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Music Makes You Travel

Lastminute.com kicks off #MusicMakesYouTravel campaign
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Brands should pay close attention to the music scene this summer as consumers flock to faraway festivals. That’s according to new data from lastminute.com that points to ‘festravel’ – travelling abroad to a music festival – as one of this year’s biggest trends.

The firm looked at 2015, 2016 and 2017 booking data from the UK, France, Italy and Spain, including data for both flights and hotels. It also commissioned OnePoll to conduct a survey of 2,000 UK consumers in April 2017, and a further 6,000 consumers across Spain, Italy and France.

It found that almost half (47%) of Brits would travel abroad for a music festival, and this intention is increasingly being put into practice.

Booking data from the group shows that the number of Europeans flying out to Croatia around the time of Ultra Festival shot up by a third (33%) in 2016, compared to 2015, with Ypsigrock Festival in Italy experiencing an equal boost in popularity.

And lastminute.com says brands should take advantage of the growing window of opportunity to engage these festival tourists with helpful and inspiring content, as the data reveals that ‘festravel’ preparations are beginning earlier each year. Music lovers travelling to Budapest ahead of Sziget Festival booked their trips an average of 45 days in advance last year – up from 32 in 2015 – while those heading to Berlin just before Lollapalooza in 2016 booked 47 days ahead of time, up from 33 the year before.

It’s not just other countries that stand to benefit from this festival trade. The number of Europeans arriving in London spiked five days before Glastonbury kicked off last month, up 110% compared to the previous two days – presenting UK retailers with a lucrative opportunity to cash in on last minute party purchases. And with a staggering 400% more people are set to arrive the day before Lovebox kicks off in July, compared to five days before, retailers have another chance to be part of the festival action.

“As festivals become a staple ingredient for the perfect summer break, festival-goers are looking to brands for inspiration for everything they need to make their trip special and successful – from tents to travel insurance,” says Alessandra Di Lorenzo, Chief Commercial Officer, Media and Partnerships, at lastminute.com group. “Brands that fail to factor this unique audience into their online campaigns risk missing out on a big category of summer spend.”

With the festival season well underway, lastminute.com group’s media business, The Travel People, has launched a new music lovers targeting tool. This will allow brands to target and engage users who possess a love for music and travel, both on and offsite, right across Europe.

Di Lorenzo adds: “Our rich data means we know not just where people like to go, but what they love to do when they get there too. We want to help our brand partners to delve deeper than demographics and target by passion, engaging their audiences with content that will complement their experience. That’s why we’ve launched our music lovers targeting tool – and festival-goers are just one audience segment that brands can use it to reach.”

The new tool is linked to a new brand partnership lastminute.com group recently launched with digital music service Spotify to explore how music makes you travel. As part of the campaign, this year lastminute.com is an official sponsor for Sziget Festival, Budapest (9th – 16th August 2017), and Lollapalooza, Berlin (3rd – 6th August). It will be selling tickets and packages for the festivals to help people experience travel through music, available at lastminute.com/deals/festivals/sziget.html.

Yannic Pluymackers, Chief Marketing Officer at lastminute.com group, added: “Music is such an integral part of travel – it inspires us to visit new places, influences our experiences in those places and creates memories long after leaving a place. Our #MusicMakesYouTravel campaign aligns our brand with experiences like festivals, so we can help more people discover the world through the music they love.”

Belmont Press

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT: Belmont Press
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Belmont Press has supplied high quality printed products to many of the UK’s leading companies and organisations for over 60 years. Throughout our long heritage in the printing industry we have embraced new technology so that we can deliver the best, most efficient service to our customers.

We provide a complete service, with in-house print (litho, digital and wide format) and have an extensive finishing and binding capability. We also have a significant storage, pick-and-pack, fulfilment, mailing and delivery service.

We hold international standards for quality, environment, health and safety and colour management – testament to our ongoing commitment to providing customer service at the very highest level.

From catalogues to business cards, roller banners to online solutions and everything in between, we’re commercial print specialists – ask us anything about print; we’re friendly, approachable and always happy to help.

Print & Digital Innovations Summit

Meet your next clients at the Print & Digital Innovations Summit
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If you offer print and digital marketing solutions you should secure your place today at the Print & Digital Innovations Summit, which is taking place on November 23rd 2017 at the Intercontinental London – The O2.

The event is a unique opportunity for you to meet with 60+ senior professionals, all with budget control and all attending purely to source new partners.

You’ll be able to select who you’d like to meet in advance and then sit down with them, face-to-face, to discuss new business opportunities.

Our delegate list includes representatives from the following companies and organisations:

AAT, BBC, Coast, Direct Line Group, Decathlon, Felio, Sylvania Europe Ltd, Fintrax Group, Fraikin Ltd, Hotels and More Ltd, Ironmongery Direct, John Lewis Partnership, Lancashire County Council, LHC Kinnerton Confectionery, Magnusson Hotels, MandM Direct, Marks & Spencer, NIG UK, Oliver Wyman, Peterborough City Council, Royal Voluntary Service, Samsung, Slaughter and May, Sky, TIME Investments, Topshop/Topman, Travis Perkins, UK Mail Ltd, Warehouse Fashions, Zurich Financial Services and more.

Can you afford not to be there?

To secure your presence and increase your brand exposure, contact Sam Walker on 01992 374054 or email s.walker@forumevents.co.uk.

Coherence arrives with a bid to challenge industry model
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A new digital agency Coherence has launched, with ambitions to create an empowering ‘autonomous’ culture, where brands use new technology to speed up development of websites and online projects.

Previously known as Emosaic, Coherence has a 20-year heritage, with clients spanning private companies, public services and institutions across multiple verticals, including Close Brothers, NHS, Mothercare and Truprint.

“At the heart of Coherence is a belief that marketing now needs to be done differently. The days where agencies take campaign briefs from clients then create and manage everything end-to-end are coming to an end,” said Drew Griffiths, MD of Coherence. “Rebranding to Coherence reflects our new way of working, which is based around Cohesion DX8, our proprietary technology. We are launching a pioneering new proposition into the agency and technology market that will change the way brands’ digital teams work.”

Cohesion DX8 is a productivity toolkit that uses Drupal 8 as its core platform. It allows brands to build enterprise level websites faster, with less resource and with more control, representing a significant development in enterprise CMS solutions.

Coherence has created a framework that allows brands to do significantly more tasks internally, allowing them to be agile and less dependent on their digital agency. New services include personalisation, multi-site and multi-lingual capabilities, application development and service design plus more aggressive conversion rate optimisation.

The DX8 technology can also be white-labelled by other digital agencies.

“Old processes and workflows need to redefined – it’s no longer acceptable to take six weeks to get a new landing page test live,” continued Griffiths. “Inflexible teams are not the best way to manage marketing today and deliver on business strategies. Agility matters. Our technology empowers brands to do more, while the agency supports them with specialist skills and knowledge when needed. Our goal is to make ourselves redundant from any given project. There is a fundamental shift happening to the way web development agencies work.”

Digital industry veteran Craig Hanna has joined the board of Coherence as business director. Previously a member of the senior management team at Econsultancy, Hanna has over twenty years’ experience in both marketing and digital transformation, advising companies ranging from SMEs to Fortune 250 brands.

www.coherence.co.uk

Fake news a ‘growing concern’ amongst consumers
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A report by KPMG has found that 46% of under-35s have expressed a growing concern at the rise of fake news.

Over 2,000 adults from across the UK were surveyed on their attitudes and consumption of different media channels, with television coming out tops as the single most trusted source of media (65%).

As far as trust is concerned, social media failed to ignite consumer confidence, with 46% “apprehensive” regarding content published across the platform, and only 13% satisfied with the content in their streams.

Media firms are advised to do more to prioritise trust among their readership within the report.

Talking to The Drum, David Elms, UK head of media at KPMG said: “The speed and volume at which information is shared and consumed today makes the lines between news, entertainment, fact and opinion harder to discern. Reputable sources are displayed side-by-side with opinions and sensationalism and, increasingly, it is algorithms, not journalists, which decide which content we see first, or at all. The currency of the internet is engagement, but engagement doesn’t necessarily reflect accuracy and has eroded trust in news sources.

“There is an opportunity for media companies to differentiate their brand by building and ensuring trust at both a consumer and corporate level. Quality, and trust in that quality, is a value differentiator for many established media companies. The appetite for quality news is strong, but the right balance of quality and a price point that’s attractive to consumers hasn’t yet been found. As such, media businesses need to continue innovating.”

Top 10 tips for email signups
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It’s no secret that experts and surveys put email marketing as a ‘must’ for digital marketers looking for effectiveness and return on investment (ROI). 41% of marketers polled rated email as their best performing channel, along with 47% who said that email delivered the most ROI, ahead of social at 19%

 But, how of you get website visitors to subscribe to emails and improve sign up rates over 2%? A survey by global digital analysts Econsultancy provides useful tips and tricks.

 Targeting. Don’t treat all site visitors the same, they aren’t. Detecting them as individuals and personalising the experience will convert more site visitors to sign ups.

 Placement. Think about where the signup will sit on a page. The norm is to run in the footer of each webpage, but this might not be as effective as placing the call to action above the fold. Dynamic methods are more common in the US and also ensure visibility, viewed as a popup or overlay, but can have a negative impact on the user experience.

 Visibility. There are two aspects to making your call to action more noticeable, the look (size, shape, text size, colour and boldness) and the prominence.

 Anything that requires an action, moves or gets into a persons face is likely to get their attention, but this could be for good or bad… Research by Privy found that a banner that starts ‘hidden’ and rolls out on activation had the best conversion rates (2.2%) over email bar (1.34%) and popup (1.31%).

 Timing. Audience targeting and the time the user has spent on a site are the two main types of timing important to email call to actions. The checkout is a retailers’ favourite time to capture sign ups, while a display of a cal to action cold be triggered by time, scrolling or a mouse movement. Further research by Privy found that visitors were 25 times more likely to subscribe when they triggered the signup form themselves by clicking a tab, than if it was automatically triggered by time, scrolling or exit.

 Proposition. You’re more likely to get signups if the individual is persuaded in doing so because there’s a special offer, or something in it for them. Conversion rate by campaign content type found that entering into a prize draw had a conversion of 15%, as opposed to standard sign up 1%.

 Copy. Sell your email like it’s a product! Convince the individual that by signing up they’re going to be rewarded.

 Ease. Keep signups simple! The longer the form, the less likely the signup. Only ask for information you actually need, such as first name and email address. Privy research found that every field added reduces the sign ups by 25%

 Legitimacy. There are three basic elements that must be followed; sending emails to people who did not sign up is bad for brand reputation and can incur legal repercussions, the customer should always feel in control of the relationship and a successful email list is quality of subscribers.

 Clarity. Setting clear expectations of the kind of frequency of emails new subscribers will receive will help reduce opt-outs in the near future.

 Testing. Test different models, by doing so you’ll have a clear understanding of what works and which work better, such as placements, copy, campaigns, etc. A/B testing of alternative webpages can determine effectiveness of various methods. Measure and track results using web analytics and behavioural tools such as heatmaps.

www.econsultancy.com

Sharp rise in SMS-based mobile marketing predicted for UK
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Textlocal is predicting a sharp rise in mobile marketing as Britain boasts nearly 80m active mobile phones in circulation for the first time, with only 50% of businesses surveyed currently using SMS as part of their marketing strategies.

The white paper illustrates how 37.2 million consumers have opted to use SMS and mobile communications as their preferred choice for receiving notifications from businesses.

This number is predicted to rise to 48.7 million in 2020, making SMS the fastest growing marketing channel in the UK.

The growth in smartphone usage and technological advancements have radically transformed the way British consumers behave and how businesses engage with them.

Ofcom estimates that a staggering 93% of the UK’s population now own a mobile phone, with the majority keeping them to hand for more than 16 hours a day.

The growing influence of the medium is also highlighted by the fact that 98% of branded or business-related texts are opened by mobile users, with 90% read within 3 minutes of receiving them. The report goes on to highlight that 23.5m people will respond to a business text message in 2017 and that 7bn texts will be sent this year alone.

Jason Palgrave-Jones, Managing Director of Textlocal, said: “Britain is fast becoming a ‘mobile first’ society as mobile phones are often the first and last thing people engage with each day. By their very nature, mobile phones are to hand and provide an unrivalled platform for brands to communicate directly with their audiences. These are exciting times for those involved in the mobile industry as the benefits to businesses and consumers are realised.”

SMS communication is already a leading tool for businesses looking to engage directly with customers, whether it’s to share delivery updates, appointment confirmations or marketing promotions. These messages and other applications are expected to grow rapidly in the coming months.

Rachel Aldighieri, Managing Director of the Direct Marketing Association, added: “It’s clear that mobile marketing and SMS is set to rise as UK consumers remain intrinsically linked with their phones. The medium is already widely used for sending marketing messages, however as technologies grow we expect to see an exponential rise in its use amongst businesses and consumers.”

To help manage the growth in mobile and SMS marketing, new General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) are set to come into force in May 2018. This will ensure businesses looking to engage in SMS marketing are compliant and have appropriate platforms and permissions in place when doing so.

A full version of the report can be found by contacting Scarlett@thesourcepartnership.com.

Print & Digital Innovations Summit

Meet and connect at the Print & Digital Innovations Summit
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Sixty-nine per cent of registered delegates at the Print & Digital Innovations Summit are looking to switch their digital print partner, representing a unique opportunity for you to secure new clients for your business.

Taking place on November 23rd 2017 at the Intercontinental London – The O2, the event offers bespoke appointment schedules with only pre-qualified buyers looking for your particular products and services.

Other services in high demand include Banner & Poster Creation/Printing (57% of delegates), Brochure Printing (57%), 3D Printing (52%) Print on Demand (48%) and Large Format Digital Printing (47%).

Our buyers are from some of the UK’s largest businesses, with a combined budget of £124 million.

For a full list of attending buyers and their needs, and secure your presence, contact Sam Walker on 01992 374054 or email s.walker@forumevents.co.uk.

UEFA Champions League to be broadcast on Facebook
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A new partnership with Fox Sports will see the UEFA Champions League matches streamed live across Facebook, with over a dozen Champions League fixtures aired in the US through the Fox Sports Facebook page from September.

Fox will live-stream two live matches per day in the group stage, four rounds of 16 matches and four quarter-final matches.

“This collaboration unlocks new distribution for Fox, giving the network a national platform for matches that won’t always be televised,” said Dan Reed, head of global Sports Partnerships at Facebook. And with different matches broadcast in English and Spanish on Facebook, our community of fans will have plenty of action to cheer on and chat about once the group stage kicks off in September.”

The deal will add to Facebook’s growing list of sporting events being streamed live across the platform, with recent deals including Major League Baseball, the US’s Major League Soccer and Univision for Liga MX matches.

ABS snaps up Sapphire Business Systems
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ABS UK, based in Elland, Yorkshire, has bought Sapphire Business Systems, which provides technology solutions including digital copier and printer services.

The acquisition will open up new business leads in both North Wales and the North West for the £4.5 million turnover business, as well as doubling the client base. ABS UK currently employs 32 staff.

Speaking about the acquisition, Brett Abson, sales director, ABS UK, said: “Acquiring Sapphire Business Systems has allowed us to further extend our geographica; reach without additional recruitment.

“Several of our existing service clients have operations in Wales and/or the North West and therefore this merger will allow us to provide them with even better support while accessing a predominantly technologically-demanding commercial client base.”

Abson added: “The acquisition also strengthens the business moving forward, adding around £10,000 per month in service revenue alone as part of an overall £350k to £400k per annum increase in turnover.”

David Lees, ABS UK marketing director, concluded: “As a well-established firm, growth in the short and medium terms is at the heart of our plans.

“Acquiring Sapphire was the first of three planned purchases and fits our ambition to work with a client base exactly double its current size. So long as we continue to lead the market by providing the very best customer support, our commercial partners, the ABS Charitable Foundation and the ABS team itself will thrive and prosper. That is our long-term aim.”

ABS UK was established in 1989 in Brighouse before moving to Bradford. The company relocated to new premises in Elland in May 2015.

www.abs-print.co.uk