Our Blog

Jan 18
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5 ways to keep your marketing real

By | Marketing Strategy, personalisation, Sherpa blog | No Comments

With Brexit and the uncertainty of our future dominating our every newsfeed, it is not surprising that my social media feed is peppered with friends and contacts seeking comfort by looking back at where they have been. The #10yearchallenge is being adopted by young and old, individuals and companies, Jo public and celebrities; many of whom are celebrating changes or showing how far they’ve come in the past 10 years. Times have changed enormously since 2009 and the contrast between the slightly grainy images taken on our trusty Blackberries and the heavily filtered images of today is poignant. We live in a world where digital perfection is eagerly sought after and a Valencia filter is becoming a staple. But can we put a filter on our marketing efforts?

Absolutely not. Despite living in a world where people are shrouding themselves in a rose-tinted filter, they have little time for it when it comes from a sales and marketing perspective. Marketing is getting personal, it has been for a while and, companies have to be as real and as transparent as possible when marketing to these people. So, what can we do to keep our marketing as real as possible:  Read More

Jan 11
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team values

team values.

By | Sherpa blog | No Comments

We made it. We got through the Christmas period and yes, there is going to be some hard graft to reduce the old body fat percentage, which is currently resting somewhere near that of a pork pie, but 2019 is looking promising and I am looking forward to the year ahead and what it has to bring. We have started the year well at Sherpa, welcoming four new team members into the fold and are already implementing our well-made plans for 2019 (we love to plan ahead!). In fact, with our financial year starting in October, we are well in to our FY19 plans.

It has been great welcoming new faces and personalities in to the Sherpa team. With the ever-changing marketing landscape, it’s so important to not only keep the existing members skilled up but also bolster that skill set with fresh expertise.   Read More

Dec 21
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A ‘Marketing’ Christmas Carol

By | Content Marketing, Sherpa blog | No Comments

Webenezer Stooge was the sole proprietor of Stooge and Harley Ltd. A strong salesman, he had taken control of his company after his business partner, a marketer named Harley had died. He was a solitary man who liked nothing better than burying his head in his sales figures and planning his next sales target, alone. He once had a big team behind him but he had no time for collaboration and luxuries like creativity and marketing, so slowly it had dwindled and he had become fixated on sales and closing deals. His only companion was a very kind marketer, Bill Hatchett, who despite being thoroughly neglected by Stooge, continued to do whatever marketing his lowly budget would allow. Hatchett dreamed of being able to indulge in more advanced marketing techniques, but he knew that Stooge would never take any resources away from sales, so would never have the budget to carry out PPC, advanced SEO or ABM campaigns. Read More

Dec 14
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Marketing mixology – creating the perfect cocktail

By | Content Marketing, Sherpa blog | No Comments

50 ml of Bourbon, one cube or teaspoon of demerara sugar, 3-4 dashes of angostura bitter, one wheel of orange and a dash of club soda. The perfect ingredients to make an Old Fashioned (a few of which may or may not have been sampled at the Sherpa Christmas Party on Friday…). But, how do you get to the end product? Throw it all in a glass and mix it up, surely? Well, yes…if you want a very average, slightly murky, bitty drink. Making the perfect cocktail involves a process to ensure the relevant ingredients are properly measured, combined at the correct times and the flavours are balanced. (do you see where I’m going with this…?). We learnt this on Friday, during our Christmas party cocktail making lesson and it suddenly dawned on me as I was trying to master the technique of muddling, that actually mixology forms part of what I do every day (there we go…).   Read More

Dec 07
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Thats the plan

that’s the plan…

By | Marketing Strategy, Sherpa blog | No Comments

As Christmas fast approaches and 2018 creeps towards the final mile, we at Sherpa are looking toward 2019. In fact, we at Sherpa, have been looking toward 2019 for quite a while. Why’s that you ask? Well, because we are planners. Not in the ‘urban development’ sense, but in the ‘planning ahead is the number one rule of marketing’ sense. We spend countless hours planning campaigns, content, communications, sometimes even blogs! But why?

Well, to use the age-old adage “failing to plan, is planning to fail”. We are a goal driven agency…we have to be, as we have set targets in place from our clients (and for our own marketing) and therefore require a stringent plan to execute all of our marketing prowess. Are we just at risk of wishing our lives away and missing the now, always looking to the future and not focusing on the present? Absolutely not! Creating a full campaign plan, plotting targets, planning all the set content in advance, scheduling corresponding social posts and laying out set metrics, leaves you far more able to focus on the more agile elements of your marketing…’the now’.

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Nov 30
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Marketing and Strictly? It’s a 10 from me…

By | B2B, Content Marketing, Sales and Marketing Alignment, Sherpa blog | No Comments

I’d like to say that at 7pm every Saturday night I am in the throes of a prosecco fuelled beautifying session, in preparation for a night on the tiles…but let’s face it, that would be a lie. In fact, I am usually nestled on the sofa, with a cup of tea and something I’ll regret eating, waiting for the latest episode of Strictly. I, along with nearly 10 million other people, who cannot get enough of the ballroom phenomenon. But what is it that makes Strictly such a success and how can we can we harness some of their rhinestone fuelled magic for use in our own marketing efforts? Well, we could start by moving the office to Blackpool, employing someone called Kevin from Grimsby and upping our fake tan usage, but I’m afraid this is not the answer…so what is? Well, here are five mantras we could all live by!  Read More

Nov 26
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B2B ABM

ABM, B2B and four key findings

By | ABM, B2B, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing trends, personalisation, Sales and Marketing Alignment, Sherpa blog | No Comments

Account Based Marketing (ABM) continues to dominate the conversation amongst marketeers. So much so that last Thursday saw 400 B2B Marketing professionals descend on the Mermaid Theatre in London, for the annual B2B Marketing Conference; this year titled ‘ABM: getting it right and making it happen’. We at Sherpa are not shy when it comes to expressing our love for all things ABM, so decided we would put our money where our mouth is and sponsor this exciting event. Sherpa CEO, Tom Perry, hosted a popular session on Partner ABM and engaging partners through the channel using account based techniques.

The day gave attendees a good chance to network with some fellow ABMers, get more of a gauge on how business leaders are feeling about ABM and listen to some of the more established ABM professionals giving keynotes on their experience. There was a huge amount of information on the table, some of which gave mixed views of ABM approach and highlighted how there is a long way to go in the ABM journey – it is still a relatively unestablished principle and there is a lot of room for best practice to be shared. However, there were definitely some standout points which resonated with the Sherpa team, so here are our four key takeaways.  Read More

Nov 23
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ABM

4 ways businesses are raising their ABM game

By | ABM, B2B, Marketing Strategy, Sherpa blog | No Comments

A Sherpa is a guide. Someone who leads the way, sets a path and navigates less experienced travellers across difficult terrain. Our name is important to us and is the inspiration behind everything we do. Therefore, we are proud to be leading the way in the constantly evolving world of channel marketing. As one of the first agencies to apply account based marketing methods in the channel, we have used our extensive channel marketing experience, combined it with our ABM expertise and formulated a guide to succeeding in Partner ABM.

However, how is ABM being adopted and applied by other businesses? ITSMA and ABM Leadership Alliance recently carried out a web based survey of 207 marketeers at 190 unique B2B technology and business services companies – including Sherpa – to produce the 2018 Account-Based Marketing Benchmarking Study: Raising the Game with B2B Marketing. It’s a hefty read full of useful information, but we know you’re all busy, so we have done the leg work for you by reading through the report in its entirety (all 43 pages) and have put together the takeaways…  Read More

Oct 24
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3 key findings from Engagio's ABM 2018 Outlook Survey

3 key findings from Engagio’s ABM 2018 Outlook Survey

By | ABM, Marketing trends, Sales and Marketing Alignment, Sherpa blog | No Comments

If you are a regular follower of this blog, firstly thank you, and secondly, you may have noticed that I have been harping on A LOT lately about Account Based Marketing. Now the sceptics among you may think it has something to do with the fact that we are sponsoring the forthcoming B2B Marketing Exhibition, ABM: Getting it right and making it happen…well you would be correct, but not entirely. The real reason we are talking a lot about ABM and in fact the reason we are sponsoring the B2B ABM expo is simple…ABM works, it is very much here to stay and we at Sherpa are leading the way with delivering ABM through channel partners.

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