As we approach the end of 2023, we’re reflecting on what’s been our most successful year in business yet, but also a very interesting one for B2B marketing communications in general, particularly when it comes to social media.

The Content Marketing Institute’s 14th annual ‘B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2024’ research reflects what we have also found which is that, in the post-pandemic era, LinkedIn is growing in importance in terms of B2B audience reach and engagement with users being much more active and new company page features (such as the ability to follow others, receive inbox messages and publish newsletters as a company), allowing brands to do more than just broadcast. Meanwhile, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) are declining in relevance and impact as B2B channels due to the increasingly monetised nature of the platforms/algorithms making them more consumer-focused and harder to gain traction on for more professional content.

It will be interesting to see what 2024 brings with the growth of AI and other new platforms. In the meantime, here are our key highlights and insights from 2023 which will hopefully not only give you an idea of what we’ve been up to and what we can offer, but also some food for thought for your B2B marketing communications strategy for next year:

January: Designed and delivered crisis comms training for NOCN Group

Did you know that we offer crisis communications and issues management consultancy and training? Here’s what Louise Fort, Group Head of People & Culture at NOCN Group, had to say following the workshop we delivered to the senior management team back at the beginning of the year:

February: Started rolling out Perch Group’s new B2B marketing comms strategy

After providing strategic consultancy on a brand strategy exercise, Perch Group, one of the UK’s fastest-growing debt purchase and collections firms, contracted Engage Comms to work with them on an ongoing basis as their B2B marketing comms partner. It’s been fantastic to play in part in realising the North of England-based company’s ambitious growth plans this year including the announcement of a £90 million funding package to drive the next phase of its development.

We’re excited to get stuck into some big new projects in 2024!

March: Launched a new grant scheme to support Ministry of Justice’s drive to upskill interpreters

We’ve been working on a campaign to support the Ministry of Justice’s drive to upskill interpreters since 2020 (TLS Learn) and this year we launched another new grant scheme to fund 50% towards the cost of the prestigious Diploma in Public Service Interpreting-Law (DPSI-Law) qualification for those with ‘high demand’ languages. This involved us engaging with ‘hard to reach’ Bengali, Greek, Nepali, Portuguese, Tamil and Turkish interpreters to make them aware of both the funding the benefits of undertaking the qualification to enable them to undertake complex MoJ assignments in courts. We used our highly targeted research and engagement skills to identify, target and liaise with a pipeline of suitable candidates.

April: Got shortlisted in the Credit Awards!

As a boutique Yorkshire-based consultancy, being shortlisted for Best Marketing Campaign in the prestigious national Credit Awards for our specialist work in the debt sector was a massive achievement for us. We were up against the likes of Capital One so, while we we didn’t win on the night, it was still great to be recognised as a finalist.

Here’s the fun video we created to showcase the unique relationship we have with our long-standing client Money Advice Liaison Group and our operations partner Absolutely Admin Solutions Ltd (who are now doing several other joint projects with):
Credit Awards 2023: Best Marketing Campaign entry

May: Developed Money Advice Liaison Group’s (MALG) first Annual Member Engagement Survey

This year we’ve done more research work than ever with clients increasingly keen to understand what their audiences want from and think of them. In May 2023, we launched our long-standing client MALG’s first ever Annual Member Engagement Survey, creating a benchmark for the future development of the rapidly growing and highly successful organisation. While getting the design and content of the survey right was key, the real challenge was getting people to complete it which required our strategic expertise on the messaging and engagement.

June: Started providing interim strategic comms support to Leeds Academic Health Partnership

Over the last six months, we’ve had the pleasure of working with Leeds Academic Health Partnership on fascinating stuff around the city’s healthtech innovation ‘ecosystem’. Our strategic use of social media to build profile and engagement, plus development of thought leadership content to translate technical projects into engaging and impactful stories has helped to fill a gap while a new team member was recruited. We even helped to recruit the new Marketing & Comms Senior Officer, saving the organisation time and money by advertising the role via social media and tapping into our regional comms networks.

We’ve also had the opportunity to work on a very exciting new launch which is coming in early 2024 – watch this space…

July: Launched Civil Court Users Association’s (CCUA) new website

As Rob Thompson, Chair of the CCUA, said at their Annual Conference in October (see below), we made the process of developing the legal sector trade association’s new website as simple and seamless as possible to maximise the budget without compromising on the quality of the output. The new website and ongoing marketing comms we have been doing for CCUA has brought the lobbying organisation up to date and significantly raised its profile and influence.

August: Launched Perch Group’s revolutionary new field services company, Verify

One of the highlights of the year for our client Perch Group was the launch of its new company, Verify, offering clients in the utilities, financial services, and other specialist sectors a revolutionary new approach to customer verification and reconnection. Using a combination of social media, media relations, email marketing and events, we helped to ensure that the new brand hit the ground running.

September: Made a splash about UX Global’s UK-first digital display retail project on Oxford Street

Our client UX Global, a Leeds-based digital display company working in the retail, hospitality & leisure, construction and corporate sectors, has also had an incredibly successful year with more UK-first projects including the design, manufacture and installation of an iconic ‘floating LED’ cube for Footasylum on London’s Oxford Street. We secured both regional and national trade media coverage as well as record social media engagement with highly relevant target contacts for the project case study, once again putting them in the spotlight with national retailers as a Northern SME.

October: Worked on our first Civil Court Users Association (CCUA) Conference

Following the launch of its new website, we helped to deliver the Civil Court Users Association (CCUA) 2023 Conference in Birmingham. As well as using the event as an opportunity to sell the benefits of CCUA Membership with prominent branding and key messaging, we worked with one of our partners to capture professional video content and even managed to get the Deputy CEO of HM Courts & Tribunal Service on camera talking about what a great event it was!:
CCUA Conference 2023 showreel.

November: Delivered two debt sector conferences in one month!

Not only we were very proud to be involved in Money Advice Liaison Group’s Annual Conference for the seventh year running as part of the team who made it the best one yet (the feedback was incredible – see here!), we were also pleased to be involved in its joint event with Civil Enforcement Association and Ascendant Solutions Ltd the ‘Priority Debt vs Poverty Summit’ which was hosted in our hometown of Leeds.

December: Developing a new service sector start-up brand

We’re ending the year on a high with big plans for all our clients as well as lots of new projects in the pipeline for 2024, including the launch of a new service sector start-up brand. Watch this space for more on this soon.

We were also recently contacted by a manufacturing client we worked with several years ago to help set their social media strategy for 2024 which involved carrying out in-depth research into how their niche marketplace has evolved and developed since we last worked with them.