The Sanlam Top Destination Awards was hosted at the Kelvin Grove Club in Cape Town. 35 winners from 9600 nominees walked away with the sought after title of ‘Top Destination’ in their respective categories and star grading.

Hayward’s Grand Safari Company provides private groups of 40 to 200 VIP guests with an authentic 5-star mobile tented safari camp experience in pristine wilderness reserves across the African continent. Each luxury camp guarantees corporate and celebrity clients’ total event exclusivity and superior guest comfort.

Rated as the only 5-star mobile Safari in Africa, hosts Peter Hayward and Celia du Preez, are appointed by leading multinational blue-chip companies, royal contingents, presidents and renown celebrities alike. Owner Peter Hayward said, “I am absolutely delighted to have received such high accolades from the Sanlam Top Destination Awards.

“As custodians of global Sanlam Wealthsmith investments, what better establishment to represent how to turn money into meaning and set the standard for a future vision of tourism and hospitality in South Africa and for the continent. “Together with Discount Traveler, this award is a testament to the skill and vision of its creators and sponsors.”

“Hospitality and tourism is a large driving force in our economy and we want to continue to recognise and reward one of our country’s most influential industries,” commented Jonathan Pepler, managing director of Discount Traveler and founder of the Sanlam Top Destination Awards.

– BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE
https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/haywards-grand-safari-company-wins-big-at-the-sanlam-top-destination-awards-2017-11378910

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Be aware that anxiety can quickly magnify into paralysing fear. This usually occurs in direct proportion to the degree of experience and understanding you may or may not have regarding public speaking and the immediacy of the radio interview environment.

Before your anxiety builds, arm yourself with the following tips so you can handle your interview with confidence and panache.

Tip #1
Research the station and the interviewer. Each radio station broadcasts to its own unique demographic of listener. Tune into the station and listen to the specific time slot you will be invited to participate in. How does the station ‘talk’ to its audience? Is it very formal in its style of broadcast or does it have a light-hearted and entertaining approach.  If you don’t have time to listen in to the show beforehand, visit the station’s website. You are likely to find links to recordings of previous interviews that have taken place. Understanding the personality of the talk show host and the type of questioning techniques they like to use will also forearm you with how you can best respond.

Tip #2
Research the audience. While listeners may vary to a slight degree in age and lifestyle, there will be a core audience which will participate in listener call-ins and questions. Understanding the listener’s goals, expectations and assumptions will assist in your delivery of information and how you respond to listener engagement and enquiries. Remember that each and every listener may well be your next customer.

Tip #3
You are not going to have time to cover every point on the topic during the interview. Armed with the knowledge of your audience and the tone of the show, make a bulleted list of the main points you would like to communicate. Stay focussed on these main aspects of the topic throughout the discussion and keep referring to them with examples and personal anecdotes. Make sure you have at least one example that illustrates both a problem and its solution.

Tip #4
Establish your credibility with the audience upfront. Open with a strong story or perspective regarding the topic. Use rhetorical questions to match the type of questions the audience might be thinking. Make sure you cover the top five most frequently asked questions from your own customer base. Refer to the audience regularly and keep your information relevant to how it applies to their world.

Tip #5
Your voice is the only thing the audience has to refer to you as an expert. Keep your pace deliberate and your voice deep. Use pauses for effect and to guide your thought processes, so you don’t fall into the trap of the umhs and ahs. If the line of questioning momentarily stumps you, or you lose your train of thought, transition the conversation back to one of the topic’s main bullet points you jotted down at the beginning. Be forearmed and anticipate what might be tough questions regarding the subject.

Congratulations on securing your first radio interview. Be confident that you have all the information and answers to any awkward questions that may arise and approach your interview with focus and clarity.

Mercédes Westbrook is a journalist and editor with an extensive career in the media publishing arena working with top South African brand marketing and management teams over a variety of publications within their aligned industries.

As owner of www.firehorsemedia.co.za she has adapted her communication skills for the digital platform to include content creation, website design, content marketing, social media management, and public relations. She can be reached on mercedes@firehorsemedia.co.za

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With a fast upload and modern appeal, your new website will provide you with a global platform and a personalised voice to market your products and services to a potential market of 3 billion people (the number of current web users worldwide) – statistics you cannot afford to ignore in today’s digitally connected workplace.

Your website will instantly go to work to highlight your unique selling points, to educate audiences about the benefits of your brand, position you in the marketplace and keep customers connected with the latest news updates and user information through regular posts to your blog and social media sharing buttons.

Warning: We strongly advise that you don’t attempt to build your own website yourself. We have also seen the Wix advertisements and it can be tempting to think you can save a few bucks on some website DIY. Now is the time to remember what your Granny always said… buy cheap, buy twice. Unless you are IT savvy and have lots of time to play around with design ascetics, understand SEO content and have kept up-to-date with the latest security plug-in to prevent you from getting hacked, you are only going to waste precious time and money. Trust us, we have seen way too many customers fail along this route.

We suggest that instead you focus on your core competencies and entrust our tight-knit team of professional entrepreneurs with your website build, monthly back-end maintenance, blogging and social media sharing (where required) for a stress-free and effective reach out to your targeted audience online.

As a core group of tech professionals, we help you get your business online in the fastest and most effective manner without the headaches of trying to understand tech, back-end strategy and current online marketing tactics. And we do it because we care!

What you pay is…

1 page Scrolling Website – R5 500
Basic Website – R7 500
Standard Website  – R9 500
Premium Website – R13 000

What you get…

A mobile responsive WordPress website in your field of specialisation using the latest DIVI Premium theme.

Installation of all necessary plugins for website aesthetics as well as seamless functionality. This includes Security plugins to protect your website against spam and hacking activity.

Set up of new email accounts.

SEO processes offering a Search Engine Optimization plugin that will be populated accordingly, thereby improving the site’s Search Engine Optimization with Google and other search engines. This plugin will also pull through your previous history with Google so as not to lose that from within Google’s Search Console.

Your own branding guidelines implemented over logos, images and design integrity.

Social Sharing buttons for site visitors to share your site on their own Social Media platforms.

Google map to your office premises.

Contact form to build your own database of customers.

A pull through of blog posts on the front page. There will also be a separate blog page where all your blog posts will be easily accessible to site visitors. This blog page will include a signup form.

Video clip Training session to familiarise you with the backend functionally so you can effectively upload your own content and media as and when required.

Monthly updates and security checks to keep your website running effectively.

T&Cs:
The above pricing includes all content and images supplied by the client. Should you need assistance with web content writing and image sourcing, an additional fee will be quoted.
Prices are quoted excluding Vat
Development of your site will only start once content and graphics have been supplied and a 50% deposit paid upfront.

Depending on which website you choose to go with, full functionality and an layout blueprint will be provided to you for agreed before commencement.

Please contact Mercedes Westbrook on mercedes@firehorsemedia.co.za to request a quote specific to your needs or call C: +27 789707633.

We look forward to chatting further with you

!

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“Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad.” – Richard Branson

All human relationships are based around communication.  You may have great business ideas, but if you can’t convey them to others, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.  A public relations company knows best how to package and present your story to the media in order for it to get seen and heard without the costs associated with advertising spend.

Each of us has a unique story to tell. A professional public relations company is practiced at breaking through the multi-channel, multi-device marketing noise and helping you to engage with your selected audience with targeted messaging that will raise visibility about what you do.

Their sole purpose is to give your business credibility so consumers can gain trust in your product, service or brand.  At all times you remain in control about how your identity, company culture and values are being presented and what is being publicised about your brand.

Not only will a good public relations company be able to attract potential customers and grow sales enquiries and leads, they will assist in establishing you as a trustworthy company that invites interest from  talented future employees and industry investors.

What is the difference between advertising and public relations?

A public relations campaign offers more credibility for your product or service than an advertising campaign. This is because advertising is paid media and public relations is earned media. Your story has to be good enough to be seen as newsworthy to an editor or reporter in order for them to write a positive story about it.  When your article appears in the editorial section of the magazine, newspaper, TV, radio station or website, it is perceived as information being served up by the media title or platform on which is it being distributed. This means the information has been approved by a reliable information source rather than you just paying for it to appear there. Statistically, more people are likely to engage with published content over advertising, giving it an estimated value of between 3 to 5 times more value than its equivalent in advertising.

A public relations campaign is also less expensive than an advertising campaign. There is no need to buy advertising space across numerous publications and news platforms. A well written story will get you there for free.  Too often huge expense is laid out in creating an advertising campaign involving creative design and production processes and the purchasing of space over targeted media titles that will need to be repeated in order to gain influence for your brand.  In advertising this process is known as the effective frequency: the number of times a person must be exposed to your advertising message before they respond and before exposure is considered wasteful. Currently, in the advertising world, this is considered to be between 5 and 7 times. Alternatively, a well written, stimulating article is more likely to be shared virally, emailed, reposted on other sites, receive feedback and comments, and get tweeted on trending topic channels.

An additional advantage for public relations is that as newspaper and magazine readerships drop due to the increased reliance on the Internet, there are less writers and editors being employed. This means titles have fewer resources with which to travel, research or source news the traditional way. Rather, more and more news outlets are relying on citizen journalists, leading research from corporate companies, and industry spokesmen to feed them current news and events.

How does a public relations campaign work?

Public relations is a process of building media relationships and then managing the spread of information about you or your business through news releases, compelling stories, educational articles, tutorials, reports, trending topics, success stories and testimonials of your clients.

The key to building a reputation in the market is for information to be relevant, consistent and easily digestible. This is where a public relations company will assist you with a goal specific, measurable PR plan, backed up with professionally written content in the correct style and format of the media platforms being targeted.

Information may be packaged as media releases, white papers, e-books, media tours, road shows and press conferences, competitions, seminars, speaking engagements and product launches.  Additional tactics might include vlogs, blogs, webinars, and gamification.

A public relations campaign needs to be measurable in order to determine its success. Not only do the results of the campaign need to be measured but also a review of what worked and what didn’t and their attached media value.  This is where a media tracking company such as Newsclip Media Monitoring will assist you in seeing where publicity is being published along with a variety of functions to determine meaningful and measureable media insights and analysis.

In addition to spreading good news about your business, a public relations company is able to provide damage control should a business crises arise or hostile rumours start circulating about your company.  A professional PR consultant can react quickly and efficiently to addressing and dispelling rumours and getting your brand back on track.

Interested in learning how Firehorse Media can help make your company shine? Contact Mercedes Westbrook on C: +27 789707633 or E: Mercedes@firehorsemedia.co.za

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Content marketing puts the world in your hands

Use content marketing to your advantage when you are see your customers as human beings and not just dollar signs for your bottom line. Content marketing requires that we listen to our customers and respond to their needs in real time.  When we provide solutions to our customers pain points via our content marketing drive we are mobilising our business and gaining a foothold in the thriving online and social media marketplace.

What is content marketing? Content marketing is the creation, publication, and distribution of articles, press releases, images, and video to attract and acquire a target audience.

Every business needs marketing, whether it is a start-up IT company or a tyre manufacturing business. Most of us are already using marketing strategies in some form or another through distribution of our marketing materials, our sales pitch, website and application of a database.

All content marketing requires of you, is that you create something your customers want to read and then share it with them online. Your content needs to be informational, interesting and fulfils a customer’s needs regarding a product or service.

Set aside a little time every day and follow these 5 simple steps below, and in no time at all you will be managing your own online marketing strategy like a pro.

1. Choose a topic and write about it. The topic must be something you customers care about whether a service, a product, the industry itself, a current trend or a running issue being faced in the market. You might want to start with some commonly asked questions from your customers.
2. Write a catchy headline – use numbers such as ‘10 top tips’ and give the readers a hint of what the article is about. Answer questions such as who, what, why, when or how. Add an interesting adjective.
3. Create a calendar around the high and low sales or seasonal calendar months of the year. For example if you are a retail store, prior to Father’s day you might write an article such as ‘5 Must have Toys for Boys’.
4. Ask for help or delegate the task to someone else if writing is not one of your strengths. You may end up damaging your brand if the writing doesn’t look and sound professional and is hard to understand.
5. Share it. Create a strategy of where and when to promote your content using social media, a blog on your website, email marketing and E-newsletters out to your database.

By providing regular updates, news, information and interesting facts about your product and service, you will be positioning yourself as an expert in the field, building your brand and providing more engagement with your current and prospective market.

Today’s consumer is always switched on. This is the experience generation and consumers is constantly connected to and surfing the web for products, reviews, prices, alternatives and comparisons. This is why you need to make your presence known with relevant, well-written content marketing.  The beauty of content marketing is that unlike the print medium, it is considerably cheaper to publish your content, it reaches a wider market and it never goes out of date.

If you would like assistance in managing your content marketing strategy or the affordable writing services of a professional editor contact me on mercedes@firehorsemedia.co.za

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While the science of data and analytics can help create a digital communications strategy, only when it is married to good storytelling will it put a brand on everyone’s lips. Today’s digital strategies need to be rooted in creative dynamic storytelling in order to shape consumer’s perceptions about a brand and dictate their next action through their digital journey.

With brands able to message in milliseconds across digital, mobile, and video platforms, it is programmatic media buying’s analytics which ensures a multi-layered story reaches the high-income forty-year-old male online at 9pm at night in search for a luxury sedan; the busy mom checking her emails on her smartphone while waiting to collect her kids from school; or the youth alert to cool brands worn by his favourite rappers on YouTube. And with data technology so sophisticated today, it can intuitively present the same brand message to a different audience in language, colour and placement in order to target the individual consumer better. The challenge now falls to the marketers and media creatives to craft advertising concepts that speak to this multi-channel audiences with creative content aimed at the individuals defined profile and place of engagement.

Nelson Mandela provided a story of inspiration, one that upheld one of the most powerful African ideas of freedom. Today it lives on at the voting polls; in history’s annuls; and in hearts spanning continents. In this digital age, it is ideas which attract and build audiences. Mandela’s ideas upheld beliefs that fuelled a nation; beliefs based on one man’s story that ultimately lead a country.

Let us take a programmatic journey with a man that became an unwitting icon, who birthed a journey of story relevance. A story which will be honoured once again on his birthday  July 18^th, and will serve to relive the ideas, beliefs, attitudes and connection to his culture that has shaped South Africa’s democracy.

Storytelling within the dynamic creative process

Step 1. Audience: To unlock the value of your brand’s story, understand that everything begins with the importance of storytelling. Some of Nelson Mandela’s first learnings as a boy were from listening to the tribal elders around the fire. As he grew into a man, he valued the art of storytelling as a way to instruct his legal clients and negotiate within politics and yet also gain the trust of the most humble people within his community. Mandela understood both his opponents and his people. He understood what they wanted and needed.

Data will define your audience, right down to individual eyeballs, the device in use, the time of use and their location. This is data that will enhance your creative message, you are targeting your message one moment in the language of a suburban mom who likes running on a sunny day; or the next moment for a tween wanting the latest video game.

Step 2. Awareness:  Mandela’s actions created experiences which formed his story. Stories live on to produce more experiences. A relevant and dynamically creative advertisement that behaves, looks and speaks appropriately to each of your audience segments along their journey will create even more unique audiences and new sets of data for further optimisation of one core brand message across every digital touch point.

Step 3. Memorable: In order to be memorable, your brand story needs to be authentic and resonate with those who are viewing, working or listening to it. Your brand story is more authentic when it is reaching a consumer in the right place and is underpinned by a responsive style of storytelling. The value of your core message represented by your story reveals what makes you unique.

Step 4. Emotional glue: Storytelling brings a brand to life and creates the emotional glue that connects your brand to your audience. Despite being incarcerated from the world for 27 years, it only served to increase the power of Mandela’s story as his advocates carried through the engagement of his ideas, leading to new forms of creativity and storytelling.

Step 5. Relevance:  Each ad impression is not only targeted to the right person, but also presents the right person with the most relevant message. A story responsive to its target market will shape information into meaning through the story telling of it.  The most relevant message wins. Programmatic segmentation looks at the consumer’s larger motivations and is based on big data across a longer timeframe, and is intuitive in its predictions of future customer behaviours.

Step 6. Reinforcement: Message reinforcement to consumer segments ensures customer longevity. Like Mandela, brands are required to be a visionary, to find advocates, and write stories motivated towards a goal, an action, sharing and then more storytelling.

Mandela preferred to speak face to face with people, to get to know the person first. Storytelling driven by programmatic’s dynamic creative process creates connections, based on data gathered on the digital journey of its audience. Tell your brand story in a way that is customised and precision-targeted so it will grow audiences who continue to learn through your brand message as they carry the core value within their mind’s memory.

Want to know more about the art of storytelling for your brand when linked to the power of programmatic marketing? Book your free, customised Insights session here:http://atmosphereorange.co.za/training/

Image sponsored by: Tay Dall Cell – 072 116 9029. Website www.taydall.com

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You sit in your office buried under a mountain of data, but what does it mean and how do you analyse it? The biggest challenges advertisers, brand managers and publishers are facing is how to interpret all the data we have access to. Internet technology has made it possible to receive huge amounts of data about customers and expect more to keep coming. According to Forbes.com researchers at Cornell University have developed algorithms that can learn by merely observing human behaviour, these are computers so advanced they can detect and act on patterns in real time without having to understand them.

According to a 2015 CMO.com survey, digital marketing is expected to grow by 14.7% next year compared to a negative growth rate of 1.1% for traditional advertising. Marketing spend will see mobile triple from 3.2% to 9% of marketing budgets over just three years and 126% on social media over the next five years. This will see marketers spending more on marketing analytics. Currently analytics accounts for 6.4% of marketing budgets; this is expected to increase 83% to 11.7% in three years.

Don’t panic. You don’t need to go back to university. If you are stuck in a traditional style of marketing and decision making, you are going to feel challenged by data technology. This is when to call in the experts.

“We find that brand developers and advertising agencies often find themselves with simply too much information to handle. It is the old needle in a haystack conundrum; they know that somewhere there is something of real value but don’t know how to find it in order to manage or manipulate it. This is where programmatic media buying’s automation comes in to save the day with time efficiency, costs and meaningful results,” says Chanel MacKay, MD of digital media agency Atmosphere Orange.

The Pro Shop, which has been in operation for 40 years, had just this marketing challenge. Says Marketing Manager Trevor Rebello: “At one stage, we did dabble with online advertising but found we had to think hard about which websites would work for our products and where our market would be visiting. We were stuck with outdated thought processes which focussed mainly on traditional forms of media and on an older LSM as we felt this was where spend was. Working with Atmosphere Orange changed our approach. We moved away from a static product information focus to new product launch initiatives instead. We now have 30 000 – 40 000 unique visits to our own website each month and are probably one of the biggest golfing websites in South Africa. When customers want to buy golf clubs they come directly to us. As a result, we currently set aside monthly budgets for our online advertising. Atmosphere Orange finds the golfers for us,” says Rebello.

MacKay confirms that much of their role involves an educational factor: “We introduce brand managers, CMO’s, CIO’s and CEO’s to programmatic media buying, we manage the data and audience targeting for the brand and guide the brand’s marketing strategy along an effective online communication strategy that will quickly transform their business model.”

Another leading company on the marketing fast track is Cape-based agency Tag 8. “We currently partner with Atmosphere Orange on the digital aspect for two of our clients, and we have seen a real boost in business for both our clients,” says Belinda Taylor, Media Mind at Tag 8. “Programmatic marketing in the digital space has reach and offers such a defined target market across a variety of sites. It’s affordable and it’s trackable and it delivers on a brand’s campaign objectives. When a client has clearly defined objectives and KPIs they need to meet, we always motivate for RTB if it aligns with the campaigns goals.

As advertising technology continues to develop new marketing processes, the automation of buying and selling advertising online has progressed beyond that of human capabilities. Technology is a useful tool when you know how to use it. If you don’t, hand it over to the experts. Data gathered regarding consumer behaviour must first be translated into technical metrics for programmes and machines to understand it.

It is marketing professionals that drive innovative campaigns that speak to consumer emotions. It is digital media buyers who must still make decisions on where to reserve inventory and how to remarket the message back to consumers, supported by the skills of the brand’s creative teams, to execute a cross channel communication strategy.

What will success look like?
1) A new world of informed decision making.
2) Increasingly more effective creative and brand messaging.
3) The automation of processes that were previously time consuming and repetitive. 4) Swift execution of one brand message across multiple channels.
5) Effective measurement of campaign success.
6) Further optimisation of your brand message as more data is gathered following interaction with individual consumers in real time.
7) More effective use of marketing budgets and better returns on investment.

What will you have gained?
Improvement of your skillsets, efficient marketing processes, and the use of  intelligent data to promote your brand. When marrying your marketing and communication strategy, your brand is elevated towards a more interactive customer-centric offering.

“Programmatic marketing takes a brands marketing strategy and transforms it into a cost-efficient communication strategy. Today, it is how you deliver marketing ideas that count.  With consistent messaging across all channels of mobile, display and video, programmatic media buying provides the influence required to make the sale,” says Chanel MacKay, MD of Atmosphere Orange. “Our job is to ensure efficiency in the buying and selling of advertising in the digital space.  We are able to demystify the newest technologies and show non-technical marketers how to use them to precisely target each message to each individual.”

Whether a brand wants to prospect, brand or convert, a programmatic communication strategy decides on the ‘how’ as well as the ‘where’ of the best medium to apply the marketing plan. “We sit on the execution side of selling,” says MacKay. “We are all about the relationship function. We understand the tactics needed for the technology and time-sensitive value propositions required for   potential customers spending time on the digital platform.”

The rules have changed. Online display ads are routinely bought and sold through automated exchanges. Demographic data is just the first step on the programmatic marketing journey in finding and reaching your target audience on a one-to-one and personalised brand communication basis.

If your key focus for your brand is not on the impact technology has on a new way of doing business, you run the risk of lethargy. One of the greatest obstacles to innovations in companies is executives who fear change and remain anxious about their technological limitations. But responds Mackay: “Where in life are you expected to know everything. If you have a toothache, you book an appointment at a dentist. If your car needs repair you go see a mechanic. With big budget campaigns, you want to know that you are receiving high returns on your investment, that your campaign is transparent, that it is reaching exactly who you want to be talking to in any given moment.”

What conversations are you having with your customers on their digital journey? Do they know you even exist?

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