The Step Change Blog

Many nonprofits today run their organisations just like any other business. Although many may not be in it for the money but solely to advance their humanitarian goal and mission, there are essential points they need to keep in mind to acquire confidence and gain trust among donors and investors, respect in the market, and support from the public.

As a Premier Google Partner, Step Change was invited to the recently held Google Partner Summit 2018. Members of our Digital Team attended the event to hear about the latest tech trends, updates to the Google Marketing Platform, and the rebranding of Google Ads.

Here are the key takeaways from the summit and what’s on the horizon in 2019.

In disruptive times, change may be essentially imposed to improve what is not working or steer the wheel towards a new direction.

No matter what type of change your organisation is going through, having the means to measure success and being able to report the progress to the board are crucial to ensuring that your organisation stays afloat as it wades through these challenging times.

The time for fintechs is here. In the past few years, we’ve seen how fintechs have grown into an industry that has transformed how we look at financial services today.

This week, we collect the most relevant data that prove business blogging is working wonders.

The need to lead change is growing. But leaders who have done it before can attest that going through a transformation is a complicated process. Explore one of the key factors that helps leaders successfully lead transformations: change communications.

Kickstart your week with 10 marketing statistics worth exploring. Today we feature statistics around data-driven marketing, marketing technology, and disruptive technologies.

With AI and big data, you can gain a better understanding of how your target buyers consume data. Learn how these five companies were able to use data-driven insights to be more relevant to their target audience.

Through the years, there’s been a huge disconnect between what businesses are saying through marketing and what their audience actually wants to hear. We need to bridge this gap by offering consumers what they need — personalised and meaningful experiences.

Marketing automation is no longer a luxury that is reserved for the largest companies. Startups and microbusinesses need to take advantage of this as well. Here’s why.

As with all relationships, a client-agency relationship is a two-way street. As a marketing agency with almost a decade’s worth of experience with clients, we’ve had our fair share of insightful experiences with clients. So we want to share some gold nuggets as to how to help build and sustain a great relationship with your marketing agency partner.

Earlier this year, CB Insights analysed 101 startups post-mortem to know why startups fail, and the number 1 reason has nothing to do with technology.

It’s not always the best businesses that win. It’s the best marketing. Marketing is the lifeblood of the business. It allows you to know who your target customers are and form a relationship with them.

But as your business grows, building and maintaining great customer relationships become a challenge. This is where marketing automation proves to be helpful.

Video is fast becoming a household name in the marketing industry today with it expected to dominate the market by as much as 80% by 2019.

And that’s not at all surprising: it’s been found that adding videos to your website is the easiest way to ranking higher on Google search, and marketers all over the world consider video as the type of content with the best ROI.

We’ve just come out of Roy Morgan’s State of the Nation, focusing on consumer financial behaviour in Australia, and we wanted to bash out our very own ‘quick and dirty’ update on the key insights as we saw them.

The need for social proof is an inescapable part of marketing strategy today. With so much noise in the marketplace, it’s understandable why consumers look for social proof from their peers or other consumers about their buying decisions. So the best tool to communicate your value further? A video testimonial from your delighted clients.

Predatory marketing is what the big and memorable brands and fast-growing startups use to differentiate themselves and cut through the marketing noise. It’s all about striking at the weakness that arises from your competitor’s greatest strength.

Being a Lean organisation means being able to maximise the value customers are willing to pay for while eliminating waste. Leaders are finding more value in it as it’s all about doing more with less, focusing on continuous improvement, minimising waste, and training your staff to improve the work through problem-solving.

So if you aim to create more value for your customers with your limited resources, read on.

You have a great product. You know that it can compete in the market. But none of it really matters if no one knows about it. That's why companies with the most quality leads grow and win. In this article, we will unpack one of the most effective platforms for B2B lead generation.

Our CEO, Ashton Bishop, reveals what businesses can do to find their next step change, and how to implement the Big 6 Challenges for business growth in this 7-minute Marketing the Invisible podcast with Tom Poland.

In the age of disruption, businesses may find themselves questioning whether strategy matters in a world of constant change. But in a time where silos are crumbling to disruptive trends and industries are shifting to accommodate new technologies, strategy matters now more than ever.

With so many delivery channels to think about today, how do you know which marketing channel works best? The straight answer is, you don’t. Your best shot at success today is having a multichannel marketing approach to ensure you are frequently where your customers are.   

Are you proactively influencing how your target audience sees your brand in relation to all the other options available to them (a.k.a your competitors)? 

It’s time your marketing and sales teams work side by side. The best way to do that? Marketing automation and content marketing.

From a no-name free-range egg brand, Happy Chicken Eggs is now the eighth highest-selling SKU in Coles — in less than six months after it was launched.

We see this happen in businesses: The senior team would go away for a two-day offsite retreat to develop a strategic plan. And when all is said and done, they would come back with a plan or a goal devoid of strategy.

The Internet of Things is steadily becoming a huge disruptor in the world of business. With the ability to communicate with more devices, exchange and harness valuable data to inform business strategy, IoT can empower digital transformation throughout organisations.

So you already have a killer inbound marketing strategy. You may find yourself wondering  why you’re still having trouble getting your qualified leads down the pipeline. Why aren’t they converting?

When it comes to showcasing your brand to your audience in the best way possible, videos are still unrivalled.

Have you ever landed on a website to look into some content only to be confused by the plethora of information on the homepage? Sure enough, that website likely has a problem with its information architecture.