We need a creative, versatile and well-organised Art Editor to work on a new magazine launch plus additional print and digital projects for a new client addition to the Jack Content portfolio.

About You

You should have plenty of experience working in magazine publishing, ideally across a range of different markets.  As well as being an excellent magazine designer, you will be able to apply your creativity to other media including digital.  You will be a good communicator, with excellent attention to detail, and the ability to manage work to challenging deadlines whilst staying focused on delivering to the highest design standards and within brand guidelines.

Experience of the following is essential to the role:

-       Organizing and directing photoshoots

-       Commissioning appropriate illustrations and artwork

-       Overseeing the progress and quality of work of freelance designers

-       Picture research

-       Working with clients and brand guidelines

-       Managing the production/repro process

-       Passion, aptitude, and a sense of humour

About Us

Jack Content helps brands have profitable conversations with their customers through the creation and distribution of branded content, across all media channels.  We work closely with our sister company The River Group (based in London) and share multimedia expertise, resources, and the application of a strategic marketing approach to all projects.  We’re a small and friendly agency with ambitious growth plans, and strive to achieve the very best performance for our clients.

Interested?

For more information, or to apply, please email simon@jackcontent.co.uk.   Please send us a copy of your portfolio as well as your CV.

–

www.jackcontent.co.uk   //  01225 859356   //   @jackcontent

We need a highly organised Editorial Project Manager to lead the creative team for a new magazine launch and additional print and digital projects for a new client addition to the Jack Content portfolio.

About You

You should have extensive experience of working across a broad range of editorial projects, including magazines and websites.  A clear and concise communicator, you will have excellent attention to detail and the ability to manage the creative process from start to finish, ensuring projects are delivered on time and within budget.  You will relish the challenges of working in a dynamic, fast-paced agency environment and thrive under pressure.

Experience of the following is essential to the role:

-       Editorial commissioning

-       Managing multi-disciplined creative teams

-       InDesign

-       Working with clients and ‘tone of voice’ guidelines

-       Managing editorial budgets

-       Copy writing

-       Proof reading / sub editing

-       Passion, aptitude, and a sense of humour

About Us

Jack Content helps brands have profitable conversations with their customers through the creation and distribution of branded content, across all media channels.  We work closely with our sister company The River Group (based in London) and share multimedia expertise, resources, and the application of a strategic marketing approach to all projects.  We’re a small and friendly agency with ambitious growth plans, and strive to achieve the very best performance for our clients.

Interested?

For more information, or to apply, please email simon@jackcontent.co.uk.   Please send us a copy of your portfolio as well as your CV.

–

www.jackcontent.co.uk   //  01225 859356   //   @jackcontent

2. Define your audience
Now you need to build up a picture of your target customer, setting out exactly what you want to achieve with your cross-media content. The tighter your objectives, the sharper the focus and the better the results. Also consider what other communications your customers receive from you and ensure that all your marketing – new and existing – joins up, with as little overlap as possible.

3. Consider targeting opportunities
Targeting different types of customer through segmented content can make the process much more efficient and cost-effective, so consider producing a number of different versions of your publication and digital content. But if you want to segment, is your database up to the task? If you don’t have the appropriate data, consider starting with a single title and build in a data-capture mechanism so you can segment in the future.

4. Make a strong financial case
Having regular, high-quality content can be a significant investment for your marketing department, so establish benchmarks for success based on your objectives. Your investment should be based on measurable results. In short: how will the project add to the bottom line? You then need to find the budget, which will depend on the role you wish your content to fulfill. Next, get internal buy-in from all relevant departments, especially if you are expecting them to contribute to the budget.

5. Establish your distribution strategy
How will your content reach your customers? What combination of media channels would best fit your target audience? From print to online, digital to video, there are a huge range of channels to choose from, and your appointed agency or the APA can advise on the strengths and costs of each. If you don’t trust the accuracy of your customer database (or you don’t have one), consider buying a list that matches the profile of your customers.

6. Appoint a publishing agency
Very few client companies have the necessary resources or expertise to create effective content in-house, so you will almost certainly need to appoint an agency. Once the decision has been made, you need to draw up a detailed brief of your requirements, considering all the factors that are important to you, such as cost, location, sector expertise and size of agency. Now draw up a shortlist of agencies – three or four at most – and invite the selected companies to pitch for the contract. Finally, make your appointment and agree success benchmarks

7. Create the first batch of content
Once an agency has been selected, they will start to create the content itself, optimised for the channel it’s being produced for. Before the work can begin, you will be presented with the content plan for your approval. At these initial meetings you should agree the day-to-day working arrangements with the agency, deciding such issues as how you want the content to be presented and who will approve the content within your organisation. Once you and your agency are happy with the content, it will be distributed to your target customers.

8. Agree a launch strategy
Depending on channel, a new launch can take up to three months. Often, a client will have a launch date in mind to form part of a larger marketing campaign, so you may want to add more time into the schedule to make sure you hit it. You could also try out creative ideas with focus groups or send out content to a sample group of customers, along with a response mechanism to gather their opinions. Make sure to organise some dedicated promotional activity, both internally and externally.

9. Measure your success
A piece of branded content will stand or fall on the strength of its results. One of the simplest ways to gauge customer opinion is through a reader survey, either included within a publication or accessed online. This will help you gather information about how well your content is answering the needs of your customer. For more tangible results, you should feature exclusive sales codes or unique order hotlines to get an idea of how well the publication, digital content or website is performing.

10. Onwards!
With the first piece of creative work in the bag and results being gathered, you and your agency should now have a debrief meeting in which you go over all aspects of the content. Your agency will then go away and start work on the next batch or phase of the campaign. Meanwhile, you should review your targeting strategy and ensure any internal results or opinions are communicated to your agency. Finally, pat yourself on the back (and have a long drink). Now, onto the next issue…

Courtesy of the APA (Association of Publishing Agencies)

See www.apa.co.uk

When we attended the 2011 awards, we wrote a blog post about what a great night it was and what a fantastic celebration of Bath’s food industry we’d just witnessed. At that time the awards didn’t have a website, yet our blog post resulted in a huge surge in traffic to our site – demonstrating the demand for a place to go and find out more about the event and the winners of the awards.

So, we worked with Bernard and the team at the Bath Good Food Awards to create a website that promoted the awards, and provided a multimedia showcase of last year’s event and winners.  Additionally we built a voting page for visitors to nominate their favourite foodie businesses for the 2012 awards.

We are proud to be associated with this new, independent and highly popular awards event, and look forward to the 2012 awards in September!

Please visit http://www.bathgoodfood.co.uk for more information.

The screen size and functionality of an iPad provides a more user-friendly experience than a laptop or mobile phone, and this ease-of-use provides a great platform for users to engage in a wide range of activities – such as watching video, playing games, listening to music and reading books – thereby providing multiple commercial opportunities.

Tablet owners are also starting to using their device to read magazines, with around 33% of users stating they read magazine content.   But the thorny issue of cover price is still a deterrent to consumption – magazine apps tend to be paid-for whereas video clips and TV on demand are still largely free.  Also video content is a natural fit for an iPad screen, whereas magazine publishers need to carefully consider how to migrate content to screens in a user friendly way.

Here are the key findings of the research:

-    the average UK tablet owner spent £97 online in the last 3 months (compared to the national average of £79)
-    the top 3 activities of tablet owners is web browsing, email and playing games
-    48% of tablet owners use their device to read books, compared to only 10% of smartphone owners
-    79% use their device most often at home
-    24% have downloaded a national newspaper app and use it often
-    40% use their device to access catch-up TV services
-    33% use their device to read magazines

It’s clear that iPads and other tablet devices provide a wide variety of commercial opportunities for the media, and usage will continue to grow as prices fall and more models enter the market.  The challenge is to make sure that content fits seamlessly with the functionality and user experience, and is appropriately priced to allow access to the masses.

Whiteley Helyar, Bath’s dedicated residential estate agents, have started 2012 with a new brand identity and website launch, both produced by Jack Content.

The new brand and website reflect the heritage and credentials of Whiteley Helyar as a highly trusted, expert and independent estate agency, whilst providing a more contemporary and user-friendly experience for people looking to buy and sell property in Bath.

“We’ve been in Bath for 25 years and felt we needed to refresh our brand and update our website”, says Rupert Hart of Whiteley Helyar.  “The Jack team have done a fantastic job for us – they listened carefully to our needs and have developed a new brand and website we’re really proud of”

Commenting on the new brand and website launch,  Jack MD Simon Tapscott says:

“We’re delighted to add Whiteley Helyar to our client portfolio.  They are a popular and trusted Bath business, and we feel this brand refresh will help to extend their appeal and continue to attract people buying and selling property in Bath.

“The new Whiteley Helyar website provides an improved experience for visitors, and is simple and easy to use.  It has a modern look and feel, but is still true to the heritage and credentials of the Whitely Helyar brand”.

The Jack team managed all elements of design, development, copywriting, photography and hosting for the new website, which has rocketed to the top of the first page of Google search results for ‘estate agents in Bath’ since its launch.

See the new website at http://www.whiteleyhelyar.net

‘The Big Game’ is a big event in the rugby calendar and featured entertainment from X Factor finalists Amelia Lily and Misha B, as support for the feature match between league leaders Harlequins and last year’s champions Saracens.

We helped Harlequins to raise awareness of The Big Game within social networks using outreach and seeding techniques.  This included working alongside Harlequins’ strategic partners to run co-branded competitions to win tickets, and seeding these competitions on partner branded Facebook and Twitter sites.  We further supported the activity by planning and buying targeted Facebook advertising to attract a range of rugby and X Factor fans.

Internal social media is increasingly being used by brands to communicate with staff, trigger greater engagement and motivation, and encourage contribution to overall company strategy.

Good internal communication has a direct impact on external profile and perception, according to Christy Stewart-Smith from Aviva:  “A brand is as a brand does.  You have to behave as you wish to be received”.

Internal social networking service Chatter claims its services have a measurable impact on staff efficiency.  Research shows their clients report a 12% increase in productivity and Chatter helps staff find information 52% more quickly.   The number of meetings is cut by 27% and email use is reduced by 30%.

Some useful case studies are beginning to emerge that demonstrate how major brands are using internal social networks to engage staff, improve performance and gather useful research and insight:

Easyjet recently launched a campaign called ‘Europe by easyJet’  showcasing photography from around Europe to demonstrate how the airline connects people to places, experiences and other people.   As a service-led business, easyJet wanted to engage staff with the campaign before it was rolled out externally.  So prior to the public launch, employees were invited to co-create the campaign by contributing their own holiday snaps.  Over half of easyJet’s 8,000 staff contributed photos.  As well as an impressive level of staff engagement, this enabled easyJet to align internal and external communication, and position its staff as brand ambassadors.

The BBC uses an intranet which features blogs, video and staff interviews,  and recently used social network Yammer to discuss the relocation to Salford and the 20% budget cuts with employees.  By facilitating two-way conversations, staff were given a voice and were able to feel involved in the decision making process.

IBM created a bespoke internal social network, IBM Connections, before marketing it to other companies.  The network features profiles, blogs, bookmarks, files, communities and wikis – and allows employees to connect with each other and access the wealth of content available within the business.

Coca Cola is working on the launch of a social network to connect its 700,000 employees worldwide.  It also hosts a bespoke intranet, My KO, which features daily news, articles, management communications and business performance stats.

One of the benefits of applying the principles of social networking to internal communications is reduced workload for HR and IT staff.  Problem solving gets shared across the company, and specific issues can be addressed more quickly by drawing on a bigger pool of resource.

Intranets are nothing new and are found within organisations the world over.  By adopting a social, people-centric approach (as opposed to the traditional ‘repository of information’ approach), staff are encouraged to connect with, engage and share the information available to them.

There is still reluctance within business to use social networking as part of internal communications strategy – for fear that it’s “more social than media” – but companies that are using it are discovering that it creates a sense of transparency and trust, eases isolation for remote workers, and provides a channel that fits with how employees want to communicate and interact.  The top-down culture of emails and newsletters still exists, but resistance to more democratic internal communication is gradually easing as the benefits of a more engaged workforce become clear.