The LOFT

18/06/2024

Knocking It Out The Park!!

Many of you will know the incredible work carried out by the Glasgow-based national charity MCR Pathways. An organisation that helps young people, who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own, to realise that bit more of their undoubted potential. They do this in a number of ways, pre-dominantly by providing mentors who volunteer an hour a week at schools all over the country.

The charity has been going for quite some time now and year after year they just knock it out of the park in terms of their impact. 5,109 young people supported, over 63,000 mentoring hours logged, 82.9% of MCR young people progressing to college, university or employment compared to a national average of 69.1%.

We were delighted to be given the opportunity to support the organisation in pulling together some of these incredible numbers, stats and stories with a bold infographic. The design had to get a lot of information across, showcase the impactful nature of their work and also fit on one page. Designed at a very important time for MCR Pathways and testament to the incredible work of all involved, we were delighted with the final results.

MCR Pathways, An Hour A Week, A Lifetime of Impact!!

20/06/2023

Beauty of The Creative Process!!

We presented THE LOFT to a few different organisations last week. As always, we painstakingly selected the most relevant pieces of work, we shared ideas of things we believe that can most help the client move forward, we presented the company, the culture, people, processes, etc, etc.

However, after a few good pitches, the image most clients seemed to come back too was this grainy camera-phone pic of our studio walls - an old print project showing messy sketches, print-outs of inspirations, post-it notes, etc. Anybody that knows us, knows this is how we work in the studio.

Great to see that, in the age of AI, that the basics of thinking, brainstorming, sketching, exploring creative ideas, discussing and debating still has a place. Maybe we're wrong, but it felt that the creative process itself may have more value than ever before.

29/04/2023

Check out Mentoring with MCR Pathways!!⁣
⁣
Helping young people, unleashing potential, supporting society and the greater good, making a real difference in the lives of others and yourself too. Just some of the many reasons to consider becoming a mentor with MCR Pathways.⁣
⁣
MCR Pathways are a national charity which supports young people, disadvantaged through no fault of their own, to create better lives for themselves with one-to-one mentoring. An organisation which has been going for more than 15 years and with over 1000 mentors who give an hour a week in Glasgow alone.⁣
⁣
Right now they are looking for more mentors so please check out..⁣
⁣
https://mcrpathways.org⁣
⁣
(Little pic of our Founder Benedetto and Rio, his previous mentee on their very last mentoring session before he left St Rochs secondary school back in 2021. To steal one of the charity’s marketing Iines - one relationship, two lives transformed.)⁣
⁣

15/01/2023

’Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.’

At the loft, we’ve been in the game a while now and experience has taught us that sometimes smaller actions done consistently well can bring faster, less costly and more impactful change than bigger (seemingly) more exciting actions.

In marketing terms, this may mean new website pages built on existing templates, email signatures showing the campaign of the day, infographics of stats you’ve been promising yourself for too long, new words, new pictures, video, etc.

Small actions working in a beautifully predictable and positive way for your business.

Compounding over time.

The Lean Marketer.

https://lnkd.in/e_J-pesb to read the full post.

04/11/2022

A Higher Idea.

‘The Godfather isn’t a mafia movie, it’s a film about Family, Capitalism, The American Dream...’

A great line from a great series ‘The Offer’ and one of the best explanations of the value of branding I’ve heard in recent times.

In this case the scene shows producer Al Ruddy trying to explain to a stubborn New York mob gangster why they should let him use their city to make the Godfather.

He sold the mafia man a higher idea.

All great brand-building is about doing the same thing - think of the well-known companies… Nike don’t sell trainers - they sell athleticism, IKEA may sell you furniture but they also sell Swedish functionality, Amazon sells just about everything under the sun but with their brand they are mainly selling convenience.

For our own company, we sell the full range of Brand-Marketing-Design services but for us we really want to sell and eventually deal with impact and growth.

The bigger, simpler and more compelling you can bring to life what you’re ‘really’ selling - the better your brand will do in the marketplace.

Part-10 of our Entrepreneurial Brand Marketing series. As always, If you’d like some help, give us a shout.

01/11/2022

New Blog Post..

We’re all such lazy people at times. Always were, the internet has just made it worst. Which companies do the best online? Those that make life easiest for their customers, for their audience. Silicone valley calls it ‘Frictionless Experience,' spiritual people talk about 'The Law of Non-Resistance,’ (which we quite like…)

However, we like to think of it as..

‘Making Life Easier For People’

A novel idea and Part-9 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

We've lost count of the number of website updates, creative campaigns and general design projects that have been transformed with the simplest of small changes.

Websites in particular…

Radically more qualified leads generated with easy-to-find contact details on the home page, a few less fields on enquiry forms, with the copy written in plain (non-technical language) and service breakdowns in the footer, etc, etc.

Of course, the more savvy amongst you already do this and more - chat functions on websites, direct contact info for staff members, easy-to-understand service/product names, infographics for key messages. The true pros add another dimension - turning their board-rooms, their offices, even their factories into places that people just enjoy being in.

Several years ago, we were thrilled to collaborate with the master of ‘Frictionless Customer Experiences’ Alan Meldrum, a man who takes all of what’s said above to the nth level…

‘Making Life Easier For People.’

A Brand-Marketing game-changer.

12/10/2022

Short Sharp Messages!!

In world of clutter and noise, it is harder than ever before to cut through. Social media channels are brimming with content - videos, pictures, stories, information. Many people’s inboxes have 100+ unread messages and even our phones and mailboxes are bombarded with Stuff.

In such a chaotic environment, cutting through has probably never been more difficult, it’s enough to give Brand/Marketing folks a nightmare. And it shows no signs of slowing down - more social channels are coming, Web 3.0, even the old classics are fashionable again - Radio, TV, Direct Mail, etc. Our world is only going to get noisier.

The answer, we believe IS to do battle on as many fronts as possible for your brand. However, where we can set ourselves apart is by making sure every single communication’s message is crystal clear, to the point and exceptionally well-presented. One message per communication, two to three max and if you’re trying to say lots of things - they better be highly prioritised.

Short Sharp Messages across multiple channels give you the best possible chance to win hearts and minds. Bonus points for a bit of extra creativity too.

Our infographic work over recent years has been designed to (as clearly as possible) present lots of strong messages to our client’s audience over as long a period of possible. The Inspiring Scotland example below is a fantastic example. One main infographic with a simple but brilliant message about a successful programme turned into lots and lots of small impactful messages over the period of a couple of weeks.

Short Sharp Messages!!

Part-8 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing

11/10/2022

Branding, The Ultimate Team Sport!!

Who knew??

We’re always talking (probably a tiny-bit too much) about all of those lovely business benefits to branding, to marketing to what we do every day. More sales, better loyalty, higher margins, stronger positioning, business outcome X, business outcome Y and on and on it goes.

But one thing we’ve stumbled on over many, many years is that branding is a wonderful activity for building good will within your own team or teams, regardless if we are talking about finance, sales, product, etc.

One of the best things a company can do to bring together its people, give everybody a chance to contribute, share some ideas, have some laughs and genuinely involve everybody in making the company a better place, is to involve them in a creative project, preferably some kind of branding one. Branding really can be The Ultimate Team Sport.

Throughout the years, we’ve been a part of re-brands, value exercises, website re-designs, brand identity presentations, we’ve pitched to management teams, sales teams, production teams, investors, sometimes all at once. We’ve taken presentations out the board room and fielded what sometimes seem like the most random (but ultimately the most sensible) questions and despite the momentary discomfort - it’s always led us to better solutions.

When the guy in the production line’s words are used as part of the company’s values or the developers words are used as part of a marketing campaign or the CFO themselves has an idea for a logo image, everybody’s a winner.

Great brands always have lots of ideas behind them and lots of enthusiastic people contributing to those ideas - not just the seemingly creative folks…

How to make this happen? Simple - just make sure a couple of extra team conversations are factored into any proposal and maybe give your creative team a warning in advance that they’ll be presenting to everybody in the company and to be prepared.

If you’d like to know a bit more, drop us a line…

Branding, the Ultimate Team Sport!!

Part-7 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing.

Some amazing client contributions to some extremely successful creative projects below...

10/10/2022

Win | Win

Having some fun is just brilliant for your brand…

Clearly stating the obvious here but companies with vibrant cultures and happy people are a brilliant advert for your brand. It gives an impression of confidence and success and the good vibes are just magnetic in attracting people to your cause. Pictures of people enjoying themselves at work will always make a company website or social media post light up. Whether it’s sharing images of team-building events, fun days out or just people carrying out their tasks with a little joy.

At the loft, several years ago, we created a ‘Honey I shrunk the Design Team’ visual where we miniaturised our creative team and placed them into a stereotypical studio scene, a fun take on the 90’s movie.

A brilliantly successful visual too, it was used widely – as an intro to the home-page of our website, as covers on our social media channels, we used it in sales proposals and creatives pitches, etc. The image was both tremendously effective in attracting new people to our brand (clients and staff) but also incredibly good fun to do as well.

Part-6 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach To Brand-Marketing.

'Having fun is brilliant for your brand...'

07/10/2022

Give Something Away!!

At the loft, we love giving things away - we’ve hosted barbecues (or Lasagne Fridays) for people we know to meet in our studio, we've given away tips we’ve learned from building websites or setting up photography sets, we’ve done tote bags and corporate stationary too.

However, none have been as well-received as our ’Social Media Cheat Sheets.’ A one-page document, A4, easily printed, giving the latest tips of the day on when to post, what platforms and what time, etc.

A tremendous little giveaway shared on our website, our social channels, on our e-mail signatures, etc and one that we know many of our clients and friends relied on for their own social media activities.

Giving Something Away is 'Part-5 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.’

Giving something of value away can build good will with new customers, energise existing relationships, dial in greater loyalty, help to save a stuttering partnership or sometimes it’s nice to just do something good for the sake of it.

The free give-away has a big part to play in the sales/customer relationship cycle - whether the giveaway is something intangible like specialised advice, general consultancy, tips on how to do something better or something physical like corporate stationary, etc. Everybody loves high-quality tote bags, moleskines and coffee flasks.

Giving something away is also a brilliant way to energise a relationship, it gives companies a chance to serve customers before formally transacting with them, helps to put them in pole position for work to come.

Every successful company does it too - from fast food outlets giving out toys to top legal firms hosting events to give specialist advice on the issues of the day.

Give Something Away, Part-5 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing

If you’d like more info on brand-marketing for entrepreneurs, leave me a comment or drop me a line.

Have a wonderful weekend.

05/10/2022

Serve The Business First!!

'Part-4 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.'

Increasing sales, improved margins, greater customer loyalty, better staff relations, improved investor communications, a focus on a new sector or even a customer/location/product, etc…

There are many different reasons for doing a creative project, many different masters to serve…

However, at the loft, we believe the first and most important client for any creative project is the business itself.

A clear, unashamedly commercial focus is the best thing that can happen to a creative project. Whether it's building a new website, setting up an email system or just putting an ad on a bus. A focus on the commercial means everybody is clear on the objective, resources can be concentrated and contrary to what many expect - better for the creative too. A tighter spec allows for better ideas which can be brought to life faster - less process, less drift.

Taking that little bit more time in working out what the client wants, what they really want is definitely worthwhile. With greater understanding comes greater clarity and better creativity.

The website we built with the Percepta team several years ago demonstrates this to best effect. There were several clear priorities in the brief produced but key amongst these was the desire to showcase the more valuable composite services they provide to automotive clients to new and existing clients.

This clarity enabled special landing pages with beautifully-designed iconography, what’s more a beautifully presented case-study library showcasing many examples of their exceptional previous work with clients.

A truly outstanding result for everybody involved and a great platform for the creative team to work their magic. By serving the business first, we were much more able to build a website of true and lasting value to our client.

Part-4 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing

04/10/2022

'So simple even your granny would get it!’

A little bit of Scottish chat and also Part-3 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Persuading MDs, CEOs and Founders is one thing - a lot of the time with brand-marketing projects - we have to win over lots of other people - finance professionals, procurement people, technical staff, customers that have never heard about you and some who may not even know the first thing about your product or service.

Each and every one presenting a fresh challenge to the tech start-ups, the engineering companies and just about every other company out there with a technical product or offering.

At the loft, we believe in pictures - visuals that wins hearts and minds, that speak a thousand words and persuade new customers to understand or existing customers to fall in-love with our clients work that little bit quicker. Pictures or simple visual ideas that ‘are so simple even your granny would get it.'

Our creative work with Edinburgh-based Petroleum Experts who produce software for the Oil & Gas sector was one such brilliant example - an exceptional technical, globally-recognised product and offering that required buy-in from all those lovely people we’ve just mentioned - CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, (I think you get where this is going…)

A beautifully simple concept of using the idea of a lens of a telescope to showcase the 5 layers of the software and how they give the viewer a clearer view of their oilfield asset.

One incredibly sophisticated, persuasive and easy-to-understand picture and still used today 8 years on since it was first created.

'Communications so simple and easy to understand that even your granny would get it!’

Part-3 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing

03/10/2022

Part-2 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

'Max Out Creative Content'

Creative content produced for websites, re-formatted for brochures, introduced on social media, re-purposed for print ads, used for digital mail, traditional mail, animated for YouTube, inserted into proposals, placed in Powerpoint decks, etc, etc.

The number of destinations for high-quality and effective creative content is absolutely limitless.

Whether we're talking about impactful infographics, art-directed photography, story-telling videos or even carefully crafted text. Whatever the medium, whatever the end-use, at the loft we advise our clients to truly maximise every last bit of resource invested in creative projects.

Creativity you’ve invested money in, dedicated time too and worked hard to produce alongside your own team and brand/marketing/ creative providers.

The work we created with one of our industrial clients several years ago for their Sustainability Report was used and re-used in the most fantastically effective and resourceful way.

Infographics used in the initial report, re-purposed as social media campaigns, re-formatted to be included in pitch-decks and animated as videos for YouTube. What’s more they were re-branded for their sister organisation and the initial report itself became a customer-facing document too.

An exceptional way to maximise a creative budget.

'Max Out Creative Content'

Part-2 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Drop us a line if you’d like to find out more.

30/09/2022

Existing Clients First!!

Increasing sales as quickly as possible is pretty much the holy grail of all high-growth companies, of all Business Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs, for all those individuals in a hurry to make it happen.

More sales staff, new campaigns, marketing materials, etc.

All potential answers.

Sometimes the main answer’s closer to home.

Serving (and eventually) selling to existing customers can be massively easier and faster than building trust with new people - stats say up to 6 times faster. A number that gets bigger with high-value services.

Direct mail, letters, targeted social media, even organised high-quality telesales campaigns are all great ideas.

However, we just love the value-add of newsletter systems.

Carefully crafted emails sent to help existing clients.

Several years ago we collaborated with a Glasgow-based software company to help increase license renewals (and sales) of their financial software tools. We had found that their users were only using a fraction of their software programmes. We worked closely with them and their team to send a simple newsletter each week. Every time, introducing one new feature of their software to existing users.

No hard-sales, just good service and tremendously well received too. What’s more, the exercise itself helped improve customer-service.

A marketing success story repeated several times over during our many years working with the company and as a result, massively increasing license renewals and sales.

By giving first, we gain permission to try to sell.

(Not exclusively but) Existing Clients First, Part-1 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Have a great weekend folks!!

09/09/2022

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II dedicated her whole life to service.

Strength, dignity and true fortitude.

An example to us all.

Rest In Peace Ma’am.

07/09/2022

'One-Less-Click’

A real long-term multiplier for effective digital communications.

We’ve always been fascinated, intrigued and surprised with our digital work - by the incredible long-term gains that can be made to a company’s online success just by changing a few simple, seemingly obvious things – a clear contact number on the home-page, a few fields removed from the enquiry form, etc…

The idea of one less barrier, one less interaction or ‘one-less-click’ for a better and truly frictionless experience.

https://entrepreneursloft.co/one-less-click for the full post >>>

05/09/2022

'Hero-Content'

A ‘Must-Have’ for any rapidly growing organisation.

Challenging marketing deadlines reached, pressures on the creative team lifted, greater brand consistency, more impact, greater Return-On-Investment on creative activities, the capacity to do more in shorter periods of time, these are just some of the benefits of creating high-quality ‘Hero-Content.’

Hero-Content is much higher quality, provides a strong foundation to any creative communication, is readily available on-file and can be dragged and dropped, copied and pasted or inserted into just about any marketing/sales/creative communication at a moment’s notice.

Definitely a ‘Must Have’ for any high-growth company.

Check out https://entrepreneursloft.co/hero-content for more info>>>

04/09/2022

Shameless plug alert!!

Sorry just this once, we’re going to go down the slightly more direct route.

We’ve finally got our working service list and landing pages together for The Entrepreneurs Loft...

Check them out…

Brand Marketing
https://entrepreneursloft.co/brand-marketing

Marketing Strategy
https://entrepreneursloft.co/marketing-strategy

Marketing Support
https://entrepreneursloft.co/marketing-support

Brand Strategy
https://entrepreneursloft.co/brand-strategy

Brand Culture
https://entrepreneursloft.co/brand-culture

Social Media Marketing
https://entrepreneursloft.co/social-media-marketing

The Entrepreneurs Loft is the big brother/sister of the loft, a new agency-offering exclusively supporting the growth journeys of High-Growth Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs.

In-line with our lightweight approach - everything's pretty minimal for now, used as much for learning as it is for gaining business, will almost certainly be improved in due course (yes we will add some pictures & graphics) but most importantly done, out there and hopefully strong enough to get this bit of the job done. For Now!!

If Facebook lets anybody see such a blatant sales post - we’d love to hear your thoughts??

All comments welcome…

21/07/2022

Introducing The Entrepreneurs Loft...

At the loft we’ve been helping high-growth Founders, Leaders and Entrepreneurs for the best part of a decade.

We’ve lived the challenges of tight deadlines, stretching budgets, crossing disciplines, even creating brands with products/services still under construction themselves.

We understand the ups, downs and squiggly lines of the growth journey, the importance of the first customer, the first conversion, the first win. The significance of momentum, building on what’s working, when to be creatively bold and when to play it safe. We know that being fast is important, responsive too and that there is a premium for accountability, responsibility and even stability.

Over the years, we’ve been on countless journeys with many incredible people building companies of scale, taking their organisations international and helping them change the world that little bit in their own way. All the while creating designs, brands & communications that capture the imagination and stir the soul.

The Entrepreneurs Loft is a new offering by the loft. A brand & marketing Service targeted, focussed and exclusively for those high-growth entrepreneurs and their teams that we enjoy serving so much.

This is The Entrepreneurs Loft

https://entrepreneursloft.co

08/07/2022

Hi folks, due to lots of lovely creative projects, we're looking for designers/web-designers that can help us out over the next couple of weeks...

If you know your way around Wordpress (and possibly Elementor too) drop us a line.

Thank you ever so much..

28/11/2021

Quick Wins!!

More pings from the contact form, unexpected calls from new clients, offers of collaboration, bigger re-orders, greater recognition, fresh possibilities, new opportunities, big wins, small wins and best of all – quick wins…

Quick wins are good for the soul – they give little jolts of excitement, fresh doses of motivation and much needed vindication. They help to build crucial momentum for those big and lofty goals you’re chasing.

What’s brilliant about the leaner approach is that it gives the client a quick win, some immediate value, a reason to get excited – something to build on. Brilliant for people that are time-poor (almost anybody scaling a company) and most of all – their success stimulates new and more exciting ideas giving everybody something to build on.

Check out our new blog post about creating quick wins when putting together a Brand/Marketing Strategy.

https://theloft.co/2021/11/19/marketing-strategy-quick-wins/

14/11/2021

Undercover Billionaire

Very little matches the sheer thrill, excitement and emotion of start-up entrepreneurship - backing yourself to do something special, taking a chance on a new product/service, winning those first customers, creating teams with little or no experience, building systems, exploring new paths, finding their limitations - all done at pace, usually done with a fluctuating bank balance and fluctuating sleep patterns too.

We’ve had entrepreneurship programmes on the telly for a while now but there is definitely something quite special about Undercover Billionaire. All three of the outstanding individuals on the show are tasked with the challenge to see ‘if the American Dream is still alive and well in the 21st century?’ What you see is that although they each have unique talents - there is nothing there that can’t be learned and done by any/all of us.

Undercover Billionaire, well worth a watch…

https://lnkd.in/dqSA2RJb

Undercover Billionaire is a programme which explores the challenges of entrepreneurship in a dramatic way by three undercover billionaires.

05/11/2021

Impactful Introductions P2!!

A few weeks ago we showcased the new brand we created with PMA Recruitment Services…

A Glasgow-based recruitment company with ‘Positive Mental Health & Well-Being‘ at it’s core. As part of the new brand, we created a beautiful website, some stunning art-directed photography, brochures and these outrageous letter-pressed business cards..

Where do we start.. Two colours - dark grey and factory yellow, an eye-wateringly thick 700GSM GF Smith card, beautifully letter-pressed on each side, black foil on the yellow side and the most incredible ‘double-yellow’ foiling - no easy task - created by those craft-geniuses at Glasgowpress. We even managed to get a QR code printed directly onto the yellow card which takes those lucky enough to receive one of these beauties to the PMA website.

A superb feat of design, manufacture and technical expertise.

A fitting card for an outstanding new organisation.

We hope you like…

26/10/2021

A More Connected Scotland!

'Technology as an enabler’

‘A vehicle for providing fresh opportunities’

‘Creating ways and means to improve the quality of life for the people of Scotland - all of Scotland.'

These were just some of the ideas that we were asked to communicate when creating an infographic for Seric Systems several years back.

Our magnificent team put together a wonderful visual of a Scotland re-created as nodes and links, imaginatively including several icons to communicate important ideas such as diversity and inclusion, all underpinned with the stunning blue brand colour of Seric Systems.

Thrilled to recently see this infographic still being used many years after it was originally designed, slightly re-purposed on this slide-presentation for SmartSTEMs, as well as Seric, with the sister's charity’s stunning brand wings now included.

24/10/2021

Practical Steps to Better Mental Health

One of the clients we’ve found most fulfilling to work with over the last few years is the TRC Group, an organisation which provides integrated therapeutic support to individuals in both London and Edinburgh. With a new website launched just before lockdown in early 2020 - their large, experienced and diverse therapeutic team began creating short posts to help people with the emotional toll of lockdown.

Posts included relaxation techniques, coping mechanisms and other free tools/techniques/thought-pieces to help people better cope with everything that was going on. Useful at the best of times times, priceless during the several phases of lockdown we’ve had during the last 18 months.

We were more than happy to work with the TRC Group to help them put together all of this outstanding content into its own digital library with collated blog posts, resource centre and press articles.

A tremendous function that I’m sure we can all gain some value from…

#