26/03/2024

The Art of Statistics, with Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter

Statistically significant listening for 100% of marketers: ten minutes with Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter and his book The Art of Statistics on ๐ŸŽง๐Ÿ“šStrand Review of Books๐Ÿ“š๐ŸŽง https://strand-uk.com/strand-reviews/ #applepodcasts #spotify #acast #amazon and more.

19/03/2024

High-Impact Content Marketing – strategies to make your content intentional, engaging and effective

Big thank you to the amazing Purna Virji, author of the excellent ๐™ƒ๐™ž๐™œ๐™-๐™„๐™ข๐™ฅ๐™–๐™˜๐™ฉ ๐˜พ๐™ค๐™ฃ๐™ฉ๐™š๐™ฃ๐™ฉ ๐™ˆ๐™–๐™ง๐™ ๐™š๐™ฉ๐™ž๐™ฃ๐™œ, for ten minutes on the ๐ŸŽง๐Ÿ“š๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐˜„ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ธ๐˜€๐Ÿ“š๐ŸŽง – available now https://lnkd.in/ey7hZrjd on hashtag#applepodcasts hashtag#spotifypodcasts hashtag#amazonpodcasts and on ๐˜š๐˜ต๐˜ณ๐˜ข๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ https://lnkd.in/ey7hZrjd

05/03/2024

The Customer Copernicus – how to be customer-led

๐ŸŽงListen up!๐ŸŽง Action-packed 10 minutes all about customers with Charlie Dawson and his excellent book ๐™๐™๐™š ๐˜พ๐™ช๐™จ๐™ฉ๐™ค๐™ข๐™š๐™ง ๐˜พ๐™ค๐™ฅ๐™š๐™ง๐™ฃ๐™ž๐™˜๐™ช๐™จ on the ๐ŸŽง๐Ÿ“š๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐˜„ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ธ๐˜€๐Ÿ“š๐ŸŽง https://lnkd.in/ey7hZrjd and on Apple, Amazon, Spotify and more.

06/02/2024

Forget the Funnel, with Georgiana Laudi

Ever been frustrated by the tyranny of the marketing funnel, filling the pipeline, and closing those deals? May I invite you to listen to the newest episode of ๐ŸŽง๐Ÿ“š๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐˜„ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ผ๐—ธ๐˜€๐Ÿ“š๐ŸŽง, with author Georgiana Laudi speaking about her book Forget the Funnel! In her ten minutes on the show, Georgiana explains how she and…

02/01/2024

Welcome to 2024!

In 2023, The Strand Review of Books โ€“ a series of ten-minute interviews with business book authors โ€“ turned out to be surprisingly popular. This year I am delighted to announce that, among others, the amazing and highly entertaining Rory Sutherland will appear on the show, speaking about his book Alchemy – The Magic of…

31/10/2023

Let It Go, with Dame Stephanie Shirley, CH

Dame Stephanie Shirley CH speaks about her life lessons, from child refugee to $3 billion IT entrepreneur to philanthropist – an amazing and extraordinary story told in her book Let it Go. An ardent venture philanthropist with an unrelenting energy for creating positive change, she arrived in England as an unaccompanied child refugee at the…

17/10/2023

21st Century Business Icons, with Sally Percy

Author and leadership specialist Sally Percy talks about the lessons from very public business leaders such as Jeff Bezos to the secretive Satoshi Nakamoto. Sally writes about business, finance, banking, treasury and accountancy, and edits Edge, the official magazine of the Institute of Leadership & Management. Does leadership charisma, quality, or ability exist, or is…

10/10/2023

The Social Brain, with Tracey Camilleri

Author and thought-leader Tracey Camilleri comments on her amazing book The Social Brain – The Psychology of Successful Groups. In The Social Brain leading experts from the worlds of evolutionary psychology and business management come together to offer a primer on great team working. They explain what size groups work and how to shape them…

03/10/2023

Decoded: The Science Behind Why We Buy

On The Strand Review of Books, Author Phil Barden explains the behavioural science techniques that can be so valuable in sales and marketing campaigns. Decoded delivers a practical framework and guidelines for applying science to the marketing practices you use every day. As a marketing professional, you can look to this book for behavioural knowledge,…

28/09/2023

Do influencers have a role in B2B marketing?

Briefly, the answer is Yes. Yesterday, Gordon Glenister spoke at a Strand breakfast (Claridgeโ€™s Hotel, London), asking โ€œDo influencers have a role in B2B marketing?โ€ Not all influencers have millions of followers. In specialized and B2B markets, a highly valuable influencer may attract a relatively small but intensely loyal following. Your influencer could be a…

19/09/2023

The Invisible Brand, with William Ammerman

With William Ammerman on The Strand Review of Books. Listen to author William Ammerman for ten great minutes, as he talks about his fascinating book The Invisible Brand. As we enter the age of mass customization of messaging, power and influence will go to those who know the consumer best. Whether you are a marketing…

23/07/2023

Mechanical dinosaurs

How will our children and grandchildren view the combustion engine? Even now, a diesel truck seems as old as a pony and trap; the rorty-snort of a petrol-powered muscle-car seems quaint, almost from another era. Mechanical dinosaurs. We’re better off without them.

20/07/2023

What ChatGPT says about Strand

Unlock Your Business Potential with Expert Technology Copywriting! Are you tired of struggling to create compelling content that truly showcases the power of your cutting-edge technology solutions? Look no further! Our world-class technology copywriting service is here to revolutionize your marketing efforts and help you soar to new heights in the competitive landscape of software…

05/04/2023

What makes writing readable?

You may have come across software solutions that score text for readability. Often, the scores are based on the Flesch-Kincaid (F-K) system. Yet at an F-K of 65.88, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix rates close to Moby Dick at 57.9, which seems peculiar. Whatever happened to engagement, emotion, peril, revelation, surpriseโ€ฆ? In…

23/03/2023

Whatโ€™s happening with ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a classic case of garbage-in-garbage-out. For one client, we trialled ChatGPT to write blog posts, which produced well-phrased outpourings of a lunatic. In that example, we asked ChatGPT to write posts based on prompts concerning industrial chemistry. But ChatGPT is not an expert; it generates content based on its training modelโ€™s sources, regardless…

16/01/2023

Account-Based Marketing

Nothing helps kick-start my New Yearโ€™s planning like a little holiday reading! If youโ€™re searching for inspiration, I recommend “Account-Based Marketing: Unlocking Sustainable Value Through Extraordinary Customer Focus” by Bev Burgess and Tim Shercliff (Amazon). Many of the examples and case studies in the book refer principally to the enterprise technology world, including Fujitsu, IBM,…

13/12/2022

Quick intro, if I may…

Quick intro: Strand helps B2B technology companies sell the business benefits of their solutions, principally by writing case studies and thought leadership papers. “When I brief Strand, I have total confidence that the final job will be done exactly as we want. I find your service invaluable and unique, and see Strand as an extension…

22/11/2022

The Nike swoosh is nothing without โ€œJust Do Itโ€

Letโ€™s face it, youโ€™re not reading this because of the typeface. Youโ€™re reading this because the words might convey a useful thought. How to get free stuff. How to make money. Find a partner. Dump a partner. Whatever. Many marketing managers start by looking for design, marketing, or branding agencies. Sooner or later, they discover…

15/11/2022

If you hide how hard you work, people think you do not work hard

In March 2019 (aaaages ago), Harvard Business Review published an article on operational transparency (https://hbr.org/2019/03/operational-transparency). The summary is: If you hide how hard you work, people think you do not work hard. Yet in sales and marketing materials we constantly strive to make things look and sound easy. How many times do we say โ€œsmooth deploymentโ€ and โ€œstreamlined…

08/11/2022

Marketing barometer 2022

Hereโ€™s a marketing stat that might be of interest to you: year-to-date, Strand has already handled around 10% more writing and design projects than in 2021. In fact, the 2022 year-end project numbers might be 15% higher than last year โ€“ though not necessarily more budget! Perhaps the figures above provide you with a barometer…

01/11/2022

AI or Security?

For some time, a sure-fire way to gain media attention has been to write about Artificial Intelligence. No matter how obscure or tenuous the connection, AI was marketing pixie-dust, to be sprinkled liberally on blog posts, white papers, and solution briefs. However, here at Strand we think security may be emerging as the new hot…

11/08/2022

Emotion vs Cold, Hard, Cash

The latest advertising, sales and marketing techniques borrow heavily from the B2C marketplace: emotional engagement and impact. For example, knowing that a logistics management solution helps to deliver humanitarian aid will engage potential buyers more deeply than ROI. But now you have their attention, what criteria will buyers use to assess the solution? My instinct…

08/07/2022

Summer: the perfect opportunity to relax, refresh and renew

โ€ฆand to create new content for September onwards, such as eBooks, white papers, videos, and written case studies. Strand offers: Fixed fees per project No limits on amendments No retainer, no monthly fees Not-happy no-fee guarantee “When I brief Strand, I have total confidence that the final job will be done exactly as we want….

19/05/2022

Testimonial

Hereโ€™s what one client thinks of Strandโ€™s services: “When I brief Strand, I have total confidence that the final job will be done exactly as we want. I find your service invaluable and unique, and see Strand as an extension of the team, not a supplier. I am really happy to recommend Strand to any…

28/02/2022

Combined written/video projects

As the year accelerates away from us, you may be interested to hear about the growth of combined video and written case study projects. In essence, the idea is to promote the business benefits of your solutions by asking your customers to go on-camera. We have found that todayโ€™s customers are very comfortable with being…