt text, duplicate content, broken internal links and more.
Auditing site architecture will allow you to understand exactly how the site is structured and what improvements you need to make to increase your crawl budget and improve user journey.
Reviewing site content also allows you to see where there may be gaps in content, missing content, or light content on site.
How your website currently ranks with the SERP is an important consideration to make within your SEO audit as it will allow you to make a gap analysis against your competitors, highlighting your ranking strengths and weaknesses.
Backlink audits underline any potential toxic domains that link to your website and show you where exactly your backlink value comes from.
Understandably, Google is starting to hold user experience in higher and higher regard when it comes to search rankings.
How do I gather all the data?
We’d highly recommend investing in a crawler to help you carry out your SEO audits.
A crawler mimics a search engine and highlights any potential errors on your website in a matter of minutes (depending on the size of your website!).
What’s next?
Once you’ve crawled your site, run your checks and populated your audit document, it’s time to give it some value.
Start to review all of your audit outcomes and combine them into a prioritisation list. Decide on how you’re going to prioritise each point (we use a low, medium, high traffic light system) and finalise your audit with a realistic and timely list of actions you’re going to take to improve organic search visibility.
If you’re looking to work with an SEO company on improving your organic search presence, get in touch with our SEO team via email: digital_team@cornerstonedm.co.uk
Jess joined Cornerstone as an account executive in January 2017 following freelance roles within marketing and PR fields. Exploring her passion for all thing digital, Jess embarked on several training courses and became Cornerstone’s dedicated digital marketer within 12 months of joining the Cornerstone team. Jess gets involved in all digital work at Cornerstone including […]
Find out more about usWhy visual marketing is better by design
Visual marketing isn’t just about making things look pretty.
In a world where online audiences are bombarded with more content than ever – can you believe over two million new blog posts are published every day? – coupled with evidence our attention spans are getting shorter, you need to seize the moment.
Words alone aren’t enough – images, video, GIFs, infographics, VR, in fact any kind of visual content is guaranteed to get more engagement because people respond better to visuals than just plain text.
Why?
- Because our brains prefer it and are able to process imagery up to 60,000 times faster than text which makes visuals easier and quicker to understand – around 65% of people are visual learners.
- Not only that but our brains and minds have been shaped by hand-held technology and that means we’re often scanning and scrolling on the move looking for something to grab our attention.
- We’re not saying simply adding an image will instantly catapult a marketing campaign. Neither are we endorsing replacing text with visuals. The clever bit is a marriage of the two.
- Visual marketing is about connecting brand and messaging to imagery, so it sticks around in the brain that little bit longer and ultimately prompts engagement and action.
The benefits of visual marketing
There’s no doubt the likes of Facebook and Instagram have fuelled the importance of visual marketing.
And the latest stats show it’s becoming more and more essential to invest in visual content to keep up with the crowd.
Around 49% of marketers rate visual marketing as ‘very important’ to their marketing strategy in 2021 and that between 51-80% of businesses will rely on it heavily this year.1
So, what rewards can you reap from visual marketing? The most obvious expectations are:
- Increased website traffic
- Increased SEO
- Greater brand awareness
- More shares on social media
And that’s because 80% of audiences are more likely to read content – and spend more time on web pages – if it’s accompanied by something visual.2
It’s also said to be 40 times more likely to be shared across social media than copy content alone and that means more exposure.2
Types of visual marketing content
Images
Images draw people in to what you have to say, the more compelling and beautiful the better.
They attract attention on social posts and help to break up longer pieces of text, such as blogs, which is particularly effective when viewing via a smartphone or tablet. A well-designed image can be powerful in helping to engage and persuade the audience to act.
Video
Video continues to be one of the most influential attention-grabbing tools and since 2012 mobile video consumption has increased 17-fold.1 Well received videos are known to have a huge impact on website traffic and directly help to increase sales.
And the onset of 5G will dramatically increase internet speeds thus propelling the demand for video even further – definitely one to have your eye on!
Infographics
Infographics are all about data visualisation. They combine text with graphic elements to make the information delivery process easier to digest – and they’re a lot more appealing than wading through paragraphs of facts and figures. They’re also highly shareable so can be a great way to create brand awareness. Who doesn’t love to circulate a good stat and fact!
Slide Presentations
Why use one image when you can seamlessly glide through several? Slide decks are a good way of visually projecting longer or more complicated messaging.
Quotes
Quotes can be inspiring, uplifting, amusing and relatable. We often use them on social media for our leisure marketing and consumer facing clients. The quotes themselves may be simple but imagery makes them highly effective. They’re perfect for sharing and increasing brand awareness.
GIFS
These shortform videos have definitely evolved from their early cat video incarnations. They can be used to convey longer messaging and more light-hearted content and because they’re more dynamic than static images, they tend to drive better engagement.
A few other things to consider
We can all add videos and photographs to our social channels, most of us can easily upload imagery to accompany a blog – but is it that simple?
In short, no.
Visual marketing content needs to be precisely aligned to a brand or business and should be in tune with your marketing strategy.
In other words, content should reflect your brand identity and be both well-thought out and well designed.
Content should reflect your audience needs and requirements to ensure it’s useful and relevant – as tempting as those cat videos are, unless you’re a pet supplier or an animal shelter, leave them well alone.
All visual marketing content should be in tandem with the brand and tone of voice – don’t suddenly alarm the audience with social media memes if you’re a business which doesn’t align with light-hearted humour.
Ensure your content has a clear call-to-action by first deciding what you want your audience to do and then conceiving the appropriate messaging to engage and convert them.
Still there?
If you’re still with us after all that text – nicely broken up with well-designed images and infographics – hopefully we’ve given you an engaging insight into the importance of visual marketing.
We are an agency that provides strategic visual marketing as part of our full-service offering which includes creative design, digital marketing, PR and copywriting and print production.
To find out how we can align, elevate, strategise and create your visual marketing
call us on 0161 213 9941 or email clients@cornerstonedm.co.uk.
References:
1 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy
2 https://www.pixlee.com/blog/5-visual-marketing-facts-you-need-to-know/
Sarah heads up our creative department and has developed our creative offering since our launch in 2007. During that time she has had wide exposure to all areas of the business, such as digital, web, operations and client support, so is a solid and reliable all rounder, involved in many aspects of the agency. She […]
Find out more about usWhy the feature-packed PHP 8 update can’t really wait
Another digital acronym? What a surprise. But don’t roll your eyes just yet.
Because if you know anything about PHP – even more reason if you don’t or your knowledge is byte sized – you really should read on because we’re about to give you a close coding encounter following the launch of a somewhat significant new version, PHP 8.
What is PHP?
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language for building websites – the biggest in fact running right to the core of the world’s most popular content management system WordPress and social media gargantuan Facebook.
According to web technology usage site W3Techs.com, PHP is ‘used by 79.2% of all the websites whose server-side programming language we know’.1
PHP used to stand for Personal Home Page, now it stands for Hypertext Pre-processor. Don’t feel bad for preferring the former.
It’s a server-side scripting language which is embedded in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language which is the standard for creating web pages) and can play a whole host of roles such as generating dynamic page content, session tracking, collecting form data, sending and receiving cookies and build entire e-commerce sites, to name a few.
What about PHP 8?
PHP 8 – launched in November 2020 – is a pretty hefty update as updates go.
Positively packed with new features, functions and performance improvements – including union types, JIT (just in time), the nullsafe operator, named arguments, non-capturing catches – in other words an awful lot of coding language designed to make PHP more efficient and reliable.
While that’s not for us to worry about with a screen side view, those grafting away at the back end of website development are particularly overjoyed as it gifts them the pot of gold – the tools to write well-structured code.
So, how it has changed and what are its benefits?
8 is definitely the magic number here.
PHP 8 has 8 main new features, some of which we mentioned above:
The new features
Attributes
One of the most debated new features in PHP 8 is attributes, also known as “annotations”.
Attributes replace the docblocks metadata storage declaring metadata for classes, methods, functions, and arguments. Now, attributes can be declared with Syntax #[…].
Fallthrough
If a switch statement doesn’t have a break after each case, it will run to the next case, even if the intention was for the code to break. This allowed switch functions to execute several blocks of code in sequence but was the cause of many bugs.
Match (explained below) enforces an break after each arm and multiple conditions can be commanded with commas separating conditions.
JIT compiler
When PHP is run, it’s assembled into virtual instructions that are executed in a virtual machine. JIT changes this by assembling the code into x86 machine code and then running that code directly on the CPU. This will improve performance on applications that rely heavily on mathematical functions but won’t make much difference for your average web apps.
Match Expressions
Match Expressions intend to solve problems in Switch functionality.
Switch used a type-converting relational operator (==), which often caused bugs. Now, independent of strict_types, Match uses a strict comparison operator (===).
Mixed Types
In recent versions of PHP, it was possible to declare the expected type of input and return data. However, PHP did not always support Types, and this is a problem. In some cases, a Type was omitted or simply forgotten. MixedTypes now tries to solve this problem.
Named Arguments
Named arguments offer more flexibility when calling functions. Instead of calling a function and passing each argument in the order specified by the function, named arguments define a name for each parameter and can be called out of order.
Static Return Type
“The static special class name in PHP refers to the class a method was actually called on, even if the method is inherited. This is known as “late static binding” (LSB). This RFC proposes to make static also usable as a return type (next to the already usable self and parent types).”*
Static can’t be used as part of a parameter in this case, and refers to the class that was called.
Throw expressions
Throw statements are now expressions, enabling it to return a value. This makes throw usable in a wider spectrum of scenarios.
Union Types
Union types announce the type of value expected from an input (schema in some other languages). It’s defined by using a pipe | or pre-defined classes.
Why we’re rolling it out across our client base
After five happy years of PHP 7, it’s a pleasure to cele-PHP 8!
As a web development agency there are a number of reasons why we’re using PHP 8 to get our client sites up to speed – and not just because support for versions 7.1 and 7.2 has ended and version 7.3 will now only receive security fixes support.
For websites using PHP 7.4.x version, support is still available for a few months.
But the sooner websites switch to PHP 8 the sooner they’ll benefit from its latest features – and as a business, brand or organisation, you’ll have peace of mind.
The language update allows for a huge step up in website performance.
Its new features offer more flexibility for developers and it will have a real impact on ramping up site security.
Keeping within the PHP 8 supported range makes website maintenance easier which is essential for keeping your site secure. And if you’re looking for hassle free, website maintenance, that’s actually in our wheelhouse, with bespoke packages available for websites of all sizes.
Time for an upgrade?
Not only is it best practice to upgrade before support for PHP 7 versions runs out, it also makes sense to protect against security vulnerabilities and take advantage of PHP 8’s performance gains.
If you’re looking to update to PHP 8 get in touch with us for a seamless transition by calling 0161 213 9941 or emailing us at: clients@cornerstonedm.co.uk
*https://wiki.php.net/rfc/static_return_type
Jonathan was born to code. Since being knee high to a grasshopper he has been coding and tinkering with all things technical – from websites and computers to mobile phones and Tamagotchis. Prior to joining the team Jonathan spent over 15 years working for nationally renowned clients across the sectors of sport, hospitality, property development […]
Find out more about usWhat does 5G mean for your website?
Whilst 3G led to the launch of smartphones, 4G dramatically sped up browsing while we’re on the move (we won’t delve into the 1 and 2G mists of time).
But they’re now making way for their superfast fifth generation cousin 5G, which is set to revolutionise wireless technology, so much so it’s dubbed as being life changing.
But how? And what will that mean for your website and its audiences?
Fear not, we’re here to explain.
We’ll also be looking into what you need to do as a business or organisation to stay ahead of the game and truly embrace the rich rewards and opportunities 5G will bring when its fully rolled out UK wide – currently on track for May 2022.
All of the major networks such as EE, O2, Vodafone and Three have already launched 5G in a number of towns and cities following its arrival in May 2019 and are now offering 5G contract plans and handsets.
The current catch is you’ll only benefit from those lightening speeds if you’re in one of those designated areas.
What is 5G?
Basically – although there’s nothing basic about it – it’s the next generation of mobile internet connection offering much faster data download and upload speeds, reportedly up to 20 times faster.
3G and 4G will still exist but 5G will be the icing on the internet cake.
But it’s not just about speed, size also matters!
It will enable greater capacity meaning thousands of devices within a small area can be connected to the internet at the same time.
Imagine, no more pixelated work colleagues during virtual meetings, glitch-free videos and latency, the delay between a user request and the time it takes a wireless device to complete that action will almost certainly be a thing of the past.
It also opens up the exciting potential of endless and even currently unthought of possibilities when it comes to life-enhancing innovation.
According to Ofcom, the communications service regulator which is working with the government and industry to help the UK take the global lead in 5G, many sectors are already benefiting.
In small pockets of the UK, it’s already helping social care services in a number of ways including connecting patients and families via virtual reality. It’s allowing pharmacists to remotely video link to patients to check they’re taking their medication and saving resources and improving efficiency in farming.
It’s also set to have a big impact on many aspects of healthcare marketing including a trial of 5G technology ‘smart ambulances’ which connect paramedics to hospital staff to help treat emergency patients.
It could enable search and rescue operations to be carried out with the large-scale assistance of drones and it’s thought 5G will be vital to the future of driverless cars and in creating smart cities.
What does 5G mean for your website?
Now the 5G infrastructure is well on its way, it’s important to understand what it signals for you, not just in the near-future but also the here and now – the transitional period leading up to full roll out.
The major changes in network and devices will have a knock-on effect on websites for the better, making the current gap between PC and mobile content pretty much non-existent.
5G’s faster speeds will be the perfect platform to support video and audio rich content, vastly enhancing the user experience.
Coupled with stable connections and even wider coverage it will be easier to stay connected, drawing in more and more people to your website via mobile devices.
Mobile apps will be much easier to develop, giving them increased features and functionality to again upgrade user experience, even for those in dense and remote areas.
What opportunities does this present for web development?
It’s an exciting time for web development and fortunately it will be these website architects taking the strain when it comes to implementing all the exciting 5G tools at their disposal.
But it’s down to brands, businesses and organisations to recognise, drive and initiate the next steps that will catapult their websites into the next generation of technology – it will be a market competitor differentiator for many.
The first revolutionary ‘challenge’ facing web developers is the interim period of 5G.
While some areas in the UK are not yet covered by the upgrade – and not everyone has a 5G compatible device – it will mean a hybrid juggle between 5G and 4G – and 3G for some parts of the world.
The solution is to be prepared.
While the majority of efforts will still focus on 4G technology, at Cornerstone we’ll ultimately be embracing everything that 5G has to offer, introducing optional content such as 4K videos and 5G web design elements gradually in the months ahead.
Our full stack web developer, Jonatha, said: “We anticipate more and more of our clients will be looking to make edits to their websites, add new features or even launch new sites as 5G becomes the dominate force in the near future.
“While some areas aren’t yet covered by 5G and 5G mobile devices are still being rolled out, when Apple 5G standardised their entire iPhone 12 range last year it sold more in three months than any company has ever sold in a single quarter so it shows the demand is there and that it will happen quickly.
“There’s no doubt video will become an essential part of websites of the future. They say a picture tells a thousand words, well a video probably tells a thousand pictures and with the fast and almost instant download and streaming capabilities of 5G, the less patient users will become. That means websites need to be fast and well coded, something to definitely bear in mind in the coming months.
“Videos aren’t limited to video players on a page either, they can be used in a number of ways including as background and banners, so it really does open up the possibilities to create exciting and engaging sites.
“Another thing to bear in mind is that more people now browse on their phone compared to desktops so having an aesthetically pleasing, well designed and mobile responsive website will be vital.
“Having a constant web presence and reliable hosting should also be a priority.”
How can you use the benefits of 5G on your website?
As video rich content will be key for the emerging 5G audience, investment in this area will be essential.
Superfast speeds will eliminate slow-down and glitching, instead presenting opportunities for brands and businesses to engage and convert more users than ever before.
5G is set to see off the user experience difference between PC and mobile content, optimising websites to cater for customers on the go much more easily.
It’s also expected to fuel on-site demand for AR and VR customer experiences.
This has already begun to some extent but with advances in technology we’re now seeing an increase in the use of 3D videos placed into websites and AR apps on product pages opening up the opportunities to create immersive user experiences.
5G also brings a host of security capabilities thanks to increased bandwidth which will make it easier to reliably handle sensitive data.
All these benefits point to one thing: a huge, anticipated surge in the number of users browsing online via their mobile devices.
So now is the time to think ahead to ensure your website is mobile web design friendly, bursting with UX crowd-pleasers and highly functioning on all levels, especially when it comes e-commerce systems.
With the right knowledge you’ll be able to prepare for a formidable 5G future, one that not only looks like changing the world but can also transform your business too.
If you’d like to speak to our expert team about super-charging your website for a fast and furious 5G future, get in touch with us today by calling 0161 213 9941 or emailing us at: clients@cornerstonedm.co.uk
Gill has been a journalist for way longer than she cares – or dares to remember. Formerly a news reporter, feature writer and beauty columnist working for newspapers across Greater Manchester, the switch flicked, the light came on and she headed straight for PR. Gill works across a number of sectors including health, pharma, leisure […]
Find out more about usSuccessful gym marketing: How to form a long term leisure marketing strategy.
As an agency that specialises in leisure & gym marketing we’d consider ourselves pretty good when it comes to the strategy and planning behind a leisure marketing campaign. Read on to understand how to create a 12 month marketing strategy to help you set marketing goals and give your business the boost it deserves.
It seems strange to be talking about planning for the year ahead after the last year undoubtedly forced you to change or rethink any plans you had put in place!
But as we start to return to some sort of normality, now is the perfect time to outline a 12 month leisure strategy to help you set goals, stay focused and give your gym or leisure facility the boost it deserves.
Firstly, ‘why a 12 month leisure strategy?’ you ask.
Planning for one calendar year helps you to plan for every season and create goals and plans that are achievable.
A six month plan isn’t nearly enough time to implement ideas and get the results you need right now. Any longer than one year could see you over complicating ideas or even over planning.
We always recommend a six month review stage to make sure your plan is working, but other than that, let’s look at how you can create a 12 month leisure strategy that will push your gym to the next level.
Let’s start with the fun part – ideas!
Start a mind map, stick post-it notes all over your office, or simply open the notes app on your phone and start furiously tapping – whatever your preferred method, it’s time to get all of your ideas down in one place.
To avoid the conspiracy theorist look, segment your ideas by quarter to give yourself an idea of how much you’re looking to achieve in a set period of time.
Formalising the strategy
Once you have all your ideas written down, it’s time to formalise it. This will become the document that you work from and refer to constantly over the next 12 months so let’s jump right in:
Firstly, create a table or excel document that is split out by months and marketing channels (social media marketing, email marketing, PR, PPC etc.)
Then plan out the campaigns, events and offers you’ve written down within this document.
Content!
Now, it’s time to start thinking about the different forms of content you want to produce in the next year to support your campaigns such as social media, video, email, paid ads, blogs, and more.
Once you’ve got a clear idea of the content you want to produce, plot it out in your planning document according to month and/or campaign.
And there you have it! The humble beginnings of a planning document that will keep you on track and help you achieve everything you want for your leisure facility in the next year.
To take your leisure strategy to the next level, consider:
Colour coding
Organising information by colour groups helps you to easily identify key information and group different content within one campaign.
Setting KPIs
Projecting the results you want to achieve and noting these within your strategy planning document will help you to benchmark if things are working or to prove ROI to your exec team.
A six month review
At the six month stage, review all of your activity and cross reference it with targets you originally set in your planner document – how do they compare? Has your activity been successful?
If not, think about how you could do things differently and adjust your strategy for the following six months.
Reporting quarterly
If your exec team expects regular updates, or if you’d prefer regular performance checks to keep yourself on track, consider producing a quarterly report that highlights key achievements and areas for improvement.
There are lots of free reporting tools that you can access to help you with this process.
If you want to understand more about leisure strategies and leisure after lockdown, download our white paper.
Download
Jess joined Cornerstone as an account executive in January 2017 following freelance roles within marketing and PR fields. Exploring her passion for all thing digital, Jess embarked on several training courses and became Cornerstone’s dedicated digital marketer within 12 months of joining the Cornerstone team. Jess gets involved in all digital work at Cornerstone including […]
Find out more about usDavid talks all things marketing on Oldham Community Radio.
On Tuesday 29th July, David, our Managing Director spoke with Ian Wolstenholme from Oldham Community Radio about all things marketing and media related including discussion about our new HQ and marketing during a pandemic.
Have a listen here!
Part 1:
Part 2:
David brings a wealth of knowledge to our client campaigns, with strategic marketing planning and digital knowledge that enhances and accelerates our client campaigns over and above their competitors. With a strong marketing background and passion for driving clients’ businesses forward, David is actively involved in all major client campaigns and promotions. Why I Do […]
Find out more about usNeed a reason to use a full-service marketing agency? We’ve got 10.
There are agencies and there are full-service agencies.
What’s the difference?
Many agencies opt to provide just one specialism – maybe digital marketing, could be PR.
But a full-service agency – like us – offers all forms of marketing communications, spanning everything from design, digital and PR to bespoke, integrated marketing strategies designed to hit all your business objectives.
Being full service gives us – and you as a client – the edge.
Why?
Because cohesion and consistency are the key elements of successful marketing.
Adopting a joined-up approach from the start allows us to work together on every aspect of a long-term strategy, project or campaign.
It gives us the essential insight we need to implement our overall strategic-thinking along with a deeper understanding of your brand or business to build a bond that will ultimately deliver outstanding results.
And it gives you peace of mind. In an era of increasing financial scrutiny, efficiency and accountability across all sectors is vital, why pay more and increase your workload by employing several single service agencies when you can hire just one?
If that wasn’t enough to whet your appetite, here’s our top 10 reasons why our full-service offering is the ultimate umbrella to weather your entire marketing journey.
01 Campaign consistency.
As a full-service agency, we pride ourselves on our seamless approach to strategic planning and implementation of marketing campaigns. This ensures consistency in brand messaging across all channels and helps us provide a more holistic view of your marketing in its entirety.
02 Better brand understanding.
Developing an integrated marketing strategy requires deep insight and understanding. We want to be as familiar with your brand or business’s vision and values as you are.
03 Gives you the precious gift of time.
Time is money so why spend it juggling all your marketing activities when you could be focussing on business growth? We’re specialists in devising strategic marketing plans, which build relationships with your audiences, increase brand loyalty and, ultimately, grow sales – allowing you to get back to what you do best.
04 Simplifies life.
A full-service agency equals one point of contact and an umbrella of marketing expertise. Each and every client is taken under the wing of a member of our dedicated account management team – professional marketeers who oversee every objective, campaign and strategy. They’re just a phone call or email away, on hand to guide, support and answer your queries.
05 Complements existing marketing teams.
Essentially, we’re an extension to a business’s internal marketing and comms teams.
Where skill sets are missing, we’ll happily step in. This allows in-house staff to handle the projects they excel in. We can also bring a fresh perspective and new ideas to an existing campaign.
06 Industry experience.
As an agency we work extensively with brands, businesses and organisations day after day, across a wide range of sectors and industries. Our consistent marketing experience, insight and expertise is what sets agencies like us apart and is immensely valuable to our clients. Regionally and nationally we work with some incredible clients including North West Ambulance Service, over-the-counter pharmaceutical brand Care (Thornton & Ross), Cancer Research UK, Burnley Leisure and The Christie Hospital. You can see more for yourself here.
07 Scalability when you need it.
Ups and downs, ebbs and flows – like life, businesses are never straightforward. Our full-service offering allows us to flexibly accommodate your marketing needs. This is perfectly showcased through Cornerstone’s marketing support retainers, a commercially sensible contract which allows clients to select the services they need with the option of scaling activity up or down according to new product launches, seasonality or customer demand.
08 Expertise.
We hate to brag but we really do know our stuff, from SEO and PPC to PR. Acronyms aside, we offer a full array of digital services including social media marketing and email marketing, web development, branding and design, media planning, influential public relations, print production and strategised marketing campaigns.
09 Tailored to client need.
Agility is a key attribute of a full-service agency. While some agencies implement rigidity into their way of working, we have the capacity and expertise to adopt a completely flexible approach. Last minute requests? No problem. We’ll accommodate at the first available opportunity, maintain the high quality we’re renowned for and hit that all-important deadline.
10 Cost effective.
Coming in last but not least, the cost. Hiring an integrated agency is, for want of a better word, cheaper than employing and training a full in-house team – or taking on the raft of freelancers that are required to get the job done. It’s the most efficient and affordable way to access the skills and experience highly specialised marketing professionals possess.
Now you have no reason to doubt the huge benefits a full-service agency brings.
Call us now on 0161 213 9941 or email clients@cornerstonedm.co.uk to find out how we can help elevate every aspect of your marketing.
Gill has been a journalist for way longer than she cares – or dares to remember. Formerly a news reporter, feature writer and beauty columnist working for newspapers across Greater Manchester, the switch flicked, the light came on and she headed straight for PR. Gill works across a number of sectors including health, pharma, leisure […]
Find out more about usHow Covid has affected your digital presence as a leisure provider.
It’s no secret that the last year has seen leisure providers up and down the country face some of the toughest times that they will ever have to.
Despite calls for leisure to remain open with the #LeisureIsSafe movement taking over social media channels, many gyms and leisure providers have been forced to close their doors forever, and many more are facing another year of financial strain as things slowly ‘return to normal’.
You know it and I know it.
But what does all of that look like online?
Can digital data give us any more insights into the effect of the pandemic in the last year?
Let’s start by taking a look at some of the trending terms users have been searching for since the pandemic began.
It’s no surprise that we saw a big increase in ‘when will the gyms reopen’ in the build-up to last summer and the end of what would become known as ‘the first lockdown’.
The enthusiasm for reopening wasn’t as enthusiastic as we came out of the second lockdown in November but appetite for exercise has seemed to return in recent months, and most recently peaking on the week of the government’s road map announcement in February.
Despite being ‘locked down’ in one form or another for longer than anywhere else in the UK, Mancunians haven’t been as keen to return to exercise as Londoners. The Southern peak was reached across May and June, and then again in February. This isn’t a great surprise as Greater London has the highest concentration of gyms in the UK but still poses the question of the North-South divide when it comes to fitness and reopening after lockdown.
But how does that compare to some of the top gym chains in the UK?
PureGym has been the most searched for in the last 12 months with The Gym group just pipping more upmarket David Lloyd to second place. All of them saw search patterns that correlated closely with the general gym search terms we viewed above.
Virgin Active didn’t see the same major peaks and troughs as the other three chains, seeing only smaller increases in search trends later in July.
None of the top chains have seen February interest recover as fervently as the general searches for gyms reopening.
Slide 1: Pure Gym
Slide 2: David Lloyd
Slide 3: Virgin Active
Slide 4: The Gym Group
But these are just stats showing users who have searched for these chains; what does that look like to their actual web traffic?
It’s interesting to see where traffic dropped on these top sites at different points in the year. This data also evidently shows an industry trend where no leisure site has quite recovered back to its pre-Covid standard.
On average, these top chains alone have lost about 1.5% of organic traffic, seen a 5% loss in keywords, and entered March 2021 with 25% less search traffic than they had in March 2020.
It’s clear that gym and leisure websites are going to face a recovery similar to their physical locations: slow.
If you want to understand more about leisure after lockdown, and how you can speed up your recovery process, download our white paper.
Download
Jess joined Cornerstone as an account executive in January 2017 following freelance roles within marketing and PR fields. Exploring her passion for all thing digital, Jess embarked on several training courses and became Cornerstone’s dedicated digital marketer within 12 months of joining the Cornerstone team. Jess gets involved in all digital work at Cornerstone including […]
Find out more about us