What We're Thinking

If in doubt: Start! When everything’s up in the air, getting stuck in a holding pattern is the last thing you need

Posted on February 3, 2023February 4, 2023 by Ken Ross

Let’s face it, keeping the lights on and staying in business has been no day at the beach these past couple of years. Those of us still here are the ones that dug their heels in, changed formation and did all we could to just stay in the game. Why did we do that?

How can B2B marketers use AI in content creation

Posted on December 14, 2022December 19, 2022 by Ken Ross

Agile marketing #Hackpacks: built by us for agile curious marketers

Posted on October 17, 2022November 20, 2022 by Ken Ross

Curious about agile marketing but not sure about jumping right in? Relax. We built #hackpacks for ya 😉

Lockdown lifesavers: four positives to pick you up this week

Posted on January 6, 2021March 14, 2022 by Ken Ross

It’s pretty hard to see the positives in weeks like this. We’re bracing ourselves for what looks like the most stringent lockdown so far and even the most resilient of us are dog tired with all the “bouncing back” the new “work-from-home” normal demands. So it’s OK to feel fed-up. It’s OK to be despondent, and […]

We’re the creative media business of the year

Posted on February 10, 2020February 10, 2020 by Ken Ross

Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger: you can keep your Oscars! This weekend, down at London’s Twickenham Stadium the bright folks from West London Business named us Creative Media Business of the Year. Why us? Well from what we heard at the after-party, bagging the Creative Media Business of the Year award came down to […]

Why do so many marketing directors green light tosh?

Posted on April 26, 2022April 27, 2022 by Ken Ross

Sometimes marketers can be their own worst enemies don’t you think? Too often, it feels like all we produce is just cheap smoke and mirrors baloney that over promises and under delivers. As marketers, we’re as guilty as anyone here. We know it’s tosh, our clients know it’s tosh, and when no one cares enough […]

Everything about the digital ID & cybersecurity business has changed…except marketing

Posted on April 29, 0022June 20, 2022 by Ken Ross

It’s pretty stressy being a B2B marketing agency in the digital identity industry.

Quiet Please! How do sponsors ever make a racket in a tennis tournament that bans branding?

Posted on July 1, 2019July 2, 2019 by Ken Ross

Whether it’s the FA Cup or Formula 1, watching archive footage of almost any major sporting event brings one thing to the fore for people like us: The impact of sponsorship and marketing has transformed the game… except that is, down at SW19. While logos and branding have popped up on the shirts, the turf, […]

Most exhibitors at Festival of Work aren’t doing the clever marketing stuff

Posted on June 12, 2019July 8, 2019 by Ken Ross

Over 300 companies are exhibiting at Festival of Work this week, but only two of them are using UTM tracking

Thames Barrier Bridge Website

Posted on June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Ken Ross

We’ve enjoyed building a simple one-page website for the exciting concept of a beautiful pedestrian and cycle Thames Barrier Bridge.

Here at Now|Comms we say we deliver evidential marketing, here’s why.

Posted on May 23, 2019July 8, 2019 by Ken Ross

Hans Rosling’s bestseller Factfulness gives us ten reasons we are wrong about the world.

Small business marketing:
Why do so many SMEs think word-of-mouth isn’t marketing?

Posted on May 30, 2018September 21, 2021 by Ken Ross

We’re a B2B marketing agency based in Chiswick. We’re in one of these trendy workspace buildings where lots of SME’s and start-ups live. We’re all highly proactive social types, so we get talking with the neighbours quite a bit. Since we’re a B2B marketing company, many of these chats get onto the topic of marketing […]

Why “Fit” is so critical when choosing a B2B marketing agency

Posted on April 10, 2018November 19, 2020 by Ken Ross

Having worked agency and client-side during my marketing career, I’ve seen a wide variety of briefs for agencies ranging from Financial PR and Annual Report provision through to consumer facing web design and exhibition stand builds. Yet despite the diversity of the projects – in terms of budgets, deliverables and the profiles of client organisations, […]

Is your marketing department redundant?

Posted on March 11, 2018January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

Isn’t it exciting when all the rules change every day and no one’s really sure about what they should be doing anymore? We’ve noticed this in the B2B marketing we do recently. Maybe it’s not happening everywhere, but we’re pretty glad it’s happening on our patch. The defining lines between product development, B2B marketing and […]

Why we mothballed the Learning Technologies exit poll

Posted on May 5, 2023May 5, 2023 by Ken Ross

The Learning Technologies exit poll quickly became one of our most popular campaigns, so why did we can it? We’ve had lots of people asking where the Learning Technologies Exit Poll is again this year. For twelve years (until the 2022 show), we questioned LT’s visitors as they left the building, crunched all the numbers […]

Trustech 2017: Don’t throw all those hard won leads away.

Posted on December 15, 2017December 15, 2017 by Ken Ross

Now Communication’s passion for helping customers market themselves better sent us along to Trustech 2017, one of the leading trade shows in the Security and ID sector.

5 and a half things to try after you’ve exhausted all your list blogging options

Posted on October 3, 2017July 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

We’ve been addicted to lists ever since Moses published the “Top 10 things thou shalt or shalt not do” post, and for busy copywriters on multiple deadlines, they’ve been a Godsend ever since. Lists posts, or “listicles”, are the bloggers’ get out of jail card. They work because they promise something really specific in the headline: […]

Power of pre-suasion, or “telling it like it is in marketing”

Posted on August 22, 2017September 19, 2017 by Ken Ross

If we told you that over 95% of our clients would recommend us to a friend or colleague, would you believe us? If we said “we’re a small creative B2B marketing agency that strives to innovate. Some people like our innovative ideas more than others and we know we’re not for everyone” is that easier […]

Don’t buy a WordPress theme until you’ve read this

Posted on May 2, 2017September 6, 2017 by Ken Ross

We feel that prebuilt WordPress themes are what gives WordPress a bad name; with me-too identikit websites, user-unfriendly features like carousels and out-of-date components creating security vulnerabilities that the entire business has to carry the can for.

PHP Conference 2017 – Three Takeaways

Posted on March 2, 2017September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

NowComms coding genius Ben attended the annual PHP in London and bought back some nuggets of information. PHP, in case you were wondering, is a open source (everyone contributes) language used to build websites. Read on to discover the three key insights you can use to impress your coding friends.

What can the Oscars awards teach us about winning business awards?

Posted on February 22, 2017March 24, 2022 by Ken Ross

What can the Oscars awards teach us about winning business awards? Benedict Cummberbatch, Nichole Kidman and Will Smith might make the business of award winning look easy, but as the marketers amongst us know too well, the media machines behind the big studios they work for have been beavering away for months to make sure […]

Learning Technologies Exit Poll 2017

Posted on February 3, 2017September 6, 2017 by Ken Ross

Look, up in the Hammersmith sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope… it’s a Growth Engineering Superhero! Assembling at #LT17UK to save the L&D industry from dull online learning, Growth Engineering’s mighty avengers win top five places in four of our most wanted #LTexitpoll categories this year. Welcome to the Learning Texhnologies […]

Top 100 best websites in L&D (#LT17UK special edition)

Posted on January 25, 2017September 6, 2017 by Ken Ross

Are the most visible exhibitors at next week’s Learning Technologies exhibition also the most visible companies on the the internet? Our special edition top 100 best websites in L&D chart serves up the answer. See the chart How’s it done? We’ve been using our analytical know-how to run the top 100 best websites in L&D […]

What a great 2016; see you in 2017

Posted on December 23, 2016July 12, 2022 by Ken Ross

Thanks to everybody who helped make 2016 a great year for business. We’re pretty proud of our numbers!

Served web pages to 1,500,000 people (approx 5,000,000 page views).
Sold over £1.8 million on our eCommerce websites.
Helped over 50 Police orphans gain easier access to financial help.
Taught over 50 school children to code.
The new expanded Now Comms team are looking forward to working with you in 2017.

London’s illuminated river project sheds new light on our services

Posted on December 9, 2016September 6, 2017 by Ken Ross

Isn’t it annoying when creative B2B marketing companies come up with fancy product & services names you don’t understand. Overall we try to avoid this, but a while ago we set up a web hosting service called “Enterprise Cluster”. It’s not a service most B2B marketing companies bother to offer. Frankly, we got fed up […]

100 best websites in Security & ID (the special Trustech edition)

Posted on December 1, 2016July 9, 2018 by Ken Ross

Scouting the halls of #Trustech last year we couldn’t help but notice the sparse, barren area where you might expect a big shiny Gemalto stand to be. Whether it was a logistics screw up or a strategic decision to go basic we don’t know, but the scene got us wondering. In a world where senior decision […]

ICE 2017: 5 takeaways for trade show success

Posted on October 21, 2016January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

It’s just four months away and it’s the biggest gaming and gambling expo on the planet, so if your marketing game plan for ICE Totally Gaming 2017 is not underway yet, it’s time to get started. Specially created for B2B sports marketers keen to maximise ROI on the trade shows they attend, our 5 takeaways for […]

Why is Uber promoting services that don’t work?

Posted on October 21, 2016September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Last month Uber generated world-scale, earth shattering publicity by putting driverless cars on the road in downtown Pittsburgh. They don’t work. They can’t even do a right turn at a junction. Uber passengers using these cars find themselves Uber Pooling. There’s a human driver at the front who takes the wheel every time the car’s […]

B2B sports marketing just got more competitive

Posted on September 1, 2016January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

New people. New goals. New start. Here at Now HQ we’ve kicked-off the new season with some impressive new signings. First up there’s new summer transfer signing Jack Jones. He’s the creative player we’ve been looking for to make sure the B2B products and services we promote in the 2016/17 season are delivered with all […]

Can you replace bad sales people with great marketing?

Posted on June 29, 2016September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

This week, as we were deep in the midst of one of these sparkly presentations that B2B marketers tend to do for large clients, one particularly hard nosed business person in our audience piped up with an idea: “Couldn’t all of this marketing automation, analytics driven, demand generation stuff actually help us single out bad […]

The relationship between sales & marketing needs to change

Posted on June 22, 2016December 19, 2018 by Ken Ross

Marketing Automation’s role is to navigate prospects through the sales pipeline and pass well qualified, high definition leads over to the sales team, but you can’t just bolt sophisticated web based demand generation tactics onto the existing sales process and expect things to work. The relationship between sales and marketing needs to change. Change 1 […]

Will’s Website Wisdom: Shakey’s top 5 tips list for B2B marketers

Posted on April 22, 2016January 7, 2019 by Ken Ross

“What a piece of work is a website” – William Shakespeare Act 1 Scene 1: We’re slap bang in the middle of a client meeting earlier this month when the business development expert in the room starts quoting Shakespeare. He’s not trying to show off and go all Patrick Stewart on us, it’s just that […]

ICE Totally Gaming exit poll 2016

Posted on February 8, 2016September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

All bets are off. After three days of polling followed by one through-the-night count, our ICE Totally Gaming Exit Poll has come up with the big winners, movers and shakers exhibiting at last week’s big show. Was your company the one that most visitors remembered as they left the cosy comfort of London’s Excel? Did your […]

Learning Technologies Exit Poll 2016

Posted on February 5, 2016January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

To our squad of relentless pollsters who just kept on questioning; To the event organisers who simmered down the gents on security when they wanted to frog march us off the premises; And to the hundreds of enlightened LT16 visitors who stopped to tell us all about their visit, We thank you. The LT exit […]

SecureIdentity Beta Launch

Posted on December 14, 2015September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

SecureIdentity by Morpho Launch! SecureIdentity, the new government verification service is coming soon… In the meantime, be sure to check out our helpful FAQs to guide you through the changes coming on our website. This is brought to you by Morpho, the world leader in government ID. The SecureIdentity service is secure, easy to use and […]

Cartes Secure Connexions marketing support pack: coming soon

Posted on October 20, 2015January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

Starting to panic about all the marketing stuff you’ve still got to do for the Cartes Secure Connexions Expo? Relax: We’ve got it covered. Our special trade show marketing pack for Cartes exhibitors officially launches next week, but your opportunity to see what’s on offer starts today. The products and services below are the best sellers […]

Announcing our great new team-up with LPI

Posted on August 21, 2015September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Great content marketing needs high definition channel to really deliver the lead nurturing, new biz gen opportunities we’re all looking for right? That’s why we’re chuffed this August, to announce our new team-up with the Learning and Performance Institute. As you’d expect from any decent B2B marketing agency, there’s reams of colourful copy to come, […]

Is Net Promoter Score any good?

Posted on July 17, 2015January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

Anyone who knows us knows that we’re pretty analytical here at Now Comms. We think that B2B marketing needs to be evidential if it’s ever going to support really effective lead nurturing campaigns. This reputation for data based decision making means we’re often asked about the Net Promoter Score System. Usually the discussion goes along […]

How to support L&D output with marketing that doesn’t stink

Posted on July 9, 2015January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

The L&D industry’s best eLearning courses and resources are supported by some of the lamest marketing strategies we’ve ever seen. OK, so we’re a B2B marketing agency and our work is focused on marketing deliverables that bring new sales opportunities into the pipeline. We don’t usually get involved in the marketing activities that help L&D […]

Have you got your game face on yet for IGSS 2015?

Posted on June 8, 2015September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

3,500 delegates, 120 exhibiting companies and no less than eight different conference programmes. That’s the iGaming Supershow in one sentence. So how do you get cut through amongst all that lot and ensure that your company’s brand, products and services resonate beyond the 30-second pitch your sales teams have mastered? Well, we’ve been talking to […]

What marketers can learn from the Football League

Posted on May 7, 2015January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

Well, that’s another Football League season all but over with. There’s been some notable teams exceeding expectations (Bournemouth, Burton), a fair few underachievers (Fulham, Wigan, Tranmere) and an awful lot of teams being, well, just average. As a bunch of Brentford and Bristol City fans, here at Now Towers we’re all congratulating ourselves on a […]

Our blazingly simple backlinking strategy

Posted on March 1, 2015September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Backlinking is probably the most important tool in the SEO toolbox these days. Sure, optimising everything you publish on your own site helps you get found, but having other quality sites link to yours: well that’s what Google really loves. These days Google’s algorithm is clever enough to sniff out sites using cheap SEO tactics […]

ICE 2016 – 5 takeaways for trade show success

Posted on February 16, 2015January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

The ICE 2016 Totally Gaming show was an eye opener for a number of reasons, but aside from the promo girls, the green Lamborghinis and the flashing neon lights, there were more pertinent insights to be gained by B2B marketers at the show. Specially created for B2B sports marketers keen to maximise ROI on the […]

Game changing: Why we think sports and technology are a winning match-up

Posted on January 23, 2015January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

We’re all pretty sports focused here at Now Towers: This year, members of the team have signed up to do the Tower 42 run, the Etape du Tour and the Nice Half Marathon (Ken even has a Blue Peter badge for rock climbing!) and we also love our technology. What really excites us though is […]

ICE Totally Gaming Show panic button

Posted on January 19, 2015September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Starting to panic about all the marketing stuff you’ve still got to do for the ICE Totally Gaming Show this February? Relax, we’ve got it covered. For the days remaining before the big show gets under way, we’re lifting the hood on the Now marcomms machine and offering exclusive access to the tried and tested […]

How do charities beat spambots?

Posted on January 2, 2015September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Here’s the backstory: Learning tech charity Learn Appeal got in touch this Christmas to see if we might be able to help them raise some funds. They had two free passes for this month’s Learning Technologies conference, worth £1,099 each, to give away and they wanted everyone in the L&D industry to know that. L&D […]

Britain’s specialist B2B marketing agency for digital security & ID sector is back in the game

Posted on October 25, 2014January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

Ever wondered what happened to that specialist B2B marketing agency for digital security & ID sector? The one you’d always see around the big industry trade shows like Biometrics, Trustech, SIMalliance or SDW? You remember them right? They were the ones bright enough to get national attention for your digital security & ID news stories […]

LearningLive: the inside story as told by 77% of last year’s exhibitors

Posted on July 25, 2014January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

A couple of years ago our exit polling at Birmingham’s World of Learning identified LearningLive as the “significant other” event that most L&D professionals were likely to go to. Since then, every time we’ve asked L&D professionals to tell us about the trade shows and conferences they’re really getting excited about. So if LearningLive is emerging as […]

Not everyone likes our top 100 best L&D companies chart

Posted on October 20, 2013January 7, 2019 by Ken Ross

Since going live with the Top 100 best L&D companies chart, we’ve had flame mail from hard working marketing folks across the L&D industry. They’re keen to criticize because their company has not made the hotlist. Other calls come in from businesses ranked at the lower end of the chart who think they should be higher […]

World of Learning Vs learning Technologies

Posted on September 9, 2013January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

Over the past few months our Learning Technologies vs World of Learning project has been asking B2B marketers in L&D to rate the two events that traditionally dominate the UK trade show calendar. The results? Well it’s bad bad news for World of Learning as the findings of our tradeshow showdown survey puts the Birmingham […]

Getting started with Google Adwords

Posted on October 4, 2012September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

This week we look at the advertising phenomena that’s captured over 80 percent of the Pay Per Click market and pinpoint the AdWords’ pitfalls that are driving B2B marketers to seek professional guidance. “Google AdWords can be dangerous in its simplicity” Callum Bridgeford is director at online health and wellness business Energise For Life. Typical […]

London Olympics 2012: What on earth does that have to do with e-learning?

Posted on June 18, 2012September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Rebooting the Eurozone economy, the environment and corporate responsibility, work / life balance and even the London 2012 Olympic Games: the impact that learning technologies has on the workplace can influence every major milestone on the business agenda, so why do most e-learning marketers bore business leaders with tech-centric training talk? Take this year’s World Earth […]

Exit Poll: Who secured most mindshare at Security Document World?

Posted on May 28, 2012September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

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Prising information out of security experts isn’t easy at the best of times, so getting attendees of SDW2012 to chillax and chat during the London heatwave last week was always going to take some cool tactical planning. With debate heating up inside the QEII Conference Centre, the world’s most inquisitive marketing team was hot on the […]

Thought leadership & media management

Posted on May 3, 2012January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

In today’s multimedia environment, it takes more than the classic communications tools like news releases, case studies or press alerts to drive messages into print, online and rolling news channels effectively. Now NewsMaker is a thematic approach to media campaigning that fuses the key messages your business needs to communicate with the topical news triggers […]

Top 20 most influential tweeters in learning technology

Posted on March 9, 2012January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

The all-new, updated and revised edition of our most influential tweeters in learning technology chart is out now. It’s the only chart in the business that actually asks real marketing people in learning technology to vote for the tweeters they really like to follow, so we don’t think we’re exaggerating too much when we say […]

Agile marketing for B2B start-ups & SMEs

Posted on November 30, 2011October 27, 2021 by Ken Ross

The B2B start-ups and SMEs we work with almost always have agile in their DNA, so our agile approach is something they love. Why? Well we reckon it’s because of agile marketing: Delivers fast: Most start-ups and SMEs are eager to get their great new ideas out to potential customers. They want websites, campaigns, content […]

Trade show traffic booster

Posted on October 31, 2011January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

At your next event or tradeshow, make sure your sales people are scheduled to meet the right prospects, right through the day. Now’s lead generation module promises to boost the quality and the quantity of potential customers attending your stand. We start by looking at whatever prospect data you have – it may need cleaned […]

Google adwords management

Posted on October 31, 2011September 6, 2017 by Ken Ross

You read the spin, researched the data and received the free online Google Adwords voucher to help you get started. Heck you may even have opened up an account and launched a campaign or two. Then what happened?… It’s OK we know the rest. There’s no single, 12-step plan to make Google AdWords work well […]

Outbound marketing & database management

Posted on October 31, 2011January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

“Prospect database? We’ve got one! Regular newsletter? We send one out very month like clockwork! Does all this effort generate leads?…ermmm?” How much email have you received so far today? More importantly, how much of it did you read and why? Permission based marketing isn’t rocket science. It’s just a little scary! After all, who […]

Relevance marketing

Posted on October 30, 2011January 11, 2019 by Ken Ross

We know your browser’s pop-up blocker is on, your spam filter’s running, you almost never tick the box that says “we occasionally like to inform valued customers of new products or services” and you’ll fast forward the ads this evening when you’re watching last night’s telly on Sky+. We didn’t need to recruit Derren Brown […]

Another PowerPoint presentation: wake me when it is over

Posted on April 3, 2011September 7, 2017 by Ken Ross

Are you one of the estimated 300 million PowerPoint users contributing to the 30 million plus bank of slideshows that try the patience of long toothed executives somewhere on the planet each day (bank holidays excepted)? Thought so! It’s like Greggs the bakers at lunchtime, stopping off at Tesco’s on the way home or nipping […]

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Overview

Refocus your brand’s messages, benefits and advantages to ensure they address the new problems faced by today’s potential customers, right at their moment of need.

Nurture new leads down the sales funnel with emails customers actually find useful. Send customers relevant information based on the priority pages they visit on your own website. Use lead scoring to pinpoint the hottest new leads on your sales database.

B2B sales can be long and cumbersome. Traditional social marketing can take weeks or months to deliver a steady flow of quality leads sales teams can work with. Our social selling accelerator fast tracks the social selling.

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The best stories in the world don’t amount to a hill of beans if your key prospects can’t find them. This hack programme bundles SEO research, keyword analysis and meta insights to ensure your blogs, products and offers get found when new customers are searching.

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When compared to a full-fledged website, a landing page is just one page with a very specific purpose: getting visitors to click through to your desired outcome. Good landing pages increase your chances of success when they are done correctly.

Blog writing is one of the most effective ways of communicating information to large numbers of people.

Products

The brand and messaging refresh hack

Marketing automation setup

Social selling accelerator for Account Based Marketing

Social marketing starter

The lead magnet micro-site hack

The SEO makeover hack

The Google Ads starter (or reboot)

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The mighty blog month hack

Our agile marketing stack

Overview

Web design strategy for marketing managers who think websites should change as fast as their business.

Content production for marketers who know that big ideas get off the ground faster when they start small.

Social media, search and email marketing campaigns driven by data, managed by experts.

Brand identity design is more than just choosing a logo and a catchy strapline.

Co-work with our agile digital marketing experts to get the ongoing support, data and insights you need to deliver results-based agile marketing programmes.

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Agile Web design

Agile Content Creation

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Agile Team

What We're Thinking

Now|Comms really understand content marketing. The uplift in our brand recognition has been impressive

Steve Holland, Support Robotics